Sunday November 6th, 2018

  Freeing the captives is a surprisingly easy, but slow process. There is no struggling since they are all unconscious. So, the root extraction process is simpler than it would have been if they were awake. At the same time, it is only possible thanks to Arisah’s fine control and high level of skill.

  Aiko on the other hand has a lot of work cut out for her. Each person has lost all their fat reserves, and their bodies were starting to cannibalize their muscle mass to produce more energy. Because of this Aiko is forced to use ‘Greater Regeneration’ on each of them as well as nutritional positions for each of them.

  Throughout the process Helo and Hinata keep a close eye on Arisah. She looks apologetic after each person is extracted from the plant that she created. This calms down Hinata’s nerves because it shows that Arisah wasn’t changed by what she did.

  For Helo he only caught Arisah struggling with her new addiction three times. In three instances where she started extracting the roots from the captive. Arisah reached out with her magic and the vitality that was flowing through the roots toward the pod froze.

  On each occasion Helo and Hinata held their breath, but after a few seconds the vitality slipped from Arisah’s grasp and returned to its journey. They didn’t speak about those moments of weakness, only silently cheered for Arisah’s internal strength.

  After a few hours the last captive was taken from the Greenhouse and laid down near the front of the house. Throughout the morning the rest of the party slowly came out to help Aiko with her task. The extra help was great because there are two-hundred-fifty-two people now unconscious in their front yard.

  Once everyone was freed Hinata pulled out her phone to contact the auditor that stopped by the day before. He requested an update on when everyone was going to be freed. While Hinata was on the phone the first person started to wake.

  It wasn’t the first person released but someone toward the middle of the group with high levels of vitality and endurance. With a jolt the man awoke with a flinch and started looking around frantically from his place on the ground.

  Now, usually it is Arisah’s first instinct to help someone like him. Her kind and sweet demeanor are not a show, but her true personality. But she doesn’t think that she would be very helpful in this situation. In fact, on Hinata’s orders Arisah isn’t allowed to be anyone’s presence until the garden is back to how it was before the fight. It should give Arisah at least a week of peace before meeting someone that might force her new addiction to struggle.

  Luna steps forward with her cat ears, blonde hair, beautiful smile and cute glasses to check if the man is okay. Smiling Luna slowly pats the air in front of her while humming softly. Using an extremely weak application of ‘Softening Voice’ Luna isn’t trying to lower the man’s defenses, but lower his guard and calm his nerves.

  Using ‘Sound Cancel’ to mute the sounds around them she leaves the sound of the wind and waves as she approaches with a smile. “Hey.”

  “Where am I?!?” The man says frantically. All he can see around him are hundreds of bodies and a destroyed field. What makes the man’s nerves even worse is the fact that he can’t see anyone in his party.

  “You just woke up. You’re still at school.” Luna crouches in front of him. “Your safe. Just take a breath, breathe.” Smiling, Luna stands up. On the other side of the group, she hears another person waking up.

  Walking through the slowly waking people, Luna, Aiko and Rocco help to calm everyone. It was decided that the three of them are the least likely to cause any panic. Rurgrim and Gabi are too brash. Cody and Bibbin to quiet. Alli and Hinata are nobles. Finally, Helo is slightly infamous within the school.

  Over the course of the next hour everyone slowly wakes up. Some people as soon as they get their bearings leave. Others wait around for their party members to wake up, while some people are just lost and choose to hang out. By the time everyone is up Aiko and Kristen start making large pots of stew to hand out.

  Nobody was surprised when someone said they had the debuff ‘Malnourished’. With almost a hundred students hanging out because they aren’t sure what to do, or they are too weak to move. Making them a meal seemed like the right idea.

  By the time Jorm Jormson arrives the front yard of Alli and Hinata’s property has turned into a casual and relaxing get cookout. Alli even convinced Helo to set up a large white screen so they could project a replay of the challenge.

  Of the hundred students remaining almost half were hired or forced to attack their house in some way by Dorimer. So, seeing Dorimer get embarrassed and then his ass handed to him was a nice surprise for them.

  By the end of the day everyone goes back to their normal lives with slight weaknesses, some mental scars, and a new sense of respect for the pretty and kind Dryads.

  Other than when he was setting up the screen at Alli’s request Helo stayed mostly uninvolved with the gathering. Noticing this Hinata comes to find him once everyone leaves.

  “Helo are you okay? I know you don’t care much for crowds, or new people, or… well I guess I’m not very surprised that you weren’t around.” Hinata stops to ponder, but she looks back at Helo. “But still something is up, even when you were getting pestered by Alli you seemed lost in thought.”

