Today, Petra woke up ready and energized.
Although the sky was still overcast and rainy, the extreme weather seemed to have paused for a moment.
The first thing she wanted to do was check out the 'thing' underground. She had asked the centipede to go digging, and it didn't take long for it to find something.
Petra cleaned herself up before tying her long emerald hair into a ponytail.
She followed the massive centipede to a large hole that had been dug near the base of the tree trunk.
Following it down, Petra immediately felt the difference.
The underground world was rich with 'energy'. Petra had received a few classes from Elena, so she had an early guess as to what this power was.
Following deeper, Petra eventually reached a part of the cave where the walls began to change.
The cave walls became more crystalline, and the energy she had been sensing became stronger and more abundant.
Gently touching the walls, Petra was sure that these were Spirit Stones. As it turned out, Petra's home was built on a Spirit Stone Vein.
After confirming it, Petra asked the centipede to break off a chunk for her to take back and research. The centipede complied and smashed its head into the cave wall. The wall shattered, and many pieces of different-sized spirit stones clattered to the ground like glass.
Petra picked a few and stuffed them into her pockets before returning to the surface.
While leaving the hole, Petra glanced at the sky.
In the distance, a wave of particularly black clouds seemed to be slowly rolling in. Although the green tide had calmed down temporarily, it looked like there was going to be one last wave of violence. This year's tide had lasted a long time. It had been almost two months, slowly approaching a new record.
Returning to the house, Petra stored the spirit stones in the side room before taking out a small bag of seeds.
Today, she would spend the day farming.
The centipede and spider followed her and helped dig up a field.
Because Petra was 'special', she chose to dig circular fields instead of square ones. She filled the newly tilled farmland with the seeds she had bought from the village. Wheat, potatoes, carrots, and a few more unnamed crops.
She also dug a special garden where she planted many poisonous plants.
After that, she spent the rest of the day digging a large pond.
Because the pond didn't have a proper cover, the blue rain from the green tide filled it in. Combined with the basic water rune, the pond was quickly filled. Petra had the spider and centipede carry over some stones from underground, using them to make a cute little rock garden next to the pond. This was the source of her drinking water for now.
Lastly, Petra built a large circular platform in front of the cottage. This platform was built out of large stone slabs that weren't used in the rock garden. It was about the size of the house, roughly 12m in diameter.
After all that, the day came to an end.
The next day, Petra was pleasantly surprised to see the ant and the caterpillar had woken up. Well... 'woken up' might be a bit misleading.
The caterpillar had turned into a massive white chrysalis. The stupid little thing was like a basketball, rolling around everywhere. Petra thought that chrysalises were supposed to be unconscious, but for some reason, this one was not.
The ant, on the other hand, had become an obese blob that could barely move on its own. The cute little thing was only the size of a fist, and its fighting ability seemed to have decreased somewhat.
It was only after Petra discovered that it could control basically any ant-type creature in the surrounding area that she was pleasantly surprised.
Petra looked between the rolling ball and the overweight ant and couldn't help but feel exasperated.
At least she had a way to monitor the surrounding forest now...
The spider was in charge of collecting wood, the centipede was in charge of digging, the frog was in charge of collecting food, the ant started farming for some reason, and the chrysalis... the chrysalis just rolled around all day.
After their initial dip, the five little guys no longer showed any interest in the pool, so Petra threw it to the back of her mind.
As for her, she planned to spend the next few days studying the nearby flora. She wanted to understand what could and couldn't be used. She also wanted to know what was safe and what should be avoided.
Back when Petra was living with Elena, Elena would often teach her about the outside world. Unfortunately, most of her stories didn't cover the Green Wind Forest.
Petra assumed that after Elena 'woke up', she directly left Evergreen Town and rarely returned. Dealing with the green tide was a bit annoying, so Elena seemed to unconsciously avoid the northern region of the Cross Continent.
Over the few days that Petra had lived here, she had filled up two small notebooks covering all the information on the surrounding wildlife.
She would leave the barrier from time to time to explore and experiment.
The surrounding ecology was magnificent.
Petra was a poison master, and as a poison master, some of the surrounding plants were just like the stuff of dreams in her past life. It had even gotten to the point where Petra was starting to worry about paper.
Paper was already an expensive commodity back in town. Petra would usually have to wait until a passing adventurer sold some before buying it. Now that she had left, things were tough.
Petra looked through her little bag and realised that she only had three unused notebooks remaining.
If she wanted to be self-sufficient, she needed a different way to record things.
Her small little eyes turned to the pile of spirit stones on the floor. She had an excess of these things, if she could figure out how to use them to record, then wouldn't that be perfect?
She didn't mean anything like using a chisel and hammer.
After listening to Elena's stories, she was sure that these things could do more than just act as a cultivation battery.
Petra frowned.
She didn't plan to start her studies on magic yet. She first wanted to understand the surrounding environment, then study the five poisonous beast kings, then study her own body, then build her permanent home, not like the small temporary cottage that she had now. It was only after all of that did she plan to start her magic studies.
