Walking down the hallway towards the ritual room, I sent a small stream of Mana into my Authority Core, or more simply, the ball of Wondersprout fibres I had inside my head. I had been improving my control over the aura shaping that [Artificial Aura Control] allowed me to do. Unlike other skills, this one didn't seem to contain knowledge on how to do everything relating to it. Instead, I’d been having to experiment on my own.
Previously, the aura would act like a laser. Mana entered one end of the sprout, and Authority exited the other in a straight line. This was a rather annoying function because it meant I had to use a ridiculously complicated circuit just to line up where I wanted to exert my Authority. The most control I had over it while active was turning it on or off, and the off state was really more like a ‘charging’ state where the Core would build up Authority while I held it back like flexing a muscle.
 
Now, with the Skill, the aura field felt more like a gas that I could shape by pulling it into zones of concentrated density. It gathered in the center of these zones, thick and heavy, while the edges remained lighter, almost dissipating into the air around me. Doing small tests, I was able to exert my will over my Mana within the field. The level of control I had over it correlated with the density of the gas.
As I fed a small amount of it into one of the six Mana distribution arrays I kept along my spine, a flake of Nature Mana appeared in the air in front of me, easily forming into the shape of a leaf as if it were meant to be that way.
It was my Mana, created by my soul, and I knew that gave me a level of control over it. Reaching through my Authority, I grasped the Mana and had the leaf drift through the air and land on Autumn’s head, where I allowed it to manifest into a real leaf. This was a trick I’d picked up after the incident, the one we don't think about or mention. Before, I could only manifest basic elements like Water or Fire. Nature was just too complex for a full manifestation. There were too many variations on what it could become. Only [Verdant Corruption] had allowed me to shape it into something. Still, that Skill only provided support for rot and moulds, and even then, I couldn’t manifest those materials; I could only convert other things into them.
Autumn picked the leaf off their head and examined it for a moment, “You’re getting there, but something is missing.”
“What would that be? Because I see a leaf. That’s what it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” I asked, genuinely curious. Autumn hadn’t really told me anything about how Nature Mana worked yet. If there were anyone who would know about Nature Mana, it would be a Nature Spirit.
They flicked the leaf to the side. “That’s the problem, it’s just a leaf, you can do better than that, can’t you?”
“You’re going to have to explain a little more than that. It’s a leaf, and I can manifest plants now. You saw me practicing before. That’s how Nature Mana works, it makes plants.” I replied, and almost immediately regretted saying that.
Autumn had a look of immense disappointment on their face. “Okay, when you were practicing, what was your intent?” they asked. Hidden within each word was an individually wrapped threat to not demean conceptual identities within Nature by simplifying it so much.
Rootspeech was weird like that. I was glad I didn’t have to try to translate it into English or something; I wouldn’t have envied any poor soul who put themselves in a position where they had to do that.
“My intent was to make a leaf…But you’re saying Nature is more than just the living things that exist within it?” I replied, uncertain what exactly they meant. Should I be adding corruptive intent to the leaf?
“Was that a question or an answer?” Autumn asked. Their statement contained patience, alongside something else I couldn’t detect. The fact that I switched the language setting helped a lot with comprehension, but I may have overestimated my actual capabilities. I wasn’t nearly at the level of a native speaker, and I was also just bad at English as well since I switched setting over to Rootspeech. Any English word that I understood by hhh
Tch! Not that it mattered; I was passable enough at Rootspeech that English was basically useless. My problem with it was that the language was unimaginably more complex; I could speak in it as if I were speaking in English, but that wasn’t the issue. It was the deeper meanings that were inserted into words that threw me off.
I realized I hadn’t answered their question while lost in thought, “Yes.”
Autumn just sighed like wind blown through trees in the middle of the night. “Here, I’ll just show you why I was given my name.”
They held out their hand and drew a small amount of Mana into a ball. After it formed, Autumn squeezed the ball tightly, which I guessed was a technique to wrap their aura around it. I leaned in to see what they were doing and wrapped my aura around their hand to feel it. Their aura was surprisingly strong, and I could sense something unique about it, but couldn’t tell what. Before I had time to figure out what that something was, they opened their hand, revealing a brittle-looking leaf—like one you might see on the ground during autumn, then flicked it at me.
Before I could even process what was happening, my body was diving away from the leaf. My [Evasive Reflex System] activated for the first time and sent me rolling across the ground and back up into a standing position. When the Skill said it would integrate the dodge into my conscious movement, I didn’t realize that it would count walking down a hall as ‘movement’.
Looking back, where I had been standing, the metal in the walls and floors was blackening and beginning to flake. Eventually, there was a groan as the metal buckled, before it ruptured, blowing flakes of corroded metal across the hall. I just looked up at Autumn, mouth slightly agape.
“Autumn is a period of change. Leaves fall, the air grows colder, the harvest ends, and the world enters dormancy. Nature is a wider concept than I even know. I’m surprised you moved out of the way on time. That’s exactly how I teach young saplings to respect Nature. They usually move out of the way by the second time,” Autumn said, then they continued onwards up to the door to the ritual chamber. How does the concept of fall cause metal to explode?The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“And why did you not use that before? I’m pretty sure it would have been effective against the Hurnathi.” I asked as I caught up with them. I wasn’t going to tell them it was my Skill that let me get out of the way, not any kind of instinct.
Autumn looked at me as if I had just asked if fire was hot, “I wanted to eat its Life Energy and blood, not wither it into dust, duh.”
