- Earth Ring
[Rat Monsters x12 killed]
[Level up x3]
[Level 15 / 50]
After a few more hours of walking, I make it back out of the city and into the forest again. Honestly, I feel so much more at peace here. As a human I definitely prefered the city over nature, but the me now definitely prefers nature. The second I step back on the grass I feel a power rush over me. The mana in the forest increased a lot over the last day!
[The mana will continue to increase more and more over time. Mainly in naturally occurring places.]
I can tell. It's nearly doubled since yesterday. I guess I didn't notice before since I lived in the forest so my body just naturally adapted to it. It feels as though a nice cooling wind comes across my body. I give my body just a second to soak it in before walking towards the world tree. As I near the tree, I sense something coming up to me from the tree. It's the dryad. She seems to be going through the roots of the plants around us to greet me. Eventually, I see a flower in front of me start growing until it blossoms and the little dryad comes out.
"Hello again, your majesty."
"Hello little dryad."
I give her a warm smile. This little dryad feels like she's my little sister now. Even though we haven't known each other for that long, I feel a deep connection with her. I let her sit down on my head as I walk towards the world tree. I spend the time of the walk talking with her about the state of the city, as well as the humans I met and intimidated on my trip. I tell her that I told them to leave the city, to which she gives me a frown and hits my head saying,
"That was a stupid thing to tell those humans, Adam!"
"W-what do you mean? I just told them to leave the city! It's not like I told them to go towards the world tree. Hell, if I were them I'd avoid the world tree since it seems like the perfect place for strong beings like you and I to live."
"Not all humans think like you! It's safe to assume that any person that's not you is an idiot!"
"I do remember learning that when I got my drivers license… But that doesn't apply the same way as a monster infested Earth where everything wants to kill humanity."
"Monsters don't just want to kill humanity, they want to kill everything besides other monsters."
After a long process of trying to get the little dryad to stop chastising me, I eventually ask her the question,
"Little dryad, what's your name?"
"Hmm? I actually don't remember my name from when I was human. I do know that I didn't really live a life that could be considered normal. I remember being locked up in an area surrounded by plants since I was young, and that the plants were always my friend. My guess is that some group of people found my proclivity towards plants as something very useful. I don't believe they ever gave me a name though. You can call me whatever you like!"
I think for a while. If I were still human, I may have been surprised by her statement before. But honestly, I know magic actually exists and I've become a giant lizard. I'd believe a god was real at this point.
"Hmm. How about Willow?"
As I say that, I feel a lot of mana leave my body and rush into the little dryad. It looks like a bunch of waves of green gas coming from my body is rushing over hers. I feel my first heart going empty and my second one nearly doing the same!
[Dryad named: Willow.]
[New subject obtained.]
"Y-your majesty!"
She looks down at me from her spot on my shoulder with tears in her eyes as she tries to wrap her little arms around my neck in a hug. I feel my connection with her deepen even further, feeling more like a father to her than anything. I turn into my human form to let her actually hug me. I wrap my arms around her and carry her all the way back to the world tree. As we get back, I realize that she fell asleep on the way there. I guess even if she acts more mature than others now, she still is a kid. I lay her down on the bed of golden leaves in the center of the tree and change back to my drake form, wrapping myself around her. After that, I start trying to bring mana back into my body to replace the magic used to name Willow.
"What exactly did naming her do?"
[It lets you access her status screen, turned her into one of your subjects, and gave her more strength.]
"Let me see her status."
-----------------------
[Status:]
[Name: Willow]
[Race: Dryad Queen]
[Title: The First Dryad, Dryad of the World Tree, Gaia's Child]
[Level: 52 / 130]
[Class: C-rank Boss]
[Domains: 1]
[Mana Heart: 1st - 2 Life rings, 2 Earth rings, 1 Water ring]
[Inherent Magic: Nature magic]
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Oooh, she's pretty tough actually. I'm guessing that me giving her a name made her become a boss?
[Yes, it boosted her from a low C-rank to a high C-rank.]
Hm, so when I name something I just basically make them stronger?
[Pretty much.]
