"Good child, we meet again…"
His thoughts churned for a brief instant. Allen's azure, cat-like pupils suddenly contracted as he immediately recognized the identity of the unfamiliar druid.
In fact, there was hardly any need to guess.
That sharp gaze capable of seeing through every secret in a person's heart was something he might never forget for the rest of his life—let alone after merely half a day.
"Meet again?" Olga and Simmons stepped forward in confusion, looking at Allen, then at the unfamiliar old druid. "Allen, you've actually met the Grand Mentor before?"
Sure enough, the unfamiliar old druid before them was the sacred deer he had encountered that morning at Lydia's former residence—the Grand Mentor of the Mayena Druidic Circle.
What was he doing here?
"Good afternoon, Grand Mentor," Allen said calmly, bowing slightly to the old druid before nodding to Olga and Simmons. "This morning, Instructor Ortega and I encountered the Grand Mentor in the outer ring."
"Oh, so it was this morning…" Simmons and Olga suddenly understood.
The Grand Mentor had learned of Zebi Ortega's possible whereabouts from them. They had momentarily misunderstood, thinking that their junior brother—once a witcher—had met the Grand Mentor outside the Mayena Druidic Circle.
From their tone and questions, however, Allen judged that the Grand Mentor could not have arrived long ago.
He subconsciously glanced around. In a woodland this dense, it was impossible to hide the presence of a Great Druid.
Zebi Ortega was an extremely punctual person—he had never been late. Thus, a conclusion surfaced in Allen's mind, one that even he found hard to believe, and one he very much hoped was wrong.
"No need to look," the Grand Mentor said with a genial smile as he sat down beneath the oak tree, on the stone Zebi Ortega often used. "Zebi should already be in Mayena City by now. He'll arrive in Cintra today, then set sail for the Skellige Islands tomorrow."
"I'm here to teach in his stead."
Allen's heart sank.
He had guessed correctly—but there was not the slightest trace of joy.
If it were any other druid, they would probably be ecstatic at this moment, just like Simmons and Olga now—their faces flushed red, eyes wide open, excitement, surprise, and delight practically overflowing.
But whether the instructor was the Grand Mentor, Zebi Ortega, or even Simmons and Olga themselves made no difference to Allen. It was useless to him.
What he revealed outwardly was the "Oak" realm, but as early as yesterday, he had already reached the end of the "Aspen Grove."
What use was an elementary school teacher teaching a high school student how to advance from primary to middle school? Would it help with the college entrance exam?
Even a nationally renowned primary school teacher would be less helpful than the most irresponsible teacher at the worst-performing high school.
The content was fixed—could it really be dressed up into something miraculous?
Impossible.
Moreover, the very presence of the Grand Mentor made Allen deeply uncomfortable.
After all, only a few months ago, he had just entered the Sacred Grove and, right under the old druid's nose, plunged into the lake said to be the source of nature itself.
Although he still didn't know exactly what benefits he had gained—at present, it only seemed that he found it easier to achieve breakthroughs on the druidic path—he could not be sure whether this came from the Lake of Origin or from the revived divine soul of Gwendolyn, the Spring Maiden.
But to be honest, in the eyes of other druids of the Mayena Druidic Circle, that version of him might well be nothing more than a thief who had stolen nature's origin.
So Allen always felt a little guilty.
Although the Mayena Druidic Circle had shown no hostility toward that identity of his, and had even repeatedly conveyed goodwill through the various kingdoms, who could say what Mayena's true intentions were once the Grand Mentor found him?
After all, merely revealing that he had entered the "Oak" realm in a single night was enough to make Instructor Zebi Ortega's head heat up and start prying at the Wolf School's corner.
If the matter of the Lake of Origin were exposed, even the best possible outcome would likely be being "locked" within the Mayena Druidic Circle to devote himself wholly to the druidic path.
That was not a future he wanted.
Add to that the matter of Gwendolyn, the Spring Maiden…
Gaining little benefit while greatly increasing the risk of exposure—among all the people in the Mayena Druidic Circle, the one Allen least wanted to see was precisely the Grand Mentor before him.
And yet Zebi Ortega had arranged for the Grand Mentor to substitute as instructor…
Allen did not believe that asking the Grand Mentor to teach an outsider who did not belong to the Mayena Druidic Circle came without any cost. As such, his feelings toward Zebi Ortega were genuinely complicated.
At that moment—
Simmons suddenly reined in his excitement and cast a similarly complex look at Allen.
