The silhouette of the fossilized tree that now served as the headquarters of Astralis Requiem rose on the horizon of Mythlorien, tall and imposing, silhouetted against the sky of Elysium.
Lohan and Lisa approached the tree, chatting cheerfully about ideas for synergies to use Lohan’s new abilities; as they crossed the arch of roots at the entrance, they passed the Clone that Lohan had left behind to protect the base.
The small sentinel Slime remained motionless, its membrane camouflaged to a brown matching the tree’s wood, in an almost lifeless state.
Lohan realized that, at that distance, his control over his clones was deteriorating drastically through the [Mental Connection].
To keep the clone functioning, he had limited its control to basic tracking and security operations, acting more as a trap and automatic sensor than a conscious protector.
The same was true of the clones sent to escort the fairies; miles away, Lohan couldn’t even access their memories in real time, leaving them operating on pre-programmed commands and basic defensive instincts.
"We’re home, Halon," Lisa said, allowing herself a brief moment of relaxation as the white flames on her paws died down.
Once protected by the guild’s fossilized wooden walls, Lohan did not remove the clone from the tree’s entrance and slid off the fox’s back.
He moved the Tear of Flowers to the center of his crystalline mass, initiating the process of [Efficient Digestion]. Instantly, a system notification flashed, but before he could read it, [Memory Resonance] was activated with surprising intensity.
Lohan’s consciousness was torn from his blue gelatin and hurled into a perception that was practically alien.
He no longer saw in 360 degrees, nor did he even have the common vision of a creature with eyes... instead, he sensed the world through a network of deep roots that drank the mana from the soil and leaves that breathed in the light of the moons of Elysium.
Now he was an Ancestral Magic Flower.
The perception was strange; he felt time passing slowly, centuries compressed into rhythmic pulses of sap.
In that memory, he saw how the flower manipulated the surrounding flora to protect the forest.
Instead of using crude, direct spells, she commanded her Magic to bend the wood’s fibers and accelerate the growth of thorny vines indirectly.
And instead of hurling those thorns directly and artificially, it accelerated the buildup of gases and osmotic pressure within specific fruits or bulbs to the limit, and at the slightest touch from an enemy, an explosion of sharp husks and seeds erupted in its place.
Lohan was shocked to discover that Magic could be used that way.
Until then, he had thought that magic could only be used directly, just as he controlled the Ice Spike to freeze water in the air to form an ice spike, so it was shocking to realize there was such an indirect and far more natural way to use and control magic like that.
Surprisingly, he realized that the energy used by the Magic Flower wasn’t Magic or Mana itself, but rather an energy he was already familiar with... Natural Energy!
Lohan realized that this was a much higher form of energy than the one he had absorbed from the Basic Seed of Life, which had become the Natural Energy Core within him, yet it still operated at a frequency slightly lower than the raw power of his [Holy Light].
While immersed in this awareness, Lohan began to "learn" the synaptic control patterns over plants. He understood how to inject pulses of light to force the wood’s malleability and how to attune his own biomass to the plant fibers.
Upon awakening from the resonance, Lohan’s gelatin pulsed with a subtle green-gold light.
He rolled over to a small root sprouting from the guild floor and, focusing his [Sacred Light Core], he immediately tried to apply what he had seen and experienced through the memories of that flower.
The root appeared to be completely dead, but Lohan sensed deep within his Sacred Light Core that there was still life there, merely in an extremely advanced state of starvation. Then, under his control, the root trembled, and at Lohan’s mental command, it slowly arched upward, hardening as if made of metal.
"Halon? What did you do?" Lisa asked in shock, watching the plant obey her friend.
"Hahaha, this is refined Natural Energy control, Lisa. I just entered the memories of the Flower that owns this tear and learned a completely new form of magical control!" Lohan explained, feeling a sudden magical exhaustion.
Although his control was subtle, at a very high level of proficiency achieved through the Memory Absorption trait, the Mana consumption of his [Core of Holy Light] was massive.
Even though Holy Light was a higher level of energy than Natural Energy, the very act of trying to control life directly was extremely draining, but the potential Lohan sensed in it was immense.
’Maybe I’ll become this world’s very own Hashirama?!’ He thought excitedly, recalling the wooden dragons, wooden clones, even the gigantic wooden Buddha that was practically a war machine, and without realizing it, he began to laugh out loud with excitement.
Many people looked down on the Wood element, and he was one of them until he learned the story of that Shinobi God, but thinking about how much this, developed in the future, would synergize well with his abilities, Lohan laughed even harder.
Now, his Holy Light had a great use beyond just healing and strengthening Lisa through the [Weaver Mother], and in addition to the combat utility this would bring, he was now even capable of shaping the guild’s own environment to his advantage.
Perhaps in the future they wouldn’t even need someone constantly watching over and protecting the guild’s base; with so many ideas in mind, Lohan thought of defensive plants like Peashooters, Cherry Bombs, and Hypno-shrooms and grew even more excited about the possibilities of developing this power.
Future enemies of Astralis Requiem who decided to invade the guild would hate these ideas that Halon had come up with on a whim, thinking only that it would be funny.