Harvest Dungeon - 42 Chapter 42

“Are you feeling better?” Firenne asked concerned.

Jesaline nodded. “Much better.” she replied swishing her tail behind her making me nervous that she was going to catch the bed on fire.

“Don’t worry, while it is fire, it is completely under her control. It won’t spread unless she wants it too.” Firenne told me.

I relaxed a bit, though I was a bit curious how that worked.

“Well, we are happy she is feeling better, but you still need to rest.” Vanessa told me.

I sighed. “I am already up here, might as well discuss what we need and want for the other floors.” I replied.

“Jason, you really do need to get some more rest.” Lilian spoke up agreeing with Vanessa.

I rolled my eyes then moved closer to the bed and sat down then leaned back. “I am resting now.” I told them.

“You need to sleep.” Vanessa clarified.

“Why?” Firenne asked curiously. “Is this that, you must rest after cramming information into your head, crap I have heard about?” Firenne asked.

I was a bit shocked then looked to Vanessa and Lilian who glared at Firenne. “Have you ever met a Mana Lord, or heard what they go through after the knowledge of the Rune Palace is imparted to them.

“Several actually. Each one always curses the opportunity they lost.” Firenne replied smugly.

“Jason has a neutral affinity.” Lilian informed us.

Firenne’s eyes opened wide in surprise “BED NOW!” she commanded grabbing one of my arms while Vanessa quickly grabbed the other to pull me up and guide me out of the room.

“I can walk all on my own.” I told the girls trying to shrug them off. They let me pull free, but followed closely behind me as I walked towards my room.

“How?” Firenne asked from behind me.

“It is actually fairly common amongst pure humans.” Lilian replied. “Unfortunately I assumed he was a mix like most of the humans in other worlds.”

“Mix?” I asked as we reached the stairs to the basement.

“A human with a beast, spirit, monster, elemental, or divine ancestor somewhere in their line. It doesn’t have to be much, even a small influence will alter your natural affinity.” Lilian replied.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Of course, many families have several influences like that in their blood, it makes it nearly impossible to have a neutral affinity.” Lilian explained.

“So why is being neutral bad?” I asked as we reached the door to my room.I was trying to scan through the information I had received from Lilian in hope of discovering what it was that had them in a panic. Unfortunately the information was disjointed, and didn’t have a search function so I had to scan over it quickly hoping to spot a certain words like affinity test.

“It isn’t, it’s just neutral affinities react strongly to the affinity test.” Lilian responded.

“And that means what?” I asked but Vanessa pushed me down onto the bed.

“Answers later, sleep now.” Vanessa told me.

“Going to stay here with him?” Firenne asked.

“One of me will.” Vanessa replied then a second Vanessa appeared. Unlike before this second Vanessa was dressed similarly to the original. “This way I can help with the work and discussions while watching over him.” Vanessa explained.

“Can I at least get a bedtime story?” I asked with a smirk as I reached up and pulled the second Vanessa down onto the bed beside me then wrapped my arms around her pulling her close so I could use her like a body pillow. If I was going to be forced into this I might as well take advantage of it and Vanessa didn’t seem to be against it, in fact she quickly got comfortable and snuggled into me. I knew they were worried, and it had to be serious if Zephirah was going along with them. I could fight them on it, but there was a fear that they were right and I did need to sleep. However the excitement of earlier had woken me up, I didn’t feel even a little bit tired.

“Oh, and what kind of story do you want to hear about?” Vanessa asked curiously, it seemed having me in my own bed had calmed her down.

I thought quickly before an idea came to mind. “I was curious about Firenne and Jesaline, you both seem pretty close, how do you know each other?” I asked. “Was it some kind of shared misery after getting caught by Seth?”

Firenne hesitated a moment but Jesaline jumped up onto my bed and sat down her tail resting on on our feet. The heat from her tail wasn’t hot, like I expected it to be, instead it was like a heated blanket had been placed over my feet. “We knew each other before we were captured.” Jesaline told us.

“Jess.” Firenne called out. She still seemed hesitant.

“This is my home now Firenne. At least until my soul has had a chance to completely heal.” Jesaline replied. “And you know how slow that can be.”

Firenne sighed then seemed to give in. “Fine. He did save you without hesitation or demands.” she agreed, her hand seeming to subconsciously run down her curvy body. My eyes followed along enjoying the sight until Vanessa tightened her hold on me.

“So?” I asked.

Firenne smirked but didn’t say anything. “Well it is mostly my story to tell.” she said moving to sit on the bed next to Jesaline then reached out and stroked the fox’s fur.

“As you can all guess, Jesaline was a fire tailed fox. Normally they are innate beasts with little intelligence, and whether she likes to admit it or not, she was the same. I was living within a blue cherry tree deep within the ash lands of Estrion.” she told us.

I had no idea what any of that meant but I didn’t interrupt her, questions could wait for later.

Firenne continued to stroke Jesaline’s fur as she seemed to look back in time as she spoke.

“Actually I had chosen a heavenly cherry tree to live in, but war between two powerful clans turned my home into the ash lands.” she told us. “The immense amount of fire mana that became the norm nearly killed off my tree and me, but it was my first tree and I was stubborn. I used all of my power to keep my tree alive, sleeping deeply between treatments. Over time unknown to me my tree and I changed becoming used to the fire mana, this changed my heavenly cherry tree into a blue cherry tree, and me into a fire dryad.”

