Author: Spaizzzer
Date: 2023-09-26T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: After a long demonic winter, Tree-Tree reawakens and rebuilds. This time, Tree-Tree aims higher, and tries to build something meant to last in a world filled with heroes and demons. Tree-Tree's new growing empire now faces the crusades from unfriendly faiths, more demons, and unhelpful heroes, as Tree-Tree spreads his roots and Empire across the Central Continent. Book 3 of an epic reincarnation/isekai LitRPG story about a man who becomes a tree, growing and progressing throughout the ages in an eternal conflict against a demon incursion. With nearly 15 million views between Royal Road and Scr

TREE OF AEONS 3

©2023 SPAIZZZER

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CONTENTS

Also in Series

Summary of Books 1 & 2

1. Another Year Later, Year 87

2. Year 88

3. Year 89

4. Interlude – Heroes And Their New World

5. Two years after the demon king had fallen, around Year 87

6. Year 90

7. Year 91

8. Year 92

9. Year 93

10. Year 94

11. Year 95

12. Year 96

13. Year 97

14. Year 98

15. Year 99

16. Year 100

17. Year 101

18. Year 102

19. Year 103

20. Year 104

21. Year 105

22. Year 106

23. Year 106, Latter Half

24. Year 107

25. Year 108

26. Year 109

27. Year 110

28. Year 111

29. Year 112

30. Year 113

31. Year 114

32. Year 115

33. Year 116

34. Year 117

35. Year 118

36. Year 119

37. Year 120

38. Year 121

39. Year 122

40. Year 123

41. Year 124

42. Year 125

43. Year 125 (continued)

44. Interlude

45. Year 126

46. Year 127

47. Year 128

48. Year 129

49. Year 130

50. Year 131

51. Year 132

52. Year 133

53. Year 134

54. Interlude II

55. Year 135

56. Year 136

57. Year 137

58. Year 138

59. Year 139

60. Year 140

61. Year 141

62. Year 142

63. Around Year 141 to 142

64. Year 142 (continued)

65. Year 143

66. Year 144

67. Year 145

68. Year 146

69. Year 147

70. Year 147 (end of year)

71. Year 148

72. Year 148 (continued)

73. Year 149

74. Year 150

75. Year 151

76. Year 152

77. Year 153

78. Year 153 (continued)

79. Year 154

80. Year 155

81. Year 156

82. Year 156 Continued

Thank you for reading Tree of Aeons 3

Groups

LitRPG

ALSO IN SERIES

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

SUMMARY OF BOOKS 1 & 2

The heroes fought the demon king and won, but the explosion caused by the demon king’s core devastated large swaths of the Central Continent.

TreeTree and Freshka were caught in the aftermath.

1

ANOTHER YEAR LATER, YEAR 87

When I woke up, another year had passed.

I had no idea what was happening, other than my mana was still pushing back against the corruption, but…it was easier for me to maintain it. Easier, and yet the pain was here. Constant, even, and I struggled. I could feel the demonic power was having a ‘dip,’ a temporary one; that was why I could be conscious.

Why did I sleep from the pain? Did this pain restrict me so? Or was it the curse?

I could feel the demon’s fire swirl and turn around me, and I could now vaguely, just very vaguely, sense that there was…something outside, no…around me. Something beyond the flame.

Was this the valley? It should be.

Why were my senses so confused?

There was solid rock around us, held back by my roots. Funny, it was like molten lava that had now solidified, and the demonic mana was slightly less intense. Still very strong, but slowly it was subsiding. This demonic mana would take some time to decay. Maybe…ten years? Maybe twenty? Clearly, it was dissipating, very slowly.

Unable to do much, and all my energy was still concentrated on maintaining my barrier and ‘dispersing’ the absorbed demonic energy, I fell back to sleep.

* * *

I was in a dark place; it was massive. It resembled my soul realm, and that was when I saw a young boy. He sat on a chair, and he looked like he was…part demon?

Was I in the soul realm? I didn’t have this ability back when I went into long periods of sleep, so…was this new?

“Where am I?” he asked, noticing that I appeared. “Who are you? Why do you look like a…tree? What are you? Have I gone crazy that I’m talking to a tree?”

