73 Preparations for the Banquet

[Author's note: This has been a week of editing and revisions.

For those that commented, 'I forgot that it was winter', etc. THANK YOU. Because it's not supposed to be winter in the story at this point in time. I had the impression that it was winter because I was rereading it and I thought the last mention of the season was in Ch. 54 (where it was still winter). However, I actually did a little timeskip in Ch. 61 where it's now spring(almost summer).

Don't worry though, nothing's changed in the story. I just rewrote paragraphs and chapters to keep things consistent.]

The next few weeks were pretty uneventful. I trained with mom, studied with Aerin, sometimes I would read books with Celine. Every now and then, I would also train and try to come up with new ways to utilize my magic. And I think I finally found the best way to utilize the nature magic I have made.

As awesome these close, long, and drawn out, fights are—the ones with equally matched combatants exchanging techniques, blood pumping and adrenaline rushing—I simply don't want to risk my life by dancing along the edge of a blade.

I love my current life too much: my sister, my mother, and my teacher, that I won't risk it by fighting these shounen anime-esque battles with razor thin odds of victory. I won't fight a 50/50, nor would I do a 60/40. Hell, even a 70/30 is way too risky for me. At the very least, it should be a 90/10. NO—I would make it a 90/10 or even a 100/0.

As mysterious and wondrous my magic might be, I can't deny the fact that I grew up in a pretty sheltered environment. I have very little combat experiences and I doubt I'd be able to match people who have been fighting their entire lives.

Experience is an undeniable advantage and underestimating it can be the difference between victory and death. Thus, I refuse to take any chances.

Instant kill techniques, Crippling Debuffs, Healing and Recovery, anything that heavily tilts the balance in my favor—those are the things I want in my arsenal.

And the good thing is, it's impossible for them to be wary or prepare any countermeasures against my spells because they simply have never heard of it. That is probably my single greatest advantage and one that I intended to abuse fully when coming up with my new techniques.

I still use the same principle of instantaneous growth that I already use in many of my spells. However, a little change in it's application made all the difference.

All this time, I've used 'Rampant Growth' to utilize useful plants like the ones that release sedating or paralyzing spores, or those large man-eating venus flytraps and have them instantly bloom in the battlefield. However, I thought that such a technique is too noticeable.

Instead, I better abuse the fact that I can make plants instantaneously grow at will.

Inspired by the concept of pollination, I have a new spell where I would release countless near-microscopic grains—seeds of towering oaks or wicked puncture vine—I grind into dust, finer than ash, into the air where any person could easily inhale or breathe them in. After that, I can easily cast Rampant Growth to make them grown instantaneously into their max sizes, puncturing their lungs and innards in the process.

The seed that I have chosen belong to either a large tree or small thorny briars. And depending on what I want to happen, they can either die instantaneously by having a large tree suddenly grow from within them and pierce its way out of their bodies or a slow, suffocating death where each breath they take will cause them to feel countless pricking sensations as the small thorns that grew inside their lungs constantly scratch and tear, tearing bronchi and rupturing alveoli.

It didn't matter how well trained one's bodies are. So long as they live, they will breathe and there is no way to train or defend their own internal organs from such an insidious attack. Eventually, they would die from internal organ bleeding as blood fills their ruptures lungs.

Best part is, no one will know what happened from the outside unless they did a serious autopsy. There is no outside proof or physical indication of the spell, all the damage is internal. Only the sudden pain and inability to breath, known only to the victim, can serve as proof. To everyone else, they just suddenly coughed up blood and died on the spot.

I've named them 'Splintering Oak' and 'Verdant Hemorrhage' respectively, both within the Rampant Growth series.

The next one is a little different. It doesn't use the same air-borne as my previous two spells, rather it uses something that I remember doing a project on during my elementary days back on Earth: stem cutting—you chop off a stem piece off of another plant, put in water or dirt, then roots grow and a new plant pops up.

