The Wonder Tree

For over twenty minutes of swimming, Charles finally saw the entrance of the cave. He heaved a sigh of relief. The lack was as deep as the ocean. Swimming as fast as he could, even with his atlantean physique it had taken him over twenty minutes.

Charles suddenly stopped swimming and turned around as he felt someone's or something's gaze on him. He immediately knew that the guardian had felt his presence and had awakened.

"And here I thought I wouldn't have to fight", Charles said with a sigh. He could speak perfectly under water in his Merfolk form.

Immediately after saying that sentence, Charles started to hear multiple charming and beautiful female voices singing and harmonizing an enchanting song.

Charles's eyes went wide as he realized what was going on.

"𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑢𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑛"

He immediately casted a sound blocking spell so that he wouldn't be able to hear the enchanting voices.

From down below, the deepest and darkest part of the lake, Charles could see several silhouettes slowly emerging from the dark, swimming up towards him. Charles squinted his eyes and locked his gaze towards the nearest figure. Slowly, as the figure was emerging, Charles could now make out what the figure was.

At first sight, one would think it was a completely naked woman with the most beautiful features. Just looking at her would unknowingly attract a man towards her, literally. Instead of legs, she had a tail; a fish tail. It was a siren. There were a few dozens of them.

They all slowly emerged from the darkness and their enchanting voices grew louder but luckily Charles could no longer hear. He would have been in big trouble if he could.

In folklore, sirens are beautiful women with fish tails that attract sailors with their beautiful voices. When the sailors would get close, the sirens would grab them and pull them under the water to drown them. Some people even say they feast on dead sailors.

Charles knew. that he had to get to the entrance of the cave before the sirens got close. He shot towards the entrance at full speed. Seeing this, the sirens immediately chased after him.

"𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑢𝑙"

The nearest siren stretched out her hand to get a hold of Charles. Charles casted a spell and a ball of energy shot towards the siren hitting her and exploding in her face. The force pushed her and other sirens away.

Charles looked ahead and found some of the sirens coming at him from there.

"𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜"

Charles casted another spell. Each of the sirens were dispersed and pushed away into different directions by some kind of force, letting Charles slip through them. They quickly recovered and chased after Charles again with the other sirens.

The sirens were hot on his tail. Seeing that he couldn't slip into the cave without the sirens catching up to him, Charles turned around quickly and casted a spell.

"𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑢𝑙 𝑣𝑖𝑠"

A strong telekinetic force shot out of both of Charles's hands towards the sirens, hitting them and pushing them away. They were immediately knocked out by the force.

Charles let out a sigh of relief when he saw that all the sirens had been knocked out. He turned around and entered the cave with ease.

After swimming for about two minutes, Charles's head emerged from under the water. He looked around the cave. It was an extraordinarily large cave. Right in the middle of the cave was a tiny island that a huge tree had grown on.

"The wonder tree", Charles said, amazed by the sight even though this wasn't his first time seeing it.

On the island, there was a huge tree that stood about 50 meters and had large and long branches. The huge was cover in beautiful golden leaves that gave off a faint glow. This was the wonder tree that the wonder flower and wonder fruit grew on.

Charles swam to the island and his figure returned to normal. He got out of the water and approached the wonder tree. He scanned the tree for a flowers even thought the leaves had the same abilities. He soon found one and it wasn't high from the ground. He approached it and plucked it along with the stalk.

The flowers looked like a rose but it was a bit bigger in size and was golden in color. Inside the flower was a pebble sized fruit; the wonder fruit.

After giving the fruit to Jason, he would take the stalk and the flower for himself. He would be able to make many things out of this. He could even be able to use the leaves and flower to enhance his magic abilities.

"𝑎𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑜"

Charles casted a spell and the entire flower disappeared without a trace. The spell Charles casted was a storage spell that sent objects the caster is holding to a preprepared space. The things sent there can be retrieve whenever the caster wants. It's like having a personal inventory.

Charles jumped back into the water. They needed to get back to earth before night fell and the wraiths could roam about without restriction. Charles turned back into his under water form and swam back to land. He exited the cave and passed by the still out cold sirens.

