93. Naturalist I (Patreon)

“Where were you this morning?” The Ceaseless Storm inquired. “You weren’t seen on first light.”

“I was at the academy, but I made sure to arrive soon back here,” I replied, my tone maintaining professionalism.

I had spent the night on Sin’fal, but as I didn’t sleep much by default, I woke up early and strolled back to Lan’el at dawn. Whilst I wasn’t in my dormitory at first light, I did arrive at the camp at that hour. In fact, it was still first light, the orange-pink light of dawn lingering on the sky. Fynn was bothered because he sent Tir’ne to fetch me, but he found my room empty.

The military man sighed with an expression saying: “why do I even bother?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll need you to accompany me on an outing.”

Oh, that was an interesting outcome.

“Have you finally decided to involve me in your planning?” There was a trace of derision in my words.

“Yes.” Fynn taciturnly responded, ever so serious. But that in return made me also straighten my posture. “I was worried about your allegiances, but I can’t have a ten-star mage unoccupied when time is scarce and every moment is critical.”

I almost grinned when he mentioned my supposed rank. He obviously didn’t know about my rank as an eleven-star mage, no one knew besides Alatea. Power measuring skills were very vague, my own included, so I doubted nobody would discover my current rank. It was a matter of time before someone realized it, though.

“Is this outing related to your coup d’état?” I inquired with a serious tone.

The electromancer nodded. “Don’t worry, though. This isn’t a spec-ops mission, just a visit to gather some intel on the High Arcanist.”

“Oh.” I suspected why he needed me. “Are you going to require my truth-telling skills as a mystic, then?”

Yet he swayed his head in negation.

“The ‘informant’ is willing to talk without any coercion.” He revealed. “I want you to come so you can fathom where you are getting yourself into.”

I frowned at Fynn’s words. “You are aware that I got literally killed by the High Arcanist's machinations, right? I think I can make an idea of where I’m getting into.”

“That we will see.” The Command Sergeant Major scoffed, a slight smile on his mouth. “Now, follow me, Private.”

I saluted him and did as ordered.

***********

San’ner was one of the twelve districts I had yet to visit. Thanks to Fynn’s orders, I had now stepped into my ninth district, albeit some of them I had only crossed through rather than visit them.

The agricultural district, which was also Adrian’s birthplace, had a very different air than the other districts... in quite a literal manner.

The smell was to be expected, all plantations and fields were located in San’ner (except for some fruit tree plantations in Thal’mer) so the odor of manure was a given.

I was partially amazed by the presence of animals. San’ner may be called the agricultural district, but in reality, it was more of a complete farming experience. Ferilyn wasn’t much of a consumer of meat, but eggs and dairy products were part of the standard diet.

My eyes shot wide open when I saw cows and goats walking freely through the grassy meadows. Albeit they weren’t the cows and goats I was used to. I saw the cattle eat the dark blue grass high on mana contents. It was a given that the constant ingestion would change their anatomy.

Ferilyn cows were skinnier than the ones I remembered, yet their udders were colossal. Selective breeding had diminished the amount of meat and fat in their bodies and maximized the production of milk.

As for Ferilyn goats, they were woolier than their reminisced counterparts. I doubted anyone on Ferilyn ate goat meat, so the main exports from the animal were wool and milk. In that sense, they resembled more to sheep than goats.

The meadows extended beyond the horizon, at which point I could only see the Violet Sky. San’ner had its reputation as the biggest district in the city, and now that I had seen it, I could say it was justified.

“Stop loafing around, have you never seen livestock, Private?” The Command Sergeant Major inquire in a commanding yet burlesque tone.

“I actually haven’t,” I replied. “I still have to visit half the city for that matter.”

“Oh right, I sometimes forget you are only thirty.”

“Thirty-two,” I added.

“Two years don’t make any difference.” Fynn scoffed. “What matters is how powerful and wise are for someone of your age.”

I looked at the ever-suspecting man. The Ceaseless Storm was cautious, and he suspected things about me. He was in his right to do so, and in a way, I was happy that someone saw through my feeble masquerade without needing to tell them.

So, I just smile at him.

Fynn rolled his eyes, keeping a groan to himself, and continued walking. In return, I followed in silence.

