Vines

Using Kyu's health regen buff, Ellis regenerated back up to almost full health. Kyu could only use the skill once every hour.

"Wow! That's super useful! Thank you, Kyu!"

Kyu chirped back at Ellis proudly before taking his normal spot on top of Ellis's head and laying down.

"Okay, now we have to find the key we need to open the bronze door."

Ellis looked around the area for any indication of where he should go next. He made his way to the other side of the small waterfall and there he found a small cave that was made out of twisted together tree roots. As he went inside the naturally formed root cave, he could see it went in pretty deep.

"I'm guessing this is probably the way we need to go."

Ellis walked back to his things and quickly gathered the anima gem as well as anything else he thought would be useful from the Darkhorn Panther. He then quickly made a torch in case the cave got too dark then made his way into the tree cave. From what Ellis could see, the cave stretched on for a long time with no end in sight.

Hopefully one torch is enough.

As Ellis moved deeper into the cave, he noticed that vines began to hang down from the ceiling. Ellis brushed past them, but it almost seemed like they were trying to hold onto him. He stopped to see if it were true, and he didn't feel any movement from the vines, so he continued on. The vines hanging from the ceiling grew thicker and thicker and Ellis for sure felt them grasping onto him. Vines began to slither around his body and trying to tie him up. He began swinging his halberd, cutting any vines that got near him off.

It did not seem like they were living beings because they didn't try to move away from any of Ellis's attacks and also, they stopped following him when he stopped moving.

As he moved farther in vines were falling to the ground but twice as many were pouring onto Ellis, wrapping around his body. He felt the vines wrap around his feet and Ellis lost his balance and fell to the ground. He tried to break out but there were now hundreds of vines wrapped around his body that he couldn't budge. The more he struggled the tighter the vines wrapped around him. Finally, he stopped moving hoping the vines would stop like they did before when he was walking at the beginning of the cave. The vines suddenly loosened around him and began to reseed away from him. As the area opened up, he could see that farther down into the cave there was a faint light.

"That looks promising."

Ellis began walking toward the light and suddenly all the vines started swarming toward him again, so he immediately stopped moving.

How am I going to do this? If I move the vines will attack me again but if I don't move, I'll never get anywhere. I could probably cover that distance using Lightning State in a couple seconds and I could use my halberd to cut any vines in front of me so that I don't get caught.

Ellis activated Lightning State and took off as fast as he could down the hall. Most of the vines in front of him were taken care of by his halberd but some of the vines made it through his barrage of attacks, slowly entwining him. Using the enhanced strength of Lightning State his kept going even with the vines wrapping around him but was slowing down quickly. He was just in front of the opening and somehow managed to get out of the vines and into the opening of the glowing room. As he looked behind him, he saw that the vines stopped at the entrance to the room and were no longer trying to envelope him. He then looked around the room, he noticed that in the center was a pedestal similar to the one that he had found at the top of the mountain. The only difference was that the top of this pedestal was covered in a thick, tightly wound sphere of vines. Ellis approached the pedestal and tried to push his hand through the large sphere of vines but no matter how hard he tried the vines wouldn't budge.

Okay, maybe I just need to destroy it?

Ellis stuck his hand to the mysterious sphere of vines and let out a lightning bolt that would have killed most lower leveled monsters instantly. When the dust settled Ellis inspected the vines. A small portion of the vines had been destroyed which left a small hole the size of a fingertip that allowed him to see inside. As he looked inside he could see a key floating in the middle of the large sphere, but just as he was able to see what was inside the ball of roots, the roots began healing themselves rapidly and the small hole disappeared. In a matter of a second the sphere was back to what it had been like before Ellis had launched the lightning bolt at it.

Hmm… How am I going to be able to get this key out? I can't use any lightning stronger than that or I could risk bring down this whole root cave system on top of me. Maybe I can use Lightning State in combination with lightning weapon and cut the vines away.

Ellis activated his abilities and struck the plant with as much force as he thought the area around him could manage.

BOOM!

The tree roots around him shook as small particles fell from the ceiling. Ellis looked at the sphere to see how much damage he had caused. It was more damage than the lightning bolt but still not enough for him to even fit a hand through.

"Damnit. If I hit it any harder, I might bring this cave down. What should I do? Ah! Maybe I can just take the pedestal with me outside and destroy it out there?"

Ellis squatted down next to the pedestal and grabbed ahold of its base. Using all of his strength in Lightning State he lifted upward in an attempt to pick it up but even after his veins began popping out it still wouldn't budge in the slightest.

"Haaaaaahhh…."

Ellis breathed out heavily as he stubbled away from the pedestal with his face bright red.

"Kyukyukyu!"

Kyu seemed to be laughing at him struggling.

"What are you laughing at! You pick it up if you're so strong. What the hell is this thing made from anyways? Why won't it even budge an inch? Damn it, what am I going to do?"

Ellis hissed back at Kyu before he dramatically plopped down onto the ground and started rubbing his chin while staring at the large sphere of vines in front of him.

"Kyu!"

Kyu chirped back at Ellis as if to say, "Fine. I will."

Suddenly, he felt Kyu move on his head, so he looked up just in time to see Kyu reappear on his head holding the oversized key in its tiny mouth. Kyu dropped the key from Ellis's head into his hand before plopping back down, chirping a few times at him mockingly.

"Oh… now you're just showing off."