Malam yang sunyi, atau lebih tepatnya, bagian siang yang terang benderang dan cukup ramai ketika Lex biasanya tidur – karena di hutan ini tidak pernah gelap – Lex berdiri sendirian di tepi Tebing Deadfall.
Sudah 3 hari sejak dia mengunjungi terowongan, dan ini kesempatan pertama dia mendapat privasi – terutama karena semua orang sangat fokus pada terowongan, Ptolemy included. Tentu saja, karena keributan yang timbul dari penemuannya, Lex belajar banyak tentang Sumur Spirit, yang justru membuatnya paling frustrasi!
Beberapa orang di kemah mulai menyebutnya penyelamat mereka, tapi dia tidak merasa beruntung sama sekali!
Setelah memastikan benar-benar sendirian, dan tidak ada hewan atau binatang buas di sekitar, Lex mengeluarkan salah satu biji oak di tasnya dan menghancurkannya di dinding tebing. Sekitar beberapa saat kemudian, akar tipis dan lemah keluar dari tebing.
"Semuanya baik-baik saja, bro? Kamu menghubungiku lebih cepat dari yang ku-duga. Jangan bilang Goli menemukanmu?"
"Tidak, Goli tidak menemukanku. Tapi kenapa kamu tidak memberitahuku tentang Sumur Spirit? Itu akan lebih membantu dari tambang! Karena aku tidak tahu apa itu, aku memberitahu kemah tentang hal itu, dan sekarang tidak aku maupun kamu akan mendapat manfaat darinya!"
Akar itu beku sejenak saat mencoba memproses apa yang didengar. Energi spiritual cenderung mengalir dari area ke area dan memiliki arus seperti arus laut atau udara. Tentu saja, alirannya tidak didasarkan pada perpindahan dari konsentrasi tinggi ke rendah, karena energi ini memiliki perilaku sendiri, tapi itu bukan pokoknya.
Kadang arus ini menghadang, dan alih-alih mengalir, energi spiritual mulai mengumpul di titik-titik dengan konsentrasi meningkat. Pada titik ini, banyak cara batu spirit terbentuk, dan cara pembentukannya menentukan kemurnian dan konsentrasinya.
Yang lebih penting bagi Lex, bahkan setelah tambang spirit terbentuk, konsentrasi energi tidak turun tapi terus meningkat, ada peluang sumur terbentuk.
Jika ilmuwan dari Bumi mempelajari fenomena ini, perhatian mereka paling tertarik pada fakta bahwa, mengikuti logika ini, energi spiritual yang terkandung dalam keadaan cair air spirit memiliki konsentrasi lebih tinggi dari keadaan padat batu spirit. Kebenaran di balik kejadian itu adalah energi spiritual jauh lebih rumit dari yang terlihat sekilas, dan banyak hal lain yang terlibat, tapi pada level Lex tidak perlu mengetahuinya.
Yang penting, satu Sumur Spirit lebih baik dari beberapa tambang spirit digabungkan. Jika dia mengetahui hal ini sebelumnya, dia akan langsung menggunakan metode yang diberikan Karom untuk menggali bawah tanah dan menghindari Druk.
Akhirnya, Karom bicara dengan ragu, "Aku ada di sana saat Goli pindah. Aku menyapu seluruh area sendiri, tidak ada Sumur Spirit mana pun yang ku-ingat."
"Lalu kapan itu?" Lex bertanya pertanyaan yang benar-benar membuatnya frustrasi. Terlintas di pikirannya bahwa kesalahan dia adalah memperlakukan Trelop sama seperti manusia saat dia jelas ingat karena fisiologi berbeda, mereka memperlakukan dunia berbeda. Trelop terutama…
"Itu sekitar 60.000 tahun lalu, kurasa," kata Karom sambil menghitung tahun di kepalanya.