The San’ner district felt more alive than the other districts, probably even more than the loud bazaar at Thal’mer. The people here were more energetic as they worked the fields, their intense labor packed more effort after it than every ellari combined I had seen in my life.

I’ll never tire to say that ellari were apathetic. If you weren’t close to a person, they would ignore you if you were dying on the street. That lack of empathy was accompanied by a lack of emotion. At least, visible emotion.

That wasn’t the case with San’ner.

Mages and farmers laughed alike as they plowed the fields and harvested the plants. In the magical city of Ferilyn, farming wasn’t limited to certain seasons. People were harvesting, caring, and seeding new fields at the same time. Geomancers and aquamancers help to treat the ground and irrigate the fields, but the biggest contributors were none other than the naturalists. More concretely, the floramancers.

Nature affinity was one of the most, if not the most, weird of the affinities. It possessed two very distinctive schools of magic: plants and animals.

Floramancers harnessed the power of plants, making them bloom faster or modifying their characteristics like removing the seeds from the fruit. Magical transgenic agriculture, to resume.

Faunamancy, on the other hand, was even more peculiar. Unlike the floramancers, faunamancers could shapeshift into their specialization, and with that, I meant one thing: animals. But one shouldn’t just discard faunamancers as animal lovers, they were also the closest thing that it existed to a biomancer.

Contrary to popular belief, biomancers didn’t exist. Life mages weren’t a thing. There wasn’t a Life affinity. But faunamancers, with their ability to modify their body, much like mages with Body affinity, had interesting healing properties, especially on the genetic side.

Naturalists were the apex of genome manipulation. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone told me that ter’nar trees were the result of a floramancer's experimentation and the skin pigmentation and long ears of ellari were that of a faunamancer's. I knew it wasn’t the case, both were caused by generations of evolution thanks to the proximity of the leylines, but it wasn’t farfetched to think that they did modify the genome once or twice.

My thoughts and sight of plant manipulators, earth-benders, and glorified sprinklers were cut off as Albeyr stopped before a house. Unlike most in San’ner, which had a shady and poor look, the small house felt sturdy and was good-looking. It was a cozy small home that had been painted with bright reds, greens, blues, and yellows, instead of the dry white walls that populated the rest of Ferilyn.

I know I shouldn’t be as surprised as I was, but seeing green paint shook me to the core. Green wasn’t an ellari color. It just wasn’t. Blue was totally normal, and red and yellow could be attributed to Fire and Light affinity. But there wasn’t any affinity linked to the color green. The only green thing I had seen on Ferilyn were Alatea’s emerald eyes. Plants were blue, white, and pink. But not green.

My inner ellari was a bit... repulsed by it.

Stupid I know, I had been at the Houtz Imperium where the trees and grass did grow green. But it just felt so unnatural to see green here on Ferilyn. Where did they even get the paint from?

The Command Sergeant Major knocked on the red door with his dark blue knuckles. The contrast of color was playing tricks on my mind, I could feel myself getting a bit dizzy.

Did ellari have problems perceiving certain colors? Innate colorblindness?

I stopped from divagating (even more) my thoughts as the door opened.

We were received by a young woman of deep purple coloration. She had the darkest skin tone I had ever seen on an ellari, nearing black. She smiled at us, her white teeth looking like pearls by contrast.

“Command Sergeant Major Albeyr, I presume.” The woman said.

She was short for ellari standards and had a peculiar dress. I had never seen anything like that in my life, but I could instantly tell it was a maid outfit.

Fynn loomed over the woman. He and I were giants compared to the petite woman, yet she wasn’t intimidated by us. Not even when she clearly knew that the Ceaseless Storm was before her.

“That’s right.” He nodded with a calm voice. “Is Au’ter home?”

“Of course!” She smiled. “The old man only leaves the home to tend to his plants. “But where are my manners? I’m Alain.” Then she slightly bowed.

“Fynn.” The soldier returned the courtesy. Though in his instance, it was more like a nod than a bow. “The Private behind me is Edrie.”

At the cue, I bowed in response. A proper bow.

“Come, come!” Then Alain fully opened the door to let us through. “Au’ter is waiting for you in the backyard. I’ll prepare some tea if you excuse me.”

The maid closed the door behind us and went to a different room. It wasn’t difficult finding the way to the backyard as it was a straight line through the hall and the glass door leading there was already opened.

In the garden, we were greeted by an old man.