  Helo doesn’t respond. How is he supposed to explain that the pod of vitality that they drained from two-hundred-fifty-two people is calling him and he is doing everything he can to stay away.

  “It’s the vitality, right?” Hinata guesses correctly. Helo flinches slightly but slowly nods his head.

  “I guess it is kind of obvious, right?” Helo sighs.

  “Yeah. It’s like a perfect cultivation resource for you.” Hinata smiles at the obvious. “But if you’re going to use it to cultivate you need to prepare beforehand. That means ritual circles, finding the right catalysts, and going slow.”

  Hearing Hinata as she basically says that he can absorb the pod of vitality. Helo wants to leap up right now and take it. With a force of will he stops himself from moving from his place.

  Seeing the tensing of Helo’s muscles and the way he loses focus for a moment, Hinata can guess about what is going through his mind. Letting a small smile out Hinata sits down next to Helo. “So, what do you need to set up a ritual.”

  The next week goes by in a blur for Helo. No matter what skills they used Helo, Hinata and Arisah cannot identify the pod of vitality. It isn’t a natural treasure, and it isn’t some kind of resource. It is just a plant pod that has a massive amount of vitality stored, like a battery.

  As Monday comes around the party heads to Russia for their field trip. The entire time Helo doesn’t even leave his provided room. Using his tablet Helo is searching the school’s store bag for any catalysts that will go with the pod. At the same time by Friday he has already gone through hundreds of pages worth of ritual rough drafts.

  He is nowhere near skilled enough to make the same ritual that his teacher Yoeko Yamamota made for them. He won’t have a ritual cleaning function, or a way to continue adding to the ritual once it is started.

  But Helo doesn’t need all that. All he needs is a way to safely absorb the vitality within the pod without wasting almost all of it. If Helo just bit into the pod, he could absorb the trapped energy. But as it all comes rushing out, he would lose most of it.

  Even with his new, uncontrollable, yet to be turned into a skill aura, he doesn’t think he can absorb even half of the pod. His aura is great in a fight to pick up dispersed vitality and drag it to him for healing or power. But it won’t work the same for cultivation.

  Halfway through the field trip to Russia Helo came upon a startling realization. While looking over his status he realized just how stupid he is. He was forced to scrap all his work and start again.

  While looking over his status he saw ‘Yin-Yang Balance’. That one glimpse and he realized just how stupid he is. He doesn’t need to absorb the pod. He needs to absorb the pod and dark attuned energy with the same level of strength. If he doesn’t, he will fall out of balance.

  If he falls out of balance not only will his apathy issues start up again, but he has no idea how being over-attuned to vitality will affect him.

  So, scraping all the work he already put into his ritual Helo started all over again.

  Getting home on Friday Helo rushes back to their mansion. He is pleasantly surprised to see that the gate is fixed, and the barrier is back to working. But that pleasant feeling evaporates once he sees the pod.

  His instincts start to stir, and his aura fluctuates around him. The plants in the Greenhouse start to bend away from the pressure Helo is putting out. His mind starts to race. Someone tampered with my pod. Someone took from me. Helo starts to get angry as he can feel that the energy within the pod is less than when he left on Monday.

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  Hinata, Alli and Arisah arrive to see dark wisps of energy slowly circling Helo’s body as he glares at the slightly weakened pod. “Helo.” Arisah softly calls.

  At the sound of her voice Helo’s head whips around and his glowing red slit eyes stare into her own. “This plant can’t hold all that vitality forever.”

  It takes a few moments but Helo’s aura pressure lessons on the three girls. Sighing in relief, none of the girls were falling to their knees at Helo’s aura pressure, they all lived with tier 3 parents. But it doesn’t mean they were comfortable.

  Turning back to looking at the pod Helo scoffs. “Well, new ritual.”

  With that Helo quickly works at designing a quick and dirty ritual to contain the energy in the pod. It doesn’t even need to stay in the pod, but it needs to be contained.

  After two days Helo is able to combine a few enchantments and rituals into a mana containment array. Laying out metal dust and salt Helo creates a circle around the pod. Then he connects the circle to series of enchanting plates that he connects with mana conductive wire.

  Studying his work, Helo grimaces slightly. He can already see a few ways that he could have done better. But it will work for now. The circle of metal and salt should contain the vitality into a circle around the pod.

  In a perfect world he would have created a ritual to put pressure on the pod and contain the vitality within it, but he doesn’t have the skill.

  Getting back to his work Helo skips classes for the next week as he finishes his design. Copying most of his design from what Yoeko made, Helo is able to scrap together something that he believes will work. His enchantments are much better than his rituals. But he is confident it will at least do its job.

