That magnetic draw is back, this time pulling me northwards. "Ah, well. I'll go scope out the situation and consider how to handle it." I feel a thought at the edge of my awareness, apparently the trees are conversing among themselves, but hadn't quite pulled their telepathy away at the moment they started. I tap a knuckle against my temple, then walk onward, following the quest marker.

The trip north is an inverse of my easterly trip into the forest, the trees gradually growing shorter on average and further apart along the way. As I walk Sapph occasionally flits about, looking around curiously, but always staying nearby. We don't spot any other Sprites, but I keep my attention on her to be safe. We do however see a few other odd creatures as we move.

Such as a, two meter at the withers, dark brown deer creature with long blade like antlers. Each antler starts off thick at the base, but splits into three prongs that sweep back slightly without spreading to the sides. And the points and forward edges look quite sharp.

Despite its Swift Runner skill and high agility, it doesn't try to flee as I walk by. It definitely notices me, turning to look while chewing on a branch. It just doesn't seem to care. And I don't attack it because it, doesn't feel like a monster? Probably an animal instead.

I'm not sure why I feel that. By sight, a deer with bladed pitchfork horns sounds like a monster. And nothing in its status indicates that its a normal animal. But that is still my impression. I slow down and look back at it, trying to use spiritual perception to see if its soul strikes me as anything different. 

Looking through its body reveals that its soul is, much smaller than its body. A small white replica of the Ampagu, just a bit bigger than Sapph really. "Thats, nothing like my soul." Comparing my full sized misty black and colorfully speckled spiritual body with the solid looking white soul of the animal makes an odd contrast. "For that matter, I didn't even look at any of the monsters' souls before. Still this warrants further investigation."

I shake my head then face forward and pick up the pace, now going for a run instead of walking. Despite being rather relaxed as I go, I feel like the pace is pretty good. This is about as fast as riding a bike huh? Despite my increased speed, Sapph easily keeps up even while flitting about to look around.

After running for twenty minutes or so, I notice something else. "I'm not getting tired." I mull it over a bit. "Come to think about it, what even powers us Automatons?" It could be magic, but Mana is an energy I generate and use for other things. Vitality or VP is the same. Is it something the System just grants? But other things clearly need to take in energy. "Is it SP then?" I scan myself, finding that my SP is at 180/260. "Ack! So I have been burning energy."

I slow down gradually, then come to a stop. I watch closely to see how quickly SP recovers. It seems to be about one point every three seconds. Not bad, and I did actually have to exert myself to have it dip low enough for me to notice. So it shouldn't be a major issue. But. "Artificer, can you, research batteries?" {Research Electrical Storage Component (Y/N)} "Do we even use Electricity? . . . Eh, just do it. I'll see if that works. Oh, and I guess, Solar Panels too. To charge the ESC without using SP. Wait, Solar Panels are SP too huh?" I laugh melodiously at my own joke, and Sapph, expresses joy and spins in a little circle at the sound.

{Research Solar Power Converter (Y/N)} Yes. {Total Research time 60 hours}

"You like laughter do you? Or, is it just my laughter because my voice box makes me sound musical?" She flies in close and smiles at me, though of course she doesn't give a verbal response. "Right." I give a lilting sigh. Then I start walking again, making sure not to rush and drain my energy again when I'm about to head into a fight.

I continue on until I reach the edge of a scorched and deserted clearing. "Whoa, that doesn't look good." Sapph lands back on my head as I look further into the clearing. Its a space about a hundred meters across and more or less circular. At the center is an unpleasant looking tree. Its maybe five meters tall, and half as thick, giving it a short, squat look for a tree, despite being reasonably tall. The trunk is nearly featureless up until the last meter, where it has eight branches, if you can call them that, each with, an eye under it? Large and with red vertically split pupils.

The branches are odd in that they are rather long and thin for the girth of the trunk, and they have a fibrous, almost sinewy material up half their lengths. They also hang down a ways instead of rising up over the bulk of the trunk. And the leaves are the same fire ball shape as the Balm trees from before, excepting the color, a bright red. Despite all those strange details the thing that bothers me most is, "Why does that tree have pine cones and fruit?!" I stop and think. "Well, Balm Cones I guess. Still. . ."