Another girl appeared. She, too, looked like she was corrupted; her lower half was part demon.

The two kids looked at themselves, and then they looked at each other. “What have you done?”

“Me?” the other asked. “Couldn’t be!”

“Then who?”

“Uh…”

Both of them turned to face me. “Oh my god, a talking tree monster. We’re doomed!” They tried to fight and move but couldn’t.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

The two kids looked at each other; they kept flailing, but then they stopped. “Eh…we are the heroes.”

“Well, looks like both of you died. What are your names?”

“Simone,” the girl said.

“Victor,” the boy said.

It was then both of them suddenly shouted as if they’d gone crazy, and then an eerie voice emerged. It was a ragged, twisted voice.

“WHO?” it asked. It came from both of them, as if they were mind-controlled. I didn’t reply. If I could have guessed, I’d have said it was the demon king, or maybe some kind of demon. “ARE. YOU?”

I thought for a moment, wondering whether I should reply. “Are you the demon king Sabnoc?” I asked. It died, right, but let’s ask. Maybe demon kings had souls, too.

“YES,” it said, but then a while later, “NO. SABNOC. DEAD.”

Then both of them suddenly shouted again for a period of time, and then, all at once, they both stopped. They were both back to their human selves. “Ouch.”

“It looks like both of you are sharing a body with some kind of demon.”

“We know.”

Simone looked at Victor, and they stared at each other. “It’s reading our minds. It’s going through our…memories.”

“Well, now we know why the demons are getting smarter each round.” I mean, if it was reading their minds, it was reading it for a reason, right?

Simone and Victor’s faces paled.

“Well, if it could read your minds, surely you could do the reverse?” I wondered. How did these two even get here? Was it because their souls were still embedded in the demonic corruption somewhere? The heroes didn’t do a complete job and left this part hanging?

Was that why the demonic corruption was still strong and was able to keep up its pressure?

“Uh…”

Victor nodded. “We must try, then. What are we…and what are you?”

“I am a tree, and I believe the two of you are some kind of trapped, corrupted souls. Your appearance as part-demon is probably the demon king’s attempt to corrupt you. I say, it’s probably successful.”

“And…where are we?”

“If my understanding is correct, you two died, and somehow, your soul drifted here. Either that or you two are somehow trapped in the demonic flesh and because I’m ‘linked’ to the demonic mana, you are able to see me and vice versa.”

The two started wailing and crying and screaming. They seemed to be unable to accept that they’d died. But that was strange; they seemed perfectly able to accept it earlier.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Uh…do you vaguely recall anything?” I asked. They were still screaming. “Like…how?”

Victor was sobbing, and it was Simone who somehow calmed down a bit and responded. “We… I… We were fighting the demon king, and there was this bright flash of light and…that’s all I remember before I was stuck in this dark, disgusting place where I don’t feel things and where I want to sleep but I can’t freaking sleep.”

“But…I don’t get it. Why are we able to be here if we are dead?”

“Weren’t you two listening? You are both dead. This is probably some kind of…shared spiritual realm.” I wasn’t going to be blunt and say it was my soul realm, because it wasn’t, but then again, even if I knew the answer, I wasn’t going to tell them anything. They shared a ‘mind’ with the demon.

“Only the two of us? Everyone else survived?”

I paused. “Hmmm…I don’t know?” Well, they were partly possessed by the demon king. How secure was any information that was shared with them, anyway?

“Can you help us?” Simone asked. “I would very much like to get out of this…place.”

Hmm. I didn’t think so. I didn’t have any access to the outside world; the demonic fire pretty much meant I was trapped in a prison of flame. Even if that didn’t make much sense.

But…I thought I had access to my own soul realm. I got a sense that this space was a pocket dimension of its own, and I could sense the other pockets of space.

* * *

The soul realm.

Funny I hadn’t spent much time exploring this space, but now I had all the time to do so. I vaguely recalled my soul forge was down, and for what it was worth, my consciousness was stuck inside myself, an ‘asleep’ state. In a way, this was kind of like a reverse of my dream-related abilities, where I was the one in a ‘dream’ state. Was I dreaming, or because I was unconscious, did my psyche retreat to this place? I couldn’t tell the difference, honestly. Anyway, what was I even thinking?

