FMH ~ 14!

“Oh… celestial. I can't believe I would ever do something that dumb.” Andre was rehashing old conversations with Xan, who was laughing at the embarrassment that the initiate was feeling.

“You were given the mind of someone almost a decade older than you essentially overnight.” Xan finally started helping the young man calm himself, his fun now had. “Of course you are going to regret things that ‘younger you’ did. The important part is that you will be able to keep up with my lessons from now on; I’m sick of explaining things more than once.”

“I… what’s the next step, then?” Andre took the offered gift of a topic change.

“We are going to go ponder nature.” Xan told him. With that confusing reply, they got out of the treetop and started walking. They passed the marker that had denoted  Andre’s free walking space, and continued for a little over an hour. Xan spoke nearly the entire time, mostly pointing out types of bugs, trees, and animals. “Now, we are going to walk through what will become your daily routine until you are… strongish.”

They sat on the side of a hill, and Xan waved at the world in front of them. “Everything the light touches is… no, wait. More than that. More than we can see, is our domain. You have created a Livingwood Staff, and can now start connecting to plants. Your task every morning will be to sprint here, yes, the entire way, and bind with all the plants on this hill.”

Andre looked around, but had no idea what the man was talking about. “Three trees and a flower? Okay…?”

“Forgetting anything?” Xan smirked at the youngster. He waited contentedly until he saw realization dawn on the lad. “Ahh, there it is. Yup, all the grass.”

“But that’s-”

“Going to take a long time, I know. Remember how I told you that you needed to cultivate patience?” Xan watched his charge’s face fall, and decided that an example was in order. “Andre, why do you think it is important to bind all the plants? Especially grass?”

“I don’t know, the stuff is everywhere.” Andre spat in frustration.

“Exactly.” With that, Xan started flowing across the grass faster than a horse could gallop… still in his reclined seated position. He made a circle and came back, “A simple druid ability, Forestwalk. Still, it is effective for movement and… other things. Come here.”

Andre stood and started walking over to his teacher. He frowned, realizing that the man wasn't getting any closer. Andre started running, sprinting, then he dove at the man. In all that time, he hadn't managed to move from his starting point on the grass until he jumped. By the time he stood again, he had been returned to his first position. “Alright… when do I learn to do that? I want that.”

“You need to bind enough plants.” Xan informed him with a shrug. “The more you bind with, the more likely that you’ll get an actual ability. Variation will often get you interesting abilities, and by that I mean binding to many varieties of plant. Honestly, I have no idea how long it will take, or even what abilities you will gain with your starting bonus. All I know is that you gain mainly plant-based abilities from plants.”

“Wait… where is your staff?” Andre had just realized that he had never seen his master carrying one. “I thought they were really important for-”

A staff shot out of the ground into Xan’s waiting hand. “Right here. I’m a Druid of the Third Circle. I have bound with plants, animals, and the earth. That means I have a Livingwood Staff, a Livingstone Focus, as well as a familiar. Creating a Livingwood Staff means that you are a First Circle Druid, and you gain a promotion to a ‘Novice’. Congratulations.”

“But where was the staff…?” Andre couldn’t stop himself from asking the question; he knew it was dumb.

“It was in the earth. It is Livingwood, it needs nutrients and such.” Xan placed the staff upright on the ground, and roots grew out of it and into the ground. “I’m gonna go take a n… that is, ponder nature over there. Don't bother me until you run out of mana at least five times.”

“How do I-” 

“You know how to do this now, Andre.” Xan waved and walked off.

Andre looked at the grass around him and sighed. This was going to take a long time. He got started, poking the grass and coaxing mana into each blade. The grass loved the attention. It stretched toward him as if he was the sun, and accepted the bond he offered without the slightest hesitation or haughtiness. As he connected to the grass, he learned about it.

He suddenly knew what the soil was like, if the grass had proper access to light, if its roots were fighting for a tasty, nutrient-rich patch. Before he really knew it, Andre collapsed to the ground with a nose bleed.

Current mana: 0/135.8.

Your attempt to use mana has drawn mana from secondary source.

Current health: 69/71

“Watch your mana!” Xan called over as soon as the first drop of blood touched the ground. “It’s a bad idea to use your body like that, it can lead to all sorts of nasty side effects. Don't use your health as a source, it only heals naturally! There is no health regeneration characteristic.”

“Didn’t know hurting myself was possible, Xan!” Andre called back, his irritation flowing across the distance. There was no reply, so Andre scoffed and turned back to his work. “I’m gonna ponder nature, alright, old man. The nature of violence.”

His mana regenerated at two point oh six mana per second, which meant that it was going to take about seventy seconds to get back to full. Not a terrible trade off. He sat and meditated as he had been taught over the last month, peeking at his status every once in a while. When his mana was back, he looked at the amount of grass that he had been able to convert and sighed. His hand would cover the entire area with room to spare. This was going to take a long time.

Two weeks later, Xan seemed to think that Andre had suffered enough. Andre had increased the amount of area he had bound with to roughly fifteen square meters, and had bound over ten thousand stalks of grass. He was getting close to the flower on the hilltop, and was almost drooling at the thought of gaining a connection to a new type of plant. Grass was great, but… it was grass. 

“Andre, now that you’ve shown your dedication by doing each blade individually, I am going to show you how to bind to a swath of plants all at once.” Xan’s words made Andre slowly look up, and he was clearly trying to hold back unkind sentiments.

“You mean to tell me that I don't have to destroy my back leaning over like this? That I could be done already?” Andre opened his mouth to continue, but Xan held up a hand to stop him.

“No, doing this was actually very important.” Xan promised him calmly. “You needed to get an instinctual feel for the amount of grass you could bind using the entirety of your mana pool. You’ll understand why in a few moments. Come close and follow my instructions.”

“Do you remember when I called you a ‘First Circle’ Druid? That has more meaning than just a title.” Xan sketched out a swift circle on the ground, the earth moving the grass away so that there was a perfect circle of bare grass. “This should be about the correct size… now, use your mana to form a circle around these plants.”

Andre stepped forward and attempted to do so, but struggled mightily. The mana wouldn't stay in any shape, instead billowing away as a gaseous cloud whenever he attempted the process. Xan looked on, confused, but his face cleared as he realized the issue. “Ah… right… you don't have several years of practice manipulating your mana internally. That may be an issue, but I suppose I’ll just need to incentivise you.”

“Please no.”

“It’ll be fun!” Xan rubbed his hands together. “I’ll teach you the forms, cycling, and mana control exercises over the next month. After that, every week that you are unable to complete this task, I’ll reduce my protection on the area by a set amount. Each week, the beasts and creatures will get that much closer. I’ll probably be able to keep them off you even if we get really close… hey, I need to test my limits as well, right?”

“Learning is just the best.” Andre stated flatly, specks of blood leaving his lips as he added too much mana to another failed circle.