Wraithwood Botanist

Congratulations! Scion Mira Hill has crafted an eighth-tier elixir.

Name: Cailain Hetra Elixir

Description: Described as "nothing special" by Elana, the Cailain Hetra Elixir is a regenerator that, once fully integrated, will allow you to survive half of your body exploding. Not only does ilignan break down molecules to reassemble into your body, but if a part of your body is missing and you don't have the nutrients to provide the ilignan, the mana will mimic the body's functions, even the heart's. That said, it's gruesome to look at, and it's not convenient to find all the ingredients for a human body. So unless you want to keep jars of building blocks in your backpack like a psychopath, make sure your body doesn't fly far enough that the ilignan can't catch and reconnect them.

Oh, and once you take this elixir, you'll never age again. So if you want to "age like fine wine," you're going to have to risk your life to get it.

My condolences.

Your achievement has been added to your alchemy chain quest. You can end the quest at any point.

—---

I chuckled. "I think I'll keep my youth."

Suddenly, I heard sobbing and heard Elana say:

"Right yourself at once. I will not allow my pupil to show such vulnerability in public, least of all for successes."

I turned and saw Felio sobbing in her hands. "I-I know. B-But I keep getting…" She revealed her face and stared at me with puffy eyes. "P-Please say you got one this time."

I immediately understood what she was getting at. She got an epic reward and wanted to know if I got one this time. I could tell right then that if I lied again, it would traumatize her, so I said:

"Can you keep a secret?"

She clutched her heart. Instant reaction.

I closed my eyes and used a divination pulse to make sure her guards were behind closed doors and said:

"I didn't get an epic last time because I have a chain reward."

Felio's eyes widened in confusion, and Elana snapped like a wild animal.

"You have a chain reward?" she snapped.

I stumbled back until I hit a counter behind me. Elana strode toward me, but as she approached, Kline, who was slinking across countertops like a house cat, suddenly teleported onto the counter in front of her.

"Cease your foolishness," Elana said, swiping her hand at him. He clawed back, but it didn't matter. She was merely a hologram. "You have an alchemy chain quest, and you didn't tell me your patron?" she demanded.

I took a sharp breath and looked at Felio. "I didn't want to disclose it to Felio. And you were right there, so…"

Elana grabbed her hips. "Well? Let's hear it."

I looked away. "I'm finding rare plants, unmarked plants, getting them… in strange ways. Risking my life to obtain them. Obviously, I'll get an epic reward. But once we created the Helix of Annihilation, and you said you were going to auction it, I got the chain quest. If I play my cards right… I'll get a legendary reward."

Elana rolled her eyes. "And you didn't think to send me a message after?" She whipped her finger to the elixirs. "Send me the remaining two. I'll start your brand…"

She paused and leaned against a counter.

"What?" I asked.

"I was just thinking about when we should sell them. If we wait until the Claustra auction, we will reach the entire multiverse. But that's almost a decade away…"

"Excuse me what?" I asked. "What do the Claustra have to do with anything?"

Elana considered it. "Bring out your Oracle. We'll ask them."

"Lithco," I said.

Lithco walked through the flap. "You summoned?"

"Stop the buffoonery," she said. "Tell me if the auction is the only means to fulfill this chain."

Lithco turned to me. "Brexton Claustra has announced an auction to sell exclusive information on Areswood Forest."

Trant's eyes shot to me. I made eye contact and back.

"And you're right," Lithco said. "It's bringing in powerful figures throughout the multiverse. If you were to hold an auction then, it's a slam dunk if you play it safe. If you don't, it's possible. But in that case, you'll need a brand, and that'll require input from Mira."

I grimaced.

"Save your expressions," Elana snapped. "You owe me tribute regardless. If it benefits us both, it's inconsequential. I'm just asking the extent of your participation."

"Probably high," Lithco answered. "To be eligible for legendary rewards over this timeline, you either need to do something that's record-breaking, or it needs to reach a wide multiversal audience. Your network is significant, but time's moving against you. If you want this to reach, you'll need to create something that people proliferate far and wide."

"Um… excuse me, but what could I get with a legendary reward?" I asked.

Aside from Kira, I added in my thoughts.

"A planet," Elana said.

