“Maybe eventually. But I’m not going to get a better shot at Magmarty. I’ll need your help to take him out, though.” Logan wanted to face the earth elemental while he was riding the rush of power from tying his first knot. He didn’t want to waste even an ounce of Apothos.
“Hey, tag me in! I’ll take one for the team!” the satyr offered. “And how about we consider this my dang Forevergreen gift to you? Treacle, let’s give these dogs something a bit spicier to chew on, shall we?”
“I’ll get you to Magmarty, Logan.” Inga reached out and grabbed Logan, her fingers digging into his armpits.
The minute the fungaloid left his chair, Treacle grabbed the contraption and hurled it into the incoming doomhounds. The chair hit like a mortar, exploding in a barrage of debris, a plume of greasy black smoke rising into the chilly air. There went Logan’s fancy ride. Well, most victories required sacrifice. He just hoped his shield and dagger had survived.
Inga sailed Logan back over the dogs. The First Cohort had already dispatched the hellhounds and reduced them to steaming piles of Apothos, inhaling the Ignis and Umbra like potpourri.
Inga dropped Logan. He landed in front of Magmarty, doing his best to stick the three-point superhero pose. As far as Logan was concerned, he nailed it.
Rockheart followed, wings flapping lazily. “What is the meaning of this?” he snarled from above.
“Professor, do I have your permission to beat this little toadstool into paste?” Magmarty stared daggers at Logan. Mud dripped from the cracks in the elemental’s stony skin. That mud looked damp and slightly delicious.
“Very well, Mr. Magmarty. I’d say this act of insolence requires retribution. Let the pummeling begin in earnest.” Rockheart’s voice was as cold as the stone of his gargoyle-y skin. “And if his gem gets cracked? What a shame that would be.”
A cracked gem could kill Logan—or, at least, cripple him beyond repair. In essence, Rockheart had just okayed his murder.
Logan would need to be on his toes. His entire plan hinged on avoiding Magmarty for one critical moment because the Verdant Ascension had imparted him with the gift of Rapid Growth—a Spore Halo ability that normally he wouldn’t get until he became an Iron Trunk cultivator. Inkboon had written that Rapid Growth was key to any plant or fungal guardian’s survival.
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Rapid Growth: Use specialized spores to trigger the rapid growth and spread of true fungi. By pumping domesticated fungi with specialized stored Apothos Catalyst Spores, a fungaloid can transform a simple spore into a full-grown mushroom in a matter of seconds.
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Logan had seen the ability for himself while wandering the Silverbark Forest. All of those giant, man-eating plants had gained supremacy through their ability to rapidly grow to an enormous size, and now he could do the same for his mushrooms.
Logan released a burst of Mucal Film spores in front of them and then released Rapid Growth, pumping the film full of the pent-up Apothos coursing through his meridians. A thin layer of brown goo spread across the arena floor like an oil slick. Without wasting a beat, Logan darted forward and slid between Magmarty’s legs, just like Marko had skated through the Gelatinous Knight’s slime trail.
The elemental grunted. “What’s this?”
“Behind you!” Chadrigoth called out.
Logan smiled and turned on a heel, spewing Opal Truffle pollen from his gills. He’d tried this move before with Magmarty, but the dumb mushrooms hadn’t grown fast enough. Now, the spores took root in the damp recesses of Magmarty’s cracks. The pearlescent fungi appeared as little growths not even a quarter inch long.
The elemental looked down at the Opal Truffles and actually laughed—and with good reason, since Opal Truffles were hardly an offensive powerhouse. Then he raised his blazing eyes at Logan. “You’re dead.”
He tromped forward with those big rocky hands ready to rend Logan limb from limb.
This time, though, Magmarty was the one who never had a chance.
Logan released Rapid Growth spores from his gills. A gust, courtesy of Inga’s flapping wings, swept them directly into the earth elemental. In an instant, the Opal Truffles doubled, tripled, then quadrupled in size.
Magmarty let out a shriek of pure pain. First, he dropped to his knees, then sank onto all fours, howling. The mushrooms continued to grow, spreading like a plague thanks to the Rapid Growth.
An arm cracked off, then a leg.
The elemental’s head rolled off like a bowling ball.
Logan stepped to the side, watching in mute fascination as the earth elemental became a mound of broken rock and creeping mushrooms.
The rest of the First Cohort watched with gaping mouths. Even Tet was looking up from her DCG in disbelief.
Rockheart momentarily lost control of his wings—something Logan had never seen from the professor. He landed and stood there blinking dumbly.
The fight had lasted less than a minute, yet it had resulted in the complete destruction of Magmarty.
Logan waddled forward and rummaged around in the mound of delicious mushrooms and crumbled stone. He unearthed Magmarty’s gemstone and tossed it to Rockheart. “I don’t feel like killing him today. It is a holiday tomorrow. Consider this my Forevergreen gift to the clan.”
The professor caught the gem, still utterly speechless.
Logan hadn’t taken two steps when he felt a tingling start in his fingers. He looked down and watched blisters cover his arms, legs, hands, everywhere. That tingling turned into an itch and then into pain. Black spores poured down from his gills, covering him in a layer of dust. His heart beat like a jackhammer, and his lungs worked overtime to pull in enough oxygen to keep him conscious. Logan fought to stay on his feet, but his body was far beyond his control. His core was syphoning in the Apothos from Magmarty—not from his gem, but rather the energy that had made up his guardian form. There was so much of it. Almost too much.
It felt like trying to drink down a hurricane all at once.
Logan fell to his knees, his body convulsing, arms and legs flailing wildly. The Terra Apothos wasn’t hard to digest, but the Ignis Apothos was a different story. Sucking in a breath felt like inhaling hot coals. People were yelling, his friends were crowding around him, wondering what was happening, and all Logan could do was concentrate on pushing a rush of Apothos through the knotted band of energy circling his core, stripping out the elemental affinity as he drew the power downward.
He could do this. He’d survived everything else and processed the Verdant Ascension bloom, he would survive this too. Somehow, though, he knew that this time around he wouldn’t just gain a rank or two... No, his victory against Magmarty was going to take him to his next evolutionary form.
Inga held his hand. She knew exactly what was going on. “Process the energy, Logan, let it flow through your meridians. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to be like drinking fire, but the more you can channel through your meridians, the harder your skin will be. Your body is purifying itself, getting rid of flaws, and reorganizing your cellular and muscular structure. If you survive the process, you’ll be bigger, better, and as Marko would say, more badass.”
Treacle sighed. “I dunno, Inga. It’s an awful lot of Apothos to take in at one time. I would imagine it will kill him.”