Wizard: Starting with Symbiosis with Algae

Lynn was delighted that Ruby was calling.

However, Lynn was very dissatisfied with the content of the phone call.

Three days? Even traveling downstream, we could only make it there in a hurry.

Lynn frowned slightly.

That responsible wizard is a real jerk!

There is absolutely no redundant space.

But after calming down a bit, he still replied

"Ms. Ruby, this is Lynn. She's on her way."

He had no choice but to hurry.

Lynn hung up the communication device, but Ruby on the other end did not reply.

On the label of the communication equipment, there are several dots besides Lynn, but only Lynn is active.

The others remained motionless, their fates unknown, and the closest to Ruby was 500 kilometers away.

Given such harsh conditions, it's hard to imagine that an ordinary person, including a knight, could survive, unless they were right next to Ruby from the beginning.

After reading it,

Lynn drifted downstream.

The rain poured down, and only thunder and rain could be heard between heaven and earth.

...

Two more days passed, and we were very close to our destination.

Lynn licked the raindrops off his lips. The magical crystals that condensed after the lightning fixed nitrogen melted into the rain, tasting like the dry, cold sweetness of aluminum.

But this stuff doesn't keep you full. He can feel his body draining him, his muscle mass dwindling.

Strength 1.2, Agility 1.1, Stamina 0.7, Magic 0.6

The data in the upper right corner of the field of view is updated in a floating manner.

Endurance dropped the fastest, falling from 0.9 to 0.7 in less than two days.

Lynn knew very well what this meant; her body was breaking down its own reserves.

"Fortunately, I'm an optimistic person."

The river widened in the torrential rain. The red soil on both banks was washed into a muddy ochre color by the water, flowing into the riverbed. Lynn could feel the current quickening, pushing him towards a more open area. On the distant horizon, a bolt of lightning cleaved through the clouds, illuminating the entire wasteland. He saw that about ten kilometers ahead, the river began to fork, splitting into several small tributaries, and further on, the somber estuary.

On the communicator, the dot representing Ruby remained motionless.

Lynn glanced at it again.

No one replied.

Lynn fastened the communicator back to his wrist and took a deep breath. The oxygen was plentiful; the cyanobacteria were working diligently, their filaments producing tiny bubbles that rubbed against his body as they photosynthesized.

"In Robinson Crusoe, Robinson Crusoe had Fridays. As for me, I only have green fur."

He looked down at the algae covering his body.

Forget it

"...Then my Friday is these algae."

Lynn, you need to have a sense of humor, especially when you're in dire straits.

A sense of humor is the greatest weapon against loneliness.

....

Three more hours passed, and it got even darker.

The torrential rain had turned a grayish-black color. Lynn's field of vision narrowed to only about five meters around him; beyond that, he couldn't see anything at all.

He could only determine direction from two things: the water flow and the light spot on the communicator.

Ruby's position has remained unchanged.

"That woman isn't dead, is she?" Lynn paddled a bit, adjusting the direction of the drift.

He said that, but his hands moved faster.

Magic gathered at his fingertips, a green halo flashed in the water, and vines sprang up from the riverbed, wrapped around a rock, and then suddenly contracted, pulling him forward a great distance.

"Entwined by vines!"

His magic consumption wasn't high, but he could feel his heart protesting. This body hadn't been fed in far too long.

[Magic +0.1]

The increased magic power comes from the lightning crystals formed during the rainstorm.

Lynn had lost track of how long she had been in the water.

Blue-light algae emit a faint blue glow in the dark.

The limited area of ​​light allowed him to see the water surface within two or three meters around him.

Then he saw a beam of light.

Three kilometers downstream, at a bend in the river, a cluster of blue-light algae is glowing.

Lynn took a closer look.

No, that's not right!

Bright, whitish.

Stable, not fluctuating with the waves.

It's like, it's like

"Human light!"

In that instant, Lynn's brain felt as if it had been set on fire, and the icy river water could no longer make him feel cold.

All the fatigue and exhaustion were washed away.

"Help!"

He almost instinctively started swimming in that direction.

The river was swift, but he couldn't care less. Vines sprouted from the riverbed, entangled the dead trees on the bank, and pulled him in that direction.

Closer. Even closer.

The white light grew brighter and brighter, and he could even see a blurry human figure within the halo.

Lynn took a deep breath and shouted with all his might

"Ms. Ruby! This! This!"

"Ruby!"

The sound was completely swallowed up by the torrential rain, and even he himself could hardly hear it.

The person seemed to notice something was wrong, but twisted away, looking at something, and didn't respond.

Lightning exploded overhead, illuminating the entire riverbed in a flash of white light.

Lynn saw it: a woman was lying on a rock by the river, half her body submerged in the water, looking down and fiddling with something. She didn't hear anything.

"Damn it. You big-breasted, brainless woman."

Lynn gritted her teeth.

He now has two choices. One is to keep swimming forward, miss the river mouth, swim back half a day, and then miss rescue. The other is...

Take a gamble

"I'm putting all the damn magic into it!"

He looked at the blue algae that had fallen onto his arm.

