I spent my days practicing different types of magic. My short term goal was to be able to grow all basic elemental apples. Those would be fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, ice, and metal magic.
I was already familiar with the basic understandings of all these elemental magic types. Remastering them to a basic level was only a matter of time. I was eventually able to grow apples filled with all these attributes.
The day before, Aldi had returned and once again astonished me with his financial prowess. He hadn't just found multiple kinds of fruit but also a heap of precious materials. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and many other crystals, he brought them all.
I had just two questions. How could he afford all this and how did he not get robbed?!
I absorbed all the things he brought me and was about to ask about payment when Aldi took a bundle of cloth from his pocket.
"I came across this particular gem when I was visiting a noble in Utgard."
He unraveled the bundle and revealed a crystalline shining ball. At first, I thought it was a shining gem but as I kept looking at it, I recognized it was something else.
'This is heavenly steel! How did you get that? This can't be produced here, only archmages of the second rank or higher can create this!'
"What's an archmage of the second rank?"
'Someone with unimaginable power. Based on what I know the power of an archmage should correspond to a king magus. So a second rank should be above that.'
"Above king! That would be a chosen one! They only exist in tales of the past. But that doesn't matter now! You know what this is and how to use it?"
'It's heavenly steel, a material created by infusing an innate understanding of light, holiness or anything similar. It's much more durable than normal metal, in fact, it can cut through iron without any resistance. The only downside is that it is incredibly hard to shape into a weapon.'
"I conclusion you want to buy it."
'Isn't that obvious! What do you want for it?'
"Can you make weapons out of this?"
'I'm honestly not sure. I can slightly modify the things I grow so I can try.'
I immediately absorbed it and started my deductions. I had absorbed all the other and figured out their structure within seconds. The heavenly steel took a little longer, roughly one minute. Making it proved more difficult.
This thing was created using an innate understanding of light. I didn't have such an innate understanding myself so I couldn't recreate it even if I wanted!
Good thing I didn't need to. I could filter the relevant parts out from the sunlight since I knew what to look for. It was an arduous process to extract it and form it into heavenly steel. By the time I was done, Aldi had long returned to the inn.
Since he would only return in a few hours I tried to form the heavenly steel into a different shape. I usually formed an ingot but now I tried a shield shape.
It came out surprisingly well! I even used some bendable vines to create an arm hold. I also created a sword and an ax.
Aldi, upon his return, accepted both pieces of equipment. He also asked for a pair of combat gauntlets. I tried to tailor to his wishes but my fine control left some things to be desired.
"Eldar, I have a question."
'Ask it then.'
"How do you know all these things? I mean you know how to stimulate bloodlines, you can recognize materials that even the scholars don't know the names of and you talk of people so powerful that they are only mentioned in legends.
Who are you?"
'Who am I? That's hard to say... I am Eldar, a tree that's incredibly wise. With age comes wisdom.'
Should I tell him that I had been a human in another world? That I had been reborn as a tree?
No! Have you ever seen a protagonist tell anyone about his former life? That would ruin all the wonderful misunderstandings that could happen!
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I should tell him...