Night.
The moon was bright, like a mirror.
When a witcher walked through the Mayena Druid Circle at night, the surroundings were silent and empty of people, yet from behind some clump of grass, shrub, or oak tree, one could always find a pair or two of brightly glowing eyes.
It looked frightening, but most of the time it was nothing more than owls or some other nocturnal birds.
"I never thought that after coming to the witcher world, I'd still have a day where class drags on," Allen muttered to himself, brushing his hand across the scarlet branches of a red dogwood tree.
Perhaps because he would be leaving the Mayena Druid Circle tomorrow to head for the Skellige Isles and carry out the task arranged by the Grand Master, Zebi Ortega had lectured from morning till night, drinking mouthfuls of mountain spring rainwater collected by the druids whenever he grew thirsty.
When hunger struck, Simmons, Olga, and Zebi Ortega each cast spells in turn, using Nature's Gift (you can use Nature's Gift to cultivate a small cluster of edible plants in any kind of soil) to produce berries to stave off hunger.
Only when the night grew deep, the moon hanging high in the sky, and both Simmons and Olga were yawning nonstop did Zebi Ortega reluctantly bring the lesson to an end.
But speaking of the berries produced by Nature's Gift, Allen suddenly recalled something Zebi Ortega had said.
[Self-taught prayer arts are certainly not as powerful as those bestowed by the Mother of Nature. We call the prayer arts obtained from the Sacred Grove divine-granted prayer arts, or primal prayer arts…]
"That is to say, the Boiling Blood, Nature's Sight, Concealment Mark, Beast Befriending, Nature's Gift, and that final prayer art—even Zebi Ortega seemed unaware of it—Plague Curse, are all those so-called divine-granted, primal prayer arts."
"Then what exactly is the difference between a primal prayer art and an ordinary prayer art?"
Allen stopped walking, feeling a stir of excitement.
He had never seen other druids use Boiling Blood, Nature's Sight, Concealment Mark, Beast Befriending, or Plague Curse, but as for Nature's Gift, Zebi Ortega had personally demonstrated it in order to let him clearly see how the strength of natural power affected prayer arts.
Simmons, Olga, and Zebi Ortega himself had all cast it.
"If I remember correctly, the Nature's Gift cast by Simmons, Olga, and Mentor Zebi Ortega all cultivated bilberries."
They were small red fruits that grew on waist-high shrubs, about the size of a little finger.
"The fruit size was about the same whether it was Simmons, Olga, or Mentor Zebi Ortega. But Simmons and Olga both needed bilberry seeds as a medium to cast Nature's Gift, while Mentor Zebi Ortega didn't need any at all. And the cluster of bilberries grown by Mentor Zebi Ortega produced at least ten times more fruit than Simmons and Olga combined…"
Roughly speaking, Simmons's and Olga's Nature's Gift might keep them from starving when there was no food, while Mentor Zebi Ortega's could at least feed three adults.
Moreover, the bilberries grown by Simmons and Olga were sour and rather hard to eat, whereas Mentor Zebi Ortega's were sweet and tart at the same time, perfect for making jam.
Naturally, Allen didn't have any bilberry seeds on hand.
It wasn't that Simmons, Olga, or Mentor Zebi Ortega were stingy.
It was simply that, in their eyes, Allen was still a beginner who had only just entered the path and hadn't even stepped beyond the "grassland" stage yet.
He hadn't learned a single druid prayer art in the conventional sense, so of course they wouldn't give him "casting materials" at this point. Even the pits left behind after eating the fruit—which could naturally be planted and grown—had all been taken away by the three druids.
Allen lowered his head and glanced around.
He had already left the deeper part of the outer ring of the Mayena Druid Circle; after just a few more steps he would reach the tree houses. The surroundings were filled with red dogwood trees grown for ornamentation, their branches vividly crimson. The fruit of red dogwood could be used medicinally, but it wasn't tasty.
"Primal prayer arts should have some special qualities, right?"
Allen thought for a moment. He didn't touch the white fruit growing among the red dogwoods. Just as he crouched down, he suddenly thought of something and stood back up.
After looking around to confirm there was no one else nearby, he walked into the dogwood thicket. After exiting it, he went several dozen steps farther, found a small clearing in the forest, and only then crouched down, gently placing his right hand on the ground.
"O great and benevolent Mother of Nature, you are the mother of all living beings. You are the will of nature; you are life, and you are also decay…"
"I pray for your favor, that hunger may not cling to me…"
Allen hadn't even finished reciting the prayer—he had barely gotten halfway—when he suddenly stopped.
