Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

Night had fallen on the half-folk village after a few more hours. Many of the inhabitants still sat around, drinking, laughing, playing cards, and having a merry time, but they had mostly retreated to their small houses. This left Elijah alone on the streets to wander, without foreign eyes tracking his steps.

The others had spent some time in the card room with the locals. Elijah had been invited, but he'd declined. The night air and its possible inhabitants interested him much more.

And, even if he had wished for it, he had no prospect of sleep anyhow. His body no longer allowed for such a human trait.

Even darkness is becoming a faded memory.

Without his orders, without his mind focused on the issue, his eyes adjusted to the fading light of the village, and the shadows in the forest cleared up. For any normal person, the scenery would've been pitch black, but Elijah could expertly navigate over any odd root or uneven patch. His unending connection to the natural world helped as well, of course, but relying on it solely left him uncomfortable. Maybe that was why his body altered itself to accommodate him.

'Do you sense anything abnormal?' he asked Dawn, after twenty minutes of traversing the old forest. His own connection to the roots sent back nothing to worry about, but Elijah knew better than to not double-check.

'Nothing,' Dawn replied a second later, twisting her head around to clean her feathers. 'I'm bored.'

A low chuckle left Elijah upon hearing her words, and he gave her a quick scratch. If she could grow bored out here, it meant nothing within several kilometers was worth their time.

"We'll find you some critters, once we're done. Or maybe see if the kitchen at the inn stays open at midnight," he promised Dawn. That seemed to interest her, as she flew down to the ground. Elijah joined her, going on one knee while starting out the internal chants.

His Core heard him clearly. Following the rhythm of the fake heart within his chest, the draw of Mana from his reservoir grew until the System popped up in recognition of his efforts.

Channeling of [Dungeon Bond] has been activated! Current cost: 25MP/sec

With a tight grip around the staff, Elijah watched as a small, blue sphere grew from the crystal at the top. It pulsed, lighting up the area around them as green lines fell down towards the ground.

Both the draw on his Core and the speed of the growth increased exponentially from there. Like a lightning strike within the earth, a root-like structure developed, going deeper and deeper than any plant would ever dare. Dozens of meters turned into hundreds, approaching a thousand.

Keep it steady.

Elijah's grip tightened even more. He grit his teeth while the millions of endpoints fed him precise information about the possible targets. He knew what he searched for, he knew it could be found below, but the exact location for the eternal river was ever-changing.

His false heart beat faster, his Core pulsed in perfect rhythm, and the leaves of the nearby trees shook. Branches started to bend and break, pulling towards Elijah's body while the roots fed him Mana. They gifted every piece of spare energy they had, knowing that he needed the help, knowing that their survival was less important than his succeeding.

He did not stand by their opinion. The history of an ancient forest did not need to end for Elijah's sake.

There you are.

And neither did it have to. At a depth of two and a half kilometers, five hundred meters southeast of his current position, one of his strands felt the power of the world. A small offshoot of the local leyline, to be exact, a fraction of the flow of the main paths, but still impossibly high above what any mortal could ever achieve.

"Now for the hard part," Elijah muttered, taking a deep breath before allowing the strand of his being to touch the river. Just a single, brief touch to—

Pain.

Elijah's body lit up, the instant push to maximum capacity in his Core making the Mana manifest as green light. His skin became translucent, the nails on his fingers burned in multi-colored fire, and his eyes turned inward before he could get himself under control.

He saw nothing and everything. He saw the dimensions hidden, the creatures who observed, the realities beyond his own, the figments of his own imagination being spurred into creation, the end of all and the beginning of what would come, and he even caught a glimpse of—

No.

Forcibly tearing away the visions beyond mortal comprehension and the face of fake perfection not meant to be seen, Elijah focused the gathered Mana into the staff. The blue sphere at the top, which had grown to three times its original size, now only pulsed once per second, and the green lines that travelled down the staff's length had dulled in their intensity.

With the pre-injection complete, the Dungeon Bond was ready to be cast in full.

Still on one knee, Elijah grabbed his staff with both hands. Careful not to make any sudden twitches, he slowly allowed the blue sphere at the top to reach the grass and then let it rest on the blades.

Some minor wobbling occurred, like a drop of water, before equilibrium was reached.

"Now I need you to answer," Elijah muttered, putting his left hand over the sphere. Green lines of Mana, like those from before, left his palm, falling into the sphere and floating around. Minor eldritch visions followed, but Elijah pushed them away in favor of holding the connection steady. "Time is of the essence here. Don't make me wait."

