While Lilly slept on the ground at the base of my trunk, I wove a bed made of a few freshly grown branches for her. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing for her to sleep in, but it was a lot better than her just sleeping on my branches.


    She slept for a solid 3 hours this time before she started to stir. When she opened her eyes, it was starting to get dark out. I asked her what she wanted to do. I felt a wave of sadness flow over her when I asked that. I realized she thought I meant in the long term, instead of just whether she wanted to try again with getting the Water Magic skill or go to sleep. It would have gone better had I just shown her the bed first. I suppose we needed to have this conversation eventually though. Might as well be now.


    Lilly took a deep breath before she started. I felt some small sense of duty emanating from her, along with a hefty amount of a desire to stay. She really was a troubled girl.


    “I should probably head back south along the road. It''s only a few days walk south of here for me to get home, but I don’t know if I really want to go home, yah know? This clearing has been more of a home to me than the house I grew up in over the last few years.”


    Oh, so we’re just diving straight into the deep end, huh? Alright, just go with the flow.


    “How long until someone comes looking for you? You said you were heading to Ostlan I believe. And that it was around a hundred miles north or so from here.”


    I tried recalling our last conversation about it. Apparently Ostlan was a much larger trading hub than whatever city she came from was. Thinking about it now, she never actually told me the name of the city she came from. Oh well.


    She thought about it before answering. “It really depends. My father should have sent word to his contact that we were coming, and we should have been arriving today if things went according to plan. Assuming everyone else had died in the... accident...”


    Her emotions almost boiled over for a moment before she regained control and continued.


    “Then they should be questioning our whereabouts by the day after tomorrow. If one of the escorts managed to survive, then they should be making it to either city within the next day or so and telling people what happened. If I’m lucky, someone might come looking in around 4 or so days. But I think I should probably go before then. This little vacation has been wonderful, but I guess I should be going back to my ‘normal’ life.”


    The sadness in her started seeping through our bond. I usually dislike feeling this way, but I could tell that our connection was helping her feel better. I widened the bandwidth that was Telepathy skill and pulled on her sadness more. Soon enough, she was back to be more of her cheery self.


    “Stay as long as you like. It’s getting late for you though, so you should head up now.” I made a platform for her to stand on and gave her a few vines to balance on. I sent her a mental clip of her rising through my branches and she stepped on.


    I made sure to go slowly so as to not let her fall. When she saw the bed I had woven for her, she smiled and sent a wave of gratitude my way.


    “My usual nook was nice and all for a few nights, but nothing can beat a good old bed. Thank you, Willow. I truly appreciate this.”


    Lilly climbed off her personal elevator and laid down. She used her cloak as a blanket, and I wove a small pillow for her to use as a bed. It was odd how much easier it was to shape my wood now that I had the Wood Crafting skill. I made sure most of the pillow was leaves and small, softer twigs. It was actually a pretty good pillow, in my opinion. Lilly seemed to also like it, so I consider it a win.


    I offered Lilly a few Berries for dinner, which she declined. Then we talked about some possibilities for how to get her to get the Water Magic skill before she had to leave. It wasn’t the most difficult skill to get, but any elemental skill started out as an Uncommon rarity, so it was harder than most Common skills to obtain.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    “I’ll have some Mana Berry juice for you to try with tomorrow. I think it should be easier to use than Stamina Berries, since it’s already pretty saturated with mana and all that. You should only have to focus on manipulating the mana, rather than saturating the liquid with mana before having to manipulate it.”


    After a few more back and forth comments, I could tell that she was getting too tired to keep talking. I knew she would stay up as long as I asked her to, but it would be better for her to sleep.


    “Sleep well, because we’re working all tomorrow on you getting that blasted skill!”


    She chuckled and passed out soon after. That left me alone with my thoughts, as the birds had left a few days ago and hadn’t come back yet. I hoped they were all right though. I’d hate for something to have happened to them.


    Having the next few hours to myself left me with plenty of time to practice getting the Water Magic skill for myself. I started with emptying the bowl of Stamina Berry juice and replacing it with Mana Berry juice. I then wrapped the whole bowl in vines and poured an enormous amount of Mana into the liquid before giving up. I had used 25% of my pool, which is more mana than I had ever used before, yet I still didn’t get the skill.


    I focused my mind similarly to how Lilly focused hers. I pictured the liquid making small waves in the bowl, rippling out from the center of the imaginary pond and lapping on the rocky beach before calming down again. To be honest, it was a great mental exercise for calming yourself. The only downside was how exhausting using so much mana at once was. I had only used a quarter of my pool and I was already ready to call it quits. I was surprised at how much mental fortitude Lilly must have.


    I spent hours practicing the same thing over and over, yet each time I thought I was getting close, the mana juice would calm down again. I guess I was shaking it slightly while I was focusing. After my third slight shake, I made a small divot in the ground between a few roots and placed the bowl there. It didn’t matter where the bowl was as long as I had contact with it. At least, I didn’t think it mattered.


    After my most recent attempt, I decided to take a step back and evaluate the way in which Lilly and I were approaching the problem. We were both using the same mental image of a peaceful pond having some very mild ripples across its surface, we were both pouring mana into a watery base, and we both had direct contact with the bowl.


    Maybe we need direct contact with the liquid itself? Could the bowl be providing some sort of interference to prevent us from succeeding? I mean, it’s just normal wood that I grew. I could see how it might interfere with Lilly, but this used to be part of me, so it shouldn’t cause any issues for me.


    After a failed test with direct contact, I dismissed the idea. The only other factors I can think of are our mental processes and the liquid used for experimentation. I doubted using Health Berries would be any better than using Mana Berries, but I went ahead and gave it a shot.


    Before I poured out the Mana Berry juice, I took a quick closer look at it to see if there were any impurities that might be the problem, but all I saw was an extremely oversaturated liquid that glowed slightly.


    Okay, next few experiments should NOT need so much mana. Noted. I don’t think there’s been a liquid so densely packed with the stuff before. I’m sure Alchemists everywhere would kill to get their hands on the stuff.


    I poked a hole straight down in the dirt and poured the Mana juice right down in it. I felt the mana saturate the ground before quickly being absorbed by my roots. It was an odd feeling, but I kind of liked it.


    I gave the Health Berry juice a shot but had no luck with that either. I tried around 13 times before giving up on that endeavor. I switched back to Mana Berry juice, since I felt like that would just be the right answer. I just needed to figure out how.


    Okay, I crossed off both Stamina Berries and Health Berries, and I feel the closest with Mana Berry juice, so I’ll stick with that. Contact wasn’t the problem, so that leaves either us needing actual pure water for this, or we need to adjust our mental image. I can''t think of a better image to use though. The whole pond thing seems pretty legit to me.


    The next hour was spent sending a small supply of mana to the bowl of Mana Berry juice sitting in a wedge between a few roots. I spent my time thinking of various ideas of what Water Magic might look like. I pictured water whips, protective bubbles, a concealing fog, making it rain, and a whole host of other images from various manga and anime I saw in my past life. Nothing seemed to stick.


    After I ran out of ideas. I just focused on the liquid in front of me. I stopped sending more mana into it, since it was almost starting to glow again. Instead, I focused on how the mana was interacting with the contents. It seemed to energize it, making the liquid want to do something. It just didn’t know what to do. I focused on it starting to swirl around, as if forming a little whirlpool, and it obeyed.


    New skill [Water Magic (U)] has been obtained!