A True Genius Worries

by Sophia Schmidt

  "What the heck is happening? How does it control the grass? It makes no sense." ¨C

  Lith's and Solus' minds were spinning at top gear, trying to make head or tails of the creature.

  While he was still in a daze, both the grass and the tendrils thawed in the blink of an eye. Like

  fire, water magic seemed to have little effect.

  Without stopping, Lith activated Life Vision again, seeing a blue streak moving like a flash

  through the ground vegetation, following him closely.

  "Solus, what colour is its core? I don't like this at all!"

  "That thing has no core at all. It's just a random mass of energy, I have never seen anything

  like that. I don't remember reading about something that even resembles this thing. It's too

  monstrous to forget." ¨C

  A cold shiver ran down Lith's spine. His first plant monster didn't seem to follow any of the

  magic rules he had learned so far. No core, resistant to ice and fire and capable of controlling

  the vegetation. The only words that could describe his feelings were: fear of the unknown.

  He had spent years learning magic, looking out for stronger cores, but now everything he

  knew had just went down the gutter.

  Even flying backwards in a zig-zag pattern was useless, the blue streak kept tailing him. Lith

  couldn't risk running into a tree, so he moved up and away from the ground.

  From a higher ground, he could see that there was actually more than one streak moving,

  while the mass of vines the red lotus was attached to had turned grey. According to Life

  Vision, only the flower remained coloured.

  Lith's head was spinning in shock.

  "So now the 'main body' is dead and the ground seems a disco ball? But that would mean

  that more than its mana, somehow Life Vision actually perceives its consciousness. That thing

  must be capable of switching bodies at will.

  That would explain how it could control even the grass, and why there is no wildlife at all¡"

  "F*ck us sideways!" Solus cut him short. "The trees! Look out for the trees!" ¨C

  Despite their mind link was instantaneous, when Solus warned him the attack was already

  inbound.

  The bark of the nearest beech had peeled off, revealing to be a mass of vines wrapped around

  the real tree trunk, and now were darting toward the unsuspecting Lith. Before he could turn

  around, they wrapped around his arms and legs, slamming him against the trunk before

  starting to eat him alive.

  Excruciating pain assaulted Lith from all sides, yet he managed to remain conscious with sheer

  willpower. His hands grabbed the nearest vines while he activated one of the spells he had

  created after learning tier four magic.

  Vampiric Touch, a twisted version of the healing spells Vastor had taught him.

  While normally such spells would enhance the recovery of a patient and give him energy to

  survive the procedure, Vampiric Touch would heal Lith instead, draining the victim of its

  energy in the process.

  When the plant monster realized what was happening, it was too late. The tendrils had gone

  too deep, and by clenching his muscles with the help of earth fusion, Lith prevented them to

  escape.

  The dark energy devoured the tendrils, sucking them dry while restoring Lith's flesh and

  vitality. The vines withered at a speed visible at the naked eye, until the fake bark collapsed

  on the ground, revealing that the beech underneath was long dead.

  The creature's consciousness managed to ran away, going back to the main body.

  Lith used Invigoration to recuperate, Vampiric Touch couldn't heal so many deep wounds with

  such a measly meal as a foundation. After that, he shot several Plague Arrows against the

  other trees.

  As soon as they hit, the fake bark fell off. Lith understood that the luscious forest around the

  creature's main body was actually a plant graveyard. Two more Plague Arrows hit the ground,

  even the grass writhed and screeched before dying.

  "I don't know what the heck you are, but you are too dangerous to let you live. Everything has

  become part of your body, and I have no desire to find out how far you control can go."

  Keeping Life Vision always active put a great strain on his body, but Lith understood that it

  was his only chance of making it alive.

  Before going back to the ground, he released from his body a dark aura, the same he had

  used against the Wither in the Trawn woods. The darkness energy attacked indiscriminately

  everything in a ten-meter (33 feet) radius from him.

  The grass withered, the vines hidden underground died, leaving only bare earth around him.

  Only then Lith started weaving his strongest darkness spell, Death Zone.

  A black, thick mist appeared in front of him, resembling a small storm cloud, only twenty

  meters (66 feet) long and wide, around three meters (10 feet) high. After conjuring it, Lith

  needed only a thought to send it towards the creature's main body.

  Like all darkness spells, Death Zone moved slowly, but its destructive power was unmatched.

  It was the perfect weapon against an enemy that could not run away.

  The cloud destroyed everything on its path, while the creature's screeching turned from angry

  to scared, and from scared to terrified. It tried to attack Lith to stop the incoming attack, but

  between Life Vision and the dark aura, none of them came even close.

  He could see every one of them in slow motion, not only because of his heightened senses,

  but also because dark magic would weaken and corrupt everything that entered its range.

