First Among Equals-Chapter 43: Inverted Moreness

First Among Equals-Chapter 43: Inverted Moreness

Still very sore, Caen entered the Plane with an Attacker team made up of mostly Body-enhancers. The team lead was a chatty, barrel-chested man named Mokob.
Caen spent three hours roaming with them and killing a moderate number of ants. When he wasn't disrupting the ants' spells with Soul-sense, he practiced conforming his affinities to those of several people in the team and just studying their soul structures.
Neither having the time construct nor his pocket watch was rather annoying, as he had to split off a small portion of his mind to do the counting for him.
Eventually, the team was mostly wrung out and had shed several members. Caen still had well over half of his reserves, though, as he'd barely cast any spells. It was incredibly convenient how mana-efficient Mimicry was. Most bloodlines tended to be this way. Even his spirit tendrils from the Ereshta'al bloodline consumed only negligible amounts of mana when left out for the entire day.
Mimicry isn't a bloodline, though. It's something… more.
They walked past a Cutter team on their way back to the front zone. There were seventeen of them on the team. A proper giant of a woman with arms nearly half as thick as Caen's torso was shearing into the base of a green-barked tree with a high-caliber sawing artifact that made a loud grinding noise. A great wedge had been sawn into the tree so far. Veins bulged on her arms and neck, and Soul-sense showed Caen an active thread cluster.
Two men on the other side of the tree placed a hand each on the trunk, free hands flitting through gestures as they mouthed what must have been incantations.
A circular canopy-like disk made of metal had been fitted snugly around the trunk of the tree, protecting the team members below from the flailing branches above. Metal poles beneath the disk had been driven deep into the ground to keep it in place.
The tree’s barbed, serpentine branches thrashed and flailed about, smacking the disk with muted, concussive force. The Fellers beneath the disk canopy were mostly safe.
Some Protectors slashed with weapons at the branches, ducked out of the way, and used shields to rebuff their strikes. Others engaged ants, which assailed them from all sides. Not nearly as many ants as Caen had expected, however.
“Hey, Mokob, it's okay if I join up with these guys, right?”
“Ha! It's your funeral. Make sure you check in with their team lead first, though.”
Caen jogged over to the Cutter team, taking out his glaive. He'd already collected his meal tokens from Mokob minutes ago.
Building momentum as he swung his glaive, Caen flickered Soul-sense and took off a hind leg of an ant. Flickering it a second time, he cleaved halfway into its head. He cut down three more ants to make his way into the edge of the Cutter team, then took down a few more.
He worked with a group of melee combatants for many long minutes before the ants thinned, and those that remained retreated. Some, into the holes and some deeper into the forest. Caen hadn't seen them do that before. Even the tree's branches seemed to still a little and stop their attacks.
The team lead nodded cooly at him, chest heaving. “You should know,” she said, speaking up to be heard over the cutting equipment, “add-ons only start getting meal tokens after their first hour.”
“That's fine by me,” Caen said distractedly. He'd connected to the tree and was observing its soul structure.
Superimposed on the tree's material form, the elements of its structure hummed and shone. But more importantly, it reached deep down into the ground, dozens of feet down and spread out over yards. He'd seen this with the tree back at the Beslin commune, but it hadn't been remotely as large as this one.
He found an active thread cluster that stood out.
I wonder if the tree is using some kind of Body-enhancement like the ants,
Caen mused.
He flickered Soul-sense, but that didn't seem to affect the active thread cluster in the slightest.
Still, this gave him good reason to suspect that he could use Mimicry on various kinds of Planar creatures. Mafrolem, one of the members of Aunt Vensha's team, had a Contracted bond: the fragment of an awakened Planar tree, which he always wore as a breastplate. The fragment not only offered formidable defense, but could be reshaped as Mafrolem pleased.
If Caen could get a bond like this, he imagined that it might provide him with an avenue for always being able to Mimic a Flora affinity. That would be an extremely useful advantage in the Patronage trials. He would have to think it over.
Refining Mimicry comes first
, he reminded himself as he isolated the affinity cluster. He angled his body in such a way as to always keep the tree at the edge of his vision. So often, several groups of ants came scuttling in their direction, forcing him to halt the work of Mimicking the tree's affinity.
Seeing as he was currently connected to the tree, fighting the ants without the ability to flicker Soul-sense proved significantly harder. He couldn't pierce through their carapaces anymore, and stabbing at their eyes without getting caught by their pincers required a precision borne of spellwork.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelFire; any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
For the first time since coming to Odaton, Caen finally got spat on. He'd dodged most of it, but a few small drops of the green liquid splattered onto his neck and some parts of his face that weren't covered by his helmet, forcing a deep, guttural grunt from him.
It stung like hot water mixed with an acerbic compound. He could feel it corroding his skin, but more importantly, his connection to the tree was unraveling.
He pulled away from the ant as the team lead hacked into a leg at the joint. At the same time, another Cutter team member, a large man with thick limbs, kicked the ant aside before stabbing into its head several times. It was the final one.
