Chapter 268: friend of nature
Hiss— Inside the Mist Forest, accompanied by a hissing sound, a small emerald green snake, only two fingers thick, slowly crawled out from a circular, iron-gray, well-cover-shaped Witchcraft tool.
Hiss—
Until the entire snake body had crawled out, in the blink of an eye, the small snake that was crawling on the ground one second ago rapidly expanded its body the next second, directly transforming into a slender human figure wearing an emerald green wizard robe.
"Although the process of using it is a bit troublesome, the effect is still good."
Jia Na, who had lifted the Beginner Transformation and returned to her human form, looked at the gloomy and quiet forest scene around her and also put away the 【Vortex Well】 Witchcraft tool on the ground.
After returning to her dormitory, Jia Na immediately began to study how to use the 【Vortex Well】.
Although Hugh-Stone had explained it very clearly, when Jia Na actually used it, she still discovered many inconvenient aspects of this Witchcraft tool.
The first inconvenient aspect was the 'maze design' of the 【Vortex Well】.
After Jia Na embedded the earth-element magic stone into the groove of the 【Vortex Well】, the original iron-gray curved surface transformed into a deep black hole. Inside the black hole was a very complex vortex-shaped tunnel maze.
Although it was called a maze, in reality, the end of each vortex tunnel was a coordinate gate.
However, because each vortex tunnel was too similar, without a special memory, Jia Na would simply be unable to accurately find which of the dozens of coordinate gates was the eighth and twentieth coordinates mentioned by Hugh-Stone.
Fortunately, while Hugh-Stone handed the 【Vortex Well】 to Jia Na, he also gave her a 'maze map'.
According to the tunnel distribution on the 'maze map', Jia Na finally found the 'vortex tunnel' leading to the eighth coordinate.
The second inconvenient aspect was that the tunnel design inside the 【Vortex Well】 was simply too small.
Although the 【Vortex Well】 had a diameter of about thirty centimeters, the diameter of the tunnels inside never exceeded fifteen centimeters at their longest.
Regarding this, Hugh-Stone had also reminded Jia Na that before using the 【Vortex Well】, she must master the 【Shrinking Spell】.
If there were other teammates, the user's mastery level of the 【Shrinking Spell】 could not be too low.
At the very least, they needed to reach a level of proficiency where they could shrink others who hadn't mastered the 【Shrinking Spell】 to within fifteen centimeters.
Otherwise, the function of this Witchcraft tool could not be fully utilized.
As a Witchcraft taught by Mary-Margaret in the first year, Jia Na had naturally mastered the 【Shrinking Spell】 early on.
And during the process of casting the Witchcraft, Jia Na discovered that even if she did shrink to within fifteen centimeters, due to the extremely narrow and long structure of the 'vortex tunnels', if she chose the wrong 'coordinate' without being familiar enough with the 'maze' structure, it would become quite troublesome when she had to backtrack to the starting point.
Without at least ten minutes, she simply couldn't get back.
Therefore, after repeated trials, Jia Na decided to use Elementary Transformation to overcome this difficulty.
After all, a similarly slender small snake, whether in terms of crawling speed or body shape, was more suitable for the narrow and long 'vortex tunnels'.
Floral Guardian—
Just as Jia Na had put away the 【Vortex Well】 and stood still in the forest, almost instantly, the emerald green Floral Guardian shield appeared on her.
Click—Clatter—
As dense footsteps sounded, a short while later, a pack of enormous Howling Moon Demon Wolves appeared in Jia Na's line of sight.
"This should be considered the third inconvenient aspect of the 【Vortex Well】—"
Because Jia Na couldn't see the situation inside the Mist Forest through the 'coordinates' beforehand, in many cases, she could only gamble that the coordinate location chosen by Hugh-Stone was relatively hidden and wouldn't pose too many problems.
Fortunately, besides the unreliable method of 'gambling', Jia Na also had the 【Danger Perception】 character talent as a basis for judgment.
However, it seemed to have gone wrong this time.
Click—Clatter—
The wolf pack's gaze remained focused on Jia Na. As the distance between the two sides grew shorter, Jia Na's 【Danger Perception】
talent seemed to have disappeared, providing Jia Na with no warning signals for 'combat' or 'escape'.
"Hmm?"
Just as Jia Na was preparing to engage, the Howling Moon Demon Wolf pack that was originally approaching silently took a detour, then directly avoided Jia Na's location and successively left in the direction behind her.
"Is this the value of being a 'friend of nature'—"
Feeling the attitude of the Howling Moon Demon Wolf pack and the 'malfunctioning' reaction of her 【Danger Perception】 talent, Jia Na quickly understood that this was the Nature Affinity talent at work.
Although Jia Na hadn't officially tried communicating with the Howling Moon Demon Wolf pack yet, for the Howling Moon Demon Wolves, who usually deeply detested humans, to be able to restrain their hostility and choose to leave indifferently upon seeing Jia Na was already giving her a lot of face—
After confirming that there was no danger around, Jia Na's gaze locked onto the tree closest to her location,
and then placed her right hand on the tree trunk.
Swish swish swish—
As Jia Na's palm pressed tightly against the tree trunk, in the misty time, scenes and fragments flashed quickly through Jia Na's mind like light and shadow.
The first ability of Nature Affinity was to allow Jia Na to gain the favor of nature, transform into a friend of nature, and communicate without barriers with all living beings.
Just now, when the Howling Moon Demon Wolves passed by, Jia Na didn't rush to use this ability out of caution.
After the Howling Moon Demon Wolf pack left, Jia Na, who no longer had any reservations, attempted to communicate with the surrounding trees for the first time.
"What I just saw should be the memory fragments of this tree since its birth."
Spring brings forth all things, summer flows like fire, autumn leaves wither, winter is silent.
In different seasons and times, the emotional memories reflected by this tree were also completely different.
Regarding this, Jia Na, who was attempting to communicate with natural creatures for the first time, also felt particularly novel.
"Then can you tell me who has passed by here today?
—
As Jia Na's instruction was conveyed, the tree that was originally showing Jia Na its 'memory fragments' immediately stopped sharing, then organized its memories from today and transmitted them to Jia Na again.
"'Besides that group of Howling Moon Demon Wolves, have no other creatures passed by here—'"
Looking at the memory fragments transmitted by the tree, Jia Na couldn't help but feel a mix of emotions.
Unexpectedly, such a coincidence actually happened to her—