His body tensed up, his imitations of muscles flexing, and Elijah was forced to maintain the spell for another ten seconds before the other party finally responded.

'You completed the spell. Well done. Prediction came true.'

The ever-familiar, monotonic voice of the Dungeon. Even with the words sounding positive on their own, Elijah could sense the internal logic behind them. They had discussed his newest spell extensively before he departed for the distant lands.

A Tier 10 Spell, five tiers above his formerly highest spell, was both complicated and dangerous to cast, but the possible benefits had been deemed worth it. To be able to forge a connection from so far away, to communicate freely, and allow the new forest to uphold the bond, allowed for growth far beyond what the Dungeon could attain naturally.

'If you'd taken another five seconds to answer, I would've had to repeat it,' Elijah replied, getting the feeling back into his fingers. With the strain of maintaining the bond now in the hands of the Dungeon, the pressure on his physical body had lessened somewhat, but the dull thuds from within his soul could still be felt.

'Apologies. People distract. Much noise,' the Dungeon explained, sending over the visions of the depths beneath Kulvik. With the alliances between Serenova, Ethon, and Darim firmly in place, the dwarven and elven countries had started to send in their own people. 'New strategies. Very strange. Confuses me.'

Elijah understood perfectly, as the omnipresent visuals allowed him to see the ongoing fights in detail. A dwarven Earth Mage had summoned a seemingly living bear made of stone, endlessly repairing it as it fought against a young Tarrasque, and in the same area was an elven Blade Dancer, who used unnatural bursts of speed and short-distance teleportations to cut through a small horde of winged serpents, which only left more questions in his mind.

Memories began to seep through the Dungeon Bond, the Dungeon's detailed recounting of each Mage's movements through the depths, entering Elijah. So much information, expertly structured to be as efficient as possible, making the referencing of each intruder near-instant. It was…

It was not the reason he had cast the spell.

'The parts of you that remain in me are rather bothersome,' Elijah commented, pushing down the fractured voices in the back of his head once again. Yet another consequence of the final stand in Kulvik.

Melding together with the Dungeon into one to summon the monsters on the surface, however briefly, had caused some of the small pieces of their souls to be permanently misplaced. No major chunks, nothing which would hinder normal function, but noticeable whenever they interacted. The pieces of Elijah still within the Dungeon called out to him and vice versa.

'Yours give ideas,' the Dungeon countered. 'I made ducks. And a pond. Very effective trap.'

… Despite Dawn's sudden interest in their conversation, the golden-feathered duck manifesting inside his mind's eye, Elijah kept true to their goal.

'The spell won't hold forever,' he reminded the Dungeon. 'If you're still set on following the original plan, I need you to help me with the second layer of conversions. I've got the path to the leyline offshoot, but I need you to hold everything together until the structure is settled in.'

With the time-sensitive nature of the objective fully realised, the Dungeon started working together with Elijah in full.

Stones deep beneath the earth split apart, as the ancient roots of the oldest trees were forced to stretch and bend into complex rune work. Words not possible to speak with a tongue were chanted, lights not possible for human eyes to see shot through the air, and a ritual circle twenty meters wide briefly shone with blue and green light, as a strong grip forced two separate parts of the physical world to combine at a single point.

'Done.'

For a second, as the pressure in Elijah's ears faded, the wind seemed to lose its power over the forest. The leaves did not rustle, the grass did not bend, and everything looked to be frozen in time, as a foreign presence took over and moved all life into its fold.

Just like they had done back in Serenova, the conversion of all plant life had begun.

'Everything is looking stable,' Elijah said, as he glided his fingers over the grass blades. Each time one touched his skin, a new voice would echo in the back of his head, cheering and beckoning those nearby to work harder in spreading the message. 'The passive conversion rate is slow, but I'll be able to manually make a trail towards the other Dungeon when we leave in the morning.'

One step closer to seeing if the plan would even work.

'That is acceptable,' the Dungeon replied. 'Leave for now. Alert when time comes.'

'Just don't make me wait as long next time.'

'I promise nothing.'

Elijah sighed as the presence of the Dungeon faded. With the draw on the natural world, the forest around him had returned to its previous state, moving in perfect unison with the plant life not yet converted. With how finely tuned their work ended up being, only the most specialized Biomancers would have a chance at seeing where the line was. Masterful precision, to be praised by none.

"At least it didn't take too long," Elijah muttered to himself, using his staff for support as he got back up on two feet. "We're reaching the peak of night, though… I'm afraid that the kitchen is likely closed, Dawn. Any larger snacks for you would have to be hunted for."

'Meat is meat,' his familiar wisely said. 'Also, I want deer.'