Caen hurried to stabilize his connection to the tree, bringing it back into his field of vision. At the same time, he rummaged through his belt bag. He brought out the small vial he'd purchased at the apothecary and poured its contents into a flask of water. Then he took off his goggles and helmet and used the mixture to rinse off the parts of his face and neck exposed to the glob. The burning sensation intensified a little, but he was able to get rid of the caustic substance entirely. He chewed on some numb-root to help dull the pain, hands trembling.
On a more important note, he'd stabilized his connection to the tree, keeping it within his field of vision, but ancestors did this sting.
“Sure you don't want to go and get that checked out?” the team lead asked, wearing a wince on her face as she scanned Caen's.
“It's not as bad as it looks,” he said, already moving his spirit in a requisite pattern. “I'll manage.”
He cast a Blood-healing spell that fizzled out, unsurprisingly. Futilely, he tried a few more times before moving on. Caen returned his full attention to Mimicking the tree's affinity. Now that he'd completely isolated its affinity cluster, it gave him the impression of an… ‘inverted moreness’.
Caen scrunched his brows in consideration as he examined the impression a little more closely. A moreness unto itself? Did that have anything to do with Flora magic? This was an awakened tree after all. He reached for the portion of his soul structure that represented his affinity for Flora magic. It felt rigid. Caen frowned. There was an easier way to do this: trial and error. But that wouldn't help him in learning how to interpret these impressions.
An inverted moreness. If not Flora, then what?
It felt less like an outward expansion of self and more like an inward… depth. An inward moreness.
Deliberately making sure not to scratch the growing itch on his face and neck, Caen pondered this further. The tree was resisting being cut down. Its bark was being reinforced through unknown means, and it occasionally sent branches attacking its assailants, and even less frequently, roots pushed out from the ground to very slowly wrap around limbs.
The tree bark was sturdy and unassailable. Its branches were passably powerful.
Inverted moreness had to be Body-enhancement. It seemed quite obvious now. A sort of pulling upon internal resources to reinforce self.
He smiled appreciatively at his line of reasoning and reached for his Body-enhancement cluster. It was firmer than the ground he stood on. He tried again just to be sure. Then his brows rose in realization.
Not
pulling upon internal resources to reinforce self, but rather, doing so to
replicate
self. Doing so to restore, to regenerate whatever parts of self were being depleted.
Blood-healing? Really? From a Planar tree?
More uncertain than he'd been the other two times, he reached for his Blood-healing cluster in his soul structure, and it was like clay in a potter's hands.
Magic doesn't make sense sometimes
, Caen thought, shaking his head ruefully. It wasn't entirely nonsensical, though, he knew. Blood-healing wasn't specifically about blood, but about organic matter. His grandfather had taught him that. Besides, certain treefolk could practice Blood-healing, the same as humans.
Caen went about conforming his affinity to the tree's. It took him quite some time to do so, though, as he had to contend with a few ants, clamping down on the process whenever he did.
Eventually, he let out a shaky sigh. Their affinities were now linked together, and he could tell that it was a strong one. As strong as Vai's Dream-guarding and Zeris's Spatial magic affinities. Maybe stronger. Though he still didn't notice any passive augmentations. No innate understanding of his body or how best to use Blood-healing. This was starting to seem like a trend.
Caen didn't know any spell for healing burns, so he used a flesh soothing spell. It wouldn't heal anything, just provide temporary relief. His spirit moved swiftly. The spell took, and immediately the burning sensation on his face and neck vanished. He went a step further and cast a few spells to ease the soreness in his muscles.
Caen giggled to himself. Someone gave him an odd look. He didn't care. This was not just fascinating, it was insightful.
If the trees are using some sort of regeneration spell, that might explain why they’re so difficult to chop down. Could—
His musings were interrupted by another wave of ants. Donning his helmet and goggles once more, he let his connection to the tree unravel as he faced the ants, making damned sure he didn't get spat on again.
Once that wave was dealt with, he went back to Mimicking the tree's affinity once more. Over the next few hours, he was able to Mimic its most prominent thread cluster four more times before they finally felled the tree.
The serpentine branches had lost more and more vigor the more deeply the trunk was cut into. The waves of ants thinned considerably till they were few and far between.
The entire Cutter team reoriented their positions, moving out of the way of the tree as it fell. Everyone cheered, and even a roaming team several yards away joined in. Caen felt none of their excitement; he was too busy paying attention to something that had completely escaped his notice till now.
His connection to the tree weakened but did not unravel. The fallen tree didn't have a soul structure imposed on it, but the stump on the ground and its network of roots that spread deep and wide did. Just to be certain, Caen cast a quick spell on himself, instantly soothing the burning sensation on his face and neck that had started to prickle once more.
The trees were still alive. He'd known that, obviously, but it hadn't even occurred to him that he could connect to the tree stumps, dozens of which littered the clearing and even the front zone.
Caen grinned all the way back to the Aperture, but for a far different reason than that of his teammates.

Chapter 43: Inverted Moreness