Chapter 15

  My first of three nights in the Feral Abyss’ Crucible had ended. The Watcher closed its eye, and the world began to warp. The quivering man beside me wailed in happiness, praising every god he could think of.

  I died 13 times that night. I don’t know how many times the man suffered, but six deaths were caused by me. During that brief period of time, when the Crucible shifted back into the Feral Abyss’ usual state, was the only time competitors could talk in peace.

  “Hey. Listen carefully.”

  I firmly grasped the man’s shoulder, and he looked at me with wide, wet eyes.

  “Answer fast if you want to avoid this place. Simple yes or no answers, got it?”

  He nodded.

  “Did a monster attack you before you came here?”

  “N-no?”

  “Did you make a deal with a Devil?”

  “No!”

  “Were you trying to cross through planes?”

  “Y-yes…”

  “Then you don’t need to worry, he punishes trespassers, but only once. You’ll be sent back to your world soon.”

  I gestured to the closed eye in the sky when I mentioned him.

  I could see the man opening his mouth, but it was already too late. The transition completed itself, and the man was sucked into the ground and presumably deposited back to wherever he came from. I felt the fleshy ground twist and churn. Heavy red fog obscured my sight, and I could only hear the world shift around me.

  When my vision returned, I was standing not in a hellscape, but in what I could only describe as an enchanted forest.

  By day, this was how the Feral Abyss appeared. Two sides of the same coin.

  Now that I was there, I needed to find the man who could help me. My master, and the only Druid who called this place home, Poggy Rot-tooth.

  “Meow!”

  A familiar voice greeted me.

  Tiara appeared from thin air. She must be pleased to be in her true form again.

  She resembled a panther now, but her body glimmered with stars as if space itself was contained in her fur.

  She rubbed her head against me forcefully, clearly worried.

  I lifted her with some effort and gave her a quick cuddle before assessing the area.

  “I don’t recognise this area. Can you find Poggy, Tia?”

  She ignored my request and licked my hair. Her claws were digging in as she clung to me, which made me thankful that my clothes had returned to offer some form of protection.

  “I know, girl. Don’t worry about me, I’m used to that place.”

  Tiara wasn’t able to join me in the Crucible, and I wouldn’t bring her anyway if she could. My heart was hardened to kill and die in there, but seeing Tiara get hurt would break me.

  She hopped down and stayed close to my side, but nudged me with her body to steer me in the right direction whenever I started to stray.

  “Hello wildchild.”

  A sweet, feminine voice greeted me, and a beautiful woman who looked to be made from plants emerged from a tree. Her floral scent tickled my nose as she approached.

  “Hello Elowen.”

  I returned her greeting, and she smiled at me softly. Elowen was a Dryad, a spirit of nature given physical form after binding their soul to an ancient tree or plant. Many of them existed in the Feral Abyss, and it took many years to earn their trust.

  “What brings you back to our home?”

  A long stick grew from her arm, and as she removed it from her body, it blossomed into a large pink daffodil.

  “I’m looking for Poggy, can you guide me?”

  I took the stick she offered and waved it above my head. The petals fell like snow, and my scent became the same as Elowen’s.

  “Of course, follow me.”

  She turned and stepped into a tree, her body melded into the trunk as if she were stepping through water.

  I waved the daffodil over Tiara, and we both stepped through in the same manner.

  In an instant, we were in a different part of the forest. There was no magical effect or fanfare; I simply stepped through one tree and emerged from another. Elowen navigated the path and destination for us.

  “He is already aware of your arrival.”

  Elowen disappeared once more with that statement.

  I wasn't surprised he knew I was coming since I asked Ada to write ahead.

  I saw the forest path I travelled with Poggy often in my younger years and follow it back to a clearing. There is a crystal-clear pond, a small vegetable garden, and a hut built into the base of an immense tree with golden leaves.

  It was the home of my master.

  I walked towards the door, but moments before I reached it, a shiver ran down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

  Reacting instinctively, I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a bundle of rocks falling towards my head. Before my roll was even complete, the ground beneath me disappeared, and I was hoisted into the air. I had been caught in a net trap.

