Chapter 146: Completion of Nature Magic

The rough plan was set.

‘Obtaining Divinity and Authority.’

To do that, I had to meet the God in the Sleeping Forest. Of course, the Lord of the First Forest wouldn’t let me meet them easily.

If only I could complete Nature Magic.

I would be able to defeat the Lord of the Forest.

What I was currently learning was only half-baked. It was at the point where I couldn’t even control it properly, so I had placed a Seal on it.

Completing this was the first priority.

“I’ll use all the usage tickets.”

At my request, Rose took out the Card she had used last time.

It was a Colorless Card.

It was a card that only appeared when a large number of Dimensional Tavern Passes were used. After Rose skillfully shuffled the cards, she spread them out.

Since I had already experienced this once before, I placed my hand where my intuition led me. When I selected and flipped one card, the word “Ancient” appeared.

It was the same word as last time.

Snap!

Rose snapped her fingers and turned the card into liquor. Golden liquor filled the empty glass. I lifted the glass, which emanated a sweet scent.

Rose looked at me with a slightly worried expression.

“Don’t be greedy.”

“Greedy?”

“I’ve seen many cases where people fail because their ambition got ahead of them. In particular, many people have met a bad end while trying to learn Nature Magic.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

In truth, I had been thinking that I needed to master Nature Magic as quickly as possible.

If Rose hadn’t pointed it out, I probably would have tried to master Nature Magic by any means necessary.

Thanks to her, I was able to set aside my excessive ambition for a moment.

“Then, I’ll be going.”

I tossed the drink in the glass into my mouth. It had a luxurious sweet taste. As that flavor flowed into my mind, the surrounding landscape changed.

It was a continent where sandstorms swirled.

When I first came here, I couldn’t see anything. However, after learning Nature Magic, many things became visible.

I saw sandstorms composed of Nature Magic.

Using the Mana in my Dragon Heart, I dispelled the sandstorms created by Nature Magic.

Whoosh!

In an instant, the wind vanished, and the sand settled onto the ground.

By the time all the sand had settled, the Ancient Dragons revealed themselves.

“You’ve arrived quickly.”

“You’ve grown in the meantime?”

“To possess this much Nature Magic while having a Seal on it… it’s surprising.”

“With this much, you can go in immediately.”

I spoke while looking at the Ancient Dragons who were conversing as they looked at me.

“Let’s start right away.”

“As expected, I like youth. You’re full of spirit.”

I followed the Ancient Dragons and moved to the temple in the sky.

I stood atop the Magic Circle in the Central Area.

The Ancient Dragons stood nearby and channeled the Mana from their Dragon Hearts.

Hum!

I felt the Magic Circle activate.

“It won’t be as easy as last time. It might take longer, or you might never be able to come out.”

“Why are you trying to scare him? With your Talent, you should be able to do it in a few hundred years.”

I felt their concern and asked, “Is it very different from last time?”

“That time was merely a taste. The real thing is much more difficult and takes a long time. However, depending on how you think, it could also be easy.”

Nevertheless, I had to succeed.

I had to become stronger to stop the Supreme Apostle and save the world.

“I’ll do it.”

In any case, the time flowing inside was but a mere moment. It would only feel like hundreds or thousands of hours to me.

I steeled my heart and clenched my fists.

“Please begin.”

“Very well. Let’s begin, everyone.”

The Ancient Dragons fully drew out their Mana, completing the Magic Circle in an instant.

The multicolored light flowing from the Magic Circle poured into my body, and my eyes closed.

With that, all my senses vanished.

‘What will it be… this time?’

Last time, I had personally become nature.

I became fire and burned everything in sight, became water and swallowed ships, and became wind to sweep everything away.

Besides that, I had also become the earth and caused earthquakes.

A new life beginning with destruction.

New life appeared in the places where nature had swept through.

Flower seeds carried by the wind blossomed in the ground, and rain from the sky caused the seeds to sprout.

The warm sunlight made the seeds grow.

In that way, I personally felt the dual nature of nature—its destructive side and its warm side that nurtured life.

Rumble!

I felt a strong vibration.

It was like riding a broken airplane.

I was shaken up and down mercilessly.

Along with the sensation of my brain being rattled, my consciousness grew distant.

Flash!

And then, I regained consciousness.

“Gasp!”

I took a deep breath and looked around.

There was one humble hut.

It was a Forest entirely surrounded by trees.

It seemed that I wasn’t becoming nature this time. I calmly checked my physical condition. I couldn’t feel the Dragon Heart.

I stood up to look around the area a bit more.

First, I went to the hut and inspected the interior.

There was a box full of something that looked like small pills, a water bottle filled with water, and one old bed.

I went back outside and walked around the Forest for a bit.

I moved cautiously, checking for any wild beasts or strange beings.

Fortunately, there were no creatures that could be a threat.

—Enlighten yourself with Nature.

I heard someone’s voice in my head.

It wasn’t the voice of the Ancient Dragons.

It was a being I was hearing for the first time in my life.

The voice, which was somehow familiar yet strange, fell silent after saying those words.

I took a seat in front of the hut.

The first thing that came to mind was the Enlightenment I had gained.

The duality of destructive power and warmth.