Lex menghela nafas kalah, karena dugaannya terbukti benar. Trelop memiliki rasa waktu yang sangat berbeda, karena umur mereka jauh lebih panjang dari manusia. Waktu yang dibicarakan Karom lebih dari cukup untuk mengubah tambang spirit jadi sumur spirit, apalagi semua landmark yang dia kenal berubah yang bisa dipakai identifikasi lokasi tambang.
Tidak ada gunanya menjelaskan ke Karom bagaimana dia mengacaukan semuanya, Lex lebih lanjut ke masalah berikutnya.
"Baik dengarkan Karom, situasi berubah. Tidak ada cara tahu apakah tambang spirit yang kamu kenal masih ada, apalagi menemukannya. Di atas itu, jika mereka benar-benar menemukan sumur spirit, hanya soal waktu sebelum akademi mengambil alih. Saat itu, aku tidak bisa dapat tambang spirit dan kamu tidak bisa menyerap tanah hutan sepupumu. Jadi, jika kamu ingin lanjutkan rencanamu, kita butuh solusi dan bertindak dalam beberapa hari atau paling lama seminggu."
Karom diam sebentar, sebelum menjawab.
"Mengerti bro. Aku akan pikirkan sesuatu, kembali sebentar lagi."
"Pastikan konfirmasi ke aku sebelum berbuat apa pun," kata Lex, sama sekali tidak mempercayai akal sehat Trelop itu. Akhirnya, meski Karom setuju, Lex memutuskan tidak hanya mengandalkan dia.
"Hei Lotus, kalau ada Sumur Spirit di sana, kenapa kamu tidak bisa merasakannya?" tanya Lex sambil menepuk punggung sendiri.
"Tuan Pengelola Inn, aku hanya bisa mendeteksi energi spiritual jika aku merasakannya secara fisik. Dengan tambang dan sumur, energinya sepenuhnya tertutup dan diblokir agar tidak keluar, itulah yang membuat tambang berkembang. Kalau tidak, tidak hanya aku, tapi semua orang akan mudah mendeteksi tambang."
"Masuk akal," gumam Lex saat kembali ke kemah. Perjalanannya ke tebing tidak simpel, dia harus sembunyi dan lari dari predator beberapa kali, tapi bahkan saat kembali ke kemah dengan pakaian rusak, tidak ada yang mengedipkan mata.
Baliknya, siapa yang melihat Lex bersorak antusias. Dia pria jaman ini, penyelamat, dan beberapa bahkan memanggilnya pangeran bangsawan. Lex alami menjaga guyonan dengan semua orang, tapi tidak lama tinggal karena perlu istirahat di tendanya. Rencana cadangannya cukup sederhana.
Dia sudah tunjukkan ke semua orang di mana terowongannya, tapi mereka belum mengeksplorasi karena Druk bukan lawan mudah, bahkan asumsi hanya satu yang dilihat Lex bukan sekeluarganya.
Lex memutuskan, meski menentang pertimbangannya sendiri, untuk ikut eksplorasi terowongan, karena bahkan jika mereka menemukan sumur spirit, tidak ada yang akan sadar jika dia menyerap sebagian energi dari sana juga. Benar?
Dia figures, selama sumur tidak habis total, dia akan aman.
Ptolemy, sebaliknya, menganggap keinginan Lex ikut sebagai ketidakpercayaan, seolah dia akan mengingkari peran Lex menemukan sumur jika tidak ikut.
Dia sangat frustrasi, sampai bagian darinya berharap tidak ada sumur sama sekali.
Sementara semua ini berlangsung, di domainnya sendiri, gumpalan daun humanoid kecil yang agak mirip Lex berjalan bolak-balik mencari ide. Karom terlalu lama masa remaja, dan kecuali dia menemukan cara memperluas wilayah, dia akan terjebak seperti itu.
"Broooooooooooooooooo aku dapet!" dia tiba-tiba berteriak, saat ide datang. Jika manusia terlalu sibuk menentukan keberadaan sumur, itu beri Lex lebih waktu menemukan tambang spirit dan menabur benihnya.