  “Kiihihi! Look before you leap, idiot!”

  The door burst open, and a tiny cloaked figure darted out and began hitting me with a wooden staff.

  “Stupid apprentice! Foolish apprentice! Little idiot boy!”

  He kept smacking me as I feebly tried moving my body inside the net to evade.

  “Ow! Stop it! What- Argh! What is this for? Ow!”

  “Idiot boy thinks he can come whenever he likes and ignore Poggy’s lessons! What is lesson thirteen, idiot boy?”

  “What? Ow! L-lesson thirteen: Always expect a trap, even after a trap is —ow!— triggered.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  My body recounted the lesson like a machine, each hit from that tiny Druid’s staff reinforced everything he drilled into me over the years.

  “Good boy! What’chu want?”

  He waved a small green hand, and a blade of cutting wind set me loose.

  “Oof! Thank you, master.”

  The net trap dropped me onto the ground, and I lifted my bruised body off the ground. Tiara meekly nuzzled up to me, but only after Poggy gave her a nod to permit it.

  “I need your help. Has anyone told you about my task?”

  “Get Blightblade. Find great spirit, that one, yes?”

  He walked over to a tree and leapt off the ground with incredible dexterity, plucking a plump yellow and orange peach-like fruit from a branch.

  “What’chu need me for? Simple task, yes?”

  He waddled back to me and took a bite of the fruit. Juices sprayed out and dribbled down from his face, which wss still obscured by his cloak.

  “Not so simple as it turns out, I don’t even know what I’m looking for. By the way, master, what’s with the cloak?”

  “Big-bees get angry when I take honey. Big-stings burn when exposed to air. Still got honey though.”

  He proudly produced a jar of golden honey from his cloak.

  “Apprentice be good, he get some, yes?”

  He hid it away again.

  “Why can’t apprentice find Blightblade? You stupid?”

  “Only compared to you master…”

  I bowed sarcastically, and Poggy cackled happily.

  “I meditated in a bunch of different places in the Verdant Divide, but I can’t sense the Fallen Stag’s soul anywhere. I’ve used birds, squirrels, wolves, spiders… anything I could convince to help me search, but I have yet to find so much as a whiff of either the soul or Blightblade.”

  “Idiot apprentice!”

  He swept my legs out with his staff and I ate dirt once more.

  “Overthinking it! Ancient, primordial soul can’t be found by your apprentice senses. Need to be at least as good as me to do that.”

  He cackled again and hurried inside the hut.

  I waited, but he didn't return.

  “Why you still outside? Get in!”

  His voice called out from inside. I looked at Tiara, strongly rethinking my choice in returning to that place. She returned my gaze with one filled with pity.

  Walking inside the tiny hut, I had to hunch over to prevent my head from hitting the ceiling. Poggy had moved his tiny furniture to the sides of the room and laid out a woolly carpet.

  “Sit.”

  He pointed at the carpet, and I did as I was told.

  “You remember?”

  “Yes, how many times have I done this master?”

  “Idiot apprentice! Prove you remember lessons!”

  He slapped me upside the head. My legendary patience saved me from retaliating… The fact that he could squash me anytime he wanted was also a dissuading factor.

  “Haaaa…. You built your hut from a thousand-year-old tree, and this spot is the convergence point where natural mana flows into and the spirits draw power from.”

  I recited the same thing he (less eloquently) hammered into me many times over.

  “Good boy. Now, connect with spirits. Show me.”

  I meditated the way he taught me, shutting out all thoughts and acknowledging only the natural world around me, phasing out even my own presence. There is no Rex in the room; he does not breathe or think, nor does he disturb the world around him. There is no Poggy; he has become one with the terrain.

  I went further, pushing away my sense of smell, sight, hearing, taste, and touch. I felt the world through intuition, and only then could I see what surrounded us.

  The embodiment of wind, small sprites dancing through the air, unbound and free. The embodiment of the earth in the soil, creatures made of rock and dirt, stout and firm. The embodiment of water from the pond, frolicking aquatic creatures that did not disturb the water, but instead exist as part of it. The embodiment of-

  “That’s enough.”