Petra kicked her little feet.
It was frustrating. She had so much to do but not enough resources...
Her little face scrunched.
It was too frustrating!
She definitely couldn't go back to town.
How should she get some more paper?
As she was grumbling, the little ant staggered over and tried to make a report. Unfortunately, as an ant, it was unable to speak the human language. Equally frustrated, it glared at the stupid frog that somehow seemed to be able to communicate with Petra.
Feeling smug, the big frog hopped over and struck a pose.
This caught Petra's attention.
She turned to look at the frog in curiosity. The frog pointed at the ant, and the ant wiggled its butt...
Petra didn't understand at all.
Petra: ..?
The Ant: ..!!
The Frog: Smug~
After some back and forth, Petra simply followed the ant back to the large circular stone platform in front of the cottage.
Petra's eyes widened when she realised what the ants were up to.
Thousands of ants covered the stone platform. Each ant etched away a small piece, starting from the center and blooming outwards. Looking from above, they were actually drawing a massive map of the surrounding area!
Petra had completely underestimated the connection between the ant colony. This went way beyond her understanding. While some ants were carving out the map, other ants were bringing over new stones to repair mistakes or fill in gaps. Over time, this would turn into an amazing map of the surrounding forest. Looking at it, it would probably cover the entire northern region eventually.
Even the frog was stunned.
Darn!
Why was it so useless!
Looking at the half-done map, Petra found the trail where she had come from. Looking around further, Petra discovered a few ants that were walking more slowly than the surrounding workers. These ants were carrying something like a red stone, obviously to indicate that they were different.
Petra looked at the ant queen and asked, "Are those red stones people?"
Pleased that Petra could figure it out, the fat ant queen did a little dance.
The frog really wanted to eat this little guy.
When Petra looked at all the red stones, she realised that there were a lot of people in one area. She determined that this was Evergreen Town. Looking around, there were a few clusters of people similar to Evergreen Town.
What surprised Petra was that nobody was even remotely close to her. She wasn't sure why, but people seemed to subconsciously avoid this area. There was about a 100-kilometer sphere where people would avoid and walk around.
Peeking at the tree from the corner of her vision, she felt that she had an idea.
After praising the ant queen for her good work, Petra returned to thinking about her paper problem.
Looking up at the darkening sky, Petra quickly ruled out the possibility of leaving anytime soon.
She could only look into recording information on spirit stones herself.
Petra pulled out one of her remaining notebooks and began making notes.
Although the subject of magic was monumental, far exceeding what Petra could currently touch, this didn't stop her from skimming the surface.
Her little head thought back to the lessons that Elena had taught her. As a transmigrator, Elena's understanding of the many magic systems in this world was slightly different from the average person.
Generally, there are five fundamental forms of energy.
Natural Energy is the energy of the 'Body'.
Spiritual Energy is the energy of 'Will'.
Mystic Energy is the energy of the 'Mind'.
Soul Force is the energy of the 'Soul'.
Elemental Energy is the energy of 'Nature'.
Mystic Energy and Soul Force can be ignored for now.
Natural Energy, Spiritual Energy, and Elemental Energy combine to make what most mages call 'Mana'
Spirit stones contain 'Mana', not 'Spiritual Energy'.
This is rather confusing at first, but understand that spiritual energy is controlled by 'Willpower'. If someone with a strong will casually walked through a Spirit Stone Mine, wouldn't they suddenly become a monster with unlimited power? No, your second guess is right, they would just explode. If spirit stones only contained spiritual energy, if they were affected by an unfocused will, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Luckily, spirit stones also contain elemental energy and natural energy, giving them a certain level of stability. If elemental energy is like the paint on a palette, then natural energy is like the primer, or white paint, and spiritual energy is the brush. This way, you wouldn't get the situation where you looked at a blank canvas and let your imagination run wild.
Spiritual energy is the medium to control the metaphysical.
If a cultivator wanted to cast a spell, let's say 'fireball', they would use their will to command spiritual energy to mix with fire-type elemental energy and transform into a ball of fire. As for where this elemental energy came from, it was usually either stored in the body or drawn from nature. Spiritual energy is like the control system, and elemental energy is the power source. As for natural energy, 'strengthen the body' also strengthens the will.
In short, those cultivators suck the natural energy out of spirit stones and abandon the elemental energy and spiritual energy. Why? Well, the elemental energy is not necessarily compatible with their cultivation technique, and the spiritual energy doesn't need to be stored.
Natural energy has the properties of stabilising and strengthening all things. This is used to strengthen the body, mind, and will of a cultivator.
As for Mages, unlike cultivators, they utilize the entire spirit stone...
Petra stopped here.
She actually didn't know what she wanted to cultivate. One had to know that the path of a 'Cultivator' and the path of a 'Mage' were not compatible.
Anyways, she didn't need to start cultivating to do what she wanted to do, so she put this decision on hold for now.