Using the same principle, this spell uses sharp splinters and branches to be able to puncture and embed themselves within flesh, specifically access to one's mana circuit.

This specific plant was derived from a certain breed of rose that only grows in areas with high mana density. However, due to me breeding it with another fast growing specie of plant, one that makes the infamous kudzu look like a turtle in comparison, it is now able to feed off of another living creature's mana like an invasive parasite.

It only takes minutes for it to germinate and the bigger it gets, the more mana it drains, causing it to grow even bigger, which then makes it drain more mana, and repeat. The more mana the host have, thee larger these roses proliferate.

In a matter of minutes, the victim will find that ominous violet roses have grown from the stray splinters that hit their skin, no matter how small. And by the time they realized its effects, their mana would have already been sapped dry as the roses grow into baleful bouquet of roses in their bodies.

Once the host's mana had been sapped dry, they will then gorge themselves' off of the host's life energy and vitality. However, they aren't that lethal and would at most, cause them to faint. The effectiveness lies on the fact that these roses cannot be easily removed.

Try pulling them off, and experience excruciating pain as their thorny stems and roots are forcefully pulled out of your flesh. You can't burn them because the wood will serve as fuel to burn and scorch your body.

The only way to get them out is with time, as although I have managed to extend the lifespan of the plants that I use in magic, they still wither after some time nevertheless. However, until the given time limit, the victim can only watch as the parasitic flowers sap away their mana.

This was the conclusion my magic had brought me to — nature warped into horror through the perversion of magic.

I actually feel like there's more ways I can improve on this but I'm still a little lacking on certain areas. For example, one of the theories that I have right now involves the possible use of necromancy. Because when you look at things from an objective point of view, necromancy is as related to souls as it is to the dead.

By focusing on the souls aspect of that magic, rather than placing them in corpses and skeletons, isn't a tree or a plant a more fitting vessel? It's difficult to explain, but a tree is technically a living creature but does not have a soul where corpses are dead and soulless, unable to move without magical aid.

However, the reason necromancy is tied with corpses is because they have a body that can move and do things, unlike a tree which is rooted in place. Whether it be a human, animal, or some man-made abomination constructed by artificially sewing body parts together—they are still capable of movement and getting things done.

That is where my magic comes into play. I can create those wooden vessels that would allow them better movement and even a wider range of abilities. They wouldn't have to become flesh-eating zombies in order to thrive and one of their supposed weakness—sunlight—becomes a strength for wooden beings.

With photosynthesis, they wouldn't have to fear the sun and instead benefit from it instead. It could sustain them instead of consuming flesh. But for now it remains just an idea, unless I can learn true necromancy or soul magic. Combining those arts with my nature magic could yield unimagined possibilities, far surpassing what I have achieved so far.

I can take this concept into much more diverse and complicated ways, but these will remain only a 'concept' unless I'm able to get my hands on necromancy or soul magic.

Not to mention, with Aerin informing me about the concept of mana corruption, dabbling in the arts of necromancy could possibly be a line that one cannot come back from once it has been crossed.

So that brings me to the last spells that I have cultivated. Again, I wasn't one too back off from shameless plagiarizing someone else's move. Since most my techniques already whittle down enemies, one way I can tilt the balance even more into my favor is by outlasting them.

I can send out multiple whip-like thorny vines that can be used as a weapon. However, they can also attach themselves in an enemy and drain their energy before transferring them to me in the form of vitality. Aside from that, I can also ingrain roots into the ground which will naturally absorb the energy from the surroundings and give them ot me instead.

The only problem, is the fact that they are way too obvious and the connection can be cut off. I'm working on a more natural and automatic method of recovery, fully taking advantage of plant's ability to photosynthesize, where I can simply recover vitality by standing under sunlight. But I have yet to come up with a way to do that.