Blue light algae continuously absorb magic while releasing oxygen and emitting fluorescence.

His goal was to let the woman see him, and then get even closer.

That being the case.

"Enveloped in blue light!"

Lynn infused magic into the algae silk. Green vines mixed with blue fluorescence burst forth from her skin, each one glowing.

Such a spot of light can be clearly seen even from 20 meters away.

He swung his arm, and the vines entwined with blue algae slammed hard against the water's surface.

Again!

The second lash.

He poured almost all his magic into that whip. The blue algae emitted an unprecedented light, and the entire river was instantly dyed a fluorescent blue.

The figure on the opposite bank of the river suddenly raised its head.

"Someone's here! Wait! There's a magical fluctuation... Besides me, there's only one wizard apprentice on board... Is it Lynn?!"

"Lynn!"

Ruby, holding up her lamp, finally saw Lynn.

Her voice was particularly muffled by the sound of rain.

"You fucking idiot. You've got some nerve! Wait for me! I'm coming to save you."

Lynn breathed a long-awaited sigh of relief.

The current propelled him slowly downstream, towards the woman.

He closed his eyes and was pulled ashore.

……

When he was able to move again, Lynn smelled a burning smell.

Then came the woman's voice, shrill and frantic:

"Why do you shrink like this after a clap of thunder! You useless piece of trash!"

Lynn opened his eyes. He was lying on his back in a shelter in the shallow water by the riverbank.

There was a very bright lamp, with some kind of gas burning inside. It was this lamp that was used to save him.

The cyanobacteria were still on his body, tightly covering his vital areas. His actions just now were extremely dangerous.

With an endurance of 0.7, if it weren't for the protection of the blue-green algae, he would have been injured by the turbid current before the woman arrived.

His magic was almost depleted, but he had regained some sensation in his body, probably from being soaked in rainwater, or perhaps from the blue algae that had injected some oxygen into his body while he was unconscious.

Thankfully, it's over now.

Strength 1.2, Agility 1.1, Stamina 0.7, Magic 0.7

The woman was less than five meters away from him.

Standing in the bright, simple laboratory, it seemed as if some kind of test was being conducted.

Her hand was roughly manipulating a worm as thick as an arm.

The worm had two rows of bristles on its sides, and a faint electric current pulsed at the base of the bristles.

The woman exerted force, and the worm twisted even more violently, its tail splashing across the water's surface.

"I told you not to discharge electricity! Can you even do it?!" The woman gritted her teeth, pressing the worm back into the water. "Weren't you quite capable before the lightning struck? Now you're playing dead?"

The worm twitched, and an electric current flickered between its two rows of bristles.

Lynn blinked.

A worm that can generate electricity. Why does it look like an artificial generator?

After the woman had taken a deep breath of oxygen, she straightened up and thrust the worm into the mud beside her. The worm sank straight in, its tail still twitching, while its two pointed mandibles began to crackle and spark.

She stood up and channeled her magic into the worm. The worm immediately swelled, its bristles standing on end, and electricity surged from its tips, forming a stable arc. The air filled with the smell of ozone.

Then she took two transparent bags out of her pocket, made of a material somewhat like plastic, carefully opened the openings of the bags, and put them over the worm's two teeth.

Bubbles gurgled out from the tips of the worm's two mandibles, forming a string and churning up white foam in the water.

Lynn was stunned for a full three seconds.

Electrolysis of water.

She is using an electric worm to electrolyze water.

Lynn exclaimed inwardly.

"That's ridiculous. Isn't this a fantasy world?"

The woman seemed to hear Lynn getting up and turned around.

Lynn saw her face clearly: delicate eyebrows, narrow eyes, and a slender chin; pretty and bright, exactly the same face he remembered. Ruby, a second-level wizard apprentice, that big-breasted, brainless woman, the culprit who caused the plane crash by forcibly piloting the wizard ship during a thunderstorm.

She looked utterly disheveled. Her hair was a mess, her face was covered in mud, and her wizard robes were torn in several places.

"Lynn! Thank God you're not dead!"

"Great, that's good, then we won't have to suffer the most severe punishment."

Lynn retracted the blue light algae from his body, temporarily setting aside the matter of punishment. After thinking for a moment, he said:

"Ms. Ruby, you're not dead either. That's really surprising."

"What the hell is that tone of yours? Fine, fine, come here first!" Ruby pulled the worm out of the water and tossed an oxygen tank that had been prepared sometime earlier towards Lynn. "Can you still move? If you can, crawl over here! I have oxygen! And food!"

"Madam, that's not what I meant. I wanted to ask when the rescue ship will arrive."

"Oh, you mean this? Well, there's good news and bad news about it."

"What's the bad news?"

"I'm sorry to tell you, but if you don't want more people living with you, the rescue ship won't be here anytime soon."

"boom!"

Thunder rumbled outside the window.

"Look, it's thundering."

"And what's the good news?"

Ruby showed Lynn around her small laboratory.

Rows of worms are inserted into the water, providing a continuous supply of oxygen and electricity to this place.

correct.

"We have worms, lots of worms."

"If raised properly, it will be enough to feed you for 7 months."