It was dusk near Yukiat, and the purple sky that gleamed on the ocean horizon was the sign that autumn had arrived.
"It's been a while since I've been to this region at this time of year. The good part is that this grove has some of the best mushrooms for various types of potions on the entire continent." Zhanid commented, but when he looked back, he realized that Klaus was just watching the rustle of dry leaves on the tops of the trees. "Can you imagine the reason for that?"
As if returning from a mind trip, Luke quickly shook his head.
Though his mind was far away, he was hearing the matter at a glance. He always listened to all the side issues, even on busy streets, that's how he survived so long in the Undercity of Oukiwa.
Zhanid smiled. "This region is rich in underground crystals, and somehow fungi can pull these minerals in more easily than trees, but it's not much different from how a Mana Wood is born. Although in this case, it doesn't happen by directly inserting mana into the active tissues..."
These words didn't make much sense to Luke, which once again made the young man irritated at his own ignorance. It hadn't been that long since Luke learned to read, but even so, he felt guilty that he hadn't fully understood the magic book he'd borrowed to read during the trip, as well as Zhanid's endless speeches.
Even after walking through the forest for some time, Zhanid didn't stop talking, until Luke finally found an area full of white fungus, which glowed blue.
Luke decided not to use his Skill <Yggdrasil> to manipulate the roots and remove the fungus, because that would reveal to the old man that he had Gene Skills.
In turn, Zhanid used his magic to manipulate the area's wind, removing the fungi with precise cuts, and quickly creating a pile of mushrooms.
"Shessshw! I'm going to use some of these mushrooms to produce a Light Step Potion. This will be necessary for tomorrow. Have you heard anything about this potion?"
Luke couldn't even imagine what a Lightfoot Potion was, so he just shook his head and said, "I have no idea."
"Hohoho! I don't like riding on boats so much, I get seasick. So I thought along the way and we're going on horseback to the island."
"But how?" Luke then asked the most obvious question, why don't horses walk on water.
Zhanid then laughed excitedly as before. "Hohoho! Well, that's what the potion I mentioned will do. We will give each of the horses a dose of the Light Step Potion so they can freeze every molecule beneath their feet, including the water."
At the time, Luke was impressed because he never imagined such a thing existed.
After that, the old man began to concentrate all the mushrooms, which were flying, into a single point, using what appeared to be wind magic to generate a small tornado that followed him through the woods.
Quickly, Zhanid gathered a mass of mushrooms into a hand-sized sphere. When he finished, the hundreds of mushrooms were gathered in just a two-foot ball, which still emitted the characteristic glow of these fungi.
"Um... We'll still need two more of these spheres like these." stated Zhanid and continued walking while running a hand through his beard, planning something.
Luke couldn't imagine what the old man was thinking. He had just finished clearing the forest mushrooms, why did he want even more?
Also, all these displays of Zhanid's magical abilities made Luke wonder more and more about the Living Library, Megan.
Although Luke had never had the honor of fighting a Sensory Mage, Zhanid's abilities could be on par with one of them. The half-wolf began to think this not because Zhanid showed extreme strength or skill, but rather extreme naturalness with the use of magic without magic circles. Thanks to that, imagining that a young girl would have a magical ability superior to Zhanid, as he himself stated about Megan, was surprising.
'Probably, I'll have to drag that mage out of the Academy, at least to build the artifact. I'm sure the teachers won't let something this powerful be built under their roofs, even with Zhanid supporting me if they find out. And I don't want to cause the girl any trouble either... Aaaahh! Thinking about it sucks!
Zhanid backed away from the young man a little while Luke was lost in his own thoughts, so Luke hurried to get to the side of the old mage who was talking to himself as he stared intently at the forest floor. The floor was now clean, it no longer had that different shine, just keeping the grass and some red flowers.
"Mushrooms are gone here, how are we going to find more?" Luke asked.
Zhanid then turned to the boy and, as he smoothed his beard with his hand, replied,
"We don't need to look for anything, boy. Can't you see where we are?"
Luke frowned.
The old wizard then took his staff from his back, closed his eyes and began to recite an incantation. The tip of his staff began to glow, a vivid yellow. Around the two of them, several bright spots appeared, as if fireflies were magically appearing around them. This glow gradually intensified as small spheres appeared around them.
The words the mage recited were nothing like the language the entire Skoll continent spoke. In reality, the words sounded like a song, but in a different language.
Luke didn't remember at the time, but this language was Elvish, a practically lost language, spoken only by Elves, shall we say, more different than usual. In the past, he had heard this language once, on the busy streets of Oukiwa, but it had been so long since that memory had been somewhere dark in the half-wolf's mind.
Zhanid's enchantment was ended by a phrase that Luke could understand.
"Please bloom!
Then the glowing spheres descended to the ground, illuminating the grass, flowers, and roots of the area. Gradually, the necessary fungi grew in an instant.
It was extremely similar to Luke's Skill <Yggdrasil>, but what Zhanid used was not a Gene Skill, but magic.
Luke's eyes widened, showing his surprise, and then he asked,
"What was that?"
Zhanid then put his staff on his back again, placed one of his hands on Luke's shoulder and patted it lightly while smiling.
"This is a Sacred Spirit Magic, I just made a trade with the spirits and the world balance. My mana for a couple of mushrooms."
The floor was now littered with those glowing mushrooms, much more than there had been before, there was no point in this being just the 'couple of mushrooms' as Zhanid said.
Luke started to think about how big Zhanid's mana would be, and again, how surprising the mage Megan would be, who surpassed him.
A lot of flowers ended up appearing next to the mushrooms and even the grasses were bigger and looked more alive.
The uses of magic were actually much broader than Luke remembered. Seeing the region change in such a few seconds only put more questions in the half-wolf's head.
The two again collected the mushrooms, Zhanid with his strange levitation magic, while Luke manually collected the mushrooms, placing them in a pile. It didn't take long for a larger amount than the previous sphere to be gathered. Thus, Zhanid again concentrated the mushroom mass and created the two other necessary spheres.
After that, the old man took from his belt a strange little vial of blue liquid, which the wizard drank in one gulp and made a sound of satisfaction after finishing.
"Do you want some? Energetic Potion of Manticore Eggs. It helps me stay awake" he offered.
Luke promptly denied it with a disgusted expression. He'd seen a lot of disgusting things in his life, countless of them, but using a monster's eggs in a potion was a first.
Before long, the old mage created a laboratory in the small woods behind the lodge to start making Light Step Potions.
Luke tried to keep up with him for a while, but after a few minutes of incessant explanation about alchemy, the boy got tired and went into the inn to sleep.
Various sounds of glass and liquid could be heard throughout the night, which did not disturb the sleep of the half-wolf, who was still tired from the effects of the curse. Luckily, there were no other guests at the inn, apart from the two half-beasts and the weird professor, so the noise didn't bother anyone.
As the sun rose on the outskirts of Yukiat, birds began to sing in the woods near the inn. The last day of the trip was about to begin.
As soon as the half-fox awoke, she stood up and reached in front of Luke's bedroom door, knocking twice. The sound of wood alerted her arrival, along with the questioning of a quiet voice afraid to wake Luke.
"May I come in?" the girl asked while already opening the door, without waiting for an answer.
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