The fruit in question look like tomatoes, only greasy black and almost the size of a basketball. The cones look much more normal. Closed and segmented, and small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. I sigh and scan the strange plant, already assuming that this is my target.

"Ah, that explains it. Cones are for reproduction, fruit are for attack." I think a moment then throw a Deep Scan at it. [Napalm Balm: A yearling example of the most common, and most dangerous, variant of monstrous Balm tree. Due to its high Fire Resistance, it can use its Fire Magic and flammable fruits and sap with impunity.]

I consider things a moment, then pull the base model Automaton out of my Components Warehouse, I set it down an extra ten meters outside of the clearing, then remove the pouch with Sapph's gemstone in it from my neck and move to set it with the Automaton, but Sapph flies into my face and expresses irritation. Its enough of a jumble that I can't keep up. "Ahh~ C-Calm down. I'm just leaving a spare body for myself and your true body out of that thing's reach before fighting it."

She crosses her arms and taps her foot, despite being in midair. Then she expresses a feeling of loneliness, not wanting to be left alone. "I'm not leaving you behind, you can come with me." A flat denial. "What do you mean?" Her foot taps again, and I get the impression that she wants me to think about it.

"Uuuuu? . . Oh. Can you not get very far away from your gemstone?" She is elated for a moment, glad that I caught on, before abruptly turning stern again and nodding. I think about how far she had flown around earlier, maybe ten meters? Probably less.

"And I suppose you don't want to hang back while I fight?" She shakes her head. "Alright. Mmm. Guess I'll try to fight it from back here? Magic is good for ranged combat. Not sure I can do that so easily yet." I put the pouch back on my current neck and re-store the extra body. Then approach the edge of the clearing.

"Fire plant. . . Water? But its also a plant. . . Yeah. Gotta try water." Aqua Shot alone won't go that far. So I draw out sixty points of mana converting it to water mana, then swirling it around and condensing it, or more accurately, pressurizing. "Triple power, high pressure, and, what else?" After a split second of thought, I increase the spin on the mana, hoping to add the rotation to the spell, then I fire it at the closest eye on the Napalm Balm. "Aqua Shot!"

The resulting stream of water is a centimeter thick and shoots forward in a straight line for as far as I can see. My aim was a bit off, piercing through the trunk half a meter below the eye and a bit to the right, but also blowing straight through the tree with a loud noise. It also had a surprising amount of kickback. Knocking me away a meter and onto my backside. Sapph flits up and looks down at me.

I quickly recover and look at the Napalm Balm. Its eyes are looking around, focusing and unfocusing wildly in an unsettling manner. It spots me, the few eyes that can see in my direction focusing at me, then it starts swinging its branches, lobbing some of the large disgusting fruit my way. And following up with small bolts of flame. They don't reach me outside of its clearing, but the splatters of igniting liquid puts on quite a show.

Scan shows that it has less than two hundred HP left after that shot, so finishing it with the same move should work juuust fine. But I hesitate, waiting to see how quickly that Slow Regeneration skill heals it. Seems to be one point every three seconds? So, at rank one it would be one point every ten seconds? A useful addition. Not so sure about some of those other skills though. . .

I charge up another sixty points of mana, condensing, rotating, and converting to Water Mana all at once, as well as releasing twenty points worth of Wind Mana to try and cushion the recoil. Then I take aim, trying to account for my previous misfire. "Aqua Shot!" The result is nearly the same. The Wind Mana didn't seem to do anything with how I used it, there must be some trigger for activating magic I don't understand yet. So I fly back again. But this stream jets straight for the eye. Even piercing a flying fruit on the way, the fruit splattering away from the high pressure attack makes it look even more impressive.

