79 The East I (1/2)

Li nodded out a goodbye to Triple Threat, a slip of paper listing the elixirs they needed wedged in his palm. He watched as they made their way down the main road, Jeanne nudging Sylvie's shoulder teasingly while Azhar walked while whistling, blissfully unaware.

The image of the three strolling down with their armor and weapons let Li remember a past where he had done just the same, adventuring and questing with friends from a different world. He had liked that life, but at the end of the day, it didn't compare with how fulfilling it was to be able to tend the earth around him.

To that end, Li went back to training his divine powers with Iona. He wasn't doing this just to balance out the twin natures of life and death housed within him. He had a fair amount of anticipation for this, as he figured that by tapping into his forest-related godhood, he could take his farming into an entirely new realm. He could grow anything he wanted and at will, and the appreciation he felt for the nature around him would only grow and become more sensitive.

”Let's get started again,” said Li as he took his seat on the counter and grasped the duchess's special grain kernel.

Iona nodded as she went by his side, her hands reaching out for his. Li shook his head and said, ”There's no need for you to risk yourself again. I think I've got the hang of it.”

Iona raised a brow before she stepped back, bowing her head and watching as Li closed his eyes as he felt for the grain's life song. At first, he could hear the usual static and muted beating, but then he recalled the chill that Iona had imparted on him, recalling how it felt, how it seemed to just numb away all the distractions.

It wasn't hard. After all, Li wasn't learning anything he didn't have. He was gaining control of abilities already latent within himself and merely ignored up until this point.

”Can you hear it?” said Iona.

”Yeah.” Li nodded as he opened his eyes. He looked down at the gleaming golden kernel at his palm. ”The song is very similar to the one from the grain you grew with just a few differences. I thought you said this was alien to you.”

”I thought you would say that.” Iona smiled. ”Allow me to explain. The songs of plants that are related share a common base. The wheat I produced is a mundane winter variant from Duvin, but since the golden grain you were curious about is also wheat, it stands to reason that they share a similar base structure. It is in other intricacies they differ.”

”I see, then I'm assuming that even the subtle differences between these two grains is enough for you to call one of them alien to you.”

”That is correct, yes.” Iona plucked the golden kernel from Li's palm, rolling it around her pale and thin fingers. ”Your spiritual ear is yet undeveloped, so you cannot tell, but the differences you hear are centered around growth, hence why one variant grows so strongly compared to the other.”

”Interesting.” Li nodded. He didn't have a strong attachment to music in his past life, but he knew the concept of training a musical ear to hear for different pitches and tones, and this spiritual hearing was remarkably similar. ”This whole system is remarkably ordered, then. There's a consistent basic structure for certain families of plants, and then variations in their qualities are marked by more subtle distinctions demarcated into categories like growth.”

Li could feel his more scientific curiosity pique, and he started to theorize.

”As I recall, your method of growing plants from your being involves recalling the song of an individual plant and expending magical energy. Hypothetically speaking, would it be possible to alter these structures? Maybe alter ordinary wheat so that it grows at an accelerated rate?”

Iona held up the golden kernel. ”That is precisely what this is. Natural variation in song structure is noticeable. The tune is more mellow, more fluid. This is a little jarring, forced. This is southern wheat that has been directly altered in some manner.”

”Altered? But there aren't any forest spirits left aside from us.”

”That is another reason why I was particularly surprised. Mere spirits such as I do not have the authority to directly alter the base song of life. It is only guardians that possess such level of access to life.”

”Then there's the possibility there's another guardian out there.”

”It is possible, yes, and yet the more I think of it, the less likely it becomes. I have scoured this entire land for signs of guardians, and there were none. Perhaps this grain hailed from many years ago, when the guardians lived and they were kindly disposed to men and their farms, but now?” She emphatically shook her head. ”Not possible.”

She sighed. ”Forgive me, I have veered on a tangent. But yes, it is entirely possible for you as a guardian to both alter and create life. However, we must first work on replication before we move on to creation, and before replication comes foundation building through the memorizing the bases of life songs.”

Like this, they spent the rest of the working day until the sun began to set on improving Li's spiritual abilities. Now that he could finally hear life songs even in his human form, he spent much time listening to the songs of various seeds, herbs, and flowers, getting a good feel of their bases.

When Iona left that day, she laid out a rather comprehensive curriculum tailored to his needs that would bring his spirithood to a level where he was not a stranger to it but not advanced enough that it would significantly erode his humanity.

Already, Li could feel a difference in himself. His eldritch powers left him increasingly callous and distant, but his spiritual abilities were warmer, allowing him to feel closer to the life around him, to appreciate it slightly more. Though, he could tell even now that he would never be the one to save everyone around him.

Because, at the end of the day, he was a god, not a hero.

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