  Thwack!

  A staff to the cheek knocked my focus away, and I hit the floor.

  “Argh! Why!?”

  It had been a while since I could feel the spirits in this place, and I enjoyed the sensation.

  “You prove my point idiot apprentice. You only feel what is there, no way you find what is not like this.”

  I couldn’t quite understand what he meant, though his annoying garbled speech was mainly to blame.

  “Just talk properly, I know you can.”

  “No.”

  He hit me again.

  “Too many words waste of time. Only say important parts. Idiot apprentice.”

  “Fine… What am I doing wrong then?”

  “Kihihi… Little stupid apprentice will learn good lesson.”

  He took over my spot and did the same meditation as I had. Unlike me, he fell into concentration immediately and was able to keep his awareness of the world and speak to me at the same time.

  “Listen and look, apprentice.”

  The air around him swirled with every colour of the rainbow, and the spirits I could only sense before began springing into existence as he willed it. A fish swimming through the air brushed against my face, proving they were given physical form.

  “You still practice this, yes?”

  “Yes, I can’t conjure anything yet though.”

  “Of course, you not genius like me. I taught myself, you know?”

  “Yes, you’ve told me that many times.”

  “Kiihihi… Look closely. You must find the fire spirit.”

  An oddly easy request. I looked for flames, smoke, or just the colours orange and red in the sea of spirits.

  “...There isn’t any.”

  “Idiot apprentice, must you see something to know it's there?”

  I could neither hear the crackling of flames nor smell smoke, so his advice wasn’t helpful. I stopped searching and just appreciated the whole picture before me.

  “...hm?”

  I noticed something in the spirit’s movements. The water elements brushed against the earth and wind spirits without issue, but they avoided a certain spot above me, making wide turns just to swim around an invisible obstacle.

  “...Here.”

  My finger reached for the empty space, and suddenly, a small ball of fire with a cackling face appears.

  “Good work. Smart apprentice. Have a choco.”

  Poggy was walking around freely, but still maintained his connection with the spirit world. They fluttered around him happily as he took a chocolate from the cupboard and handed it to me.

  I ate it gratefully and pondered what this lesson was meant to impart.

  “So the Stag Lord’s soul cannot be detected? I guess I should find it by looking at the surroundings instead... But how? What effect does the soul have on the world that I can observe?”

  Poggy took a seat, and the spirits spread out on his dining table.

  “Stag Lord soul is powerful. Immense. Only Gods can compare.”

  The spirits followed Poggy’s directions, and the water spirits all combined to form a rotund frog-like creature. Soon after, all the other spirits altered their movements to orbit that frog while it lazily rocked back and forth on its stomach.

  “Spirits like strong souls of nature. Is why they like you and me.”

  He poked the frog, which rolled onto its back and dramatically feigned death. All the spirits spread out, putting distance between them and the frog. However, they weren’t avoiding it; they continued to orbit the frog’s corpse, only this time from a greater distance.

  “Soul dies, corrupts the land, poisons the spirits, but spirits know strong souls can return to nature, they yearn for it and wait in safety. Stag Lord is best in nature, died 17 years ago, but as always, they will return…”

  Poggy looked at me expectantly.

  “...If the soul is especially powerful, the effects will be greater…”

  I looked at the example Poggy set up for me and mentally applied it to a larger scale.

  “There should be a huge number of spirits circling the place the soul resides, but the area they avoid would also be much larger…”

  I could sense spirits within the academy and Borderton, but there was nothing inside the Verdant Divide. Soot’s seaside cave also had spirits around however…

  “Thanks master, I think I know what to do.”

  The answer came easier than expected, which meant I could spend the rest of my time here training.

  “Can I ask for your lessons again? Just for two days”

  Poggy lowered his head, I couldn’t see the toothy grin he was hiding.

  “Kihihi… Apprentice wants to learn more?”

  “Yes, since returning to the material world, I have realised most of my power is useless. Tiara and Soot are all I have right now.”

  Poggy cackled and leapt out of his chair.

  “You will beg for the Crucible soon!”

  I shuddered at the claim that he could outdo The Watcher.