World Seed: Game Start (47 page)

Not
wanting to be the enemy of the forest again, I directed the release
upwards to the sky. Immediately, a thick beam of light emerged from
each of my wings, shooting off where I had directed until my wings
had exhausted the stored energy.

Well…
that would be an epic attack, if I had the time to gather the mana
like that… I shook my head, knowing that expecting two or
three seconds in a heated battle to charge an attack is hoping for a
miracle, let alone two or three minutes. Maybe when my affinity
increases I’ll be able to take the mana in faster and use the
attack in combat.

Still…
the power of that attack. I should have gathered somewhere around
three hundred mana, but it was all pure light mana. That means it
would have been a 100% affinity, rather than my 8%, so it should have
been the equivalent of me firing a light blast with over 3500 mana.
I’ll have to remember that trick in the future, because it
could come in handy.

“
What
was that?” Celeste suddenly spoke up from my wrist, staring in
the direction that the light had gone.

“
Ah…
guess you could call it an ultimate attack?” I smiled slightly.

“
Huh…
Well, it was certainly interesting. But, if there were any creatures
that were still hostile towards you… you just sent them an
invitation.” She smirked to me as my face paled. She was right,
Arriane had assured the cooperation of this section of the jungle,
but a blast like that might have been seen or sensed by others.

Immediately,
I changed my feathers back to leaves, and flew into the sky. In the
distance, from four different directions I could see the trees
shaking, some moving aside while others advanced forward. When I
focused my X-Ray and Zoom combo, I found massive plants burrowing
closer from underground as well.

No
time to sit around! I shook my head and flew off, cultivating Plant
Affinity again to help me blend in with the forest. Between the big
trees above, and the giant squid-like roots below, I had no hopes of
winning an all out battle. And even less desire to try!

My
body continued to fly farther and higher, because the further away I
was from the ground, the better right now. I had yet to see a flying
plant, and I doubted I would see one now–

RWAAAAAA!!!

Ohfuck,
was that a roar? Looking in the direction it came from, thankfully
behind me, I saw what looked like a massive tangle of vines flying
through the sky. Its body was in the shape of a giant serpent, with
two wings made of wood and leaves that spread out dozens of meters in
each direction. Its teeth were like giant thorns, and it had two
front claws, each made of twisted branches. I was no longer happy to
have such an effective zoom feature on my eye.

But
that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part… was that
this one had eyes. Eyes that could quite clearly see the only
creature on this planet that was not in some way born of plants.
Unlike all of the other plant monsters, this dragon(because there is
really no better name for it, seriously) came flying straight towards
me.

“
Come
on, come on, not going to be dragon fertilizer!” I flew as fast
as I could, and when that wasn’t enough, I cast a series of
runes on myself to increase my flight speed even more. Even with all
of that, I was still just barely as fast as the hungry hungry plant.
I could fight it. I would almost certainly lose, but I really don’t
have a lot of options at this point. Wanting to probe its ability, I
stored my magic staff in my inventory and instead retrieved my rifle.
“Celeste, need some aiming help!”

“
I’m
on it!” Immediately, a red line was drawn in my vision,
emitting out from the tip of my rifle. Doing a quick spin, I
activated my Record function on my eye for a split second as I lined
up the shot. Since this made me instinctively know everything caught
in my vision, I was able to pull the trigger the instant the shot
lined up. 360 no scope, bitch! I grinned to myself and resumed
flying, cancelling the Record. After a moment there was a sharp roar,
and I turned my head to see that the plant dragon was missing a chunk
of its face. Maybe with a half dozen more shots like that, I could
even bring it down!

Unfortunately,
my rifle was the one weapon I hadn’t focused on charging. There
was enough energy in it for two more shots at most, but after that it
would be empty. And that dragon did not look like it would wait for
me to charge it up. I might be able to finish it off if I empty my
pistol into it, but every time I do a spin to take a shot I’d
lose a bit of space between myself and the dragon. A hundred shots…
I’d get eaten first.

I
might be able to do an Element Burst, if I can live long enough to
charge up the mana. The only question is what element? A blast of
plant mana would likely heal the dragon like it had done for the
slime before. The only other abundant mana types in the air were wind
and light. I didn’t really trust a light blast to finish it
off, and wind even less so. “Dammit, if only…”

I
looked around quickly, until I saw somewhat dark clouds off to my
left. I’ll lose a bit of distance, but it’s my only
choice. Refreshing the speed buffs, I shot off towards the small
storm clouds. I just had to be thankful that this was not a true
dragon. If it was, it would probably have magic or a breath weapon to
fire at me, instead of simply charging.

