Cursed Heroine

Chapter 45: Dryad complications

 While I’m waiting for my newly born dryad familiar to calm down, let’s check her status.

<Status>
Name: ? | Age: <1 | Sex: Female
Race: Dryad(Base: Feeder Vine)
Cultivation Stages: {Body: 0(0%)}{Mind: 0(0%)}{Spirit: 0(0%)}{Divine: 0(0%)}{Law: 0}
Energy Reserves: {Qi: 10/10}{Mana: 10/10}{Spirit: 1/10}{Divine: 0/0}
Attributes: Str: 10(10%) | Vit: 10(10%) | Agi: 10(10%) | Int: 10(10%)
Soul Potential: 50
<Skills>
{passive}
[Sense Mana 1]
{active}
[Mana Control 1], [Mana Shaping 1]
<Traits>
[Green Thumb], [Multi-Form]
<Blessings>
[Dryad’s Natural Gifts]
{Fragrance}{Needles}{Symbiosis}
<Curses>
[Tamed Familiar(Tamer: Lilia)]
{Link}

“Why am I green...and naked!!!”~dryad

Yep, way too cognisant for a normal newly born dryad. Let’s wait a little longer to see if she’ll calm down. I’ll just study her status a bit more in the meantime. She’s so weak! From what I’ve seen before, dryads are supposed to be born with about mid stage one attributes. Her current status is equivalent to what you’d expect from a newborn baby of one of the races. This is definitely somehow Kat’s fault! Also, I may have severely understated how great my advantage is due to crafting my own body. Normal people don’t have an innate ability to control at least half their current attribute points and their attribute control is a factor in deciding how much of their energy they can drive at a time. Right now she will only be able to circulate one energy for each cultivation cycle! At such an inefficient rate, she might not even make it to stage one before spring is over.

As for other parts of her status. Green thumb gives her the ability to grow things exceedingly well and in a fraction of the time. All dryads have three forms they can take on with their multi-form trait. First is there base form, a feeder vine in her case. Second is a sprite form, a miniature version of themselves that usually has wings. The third form is their human form. Unless they are born with it, they usually only develop a human form after many years and it is usually not as pretty as one who is born with it from the start. Dryad’s natural gifts are the things she’s gained from the plants in the area she was born. In her case, she can customize the fragrance that she can emit, shoot needles and form symbiotic bonds. Tamed familiar will cause her to be loyal to me and obey me for the most part. The link subskill is a lot like my link with Sofy. Transmitting thoughts to communicate is one use. We don’t share senses, but can feel each other’s condition and mental state. She’s currently freaking out. Ugh, she didn’t calm down at all. I’m now being shaken by her as she continues to demand answers. Time to test our link I guess.

“Can you please stop shaking me?”~me

“There’s a voice in my head! That settles it, I’ve gone crazy!”~dryad

Thankfully, she stopped shaking me.

“You’re not crazy. I think a lot of your questions might be answered if you just check your status. Think ‘status’ in your mind to take a look.”~me

“St-status?”~dryad

Of course she would say it out loud for the first time, nearly everyone does. She takes a minute to study it and starts asking even more questions. I answer her to the best of my ability. I’ve concluded that she is indeed another earth soul as suspected. For some reason, she’s unable to remember her previous name. The good news is that she was actually a botanist in her last life and wouldn’t mind continuing her work. Though, she’s a little irked about the whole familiar thing, but quickly got used to using the link to talk.

“So, what should I call you?”~me

“Don’t you get to decide?! You have the naming rights as the tamer after all!”~dryad

“Don’t get pissy at me, this is the Goddess’s doing. I’m fairly certain that your soul would have probably been sent into any dryad I chose to tame. If you don’t come up with a name for yourself, I really will choose one for you and I’m really bad at naming.”~me

“I know that in my head, but it’s still really disturbing how the tamed familiar curse causes me to feel subservient towards you. Flora, name me Flora.”~dryad

“Flora, seriously? That’s like naming a dog, Hound. And here I thought my naming sense was bad.”~me

“It works just fine! The name, Flora, perfectly fits my new existence as a dryad and I actually like flowery names anyways. Also, I am NOT your pet!”~dryad

“Flora it is then. Let’s go inside the house and introduce you to everyone.”~me

Flora was introduced to everyone and was given a bedroom of her own. She was quite happy to see her appearance in a mirror for the first time and even thanked me for my efforts to imagine her that way. This caused her to feel happy and content for the first time since she had ended up as my familiar. Some sort of unknown, subtle change in the bond occurred when she had these feelings. Only I seemed to have noticed it. Just one more thing I need to talk to Kat about. She gradually got used to her abilities as a dryad and managed to form some flowery clothes by weaving some hair-thin vines together. As she was admiring herself in the mirror, she started to ponder something for a moment before nodding her head and was then shrouded by a green glow. Apparently, she had decided to shift into another of her forms.