There were little blobs of light, floating on many little places. A wisp waited.

“Matt.”

“Hi.” I, too, took the shape of a little blob of light. “Wisp?”

“Yes.”

“So…what’s happening here?”

“You’re unconscious, and you’re stuck in this mind-dream-soul realm limbo. Time moves differently here, as you surely already know.”

“I see.”

“So, until your body somehow snaps itself out of the pain and suffering it’s going through…”

“I’m stuck here.” Well, I kinda knew that. How could the soul interact outside the body anyway? Unless my [soul forge] was somehow operating, but it wasn’t. I recalled one of the notifications said it was offline.

Dead, floating souls, little blobs of light. They floated past me, and they just wandered. These were those who died recently, waiting for the time to reincarnate.

“It’s going to take a while,” the wisp said. “Too many people died so quickly that it’s backlogged.”

“It’s backlogged? For real?” I thought that was a joke.

“Of course. And you’re probably the only somewhat-surviving soul tree in this half of the continent.”

“Tell me something. How do you know?” At this point, how did the wisp even know what’s happening outside of me? Didn’t the wisp stay inside me?

“The soul harvesters and dream harvesters can travel vast distances and pass through most objects and barriers. Occasionally, they also bring back fragments of memories, and you, too, can view those memories. And, well, if souls from far away are coming here, that can only mean there’s no other soul tree left.”

And the wisp shook, and smaller blobs of light appeared. They resembled tiny televisions, and they showed what the dead saw in their last days.

Strange demons. Monsters. Fires from all places. Burning. Destruction. It was common for all of it.

It was like watching little birds and ducks get lathered in a layer of oil and then burned to death. It’s like a magical version of the Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez oil spills only, well, if you didn’t die in the first wave, the monsters that spawned from the sludge would eventually get to you.

But I honestly didn’t feel much for their deaths.

Instead, I felt a twang of sorrow when I saw vast…empty spaces. And burning trees. Ahhh, what sorrow, that trees burned so easily. If I could, I should find ways to introduce fire-resistant trees to the entire world.

Why should trees be relegated to background features anyway? Why were we just features of the environment, things used to describe places?

We were trees, the precursors of civilization. Without plants, without trees, there would be no food, no agriculture, and without agriculture, there would be no large civilization! It was because humanity discovered farming that there was civilization; why were trees treated with such disrespect?

Ah! I was getting carried away.

Okay, let’s do some thinking. I could still think in this soul realm, so that wasn’t a bad thing.

I was trapped in my own body, because there was a massive infernal pyre outside that burned and scorched everything. It was only thanks to my levels and my high amounts of hero fragments that I could endure it.

That meant if I had higher levels, or more hero fragments, I would eventually escape this demonic prison, or at least pierce a ‘hole’ through it.

And this demonic flame should decay over time, like it did with my first experience.

What else could I do?

Were there any skills I could use on myself in this ‘subconscious’ state? My body was obviously on [autopilot], and like before, actively managing the demonic mana such that I could survive it. Could I do it myself?

Could I force myself to ‘wake’ instead of being stuck in this soul realm?

2

YEAR 88

The answer was mixed. I could somewhat remain awake, like a dreaming man forcing himself awake, but the pain was so overwhelming that I ended up losing consciousness just as quickly. It was only during ‘ebbs’ of the demonic energy that I could maintain some semblance of consciousness.

If I forced myself to be awake when the demonic energy was at its peak, I felt like I was being operated on while lucid. It was insanely painful. So much so that [autopilot] quickly kicked in and knocked me back into the soul realm.

But I kept trying. I didn’t believe that I needed to rely on [autopilot] to manage the pain.

So I drifted back and forth, either experiencing intense pain or in my soul realm.

If this system worked the way I thought it did, only through constantly enduring and ‘managing’ this pain would I gain a skill.

And when I gained a skill, I’d be able to break through this demonic fire.

* * *

“You guys are still here.” It’d been a year since I last went back to this ‘space.’ I had thought the demons would’ve eaten the entirety of their souls already.