“
Faster,
Falenel, faster!” Celeste spoke up from my wrist, looking
behind me with a worried expression. If she was actually able to see
through her hologram, I’d just have her guide my shots without
having to turn back. It was a bit of a waste of mana, but I urged
wind mana to push my wings further and harder, letting me gain a bit
of distance.

By
the way, I should go ahead and state just how dumb I think this is,
with my flying TOWARDS a storm cloud with the INTENTION to get struck
by lightning multiple times. On the off chance I survive this, I then
plan to FIRE said lightning at a fucking DRAGON. Taking a quick
glance back, I did not like how close those teeth were getting. I
almost didn’t have to use the zoom feature to see how angry it
was.

Just
a few more minutes till the cloud… I thought to myself as I
kept flying as fast as I possibly could. “Celeste, mind if I
put you away for a moment? Don’t want you to get fried if this
falls through, or worse yet, if this works.”

“
Uh
huh, sure…” She said, nodding her head quickly. Being
stuck between a dragon and a lightning storm, she didn’t seem
to have too much hesitation towards hiding in my grove. If it were
possible, I’d have been right there with her.

It
took most of my mana to send her into the grove, but the dense plant
mana was steadily increasing it back up. Not only that, but I was
just now arriving at the edge of the storm cloud. With my Aura Sight,
I was able to see where the densest mass of lightning mana was, and
flew straight towards it. At the same time, I changed all of the
leaves on my wings to match the lightning element, and did my best to
control them so as to stop them from flying to the ground again.
“Come on, you big ugly storm. Show me who’s boss!”
I yelled at the cloud. Why not, everything else here wants a piece of
me.

After
a few moments, the first bolt of lightning struck. I could already
feel it gathering at my wings, overloading them and running through
my entire body.

As
soon as the bolt hit, I hurriedly cast my Alchemic Heal spell in
preparation for the next one. By the time I had cast the second time,
a third bolt of lightning struck me, further charging my wings. By
now, sparks were flying everywhere from my body, and it looked as if
I was the center of the storm. However, I simply continued casting
Alchemic Heal, again and again. The small bit of lightning that I
allowed myself to absorb to fuel that spell was quickly replaced a
hundred fold by more bolts.

Finally,
I turned back to face the dragon, who was now mere seconds from
eating my face(and the rest of me in the same bite, if I was lucky).
Fully extending my four wings, I felt myself losing altitude with my
new posture. If this works, I’d be able to recover in time to
land, and if not then I just wouldn’t really need to worry
about that rescue anymore.

The
eighth grader inside of me couldn’t help but yell out as I
released the lightning in a single massive bolt. “Lightning
Burst!” I would like to point out at this point, that my 7%
lightning affinity gave me next to no control over 100% pure
lightning. As such, I could merely give it a direction to go, and
pray to god it moved in a straight line.

For
the most part, the lightning did indeed move straight. About a third
of it branched off and spread in pretty much every direction.
However, that also left two thirds pure lightning moving straight
towards the dragon. And fun fact, lightning moves at a third of the
speed of light, over one hundred million meters per second. By my
estimation, the dragon was less than a thousand meters away from me,
giving it… less than one percent of one percent of a second to
avoid the blast.

Another
fun fact, this dragon is not that fast. If it was, I’d have
been dead long ago. After the blast was fired, I was left blinded for
a while, correcting my wings and returning them to normal as I used
the wind currents to right myself. Note to self, next time you fire a
mega blast of lightning, DON’T LOOK AT IT! It took several long
minutes before my eyes were able to make out anything. The mere fact
that I survived that long would seem to indicate that the dragon had
been defeated.

When
I was finally able to see, I found that I was only a few dozen meters
from the tops of the nearby trees, and quickly changed as much of my
aura as I could to plant mana, by cultivating Plant Affinity and
making the leaf wings. Ahead of me, I saw a large path of collapsed
trees, and smoke rising from the front of the path. I had barely a
sliver of health remaining after the repeated lightning strikes, but
it was worth it since I killed the dragon!

…

Wait,
why didn’t I level up? I did kill the dragon, right? Oh god, I
really hope I didn’t just make it mad. Flying over, I saw the
massive body of the flying plant serpent being wrapped up by vines,
and with my Aura Sight I saw plant mana being injected into it. Oh,
you have to be kidding me… they’re healing it?! I looked
back to the shrinking storm cloud, wondering if I would be able to
get one last blast in. I quickly decided that I probably couldn’t,
and that I should instead use this time to make like a tree and leaf.

Wow,
five levels at once, from only a partial defeat…. and does
this god have a fetish for the number five? I turned around and flew
away as fast as I could, not wanting to be anywhere nearby when that
‘nature wyrm’ woke up. At the same time, I took a chance
to look at my status and spend my points, because I may be needing
them soon.