"Then we'd best look for one."

With the simple goal of letting Dawn ruthlessly devour a three-eyed animal in its entirety, Elijah did feel his mind relaxing a little. After the taxing experience of completing the Tier 10 spell, half an hour of slowly going through the undergrowth, letting his vision wander far beyond his physical vessel, felt liberating. The sensation of omnipresence, of the slow bending and creaking of bark, of the millions of insects singing in a low drone, and the most silent of steps from cautious prey.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

They both spotted the small herd a hundred meters west, well-hidden from all angles, and with plenty of exits if a predator charged at them. With those sharp ears, any broken branch could have the hooves moving in an instant. Any regular hunter would need a miracle to catch such well-evolved creatures by surprise, and much less catch one.

Dawn was anything but regular.

Without warning, and without any wasted energy, one of the old roots from a nearby oak tree shot out of the grass, penetrating the rib cage of one of the older deer. While aged instincts did allow it to flinch and tense the leg muscles in preparation for a great leap, the sharpened root punctured the heart before that could happen.

By the time the body impacted the forest floor, every other deer was already out of sight. There had been no hesitation, no thought about helping the fallen. Instinct triumphed above all else, for the preservation of the majority overshadowed the individual.

A brutal way of living, but it allowed the species to persist.

At least you got a clean death.

Elijah kept the plants from starting the feast as he entered the area. He could feel the desire of the grass to puncture the bleeding corpse, to devour those lifeless eyes, to turn the bones into powder, and to absorb any nutrients from the warm flesh. They craved to fulfill the circle of life, to consume the dead, but they would not get that pleasure today.

"Try not to be so messy," Elijah requested, as he stepped away from the dead deer. Dawn barely offered him any recognition of his words, as her body unfolded to envelop the deer. Unnatural strength allowed her to compress the flesh, newly grown teeth allowed her to tear through the thick hide, and constant adjustments to her own body made it possible to reach every nook and cranny of the deer.

No part of the body was ignored, nothing was wasted, and Elijah could tell that Dawn loved every second of it. Truly, it was no wonder that Elijah had such a hard time trying to make her eat like a human, when this was her preferred method of consumption.

"Damn it all," Elijah muttered, as a particularly hard squelch caused blood to burst out at him. The formerly purple robes had been marked with lines of red. 'I told you not to be too messy.'

'I am trying,' Dawn replied in her defence. 'Is just too good.'

Elijah doubted that she put much effort into restraining herself. Even as she talked, he could tell most of her mind was honed in on absorbing as much of the biomass into herself as possible while enjoying the taste. He could feel how she allowed the blood to run through her feathers, how the flesh was allowed to stay stuck in her teeth, how the stringy muscles that still responded to the flailing nerves—

Saliva.

Elijah stopped himself as he put a hand to his mouth. A slight but unquestionable amount of saliva, steadily building up. It was soon accompanied by a growling stomach and a more than mild sense of hunger, two sensations that had gone missing for the past many weeks. He had still eaten in the presence of others, he had still complimented the taste of food he'd tried, but an actual desire to eat? Elijah had almost forgotten the experience.

'... Do you want a piece?' Dawn asked cautiously, her devouring of the deer slowing down due to Elijah's sheer confusion about himself. 'We can split.'

Though he would never admit it out loud, something in the far edges of his consciousness considered it.

'No.'

With some minor effort, Elijah shot down his body's fake cravings, the gurgling stomach, and the feeling of hunger disappearing once more. Instincts tried to bring them back a moment later, as Dawn's feast continued, but he held it at bay until they gave up.

"Here's a word of advice. You might have an advantage in keeping up appearances, with your unusual circumstances, but to reject the natural motions of your chosen form will only hamper you in the long run."

Before the first three words had been heard, Elijah's staff had already been aimed at the source. Dawn had likewise stopped devouring the deer, all attention pointed towards calling upon the ancient roots. She was ready to pierce the enemy, to poison and tear them apart, but Elijah bid her to stop.

A black dress, pale skin, eyes that glowed with a vibrant purple, and eyebrows slightly raised in mild amusement at their reactions.

I didn't notice her approach.

His magical senses didn't detect her now either. If not for his ears picking up her voice and his eyes letting him see her form, Elijah wouldn't know she was here. Even the grass she stood on didn't seem to take notice of her presence, ignorant of their compressed state.

Improbable.

"Who are you?" Elijah questioned with narrowed eyes. The pale woman did not answer instantly, spending a second chuckling instead.

