Chapter 51: The Root Drinks First

Chapter 51: The Root Drinks First

Hours later, Emilia woke up, her body aching from the uncomfortable position and the hard, uneven ground. Fjorn was still sleeping, propped between two rocks.

Emilia quietly moved away and began drawing talismans. Almost immediately, she noticed something different. The mana in the private space was exceptionally rich, and the talisman paper was heavily saturated with it.

This required the lines to be drawn more slowly and carefully, but it also allowed for many more mistakes. The paper had temporarily gained the ability to withstand much greater tension. This must be what it feels like for those who can afford the highest quality papers and inks. They can literally sketch the lines without needing to perform numerous complex calculations. She didn't consider that the cost of such paper far exceeded the price of a finished talisman.

Things were going well, and she soon managed to draw two battle talismans, one healing, and one defensive. During this time, she realized Fjorn had woken up and was dividing his attention between watching the lines and staring blankly into space.

"Are you alright, uncle Fjorn?" Emilia asked, approaching him with the healing talisman.

"I'm fine, don't waste the talisman," he quickly stopped her.

"We need to start looking for food and water," Emilia said. Her water had run out a few hours ago, and she had dry rations in her backpack for at most one more day.

"Hand me that broken spear." After taking the spear, Fjorn began drawing a strange, intricate pattern of symbols. Then, he hollowed out two holes in the shaft and carefully secured his last two monster cores. "This is an old trick I learned while we were traveling across the waterless Keru plateau. The locals used enchanted tools like this to search for water. Take it and try to maintain continuous contact with its mana. That will help us find water."

Emilia took the strange device, and after connecting with it through her aura, she felt nothing special.

"Good, use your mana exactly like that. Now you just need to maintain the connection. Come and help me. I'll need to lean on you."

Fjorn picked up his backpack and put it on his back. Emilia handed him one of the intact spears from the ground, and soon the two continued exploring the strange caves.

Periodically, they saw fragments of shattered mirrors displaying various scenes from ancient history. Emilia adored the sacred books and the stories within, and twice they stopped to rest beside the fragments while she recounted the legends she knew.

"This must be Penelope, offering a golden goose to the hero Ramus. And next to her stands her father—the chieftain Vercingetorix, the future king of the Gauls."

"This here must be the Gardens of Semiramis. And there is Princess Amytis. Legend says that every day she grieved for the fertile and green lands of her native Media. To melt away her nostalgia and bring back the joy in her eyes, Nebuchadnezzar II sacrificed 5,000 oxen to the gods, and they gifted him with strength and wisdom. In time, he built a vast empire and constructed the Hanging Gardens and the triple wall protecting the holy city between the Tigris and the Euphrates."

"That was Babylon, wasn't it?" Fjorn realized, examining the numerous, mana-rich gardens. Hundreds of herbalists worked in them, tending countless rare herbs. "I remember the magical wine from the gardens' vineyards, where the mana was so heavy that even Hephaestus himself, the forge god, often valued it and ordered many barrels."

"That's right," Emilia confirmed. "The legends tell that even the great lawmaker, the father of democracy—Solon of Athens—was struck by the winged phrase later inscribed on the Temple of Delphi: 'Μηδὲν ἄγαν' (mēdén ágan) or 'Nothing in excess.' He discovered this wisdom while drinking the very same wine, chilled by ice magic, under the lemon trees of his estate by the small lake Nikoi. The holy books often cite it and explain how mēdén ágan is the essence of the pursuit of moderation and balance in all things."

"But how can there be moderation in everything? He was drinking legendary wine."

"Emmy, that's democracy. It's perfectly normal to drink legendary wines if you can afford it."

"Hmm."

The two continued walking, and every time they saw such a mirror, they carefully checked it for magical instability. They still remembered the battle from earlier, where shadowy monsters had attacked Fjorn and nearly taken their lives.

The cave tunnels progressed, and from time to time Emilia discovered strange-looking herbs and gathered them in her bag. In the perpetual darkness of the tunnels, there was no sun, and they couldn't measure the passage of time. However, Emilia was experiencing intense hunger and thirst. Fjorn had clearly injured his leg seriously, as he was limping heavily and often leaned on her shoulder.

At the end of one of their breaks, Fjorn was suddenly struck by a strange idea. "Emilia, show me the herbs you gathered earlier."

Emilia took out the herbs one by one and began arranging them on the ground in front of them. Fjorn took out his large notebook with its time-yellowed pages. He immediately began a series of calculations, often pausing to examine the mana and aura of the herbs.

"Quickly, show me what else you have."

Emilia pulled out the herbs she had collected in the ruins, the exploding acorns, her remaining small amount of ink, and talisman paper.

Fjorn continued calculating frantically in his notebook, and finally paused for a moment, slowly smiling.

"Since we can't find water, we'll extract the water from these roots!"

Emilia looked doubtfully at the massive roots.

"I don't know if we can even pierce them, let alone extract anything."

"We will, we will. Come, help me move closer."

The two then approached the lowest root, and Fjorn began drawing rough lines on the ground with a stick. "Now I'll show you approximately what the formation should look like. After that, we'll divide the work into steps. You'll have to practice each step in the dirt until you learn it, and only then will we use the monster blood."

After carefully examining the rough sketches, Emilia asked a series of questions, and when she felt confident, she took the stick and began to draw with it. She didn't infuse mana, but simply tried to feel the design. Fjorn often corrected her and explained what was needed and where.

Emilia drew without stopping for hours, and Fjorn was never satisfied. In the end, however, even he, with his strict requirements, had nothing more to add.

"Alright, let's begin." Emilia took out her stylus and started carving directly onto the root itself. She tried to etch the lines with her mana, but she didn't charge them as she did with the talismans. She was merely forming the pathways. Fjorn, the experienced master, would use these lines to build the glyphs by filling them with a mixture of blood, ash and finely ground herbs.

When she finished, Emilia managed to crush some of the roots' sharp thorns and use them to light a fire. Fjorn carefully studied her work, muttering quietly under his breath. In a few places, he used his knife to make small adjustments. He then carefully took a handful of the collected mana-rich herbs and finely ground them into a potent mixture with his mana.

Finally, visibly satisfied, he took out a copper cup, into which they poured blood and mixed it with ash.

Emilia continuously stirred it with a staff, enriching the mixture with her mana. The process was quite slow, and the mixture grew thicker and thicker. Emilia exhausted almost all of her mana and had to stop to meditate.

"You need to consume more Earthly Treasures," the old talisman master reminded her. Emilia threw him a strange look and didn't respond.