If she wanted to record information in a spirit stone, she had to start from a blank slate. If she took an empty spirit stone and filled it with spiritual power, wouldn't it just explode?
This was the problem she faced.
She didn't even know how to enter the door.
As a complete novice, she didn't know how to stabilize spiritual energy and prevent random 'commands' from interfering with it outside its intended purpose, recording and displaying.
After shaking her head a few times, she suddenly thought of something.
No...
Another idea suddenly popped into Petra's mind.
If spiritual energy carried a 'Will', then couldn't she just forcefully fill a spirit stone with the command to 'Record her thoughts in the human language'? The problem was, if this command took up 10% of the 'memory' in a spirit stone, then how was she going to prevent the other 90% from becoming 'explode'.
If she just filled it with 'garbage', then overwrote the garbage with the commands she wanted, wouldn't this work? This way, the spirit stone couldn't intercept random wills and cause unknown consequences. It would be put into a state where it could only change when intended to change.
This was the equivalent of taking a piece of paper, filling it in with a pencil until it was completely black, then erasing and writing what you wanted only when you wanted it. Because the paper was completely black, random people couldn't suddenly walk by and write something unnecessary.
Petra had no idea that this simple idea was the foundation of the ancient Elfefalein Empire.
The fallen empire had become so advanced that the idea of their technology originating from such a simple idea was completely overlooked.
Petra thought about the idea and felt like she should give it a try. Although she had never used a spirit stone before, she felt like she could do it.
The first thing Petra did was grab a finger-sized spirit stone and focus on extracting all of its energy.
As she attempted it, she was immediately shocked by a torrent of chaotic energy rushing out from the small stone and into her body. The valiant wave of chaotic energy began its quest to rampage inside her body before immediately being quelled by an unknown power.
It only lasted an instant, and the aftermath left Petra confused, stunned, and a bit angry.
She only now realised that she actually didn't know the grade of the spirit stone mine.
She also didn't know what that power that quelled the chaotic energy was. She felt lucky, but also a bit vexed. It had been a long time since she made such a childish mistake.
It was a good thing that she was alone, because her cute pout would make anyone want to violently rub her head.
Trying again, this time she attempted to do it much more slowly.
Slowly, the energy was drained from the spirit stone and stored in her body by that unknown power.
After the spirit stone was completely drained, Petra put it to the side. The empty stone had turned a light grey color.
Knowing that she could successfully drain spirit stones, Petra began carving a few larger pieces of spirit stones into pen-shaped rods.
She picked up one and spun it on her finger.
After the balance and shape were correct, Petra continued.
The next step was to fill the spirit stone with pure spiritual energy and not have it explode in her face.
She focused her mind and attempted to fill the pen-shaped spirit stone with pure spiritual energy, carrying the simple command of 'Stand'.
On her first attempt, the spirit stone was filled but nothing happened. Petra discovered that this was because she filled it with more than just spiritual energy.
After another six attempts, Petra finally filled the pen with pure spiritual energy, but then it exploded in her face.
After another twelve attempts, Petra finally filled the empty spirit stone with pure spiritual energy and the simple command to 'Stand'.
The pen-shaped spirit stone stood vertically as if unaffected by gravity. Regardless of how long Petra waited, the spirit stone did not fall.
From this simple experiment, Petra discovered two things. First, the 'command' was permanent, as long as the spirit stone had spiritual energy, it would retain its command to 'stand' indefinitely, and second, the command had to be visualized, not verbalized. Telling it to 'stand' was ineffective, but visualizing it to 'stand' seemed to work.
After a few more tests, Petra finally discovered how to set multiple commands.
'Illuminate when touched.'
'Clear illumination.'
'Save illuminated state as 'spiritual waves.'
'Load illuminated state from 'spiritual waves.'
'Scroll through illuminated data.'
Many commands were materialized through her research.
Petra didn't know how much of this was an actual function or just her 'visualisations', but what mattered was that it worked.
Petra spent the entire day tinkering with different methods to record information on spirit stones.
After a long day's work, she eventually came up with a system she liked.
Petra split the system into three parts.
The first was a page-shaped spirit stone slab that would illuminate itself whenever it came into contact with other spirit stones. This was like a tablet display.
The second was a pen-shaped spirit stone that could only interact with the page-shaped spirit stones.
The final piece was a fingernail-sized spirit stone that slotted into a spirit stone slab, recorded, and stored the illumination state of the spirit stone 'pages'.
Petra created something like a leather book cover and slotted in two spirit stone slabs. When thought of as an open book, it was a book with only two pages. Each page had a series of nobs that protruded from the sides of the book. These nobs were the fingernail-sized recorders. As you selected one, you could essentially display page information without having to flip through the book. When one wanted to add to the book, they just had to use the pen to write, and the rest was automatic.
Petra called this the Crystal Tome.
The crystal tome could close like a normal book, making it very convenient to carry and store.
Although a bit crude, it worked for what Petra needed.
After carving out a few dozen more books, Petra sent them to the storage room, then went to sleep for the day.