Walker found that the group split up faster than he would have expected them to do. But this was the first time that someone had seen through all of them. Their goals seemed to be on perfect display. The fact that the party valued all life and just wanted to unite the echidnas with the other races was right there in the open.
"This is kind of different from how things have gone with other races." Walker found himself with the elder echidna. He was still unsure what the mans' name was and what he would do from here. But he wanted to learn.
"At my age, I have been able to see more than many could. Even though my eyes have become like this, I still see every single movement. Every desire. And even some other odd things now and then." Walker easily caught on that the elder was speaking about his ability to sense mana. That the elder used that in place of his eyes.
"I have been alive for the last ninety three years. When I was a child, the elders were a group of four. Now they have shed their last skin and returned to the natural flow. Their trees are growing tall and strong. Their vines reach up to the sunlight that we bathe in as children. It is a true flow that brings us great connections to the lands we walk. Their spirits may show us a true path to nature's secrets."
From this, Walker began to understand the lives that were lived by the echidna. The beliefs within their species and within nature took the lead. They had believed so much in their nature goddess that they had begun to find the best way to be closer to it. In death, they would be buried with a tree that would grow and represent their spirits. But because of this, there would be a memory of them for the youngest to remember.
The elders would pass down these important lessons and traditions bringing every generation closer and closer to what they would believe to be the center of all that was the world. That was the will of the world or nature itself. Just being able to gain this closeness brought them a sense of fulfillment.
"You are not the only sage. I can see that you are trying to wrap your mind around the way that mana does here. It is very abundant. Nature's mana that is." The elder seemed to chuckle in his raspy hissing voice again. His movements were slow in the more humanoid form, but they had purpose in every step.
"It is more than I am used to. I would say that it is because so many of your people seem to be able to use the natural mana around. But I think it is just because over so many generations, the jungle has become a perfect balance. Just setting foot on this land, I felt it."
"The call of nature. The whispers of how to grow. How to flourish. How to accept the manas that gather. I know that feeling. When I first felt it, I was six years old. From that moment, I began exploring and isolated myself deep within the caverns. I grasped how the water comes below. How the roots drive down in to the stone and absorb the water that is filtered in the earth. How it travels through the plants. Evaporates within the air and the sun."
"Later it rains down and the darkness allows the earth to take it back in. an interesting flow that allows the jungle to blossom over and over. But one of many flows that can cause one to grow closer to nature.
"One as young as you are well ahead of what others should be able to do. But you are in disarray." Walker hesitated. He was still trying to understand how the elder was able to see all of this without actually seeing.
"Do not worry. I am walking you through my home and my people so that you can learn as you wish to. But you need to stop trying to branch out so much. You should condense. Skills are amazing. They are. Many elemental manas are fused and come together. But you are keeping yourself separated."
Saying that the elder echidna saw more than what Walker had thought would be a massive understatement. It was easily just the surface that Walker had thought that the elder had grasped. Yet the elder saw the main problem plaguing what Walker was handling right now.
The fact that Walker was having trouble keeping all his skills in line. That Walker struggled with what movements, attacks, defensives, anything in general to learn and use were clear. It had made him nervous and much more stressed than before.
"I was thinking about that. But I lack the skill to condense my skills. I also need to learn about spatial mana more. Death mana, life mana, and even time mana which seems to be impossible. I need to learn it all so that I can figure out what I can and can not do." Walker's energy seemed to be drained just talking about it out loud for the first time.
"If I can't learn these things, then what will happen when I find the demons that aren't even demons. They are basically monsters trying to destroy and potentially kill everything and everyone around. If I can't get strong enough to counter their mastery skills, which I can't use, then how will I be a true hero?"
These doubts had plagued Walker lately. These thoughts of needing to grow even more but being incredibly limited by what he could and could not train at the time. "You are young and you have time. While the mana may shift towards good or evil, it is a natural flow. Just forget that you have reasons to spread out. There are paths you can take."
"You may speak to one of the young ones. She was born uniquely. Only one in every other generation may be born as she is. You may also find other paths. But you may never reach higher understandings of larger manas. Of larger laws of existence. You are too spread out and can not understand what natural mana really is. What nature really is."
What Walker felt like was happening was that he was being given both advice and reprimand. For trying to branch out and understand the most complicated manas that not many could grasp. Even the fact that he was able to use some of these manas right now was insane in a way.
The life mages were able to gain these systems that guided them. Walker lacked that. He was a jack of all trades. He couldn't just grow the same way as others. He had to grow in his own way. He had not done this lately. Instead, he had looked at others and learned something here and there. But even that had stopped since he had been fully focused on strengthening himself and the party.
"So I should step back and-" The elder was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Walker found himself in front of a somewhat larger hit. One that was made with a larger opening covered by a vine door.
The other nearby huts were smaller but they were busy enough for Walker to understand that it was a very popular place in the village. A place where many would come to sit and speak or to trade what they worked on. Some were braiding ropes or created baskets from the vines that grew around.
Others clearly prepared fruits and other game that they had hunted. All of this was normal, it made Walker relate the echidnas to the rabbit demi-human caravans that would only make a village in the winter months. However, this had an entirely more mysterious feeling around it.
"Please come in. We can speak with you as much as needed. The elder warned me that we would have visitors. I didn't think he meant that one would be coming to speak with me though."
"Or me, we both thought that you would not come to us. Well me. Well us?"
Both voices were nearly identical. But for some reason, they seemed to be confused and also united. It put Walker in an odd spot where he felt that he was intruding. However, when he took a deep breath and walked inside the dimly lit hut, he was met with another echidna in a serpent form.
This one was pale pink in hue. A set of scales that would not be able to handle harsh sunlight. This was to the thing that Walker focused on though. He focused on the fact that the echidna he was looking at had two heads. A dual headed echidna.
….
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