Master Of None

”Well, that was odd but I guess Su went off to train alone.” Gil had kept a sharp eye around as everyone had split up.

He had already grasped that this palace was by no means dangerous. The feeling of mana around was already calm and clear. He could feel the slightest of breezes through the jungle that brought an even more peaceful calm to his mind. Just that alone reminded him of the way the elven forest was to a small degree.

Yet, there was more to this. The entire island appeared to be different. The children were not running around trying new things to get their systems. He had noticed that the children that Midnight and Onyx had naturally started playing with were already using so,e skills.

Furthermore, some children were directly learning from some of the adult echidna. Therefore, they either already had a system or they were trying to get one. But that was enough to make him confused.

”What’s going on with everyone here? What are the systems you have? I can’t really catch on too much.” Gil wasn’t trying to be rude and saw that the echidna he had begun speaking with earlier just smiled a little.

”It’s nothing odd. Just the way it should be. You’ll catch on later I am sure. The world is almost as it should be. Nature flows properly. Just like the vines we grow arrive at their maturity just as they need to be.” The echidna had a brown and green patterned set of scales along their body as he made small movements to guide a very quickly growing vine.

Gil had originally approached the echidna growing the vines because he saw the same vines being made in to bow strings. That was something that clearly made any archer wonder. How could a vine grow and naturally be perfect for a bowstring? The strings needed to be braided or made to be more reactive. Made to be used as a bow to propel many arrows further or with more power.

The fact that the vine didn’t need any braiding or magical additions was odd. ”Everyone here is mysterious…aren’t they?” Naturally, Gil was left wondering what the deal with the echidna village was.

They all seemed to use many elemental manas. Seemed to praise nature constantly. Seemed to be perfectly in harmony with everything around them. It was all very perfect. Yet it was also just unsettling. Not in a bad way though. As if the party was still doing something wrong by comparison.

”We might seem that way. It has been many years since my father’s fathers father learned to grow these vines and accept the natural role he discovered. You could call him and I a nature craftsman. Very odd term. Craftsman and nature don’t seem to go hand and hand with what the stories passed down to us were like. I assume that’s the same for your people?” the nature craftsman looked at Gil to see that Gil was nodding in agreement.

”A craftsman usually deals with things after they are taken from nature, monsters, or the like. None that I have ever met have been able to just grow something in to the right form. It’s beyond what the elves do too.”

While Alma had the ability to grow plants faster, she had never just grown them in an instant to create a weapon or anything else like that. It took many years for the elves to guide trees to become huts or become treehouses. They spent the time and mana to grow them slowly and with strength.

”The seeds we mix have been changing with each growth cycle. They grow as we will it to by activating the natural mana and life within them. They will provide fertilizer to the jungle with their death, but their parts create the bow strings, ropes, and even weaving materials we need for baskets. It is a give and take.”

”My mana helps these seeds grow and takes a toll on the home we live. Therefore, I return to the land the remainder and guide my mana to replenish what I have taken. All must return to the natural flow without destruction. To grow bigger I have to take more, but when I do not return to the place we live, then others suffer.”

”It’s similar to the way the desert grew with the curse. The undead took and took trying to become some twisted god. But now that the undead are gone, the desert will reclaim the ruins and the undead to create a balance. The dry river will return and that marsh land might return to the way it should be.” Gil’s perspective was on the recent events they had just faced. Naturally so, since that was the freshest thing that gave a perfect example.

”Hmm, I would like to hear more of what was left of those that forced my ancestors to flee. The lands of death and evil seem not too great as we believed. I might look to venture there, to the lands of my ancestors.” a simple peace seemed to grow around the nature craftsman. As if it was a child asking about their grandfather and hoping to see the source of the stories they were told.

”I doubt I could learn much about crafting nature. I’m an arcane archer. That’s the system I have. I learned it from the elves to a degree but the world allowed us a quest to do that. So, I just want to learn a few things to help someone I know that can grow plants and influences seeds like you do.”

With his kind snapping back to the core of why he had been drawn to their nature craftsman in the first place. Gil proceeded to ask his question and state his reason.

”You can share what you see, but maybe one day you can do this too. It just takes the effort to learn. You rely on the wind already to be able to sense things around you. I feel you now, you are learning the actions one vine takes as it grows in to the shape I guide it.”

The nature craftsman didn’t even need to look at Gil to know that Gil was carefully feeling the motions in the wind mana around. ”But you lack everything you need to understand things like this.”

A small sigh escaped the nature craftsman as he finished pulling the vine in to the shape of a short bow.

”You are arcane as you say. But you fire arrows of more than wind. Why do you not learn to sense all of those manas? Why not learn more than what you have a close relationship to? Is it your affinity? Do you believe yourself limited? Would the world and nature truly force you to remain one thing for all of time?”

”Wait, what?” Gil felt that he had just been asked a question that made no sense. Of course he was limited by his affinities.

But, his mind focused on Walker and Midnight who had changed. Even Su had as well due to her binds with others. But Gil couldn’t just do that.

”Now you are starting to think. You should reach out and see what you really are. Try to learn more and help the world to get to the form it intended to be. Release the chains that sat for too long. You claimed the title of hero as well. I can feel it.”

A small laugh was all that the nature craftsman left Gil with as he walked away with the short bow to hand it to another echidna nearby.

Of course Gil was confused but he was also enlightened. Because of Zephyr and his relationship with wind, he had never focused on learning about elemental manas otherwise. He focused on making arrows with them, yea, but nothing other.

However, he could pull the manas from elemental mana crystals already. Why not focus there? That could be his start. Even if he failed everywhere in that respect, he could reach others that knowledge. All he needed was an understanding.

As if to praise this change in mindset, Gil felt the manas around him grow. To be clearer than before. Almost like they were excited that someone was coming home or at least closer to where they were meant to be.

”Alma better be excited to learn about this stuff. I’m either crazy for trying all this or I’m going to be sl sort of genius.” Gil laughed to himself while he started to look around for a good place to train his high elf dagger technique while relying on the mamas around him being drawn in. He might just get to master natural mana without the technique one day. A comical thought at the moment.

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