It wasn't because he lacked piety, but because the pitch-black soil before him suddenly began to change…
It trembled, shook, and bulged upward…
Allen instinctively took several steps back.
The dark soil he had touched suddenly began to shimmer with emerald-green magical light.
Then, at a speed visible to the naked eye, a sapling burst from the ground, growing, flowering, and bearing fruit…
In the blink of an eye, it had grown into a full tree bearing at least fifteen hundred fruits…
Bil—No, apples?!!
Bright red, one or two thousand apples the size of a fist hung heavily from the branches.
A rich fragrance of fruit rushed toward him.
Allen: "?"
The feeling was bizarre—like shouting, "Mom, I'm hungry," and before you even finish saying "Mom," a burly woman shows up hauling a pot—no, given the quantity, a whole van—of rice, terrified you might starve.
Wait, don't apple trees normally only bear one or two apples?
How could I possibly eat this many?
No, wait…
How could it be apples?
Allen's mind was in a complete mess.
Did Simmons, Olga, and Mentor Zebi Ortega choose bilberries as a medium because they liked small berries and disliked juicy, full-fleshed apples?!!
No!
It was because they could only choose small berries grown on shrubs like bilberries.
And even bilberries as a variety were the result of druids selecting the best casting medium over decades, centuries, even millennia.
Shrubs and fruit trees were fundamentally two entirely different things.
Allen swallowed, plucked an apple from the tree, and took a crunchy bite. Fresh, sweet, and crisp—it tasted at least ten times better than Mentor Zebi Ortega's bilberries.
To be honest, he was now quite curious about what effects Boiling Blood, Nature's Sight, Concealment Mark, Beast Befriending, and Plague Curse would have.
Unfortunately, it was already very late, and he had more important things to do.
"But what should I do with this apple tree?"
Looking at the plump fruit swaying gently in the wind, Allen felt a bit troubled.
Although he had deliberately gone to a remote spot to avoid alerting other druids, no matter how remote it was, it was still within the outer ring of the Mayena Druid Circle, very close to the residential area.
If Nature's Gift summoned a shrub, there would be no problem—the Mayena Druid Circle had shrubs everywhere.
But an apple tree was far too conspicuous, and Allen hadn't seen a single apple tree anywhere in the Circle.
"Can it be reversed?"
Thinking it over, Allen placed his hand on the rough trunk of the apple tree again…
"O great and benevolent Mother of Nature, you are the mother of all living beings. You are the will of nature; you are life, and you are also decay…"
"I pray for your favor, that—uh—how am I supposed to pray this… I ate too much, please take back the gift?"
Unsurprisingly, the witcher's absurd prayer failed.
In fact, the plants grown through Nature's Gift were real plants; they wouldn't wither away simply because the caster stopped supplying magical power.
In this regard, it was indeed different from sorcerers' magic.
Sorcerers also had similar food-creation spells, but at their core, those merely transformed magic into something digestible.
A druid's magic, their natural power, was only a medium. The plants grown by Nature's Gift were, just as the name implied, gifts from the Mother of Nature herself.
A gift, by definition, had no reason to be taken back.
The Mother of Nature probably never imagined there would be someone who complained that the fruit she bore was too big, too plentiful, and too good…
"Forget it, I'll just leave it here…"
After several attempts, Allen could only give up.
There was no way he could silently make the apple tree disappear. Burning it with the Igni Sign would be far too obvious, and in the end, the apple tree was a gift from the Mother of Nature.
Any destructive measures might even invite divine punishment.
Besides, he hadn't done anything bad to the druid circle. There was no need to make a fuss.
"It should be fine. Who would ever think this apple tree was created by Nature's Gift?"
Comforting himself, Allen scanned his surroundings once more, then quietly left.
Walking back along the path toward the tree houses, the witcher did his best to bury the little "Nature's Gift" incident beneath other thoughts.
"Despite how short our time together was, Zebi Ortega would have been a good teacher even back in my previous life."
That was Allen's evaluation of the half-elf Archdruid.
"It's just a pity that whether or not Zebi Ortega succeeds in his mission to the Skellige Isles, it'll probably be several months before he can return to the Mayena Druid Circle."
"By then, I'll definitely have come back from the Valley of Thousand Monsters to Kaer Morhen—maybe I'll even be the head of the Wolf School…"
At the thought of the Valley of Thousand Monsters, Allen's steps paused again.
