Amoral Village Head - Chapter 64 The BabySteps

The little bit of clarity i got on my gift helped a lot. I no longer had to strain myself to fight against the big Zukr vines. The only struggle i had was not to consciously interfere with my gift and let it take care of the vine naturally.

The number trick helped for a bit but when it got boring, i just let my mind drift off on its own. It inevitably went into lewd scenarios and i happily let my mind build its fantasies.

When i felt the Zukr evaporating out of the tree i was working on, I felt satisfaction out of every fiber of my being. The feeling enveloped me in a cocoon and i happily stayed there as long as i can.

When i came out of that blissfull feeling, the sun had just passed over my head. When i looked up, the Ilphyr tree was standing in all its glory with white flowers having bloomed fully and the Lhasa, Phir and Nectr hanging from its lush green branches aplenty.

The long green roots were spreading a pleasant shadow over my head. The tree looked ethereal amongst the gloomy Ilphyr trees which were standing with their bare branches in the second section.

The tree was grown to its full glory something which i was struggling to accomplish since the start of Yosdu. I felt strange regarding the sudden ecstasy i had but however i turned my mind, i couldn’t attribute a source for it.

I then walked over to find Jargal who was grumbling to me that he wasn’t able to pluck many fruits from my trees recently and let him know, he won’t have that issue hereon.

My gifts improvements did bring cheer among the depressed and overworked members of my group. The old head even patted me happily on seeing the haul from my tree. But, when my group reached the second circuit they couldn’t continue their usual pace as most of them were on their last legs.

The old head asked half of the people to take turns sleeping while the other half continued working. The number of trees we could cover inevitably slowed and we lost two more trees in succession in the second section. Now we have lost 5 trees the equivalent of previous bloom and we have just started on the second circuit.

Even with the disquiet this brought, I found myself detached and peaceful whenever i used my gift. I also developed a habit of closing my eyes even in metaphysical state as whenever i see the state the tree is in, i couldn’t help control the energy consciously to do certain things.

Though i justified it to myself as interfering only in small amounts to speed up the process like targeting a Zukr thorn specifically,  it did more harm than good. As whenever i did that i got the strain again and trees growth slowed.

I felt that strange feeling of ecstasy whenever i eradicated a Zukr vine  and was struggling to make sense of it. I continued the experiments with my gift eager to improve more and stop the Zukr fires altogether.

Unfortunately I still wasn’t able to activate my gift a second time. My efforts weren’t in vain however and i got the source of the blissful feeling i had while using my gift. It was fascinatingly from the Ilphyr tree itself.