Chapitre 32: The Tree
(Me: *Exists*
My Stomach: IMMA FUCK UP YOUR DAY
On that note, did you know that the reason that your asshole burns when you have diarrhea is that your body is digesting your own anus. Thus, every time you have diarrhea you eat your own ass.)
Brooks stood tall before all of the students. "Freshman adepts, you are free to go. Everyone else, please enter the spatial gate that corresponds with your year. Best of luck to everyone and happy hunting!"
I quickly turned to Jacob and Yanni. "Follow me. I wanna check something out."
Jacob and Yanni looked at me weirdly but agreed. Thus, we rushed off in the opposite direction that most people were going. Rather than heading towards the volcano, we were heading straight to the treeline.
I led the three of us straight to one of the strange trees. All of the trees surrounding Mt. Patron were different varieties of pine. The trees surrounding the living pines were all dead. The remaining trees did not look normal in the slightest.
Their pine needles were green with tinges of red towards the end. A gentle heat radiated from it and I felt it wash over me as I approached it. The smell was also really interesting. As I got closer, I was overwhelmed by a sweet but charred smell. This must be a unique kind of sap.
As I reached the tree, my eyes were sparkling in excitement. There was no way something like this wasn't rare.
I reached out with my senses and felt the mana of the tree. Like a normal tree, there was earth and water mana flowing through it. However, this tree also had fire mana within. The harmony between these three elements was mind blowing. Water and fire were opposites so I had no idea how this could exist.
Another interesting point about this tree was that since it was a pine, it had what looked like pine cones. They were red and had a slight sparkle to them. Usually, a pine cone would not be described as appetizing. But these looked divine. Maybe that is where the smell is coming from?
I turned to Jacob and Yanni. "I'm gonna try to collect some of those pine cones. They don't seem normal." As I finished that statement, I noticed that the two of them were frozen in place, excitement and shock in their eyes. "Uhhh, guys? What's wrong?"
Jacob shook his head. "There's no fucking way."
I blinked slowly, tilting my head slightly downwards. "Come again?"
Jacob laughed nervously. "That is not just a tree. That is a Mana Spruce."
I rolled my eyes. "Can you just tell me what it is already?"
Jacob sighed. "So much you don't know. Mana trees are a variety of tree that are highly coveted by mages. Anything harvested from the tree is highly conductive of mana. That isn't even the best part since the materials aren't that suitable for most weapon types. Any fruits, flowers, or saps that are harvested from a mana tree have a strong concentration of elemental mana flowing through them. Generally, these trees are impossible to find because they blend in with any other tree. However, they are easily noticeable in places such as this where they absorb additional elements."
I shrugged. "So what I'm hearing is that nothing has changed. I'm still collecting those pine cones."
Jacob scoffed. "Those are fruits."
My eyes glistened when I heard that. I love fruit but it has a lot of sugar so it's usually a special treat. "I'm eating one then."
Jacob then yelled. "NO! Not yet. You need to be ready before you eat it."
I tilted my head. "What do I need to be ready for?"
Jacob shook his head. "These fruits are helpful with raising your comprehension of the elements. There isn't a specific amount that it improves your comprehension by but it is highly beneficial. All things that can benefit mages lack a set amount of improvement. It all depends on you."
This was interesting to me. There were no free boosts, no bullshit potion to make you the master of the elements, no stats. Everything was down to who used it. The gains depended entirely on what you can make of any given opportunity. I liked this as it meant that with hard work, anyone can be a notable mage. Maybe they wouldn't be able to reach the level of an archmage but they could still become a bonafide mage.
I nodded. "So eat the fruit. Got it." I then turned away and started climbing up the tree. I was nervous that it would be difficult to climb but it was surprisingly easy. The training I've been doing for my body was showing its worth.
Within about 20 seconds, I reached one of the lower branches. These were the largest and therefore the safest to move on. I inched my way down the branch, reaching one of the fruits. The sweet but charred smell only got stronger as I approached it. I was reminded of a roasted marshmallow.
The temperature of the air was also rising as I neared the fruit. It was significantly hotter here than on the ground.
I slowly reached out my hand, grasping the fruit. With a gentle tug, the fruit was pulled off of the stem. As it came off, a gentle mist sprayed off of it, filling the surrounding air with a mix of gently flowing elemental mana. I took a deep breath, holding it in and reveling in the euphoria. Just picking the fruit felt so amazing. I couldn't even imagine what it would feel like to eat it.
Sadly, I had to control myself. Rather than eating it right away, I put it into my storage ring. Over the next half hour, I climbed around the tree in monkey mode and collected all the fruits I could find. I retrieved 17 of them in total.
Looking around, I made sure that I didn't miss any. These fruits would be valuable to me as I needed to improve my comprehension of the earth and fire elements and these fruits would do me wonders if they lived up to what Jacob described. I was ready to come back down.
Suddenly, there was an extremely bright flash and a deafening boom. I immediately closed my eyes and subconsciously covered my ears with my hands. Unfortunately, that proved to be a mistake. Without my hands holding the branch, I flipped over and was at the mercy of gravity, plummeting to the ground.
Yanni finally snapped out of his awe. He had been silent this entire time and finally broke it. "CALLUM!"
He launched forwards, a stallion bursting through the gates. As I was about to hit the ground, Yanni dove with his arms out. With him colliding into me, my momentum was shifted towards the horizontal direction, greatly softening my fall.
We rolled across the ground for a few yards, kicking up a bunch of ash. Fortunately, neither of us got injured.
I quickly looked over my body and sighed in relief upon realizing that I wasn't injured. "Dude, thank you."
Yanni rolled over and got to his knees, dusting himself off. "It was nothing."
Jacob quickly interrupted our recovery. "GUYS! WE NEED TO HURRY!"
Yanni and I both looked at Jacob. He was staring at something with wide eyes. We followed his line of sight and our jaws hit the ground harder than we just did when we fell.
What we saw was quite the shell shock. The flash that caused me to fall off of the tree was a bolt of lightning. It had struck one of the mana spruces a few hundred feet away and had unbelievable effects.
Between the branches of the spruce were arcs of electricity. They made the tree light up the whole area despite how dark it was. All of the pine needles now were not only green and red. They looked amazing now. They went from green to red to blue. The colors faded into each other and created the most beautiful foliage I had ever seen.
Then I noticed the fruits. There were arcs of electricity on those too! A quad elemental mana source! The rarity of this could not be quantified as the odds of it happening are beyond improbable.
I took off running. "Let's go. We don't wanna let anyone else get it."
Jacob and Yanni quickly followed, trailing just behind me.
As I neared the tree, I felt a disturbance in the nearby mana within the air. Without missing a beat, I rolled without even looking around. As I did this, a stream of lightning flew over my head, missing me by inches.
Cold sweat rolled down my face regardless of how hot it was here. Who attacked me?
I looked in the direction that the attack came from and discovered the source. Three students, one boy and two girls, were standing there with solemn and emotionless expressions. Their uniforms were bright blue, signifying that they were students of the Electric Dragon academy. The weird thing about them is that the three of them were wearing different colored clergy stoles around their necks, over their uniforms. They were a dark blue with a gentle light blue tint around the edges. In the middle of the two ends was a symbol. It resembled a cross but was made of lightning bolts rather than straight lines.
Not knowing who they were, I turned towards Jacob, hoping to find out some information. He was definitely the most knowledgeable as Yanni was a bit of a shut in.
Jacob had a threatening grimace on his face. "Oh no. I really was hoping to not run into them here."
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone