Five Winters Four Summers

Du Ke was naturally overjoyed to meet a large group of Flower Fairies that looked like figurines, but communication between them remained a barrier.

After much gesturing, they only managed to learn each other's names.

Du Ke guessed that these palm-sized Flower Fairies likely had limited intelligence. After all, small bodies and small heads naturally meant small brains. It wasn't just these Flower Fairies; the Mushroom People living in mushrooms were probably the same. They were species with a little intelligence but unable to develop a civilization. Regardless, these Flower Fairies were natives of the Fantasy World and worth communicating with.

He and Shawa Shawa were still struggling with gestures, trying to understand each other's meanings.

The other Flower Fairies had already dropped their guard against Du Ke. Curiously, they flew into his bird's nest dwelling to look and touch, full of curiosity about these Earth items. The house was full of Flower Fairies, and more were flying around outside, creating a unique atmosphere. Du Ke considered offering these Flower Fairies some Earth drinks – his Mind Armor could replicate them.

It's just that the drinks, once consumed, wouldn't be digested and would immediately dissipate.

However, he ultimately didn't replicate any drinks to treat them. The reason was simple: he didn't know if Earth food would be poisonous to the Flower Fairies.

After another fifteen minutes of gesturing with no results, Du Ke decided to abandon this method of communication. The Flower Fairies had limited intelligence and were not good communication partners. He gestured to Shawa Shawa, "Wait a moment, I'll communicate with you using Mind Power." Then he closed his eyes, activated the Touch of Mind, and saw the Flower Fairies in the mind world.

In the perception of the Touch of Mind, each Flower Fairy was a flower, a very unique sensory experience.

He used the Touch of Mind to touch the largest flower, which was Shawa Shawa. Instantly, he felt a faint thought emanating from the flower. Unlike sensing the beautiful woman in the villa on Earth, he didn't feel chaotic thoughts but a pure and natural one. This thought contained a clear meaning: "How strange." Shawa Shawa found the Du Ke in front of her very strange.

"Shawa Shawa, can you 'hear' me speak?"

"Huh?" Shawa Shawa transmitted a surprised emotion.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes." Shawa Shawa stood on the window, her eyes wide, looking at Du Ke curiously. She couldn't understand how Du Ke's voice appeared in her mind, especially since Du Ke wasn't speaking aloud.

"I came from afar and am seeing you for the first time. Shawa Shawa, what are you? Flower Fairies?"

"You're Du Ke?"

"Yes, I am Du Ke." After Du Ke replied, he asked again, trying to make the Touch of Mind transmit clearer thoughts for mutual communication. Compared to the chaotic and disordered mental communication with the beautiful woman in the villa, he found communicating with Shawa Shawa surprisingly simple. He should be thankful that despite the Flower Fairies' low IQ, they didn't have complex thoughts.

"Flower Spirit, I am a Flower Spirit, a Flower Spirit of the Sea of Flowers Tribe living in the Sea of Flowers." Shawa Shawa spoke, her voice and thoughts entering Du Ke's mind simultaneously.

Her words were naturally in the language of the Flower Spirits, but with synchronized thought translation, Du Ke could understand them. It was a marvelous experience that made his heart surge, even more convenient than a smart translator. Of course, the term "Flower Spirit" was Du Ke's interpretation. Shawa Shawa's self-appellation "Flower Spirit" meant something like "Spirit within the Flower" or "Dancing Flower."

"Sea of Flowers?"

"This is the Sea of Flowers." Shawa Shawa pointed to the South Lake in the distance under the moonlight. The lake reflected the blurry shadow of the crescent moon. The blue reeds on the shore were still blooming with colorful flowers emitting light, truly like a sea of flowers.

"You are a Flower Spirit of the Sea of Flowers Tribe, so are there other Flower Spirit tribes?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen other 'people'?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen a Displacer Beast?" Du Ke changed the question, conjuring the image of a Displacer Beast in his mind.

Shawa Shawa immediately transmitted a fearful emotion: "It kills Flower Spirits, it eats Flower Spirits. Flower Spirits resist but cannot kill the Displacer Beast. Flower Spirits can hide, hide inside flowers and not come out."

"Can you use Magic?"

"Magic?"

"Yes, like this." Du Ke began to imagine the battle between the Behemoth and the Stegosaurus Lizard, a scene filled with Magic.

Shawa Shawa nodded, then raised her hand and gently waved it at Du Ke. Instantly, a faint white fluorescence appeared on Du Ke's body. Then, Du Ke snapped back from the Touch of Mind, finding his body seemed much clearer. It was like after not taking a bath for days, suddenly going to a hot spring; not only was the dirt washed away from the outside, but even the dust on his soul seemed to have been cleared away.

"What is this Magic?" He reactivated the Touch of Mind and communicated with Shawa Shawa.

"Purification, it can clear Magic."

"Huh?"

Du Ke opened his eyes. The Displacer Beast had "Blink," and the Flower Fairies had "Purification." This Fantasy World was quite interesting. In his previous view, Magic should be categorized, such as water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, light, dark, plus space and time. The Displacer Beast's Blink could be understood as space Magic, but the Flower Fairies' Purification was hard to comprehend; he couldn't figure out its attribute.

"Can you teach me Purification?"

"Like this." Shawa Shawa raised her hand again and cast Purification once more.

However, Du Ke had no idea how it cast Purification, and Shawa Shawa didn't know how to teach it either. It was born knowing Purification Magic. This innate talent for casting Magic might be an instinct of the creatures in the Fantasy World, etched into their genes. Thus, he stopped dwelling on Magic and continued to communicate with Shawa Shawa, wanting to obtain more information.

But Shawa Shawa had limited intelligence and even more limited knowledge of the outside world. Except for seeing the outside world when it was just born, it had never left this place since arriving at the Sea of Flowers.

"How were you born?" Du Ke was extremely curious.

"Hmm..."

According to Shawa Shawa's vague and unclear explanation, the Flower Fairy race was born from flowers, not limited to any particular type of flower or flower from any location. After being born, they would cautiously leave their birthplace and head to the tribal gathering place. It was an instinctive sense that guided them to the nearest tribe, which was the tribe in the Sea of Flowers.

They would modify plants and grow a flower on them to serve as their home.

A magical way of life.

"How old are you, Shawa Shawa?"

Shawa Shawa tilted its head, thought seriously, and then replied, "Five winters and four summers."

"So you were born in autumn or winter, and then four and a half years have passed. You are four and a half years old now, Shawa Shawa." Du Ke calculated for it, though he didn't know how many days were in a year in the Fantasy World. "By the way, Shawa Shawa, is it summer now?"

"It's spring now. Summer is very, very hot, the Sea of Flowers dries up, and Flower Fairies hide in the roots of large trees to hibernate."

"It's still spring?" Du Ke was surprised. The daytime today was overcast, but the temperature had already reached 36℃. Even at night, the temperature remained at 32℃, no different from summer on Earth.

However, for the Fantasy World, this was just spring. And according to Shawa Shawa's account, when the real summer arrived, the South Lake would evaporate. He glanced at the vast South Lake, finding it hard to imagine such a large lake evaporating completely.