As Cain opened his eyes, he was barely able to tilt his head. His whole body stiffened and his limbs felt numb. Trying to stand up felt like an impossible ordeal as Sofia’s head felt like a boulder on his chest.
Cain looked around him. Sofia, Alice, Selena, and Gracie were sleeping all around him. ‘I guess it’s the day I lose my ability to move, gotta give it to Alice’s curse.’
Something felt wrong, as he inspected the room he got the weird feeling of being an outsider. Something burned intensely inside his soul, he could feel the Mana in the room shaking gently.
As he looked to the window, a small plant was hanging there. It looked like a small sunflower that have grown a mouth. Moving and slithering around on its roots. “Ma…Master…” The plant growled as she approached the bed.
Spindle quickly jumped from the shadows and grabbed it, “Leave master alone!” But as soon as he said that, his hand started to burn with spirit magic. “Accursed devil!” The plant growled.
“Spindle leaves it alone, she isn’t an enemy!” Cain looked at the plant, he recognized that magic well and he was expecting to hear from her soon.
“Sylph, it’s been quite some time!” Cain was with her before reincarnating so technically they have only been separated for about two weeks. “What brought you here?”
“Y-you must be j-joking…I… f-felt your life force f-fading!” The plant glared at Alice, “It’s this bitch…” Spirit magic started to manifest as small orbs of light began to gather.
“Stop!” With only that word, everything faded and the plant sat without a move, “Don’t even try, I have something else to talk about!”
“The distance is large so this must be hard on you, using [Plant Control] like this must be painful!” Cain said as he looked at the plant.
“It’s indeed, I can b-barely keep the c-connection. Should I teleport t-to you?”
“No, you keep focusing on the awakening of the world tree. Have the dragons made any move yet?” Cain asked about what had been incurred since they were reincarnated.
“T-the coup d’état was s-successful. The dragons haven’t m-made any move. What b-brought you to this stat, I was s-scared the moment I felt the link w-weaken!” The plant slowly crawled to the bed. Hop! Selena immediately woke up and caught it.
“Monster-gaw!” She was about to tear it to shreds. “Stop!” Cain quickly stopped her.
After Selena left the thing alone, Cain wanted to finish the conversation as fast as he could. He could imagine Sylph’s body bleeding from every crevice on the other side as she is trying to keep this spell active.
“I do have a healer that should be able to use Seventh-tier magic soon so you don’t have to worry about me. I only have one favor to ask of you since you’re here. Can you leave me a spirit gem?” Spirit gems weren’t actual gems, they were the simple condensation of spirit magic, the parallel to Mana stones. Since Sylph was a master of spirit magic, the same way he was a master of enchanting magic, she could probably provide him with one.
“You k-know it’s going to be p-painful…” Sylph was barely able to keep the spell active due to the large distance, and now asking her to make a spirit stone is like asking someone who hit their toe on something to intentionally do it again.
“It will help me advance my enchanting system early on, now I can barely be called a mage with some enchanting to my name. Come on, it’s too damn rare to get.” Spirit stones weren’t just rare, they were extra rare as only high-level spirit magic wielders could make them. The Elvish kingdom was far and those stones if found here. They would be too valuable to have a price tag.
Alice and Sofia slowly woke up to the gentle breeze of spirit magic filling the room, they only managed to catch glimpses of the plant’s ghostly figure as it fully melted into spectral form, condensing into what looked like two glowing orbs of green light.
“I can’t believe that woman, I asked for only one!” Cain smiled as he saw two emerald green gems drop on the ground as the plant disappeared. He knew well how that must feel, he could feel his body hair stand up imagining Sylph squealing and writhing in agony on the other side.
“Cain, what was that?” Alice asked and she was quickly supported by Sofia, “That wasn’t regular magic, was it?” She must have felt the difference.
Cain knew that the explanation will take a long time so he made it as simple as he could. Sylph was a great mage that he knew before, she felt him being cursed, and since she couldn’t come to visit she sent him this gift to help him recover as fast as he could.
“It was moving and talking-nya, the flower moved, it was creepy-nya!” Selena sniffed around for more plant monsters, she couldn’t contain herself from poking the other plants resting in the window frame.
Gracie woke to the commotion, looking around, she spotted Cain beside her. “Good morning!” Cain greeted her, “Good morning master!” She quickly stood up and bowed slightly. Her eyes quickly passed by the window and she turned around.
“Master, Jemima’s favorite sunflower seems to have fallen from the window. I must excuse myself to retrieve it before she notices and snaps.” Cain’s pale face turned even paler to the point he almost looked like a corpse, “Sorry, that plant didn’t fall.” Cain painfully explained what just happened to her.
“Jemima might be a nice girl but she is really sensitive when it comes to her plants, I will do my best to calm her down.” Gracie bowed and quickly hurried out, as the Headmaid, breaking the news of Suzan’s death to Jemima was her duty.
…”SUZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!” Cain heard the high pitched scream from down stairs, BANG! It was followed with the sound of something braking, it was probably a plate.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Gracie returned with a fresh bowl of water and some towels for them to use. After washing they ate the breakfast brought to them by another maid name Katherine Powell. She was tall and had tanned and a well-toned body, her hair was short and bright brown, and her eyes were navy blue. To be honest, it gave can the old tingly feeling. She had her unique charm.
As Cain drank his tea, he suddenly spat it black. “It’s salty…how could they miss honey for salt?” Salt was also expensive so Cain didn’t appreciate the waste, “Who poured the tea?”
Gracie looked at Katherine for a moment, “Don’t look at me like that ma’am, it was Jemima.” Katherine rolled her eyes as she looked at the window.
“Master if you excuse me, I must see to that…” Cain quickly called her back, “No need, let her be.” To Jemima who was a maid, doing something like this intentionally would usually result in her either being fired or severely punished. Cain wasn’t going to hold her for that as she has lost what seemed like an important figure to her.
Gracie only nodded, she didn’t even reply to him as she know how much Jemima liked Suzan.
After breakfast, the girls asked Cain if he could go with them to the guild, even if he can’t go on missions, someone has to work. Sadly he couldn’t even get out of bed.
Before they could get emotional, Cain assured them that Miko should be able to heal him tonight or tomorrow at most. He didn’t want to deal with them crying as they saw him paralyzed in bed.
After they left, Gracie helped Cain take care of his business and helped him change clothes. He was like a helpless and sick old man. He could only feel his debt to her increase with each passing minute.
Not having anything else to do, Cain called Miko to resume her lesson. As she was learning he took some time to inspect what the Dragon’s fang brought him alongside Sylph’s spirit stones.
Cain first intended to use the ingredient brought by the dragon’s fang to help his body contain the dead tissue. The human body is extremely adept at walling off foreign substances in scar tissue, the same way an abscess is formed. Cain simply wanted his body to wall the dead parts and keep them inside his body to use as catalysts for his enchanting magic.
They weren’t going to be that strong, mostly accepting weak enchantments like light and weak electric charges. Cain could also have turned them into Mana banks for an extra 100 MP at most…This is what he thought to do at the start to take advantage of his situation.
The plan has changed now that Sylph has left him with two Spirit stones who could hold far stronger enchantments!
‘I did create my system, after all, now it’s time to play with it more!’ Cain thought as he held the stone in his hand.