[Skills Water Magic 1›2, Mana Control(External)4›5]

I hop back to my feet and look closely at the monster. "Alright, is it dead? Scan." {Generating Blueprint: Autoflora-Napalm Balm type} {Blueprint requires tier four components} {Attention, multiple research subjects required to create Autoflora-Napalm Balm type} {Add; Leaf type Solar Power Converter, Nutrient Absorption Process, and Nutrient Conversion Process to research queue(Y/N)} "Am I just supposed to build an entire mechanical ecosystem? But fine, yes. Better to do research than to leave it sitting." {Time for current research topic and queued research topics 200 hours}

[Quest Completed: Slay the Rogue Tree]

I shake myself off lightly, then walk into the clearing, skirting wide around the still flaming pools of oil like fruit juice. Up close to the Napalm Balm, I see a similar black oil seeping from the holes I put in it with the pressurized aqua shots. Kinda gross. But at least it hadn't used fire magic close to itself. "Alright, how do I get a magic stone out of this? Heart, wood?" My best guess given that the other monsters had their stones in their hearts is that the tree's might be deep in the center of the trunk somewhere.

I knock on the trunk, considering how to get into the tree to look for the stone. Sapph flies up and grabs hold of a small branch. Or, maybe more of a twig? Once she manages to break it off it looks about like a staff in her hands. "Oh, can you use that as a magic focus?" She conveys, not just an emotion, but a simple idea. Not yet. She still wasn't projecting words, but it seems like progress. "No? Well, we'll have to figure that out. . . Mm, maybe I should take one too?"

I set my basket aside then jump up and grab ahold of one of the larger branches, which bends down a fair ways, then just, hang there. "Not, quite how I saw this going." I draw out some mana, then cast air slash at the branch right at where the sinuous material ends. The blade of wind shears right through the branch, then I along with it drop back to the ground. After that I cut the smaller branches away with my sword, leaving me with a staff a bit taller than I am. Might need to carve it down a bit more, but I'll get to that later.

I focus my mana perception on the tree. I sense some magic from near the roots, though the whole area lights up instead of just one point. So in order to narrow it down, I try a sort of magic echolocation. Sending out a pulse of my own mana and watching closely to see where it won't move easily, since Magic Stones reject outside mana.

That gives me a fairly clear impression of where it is. Off to the side, embedded about ten centimeters into the wood. I walk to the right spot, then carefully shave layers off of the wood until the magic stone is exposed, then I wedge my sword into the tree to pry it out. This magic stone is red, and a bit less transparent compared to the ones I've seen before. Scan shows it as [Magic Stone: Fire Attribute E-Rank]

"Next rank up! What difference will that make for an automaton? Guess I'll find out." I drop the stone into the basket, then pick the basket itself back up and put it on again. I secure the incomplete staff between the basket and my back. At that point I hear something from the edge of the clearing. Probably a branch breaking. I turn to look and see.

Another Ampagu? But even taller, a richer, almost chocolaty brown, and its antlers have an almost metallic sheen and an extra pair of prongs compared to the other one, these prongs curving forward around its head then spiking up at the forehead, almost giving the impression of a crown? This one's height is probably three meters at the withers. At this point it almost looks like someone crossed a Deer with a Giraffe. Naturally, I scan it.

"Why do you need to be that fast?!!" While I'm busy freaking out about its Agility stat, I pick up a faint telepathy, like an echo on the wind, instead of the thunderous voice it was before. 〈The Prince means no harm. We have sent him to speed your passage back to the forest's heart. Please, collect the Cones from the corrupted tree and bring them back to us〉 "They don't just want them destroyed? Ah, I guess they did say this one was just too far for them to control, so if the seeds are planted closer they could?"

I shrug it off and go about collecting any Cones I find on the ground, placing them in my basket and while I'm doing that the Royal Ampagu strides over and starts cutting the ones still on the tree down with its antlers. I flinch slightly at the powerful creature's approach, but like the regular Ampagu I saw before, it doesn't seem to pay me much mind.