He realized that although the Grand Mentor had said he was here to teach "them," in all his years at the Mayena Druidic Circle, Simmons had never once seen the Grand Mentor substitute as an instructor for him.
Not once.
Which meant that the Grand Mentor had actually come for Allen.
At this thought, an odd sensation rose in Simmons' heart—sour and bitter, like eating a divine-service-grown lingonberry right after first mastering Nature's Gift.
Still, Simmons was a seasoned druid. By human reckoning, he was old enough to be Allen's father. He quickly smoothed away that feeling.
"Allen, hurry up and thank the Grand Mentor!"
Seeing the witcher standing there in a daze, seemingly stunned by the news, Simmons tugged at his sleeve to remind him.
'Yes, I should thank him…' Allen thought, his emotions tangled. On the surface, however, he employed the highest level of acting—good enough to fool the King of the Wild Hunt—and said sincerely: "Grand Mentor, I'm not very clever. I'll be relying on you from here on."
The Grand Mentor chuckled, stroking his long, ground-reaching pale beard. His narrowed eyes wrinkled at the corners, radiating great kindness—yet also seeming… meaningful in some unfathomable way.
—
Time passed quickly within the Mayena Druidic Circle. In the blink of an eye, a full week was gone.
For those seven days, the witcher Allen lived a regular life.
He rose early to study the relics in Lydia's former residence for a while, fed himself with Nature's Gift, then attended the Grand Mentor's lessons until evening.
After sunset, he returned to Lydia's old home, continued researching the relics for several hours, then used a Crystal of Memory of the Undying to enter "sleep."
Such a regular life and focused research, however, yielded little in the way of concrete results.
There were simply too many items in Lydia's former residence. Aside from ores, herbs, and monster materials—things with little deeper meaning—the rest, such as stone tablets, parchment, and etched illustrations, were almost all written in the Elder Speech, and in its oldest, most obscure grammatical forms.
To be frank, Allen, who had only recently learned the Elder Speech, found the research extremely taxing.
Yet he dared not skim carelessly.
To put it plainly, he was searching for the prophecy of the Miracle Child, for the resurrection rite of Gwendolyn, the Spring Maiden, and for the truth behind the White Frost and the apocalypse. But those were abstract concepts—Allen had no idea what specific object he was actually looking for.
Just like when he had gone to an unknown land and encountered another deranged King of the Wild Hunt and Ciri—what he relied on then was merely a letter, a single sheet of paper handed to him by Vilgefortz.
Before that, who would have believed that an ordinary magic circle drawn on a piece of chiffon paper could accomplish such a thing?
No one believed it—not even Vilgefortz himself.
Thus, those secrets were very likely hidden within this vast collection of stone tablets, parchments, and etched images. Allen dared not miss a single line.
For the same reason, while researching, he had to maintain an extreme level of focus, in case any of these materials concealed harmful traps.
As a result, his progress was very slow. At first, he could only study two sheets of parchment per day. Later, as he grew more accustomed, that number increased to ten per day.
This was destined to be a massive undertaking.
Allen planned that once Vera returned from the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, he would move everything to Kaer Morhen and have Vera and Mary research it together with him.
After making this decision, he focused even more on thoroughly inspecting Lydia's former residence and the surrounding secluded forest, lest he carry everything back only to discover that the truly crucial item had been hidden beneath the third square stone in front of the cabin door—one of those infuriating twists of fate.
As for the nightly fixed routine—the Crystal of Memory of the Undying—the gains were also minimal.
Seven days, seven Crystal of Memory of the Undying, yet he had not encountered even a single step of advancement or evolution.
Allen did not believe that the Wild Hunt of the Red Riders—let alone even the most ordinary members—knew nothing of this. It was more likely that the Crystal of Memory of the Undying were far too specialized, focused on a single field of knowledge or skill—even more so than a sorcerer's memory—so much so that they contained absolutely nothing unrelated.
There was really nothing that could be done about this.
Even if he went to the Temple of Melitele and prayed for the goddess's Blessing of Harvest, it probably wouldn't be of much use.
On the one hand, using a single Crystal of Memory of the Undying took up most of the night, and the Blessing of Harvest couldn't possibly last that long.
On the other hand, as far as the Crystal of Memory of the Undying were concerned, what even counted as a "harvest"?
A wheat field that might otherwise have had a poor yield instead producing a rich one; a fruit tree that would normally bear only inferior fruit instead yielding fine produce.