CUTE!!! Her sprite form is absolutely adorable!! It’s a chibi version of her human form! Her hair now falls to her ankles and her clothes are made from her heart-shaped petals which look huge on her now six inch tall form. The wings she now has are one of her heart shaped leaves which is now as large as her. It’s attached to her back in the center and half of it extends to each side. It took her a few minutes, but she eventually managed to fly and settled down on my shoulder when she got tired.

“Whew, that drained my mana really fast! Hey, how can I increase my mana? Do I just go out and kill some monsters like they do in those game world transmigration novels?”~Flora

“That looked like a lot of fun. It doesn’t work that way here. You have to put in the effort to cultivate in order to increase your strength. The methods to do so are…”~me

I went into the details about how she could cultivate. Then I left her alone in her room until dinnertime with some crystals so she could try it herself. While she may not digest it like we do, she can still process normal foods. However, she can more efficiently gain the nutrients she needs by temporarily connecting with plants that share her base form. Kat probably already knew I would have questions and immediately responded when I said my prayer tonight.

“Yes, the soul was my doing. I also made it so the dryad would form according to your imprint without much variation even though you only contributed a tiny amount of mana to its creation. Congrats on gaining your first familiar and nice job with her appearance!”~Kat

“Thank you. Is there a way for me to give her back her freedom?”~me

“Not anymore. It might have been possible at first, but it’s too late now.”~Kat

“Was it that slight change I had felt in the bond earlier?”~me

“Correct. That was your tamer’s seal permanently fusing with her soul. Before that happens, it’s still possible to remove it by throwing spirit energy at it. If there’s a way to remove it after it’s been fully fused, even I don’t know it.”~Kat

“Why provide my dryad familiar with a human soul in the first place?”~me

“Because it seemed like fun! Plus, I wouldn’t have ever used her as a summoned hero anyways. She has too weak of a soul. Not all the souls I received were of high level, a few weaker ones got mixed in during the trade. Even a couple broken souls ended up in my hands, hers being one of those. I’d been wondering what to do with them and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.”~Kat

“Fun, huh? I had predicted that would be part of your reasoning, but why incarnate her at all if she’s so weak and even broken? Her soul is not going to end up falling apart is it?”~me

“Remember how I told you how your soul will raise the potential of the souls around you? That goes doubly so for a soul linked to your own. A link such as the tamer’s seal will provide her soul with enough strength to hold itself together and heal itself over time. A long time, probably decades in her case.”~Kat

“Whew, that’s good to hear. Are you saying that she wouldn’t have been able to live at all without a familiar bond? How did her soul end up damaged in the first place?”~me

“Yeah, I kept her soul dormant until you formed the bond to keep it from collapsing. Some sort of traumatic event is the usual reason for damage to a soul, especially in her case since your old world didn’t have any form of soul attacks.”~Kat

“Well, I’ll take good care of her until her soul heals up. Then I’ll find a way to free her.”~me

“I expected nothing less from you. Though, I think it’s adorable how you still think that she could ever be free of you. Now that the seal is fused, that tamed familiar curse is working its way deep into her being. The broken state of her soul makes the process even smoother. By the time the morning comes around, she’ll have lost any desire to ever separate from you.”~Kat

“But that’s like brainwashing her! Isn’t there some other way you could have fixed her soul?! Or maybe you could give her the same don’t mind me blessing I have?”~me

“That blessing only works on the mind, not the soul. All of the methods I know of involve someone having to donate spirit energy in order to help heal her. That energy would inevitably become fused with her soul and create an inescapable bond to that person. In other words, it was either this or the inevitable destruction of her soul.”~Kat

With no other options, I’d have to accept that the changed girl-turned dryad that I would wake up to find tomorrow morning is simply who she is now. We discussed for a bit longer and I managed to learn a few tricks to aid in the healing of her soul. I very quickly lost most of my concern for her the next morning when I was awoken by her very energetic chibi form dive bombing into me, all the while yelling that it was a beautiful morning and that she wanted us to go eat breakfast together. Okay, I’ll admit that what she was doing is in fact super cute! And she knows it, if the smirk on her face was any indication. Apparently dryads will wake up at sunrise, every day! I am NOT a morning person!