Chapter 47: 48-Attempt

When the new day started, Rowan woke up and began with his usual routine.

Mana exchange with the Mother Tree and archery practice.

The sky was still dark and it would be quite some time before the sun began to rise. Darkness wasn’t good for practicing archery, so he always started with exchanging mana.

After Rowan walked over to the tree, he spoke out a few words about his plans. “Mother Tree, today I'm going to try something different. I’m going to try to improve my sight through mana. If anything goes wrong, then I think you might have to start taking care of yourself.”

Was it considered crazy to talk to a plant?

Maybe, but if Rowan didn’t, he thought he would have gone crazy a long time ago.

Speaking out loud helped Rowan focus and plan better when he was frustrated. It didn’t always work, but it allowed him to think more clearly and come up with alternate solutions.

Rowan usually didn’t speak to the Mother Tree since  there wasn’t a lot to say. However, it did help him to have someone to talk to even if they didn’t talk back.

If Rowan hadn’t started talking to the Mother Tree, he might have gone crazy some time ago.

Certain animals such as humans are creatures of sociability. Some animals go crazy or die just by being lonely. Talking to a tree was a type of coping mechanism for Rowan after being isolated for so long. Not that the boy knew any of this.

Rowan just thought talking to plants may help them grow. He remembers his grandpa talking about how plants needed love and care. It felt so long ago, but he remembered how Grandpa Rodan treated the sunflowers in his little garden like his own children. While Rowan was skeptical about talking to plants, he didn’t deny what his grandpa said. He didn’t grow enough plants to deny his grandpa’s words and it didn’t hurt to try.

After all there was evidence that the Mother Tree was listening to his talk.

Maybe it was a figment of his imagination or maybe  it was just a sign of madness after being alone for so long. Whatever it was, Rowan appreciated the fact that there was someone or something listening. It made helping the Mother Tree grow worth it.

What kind of response could a tree have?

When it first happened, Rowan barely noticed. For him, the exchange was always a flow of mana that went back and forth between the boy and the tree. Mana is considered inorganic energy. At least that's what Rowan was taught. He had forgotten a lot of the lessons that he learned about mana. However, what he did remember was there were different types of attributes for mana. One of the ways to differentiate them was through color and feel. Fire attribute mana tend to have a fiery red color accompanied with heath. In comparison, water attribute mana would feel cool and tend to be different hues of blue. 

However if there was no attribute attached to the mana, then the only word to despicable mana would be bland. 

One day, when Rowan felt warmth from the mana that returned to him, he had thought he was imagining it. As he continued the mana exchange through the next couple days, the feeling of warmth grew stronger everyday. 

It wasn’t a bad feeling for Rowan though.

The warmth that came with the mana reminded him of a campfire or the fireplace at home. It carried a certain gentleness and comfort with it. Gentle and comforting would not be the description Rowan normally used to describe fire, but that was how the mana felt to Rowan. One normally thinks of fire as excited and ready to explode. An element that want to engulf everything around it.

It didn’t make sense to Rowan why he would feel this warmth from the Mother Tree. Warmth would normally be associated with flames and why would the Mother Tree give off fire mana? Fire was the opposite of nature and the worst type of element for plants. The Mother Tree was special, but Rowan didn’t think it was so special that it also had the fire element within it.

In the end, after spending a long time thinking, Rowan gave up and came up with only one possible answer.

The Mother Tree was growing up and recognizing him.

The gentleness and comfort feeling that the mana gave him reminded him of a parent. Each time the mana returned to him felt like encouraging pat on his head, telling him to do his best.

No wonder the elves called it the Mother Tree.

Rowan didn’t always feel the kind response when he carried out the exchange. It only became more frequent when the tree grew taller and the fruit began to bud. A sign that the Mother Tree was becoming more  intelligent. Like how a baby who was beginning to recognize the world around it. Or maybe the Mother Tree was always intelligent and was just coming out of its long slumber from recovery?

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That is how Rowan saw it.

It wasn’t like there was anyone else around to explain how the Mother Tree actually worked.

Once he finished with the mana exchange, the sun had begun to peek out. A good time to practice archery. He made sure to empty quiver at least five times. Every arrow would hit its target dead on. Once the quiver was empty, he would run to collect all the arrows and then start over again.

Rinse and repeat.

When he finished practicing, Rowan cleaned up and sat down in a meditative position. Now it was time to try infusing mana into his eyes. A technique that he wasn’t looking forward to, but he had no choice but to try if he ever wanted to leave the Forest of Death.

Rowan could feel his heart beating as he personally knew the risk. Perhaps if he had a doctor or a teacher who could help him, then he wouldn’t have felt so anxious about the attempt. 

Unfortunately those were luxuries that he did not have and he could only try to test everything on his own.

Rowan closed his eyes and started off by sending just a bit of mana into them. It was best to start off small as there was less chance of mistakes. He could afford to experiment with his arms, but the eyes were vital and did not afford the same luxury.

He could feel the mana flowing in his eyeballs and decided to open them. 

What greeted him was that everything seemed a bit closer. The practice target that was at least 50 feet away seemed like it was now 45 feet away.

It worked! It was the first attempt and Rowan had succeeded. However before the boy could jump up in excitement at his success, a blinding pain shot through his eyes which forced him to close them.

Rowan knelt on the ground and gasped for air. Sweat trickled down his back. Not only did his eyes hurt, his head was also killing him.

Okay, so maybe he celebrated a bit too soon.

What went wrong? Rowan questioned himself as he laid on the ground once he began to feel better.

Did he send too much mana for the first try?  Or was it that his eyes were unaccustomed to the mana? Whatever it was, Rowan had to figure it out if he wanted to find a way to improve his eyesight. Every question seems like a likely possibility as much as any other. The only way to find out what went wrong was to test it out, something he was not looking forward to.

However before Rowan could test himself again, he needed to make sure his eyes were still working.

Rowan slowly opened his eyes as the sky greeted him. After blinking a few times just for good measure and his vision was still fine. He was still seeing spots though, but they faded away slowly. Fortunately his eyes still worked, but they still ached a bit. Rowan closed them once again, deciding to give himself a slight break.

As Rowan rested, he felt a sensation of something cold, which was odd. Winter had just passed and the current season was spring. While there were days that could be slightly chilly, the days of cold should pass, especially with the sun in the sky. Rowan looked around for the reason and found the only possible culprit right away.

Rowan walked over to the Mother Tree and asked “What’s wrong?”

The Mother Tree stood still, not giving him an answer as usual. It was already strange for him to feel that the tree was calling out to him in the first place, which had never happened before. The Mother Tree had always been indifferent to the boy’s actions. Rowan could only shrug and inject some mana into the tree to see if he would get a response. An even more freezing sensation returned to him though the connected mana.

He finally figured out what the cold sensation was.

Disapproval.

“You know the reason why I'm trying this. I need a better way to ‘see’ in the forest,” Rowan explained. This time the mana that returned to him carried no feelings. It looked as if the Mother Tree understood the reason, but didn’t like it.

Rowan sighed and was just about to break off his mana, when he felt something grabbed onto his senses and sucked him in.

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