Chapter 267 : Friend of Nature
Chapter 267: Friend of Nature
"Hiss hiss—" In the Misty Forest, accompanied by a hissing sound, a slender green snake, no thicker than two fingers, slowly slithered out from a round, iron-gray, manhole cover-like witchcraft tool.
"Hiss hiss—"
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Once the entire snake had crawled out, in the blink of an eye, the little snake that had been crawling on the ground just a second ago suddenly expanded, transforming into a slender human form clad in a green witch's robe.
"Though the process of using it was a bit troublesome, the effect was still quite good."
Reverting to human form by cancelling the 【Beginner Transfiguration】, Janna, observing the eerie and quiet forest surroundings, also promptly retrieved the 【Well of Vortex】 witchcraft tool from the ground.
After returning to her dormitory, Janna had immediately begun researching how to use the 【Well of Vortex】.
Although Hugh-Stone had explained it quite clearly, once Janna actually tried using it, she discovered many inconvenient aspects about this tool.
The first inconvenience was the "maze design" of the 【Well of Vortex】.
When Janna embedded an earth-element magic stone into the slot of the 【Well of Vortex】, the originally iron-gray arched surface transformed into a deep black hole. Inside this black hole was a highly complex spiral corridor maze.
Although it was called a maze, in reality, the end of each spiral corridor led to a coordinate gate.
However, since each spiral corridor looked too similar, without a special memory technique, Janna simply could not accurately identify which were the eighth and the twentieth coordinate gates that Hugh-Stone had mentioned among dozens of similar ones.
Fortunately, when Hugh-Stone handed over the 【Well of Vortex】, he also provided her with a "maze map."
By following the corridor distribution on the "maze map," Janna eventually located the spiral corridor that led to the eighth coordinate.
The second inconvenience was that the corridor design inside the 【Well of Vortex】 was simply too small.
Although the diameter of the 【Well of Vortex】 was about thirty centimeters, the internal corridor diameter did not exceed fifteen centimeters at its widest.
On this point, Hugh-Stone had also warned Janna that she must master the 【Shrinking Spell】 before using the 【Well of Vortex】.
If there were other teammates involved, the user's mastery of the 【Shrinking Spell】 had to be even higher.
At the very least, one had to be proficient enough to shrink others who hadn't learned the 【Shrinking Spell】 to within fifteen centimeters.
Otherwise, the function of this witchcraft tool couldn't be fully utilized.
As the 【Shrinking Spell】 was a spell taught by Mary-Margaret during their first year, Janna had naturally already mastered it.
However, during the spell's execution, Janna discovered that even if she did shrink to under fifteen centimeters, due to the extremely narrow and elongated structure of the "spiral corridor," if she misidentified the "coordinate," it would be quite troublesome to backtrack to the starting point.
Without at least ten minutes, returning was impossible.
So, after repeated trials, Janna ultimately decided to use the 【Beginner Transfiguration】 to overcome this difficulty.
After all, a similarly slender little snake was more suited in both crawling speed and body shape for the narrow design of the "spiral corridor."
"Flourishing Guard—"
Just as Janna had finished putting away the 【Well of Vortex】 and stood still in the forest, a green 【Flourishing Guard】 shield instantly materialized around her.
"Click—crack—"
With the sound of rapid footsteps approaching, in no time, a group of large Shadow Demon Wolves appeared within Janna’s line of sight.
"This should count as the third inconvenience of the 【Well of Vortex】———"
Because Janna couldn’t see the situation within the Misty Forest through the "coordinates" in advance, many times she could only bet that the coordinates Hugh-Stone selected were relatively hidden and wouldn’t cause too many problems.
Fortunately, aside from relying on this unreliable "gamble," Janna still had her innate talent of 【Danger Perception】 to make judgments.
Only this time, it seemed to have backfired—
"Crack—crack—"
The wolves kept their gaze fixed on Janna. As the two sides grew closer, Janna’s 【Danger Perception】 talent seemed to vanish, offering no signals for "battle" or "escape."
"Hm?"
Just as Janna was preparing to fight, the previously advancing Shadow Demon Wolves silently veered off course, directly avoiding the spot where Janna stood, and gradually departed in the direction behind her.
"So this is the value of 'Friend of Nature'—"
Sensing the wolves’ attitude and the seemingly "malfunctioning" reaction of her 【Danger Perception】 talent, Janna quickly realized that it was her 【Natural Affinity】 talent at work.
Although she hadn’t formally tried communicating with the Shadow Demon Wolves yet, the fact that they, who usually harbored deep hatred toward humans, could restrain their hostility and silently leave upon seeing her, was already a great gesture of respect.
Once she confirmed there was no danger around, Janna’s gaze fixed on the tree closest to her.
Then she placed her right hand against the trunk.
"Rustle rustle rustle—"
As Janna’s palm pressed tightly against the bark, in an instant, fragmentary scenes flashed rapidly through her mind like light and shadow.
The first ability of 【Natural Affinity】 was to grant Janna nature’s favor, transforming her into a friend of nature, capable of communicating seamlessly with all living beings.
Earlier, when the Shadow Demon Wolves passed by, Janna had refrained from using this ability out of caution.
Now that they had left and she had nothing to worry about, Janna tried communicating with the surrounding trees for the first time.
"What I just saw should be this tree’s memory fragments since its birth."
"Spring brings life, summer blazes, autumn fades, winter slumbers—"
In different seasons and times, the emotional memories reflected by this tree were vastly different.
Janna, having attempted to communicate with a natural creature for the first time, found it incredibly novel.
"Can you tell me who passed through here today?"
As Janna transmitted her command, the tree that had been showing her its "memory fragments" instantly stopped, organized today's memories, and relayed them to her again.
"Besides that pack of Shadow Demon Wolves, no other creatures passed through here—"
Seeing the memory fragments from the tree, Janna felt a swirl of complex emotions within her.
To think that such a coincidental encounter actually happened to her———