Elijah knew she was influencing his ability to perceive her, but the method did elude him. Both his and Dawn's passive magical awareness had alerted them to her at the inn, and they had been able to see her walking by as well. Nobody else had taken any notice of her at that time, however, and now neither of them could spot her through magical means.

More than one variable at play then?

"I'm a mere traveller, touring foreign lands for anything of interest," the pale woman finally answered, giving a theatrical bow. Her eyes never moved away from his. "As you might have guessed, however, I might be a little different from most afflicted with wanderlust."

It has to be somewhere.

Channeling of [Breathe Life] has been activated! Current cost: 89MP/sec

Elijah's Core pulled from his reservoirs as he kept expanding his view of the world, trying to find the piece not meant to be there. He searched through the air, isolating every single organic particle of any variety. He categorized the pollen grains, the microfibers from old bark, the hints of bacteria and archaea, the debris of long-dead insects, the moisture carrying the scents of soil, and, finally, the spores from the moss, the ferns, and the fungi that lived in the darker corners of the forest. Elijah saw it all, delving as deep as his mind allowed, and he compared each piece to previous samples with utmost attention.

He analyzed the pattern, the structure, how they interacted, and, finally, the ways they moved.

There you are.

One strand of a mycelium spore, widespread in the air and entirely foreign to Elijah's library of common variants. Going by the warning signals that the Breathe Life spell told him, he knew of its psychoactive properties. How it caused the mind to ignore the presence of a specific person, Elijah didn't understand, but he knew he had found the answer to one piece of the puzzle.

It explained how the others hadn't noticed the woman, as their lungs would've allowed the spores easy access, but that logic didn't carry over to how Elijah's magical senses and the grass didn't see her.

"You're a mage of some variety," Elijah answered. "A powerful one at that, if you're able to use fungal spores to stop people from noticing you."

"A good guess, my friend, but your perspective is clouding your ideas," the pale woman remarked. She took a step forward. Elijah took a step back in response, while Dawn readied her attack. "I doubt there are many in this world who would refer to me as a mage. I don't fit inside the category."

Another step forward and another step back.

"Please don't try to approach," Elijah requested, while growing a batch of explosive spheres inside his sleeve. One fluid movement was all it would take to throw them. "I'd prefer not to attack."

"An altercation was not my goal for the day, if that eases your worries."

"It does not."

Both knew that she could've attacked while Elijah had been unaware of her presence. That she didn't do so meant that his demise wasn't her only goal, but it didn't mean it couldn't be one of them.

"How about a showing of trust then?" the pale woman suggested. "A respect for secrecy, to be precise. I sensed your presence the moment you stepped inside Thistlebrook, as the most-recent locals call it, yet I did not confront you in the presence of others. Even if you intrigue me to a degree I haven't felt in many years, I waited until you were alone to mention what I believe you want unsaid."

"Which is?"

"You are not human."

… Her words did not come as a shock. A surprise, at most, as stating a fact Elijah was already very aware of wouldn't be any real revelation. That the woman was able to realize this fact was something he wondered about, though the ability to discern it hadn't been seen as impossible either.

Still, he had considered his form to be near-identical to what he had looked like in recent years. The small scars, the blemishes, the way his body didn't carry enough strength to move too fast, and all those other minor annoyances as a result of having lived a long life remained.

"What gave it away?" Elijah asked. "Your magical abilities or my appearance?"

"I knew it for a fact when I sensed you, but visual inspection would've also made it obvious," the pale woman described. "You don't sweat, your eyes don't tire, and you breathe at a near-constant rhythm. Your skin detail might be better than what I can create, but it is too static. Your shell is made from your mental image of yourself, one that is unchanging because you don't want it to change. That is your biggest strength and weakness."

Her eyes were sharper than Elijah had expected.

"You speak from experience," he noted. The pale woman smiled. Elijah should've known from her first words. "Close to human in appearance, capable of shape-shifting, well-spoken, something close to a mage, but people would not call you such outright… What are you?"

"I do love to leave people guessing, but I think you need a hint," the pale woman said, before reaching out with her right hand.

Elijah hesitated for a moment, his mind warning him of the possibilities that could come from this, but his curiosity won him over eventually. With slow movements, he stepped forward, reaching out with a hand of his own.

… Oh.

A gust of information washed over him as Elijah's fingers made impact with the pale hand. Though the physical sensation did seem similar to skin, and the warmth and pulse certainly matched that of somebody who had been walking around out in the cold night, his magical gifts could finally pierce through the illusion and see what sat beneath.

Fungi. Tens of thousands of different variants, with millions of interactions every second, all working towards the common goal of upholding the illusion that Elijah was standing in front of a person.