Kenapa dia stress soal hal minor? Yang perlu dia lakukan cuma mengalihkan perhatian manusia, mungkin jebak mereka beberapa tahun – itu beri Lex banyak waktu mencari.
Dia sangat antusias dengan ide baru itu sampai lupa peringatan Lex jangan berbuat apa pun tanpa berkonsultasi.
'Bibi Jeena sayang,' dia mulai menulis di batu, menyiapkan surat. 'Kamu tidak akan tebak apa yang baru kulihat. Goli bertemu dengan manusia…'
Karom menulis versi dia sendiri 'gosip terbaru' bagaimana Goli memutuskan memeluk manusia. Cara tercepat Trelop jadi kuat adalah menyerap bagian Trelop lain. Itu alasan mereka sedikit, apalagi sedikit yang dekat satu sama lain.
Karom tidak menuduh spesifik, tapi fakta dia acuh tak acuh soal Goli bekerja dengan manusia jelas menginsinuasi bahwa Karom bukan target kerjasama Goli dan manusia.
Bibi kesayangan itu akan mereaksi berapa, dia tidak repot spekulasi. Tak lama, batu besar terlihat ditarik ratusan akar lewat hutan, tubuhnya penuh tulisan.
Chapter 261 Spirit well
In the dead of night, which was to say, during the well lit, and fairly active portion of the day that Lex usually slept – since it was never dark in this forest – Lex stood alone in front of the Deadfall cliff.
It had been 3 days since he visited the tunnel, and this was the first opportunity he had gotten for some privacy – mainly because everyone was focusing on the tunnel so much, Ptolemy included. Of course, because of all the hubbub created due to his discovery, Lex had learnt a great deal about Spirit wells, which is what caused him the most frustration!
Some people at the camp had started calling him their lucky charm, but he didn’t feel lucky at all!
After ensuring that he really was alone, and that there were no animals or beasts around, Lex withdrew one of the many acorns in his bag and crushed it against the cliff side. A short while later, a thin and weak looking root emerged from the cliff.
“Everything alright bro? You contacted me a lot sooner than I was expecting. Don’t tell me Goli discovered you?”
“No, Goli did not find me. But why didn’t you tell me about the Spirit well? That would have helped even more than a mine! Because I didn’t know what it was, I ended up telling the camp about it, and now neither I nor you will be able to benefit from it!”
The root froze for a moment as it tried to process what it had heard. Spiritual energy tended to flow from one area to another and had currents much in the way there were ocean or air currents. Of course, the flow was not based on going from regions of high to low concentration, as this energy had its own sets of behaviors, but that was besides the point.
Sometimes these currents faced an obstruction, and instead of flowing, spiritual energy started to gather in spots with increasing concentration. At this point, there were many ways in which spirit stones could be formed, and the way in which they would be formed would dictate their purity and concentration.
What was more important to Lex, however, was the fact that, even after the spirit mine was created, the concentration of energy did not drop but continued to increase, there were chances of a well being formed.
If scientists from Earth studied this phenomenon, their attention would be most attracted to the fact that, following this logic, spiritual energy being contained in a liquid state of spirit water had a higher concentration than in the solid state of a spirit stone. The truth behind such an occurrence was that spiritual energy was a lot more complicated than it seemed at a glance, and many more matters were at play here, but at Lex’s level there was no need for him to know of them.
All that mattered was, a single spirit well was better than several spirit mines put together. If he had known this matter beforehand, he would have directly used the method Karom gave him to dig underground and bypass the Druk.
Eventually, Karom spoke hesitantly, “I was there when Goli moved in. I swept the whole area myself, there was no Spirit well anywhere that I recall.”
“Well, how long ago was that?” Lex asked the question that really had him feeling frustrated. It occurred to him that an oversight on his part was treating a Trelop similar to humans when he clearly recalled that due to their different physiology, they treat the world differently. Trelops especially…
“It was some 60,000 years ago, I think,” Karom said, as it was counting the years in his mind.
