Shimmering green motes of light, like fireflies, gathered from all directions at the very instant the witcher stepped one foot onto the golden carpet.
Waves of warmth surged up simultaneously from his limbs and bones, merging into every muscle fiber, every inch of flesh and skin, and every bone.
Then, not long after, the warm current suddenly stalled—like a mountain spring blocked by a massive boulder; like a carp leaping for the Dragon Gate only to be struck back by the opposing current; like red-hot, repeatedly forged steel that needed only one final hammer blow to become a peerless sword blank, yet that final strike could never quite find where to land.
His entire body brimmed with surging power, yet with no channel through which it could flow or be released. After a brief moment of blankness, the witcher stopped, overwhelmed by discomfort.
[Ding! 'Attribute: Constitution' has reached Limit · Initial. Please seek an opportunity to complete yourself.]
Hearing the cold system prompt, Allen took a deep breath and forced himself to suppress the strange sensations within his body.
He had not expected one of his attributes to reach the limit at this moment.
That had originally been part of the plan before rescuing Hen Gedymdeith—to push all five attributes—Strength, Agility, Constitution, Perception, and Mystery—to their limits, and then break through via a second mutation.
Unfortunately, plans rarely kept pace with reality.
Finding suitable monsters and hunting their Heart Essence Fluid and Purified Spirit had been extremely difficult. Until the Free Elves were suddenly attacked, he had made no progress at all.
Then Ban Ard's defenses had unexpectedly been left lax, tempting him to act more aggressively.
The witcher ultimately succeeded—but was also gravely wounded.
As a result, several months passed during which, aside from Strength, the other four attributes barely budged.
He had thought he would have to wait until the expedition to the Valley of a Thousand Monsters to complete his attributes. He had not expected the Sacred Grove to give him such a surprise.
Allen sensed the changes within his body. With a thought, he opened the Witcher Journal.
[Name: Allen]
[Health: 100%, Stamina 990/990, Mana 1370/1370]
[Attributes: Strength 99, Agility 94 (+2), Constitution 99 (+1), Perception 97 (+4), Mystery 137 (+10)]
[Affinities: Water 16 (Magic Source · Water 6%), Earth 19 (Magic Source · Earth 9%), Wind 11 (Magic Source · Wind 1%), Fire 24 (Magic Source · Fire 14%), Space 2, Nature 27]
[Divine Arts (Nature):
Novice Druid Prayer Arts: Boiling Blood, Nature's Sight, Concealment Mark, Beast Befriending, Nature's Gift, Plague Curse
Veteran Druid Prayer Arts: Primal Calling]
It was not just Constitution. Agility, Perception, and Mystery had all increased significantly as well. Perception was now only two points away from Limit · Initial, and Agility was likewise just a single step away.
With Allen's already high attributes, this was almost a complete transformation.
"And also…"
Allen closed his eyes. His intangible spirit passed through the mysterious Sacred Grove, exploring the body sitting cross-legged on the bed in the real world.
"The boost granted by the Druid path… feels very similar to Heart Essence Fluid and Purified Spirit…"
Heart Essence Fluid and Purified Spirit, which were closely tied to the Witcher Journal, differed fundamentally from ordinary methods of raising attributes—such as training, meditation, or the Beast Roar path—and even from other attribute-enhancing potions, several of which Vera had once let Allen try.
Training, meditation, the Beast Roar path, and ordinary potions all became less effective the higher one's attributes grew, because their essence lay in excavating a person's latent potential.
If a person's limit was ten, then no matter how much they trained or meditated, they could only rise from one to ten—and the leap from nine to ten was often harder than the entire climb from one to nine combined.
Heart Essence Fluid and Purified Spirit were different.
Although repeated use of the same Heart Essence Fluid or Purified Spirit yielded diminishing returns, no matter who used them—Allen, Hughes, even Vesemir, or the current top-tier witcher, the dragon-slayer Sol—they would all gain the same increase in Strength and Constitution from the Heart Essence Fluid of a drowner.
As the system prompt said when an attribute reached "Limit · Initial," this was "completion"—completion at the genetic and soul levels, raising both the lower and upper bounds of an individual simultaneously.
The Sacred Grove—or rather, the Druid path—provided a boost very similar to Heart Essence Fluid and Purified Spirit.
When he had entered the Sacred Grove last night and broken through from "Grassland" to "Oak," the increase had been so slight that it passed almost unnoticed.
But the natural power that had just soaked into and reshaped his body and soul was so clear, so palpable, that it was as though the essence of nature itself had been laid bare before him. Allen immediately sensed the similarity.
There were differences.
Yet the sense of fulfillment from Heart Essence Fluid penetrating the genes and Purified Spirit permeating the soul was extremely close to what he was feeling now.
