159 Roo (1/2)

Li acted quickly afterwards in getting his new followers settled in. He had already planned on what they had needed. They needed to resettle back to their lands, have their barren fields restored, their farmhouses rebuilt, and equipment and livestock rebought or repaired. Not to mention he had to settle the beastwomen down as well as he could.

All of that could not take place in one day, but Li could at least lay down the foundations of what was to be. It also kept his mind off of what had happened before, how his divine mindset had creeped up on him, how even now, he felt so restricted, so uncomfortable in his human clothing.

Thus, Li spent much of the day going around the circumference of the city's walls where all the uncared fields lay. He had Ivo take him to each field and reintroduce their owners back to them while Li used his abilities to rejuvenate the life within them.

It was touching to receive heartfelt thanks often coupled with tears every time he restored the fields, but all Li was doing was giving back what the land had already given to them years before. For the time being, Li let the farming families stay in their lands or, if they needed to get some supplies back from their city residences, to take a day organizing a move out.

Surprisingly, a fair amount of younger people that were not farmers decided to stick with their parents to tend to the land. A majority, actually, and as Li went about conversing with them as he led the farmers around the city walls, he understood that it was because most of them could not overcome the guilt of working in businesses built by blood.

Even those that did not wish to turn to a way of living borne from the earth did not return to their prior businesses but instead sought to sell them so that they could move elsewhere and truly make something of their own or join Leon and his building company down South.

To that end, Leon was quite helpful. He was set to leave in a week, but in appreciation for the new laboring hands and the fact that Chevrette's death would leave quite a bit of investment opportunities for the wealthy company owner to capitalize on, he decided to aid the farmers in his spare time, unveiling Builder subclass abilities that allowed him to spend mana to rapidly repair constructs such as the farmhouses instead of needing cumbersome hand based manpower.

Unfortunately, Leon himself was the only one with such a subclass, though as Li understood it in a brief conversation with the noble, the man had to have a complete and thorough understanding of anything he wanted to build before he constructed it with his mind and mana, making it a thoroughly tiresome art to learn. Not to mention that it was a Lakely family specialty, an ability originating from their ancient Elven ancestor and passed down only to the main heir of the family line.

From the temples, however, Li was not yet entirely sure. But judging from the strength of the high priests, he doubted they could muster up any unified and potent force against the farmers anytime soon.

Which meant that things went by smoothly. By the time nightfall settled, Li had built a skeleton of the community he was to lead. The remaining things such as the tools and house repairs and livestock and seeds and whatnot – those would be handled over time, and those too, Li had a plan for. The seeds he and Iona would handle while the more material needs such as equipment and repairs Leon and Alexei could assist in.

That was why Li could loose a sigh of relief sitting in the middle of his shrine. In a way, it felt quite odd to be sitting beside what was his metaphorical heart – the mass of vines, roots, and flowers that beat rhythmically in tune with his own heartbeat, shining with a faint amber redness that emanated a ghostly yet warm light through the dark of night.

It truly was as if he could see his own heart laid bare before him, just as jarring as it would have been if he had been on a surgeon's table and by some miraculous event he could glimpse his own surgically incised heart.

”It must feel strange to see your heart laid bare like this,” said Iona. She sat cross legged on the grass beside Li.

”In a way, but at the same time, it feels right. My being was never meant to be contained. It was meant to be spread, worshipped, and revered.” Li shrugged. ”Which I guess means my simple farming life is over.”

Li remembered a few words from Sylvie a ways back, how she had said she felt that those with power had an obligation to do something for this world. Then, he felt nothing around him aside from his farming was worth fretting over, but now, his responsibilities were expanded, and he could see the worth in her words.

When things were settled a little more on his end, Li would talk with the adventurers again and soothe any surprises about his personality they might have seen when he was exercising his divinity. But for now, for that to happen, for him to begin to think about going back to his own farm and the old man without letting himself change into something the old man thought he was not, he had to undergo this rooting ritual.

”It need not be over.” Iona had her thin hands on her knees in a meditative pose, her eyes closed as she breathed in the aura of the shrine around her. ”Your human persona has a strong affinity to parts of your divinity. I am sure with more time, you will be able to merge everything, your guardianship of the world's life, your dominance over its decay, and your human nature all together.”

”Maybe,” said Li. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a ruby red orb and placed it within his shrine's heart. That was Ven'Thur's phylactery, and he intended to resuscitate the lich by feeding him the residual life energy that emanated from it.

”But in comparison to the powers I have, to what I truly am, it really does seem like my humanity is so vanishingly small. A little pebble tossed around by an ocean.”

”But even that pebble will not crumble apart so easily, even in the face of the vastness of waves infinitely greater than it,” said Iona. She sighed. ”I know it well from the humanity that I have grown within me. I cannot claim to be something human, to truly know what it means to be one, but at the very least, I can begin to understand why Morrigan herself could maintain such a strong will and appreciation for them.”

”And I'd always pegged you for a misanthropist,” said Li. ”A teacher, sure, but at the end of the day, nobody really appreciated what you had to offer. That's why I can guarantee to you here and now that I will take that mantle that was too heavy for you to bear and carry it with all my might.”

Iona opened her eyes. Green laced the edges of her pupils, emanating strongly in the dark. ”And I am eternally grateful for that. I am grateful to you even more that I may return to the bliss of true spirithood where I do not need to be weighed down so much by the weight of human will. By all its emotions and burdens.

And yet, now that I sit here moments before losing it, I fear I will come to miss it.”