Path of Dragons

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that, no matter what else happened, no matter how many evolutions he went through, Elijah was always a Druid first. It took precedence over his class, and from it, everything else stemmed. It was a key distinction, and one that Elijah knew he shouldn't allow himself to forget. Never was it clearer than when he embarked on his quest to cleanse the Aug Energy site.

The poison inundating the entire area offended him in a way he couldn't really articulate. It would have been one thing to simply kill everything in the region. Not a good outcome, but not offensive, either. However, the way the radiation corrupted and changed the natural world was something else entirely, and Elijah wavered between wanting to harness that and needing to reverse its course.

To distract himself from that war within, he spent the first few hours thoroughly exploring the rest of the facility. He rifled through the lockers, and in doing so, he found a few relics from the past. Cellular phones were the most common, and they brought back memories of when the world had seemed – and was – so much smaller. He pocketed a couple of them in the hopes that someone back in Ironshore – or perhaps Seattle – could make use of them.

However, Elijah also found plenty of other reminders from before the world's transformation. Some were far more personal in nature, like a couple of family photos pinned to the inside of one of the lockers. Employee identification badges bearing the visages of the people who'd worked there were prominent as well. He even found an old magazine, half rotted and bearing a glossy photograph of a popular celebrity on the cover. Looking at it, he found himself wondering why people had cared so much about something so obviously contrived.

He shook his head and moved on, eventually finding the remains of the former employees. There were only two left in the entire facility, which suggested that some of them had gotten away. Knowing what he knew about the site, Elijah suspected that they hadn't made it very far before the effects of the radiation killed them. But he had to hope for the best. After all, he'd been doomed, too, and he'd managed to survive. Perhaps they had come upon unique opportunities as well.

Regardless, it only took a couple of hours before Elijah had exhausted the possibilities within the facility, so he soon left it behind. During his search, he remembered the sunflowers he'd passed on his way to the power plant. They'd displayed a powerful ability to adapt to the changing circumstances, surviving when so many other plants had died. On top of that, he couldn't ignore the fact that his latest spell evolution, Blessing of the Grove, incorporated a sunflower into its expression. That meant something, though Elijah wasn't certain as to exactly what that something might be.

He resolved to find out, which was why he spent another few minutes circling the site in search of a surviving sunflower. He found one only a hundred yards from the parking lot, and he was happy to see that it was even larger than the last one he'd seen. Upon approach, Elijah settled down, casting Blessing of the Grove and Nature's Design while focusing exclusively on the sense he gained from Soul of the Wild.

At first, Elijah had difficulty getting past the power of the radiation, through which significant ethera had been woven. That proved that it was far more powerful than it would have been before Earth's transformation, meaning that it would have likely killed the pre-Trial of Primacy version of him outright. Fortunately, he'd made great strides since then, so with his heals constantly restoring damaged tissue, Elijah was only mildly uncomfortable.

Still, Elijah couldn't deny that the area might have proven to be quite useful as a catalyst for Body cultivation. After all, one of the key requirements was to consistently damage and rebuild one's body. However, at present, he was far from prepared to take such a step.

But he did keep it in the back of his mind. Specifically, he thought of the elephant's foot, which was far more powerfully radioactive than anywhere else in the area. If he managed to collect that and store it somewhere with high ethereal density, then it could prove to be a perfect spark for the next step in Body cultivation.

For now, though, he needed to focus on cleansing the area around Aug Energy, and he felt that the sunflower, with its ability to harness the radiation for its own purposes, was key to doing so. With that in mind, he cast his senses deep within the plant's substance, burrowing down until he found the essence of its nature.

The most prominent thread was a familiar one. Nature. Or vitality, perhaps. If its attunements were represented by a tree, then that would have been the trunk. The branches were much thinner, and they were dedicated to less powerful elements like ice, fire, and air. However, Elijah's attention soon settled on what he likened to roots.

He had no name for it, largely because it represented an esoteric concept, but as he saw those roots at work, he decided to think of it as adaptation. But after a few moments, Elijah realized that wasn't entirely correct. There was a second and intertwined – but still distinct – attunement at play.

Purification.

The second did precisely what the label he'd given it suggested – it purified the harmful elements of the radiation. Then, adaptation harnessed the energy that was leftover, funneling it upward to fortify the plant's already powerful life attunement. On the surface, it seemed like such a simple system, but it only took one look for Elijah to recognize the inherent complexity of it. If one factor was even a little out of balance, the whole arrangement would collapse in on itself, and the plant would die a quick death.

Even more impressive was the fact that the sunflower had adapted to its environment so quickly and effectively enough to not only survive, but to thrive as well. It left Elijah in awe of the power of nature.

But it was also daunting, considering what he intended. With Nature's Design, he could manipulate those threads. He could extend the roots. He could thicken the trunk. He could even force the branches to spread. But if the balance was even a little off, it would result in ruin.

