Eli started by having Audrey focus on pushing magic outside of her body and feel it interacting with things, but she couldn't do it, she tried and swore, but couldn't get the magic to move how she wanted. At first, Eli thought this was because she was too low level and didn't have the magic for it, but then he thought it might be because her physical body was fed magic through a node unlike his that existed together. So instead he had them go back to back and he explained to her that he was going to push out a bit of magic and she needed to focus on it and how it felt.
Everyone let out magic all the time, their regeneration didn't stop when they were full, it just leaked out slowly. Using his will, Eli was able to push out more than the amount that normally leaked out but it wasn't needed for his magic senses. He just needed to feel what naturally leaked out since it was still his until it dissipated over time, how it reacted to other magic is what he was sensing. It was clear to him that people with less will would not maintain that level of ownership over their magic. Not wanting to go too hard right away, Eli only let a trickle of extra magic out of his body, but she reacted so strongly that she yelled and got up taking a few steps away.
He didn't move or do anything other than stop leaking magic, there was a tense moment when neither of them said or did anything, staying completely still. After about a minute, she spoke.
"How much of your magic was that?"
"About 10% or so," Eli lied, it had only been about 1% but she seemed so startled that he tried to downplay it. "Why? Is something wrong?"
"I felt it, it was like feeling the magical version of you, not like your presence that knocked me over, but just you." She was starting to talk faster, seemingly putting things together in her head.
"Ok…. So are you ready to try again?"
"Just how strong are you?" she said in a low whisper, but then stopped herself, shook her head and said "Never mind, let's just get back to the lesson"
"Try doing it again, but keep in mind how my magic felt." She focused on how it felt like it belonged to him, tried again and after another few minutes she dispelled the tiniest bit of magic while keeping control over it. Eli felt it but just barely, but he let her experiment and didn't want to interrupt or influence what she was doing. A bit longer and it seemed that maybe she was getting it, until she fell over and passed out. It would seem that she didn't know the feeling of low magic well enough to know when to stop, he stayed still and focused on trying to figure out which node he should open next and maybe it would help him get a better class when he hit 50.
She startled awake about 20 minutes later and after settling down he told her about being low on magic and how running out would cause you to pass out and magic would regenerate very slowly for a while afterwards. She sat down without a word to him, facing away and started to meditate again. Her armor was repaired but her injuries were barely half healed. So he went back to checking his nodes. He really wanted to open his shadow node, but it and his order node seemed very resistant to his magical poking. That left his air, water, and life nodes, and out of those the life one is what really interested him the most.
At first, he had thought that the life node would be like a healing skill or something but it was more remote than that, definitely not something inside him. It was more like creating a kind of life, so he dove into the node for a minute to see if it still felt that way. It felt mostly like he remembered but it seemed different, something to do with his servant connection, like it had borrowed a bit of flavor from Tara. She must have some kind of summoning or conjuring skill and to Eli it felt like a robot or pet or something. Without being sure he didn't know if he should continue with this node, but it just felt right.
Coming back to his senses, Audrey was getting up, she seemed like she had enough for now and was about ready to leave. While debating internally if he should stop her, she turned around, looked at him, and said, "what's this about a favor?"
"I was wondering if you are free for the next two days?" Eli said trying to be casual about it since he didn't want to pressure her into helping if she really had something else to do. He still knew nothing about what happened in the safe zone.
"I really should get back, but I'm listening."
"Well, I can't enter a safe zone, so I need someone to tell me what's happening in there." Eli said, trying to sound curious and not at all like he wanted a spy. "Or, you could watch over me while I meditate hard enough to open my sixth node and make a skill for it." Audrey's eyes opened wide and she just stood there for a few seconds before replying.
"6th node? Make a skill? In two days? Let me go back for a couple of hours and I'll be back and able to stay for 48 hours. I want to see this."
Eli nodded and she left on a run, she seemed excited and it made him feel good to be helping someone. There was a worry that he might not make it in time but for his plan to work when Tara arrived he needed to be in fighting shape. More skills and nodes always helped and he thought he could do it. Not sure if it was arrogance that made him feel that way he would be ok with just a node and he could get the skill later. Either way, he was going to prepare the best he could while he waited, gathering and compressing magic inside himself.
Almost three hours later, Eli guessed at the time, she returned but with a small boy, maybe eight or nine years old. This almost made him lose his progress with his magic but he steeled his will and kept the magic together. Eli looked at her questioningly and she just shrugged and stayed about 20 feet away whispering to the boy. This is the youngest person he has seen so far, he didn't think that anyone below 14 was even in the world yet. Focusing harder he noticed something off about the boy and his magic, he wasn't that young and his body and magic seemed sick, getting better, but sick. Without wanting to pry he just assumed that this kids was her age but was sick before this all started and the regeneration was healing him from some kind of bone disease that made him small in stature.