  Now Helo must find dark attuned resources. Being one of the rarer attunements, as well as an attunement that creates hard to kill monsters, Helo doesn’t have many options. He wants to contact Micah or Akira to help him. Unfortunately, while at the school they are supposed to take care of their own needs.

  Plus, Helo has accumulated a decent amount of school points. A few school points will get you a meal at a restaurant. Tier 1 mana, health and stamina potions are between fifty and one hundred points. Helo has almost five-thousand.

  Using his tablet Helo starts to find dark attuned resources that are being sold by the school, and other students. First, looking through the school’s catalog. Helo finds plenty of monster cores with shadow, night, corruption, death, and some with a dark attunement. There are also monster fangs, pelts, hearts, and other body parts.

  Looking at the few dark attuned monster cores, Helo grumbles as he sees the fifteen-hundred-point price.

  Natural treasures are even more expensive. There is a root from some kind of tree that blooms at night, a rock that absorbs light and spits out shadows, and even a dagger that has a dark attuned piercing effect. The dagger interests Helo because it seems like it might have an attunement close to his own.

  Helo’s dark attunement has a close connection with the concept up nullification. His aura has similar piercing effects by weakening the defenses of whatever he is stabbing, especially magical defenses. This is an aspect of his aura Helo has been working on since he was a child. Unfortunately, the tier 2 knife is well outside his price range.

  In the end Helo finds what he is looking for from a student. During a dungeon dive someone managed to find a grey flower that didn’t seem to have any effects. The person posted it on the school’s web page. It took Helo a few seconds to realize why the grey of the flower looked similar.

  When Helo was punching Adan in the face his hand had a similar grey glow around it. It happened when he was forcing his bloodline energy into ‘Forced Still’.

  Not believing his luck, Helo reached out as soon as he could. His luck didn’t hold as the man knew he had something nice when the appraiser he found couldn’t find anything on it. In the end Helo had to offer a custom enchantment and two-thousand credits. The man wanted Helo to enchant his sword with sharpness and self-repair.

  Wanting more than a single tier 2 flower, Helo also purchases all the dark attuned mana cores that he can buy from the school. In the end he was left with only three-hundred school credits left.

  Looking at his haul, Helo is slightly apprehensive that it won’t be enough. The pod is massive and filled with the vitality of many students. But it is all Helo could afford at the moment.

  He even considered waiting. The flower that he was able to purchase was a great find and he asked Arisah if she could grow more, but unfortunately, its attunement was too far away from nature. They would need to build a specific environment to grow them and even then, she isn’t sure if she has the skill to deal with a plant that is so out of her own attunement.

  Looking at the items he was able to buy, Helo uses his ‘Appraisal’.

  Midnight Rose. (Teir 2)

  How this flower formed is a mystery. Filling with an absence attunement this flower works to purify all the energy it absorbs until it is cleansed.

  Looking at the flower Helo can’t help but smile. His own attunement can do something similar with mana-based attacks. But he never really considered what he was doing purifying the mana. It is a nice thing to read, his dark attunement sometimes just feels so evil, it literally came from a curse.

  Dark Element Monster Core (Tier 2)

  A core from a dark aligned monster.

  X2

  Dark Element Monster Core (Tier 1)

  A core from a dark aligned monster.

  X5

  With seven attuned cores and a flower that feels more closely connected with his own attunement than anything he has seen before, Helo gets ready to prepare his ritual.

  On a Sunday, two weeks from the day that they released their captives. Helo is finally ready. Their next week of field trips are upon them. Placing the cores around the ritual Helo works with quiet fervor. His excitement mixes with the seriousness of the situation.

  Just as he is about to start Hinata enters the Greenhouse. “Helo.” She walks up to him and grabs his shoulder. “Take a break.” She says while looking up into his eyes.

  Helo wants to argue. But Hinata holds up Helo’s hand, and he can see as it shakes. “Yeah… Okay…” He mumbles out. He starts to wonder when the last time that he got some real sleep. But his memories are kind of cloudy.

  “You have been working non-stop for almost two weeks. The only breaks you have taken are when you pass out.” Hinata says while leading Helo into the house. There he finds Alli and Aiko setting up a dinner for Helo.

  “We already okayed it with our teacher for you to skip the field trip this week.” Alli says with a smile. Her usual energetic personality has taken a motherly tone as she gets Helo in his chair and eating.

  The rest of the night passes in a blur, but come Monday morning Helo, wakes up feeling better than he has for a few weeks.

  Stretching his body as he gets out of bed, Helo is surprised to find Kristen staring down at him once his eyes finally open. When he woke up, he naturally focuses on his sense and aura to feel for anyone nearby. The only two life signs he felt nearby were Lelai and Inka.

  Startled slightly Helo sits back in his bed. Looking at Kristen Helo isn’t sure what to say.