Millions of small parts creating one mind, one combined force of nature, whose smile continued to brighten as Elijah realized the truth.

This was far beyond his own abilities.

"In polite company, the humans of Vale call my people witches. Perhaps it is not the most fitting name, but a better term would require that people know just how inhuman we truly are," the pale woman explained. She did not stop Elijah from retreating a few steps back, while he tried his best to remember the countries furthest to the west. Vale was found in the northern half, and beneath it… Slago, the eternally dark swamp? He had read about it years ago, but the books had been rare and vague. "I believe you can see why your first guess was close to the truth now, however. It is not that I control the fungal spores. I am them, just like every other piece of myself is me."

"That doesn't explain how I can't see you through my magical senses," Elijah countered. "The forest itself doesn't take notice of you."

"And why would it? I am not foreign to these woods. I am as much a part of this forest, and of any forest, as every piece of fungi you can find around us. Where I walk, the world sees me as having always been here, and so it sees no reason to take notice of me."

To Elijah, her explanation didn't make sense. To fool natural life in such a way seemed absurd, and for the method to work on such a wide-reaching scale sounded impossible to his ears.

And yet it did. Even with the illusion shattered, the moment he stepped back, it reformed, and he lost the ability to track her through his magical senses.

Powerful and dangerous.

"Don't feel too bad about not understanding our ways. Many have tried to figure it out, and very few have succeeded," the pale woman added, when Elijah stayed silent. "Now… while I have loved our little conversation, and I hope to continue it in the near future, I believe it is time for me to visit a place of common interest."

"The Dungeon?" Elijah guessed, to which he received a smile in response. "What do you need from the depths?"

"Samples, secrets, and maybe a new ballad or two," she explained, though her words only confused him even more. Ballads? "Anything of interest, really."

Try as he might, Elijah did not get a clear answer, and the pale woman left soon after. He tracked her with his eyes and, when she went out of sight, he tried to track her through the grass. He failed in that regard immediately.

'Should we follow her?' Dawn suggested.

'...No,' Elijah replied. 'It's not worth it.'

Though she carried secrets, today wasn't the day they would be revealed. Likewise, the night only lasted so many hours, and Elijah knew he needed to be back before the sun rose again.

Still under the cover of night, they travelled through the forest and back to the small village. None of the locals could be found outside, and the orange lights in the round windows had all disappeared as well. Even the most carefree of the races still needed rest, after all.

That wasn't to say that Elijah didn't spot one soul out and about. Grace, to be specific, was sitting on one of the benches outside the inn. She had seemingly unpacked while he'd been away, and had put on another layer to combat the night's cold air.

"There was no reason to wait for me," Elijah commented as he reached the inn. When Grace didn't stand up to follow him inside, he instead decided to sit down on the bench beside her. "Sleep is important. Especially when tomorrow will bring battle."

"I got in a few hours," Grace countered, speaking in a low tone. She sounded tired. Elijah knew she needed sleep, that she probably wanted to get another few hours, but that his absence had stopped that from happening. Somebody needed to be ready. "And you have nothing to stand on yourself. Where've you been?"

"Preparing for the trip," Elijah explained, giving a brief overview of the Dungeon Bond spell he'd cast. He hadn't told her everything about its functions, but his descriptions of the mechanics had fascinated her. He did, however, exclude his encounter with the witch. "Even if we won't go too deep into the Dungeon, it's best to be ready for anything. Monsters have a habit of surprising you."

"Not too deep?" Grace repeated, her back straightening as she woke up slightly. "Wasn't the plan to use this dive to augment our Cores?"

"Well, yes, but that shouldn't require us going down more than a quarter of the way," he clarified. "Before, we might have needed to pass the halfway point, but that's changed now. With my guidance, I should be able to get you and the others to the next stage."

That was one of the few bonuses that came with the brief assimilation those weeks ago. The instinctual insight Elijah had been given for the development and augmentation of Cores, the not-too-obvious reorganizing that could improve the primitive designs that humans had created through the years, and the ability to look inside the others and know what to do… Even if Elijah didn't understand the hyper-dimensional mathematical formulas that ran through the back of his mind, he knew how to utilize them for the benefit of others.

"One day, you and I need to sit down and get everything you know written down," Grace said, ending her words with a yawn. She stretched her arms and legs, making the joints make a few pops, before standing up. "Not tonight, though. Since you're back from your little adventure, I'm thinking I'll head back to bed."

Elijah did the same, though his eyes never closed. He only watched the ceiling in silence until the sun rose and light pierced into the small room.