So, given the weight of what he intended to accomplish, Elijah spent some time just studying those threads of attuned ethera in the hopes of fostering some degree of understanding.

Despite the pressure of his chosen task, Elijah was not one to shy away from what he considered his duty. So, he bent the entirety of his focus to the task, and slowly, he developed a degree of comprehension. Or so he thought. When he tried to put that understanding to work, he realized just how little he knew.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, panicking as the results of his meddling went out of control. One plucked thread, and the flower had wilted. It died a moment later as it succumbed to the radiation. "Dammit."

After that, he moved on to another sunflower, and when he tried to alter it, he found the same results. Only then did he realize that those plants were too far along in their development for him to change their natures. Perhaps someone like Nerthus could manage it, but Elijah lacked the expertise – or the patience – to do so. With that in mind, he decided to start from scratch.

So, that was how he ended up gathering hundreds of sunflower seeds from the surrounding area. He also gathered a host of other seeds and even a few crabapples from one of the surviving trees. Then, he headed closer to the Aug Energy plant, where he planted one of the sunflower seeds.

Going forward, he ushered it through the stages of growth. As it germinated, then sprouted, Elijah gradually nudged it to display the characteristics he intended. The first plant died before it even reached the seedling stage, but the process taught him a lot about how the different attunements worked together. He used that knowledge to help the next one get a little further along, but it died as well.

Over and over, he experimented with what worked and what would not. At the same time, he refined his control until he could isolate each thread, adjusting it so slightly that the results were barely even noticeable. And eventually, a new sunflower bloomed before him.

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It was only the first stage, though. Elijah knew that his spell wouldn't allow him to make sweeping changes to the sunflowers' nature. Instead, he needed to adjust it incrementally, generation by generation, as he mimicked more traditional, non-magical strategies for plant breeding.

Fortunately, Nature's Design was more powerful than its predecessor, and though he couldn't usher a plant to maturity in a few minutes – as Nerthus had done – he could do so over the course of a few hours. It was far from a perfect solution, but Elijah had a little time to spare.

And his task was important.

So, over that first day, he took the sunflowers through a half-dozen generations. The second day saw that number increase to ten. The third, to twelve. Over and over, he minutely adjusted the pattern of the plants' attunements until, on the sixth day, he finally achieved his goal.

The sunflower drank the radiation like water, cleansing it, then funneling the remaining energy into its own vitality. That was only part of Elijah's plan, though. It also dragged so much radiation into its being that it purified the surrounding air. Even without his influence, it grew almost as quickly as his initial attempts. The only problem was that funneling so much energy through what was still a mundane plant shortened its lifespan by a considerable amount.

However, with its rapid growth and high metabolism, that wouldn't be such a huge deal – at least for the new species as a whole. And it definitely was something new. The petals of the flowers glowed subtly with white light, and Elijah suspected that they had become low-grade natural treasures. He didn't think they would display any particularly useful properties, but that had never been the point. Instead, they only needed to do a single job – help restore the balance to the ecosystem by absorbing the dangerous radiation – and he suspected they would accomplish that task quite well.

Over the next day, Elijah spent almost every minute helping to populate the region with the modified sunflowers. Even that endeavor needed to be balanced. If he put them too close together, they wouldn't have enough energy to survive. If they were too far apart, then there would remain pockets of radiation. The layout had to be perfect, so he spent just as much time ensuring everything was where it needed to be as he did ushering the plants to maturity.

In the end, though, he accomplished his goal.
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If he'd had more time, he would have modified a few other plants, but given that he spent almost an entire week on the sunflowers alone, Elijah knew he just didn't have time. Especially since he had one more task to accomplish before he left the area.

So it was that he found himself staring at the mass of radioactive material known as the elephant's foot. From what he understood, the pile of brittle, grey rock was a combination of corium, sand, uranium, and concrete, and as he'd previously established, it was extraordinarily radioactive. Even from a couple dozen feet away, he could feel his skin bubbling under its influence. Without his healing spells, he would have already died.

Which was saying something, considering his high attributes.

Yet, Elijah knew that he would need to get much closer if he was going to deal with the problem. Before that, though, he needed to create a containment area. To that end, Elijah looked to the containment building itself. As he understood it, the structure had been created for a similar purpose to what he intended, and as such, it would likely provide appropriate materials. And sure enough, when he inspected it, he saw that it had been built from steel reinforced concrete that was more than five feet thick. Even then, it had proven to be insufficient against whatever explosion had destroyed one of the walls.

Elijah didn't know what could have done such a thing – after all, such a containment building was designed specifically to resist such destruction, and it should have been capable of enduring anything short of a nuclear blast – but at the moment, that was a mystery he had no time to solve. Instead, he focused on the problem at hand, eventually coming up with a plan to contain the massively radioactive elephant's foot.