Alrighty, good to know. After about an hour, my mana has recovered. I start sending the mana around my heart in a circle. I feel a bit of a burning sensation in my head as the mana wraps around my mana heart. I see the line of mana slowly shift from its natural green to a dark brown color. Similar to the bark of the world tree. Soon, the mana around my heart starts to harden as I see crystals start to flow around the ring. The crystals start spreading throughout the ring, dotting it like leaves flowing down a river in the middle of autumn.
The leaves begin to create a bed flowing on the top as the crystals fill the ring from the outside in. Then, as I assume the last part of the ring crystallized, a blast of cold shoots through my whole body starting from my head.
[Earth ring (dim) created.]
I open my eyes and breathe out a cloud of cold air laced with light green energy.
"Ahhhhh. It feels like I blasted myself with a can of air."
The cooling sensation stops finally as I peer back in towards my mana heart. A dark brown crystal is spinning around it. As I start trying to send mana into the crystal I get a freezing sensation in my head as the mana shoots into the ring, crystallizing instantaneously as it touches the ring. It's the complete opposite of the sensation when creating the ring. I feel as though I ate an entire tub of ice cream in like a minute. My head aches as the mana keeps surging in.
[Warning, your ring may overload soon. I suggest you cut off the flow.]
I try as hard as I can to shut it off, but it's like trying to dam a river with cotton candy. As the sensation starts to become unbearable, I sense a warm hand touch my forehead. I feel the flow go from torrential to a gentle flow as half of it starts to dissipate somewhere else. After about half an hour I feel another blast of cool air wash over my body. I can finally breathe, as I have control over my mana once again. I open my eyes and see Willow holding her hand on my head. Her hand is nearly frozen solid. I very quickly cast a light warm fire and wrap her hand in it.
She gives me a weak smile and says,
"Thank you."
I guess redirecting another person's mana is taxing. I lay her back down on the leaves and make a warm blanket of fire on top of her.
[Congratulations! You managed to skip the 'Litten' stage of the ring and went to the 'bright' stage. While this isn't exactly rare for beasts, not many actually survive the process without monsterizing. It will take much more time to reach the 'glowing' stage. At least so long as you don't open the flood gates again. The next time you do that, you will most likely die or monsterize. Instead of dragging the mana from outside of your body and directly into your ring you have to take the mana from one of your hearts into the ring. The mana becomes diluted as it enters the heart, becoming usable mana.]
"You should have told me that before I tried it!"
[Indeed, I should have. I'll make sure I do so from now on.]
Not feeling up to pressing this issue too hard, I try the correct way to power up my ring. When I try it out, I don't get that awful freezing sensation. In fact, I don't get any sensation. It feels just like I always do except I'm just focusing on something extremely hard. After a few hours of trying it out, I finally get to a stage where I can move around while also upgrading my ring. Ellie informed me that this wouldn't be the best idea to try out while in dangerous areas, but I figured if anywhere is safe it's definitely the world tree. Mainly because I'm most likely the scariest thing on Earth right now. Besides whatever lives at the bottom of the ocean.
I spend the next few days attempting to get the Earth ring to glowing so that I can make completely certain that my footing will be solid on the mountain. Whenever I start upgrading my ring I can feel my understanding of the Earth rise. Before I wouldn't even be able to tell you what ground is steady enough to walk on, but now I can tell you what soil is good enough to grow food in vs regular soil with just a glance! I can tell pretty much every single type of rock, metal, and mineral apart easily now! I'm a rockstar! Alright that was a cringe joke. Aaaaaanyways, I haven't made much progress in the ring the past few hours. Mainly because I have a little dryad getting bored and poking me every now and then. After recovering, she seemed to grow into her "annoy people" phase that all kids go through. Luckily though, it seems like the first few days of peace paid off.
[Congratulations! You have upgraded your Earth ring to the 'glowing' phase! This unlocks many new things for you, but the big one is that it unlocks new evolutions for your next one!]
"Ah neat, I'm guessing it's something like an Earth dragon that it unlocks? To be honest, I have an idea of what I want my next evolution to be already, and I need to unlock all of the rings before I can do that!"