“Does this mean that what I realized wasn’t nature?”

Then, what was the nature that I had to realize?

It was an incredibly simple yet profoundly difficult problem.

For now, I closed my eyes.

I felt a cool breeze and the scent of grass. Sunlight, wind, and trees. Weren’t these things nature?

I sat still and recalled the things I considered to be nature, one by one.

I spent time reflecting on the characteristics of those things.

About one month passed.

I managed my meals with the Hwandan that was inside the hut. Perhaps it was made by grinding grains, but it tasted like clumped roasted grain powder.

Even so, eating just one pill made my hunger vanish, so I didn’t have to worry about starving.

‘Enlighten yourself with Nature.’

I tried various things with that theme in mind, but no clear idea of what to do came to me.

As my thoughts went in circles, they grew deeper.

When I would snap out of it, a great deal of time would have passed.

“Nature.”

I lay on the ground and looked up at the clear sky.

My thoughts had become so heavy that I needed to shed many of them.

I consciously erased my thoughts and tried to recall everything from the beginning.

When I first encountered Nature Magic.

When I met the Ancient Dragons and learned Nature Magic.

When I truly became nature and experienced it firsthand.

What did it mean to enlighten myself with nature here?

I reached out my hand toward the vast emptiness that didn’t provide any immediate answers. As I spent time trying to grasp the ungraspable sky, the sight of my hand trying to catch the heavens felt strangely significant.

‘…Why was I nature last time, but now I’m in the form of a Human?’

Starting from that question, my curiosity led to a chain of thoughts.

Then, something flashed in my mind.

I closed my eyes while lying comfortably on the ground. I took a deep breath of the Forest’s air and delicately spread out my senses.

The texture of the grass felt against my back.

The damp scent of soil rising from the ground.

The wind brushing past the grass.

The sound of water from the stream.

The warmth felt from the bright sunlight.

The various things that could be felt in nature were transmitted through the senses of my entire body.

‘It’s different.’

It was clearly different from what I felt when I had directly become nature.

What would I have to do to make it the same?

‘Nature is me, and I am nature.’

When the cool breeze brushed past my hair, I felt a sense of freedom as if I had become the wind.

In the sound of the stream, which flowed calmly yet violently at times, I felt the constantly changing whims of nature.

In the scent of the soil that embraced everything, I felt nature’s tolerance. In the hot sunlight, I felt the energy possessed by nature.

The moment I deeply understood each Attribute, a change occurred within me. The things that had been acting separately merged into one, and Enlightenment came to me.

I felt a new sensation that couldn’t be explained.

‘So this is what it’s like to become one with nature.’

Until now, I had thought of each Attribute as an individual part of nature.

However, nature was originally one.

Everything was connected, influencing one another, and forming one massive world.

Sssshhh!

With a feeling as if I had become a part of this world, my mind grew distant, and I saw something.

It was a massive light that couldn’t be described.

Beyond the light, something existed in a blur.

‘God.’

The power of a God, which I had experienced once before, shimmered as if it were within my reach.

However, in the end, I couldn’t grasp that power.

At the same time, my eyes snapped open, and a sense of extreme dissonance washed over me. The senses of the flesh and the senses of nature were tangled together.

I calmly separated my senses.

“…Did I succeed?”

“You’ve succeeded already? It’s too early.”

“He must have failed.”

“Were we too impatient?”

Once my senses were perfectly organized, my blurred vision returned to normal.

I saw the Ancient Dragons looking at me with puzzled expressions.

“I succeeded.”

“What?”

“You really succeeded?”

I stood up while looking at the Ancient Dragons who harbored doubts. My senses hadn’t fully returned yet, so I staggered slightly.

One Ancient Dragon approached and supported me.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m just not used to the power yet.”

I looked down at the ground from the temple in the sky.

It was a land that had become desolate due to the long War.

Looking down at the land where not a single trace of the energy of life could be felt, I reached out my hand.

I manifested Nature Magic by resonating the Mana in my Dragon Heart with the surrounding Mana.

I breathed the water of life into the barren land and breathed Strength into the seeds that were holding their breath.

The dried-up land became moist, warm sunlight poured over it, and green sprouts bloomed through the cracks.

It wasn’t just one; an incredible number of plants appeared, to the point where all the land within my sight looked green.

Unlike last time, they didn’t disappear.

“To bloom flowers in the Land of Death.”

“Was such a thing even possible?”

“…I see now why the Lord tried to Seal this power.”

“The creation of life… quite literally, it’s the power of a God.”

It wasn’t true creation as the Ancient Dragons spoke of.

However, it was true that I had created an environment where life could bloom again.

I had turned the Land of Death into a Land of Life.

“…Ugh!”

However, it was by no means a power I could use at will. A massive headache washed over me, and the muscles in my entire body twisted.

This new power was still too much for me to handle.

‘Still, I think I can defeat the Orc somehow.’

Beyond merely feeling nature, I had realized how to become one with it.

My Understanding of Nature Magic had risen to an incredibly high level.

I had become able to use truly powerful Magic.

Let’s rest for just a bit.

I’ll go fight the Orc after that.

Making that decision, I let go of my consciousness, which I had been tenaciously holding onto.