"We are here to help him, behave yourself, don't talk to him or interrupt him," Audrey said to the boy.
"He looks like a monster, are you sure it's safe?" the boy asked.
"Yes, it will be fine, if anything we are safer with him around than being anywhere else. Now just keep quiet and do the exercises I taught you," she said back to him with a stern look.
She looked back at Eli and nodded, he closed his eyes and got to work bringing his senses to his internal magic. He repeated the steps he had used previously, but this time he gathered as much magic as he could inside himself at once and used that as his initial push into his life node. The node immediately began working on it, but he was stronger now and knew more about magic so he paid more attention to what it was doing.
The magic he put into his life node, was keeping the part of his internal magic flavor that came from the node and destroying the rest. The node kept working like it knew how to do this so he just kept feeding it the magic, but then he noticed that the magic coming into him had a bit of flavor to it. It was the magic from the plants around him, he was stealing it since his node was taking all the life magic. Not wanting another incident like with his fire node, he took his time and made sure he wasn't taking too much from his surroundings. This felt like it was going to be over much faster than previous times he had done this, maybe he was just getting better at it.
Gathering magic and compressing, and gathering and compressing, then forcing it into the node, it felt like everything was going smoothly. However, like the previous times, the passage of time lost all meaning while he was this focused and in a trance like meditation state. He was really feeling the strain and was having to focus his will around the node to keep the magic trapped and inside, until finally the node burst in an explosion extending outside his body of his life magic. Eli felt drained and would need a break before working on the skill but he didn't open his eyes, he just relaxed his mind and watched the flow of his magic until he felt rested enough to move on to the skill.
With his life node now open he dove his mind into the node as deep as he could to get a feel for what kind of skill it wanted. Eli felt that magic nodes and even magic itself had a will depending on the flavor, this will was what the magic wanted to do, like what it could most easily be pushed into doing by his will. And he used this to make a skill rune in the node that, he hoped, would match the will of the magic it used for fuel. His mind sank deep for what seemed like days, until he was sure of its flavor. It wanted to make life, obedient life, but also a life that is fierce and violent. It was almost frightening to him how much this feeling of life wanted to kill, to climb the food chain, to be on top.
This was a primal feeling, deeply without mercy, but cunning and curious, the complexities were growing difficult to combine into one so he kept them separate. It split into three boxes, one craved violence and domination, to be the top of the food chain, one was cautious and curious, like a deer or a bunny. And one was obedient and supportive like a mother bear protecting her cub. All three felt like different kinds of animals, however, they all also had a hint of approval seeking, like those feelings were on his behalf and they wanted to act in the world on his behalf. He pushed his will to use what he had put into those boxes into a skill and he felt it forming, taking everything he had to make sure it came out the best skill it could.
He finally wanted to open his eyes but he couldn't, in fact, he couldn't move at all. Now that he could sense his body he was covered in plant life, root branches, vines grass and everything had grown around him. Focusing on his strength, he was able to slowly wiggle his arms free, then get the rest of the growth off of him. He stood and stretched and took a look at his system windows to see what he had gained.
"Life node opened"
"Life node skills will be more potent"
"You have learned the life node skill: Triplet Root Avatar - Supreme"
"Triplet root Avatar - Life node - level 1"
"Spell - Supreme - 10 second cast"
"Conjure an avatar made of roots from local plants"
"Avatar can be 1 of 3 types, Attack, Defense, Scout"
The skill looked good and he wanted to try it out right away but he was tired and needed some real sleep, but first he needed to thank Audrey and send messages to Tara. However, she and the boy were not anywhere that he could see, so he started to walk around the area to see what had happened. He could see where they had slept one night, but no sign of where they went. He quickly sent a message to Tara asking when she will be in the safe zone. He looked around some more making sure that there hadn't been a fight. She probably saw him covered in plants and decided that he wouldn't be much help if a monster came along and went back to the safe zone.
Tara responded that she would be in the safe zone before the sun went down. Eli's plans for this place really depended on what she found inside. He didn't want to take charge or anything but what he did want was to prepare them for the monster horde, and he needed to be scarier. He had some ideas but, with only 4 days left until the horde came, they were going to have to move quickly. From the looks of the safe zone they were going to have trouble preventing massive casualties since they didn't have any defenses and were all scattered throughout the zone.