Lex let out a defeated sigh, as his suspicion had proven true. Trelops had a very different sense of time, since their lifespans were infinitely longer than humans. The amount of time Karom was talking about was more than enough for a spirit mine to turn into a spirit well, not to mention all the landmarks he knew to change that could be used to identify the location of the mines.
There was no point in explaining to Karom how it had messed up, Lex would rather move on to the next issue.
“Alright listen up Karom, the situation has changed. There’s no way of knowing if the spirit mines you knew about still even exist, let alone being able to find them. On top of that, if they end up really discovering a spirit well, then it’ll only be a matter of time before the academy takes over. When that happens, I won’t be able to get any spirit mines and you won’t be able to absorb any of your cousins’ forestland. So, if you want to go ahead with your plan, we need to come up with a solution and act on it within the next few days or at most a week.”
Karom was once again silent for a while, before he answered.
“I understand bro. I will think of something, come back in a short while.”
“Make sure you confirm with me before doing anything,” Lex told him, not at all trusting the sensibility of the Trelop. In the end, although Karom agreed with him, Lex ultimately decided not to rely only on him.
“Hey Lotus, if there was a Spirit well there, why weren’t you able to sense it?” Lex asked, after tapping his back.
“Mr. Innkeeper, I can only detect spiritual energy if I physically feel it. With mines and wells, their energy is completely shielded and blocked from escaping, which is what causes a mine to develop in the first place. Otherwise, not only me, but everyone would easily be able to detect mines.”
“Figures,” Lex muttered as he made his way back to the camp. His trip to the cliff had not been so simple, and he had to hide and run from some predators a few times, but even when he came back to camp with his clothes clearly having suffered damage, no one batted an eye.
Instead, whoever saw Lex let out an excited cheer. He was the man of the hour, the good luck charm, and some even called him the noble prince. Lex naturally maintained the banter with everyone, but did not stay for long as he needed to get back to his tent and rest up. The backup plan he had made was fairly simple.
He had already shown everyone where the tunnel was, but they had not proceeded to exploring it yet as a Druk was not an easy foe to face, even assuming there was the only one Lex saw instead of a whole family of them.
Lex had decided, despite his better judgment, to join them on their exploration of the tunnel, for even if they did discover a spirit well, no one would notice if he ended up absorbing some energy from that as well. Right?
He figured, as long as the well wasn’t completely drained, he would be alright.
Ptolemy, on the other hand, took Lex’s insistence on accompanying them as a form of mistrust, as if he would deny Lex’s role in finding the well if he didn’t accompany them.
He felt so frustrated, in fact, that a part of him even wished that there was no well to begin with.
While all of this was going on, back in his own domain, a small humanoid clump of leaves that sort of looked like Lex walked back and forth trying to figure something out. Karom had spent too long as an adolescent, and unless he could find a way of expanding his territory, he would be stuck like that.
“Broooooooooooooooooo I got it!” he suddenly yelled, as an idea came to him. If the humans were too preoccupied to determine the existence of the well, that would give Lex more time to find spirit mines and lay down his seeds.
Why was he stressing out over such a minor issue? All he had to do was distract the humans, maybe even trap them for a few years – that would give Lex plenty of time to search.
He was so enthused by his new idea that he completely forgot about Lex’s warning not to do anything without consulting him.
‘Dear aunty Jeena,’ he started to write down on a rock, preparing to send it as a letter. ‘You will never guess what I just saw. Goli has been meeting with humans…’
Karom wrote down his own version of the ‘latest gossip’ of how Goli had decided to embrace the humans. The fastest way for Trelops to grow stronger was to absorb parts of other Trelops. This was why there were so few of them, not to mention the fact that so few of them ever remained close to one another.
Karom did not specifically lay down any allegations, but the fact that he was so nonchalant about Goli deciding to work with humans would obviously insinuate that Karom was not the target of Goli’s and the humans’ cooperation.
How this beloved aunty would take this news, he did not bother speculating. Soon, a massive boulder could be seen being pulled by hundreds of roots through the forest, its body entirely covered in writing.
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