The first step was to dig a great, big hole. Elijah accomplished that minor feat by shifting into the Shape of Thorn and using his inflated Strength and enhanced size to knock it out in about an hour. When he was finished, he had a fifty-foot-deep hole, into which he tossed a huge section of the containment building's wall. Next, he lined the hole with as much concrete as he could, even tossing lead pipes, which he assumed were meant to facilitate the cooling system, inside.

Once the thing was about half full, he leaped inside and used his immense Strength to pulverize the entire collection. It was surprisingly easy, proving just how much above a regular human he'd become. He didn't dwell on that, though. He had too much work to do.

Crushing the concrete left it much more condensed, so he was forced to repeat the process a couple of times before he had enough. Still, it went quite well, and it took less than a day before he was ready for the next step, which would be the trickiest part of his plan.

After digging a sizable divot out of the powdered concrete, Elijah returned to the elephant's foot. He stared at it for along moment, taking one deep breath after another as he prepared for what was coming. Then, he renewed Soothe as well as Blessing of the Grove before shifting back into Shape of Thorn. Before the transformation had even completed, Elijah was striding forward, and by the time he'd taken on the form of the thorned sentry, he was on top of the mass of radioactive material.

He reached down, grabbing the awkward hunk of brittle stuff, and immediately, he was burned. Some of it was from the ongoing radiation, which spiked the closer he was to the elephant's foot. But it was also because the mass was extremely hot. Maybe three- or four-hundred degrees, which was enough to hurt him.

Thankfully, his Constitution was high enough to resist severe burns, but ongoing exposure to the radiation was much more dangerous. To mitigate the damage, which would soon outpace even his healing spells, Elijah used Unchecked Growth. Immediately, his Regeneration spiked, and the damage repaired itself as soon as it was inflicted.

With that taken care of, Elijah grabbed the mass, wrapping his vines around it to keep it together, then hefted it into his arms. The thing was large and dense enough that even lifting it was a strain, though not one Elijah couldn't overcome.

He staggered back the way he'd come, covering the two-hundred or so feet necessary to reach the hole he'd dug. Then, he threw his burden inside. However, he knew he wasn't finished. He still needed to ensure it was covered by the concrete powder. So, he leaped inside, and before Unchecked Growth ran its course, he managed to burrow the elephant's foot deep into the pile of powder, then cover it up. Just as his ability ran out, he leaped to the lip of the hole, then retreated a few dozen feet.

Sighing, Elijah let the last dregs of Unchecked Growth mend any damage he'd incurred. Then, when his Regeneration went back to normal, he shifted back into his human form and cast a few heals, just to be sure.

As he did so, he paid close attention to his body, ensuring that everything returned to normal. It did, but Elijah could easily sense that that would not have been the case had he attempted such a feat even a month before.

That surety served as motivation. If he couldn't endure it, then what would happen if someone else stumbled upon the area? They would assuredly die, and he would be to blame.

So, with that in mind, he headed back into the facility to gather a pair of fifty-five gallon drums he'd found inside. Then, he shifted into Shape of Sky, took the drums in his claws, and flew south until he reached a large pond he'd discovered nearby. Dipping low, he used the barrels to gather water before he returned to his half-filled hole. He dumped the water inside, then repeated the process a few hundred times. Elijah was no mathematician, and he was far from an expert on concrete, but he knew that it required close to a one-to-two ratio of water to concrete powder, he knew it would take more than sixty-thousand gallons of water to complete his task.

And that meant about five-hundred trips, more or less. Thankfully, he could cover ground incredibly quickly in Shape of Sky, and the pond wasn't far away. Still, it took a further day to finish the task. By that point, the mass of powder had become a concrete slurry. Thankfully, that was just enough to let Unchecked Growth's cooldown to elapse. So, after shifting back into the Shape of Thorn and using Unchecked Growth, he leaped into the hole and cast Domain of Vines to properly mix the solution.

Elijah could feel more than traces of radiation in the concrete itself, but he hoped that some of that would be mitigated by the sheer mass of the block. Once everything had been mixed together, he jumped out of the hole and went back to the facility, where he gathered as much lead as he could find.

After piling that up, he started planting sunflowers in a large ring around the hole. By themselves, they would have been overwhelmed by the intensity of the radiation. However, with the other measures in place, he hoped that they would thrive and use whatever seeped through as fuel for their growth.

Over the course of a day, as he promoted his sunflowers' growth, the concrete dried. Once it did, Elijah covered it with all the lead he'd gathered. Then, he piled the excavated dirt into the hole, packing it down tight.

And just like that, the project was done.

He could only hope that it would be enough to not only contain the radiation from the elephant's foot, but also to restore the balance of nature to the region.

But he'd done everything he could think to do. Now, he needed to return to Hong Kong and deal with the other major problem at hand. Because in only a couple of days, the Primal Realm would open, and when it did, disaster would surely follow.