But setting aside advancement and evolution, every skill or piece of knowledge Allen had gained these past few days was, at the very least, on the level of [Standard Wild Hunt Fireball] or [Standard Cavalry Sabre Swordsmanship of the Red Rider]—skills that, among the Wild Hunt, might not be the most refined, but were certainly at least proficient.
There was no higher or lower quality to speak of.
So what could the Blessing of Harvest even influence?
Turning a draw of a proficient skill into the host's most masterful skill?
That wouldn't really mean much either.
If anything, matters related to advancement and evolution might amount to no more than a concept shorter than a single sheet of parchment.
Because they took up such a tiny proportion of the Undying One's life, using the Blessing of Harvest might actually make things worse.
At the end of the day, just as the goddess Melitele herself said, she was the Goddess of Harvest, not the Goddess of Luck—she wasn't responsible for making wishes come true.
And it was even more unlikely that the goddess Melitele would grant him a Blessing of Harvest every single night, letting Allen slowly experiment. Not only would he be too embarrassed to ask, it was simply impossible.
The Blessing of Harvest consumed an enormous amount of divine power.
Therefore, the Crystal of Memory of the Undying really could only be tried one by one, slowly, and left to luck.
The only thing that reassured Allen was that, compared to sorcerers' memories, the Crystal of Memory of the Undying not only saved a great deal of experience beads, but also seemed not to yield duplicate skills or knowledge. That, at least, put him somewhat at ease.
With nearly a hundred Crystal of Memory of the Undying, surely even the ordinary Red Riders of the Wild Hunt each possessed some unique expertise, right?
Thinking back, when he had drawn from dozens of sorcerers' memories before and ended up with a pile of Light spells, it had really left him awkwardly stuck.
Additionally, he had already spent experience beads to learn [Standard Cavalry Sabre Swordsmanship of the Red Rider]. It was just that Lydia's matters and the druidic affairs were more pressing, so he hadn't invested much effort into it yet, nor upgraded it. He planned to study it carefully once he returned to Kaer Morhen.
Seen this way, once he got back to Kaer Morhen—between the expedition to the Valley of Thousand Monsters, researching Lydia's relics, secondary mutation, and [Standard Cavalry Sabre Swordsmanship of the Red Rider]—his schedule would be completely packed.
But what would happen after returning to Kaer Morhen could wait until he actually got back.
Returning to the present—
These seven days, although progress on Lydia's relics and the Crystal of Memory of the Undying had been limited, it wasn't as though there had been no gains at all.
On the contrary, Allen's gains had been enormous—and they had come precisely from the druidic path he had been least optimistic about.
-----------------------------------
[Name: Allen]
[Health: 100%, Stamina: 990/990, Mana: 1570/1570]
[Attributes: Strength 99, Agility 99, Constitution 99, Perception 99, Mystery 157 (+7)]
[Affinities: Water 16 (Mana Source · Water 6%), Earth 19 (Mana Source · Earth 9%), Wind 11 (Mana Source · Wind 1%), Fire 24 (Mana Source · Fire 14%), Space 2, Nature 41 (+3)]
-----------------------------------
In these seven days, his Mystery attribute had increased by a full seven points, and his Nature affinity by three.
This wasn't because he had accidentally hunted some powerful nature-aligned monster—on the contrary, it was precisely because of the reindeer Grand Mentor he had initially tried to avoid.
On the first day, he had still been full of wariness and indifference, but by that afternoon, he was already exclaiming how satisfying it was.
What the Grand Mentor taught wasn't at all what he had imagined—how to consolidate his current realm, how to break through the oak region of the Sacred Grove and reach the aspen grove…
No—more accurately, those topics were mentioned in passing, but they took up only a very small portion.
What the Grand Mentor spoke of was the seemingly abstruse act of perceiving nature, yet he grounded it in practice, correcting Allen's meditation methods step by step, and then, very practically, teaching him how to protect nature and maintain its balance.
Yes—the Grand Mentor was teaching him how to protect nature.
And the increase in his Mystery attribute was likewise due to protecting nature…
"…There's plenty of sunlight here, but precisely because there's too much of it, this lingonberry looks wilted. The soil also seems a bit too dry. Lingonberries prefer shady, moist environments…"
Allen murmured to himself as he carefully lifted a lingonberry plant and placed it into a pre-dug pit not far away. Then he tilted his head to look at the Grand Mentor, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a kindly smile on his face—like a student who had carefully memorized the text and was waiting for the teacher's evaluation during morning reading.
"Bury it two fingers deeper," the Grand Mentor said.
Allen immediately, and skillfully, stirred the power of nature to wrap around the lingonberry, obediently doing as instructed.
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