“Sure looked like you were about to wither me into dust,” I mumbled to myself while rifling through my pockets for the keyplate.
“Stop being a seedling, you would have been fine...By the way, what was that ritual you mentioned?” Autumn asked.
“Oh, didn’t you hear what we were talking about while I was talking to Dave?” I said, having found the plate, I tapped it on the door. “It’s a ritual holding a portal open to a Plane with creatures that were called the Maleficarum b…”
Whatever I was going to say next died in my throat as a thick wave of aura hit me. It felt like the pressure in the room had increased, and my soul was being compressed. I noticed I was having trouble taking a breath, as if my lungs had collapsed under the pressure, and instinct caused me to panic slightly. It didn’t help that my emotional balance had been completely thrown off as the aura contained what could only be described as absolute revulsion, like the very air had directed its hatred towards me.
Then my Authority Core finished kicking in, and my aura flared out, removing the pressure Autumn had been exerting on me just as the doors opened. I was about to ask what that was about when I noticed what was on the other side of the doors. Through them was a massive room, built like the inside of a grand cathedral but with a magitech futuristic spin. Or at least that’s how I assumed it was supposed to look.
Instead, the walls were covered in what looked like black paint, and the lighting along the walls emitted a dark grey light that barely lit up the room. This was odd because I was pretty sure that grey light wasn't physically possible. The only parts visible were a few dead consoles along the sides and a circle in the middle of the room that was lit up with the same dark grey.
I turned the brightness of my eyes up a bit and immediately noticed the room was filled with floating black orbs perpetually dripping with an ooze that made my skin crawl. The moment I saw them, I fought back the urge to shiver in surprise as the revulsion came back harder than ever. It took me a moment, but I noticed it was coming from inside me this time, and quickly came to a realization.
Oh, of course it was her, I should have guessed.Autumn had already sprung into the room, screeching like wood under heavy pressure. They said something that I couldn’t understand. It was like they had tried shoving paragraphs of information into a single word. Well, I understood the emotion that was added, anger, but that was obvious from context.
I let out a sigh at their reaction. I didn’t really understand anger as a concept. In my last life, it felt as if I couldn’t experience that emotion for some reason. That seemed to be true for this one as well. Instead, I felt glee at the idea of purging this filth from the land. I stepped into the room, the door closing behind me.
Autumn was dashing between the blobs and slapping them out of existence somehow. Their vines literally glowed, as in on the visible light spectrum, with Nature Mana that was doing…Something. It was very apparent that I should be asking them for advice on the subject. They obviously knew how to do things. I just didn’t.
This had made the blobs very upset, by the looks of it, as they were doing their damnedest to try to coat Autumn with black fluid. The oozing leaks were directed at them like a rainstorm. Every drop sizzled on contact with their fibres.
It was time to test whether I had overdesigned my shell enough or if I needed to keep going. Pulling my Authority into a sphere around my body like the Eidolon sage had done, I began pushing Fire Mana through two of my distribution arrays designed specifically for this purpose. I started creating balls of Fire Mana around myself.
Once I was done, I took a deep breath and focused. These were stationary targets, perfect for target practice with my new ability. Exerting my will, I began individually launching them at every target in the room. The moment each ball of Mana reached the edge of my aura, I’d set off a chain reaction inside it to begin manifesting as fire once they had reached their destination. I didn’t want the blobs just to absorb the Mana after all. I wanted them to be purged with fire.
Dozens of streaks of Fire Mana flew through the room, and moments later, my vision had been completely blown out as the light from the explosions flooded the sensors in my eyes. I really need to figure out how to make vision adjustments automatically, being blinded whenever the lighting changes sucks.
Once my vision cleared, I saw Autumn standing in the centre of the room, their body covered in potch marks and discoloured, now a sickly pale shade in the grey lighting. Then they began to fall, and suddenly I was in motion [Natural Enhancement] activated on its own, I reached them and caught their body before they had even lost their footing.“Dummy, you should have let me go in first. I can take a hit better than you can,” I said with a sigh. “We’re going to have a talk about what you know about these things at some point soon.”“Yeah, yeah, just put me down somewhere and give me a moment to rest. Also, you need to tell me more about the situation,” Autumn replied, their voice soft like grass blowing in the wind. I nodded and set Autumn down, gently leaning them against a console.Just then, a window popped up in my vision, which was odd because I had notifications disabled.[Warning: Quest Update][Prevent Queen from Entering Eternia]
Quest Giver: [Dave]
Tier: [Wrought]
Description: [The ritual has been compromised. Devise a new solution to close the planar rift.]
Reward: [The imp responsible for quest rewards has been executed. Please wait while we find a new one.]
Failure: [Zone contaminated with Malifactum permanently. Quest chain update.]
[New Sub-Quest]
Tier: [Basal]Description: [The Eastern Complex’s ritual was poorly designed and has failed earlier than expected. Clear out the infestation present within the Ritual Room.]
Targets:Malefic Residue: 37/37Maliform: 0/1Reward: [Survival]Failure: [Death]
Well, that’s not good. Autumn’s eyes widened, seemingly noticing the same thing I had.
I turned to face the centre of the ritual circle, which had started to bubble as the black gunk covering every surface began to coalesce. An aura swept over the room, and the pressure hit. My aura buckled under its weight. I noticed an insatiable hunger in the Authority surrounding me. It felt sort of like I was marked as a resource to be consumed.
“Sure, just give me a moment to take care of this,” I said, standing up straight as I faced the new threat.