After some minutes, Charles reached the surface. He was about to announce his arrival when he noticed that the surrounding was darker than it was supposed to be. He only spent less than an hour under water so it should still be in the afternoon.

Charles looked to the sky and saw the large dark cloud with the cloud wraith in the middle. It was then that he heard the sound of fighting. He looked in the direction of the sound and saw Ivan hold his own against a dozen of wraiths with Wilson supporting him with his excellent marksmanship.

Seeing the situation, Charles knew exactly what to do. He started to float over the lake. The water on his body immediately evaporated, his clothes that were lying on the ground disintegrated and appeared on him out of thin air.

Charles started to fly towards the cloud wraith with full speed. If he could defeat the cloud wraith, the dark cloud would disappear and since the normal wraiths are sensitive to light, they'll be too put in a weaken state if they can't find someplace dark to hide. They'll also be in severe pain.

The cloud wraith saw Charles flying towards it and it let out a blood cuddling shriek.

"𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑢𝑙"

Charles casted a spell and a glowing ball of energy shot from his finger, hitting the cloud wraith right in the chest. The cloud wraith let out a pained shriek. Seeing the opportunity, a "Holy light" dagger materialized in Charles's hand, its runes already glowing. When he got close enough, he jammed it into the cloud wraith's chest. The cloud wraith let out a louder shriek out of pain before bursting into smoke. Charles had destroyed the cloud wraith just like that.

With the cloud wraith destroyed, the dark cloud started to dissipate. The wraiths that Ivan and Wilson were fighting were exposed to the light and started to shriek out of pain and scurried away to find places to hide.

Charles landed before the two.

"Thank God", Ivan said. Even though he wasn't tired, he was started to find it hard fighting against dozens of wraiths.

"Did you find the wonder flower?", Wilson asked to which Charles nodded.

"Then let's get the fuck out of here", Wilson said.

*****

"Finally found it", Bryce said out loud. He had finally found the spell used to make daylight ornaments.

"Thank God. I thought I was gonna die of boredom", Jason said. He had stopped searching for the spell a while ago since he couldn't read Latin and more than half of almost all the grimoires were written in Latin.

Bryce memorized everything he had to do from the grimoires. After that, he got up and picked up the ring Jason chose. He walked to the nearest window and slightly opened the curtain, letting a bit of sunlight in the room. Bryce held the ring in the ray of the sun and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and when he reopened them, they were glowing bright blue.

"𝑖𝑛 𝑣𝑖𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑠"

Bryce casted the spell to make daylight ornaments.

His eyes went back to normal.

"Here", Bryce said.

"Wait, that's it?", Jason asked. He was expecting something to happen. Like some reaction or something.

"Yeah. What? You wanted there to be whooshing winds and blinding lights?", Bryce asked as he handed the daylight ring to Jason.

"Well yeah", Jason said as he put his daylight ring on his left index finger. "Isn't that the point of witchcraft?"

"I'm as clueless as you", Bryce said.

Jason looked at the ring and asked, "So how do we know if it works?".

Bryce opened the curtain, fully letting the sunlight in.

"Step in and let's see", he said.

Jason thought about it for a second before walking towards the window. He took a deep breath before slowly bringing his hand to the sunlight. His hand touched the ray of sunlight but it didn't burn him.

Jason's eyes went wide when he saw this. He let out a laugh out of excitement and fully let the sun shine on him. He let out a more excited laugh when he didn't fell the sun burn him. It's been a little over three months since he last felt the sunlight on him without burning him. He hadn't felt the sun since 17th June, when Alvin killed their parents and turned him into a vampire.

Jason suddenly pulls Bryce in for a hug.

"Thank you", Jason said. He wouldn't have to avoid the sun from now on.

"Yeah", Bryce said and patted Jason on the back.

"You can let go of me now", Bryce said when Jason was hugging him for a bit too long.

"Sorry", Jason apologized as he let go of Bryce.

"Okay then, let's go outside", Bryce as he started to walk towards the door.

"For what?", Jason asked.

"To test your new powers. What else?" Bryce said.

Hearing this, Jason immediately ran after Bryce.