I blinked twice. "Excuse me, what?"

"A planet," she repeated. "And an intelligent one. Technically, you would ask for an army of powerful neophytes that swear fealty to you, and they take over your planet or one that is outside a patron's network. So if that planet is space-faring, you can conquer more."

I looked between Felio and Lithco in shock.

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Kira was worth an army? She was a god-level soul guardian, so I expected her to be worth the moon but not a planet.

"Like I could've just… bought Earth?" I asked.

"Essentially," LIthco said. "Earth had to be dismantled, but you could have bought one like it."

I swallowed. "What else could I get?"

"An army," Elana repeated sternly. "That's all you'll get because that's what you need. Your peace here won't last forever. Your success is capturing the attention of glaves, grieves, and hunters. And I'm not sure what Brexton is selling, but if he's risking the Claustra reputation on a multiversal auction, it means that he knows something significant."

She turned at Trant, who was sitting cross-legged on a shelf in thought.

"His family knows we exist," Trant said.

"Well, there's your answer," she said.

I pondered it. "Then, in that case, let's focus on my strength. Once news breaks that I'm traveling through the Fifth Ring, it'll attract people. Right?"

She nodded. "And if you create more theoretical elixirs, it'll attract niche collectors. Will you dedicate yourself to that?"

"I plan to travel and create powerful elixirs anyway," I said. "As long as I don't have to go to the Sixth Ring, I can."

Elana nodded. "Then send me those elixirs and start threading and purifying your core. Evolving will vastly improve the rest of your combat capabilities."

I nodded. "Understood."

Elana turned to Trant. "This is the only chance you get to use the Oracle to save your forest. So act accordingly."

She and Lithco disappeared, leaving me, Felio, and Trant in a state of pressurized silence.

Felio looked at Trant.

"This is Trant," I sighed. "Alchemy teacher, mythical creature, and forest guardian. If people knew he existed, there'd be a multiversal war. Act accordingly."

—---

I waded into my elaborate treehouse bath. The isothermal alignment array on the bath floor was activated, so the water was perfectly attuned to my temperature, and I couldn't even feel it as I sat inside of it.

Kline paced the pool nervously as Felio sat beside the pool.

"Are you sure you want to take it now?" she asked. "I know you have a lot on your shoulders but… what?"

I started laughing and shaking my head. "This isn't for the forest. It's just… Look, I'm twenty-five… I think. And I don't want to age one more day than I have to. Crazy forest cat lady's unmarriable. Old crazy forest cat lady is witch story material."

Felio giggled as she watched me stare at the fourth dose of the elixir.

"You're something else," she said. "You know that?"

I broke the seal and said, "If you think I'm cool now. Just wait till you see my face when I realize Trant understated my warnings."

Felio's smile disappeared. I chuckled and cycled my mana core and rocked back the elixir—

—and instantly thought I'd die.

This elixir clearly wasn't meant for the first evolution, and Trant clearly overestimated my Kyfer core. It was a boundless vacuum cleaner, but it was trying to suck in an ocean wave at high tide. The man stampeded through my mana channels, and I hit the water and felt myself suffocating. Only then did I realize that nearly every time I took a resource or elixir far beyond my capabilities, I had Yakana or Brindle to help me through it. But now it was just me.

This was the Rubicon, the graduation point where I, Mira Hill, had to ascend to meet the standards of all those who hailed me a genius—

And I was fucking it up.

I just casually drank the elixir after joking about it, and now I was drowning. If Felio and Kline weren't there, I would die, just like that.

A strange mana I had never felt seared through every molecule of my being. If the Cailain in the elixir hadn't been reforming everything, my core and channels would've ruptured like water balloons. It was painful, and I couldn't even think—let alone get things under control.

Then I heard a splash, and my body rocked as Felio dragged my head out of the water. I knew she was there, but she felt so distant.

My world had gone black.

The pain was too much to focus on anything.

It was just too much—too foreign.

Or so I thought.

There was a part of me that remembered something very similar. I couldn't remember, but somewhere between that hellish landscape of burning mana and cycling cores, I remembered feeling the same sensation when I took the Lumidra Elixir. It felt just like that before Yakana saved me.