Simone and Victor didn’t look pleased. “Well, what brings you back?” Their bodies looked about the same, but I noticed a small part of their hands exhibiting more demonic features.

Honestly, I was just ‘checking’ whether anything changed.

“What do you think? How much time has passed?” they asked.

“A year?”

“Oh. Sure doesn’t feel like it. It feels way longer with how much pain we’re in.” They didn’t look too good. The demonic corruption for other parts of their bodies looked to be growing.

Then the demon took over again. “GROOOOOWWWWW.” The two of them couldn’t move, though, so I wasn’t afraid.

“Uh, yeah. Grow.” The demon made a scary sound, but I knew very well this was a spiritual plane of some kind, so I wasn’t afraid of it. Come on, it was like watching a scary monster behind a secure panel. Scary, sure, but it couldn’t hurt me. Not here.

“CONQUER!”

“Okay.”

“ADAPT!”

“Sure.”

“WE. LEARN.”

“No shit, demon.”

And then it stopped, and back to Simone and Victor, again. They rubbed their heads. “Oh man, it’s been repeating the same thing so many times. Conquer! Adapt! Learn!”

“Do you feel like you’ve been captured by some kind of alien monster species who’s out to assimilate you?” I mean, I wondered what it was like to be ‘possessed.’ Was it like me, who’s trapped in a pyre?

“If you happen to either be referred to the Borg or the Zerg, yes, it does feel like that.” Victor shrugged, one of his demonic arms rubbing his chin. There were small, demonic spots appearing on his face, which he couldn’t do shit about.

“I see. But that’s not helpful. What does it feel like?”

“Like, uh…you lose control over your limbs every now and then? Like having a seizure? I…I don’t really know how to describe it.”

3

YEAR 89

Another fucking year passed. It’d been four years already since I’d entered this ‘low-activity’ mode.

Four years!

This was a whole lot longer than my previous time, but then again, this corruption was probably ‘active’ and had a set command, as if it was like a…computer virus that had some kind of execution hierarchy.

Was it the mind that possessed the heroes that allowed it so?

This year, I’d been partially able to maintain and resist the pain for longer. I stayed awake for close to two whole days, and on average, I’d been able to force myself to regain consciousness about once every two months.

I kept poking at the flames, and I gradually was able to comprehend what it felt like.

Ever touched a switch when wet? Well, it felt like a super-intense version of being electrocuted. Perhaps comparable to what someone who just got struck by lightning felt like. And it was constant.

Well, not constant-constant, but constant, wavelike, with peaks and lows. That was why I could be awake longer during the lows. I hoped to be able to gain a skill to withstand the peaks. But it’d been so long, and still without the skill, it was hard.

Or maybe I was just doing it wrong.

Maybe there’s a trick to this whole demonic-corruption thing.

I mean, I thought it was a disease, but at the same time, it also behaved like…a liquid. Or a sludge. How was my autopilot handling it? Maybe it was not doing it as well as it should…

[Autopilot is configured to absorb demonic mana and attempt to filter it. Failing which, it is then expelled via all bodily extremities. Bodily extremities therefore experienced damage.]

Uh. So wait, it was trying to absorb the demonic mana, and then it was expelling it via my barks, branches, and leaves? Was that why all of it was burning? Was that the right thing to do?

[Autopilot is configured to protect the soul from damage.]

Huh. Okay. That was logical. It was like saving the heart and letting everything else burn. Or where a seed was encased with a disposable shell or trees that had thick barks that insulated the core from the fires outside. I supposed that was what my body had been naturally doing since the very first fires.

What else?

Maybe I needed to spin it, like some mangas had stories where the Qi needed to be made to move in a certain manner such that it gained strength, so perhaps there were ways to spin the demonic mana in a way that caused it to weaken?

Or maybe there was a way to cause it to move slower, such that my body didn’t burn.

All things I needed to explore…once I was awake.

4

INTERLUDE – HEROES AND THEIR NEW WORLD

6 months after the death of the demon king (around Year 85, Month 7 or 8)

The terrain was wrecked. Almost everywhere the demon king’s corruption touched turned into this twisted terrain, where firestorms were a regular affair and the earth itself constantly shifted. Strange monsters also appeared, not quite like the usual demons, but not quite like monsters, either.

