Chapter 542: Mancer’s Blossom
[Mancer's Blossom (Silver) (Aether Treasure)]
[The Paths of the Mancer are long and complex. There is no one Path that is superior to another, but the distance one can travel depends greatly on your strength of heart. The Mancer's Blossom allows you to feel and sense your Path of the Mancer, how to progress it and how to improve it.]
[Feed the Mancer's Blossom Aether and it will bear fruit to enlighten your path.]
[Meditate beneath the Mancer's Blossom to improve Aether Recovery and gain a chance to Level up.]
Sylas stared at the tree for a long while. He could feel the fatigue of the Rune Breath Secret Realm slowly being peeled away under his circulation of <Maddened Enlightenment>. But he was also somewhat aware that unless he went to bed, he likely wouldn't get back to 100%.
It was a shame because he had already called another General in for his next round of grappling practice. It seemed he would have to send them back and hold off until he woke up from this coming nap.
But before he did that, he still had an urge to check the evolved Mancer's Wand.
It had to be remembered that this evolution of the Mancer's Wand was triggered because it saved him from being forcefully Leveled up to Level 50.
Since then, he hadn't had a chance to take advantage of it. But technically speaking, if he meditated beneath his Mancer's Blossom Aether Treasure, he should be able to sense Runes far more powerful than his current Slow and Freeze Ice-Poison Runes. Maybe he would find Runes approaching 100 Foundations.
But the problem with this was obvious.
His affinity was no longer just purely Ice and Poison. He had a third affinity now: wood.
Part of him wanted to hope that since Mancer's Blossom took the shape of a tree, it would have a natural affinity to the element that he could take advantage of. But a single glance told him that that wasn't going to happen.
When he asked the Madness Key how he would go about adding another affinity to it, it gave him two possibilities.
Either he would need to reach the same level in Wood Aether on his own, or he would need to find a source at the same level as what triggered the evolution in the first place.
While Mancer's Blossom was a far greater treasure than Mancer's Wand, by extension, it was also less flexible.
There was one thing he was right about, though...
'So Mancer's Blossom might not have a natural Wood Elemental Aether affinity to it, but it does have a natural proclivity for the element...'
Mancer's Wand was a wooden branch that grew into Mancer's Blossom, a tree at its root.
But there was still a subtle difference.
According to the Madness Key, Wood was actually a version or mutation of Earth Aether that incorporated a higher form of Aether that could nurture and give life.
Sylas wasn't able to learn what this special Aether was because the cost of Genes to learn it was too steep. It wasn't worthwhile to learn it now, not when he wouldn't be able to use it anyway.
'This must be why my new Class came with an Earth affinity as well. That means that compared to other elements, Mancer's Blossom should have an easier time incorporating Earth and Wood. But I need to find something that's worthy of it...'
Sylas took a breath and the frosty air fueled his body.
There was also something else...
Mancer's Blossom was a tree. Using it like this, balancing it on hard floors, not allowing it to seep its roots into soil, also caused its effects to be weaker than they should be.
Before, Sylas had nowhere to plant it, so he didn't even consider it.
But now that he technically had his own territory here... maybe he should consider it.
'This is the Woodland Territory. I don't believe that I won't be able to find something to help it incorporate this new path.'
Feeling somewhat comfortable in the cold, Sylas returned to his bed and fell asleep once again.
His mind seemed to be massaged by the hands of angels while he was resting because when he woke up, he felt like a completely new person.
When he exhaled, a string of icicles came from his lips, and he was shocked to find that Ice- Poison Runes were naturally forming.
He was even more shocked when he looked beneath his feet. Every step he took came with another blossoming of ice. They almost formed a lotus platform for his personal use.
'This isn't Aether... Not really...'
Sylas was stunned, but he was certain of what he was seeing. Sure, the density of Aether in the surroundings had something to do with it, but this wasn't because of his Rune Mastery.
He had reached a point where he subconsciously formed Runes, without effort and without even the input of his Wisdom. In fact, the formation of the Runes seemed to have no impact on his mental fatigue at all.
This would be impossible if the Ice-Poison in the air hadn't grown so thick while he was asleep. But this meant that so long as there was an abundance of Aether he had a close affinity
with...
It wouldn't take any stamina at all to have Runes heed his call.
Was this Rune Essence?
No, that wasn't right... Rune Essence didn't have a description like this one. This felt a lot more like Rune Spark according to what he understood...
But had he really leapt another three levels in his sleep? That didn't feel right either.
It took Sylas a half hour of contemplation and the Madness Key's help before he understood exactly what was happening. And from what he understood, there was both a simple answer and a complicated one.
The simple answer was that this was a result of a combination of efforts including Mancer's Bloom, his Rune Soul, his Warlord Title, and the healing of the Runes in this region thanks to the destruction of two System Cities.
As for the complicated one, it could be summarized in a single line.