But first, I developed vicious Thorn Apples to better improve the draining whips which I employ. They ooze hallucinogenic nectar from barbed tendrils. Any who taste or ingests the toxic honey become delirious, easy prey for my strangling vines and parasitic roots. As thorns pierce flesh, nerve poisons from Poinsettia and Oleander course through veins, paralyzing muscles while victims are drained and consumed from within.

That was about the basic of the spells that I had recently come up with. Most of these plants don't actually exist in the natural world and was only created by my depraved hyper-evolution of the basest instincts of the botanical world by cross breeding different kinds of species together.

And I could only thank Aerin for listening to my special requests after every lessons, which allowed me to acquire some of the more difficult plants to find. But the encyclopedia that she'd given has worked wonders when it comes to advancing my magic.

* * * *

"What are you spacing out for?," asked Aerin as she sat from across me in the carriage. "Are you nervous?"

I was snapped out of my reverie by Aerin's voice. Instantly, I turned my head towards her. "No, no..it's nothing" I reply, waving it off with my hands.

A month had passed since the day Laurel added me to the list of performers in the banquet and now, the day has finally arrived. I prepared a lot beforehand and part of the reason I've made those new spells in the first place is because I needed some extra layer of security in the banquet. I know that an altercation or a security breach is very unlikely, considering the identities of the guests there, however we can't be too sure on everything.

It is better safe than sorry.

"Who prepared your clothes?" asked Aerin, while eyeing me up and down. "It looks good."

Hearing that, a smile crept up my face. I asked the opinion of my mother as to what kind of clothing would be best suited for such a high-profile gathering. With her experience, she was able to put together a neat outfit that wouldn't look too out of place in the banquet. Celine had some complaints, saying that I look way too good, but I was able to ease off her worries.

"My mom helped me put it together," I reply.

Seeing that, Aerin nodded. "Good for you."

Looking towards Aerin, she was also dressed to the nines herself.

Her face looked even more smooth and spotless now than it usually does. Her wavy golden hair was pulled back lightly and twisted around a ponytail coming out the back of her head. A small section of Aerin's bangs was allowed to drape over her face, reaching down to her shoulders, while another section of hair was brought forward from the back of her head and tied in a long braid which draped over her left shoulder.

On her body, she wore an off shoulder split-colored dress and was almost like a second skin, from how tightly it clung to her body, emphasizing her curves and accentuating her figure.

They often say that clothes makes the man, but who said that it doesn't do the same for a woman? Her clothes really brought into light just how tight her waist was, especially in proportion to her wide birthing hips.

The top was black and loose, showing off her toned arms and just barely covering her full breasts. Two straps connected her dress to a choker on her neck, preventing it from falling and revealing the entirety of her assets, which were practically bursting out of her top From below the waist, her dress was maroon in color, and a large slit on the side gave a devilishly tempting view of her shapely legs and the side of her plump ass.

"I trust that you remember the proper greetings I've taught you before?" Aerin asked. "People there place a lot of emphasis on their image and unruly behavior are among the things they despise the most."

I nodded eagerly, indicating that I haven't forgotten. I feel like even without her teachings, I can at least make it through a gathering without embarrassing myself. I've watched too many movies that I have a grasp of what this 'courteous' behavior is supposed to look like.

My current focus would be to network as best as I could.

In retrospect, I realize that this if the first time in this life that I'm actively going out to make 'friends' and possibly meet people that are actually my age and that's what truly got me nervous.

I was never the outgoing type back in my life. The only reason I can act this way towards Aerin and my family, is because I am very comfortable around them through the years that we've spent together.

Part of the reason I was able to pull of such a convincing nervous and failing act in front of Aerin, is because I know firsthand what its actually like. I actually know the fear of being judged, the fear of making a mistake in front of people, and the fear that they might be talking behind my back.

I could afford to make stupid and awkward mistakes before because I was given the leeway of being a child. However, none of the people I will meet there will give me such a leeway. The innocent act have run its course, and it's about time I take full advantage of the massive head start that I got as a reincarnator from Earth.