This Clueless Hero

I stared at the stalk of the black fruit below me with an empty look. The realization of what it meant slowly became apparent to me.

The lizard king never created some sort of wall to block the black fruits. It seemed that within its rage, it never paused to consider that. In the end, it rampaged as hard as it could, destroying nearly everything within the expanse.

Including the black fruits.

The frustration that had built up in me began rushing upwards, about to explode. However, I stopped it.

My head was scorching hot, to the point that it was painful. My breathing was heavily unstable. I was nearing my breaking point and my thoughts were chaotic.

However, I forcefully reigned those thoughts in.

It wasn't easy to accept that the very thing I spent so much effort coming here for was gone, but what else was there to do?

I shut my eyes tightly.

The anger slowly subsided while the aching pain became more apparent. My mind cooled slowly. Once the anger disappeared, it left me with a strange feeling. Like it was empty.

The air felt a little stagnant. Though it was probably only my imagination, everything around me seemed to become colder. Like I was actually within a refrigerator. Moments later, it felt as though my blood was carrying misery itself.

It was as though sadness had to come in order to replace anger.

I ended up thinking about everything I had been through. Not that I didn't before. In fact, in order to remember enough to do what I just did, I had to sift through my memories.

From the peppers, to the cave location, and everything in the cave.

However, it was different. The only things I thought about were the facts.

What is the goal? Power.

Where do I get the power? Killing the lizard king.

How do I kill the lizard king? The peppers.

I glossed over how I got to this point and the significance of it. Every second I spent here, a bit of blood was spilling out of me. If I didn't get out of this cave relatively soon, then I would die.

However, I simply remained there. I simply shut my eyes to take a step back.

And thought about how I got here.

Some memories were comforting. Some of them were saddening. And some of them made me mad.

Then eventually, I thought about how I slowly grew the farm. It was a slow process, but eventually came to an achievement. Learning so many spells was never easy, but I told myself that I would do it.

And so, I did.

Until eventually, I was able to devise a derivative of the control vines spell that could make things grow. While I'm sure it was partly due to luck, I could definitely say I put in enough effort to at least deserve it.

...Wait.

The growing spell.

I picked up the stalk of the black fruit and looked at it for a moment. An idea that I should've thought of long ago came to my mind.

Using the growing spell on the black fruits.

For whatever reason, I thought of those as two separate things. I suppose to me, the black fruit just represented something different compared to the growing spell.

In my eyes, one was the path of power while the other was the path of peace.

I didn't realize it, but it seems that I subconsciously thought that those were two different paths when there was nothing stopping me from combining them.

My eyes slowly widened while my breathing became heavy for different reasons.

I attempted to gather mana.

However, there was no mana to gather.

I looked up at the black crystal floating above me, slowly rotating. It was a little embarrassing that I forgot, but at least nobody was here to see it.

My mind commanded the black crystal to stop rotating.

The mana slowly returned from the air, but it was far thinner than what I was used to. Nonetheless, it was there for me to gather.

I began casting the growing spell, filled with anticipation. It took quite long, which was a little torturous, but at least progress was seen.

For a few moments, only the sound of my heavy breathing filled the air.

Then, the spell was completed.

I slowly injected mana into the spell and funneled it into the stalk. My eyes were fixed on it, staring intently. However, nothing seemed to be happening at first.

I decided to continue, trying to notice any change. It was slow, but I eventually realized that the stalk began wilting. This made me panic a little.

I immediately began to consider various possibilities that could have caused this to happen. Because I was the one that devised the growing spell, although I wasn't aware of it completely, there were certain things I was pretty sure of.

The growing spell forces a plant to grow, almost like it was experiencing time at a faster rate. The plant itself also definitely gained some source of nutrients or energy from the mana that was injected within it, but I found that was not where they got most of their energy.

That would be from the natural environment they were in.

In other words, since the stalk was not planted, then it could not grow properly. With that thought in mind, I hurriedly stuck it into the ground. After a few moments of anticipation, the stalk only ended up wilting further.

A little bit of helplessness had overcome me, like nothing I did would matter. However, I already learned and proved to myself that I could do something. And so, I swept those insecurities away.

I began to think about how these plants formed in the first place. There was definitely something special about the environment since they could only form in this specific location. However, what about this location gave them so much energy?

It definitely wasn't anything small, as these black fruits were not just some common grass.

...The only thing it could've been would be related to the non-magic properties of this place.

In other words, the black crystal.

The stalk in my hand looked like it was on the verge of dying, prompting me to hurriedly stick it on top of the black crystal. There was a bit of uncertainty and a sense of ridiculousness in the back of my mind.

After all, I was essentially trying to grow a plant, by using a rock.

However, I was too desperate to care about those nuances at that point.

The moment the stalk touched the end of the crystal, my eyes widened. It began to grow.

But my surprise wasn't because it grew, but how fast it grew.

Almost immediately, roots burst out like snakes and wrapped themselves around the crystal. As for the stalk itself, it rapidly extended outwards before becoming a white flower. A moment later, that white flower became a black fruit.

After a bit of hesitation, I peeled the stalk off of the crystal and stared at it.

The roots clung a little, like a child unwilling to leave their mother, but came off easily. For a moment, I just admired the black fruit in my hand.

Well, not so much the black fruit itself, but what the ability to grow them represented.

As long as I had mana, I could make as many of these as I wanted.

I picked the black fruit, which came off with a light pluck. Then, I ate it.

A familiar strong sweet taste overwhelmed me. My body immediately heated up tremendously, washing away the chill from earlier. As for my mind, it was sent into the middle of a tundra, but not in a bad way.

My stomach felt really full, but I wasn't on the verge of vomiting or anything. It could be compared to having just enough to be completely satiated.

The injuries in my legs rapidly recovered, as did my stamina. Even the headache I had from activating my teleportation ability rapidly recovered too.

Soon, all the pain disappeared.

...Well, almost all the pain.

Although my mind felt like it was at its peak, there was still a tiny numb pain in the back of my head.

A consequence of my reincarnation.

Nonetheless, things were good.

I stood up after what felt like forever, then made my way out of the cavern. Upon making it to where I initially entered this cave, I found it was flooded with large amounts of dirt, ash, broken trees, and even snow.

The hole that I fell through was no longer visible.

Though I could teleport, there was also the consideration I teleported right into a tree. Not wanting to take that chance, I cleared away the path in front of me by pulling those things aside.

Then, once I could see a bit of light poking out, I teleported out.

I got all I needed from here.

But there was still so much more left for me.