Trickling Tree Root

That night, Zeeth and the three went back to Solas' hidden underground lair and handed her the massive Trickling Tree root that fell off. She looked at it with an astonished yet annoyed look, "what is this? How did you get it, what? I have so many questions. First, where did you find a trickling Tree? I didn't think there were any near us."

"Wait, you didn't expect us to find one?! Then why did you make us do this??" Gror yelled.

"Of course I didn't! I told you, I don't want students! This was supposed to be an impossible challenge! I expected you to never come back, or at least wait a year or two!"

"What the heck is wrong with you, old lady!?"

"Shut yer trap! Besides, how did you get such a large yet empty root?? This thing is as pure as a baby root, yet this large? This isn't going to work, you should just make firewood or something out of it. Did you have a tank full of top tier TON? That's Tonic of Nature if you didn't know."

"Yeah, we know."

"I don't expect the dwarf here to know that."

"Why would I not?? I am 35, you know. I know a lot more about this world than you do."

"Yeah? 35? How sad. I'm 36 and I don't look a day over 20, you already look like you're about to crumble to dust."

"No, I don't!"

"I thought Gror was the same age as us, who knew he was so much older."

"Exactly, Zeeth thought I was his age, I look super young."

"Guys, stop arguing. Is there any other way to make this potion? Or any other way to make you trust us?"

"Nope. but there is one way to use this root. A Trickling Tree root is only so sought after because of the immense amount of dark energy it holds so if we just constantly pump dark energy into it, it should have the same effect. Theoretically, I have proven this but I don't know what variables there will be if we really attempt it."

"Well, why don't you try it. Then you'll know"

"Ha, that's funny. If I were to do it alone it could take half a year, do you think either of us has the time?"

"So why don't you call up some of your friends? They could help you blast it."

"I don't have any friends that can use dark magic."

"You don't have friends that can use dark magic? In Melanis?" Gror asked, "Then what magic do your friends have?"

"You know." she said vaguely, "Random magic here and there."

"Rolas, please teach us some black magic. We have every other ingredient, we just need this one that thing, what do you want us to do?"

"You have everything else? Enough to brew three potions worth? Hmm. Very alluring. How about this, I will teach you the most basic black magic and we will all throw magic at it together. Then I can teach you how to brew it. And then take a sip to prove your loyalty and if you can do that properly then I will teach you."

"Deal."

Gror stopped him right after saying that and said, "Wait, when did I say I would agree? I don't want to drink a truth serum, what if she asks for my deepest secret?"

"Yeah, I don't know if she should try to get me to tell her my secrets either, it's not safe…" Zeeth was thinking about god and the vegetative state he would be in if he told her under the effects of a potion.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she just wants to test if we are undead creatures or not," page said, "a little bit won't make us spill all our guts, we will recover in seconds."

"Alright, if all you three twerps agree then we will start tomorrow. It's getting late, you can sleep in the dumpling shop, there should be a few piles of hay behind it."

"Why can't we sleep in here?" Gror asked, "it's nice and warm."

"Because it's where I live and I don't want you guys disturbing me, now get out, we will meet tomorrow morning."

The door opened and the floor jumped up to throw them out. The sky, full of stars, swept past their sight as they fell back on the ground.

"Geez, what an old bag," Gror muttered as he rubbed his head.

Her muffled voice yelled out, "I heard that you punk!"

They walked to the back of the dumpling shop where a single worker sat, taking care of the late-night customers. Sure enough, in a small room, there was a large pile of hay. They walked around, pushing piles of hay here and there until they made satisfactory beds. They each climbed in but Zeeth wasn't ready to sleep yet. He waited until they fell asleep and whispered "God's number".

He was instantly sucked away, this time god was a rock climber in the bright morning. Zeeth asked, "why is there another Goddess, Luik?"

God turned to look at him, his eyes shining a dazzling gold for a few seconds before dimming down. "Interesting. Oh, those are just beings that other creatures believed to be god simply due to their power. They aren't all that powerful, they aren't even immortal. They just seem to live a long time and imbue their consciousness into things so they can be re-awakened when they do die. Those weak imitations aren't gods or goddesses, only I'm the real one."

"Also, how would it be easiest for me to learn black magic."

"You? You would just need to get blasted with a bunch of weak spells and have your slimes absorb some to learn it."

"Does that work for every other type of magic as well?"

"Almost."

"Then what about the ones that don't follow this rule?"

"Well, I don't want to tell you but there is a lot that can't be learned in this fashion."

He kept asking about how to best learn magic and a bunch more about the different deities and god was as infuriatingly vague as ever with his answers. The most important thing he took away was that he should get blasted a bunch with magic.

He came back and spent the rest of the night playing with Al and channeling mana through his body to increase the amount he had.

The next morning Rolas had woken them up at sunrise and began teaching them. "Remember, if you can't even learn the most basic black magic then I can't help you at all. You need to either have an affinity or develop one yourself, if you can't do that then I really can't do much and I Won't even be able to teach you."

"Okay. fair enough."

"Step one, take this rock," she handed them each a small black rock. "Try channeling mana through it and pour out black magic. This step should be fairly simple but it depends on how much you can make and how stable you can make it. You should eventually be able to create this yourself without the rock and create your own forms of magic."

"Rolas," Zeeth interrupted, "what is the weakest black magic skill you have?"

"Why? Trying to get ahead?"

"No, I just want to see what I might be looking forward to and I don't want to choose your strongest because it might be too powerful."

"Uhuhuhu, of course, it will be too powerful," he wasn't sure, but it seemed as if her face began glowing brighter along with her pride. Flattery seemed to be the way to her heart. "My weakest would be this," she put her two hands together and touched the fingertips to make a rhombus. Black wisps began seeping out of her palms and wrists to create a ball in the center. Her fingertips emanated a constant ring of circles. She then smacked her hands together and pushed forward, forcing her palms outward and at the Trickling Tree root, she placed on the floor. It hit the root and began to ricochet off, leaving a dark purple imprint, but the rings around it attached itself to the root and kept it swaying around until it was slowly soaked in and disappeared.

"The skill that I showed, where it trapped the ball in the designated area, is a very tough skill to learn, but the skill that I used to attack was one of the simplest." she explained, "Just a ball of black magic used to inflict wounds and possibly large blunt damage. I only used the stick magic so that it wouldn't go to waste or hit anything else."

"What about your other skills? What can they do?"

"I'm not showing you any more skills. I'm just going to teach you how to utilize the weakest skill and have you all blast the root. By the way, I still don't know where you got it from, I doubt the markets had anything like this. That root wouldn't survive a minute there, it would be pitch black by now."

"Oh no!" Gror exclaimed, "Terry!"