  When Death Zone reached its target, the creature recalled to itself all the dispersed

  consciousness, in a last desperate attempt for survival. Yet both Lith and his spell were

  unrelenting, foiling all its attacks the former, ignoring them the latter.

  Whatever mass the monster managed to form, it would only become nourishment for the

  dark energy.

  "Please, stop!" The creature spoke.

  Lith remained unfazed, keeping his guard and letting Death Zone do its jobs.

  "I'm just like you."

  "No, you are not. You are about to die."

  The main body was shrinking, without the necessary energy to sustain that huge form, it was

  reverting to a much smaller plant. An ivy.

  "Lith, now that all the energy is finally in one place, I can finally see its core. It's¡

  "

  "Black." Lith completed the thought for her.

  "It's another Abomination. I understood it when I saw how every life form was dead. This one

  seems to have managed to stabilize itself." ¨C

  "I just wanted to live. I¡"

  Lith didn't let it continue, shooting Plague Arrows like a machine-gun.

  "Two things I learned from horror movies." He explained to Solus.

  "First, never give a sh*t about a monster backstory. No matter how sobbing, it would not

  prevent it to eat you as soon as you turn your back to it. Second, the moment it's down, kill it

  until he is really, really dead." ¨C

  With a last, roaring wail the plant Abomination died. Suddenly the whole space around Lith

  turned into a wasteland. The grass turned into ash, the fake bark decayed leaving only dead

  trees behind.

  Everything in over a fifty-meter (164 feet) radius was identical to where he had fought the

  Wither in the Trawn woods, with only one exception.

  The red lotus lied on the ground, shining bri
ght like nothing had happened.

  Chapter 105 Unwanted Guests

  "Do you see that, mister negative? The flower didn't wither after all." Solus remarked

  cheerfully.

  "You are right! It can still blow up in our faces! Yay!" Lith replied mimicking her tone. ¨C

  Being too paranoid to touch the red lotus with his bare hands, he lifted it with spirit magic

  before unsuccessfully attempting to store it in the pocket dimension.

  "What the heck?" Examining it up close with Life Vision, Lith could notice that along a massive

  mana flow, the red lotus also had a tiny speck of life force.

  Neither him or Solus had any idea how it could have survived after such long exposure to an

  Abomination.

  "This is great. We can't hide it, only carry it around in a normal pouch, with the risk of it

  being destroyed or even worse, discovered when we go back. If this flower is some kind of

  priceless treasure, it could cause us a lot of troubles." -

  Lith sighed, the idea of being forced to drop his first loot was quite depressing.

  "Let me guess, we are above a mana vein, right?"

  "Exactly." Solus replied. "My hypothesis is the Abomination managed to stabilise itself thanks

  to the combined effect of the abundant world energy and that odd flower."

  "Agreed. The only questions that remain are the following. Did it kill everything because it

  needed to feed or was just a way to control the surrounding environment? And last, but not

  least, do plant monsters really exist?"

  "Only the Abomination could answer the first question, and none of us would believe its

  words anyway." Solus mind-shrugged.

  "As for the second one, my guess is yes. Plants are living being too. Seeing how much mana

  has that small flower, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to evolve too."

  "As long this thing doesn't turn to be an Abomination baby and eats my face, that's fine by

  me."¨C He replied, keeping the red lotus floating and away from him.

  Lith was tempted to make Solus turn to his proto tower form. Thanks to Invigoration his body

  was in top shape, but he felt mentally tired. Life and death struggles were more than just

  about stamina.

  Managing so many spells at once, keeping his cool while constantly fighting the fear of death,

  made a single real fight hundred times more vexing than cramming all night long.

  But he didn't know how much time he had left, until someone from the academy noticed the

  bald spot in the forest and sent a scouting team.

  Lith placed his free hand on the ground, using earth magic to search for the remains of the

  Abomination's victims. A few meters below he found a boneyard, where numerous skeletons

  were packed together.

  Lith took only those belonging to magical beasts, ignoring human and animal remains.

  "According to Professor Wanemyre, they can be used to forge weapons and armours of

  superior durability, that can also be infused with enchantments much stronger than normal.

  With all this stuff I could equip a battalion."

  "How the heck does one forge something out of bones? It makes no sense." Solus objected. "I

  get that they can be hard, but they should always be carbon based."

  "Beats me." Lith shrugged. "Cut me some slack, I'm still at the first year of specialization." ¨C

  After storing everything in the pocked dimension, his eyes fell on his battered equipment. The

  hunting suit was riddled with holes as big as a thumb, while his metal bracers were damaged

  to the point of being useless.

  Luckily, he had a spare suit. Sadly, it was also the last one.

  After quickly changing clothes, Lith flew away several kilometres before stopping to decide

  what to do with the red lotus. He couldn't put it in the storage space, nor could bring it on

  himself, for two good reasons.