As if it was an odd mix of the two.

The terrain’s unstable energies also meant all communication spells were still jammed, despite the rest of the world no longer requiring the towers. It was an odd thing about this location, but not uncommon. There were other spots in the world where gravity and magic were inconsistent, volatile. The only difference was the size of the instability was…well…half a continent.

Still, it was not a total loss. Some cities had ancient, heroic defenses that never triggered until that very day, and it was those cities that survived. But it would be a reasonable thing to say that 90 percent of all living beings died within the demon king’s corruption, and of the surviving 10 percent, another 8 percent died within six months due to lack of food, monsters, and supplies.

Two percent left.

Harris, Becky, and Mirei stood at the edge of one such surviving city. The heroes didn’t stay together after the demon king had fallen.

Gerrard, relieved of the task to slay the demon king, wanted to just find a few barrels of booze and drown himself in it. Maybe find a lady or two to accompany him as well. Astra, well, he seemed like he had other things to do, so he left for another continent.

This part of the terrain used to be more…demonic, but the three of them worked with some surviving druids and mages, and they were able to channel and amplify a mix of the earth’s energy and also their own star mana to push the corruption back.

It would have been easier if they were druids themselves, but their skills were for war, not healing. “Too bad none of us are druids. Maybe we could’ve fixed this easily.”

“It’s kinda like an infection. The body must fight it. All we’re doing is augmenting it, making it stronger with our star mana. Kind of like an IV injection.”

“Do you even know what an IV injection means?”

“I don’t know, but it’s what all the medical shows like to talk about.” Becky shrugged. All they knew about medicine was what they learned in their years of schooling and then all the sitcoms and dramas they followed.

But they could see for themselves that their star mana wasn’t ideal, either. There was always something that seemed to push back against the star mana. Maybe it was just the demon’s energies; since the star mana was super effective, naturally the demonic resisted something that was effective from them.

It was slow, hard, tiring work. It took a lot of their massive star mana to ‘undo’ the demon king’s corruption. It was so massive, the extent of the devastation.

Still, it made the three of them feel a bit better. Unlike Astra and Gerrard, they came to this continent, and most of what was destroyed, they’ve seen and visited them. Becky even had attachments for certain places she visited, and it made her sad to watch them destroyed or turned into this corrupted…place.

The druid that aided them was a middle-aged man who truly enjoyed restoring the terrain back to some semblance of normalcy. The journey was hard on the druids, the heroes were young, and they had skills that made them strong.

“Let’s rest,” he said, exhausted from using his druidic powers. “I’ve used up my [mend earth], [land restoration], and I don’t think I can take more of that…hero mana.”

The heroes nodded. Using star mana on the druids strained their bodies; star mana was strong, kind of like an extremely powerful chemical, and the body suffered from it. Overdose knocked them out. But it was way more effective than using mend earth and land restoration, so the druids did it. There were a few other druids, too, but they were far younger and less skilled than the middle-aged man. It was hard, and the odd monsters were tough for the druids.

“This corruption is unreal,” one young druid said, but then he had said it so many times. The other druids just shrugged. “When are we going to reach the border?”

“A few more days, I hope.” The druids talked. The heroes could just sigh. Harris wondered whether they would’ve been able to stop the demonic rod if they were faster.

Still, the corruption was so thick, trade and communications with the outside world were almost totally cutoff. The druids hoped to cut a ‘road’ through the corrupted lands, as that could restore some of that trade and communication. There were some cities that survived, though they were all in a perilous state when the heroes found them.

The three heroes looked at each other and sighed.

All was not well. One of the main things they discovered was their blessings changed. Their blessings were weaker, now just regular blessings of gods, not whatever it initially was, and their star mana pool was no longer growing, and it took far longer to regenerate.

And their skills, especially those classified as [divine], changed. Instead, all of them were replaced as a [heroic] skill. So that meant Astra’s Global Chat ability changed into limited uses.

What’s the point of such a change? they sometimes wondered. Harris recalled the conversation on the day all their skills changed: exactly three months after the demon king died.