I focused back on that time and then tried to mimic the advanced mana circulation that Yakana showed me. I had to. If I wanted to survive—I had to.

And it's strange.

It was due to being in that same exact position that when I tried to circulate as usual, circulate with the "advanced" technique that I had formed, I realized how wrong it was. Now that I was in a position where any failure was absolute failure, I had to improve. So I concentrated, focused, and got back on track, and slowly, yet surely, I got a grip on it. I could feel the difference with every single improvement and the more I improved, the less frantic the distant yelling and shaking was.

That was a good sign.

I closed my eyes again and again and again until I was in that blackness and imagined Yakana when he assimilated with me.

But something was… wrong.

I could feel myself edging closer and closer to the technique that Yakana had given me—but it felt unnatural. It felt extremely natural before—effortless even. So why?

I closed my eyes deeper and realized what it was—

Brindle.

He designed the training and memories he put into Kira to focus on soulmancy, but I was still living his life—feeling his mana circulation.

Kira, I thought.

Kira activated her inner secrets, and I let myself sink back into that deep place in Brindle's memories like it was a dream.

There was no situation where Brindle threaded mana.

But he used it.

For his magic.

Actions.

Everything.

I focused on one of his major battles when he overpowered a hundred-foot colossus. He used humble roots and molding trees to topple it. Then, more plants and roots spread up it, feeding off the beast's mana as Brindle released a dozen soul beasts to kill it. Throughout it all, Brindle was using absolute mana control to keep the beast down.

I let myself feel that mana circulation—

And then snapped back in the real world and focused on that technique.

My Kyfer core reacted to it immediately, sucking in mana in complex patterns to alleviate the stress. And when I got into that rhythm and finally grappled hold of it, I didn't know whether I wanted to celebrate or lament.

If I had continued on with Yakana's technique, I would have finally broken the chains of having others help me. But conversely, by utilizing what Brindle gave me, I had improved my foundations and evolved.

I knew that I had barely gotten here and I was learning from people with tens of thousands of years worth of experience, but part of me, the immature part, wanted to be completely independent.

Yet I couldn't give into that temptation.

Brindle.

Elana.

Kline.

Felio.

Reta.

Trant.

Yakana.

Nethralis.

From Kyro to Lithco, everyone was helping me achieve greater heights and I knew it was for a reason that was bigger than myself. Elana called me the Queen of this Areswood. Trant didn't outright deny it. Yakana, Kyro, Nethralis—people saw me as a guardian of this forest. A new Brindle. And now it was too late to turn back. Glaves and grieves, official soulmancer exterminators, and simple fanatics, as well as conquerors, were coming to this forest. And now it was up to me, someone who had come to love this forest and decided to save it, to obtain strength, by any means, to protect it.

I had the means—the opportunities.

Requests. Relationships. Resources.

I had it all.

And I couldn't focus on myself.

From now on, I needed to utilize everything that I had, and at present, I had gods, spirits, and oracles giving me everything without limit or restraint. I would use that and get stronger.

My core churned into overdrive as I made my declarations, and as I got into the groove of Brindle's circulation technique, it became natural, and I obtained dominion over the technique and the mana pulsing through my veins.

I could feel the Cailain taking root and new mana channels pulsing through me, and to be honest, it didn't feel abnormal. It almost felt natural.

Whatever Brindle injected into Kira and integrated into me permanently changed me—

But I was okay with that.

Right now, I needed power—and he gave it to me.

—---

Trant sat on the edge of the pool, watching Felio cradle Mira. Felio was panicked, but Mira had long stopped gasping. She didn't so much as wince. Her face was hard as chiseled granite as she focused on the magnificent circulation technique she abruptly switched to out of nowhere.

"Are you convinced?"

Trant turned and saw Kyro standing beside the pool.

"You act as though I wasn't," he said.

"It's not that you weren't, it's that you couldn't understand." Kyro took a drink from his flask and then pointed at Mira. "'Cause that? That isn't just some random technique. That is Brindle's technique. And it's not just some cheap copycat, either. That's the bonafide thing."

Trant turned back to Mira and watched her carefully.

"So what should we do?" he asked.

"We take her to Nyralith," Kyro said. "She needs real training…" He looked at his hands in frustration. "And we can't give it to her."