  The first was that he didn't trust something alive to be so close to his vital organs. The second

  was that even if it really was harmless, the red lotus wouldn't survive in case he had to release

  again the dark aura or any kind of magic from himself.

  No matter how precious it could be, nothing was more important than his own life. As it was,

  the red lotus was an even worse burden than any companion he ever had.

  The only landmark he knew was the academy, so he decided to bury it near the entrance,

  hoping that at his return he would have devised a way to smuggle it inside unnoticed.

  Yet the plan had a huge flaw. Putting a flower near fertile earth was potentially a recipe for

  disaster. What if the Abomination was still alive, and ready to respawn as soon as it had

  enough nutrients?

  Lith weaved all the darkness spells he could use at once, before letting the red lotus enter the

  small hole he had dug.

  Even before the red lotus could touch the ground, it started to grow roots that plunged down,

  while the earth itself moved upwards, oddly reminding Lith the "Creation of Adam" by

  Michelangelo.

  As soon as they touched, the roots became thicker, quickly turning into vines that wrapped

  around the lotus, assembling what it seemed a humanoid body. Lith activated the spells,

  conjuring enough dark energy to turn the whole patch of land into a wasteland, yet didn't fire

  them.

  The Abomination never had a humanoid body, also instead of dying, the near vegetation

  thrived. Countless flower buds blossomed at once, yellow leaves turned green once again.

  Lith strengthened the spells and waved new ones, uncaring of the beauty around him.

  When the thing stopped growing, Lith found himself looking at the most gorgeous woman he

  had ever seen. Her big red eyes sparkled in the morning light like masterfully cut rubies.

  Everything in her visage was perfect, from the delicate features to her full lips.

  She had thick unkempt hair, red like maple leaves during autumn, that gave her a wild and

  unrestrained allure. Also, the fact that she was stark naked, leaving nothing to the

  imagination about her soft and full curves didn't hurt.

  The only thing that betrayed her non-human nature was the light green skin.

  "Just give me one good reason." Lith's fists had now became black due to the massive amount

  of dark energy they barely contained. The air around her was so full of deadly magic that the

  creature in her debilitate state could barely breath.

  "I'm a dryad." She said like it explained it all, with a voice as clear as a mountain spring.

  "I don't care." Lith made the dark energy move forward, not leaving her a way out.

  "I'm one of the protectors of this forest. The monster you have killed stole and corrupted my

  powers to prolong his existence." She was starting to get scared, that wasn't the usual

  reaction she usually evoked in human males.

  "Still not a reason."

  "I can reward you." She bit her lower lip playing her last card.

  "And in what pocket exactly would you keep something of value in your birthday suit?" The

  dark mass only needed one last push to obliterate her.

  "In the Great Mother's name, what kind of man treats this way a maiden he just saved?" Her

  saviour seemed impossible to please, and completely immune to her charm.

  Unfortunately for the dryad, Lith's core had stabilized enough to outgrow even his crush for

  Nalear. In that moment, his heart was cold as ice.

  "One that doesn't think with the head below, and doesn't trust someone he just met only

/>   because she has a pretty face. Now give me one good reason. I won't ask thrice."

  "Because we can help you." Said a third voice.

  Another dryad was slowly emerging from a nearby oak tree, her hands high in sign of

  surrender. Before dropping the red lotus, Lith had activated Life Vision, in case another body

  swapping creature appeared from the flower.

  Hence, he hadn't missed the second dryad arrival, allowing him to target her with the spells

  stored in his hands.

  The new dryad had wheat-blond straight hair, wearing what seemed a light cotton white

  dress, leaving only her delicate shoulders and arms exposed. Her figure was slenderer than

  the other dryad's but not less attractive.

  "If anything happens to me, the read head goes winter." Lith's will was the only thing blocking

  the barrage of dark energy, like a dead man switch.

  The blond dryad took several natural treasures out of the tree. Some Lith had seen in the

  books, others were completely new. But every single one of them, no matter if fruit, flower or

  root was brimming with magical energy.

  Seeing that he was still not moving, the blond dryad brought her left hand to her chest. A

  small yellow lotus came out, and through Life Vision he could see that she had just lost a huge

  part of her magical power.

  "This is part of my heart." She handed it to him. "As long as you have it, my life is in your

  hands."

  "It's true." Solus confirmed. "There is a clear connection between them. It's like she handed

  you her mana core."

  Lith captured the yellow lotus with spirit magic, sending his will through it. Obeying his silent

  order, the blond dryad kneeled. The feeling he got was empowering and repulsive at the

  same time.

  Having that degree of control over another sentient being was plainly wrong.

  "How can you help me?" He felt only truth in her words.

  "We can find a way to mend your soul."

  Chapter 106 Enlightmen

  "My soul? What do you know about it?" Lith was startled by the proposal. He had never been

  a spiritual person, but after reincarnating twice and his meeting with the Scorpicore, not

  having doubts about it would be idiotic.