Once the task is done the animal looks around as if confirming for itself that all of the cones have been gathered. Then its gaze settles on me. It, nods, then kneels down low enough that I could probably climb onto its back. " . . . You're, rather intelligent aren't you? . . . Like probably one evolution shy of counting as a member of the Races?" It doesn't show any deliberate response, but I still get the impression that it understood.

"Well, that makes this all fairly awkward. But I suppose." I carefully climb onto its back, a bit worried about my weight, though given that its strength is more than double my own, that's a little silly. Once I'm situated it stands back up, the extra height startles me for a moment. I think, I may be afraid of heights, but without the rush of adrenaline the feeling is much less impactful. I could, probably just get used to it. In fact, I didn't even notice when jumping down from the cliff in the dungeon.

The Royal Ampagu turns towards the direction I came from and then, everything is a blur as I cling to its neck, Sapph dives into the pouch and presumably dematerializes. It's entirely like riding a motorcycle through a forest, I assume. I can't imagine I would have ever done that. Still, the Ampagu itself seems to handle the speed, and even moving through the woods without running into anything fairly well.

Once we come to the deep woods it gradually slows down before coming to a halt in a small clearing, kneeling down again and patiently waiting for me to dismount. Instead, I fall off when I let go. "I would, prefer to not do that again. I don't even have a stomach and I still feel kinda sick." The Ampagu snorts, somehow giving the noise an almost amused tone, then walks off. All told, a journey that took me a couple hours, including the time I spent running, was covered in less than ten minutes.

I push myself up with my hands, then stand, a bit unsteadily. "Okay, so, what do I do with the cones?" 〈Simply place them in the center of the clearing and we will move them around in our own time and to our needs. Then when the time comes we will open them up with flame〉 "Serotinous cones then? Guess that makes sense." I pile the cones up in the clearing, briefly wondering if I could keep one, then figuring that it would be best not to bring tiny flaming treelings back to town. Plus, the trees might not appreciate it? I get the feeling that they're probably a little more apathetic than that though.

After I'm done placing the Napalm Balm's cones in the clearing I wait around to see if the trees would like to speak more. When they don't speak up, I shrug and turn west, figuring I could find my way back to the town on my own. Would be nice to have another quest marker for it though.

On my way back I happen across the place where I fought the Kobolds and the Dire Wolf, the corpses of which are covered with and in some spots penetrated by roots, and seem to be sunk partway into the ground even. "Weird." I briefly wonder if those corpses count as too much fertilizer. But it seems unlikely that a few low ranked monsters would be an issue. "Wonder what caused that Napalm Balm then."

As I ponder that and start walking again Sapph flies out of her pouch and lands on my head. "Ah, should I build a seat up there for you or something?" I meant it as a joke, but you never know. She doesn't respond, perhaps she doesn't quite get it, or isn't interested.

By the time I'm back in the town its already nearly nightfall, so I head straight for the adventurers guild. What I find is, most of the other Automatons chatting amicably with a somewhat crowded room full of dwarves. Apparently their voice boxes did tune to the language. Good. Rather than interrupt, I head upstairs in search of Marel.

When I find him, he looks even more tired than he did this morning. Has he been up still this entire time? "Hello again. I've completed a job for some talking trees. Now who do I talk to about harvesting wood and building a workshop?"

He adjusts his glasses, and stares pointedly at the branch on my back. "One of the adventurers actually. Flynt, he's the best woodcutter and woodworker around. And by the looks of things, you've already got the perfect way to pay him for his services. Napalm Balms are quite rare, and he is rather interested in all things wood related. So, I will contact him for you in the morning."

"Ah, well. Meanwhile, can we talk about you using your connections to gather information I might need. Cause I have some ideas I want to look into."

Chaos_Sinner777

Welp. I'm gonna be distracted by The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock, So my release speed might slow down for a while. And, I may have rushed the end a little. . . But anyway, Poll for research that Anima will be doing next? I actually intend to cover all of the research but the order its done in might change the results somewhat. And, the poll won't be detailed, but rather will have random phrases relating to the ideas. Oh, and the poll results will determine the full order, not just the first subject.