Chapter 51 - Sudden Blossom
Foster slowly opened his eyes, although his eyelids were as heavy as lead. He was feeling kind of weird all of a sudden, and wanted to just curl up with a blanket on top of him. That vivid dream he had last night had already mostly faded from his mind, but he was still able to feel the cold touch of snow all over his body, so much so that it lingered even after he woke up.
"Wait..." He muttered, pushing himself off of the mattress. He turned his head away from the wall, and looked at his nightstand. There, half a dozen of small blue flowers were sprouting, the roots burying themselves in Foster\'s shirt. They were arched over the small nature spirit that was sleeping on top of the piece of cloth.
"What the..." Foster muttered, pushing the flowers out of the way, soon finding the vial that had shattered into a few pieces. It was clearly where these flowers came from. The cold breeze that they gave off was nearly uncomfortable with all of these in the same spot, and now that he was leaning over them, he was even able to see his own breath flowing between them.
Now it made sense why these were only roughly scattered around Thiodrus\' cabin, these flowers really gave off incredibly cold air.
He pushed his hand through the flowers and carefully picked up Aster. But as he touched the small spirit\'s body, it was like it had been completely frozen. Or rather, as if it was made of ice in the first place. Slowly, Aster seemed to warm up through Foster\'s touch, and he soon woke up. He stretched a little, his fur loosening and starting to wave around its body somehow.
"Buddy..." Foster said, turning Aster to let him look at the flowers, "Did you do this?" He asked. He wasn\'t sure if this made any sense, since he didn\'t know much about spirits at all, but it sounded like it made sense for a nature spirit to be able to influence nature to an extent. And what represented nature better than flowers.
With a quick nod, Aster looked at the cold flowers, before Foster let out a deep sigh, "You were able to do that? Seriously, it would be kind of nice knowing what exactly you can do..."
And as if he had summoned it, since he basically did just that, a certain message window appeared in front of his eyes.
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[Nature Spirit\'s Magic][Level – 1]
[Rating – Rare]
[Description: The magic that a nature spirit is able to innately cast. As the spirit develops into maturity, so will this skill, unlocking more spells along the way. The specific spells that a nature spirit is able to cast depends on its origin.]
[Magic Spells]
-[Blossom]
-[Gust]
-[Spark]
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Foster raised his brows as he saw this skill information in front of his face, and looked back at Aster, "Well, that\'s a good way to figure that out..." He muttered, looking at the spells curiously.
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[Blossom][Tier – 1]
[Description: Feed a plant magical energies, to make a small flower near you blossom]
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[Gust][Tier – 1]
[Description: Control the air around you to create a gust, strong enough to snuff out a candle or even a small campfire]
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[Spark][Tier – 1]
[Description: Create a small flame in front of you, which can be used to light candles, lanterns, or campfires]
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\'I knew about the Spark spell, but the other ones are new to me... Gust and Blossom... they can probably be kind of useful somehow\' Foster thought to himself as he read through the information floating in front of him. Carefully, he moved his hand over toward one of the flowers growing on the bedside table, and quickly plucked it. He held it with a smile on his face, before quickly jumping up. He had gotten himself a small mug of water last night in case he was thirsty, so he just quickly placed the flower in there.
"I guess that\'s fine for now." He whispered to himself, before quickly plucking the rest of the flowers, and ripping the roots out of his shirt. And then, when he actually held it up in front of him again, he saw that it was now perfectly littered with a bunch of holes.
"Well then, that\'s real great, isn\'t it..?" Foster grumbled annoyed, "Well, it\'s still fine to wear under my other stuff, so it\'s fine."
Foster quickly pulled the chilled shirt over his chest, and couldn\'t help himself but shiver. Although, it would probably be a quite pleasant feeling once he stepped outside. It was summer here in this part of this world as well, and it was quite a bit hotter around here than where he grew up, actually. It didn\'t seem like some kind of tropical area, but it was at least warmer than he was used to.
Either way, a shirt this cold would definitely cool him down. Foster put on the jacket of his martial arts uniform, although he kept it loosely open for now. He quickly put on his shoes and got ready for everything. They would meet with that girl they met yesterday at noon, and since they only went to bed pretty late, it already seemed to be rather close to that time.
Foster quickly opened his window and stuck his face out of it, staring to the right where he could just barely see the clocktower. It was around 11:45 right now... meaning that they had to get ready.
The group of three had talked about how the first one to wake up would go and get the others, meaning that Foster was apparently the first one to wake up. And luckily so... they were nearly late for the meeting.
Since it was no clear he was in a rush, Foster quickly stuffed the freezing flowers into his bag, of course first loosely wrapping them in another piece of cloth to protect them, before he rushed out of the room.
He locked the door, and quickly pulled his hairband off his wrist. He pressed his hair together, quickly giving the hairband to Aster as he pulled everything together, and then tied his hair into a ponytail again.
Foster walked around the Inn and quickly woke up his friends. It seemed like they were both going to take a little while longer, and so that they wouldn\'t end up being completely late, Foster just made his way over to the \'restaurant\' part of the Inn. Rather than a restaurant, it was more like a pub, really, but close enough.
When he stepped inside, he was once more surprised that, although it wasn\'t even noon yet, there were already plenty of people sitting around and drinking. From their clothes and how dirty some of them were, it seemed like they were working throughout the night though, so this time was practically their evening.
Foster sat down at a table in the corner where everyone would have plenty of space, and chose to just wait for everyone. And just as he sat down, he already heard someone approach. As Foster turned his head to the side and smiled as he quickly stood up, "Hey there Kyla, sit down.. The others are going to be here any moment now."