Or perhaps it could be said…
This was evolution, not tempering.
Thinking further—
The entire process by which druids became great druids—imitating nature spirits, drawing close to them, transforming into them, until someone like Zebi Ortega could transform into a raven almost indistinguishable from a real one—was this, at the mystical level, the advantage intelligent beings possessed in drawing from nature spirits, and in compensating for inherent species-level flaws?
"Is there some connection between the Witcher Journal and the Mother of Nature?"
Allen could not help but wonder.
Yet the Witcher Journal showed no reaction, nor did the Sacred Grove.
He took a deep breath and continued reviewing the panel.
As for affinities, the question mark after Nature affinity had vanished, jumping straight to twenty-seven points and becoming the highest of all his affinities.
It might not all have increased by more than twenty points today alone. It seemed more likely that his Nature affinity had already risen considerably when he absorbed the "Leshen's essence," and only now had it been activated and revealed.
That Nature affinity showed no Magic Source percentage afterward was not surprising.
Vilgefortz had some connection to druids—having once been raised by them—but Hen Gedymdeith had none at all. This suggested that Magic Source power and natural power were not closely related.
"Wait…"
"Maybe not necessarily."
Allen shook his head, his gaze falling on the newly acquired Veteran Divine Art, and overturned his own conclusion.
"Primal Calling… primal… primal magic…" he murmured, frowning.
Primal magic was a powerful innate talent unique to Magic Sources. Could Primal Calling be connected to primal magic in some way?
"Let's keep exploring," Allen said to himself, shaking his head and giving up—for now—the tempting idea of leaving the Sacred Grove to immediately test Primal Calling. "Since I'm already here, I might as well see how much more I can gain from the Sacred Grove, and how far I can go…"
Having made up his mind, Allen put away the Witcher Journal and looked into the distance.
"Rustle… rustle…"
Gray-white aspen trunks stood tall, their golden leaves whispering as a gentle forest breeze passed through.
In the witcher's world, the sound of aspen leaves was believed to possess a mystical ability to predict the weather.
When the leaves produced a soft "sish" sound, it foretold rain; when strong winds caused them to roll and churn, hail was coming; and when the sound turned into a sharp "clatter," it meant a torrential downpour was imminent.
Thus, unlike oak—which held an exalted status in druid circles for its strength, longevity, and vigorous vitality—aspen, though less prominent, carried its own unique symbolic meaning in mysticism: divination.
Yes.
While aspen did not, like oak, symbolize an apprentice formally becoming a guardian of nature—a druid—
At the aspen stage, a druid was still simply a druid, without any special title.
But at this level, druids could learn divination, learning to borrow the power of nature to foresee fortune and calamity.
Typically, this took the form of extispicy—divination using the heart, spleen, stomach, or gallbladder of animals.
Of course, water divination and fire divination were also commonly practiced, but extispicy was special in that druids could rely on the natural bond between animals and nature (the Sacred Grove) to offset the backlash incurred when divining unclean, great, or evil beings. It was safer than fire or water divination, and thus highly practical.
However, extispicy was a closely guarded druid secret. Allen would likely find it difficult to learn it at the Mayena Druid Circle. And frankly speaking, with "Unstable Prophetic Power," he did not particularly need other divination rituals.
The golden scenery of the aspen forest was beautiful, and the air faintly carried the woody fragrance of plants.
But Allen had not come to the Sacred Grove to admire the scenery. After a brief glance at the aspen forest before him, he continued deeper into the woods, toward the next realm—"Banyan."
Or, to put it another way—the realm of the Great Druid.
"Shash… shash…"
The witcher's feet sank deeply into the soft "carpet" formed by layers of golden aspen leaves.
According to Simmons and Olga—Zebi Ortega's two druid apprentices, both already senior druids who had progressed far along the aspen stage—
In the oak forest, the obstacles were the thick branches of oaks blocking the way, and labyrinthine terrain.
Only by gradually understanding nature's laws, or by gaining the Mother of Nature's favor—usually through protecting forests, maintaining ecological balance, preventing human over-logging, and eliminating monsters that threatened nature—could one find the path to the next realm.
Aspen trees, by contrast, were slender and did not form impassable walls.
What hindered druids on the Druid path were these brilliant, golden "carpets," which clung tightly to the feet of those who advanced, like muddy swamps—yet harder to traverse than any swamp.
"Only with sincere faith in nature can one move forward with difficulty."
Those were Olga's exact words. When she said them, Simmons had nodded in agreement, his expression both wistful and proud.
Zebi Ortega was a Great Druid—and not just any Great Druid.
To be recognized by him, and frequently summoned for guidance and instruction, Simmons and Olga might appear honest and approachable, but in truth they were anything but ordinary druids.