The Sorcerers' Brotherhood's expedition to the Valley of Thousand Monsters was bound to take shape.
He estimated that no matter how frequently the Brotherhood convened, or how much they dragged their feet, at most they could delay it by a month.
A month wasn't short—he had only been in this world for a little over ten months—but it certainly wasn't long either. On a long journey, half a year could pass in the blink of an eye.
"The Valley of Thousand Monsters… tomorrow I should ask around about it."
Allen frowned slightly and made a mental note of it.
Of course, the Sorcerers' Brotherhood would provide information, but from what Vera said, Tissaia de Vries seemed to have become somewhat less friendly.
With that being the case, it was hard to rule out the possibility that some petty individuals within the Sorcerers' Brotherhood might cause trouble.
Still, there was no need to worry too much.
Setting aside those Bear School witchers who had lost their emotions due to the Trial of the Grasses, the Griffin School was generous and friendly—information could certainly be shared.
It was just that gathering intelligence oneself was always more reassuring.
The Valley of Thousand Monsters lay in the great canyon east of Maribor, not far from Mayena.
If one were to speak of the traditional sphere of influence of the druid circles, it would be unrealistic to say that it encompassed a deadly place like the Valley of Thousand Monsters. However, living so close by, the Mayena Druid Circle could not possibly know nothing about it.
"As for Vera seeming unwilling to let me join… that's another issue altogether," Allen sighed, walking into the wooden house under the hazy moonlight. "In the end, it still comes down to improving my strength."
"The Valley of Thousand Monsters is not a safe place. Even with the Sorcerers' Brotherhood and other witchers joining in, it won't become much safer…"
"No—more accurately, with the Sorcerers' Brotherhood involved, it might even become more dangerous."
He had not forgotten what had happened to Danthe, Hughes, Bond, and Fred.
Even though the two largest anti-witcher sorcerer organizations—the Ban Ard Academy faction and Rissberg Group's Civil Cooperative Organization—were already crippled, there were still many forces across the Northern Continent that secretly opposed witchers and plotted against them in the shadows.
For Allen, the Valley of Thousand Monsters was an excellent opportunity to develop the Wolf School and expand the Witcher Corps. For those forces hostile to witchers, wasn't it the same?
A perfect and dangerous environment.
By making a few small manipulations in logistics, intelligence, or battle arrangements, they could bury the backbone of the Wolf School, the Griffin School, and the Bear School all together in the Valley of Thousand Monsters.
Putting himself in their shoes, even Allen couldn't deny how tempting that was.
Thinking this way, he removed his leather armor and placed Balmur and Elsa beside the bed within easy reach.
The Mayena Druid Circle was certainly very safe, but he had long since grown accustomed to caution.
Leather armor and a longsword had already become extensions of his body. Without them, it was like a hedgehog without its spines or a lion without its fangs—there was no sense of security at all.
"Hoo—"
Sitting cross-legged back on the bed, Allen let out a long breath.
Strength…
The witcher sighed and began to breathe in a steady rhythm.
At present, there was only one way for him to improve his strength as quickly as possible…
Darkness fell before his eyes, then light returned.
He heard the forest singing.
Brilliant sunlight pierced through the dark green leaves of the oak trees in the middle of the night, scattering speckled patches of light across the ground.
He had arrived at the Sacred Grove.
"As expected," Allen thought, experiencing the sunlight, wind, leaves, and trees—so different from reality, yet filled with rhythm. "After leaving the grassland and becoming a true druid, entering the Sacred Grove again really doesn't send you back to the 'grassland'…"
He turned around.
Aspen trees with gray-white trunks stood tall, their golden leaves rustling softly in the forest breeze, spreading a golden carpet across the ground that formed a clear boundary with the oak forest.
That was the druid's next realm—Aspen.
The witcher took a deep breath. Without any further hesitation, he stepped onto the golden carpet.
There was no obstruction at all—only a series of cold system notification sounds…
[Ding! Detected a fluctuation of the Mother of Nature's will. Do you accept the divine art "Primal Calling" bestowed by the Mother of Nature?]
…
[Name: Primal Calling]
[Type: Veteran Druid Divine Art / Prayer Art]
[Active Effect: You may use primal potential to develop and awaken a target's primal power. During the duration of the prayer art, the target gains enhancements to Strength, Agility, and Constitution, but suffers reductions to Perception and Mysticism.]
…
[Ding! "Attribute: Constitution" has reached Limit · Initiation. Please seek an opportunity to complete yourself.]
.......
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