Firenne looked at me and saw my confused expression then giggled. “Dryads can live as long as our trees, and with our care our trees can live a very long time. If anything bad happens we can absorb the life of our tree and attempt to find another tree, or for the older dryads we can absorb our tree into a special spatial pocket and carry it with us until we find a place suitable to replant it. I am the latter. My tree is here with me.” she explained mistaking the reason for my confusion.

I shook my head. “I was more curious about the differences between a heavenly cherry tree and a blue cherry tree.” I told her.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Alright, a heavenly cherry is a fruit that is full of life. It is good for improving the health of those injured, and clearing poison from the body. A blue cherry is actually a blue fire cherry. Like a heavenly cherry they are full of mana, but instead of a mix of elements that promotes healing, it is full of very dense fire mana. If anyone unknowingly bites into one without taking precautions the fire mana will explode from the fruit burning them in a bright blue fire. They are highly sought after by alchemists.” she told me proudly.

“Pharmacists too.” Selia chimed in.

Firenne nodded then continued on with her story. “As for why any of that matters. That transformation took a long time, and despite sleeping for a large part of it, I started to get lonely. Soon after my tree and I stabilized Jesaline showed up. She was a poor little kit whose parents had kicked her out of their borough because she was the runt. As I was feeling lonely I decided to take her in. She became my companion and surprisingly watching how she used her own talents assisted me in understanding how to use my new fire abilities. In exchange I cared for her, and feed her from my tree. As a fire beast the blue cherries were very beneficial to her. After several years she grew up, and while I loved her company, I wanted someone I could actually talk too.” Firenne told us then paused.

“You simplified that a lot.” Jesaline pointed out.

“We don’t have time for all the little details of how we lived together back then.” Firenne said looking over at me. Despite the warmth of Vanessa and Jesaline I was still wide awake.

“Despite my impressive age, I spent most of my life alone, I had learned a great deal from my mother and family before I left to find my own tree, but dryads are meant to live in a grove together, sharing information and companionship. Living alone I had neither. When I started to despair of having another intelligent companion to speak too, I came up with the brilliant idea of assisting Jesaline to evolve into a magic beast. Since she had been eating the blue cherries for so long she was full of fire mana, and pardon my pun, but she only needed a spark to evolve into something better. As I didn’t have anything else I could use, I used a part of my soul as the spark.” she told us.

The other girls gasped in horror informing me that what Firenne had done was a bad thing.

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“How?” Lilian asked.

“Actually that was the easy part. A dryads ability to strengthen our trees and extend their lives is because the bond we make with them lets us use the energy of our soul without harming ourselves.” she replied. “So I did like I normally would and imbued the energy of my soul into my tree then concentrated it all into a single blue cherry, then fed it to Jesaline.”

“That was the easy part?” I asked.

Firenne nodded. “Yes, while we might be able to break the bond with our tree and move to a new one, that is usually only done by very young dryads, and dryads who have no other choice. The longer we are bonded to a single tree the stronger the bond becomes, eventually we can reach a point where we are practically two bodies and one soul. Having long since reached that point concentrating the energy of my soul into a single cherry was easy. Cutting that cherry from my tree, not so much. With my soul energy inside of it, it became incredibly resilient. In fact I failed and had to have Jesaline eat the cherry off of the tree.

“It wasn’t easy.” Jesaline spoke up.

“No, despite how strong you had become, you were only able to barely pierce the skin of the cherry and content yourself with licking the juices.” Firenne agreed. “However that was enough to start weakening the fruit while preparing your body for what was to come.” she added.

“Prepare?” I asked.

“Soul energy is incredibly condensed energy infused with intent. As I was focused on pushing Jesaline to evolve, the energy inside the fruit did just that. It targeted the parts of her that needed to change so she could evolve got her started. Even with that, eating the weakened fruit nearly killed her.” Firenne said then looked to Selia, “I was able to guide the energy and keep it from killing her before she could finish her transformation.”

“So you could assist the blazing bulls to change?” Selia asked bringing up the idea from earlier.

Firenne shook her head. “No, there is too much power inside a world tree sprout, and I was only able to do it with Jesaline because the energy had originally come from me.” she replied.

“Damn, blazing bull is tasty, but inferno bulls taste even better.” Selia grumbled.

“Soooo true.” Elisia agreed while drooling a little.

“So?” I asked trying not to let the story get side tracked.

“So it worked. Jesaline evolved into a Fiery Tailed Kitsune. She gained intelligence and we lived together happily until those hunters found and caught us.” Firenne replied. “The level system here is suppressing her so that she resembles her original fire tail fox form, but she should be able to regain her kitsune appearance after leveling up a bit.” Firenne replied.

“You glossed over the fact that feeding me a part of your soul harmed your soul, which took years to heal.” Jesaline spoke up. “Or the fact that we retain a soul bond that makes it painful for us to seperate.”

“Is that true?” Vanessa asked.

“Yeah, but it is a weak bond, it would hurt, but we can break it, we just didn’t see a need to.” Firenne nodded. “We’ve become like sisters since then.” she said smiling at Jesaline who licked her hand in return.

“Well that was sweet, answers a few questions too.” Zephirah said flying towards me.

I frowned up at Zephirah as she flew right up to my face. “You’ve had your story, now goodnight husband.” she told me with a sweet smile before blowing powder into my face.

Before I could even object I felt exhaustion roll over me then I passed out.