To reach the "Aspen" stage before the age of thirty—still considered young—made Simmons and Olga prodigies on the Druid path, just as Vesemir was among witchers.
Thus, even information they casually let slip, Allen carefully committed to memory.
And yet…
Just as he had strolled through the oak forest without encountering a single oak blocking his way, nor any towering, endless maze, the swamp-like leaf carpet of the aspen forest was, to the witcher, still as easy as walking on level ground.
He was favored.
For the umpteenth time today, the witcher became keenly aware of this fact.
"But why?" he wondered. "Is it truly because of the identity of the Child of Miracle? Or is there some mysterious connection between the Witcher Journal and the Sacred Grove, and the Mother of Nature?"
As he pondered, shimmering green motes continued to rise from the aspens on either side, clustering around him, tempering his soul and, through some mysterious connection, strengthening his mortal body.
He had no idea how long he walked before a continuous series of cold system prompts sounded.
[Ding! Detected a fluctuation of the Mother of Nature's will. Accept the Mother of Nature's Divine Art 'Healing Blessing'?]
…
[Name: Healing Blessing]
[Type: Veteran Druid Divine Art / Prayer Art]
[Active Effect: You may use Healing Blessing to awaken a target's recovery ability, accelerating the healing of minor wounds. You may also repeatedly use this Prayer Art to treat fatal injuries.]
…
[Ding! Detected a fluctuation of the Mother of Nature's will. Accept the Mother of Nature's Divine Art 'Thread of Life'?]
…
[Name: Thread of Life]
[Type: Veteran Druid Divine Art / Prayer Art]
[Active Effect: You may use Thread of Life to see the life energy tied to each target within the Prayer Art's range, allowing you to discern their current state of injury.]
…
"Ding! Ding! Ding!"
The cold system prompts rang out without pause. What had happened last night happened again.
Only this time, the information flooding into his mind was far more massive—so overwhelming that even the witcher's long-honed brain struggled to endure it, forcing him to slow his pace slightly.
Otherwise, Allen might very well have become the first druid in the history of the Sacred Grove to die of a cerebral hemorrhage caused by an excess of "divine favor."
[Ding! Detected a fluctuation of the Mother of Nature's will. Accept the Mother of Nature's Divine Art 'Cloud Mist'?]
…
[Name: Cloud Mist]
[Type: Veteran Druid Divine Art / Prayer Art]
[Active Effect: You may use Cloud Mist to create a cloud mass. Creatures within the cloud will fall into a blinded state.]
…
[Ding! Detected a fluctuation of the Mother of Nature's will. Accept the Mother of Nature's Divine Art 'Wind Calling'?]
…
[Name: Wind Calling]
[Type: Veteran Druid Divine Art / Prayer Art]
[Active Effect: You may use Wind Calling to summon a strong wind.]
…
[Ding! Detected a fluctuation of the Mother of Nature's will. Accept the Mother of Nature's Divine Art 'Entangling Vines'?]
…
[Name: Entangling Vines]
[Type: Veteran Druid Divine Art / Prayer Art]
[Active Effect: You may use Entangling Vines to generate a vine-covered ground, slowing the movement of creatures within it, with a chance to bind them.]
…
As the techniques of various druid Prayer Arts were continuously infused into his mind, natural power never paused for even a second in strengthening the witcher's soul and body.
Very soon—
[Ding! 'Attribute: Perception' has reached Limit · Initial. Please seek an opportunity to complete yourself.]
His mind was incomparably clear, yet so searingly hot it felt as though it might burst into flames.
[Ding! 'Attribute: Agility' has reached Limit · Initial. Please seek an opportunity to complete yourself.]
His mortal body felt light as if drifting among the clouds, yet also unbearably heavy, as though it could crush mountains.
Immense power roamed through his soul and flesh alike. The scorching currents dragged the witcher into a hazy, muddled trance.
In his daze, he heard—he saw—he drew close to—some great existence…
She was the mother of all things and all spirits. Like the witcher, She seemed indistinct and unfocused, yet within Her were contained all the ultimate truths of the world.
She was calling out for something, but because Her voice was too vast and thunderous, it instead became difficult for the witcher to hear clearly.
Instinctively, he wanted to draw closer. Instinctively, he wanted to speak—to ask, to seek guidance…
She seemed to notice the witcher.
The world fell suddenly silent for an instant—or perhaps for countless instants.
And then—
The witcher heard it, as though someone were whispering beside his temple.
She was calling a name, an awkward, unfamiliar name…
"…Gwen… Gwendolyn…"
Gwendolyn, the Maiden of Spring, one of the four seasonal main gods of the Elder Elves…
....
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