She closed her eyes and focused. The piece of mineral her hands were touching began to jiggle in a way a piece of solid rocks shouldn’t be able to. It stretched like a putty, texture changing in a mesmerizing way, before finally settling into the shape of a sword.

“Well… damn. That was awesome!” I exclaimed once my companion was done creating the weapon.

Willow let out a sigh and said, “Good. It’s a sword. Wasn’t sure if it would work on the first try.”

She then handed me the sword, which I gratefully took.

“Okay, my turn! Turn me into a cute girl as you did with yourself!”

She stood up from her rock-molding project and frowned. “I have a limited charge, and it comes back really slowly. I need to use it wisely.” She pointed at me. “Moreover, like I said, I don’t know for sure what it would do if I used it on you. You’re plenty cute already, so what if it turns you ugly instead?”

“Aww… I’m sure it wouldn’t…” I pouted, once again a little happy to be called cute.

Willow shook her head. “RIght now, I wanna conserve my charge to make useful things. Like expanding the farm. It’s not big enough to feed us both yet, you know?”

“Okay…” I said with a drooping voice.

On one hand, it felt nice to be called cute. On the other hand… I had a feeling her using the ability on me would have an amazing result.

“Look… I can try it later. But for now, we gotta make sure we won’t starve during winter.”

“Alright, fiiine. I’ll wait then.”

“Now… you go collect food and seeds, and I study the texts in the meantime, sounds good?” she asked, trying to act placating.

“Alright! Collecting stuff is my specialty!” I cheered, raising the sword above me.

“But only food and seeds, alright? Remember rule number two.” We began walking toward one of the tunnels.

“Yeah yeah! I got it.” I rolled my eyes. “Still, I can’t believe you can understand those squiggles.” I waved my hand at the text on the walls.

“They are not squiggles! And like I said, I’m only a beginner at Japanese.”

She’d surprised me when she’d said some of those texts on the walls were also in Japanese and that she could read some of it.

“Well, that makes me two tiers below even a beginner. What would that be? A negative beginner?”

She sighed through her nose as she shook her head. “Anyway, good luck. I hope you find something we can grow even inside.”

We reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t the one I had initially entered through, but it still had the same gate blocking our way.

Willow stepped forward and touched it, and just like magic, the gate opened automatically.

“I still think it’s discrimination that it opens for you, but not for me,” I grumbled under my nose.

She simply shrugged instead of replying. “Don’t forget to knock three times to let me know you are back, I’ll be hanging around here to decipher the text.”

“Yeah yeah, I know.” I walked outside and then turned around to give WIllow a little wave. “Well, see you later then!”

She nodded and the gate closed between us again.

Well, some alone time again. Just kidding.

I called upon Chad again and had a short discussion with him.

“Hey Chad,” I said, crossing my arms with a frown.

“It’s a small world, isn’t it? The first person I met was another reincarnator. What are the chances? Must be like one in a bajillion.

I frowned.

“Or you know what? Maybe everyone in this world is secretly a reincarnator! Damn, that would be one heck of a plot twist!”

I eyed my stony companion. “Are you one as well?”

He didn’t respond. Very suspicious.

“Well, it doesn’t matter! It just means that I’m probably not gonna be the destroyer of the world or whatever.” I shrugged.

“Sooo…” I looked around this part of the endless forest. “Which way should I go? I would say everywhere looks the same to me, but that would be forestist. Any ideas, Chad?”

Chad said nothing and instead kept looking in the same direction.

“That way, huh? Alright, sure. You are the pro here.” The elven hero climbed back into my pocket dimension and I set off. “Onward!”

Just as Chad had predicted, I found plenty of fruits along the way. This time, I also collected ones I didn’t know and even a few of the ones I knew were poisonous. Why? Well, I had my hopes Willow’s ability could do something amazing to them. Maybe.

At some point on my collecting adventure, I ran into a very pretty tree. It stood tall among the others, leaves dancing in the wind, orange fruits glowing with power…

“Oh, a mana tree!” I realized.

Although I’d never seen one up until now, I’d been told about these rare trees overloaded with mana. Apparently, their fruits were not only delicious, but they could also restore the user’s mana.

“Perfect!” I happily exclaimed and climbed the tree without hesitation.

My hopes were that maybe I would finally gain some mana capacity by eating the fruits. If it worked, then I would finally be able to use magic! The true fantasy adventure experience awaited me!

I made it up the tree using my amazing climbing skills, sat on a branch, and plucked one of the fruits. It kinda looked like a blueberry. Except… not very blue, and as big as an apple.

But that didn’t matter to me. As soon as I was done staring at the delicious-looking fruit while salivating, I bit into it.

I immediately felt the power course through me. My eyes lit up, and a grin formed on my face.

“Hahaha! Power!” I laughed maniacally.

I immediately decided to test my newfound powers, completely disregarding my surroundings. I extended my hand towards the neighboring tree and let out my mighty fireball once again.

And just as always, the little spark jumped from my finger, and fizzled out of existence before it could even dream of lighting anything on fire.

My mana reserves were empty once again.

“Oh, come on!”

I had been ripped off. Tricked. Bamboozled.

But I couldn’t really complain. The product did exactly what it said it would. It restored my mana… The little mana I could hold with my crappy mana capacity.

I grumbled to myself while biting into the fruit again with vengeance. Once again, it fully restored my pitiful mana pool.

Once the scammer fruit was destroyed, I collected a few more of them for Willow and climbed back down, still grumpy.

I decided to go back for now and tell Willow about my findings. Heck, maybe the mana fruits also restored her ability’s charge, and then she could use it on me!

A smile reappeared on my face and I marched forward with my renewed hope.

But then I realized… “Wait… Which way did I come from, again?”

I looked around carefully for anything familiar, but all I saw was more of the same forest.

I slumped with a sigh.

“Chaaaad, which way do I goooo?” I looked up at the elven hero who’d climbed out of my dimensional bag a second ago.

Once again, he simply kept staring in one direction and I couldn’t do much but follow it.

BottledChaos

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