Anything ~ 11!

Andre’s palm was filled with a small puddle of his own blood, and a single small seed that had been marinating in it for a few minutes. Taylor was just about to start asking him about the process once again when the Druid pulled the seed halfway out of the blood and whispered, “Hemoflora.”

Mana drained out of the air around the caster and into the seed. A shining halo appeared around it, slowly revolving even after the Ability had been used. They watched the strangely beautiful green pea seed, waiting for something to change. Nothing did, even after five full minutes, so Andre shrugged and put the seed on the ground. “Okay… so, not sure it’ll be able to grow much without my mana, since the dirt here is just really tiny scribbles that I’m almost certain say ‘dirt’, but let’s give it a whirl.”

He commanded the seed to grow, and a standard-looking pea vine rapidly grew and approached maturity. Taylor couldn’t hold back any longer, “What ability did you give it?”

“Self-defense.” Andre grinned at the reaction he got from the others. “I’m thinking it’ll whip people that get too close to it.”

Luke shrugged and stepped forward, grabbing at the vine.

*Pow!*

The entire plant, root to fruit, exploded into tiny slivers of mush. Luke blinked a few times, his face covered with tiny green plant matter. “Didn’t whip me.”

“Saw that.” A crestfallen Andre admitted as he stared at the remains of the plant that had drained away so much of his mana. “This doesn’t even have a standardized cost. I get this feeling of the cost when I decide on an idea, and I either accept that mana burden or let it fade.”

Taylor tapped him on the shoulder, “Your written out description directly told you to be really specific so that you didn’t have weird things happen. I’m almost certain ‘self-defense’ as a concept means completely different things to a plant than it does to people. Try a specific action. Some kind of trigger based on something else, like whipping a vine at moving things when it gets in range.”

“I can do that!” Andre brightened right away and got back to trying new things.

“Let’s think about some of the other considerations you should make.” Taylor pulled out a quill and parchment. “The type of plant that you use will almost certainly impact the power you can infuse into it. A thorny plant would benefit more from a whip attack than a pea vine, but an ironwood stalk would break itself trying to do the same thing. Also, what would happen when you upgrade a plant that already has inherent abilities, like that Mountain Willow Wind. You said it can restore stamina and makes pretty sounds when the wind blows. If you add another ability…”

Andre had completely lost focus as he listened to Taylor’s ideas, a wild smile growing on his face. “I have… just so many ideas! Taylor! How did you come up with all that out of nowhere? You’re brilliant!”

Taylor felt her face heat up, and she turned her eyes to her parchment to hide her pleased smile. “I have an idea of what you could do to help Zed, if you want to hear it?”

“Yes!” Andre’s cheeks were flushed as he stared at her, and when she met his eyes, his head jolted so that he was staring at his bleeding palm. “That is… yes, that’d be awesome.”

She jumped into an explanation right away so that they could get back on a professional footing. “If the inherent capabilities of a plant impact the efficacy of the imparted ability, perhaps you take a plant that has excellent air filtration capabilities and attune the plant to absorbing mana. Then, have it convert that mana into something so that the plant doesn’t just explode from an overabundance of power.”

“Like Zed is about to.” Luke added helpfully.

“…Yeah.” Taylor agreed slightly awkwardly.

“I need more practice before I try to do something like that.” Andre shook his head sadly. “There’s too great of a chance that I’d end up blowing Zed up. That pea vine detonated hard enough that it would have caused him pain. Imagine something like that but after compressing mana to a large degree. There’d be nothing left!”

“Andre.” Taylor grabbed his shoulder to steady him. “Zed is in the final stages of a mana burnout. If we don’t do something right now, he will die.”

Andre looked at the unconscious Bard, the pale face with bright purple veins throbbing, and nodded firmly. “I have an idea.”

Taylor watched with great satisfaction as the Druid got to work, pulling various… seeds? Spores? Out of the tiny satchels that lined his belts. Plants grew and intertwined, sprouting and dying in moments as Andre collected pollen and spliced various plants together. Hours passed liked this, hours where they couldn’t move for fear of detonating the highly unstable Bard.

Finally Andre was left holding a single tiny seed. He looked at the others and swallowed a mouthful of saliva, hoping against hope that he had done the right thing. He chattered nervously as he soaked the seed in blood he had taken from Zed’s arm. “So… this is a splice from various ferns and snake plants, both known for their filtration properties. I took that and combined it with a Mountain Willow Wind to maximize the chances that it’ll be able to interact with people without damaging them, since that plant already is beneficial to our health.”

The Druid took a deep breath as he approached the final step. “Hemoflora.”

Mana swirled through and around him, so much power that Taylor winced in sympathy as Andre heaved for air and sweated profusely. Just before the Druid collapsed, a halo of light burst into existence around the seed. “The… ability was added. I don’t know if it’ll work perfectly, but I can’t do more. I need a few minutes before I can grow it.”

Taylor watched as the Druid’s eyes rolled up and he directly fainted. Her Senses were her most potent characteristic, so even if she hadn’t noticed that he was about to pass out, she still would have been able to catch him with ease. As it stood, she pulled him gently to the ground and laid him next to the fallen Bard. “We’re down two people and we haven’t even been in a dangerous fight.”

“Want to be?” Taylor followed Luke’s pointed finger, her gaze landing on a roiling whirlwind that was tearing through the ground in the distance.