  “Well, come on.” Kristen’s neutral voice speaks up.

  “Wah?” Helo starts to ask.

  Signing audibly, Kristen grabs Helo and the two sleeping beasts. “Hahhhh. Only living the comfy life for a year and he expects me to do all the work.”

  Without feeling anything, the four of them appear in the Greenhouse. Handing Helo two stakes she points to the area around the pod and ritual. “Place them in each corner.”

  Helo isn’t sure what to say. But he does trust Akira. Kristen is playful and Helo wouldn’t be surprised to find extra salt on his food, but he trusts her too. Following her orders, as soon as the final stake is placed down the world warps again.

  Looking around, Helo is even more surprised and confused. He knows this place; he is in the dojo outside the main Kashiwagi estate.

  “Good you’re here.” Whipping around Helo smiles as he hears Akira’s voice. Seeing Akira, his grin gets even bigger. Then as Yoeko steps into the dojo, Helo finally has an idea about what is going on.

  Gabbing Helo’s arm, Kristen drags him from the center of the room and to the small sitting table that Akira is kneeling beside. As soon as Helo is kneeling, Kristen pours some tea.

  Bringing the cup to his lips, Helo hums as he takes in the scent. “Mhm. This smells so good.”

  “I’m glad you like it Helo-Kun. But take a sip.” Akira smiles at him in a fatherly way.

  The smile makes Helo feel more happy than he expected, but as he sips the cup his eyes open wide and he wakes up fully. As the tea touches his tongue his mind clears and everything comes into a sharp focus.

  “Good it is working.” Akira says. “Once my daughter told me about what Arisah made, I knew I had to get involved. This is too great of a cultivation aid for you for it to not be used to its fullest extent.”

  Helo listens with interest as Akira speaks. “Graham and I pulled some strings to bring you here; we adjusted your field trip schedule.”

  Helo is about to speak up but Akira holds out a hand. “Let me finish. Yoeko is going to want your help soon.” Helo looks toward the center of the room where the ritualist is muttering to herself and looking over the ritual that Helo made. Helo flushes slightly, that ritual isn’t close to his best work, but he was just so eager.

  “Yes, even I can see that you rushed yourself.” Akira says with a chuckle. “The rest of your party should be here soon. I am sad to see you lose the leveling opportunity. But this is more important and time sensitive.” Akira gestures to the pod and flower.

  Helo nods as he processes what Akira said. He does have a point. Last time Helo was here he gained two levels as he ran a specially crafted rift to push his experience. But he can see why Akira made his decision.

  Standing to his feet Akira smiles down at Helo. “Stay seated. Finish the pot. I am going to go check on your party and field trip group. They should all be entering the rifts right about now.”

  Akira fades away in a very Akira-like way. It was almost like he was never even there. Helo never touched Akira, so for all he knows, he never was there. It all could have just been an illusion.

  “HELO!” Yoeko yells from her place looking down on the hastily made and enchanted ritual plate. “Please tell me this wasn’t made by you. That it was a toddler still learning how to write, or a goblin that has a concussion and is mad at the world.”

  Helo winces at his teachers friendly but very serious rebuke. “I’m sorry!” Helo yells as he quickly finishes the pot. Kristen scoffs as Helo downs the very expensive tea in one gulp, but she doesn’t say anything to him.

  A few hours later Helo and Yoeko step away from the finished ritual. What Helo made originally was a slapped together hodge-podge of different ideas, all duct taped in a way that might work but would fall apart after being used.

  What Helo is looking at now is a work of art. Yoeko spared no expense as she used mithril dust and rare resources to draw the ritual lines. Powerful catalysts were ground down and added to the mix, while even more catalysts are placed in specific patterns around the ritual to draw energy from.

  The ritual itself glows with magical potential and is shaped in a spiral. Vitality and Null attuned items are lined up with the Midnight Rose and Pod of Vitality on either side.

  Smile at a job well done and because of how excited she is for Helo, Yoeko gives him a hug. Pulling away she says, “I hope you learned a lot, the effects of the tea should last for another few hours.” Pushing Helo away Yoeko closes the doors to the dojo and leaves him alone in the room.

  Helo stands there stunned, this whole situation is surreal to him. He was ready to start, then Kristen appeared with some kind of ritual stakes that let her teleport the entire ritual that he made. Then Akira appeared like a kind father and gave him what must have been a rare and expensive mind enhancing tea, then Yoeko appeared like the storm that she is and tore his ritual apart and made it into a work of art.

  “Ha. Hahaha.” Chuckling to himself, Helo starts to laugh as for the first time in his life he learns what it is like to have a family. Grinning, Helo sits down in the center of the ritual and gets ready to cultivate.