The Mage glanced down at her defenseless contemporaries, then off at the huge spell. “I don’t have any wind spells yet… but I can’t. This place is really dangerous if you aren’t prepared, and I guarantee something would attack them as soon as we began moving away.”

Luke nodded once, his eyes roving over every single aspect of the terrain around them looking for danger. Taylor watched him watching the environment, feeling a pang in her heart as she realized that this hyper-vigilance was a learned behavior. She couldn’t even imagine the suffering he must have gone through to be able to function at this level all of the time. It was a cross between pure instinct, and the harshest of training. She both envied and pitied the Murderhobo at this moment.

“How long was I… Zed!” Only a few minutes had passed before Andre managed to awaken, and he groaned as he sat up. However, his eyes flew open in a panic as he saw that the Bard’s skin was beginning to float off of him like cinders from a burning log. “I hope this…!”

Andre didn’t finish his thought, merely bringing the seed to Zed’s face and stuffing it in a nostril before forcing it to grow. A moment passed, and shock filled his face; followed by determination. “It’s growing too rapidly. There’s so much mana here that the ability I gave it is working constantly. I need to control it carefully, or it’ll use Zed as a snack to grow.”

“It’s working!” Nearly an hour later, Taylor watched the Druid slump back with a weary smile on his face as he announced his success. One look at Zed proved that something had drastically changed for him. His skin was looking healthy, and his breathing was loud and even.

“You’re a miracle worker.” Taylor praised the Druid as soon as she saw what he had managed even with no experience. “One thing… is there a flower growing out of his nose?”

“There is.” Luke affirmed. He grabbed Zed’s head and shook it back and forth, causing the flower to let out a light chiming sound. “He needed a warning bell.”

“You made a joke!” Andre cheered at his old friend. “Keep that up and it’ll become a habit!”

Luke appeared startled, an expression Taylor had rarely seen on his face. “I… huh. I just gained a point of charisma.”

“From making a joke?” Taylor was truly aggrieved. “Do you know how hard I work to try and raise that naturally?”

“Charisma is all about connecting to those around you, not being a perfect example for them to work toward being.” A croaking voice pulled their attention to Zed who had woken up, but still hadn’t tried moving. “I could really use some water. I can’t remember ever being this dry before.”

“Here you go, lil buddy.” Andre half-lifted Zed and pushed a waterskin to his lips. “I put a plant in you, and the roots go down into your lungs. It’s absorbing all the water in the air that gets pulled in, make sure to drink a lot to make up for that deficit.”

Zed gulped down some water, then glared at the Druid. “You put a plant in me? Is… is my nose ringing?”

“No. It’s the flower growing out of your nose.” Luke told him as if that would make the Bard feel better. “We should get going. There’s a whole bunch of lightning destroying that hill over there.”

“Lightning? But there’s no thunder?” Taylor turned toward some flashing light that she had ignored while Zed was getting hydrated. Her eyes locked on the distant show and reddened instantly as desire to control that force filled her. “Sonic Lighting. That’s… that’s…”

“Wanna go fight it?” Luke crouched down and prepared to dash into the distance.

“It’s lightning that completely absorbs the sound it creates. The thunder that is normally released into the air is instead pulled along and impacts as a secondary, instant attack. Sonic Lighting is an overlord among Tier five spells, and that is striking multiple areas. It has to be at least Tier six.”

“Can you take it?” Andre questioned her just as Taylor’s book flew out of her back and flapped around wildly. “Ahh! I hate that it does that!”

“You’re hungry? You’re gonna be fine eating that? Are you sure?” Taylor stroked the spine of her Grimoire as it quivered in excitement. “I feel like that’s past your limit…”

It ruffled it’s pages at her hastily, and Taylor had no choice but to sigh. “Then… I have no choice. Devote all Potentia to leveling up!”

Her command was executed instantly, and the twenty thousand Potentia stored in her Sigil drained away into her in an instant. As the changes became painful, she managed to grit her teeth and order, “Devote two increases to Physical Reaction, and one to Mental Energy!”

She collapsed as her nerves seemed to light aflame, and all she could do was twitch and stare at her status sheet as it updated itself.

Cal Scan

Level: 10

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 3,052/14,400 to level 11!

Body: 7.7

Fitness: 9.2

Resistance: 6.2

Mind: 14.25

Talent: 14.7

Capacity: 13.8

Presence: 9.85

Willpower: 7.7

Charisma: 12

Senses: 29.3

Physical reaction: 32.2

Mental energy: 26.4

Maximum Health: 112

Maximum Mana: 246.8

Mana regen: 4.9 per second

She was proud of the incredible gains she had made in the last few years, but the main focus of all her training to this point had been focused entirely on Senses. With higher Senses, she could bypass the restrictions and prerequisites of spells and directly bind them to her. Even so, whatever version of Sonic Lightning they were about to go up against was going to require that she was prepared beyond any other point in her life.

Lightning lasted only a bare moment per strike, meaning she would need to catch glimpses of this spell over and over, learn its point of origin, and bind its true name into her Grimoire. Fissure, her highest Tier spell, was entirely average for the Tier it belonged in. Lightning could always be considered as a peak existence, and this had evolved beyond what she had ever imagined having a chance to capture. She looked between the two useful members of her party and nodded.

“Let’s go.”