“The gods never truly intended to give us this power forever.” Mirei sighed. “It must cost them something to summon us and maintain this power. Now that we’ve completed what we were needed for, they’ve tossed us out, like trash.”

Becky had a sip of tea and just mused. “What was freely given can be freely taken away. We’ve always been…pawns.”

Mirei looked at Becky. “I feel cheated.”

“All of us do.”

“The gods never intended for us to survive till the next demon king? Or will they return the divine power to us when the next demon king comes?”

That was a few months ago, and in the three months since then, they’d managed to purify quite a large area. There was a whole lot more to go.

5

TWO YEARS AFTER THE DEMON KING HAD FALLEN, AROUND YEAR 87

Harris was alone. Becky and Mirei got tired, and they all wanted to do something else. Both of them had left for another continent. Mirei said she wanted a holiday, and she said she would be back, but until now, she was still away.

Harris didn’t feel it was necessary to call her back. The process of detoxifying the terrain was hard, laborious work. He had to constantly infuse his star mana into the druids, such that the druids could then mix that star mana into their ‘natural healing’ abilities. He could see why they weren’t keen on constantly doing it, especially when the gods just took away their divine powers. They felt cheated, and both the girls wanted to just enjoy themselves.

All of them did.

So the progress of detoxifying slowed. Only Harris was working on it. Even he slowed down significantly, only the prospect of claiming additional territory spurring him on.

Last time, he would’ve been worried if they’d separated, but now, after the levels they gained slaying the demon king, some twenty-odd levels, he wasn’t worried. They kept their levels, and they were still leagues above any regular human. He didn’t even know if there were other people in the high hundreds of levels.

And he had the shards of the fallen. Seven of them.

[Heroic Fragments. Blessings of the Fallen Heroes].

“Archduke Harris, the new group of druids has arrived.”

A druid knelt on the grass.

Harris frowned and wished he had some tea. A king saw it fit to award Harris with the ‘Archduke’ title and concurrently granted him dominion over the territory he reclaimed from the demonic corruption.

“Rise.” There were about a hundred druids behind the first druid; they were on their knees before high nobility, too. Many of them came from far away, from the other continents to do the laborious task of healing the world. “All of you are here for the quest?”

“Yes, Archduke.”

This was a game of some kind. After the heroes were done, the druids had their quest.

“Good. Accepted. I’ll grant all of you a bit of my hero mana, maybe in the next few days. My attendants will call for you.”

The gods gave druids the quest to heal the world. Healers. Restorers. Druids, shamans, and spiritualists of all sorts, many had received a ‘quest’ from their own systems to aid in the fixing of the world. All of them had rewards. Fix the world, and gain a blessing of some kind. Or a special skill.

If heroes were the white blood cells, the super T-cells of the world, these druids were the platelets.

The corrupted terrain, vast and unforgiving, still remained incredibly hostile, comparable to a hex-wasteland. The demonic hybrids still roamed the vast expanse, some larger and more fearsome. It seemed that when enough of them spawned, they agglomerated into a larger beast, and it kept on, until the corrupted wasteland even had ‘walker’-tier creatures.

So it was his personal reputation as a hero that the druids came here for instead. He could guarantee their safety. “Serve Archduke Harris the First, Reclaimer of the Accursed Lands.”

Yet, at the same time, he had to admit it made him happy. He felt like he was someone, after the demon king fighting and all.

He was finally a person that people respected and feared. Women came for him, many gorgeous ladies that Harris could only fantasize about as a young teenager back home. Money, good food, all seemed to just flow in, and many of the surviving kingdoms now wanted his protection.

The things they were willing to do, the harem that he now personally had—he tried at first to not let it go to his head. But how could he? His heart wasn’t as strong as he thought it was. When women were willing to throw themselves at him, he discovered he was human after all.

Now that his friends had left, no one was around to check on his own personal moral compass. And to some extent, he got lazy and exhausted, just like his friends.

Harris noticed he had given himself excuses. He would still go and reclaim the lands, but he was increasingly less keen on it, and he took breaks every now and then to spend time with his growing harem and to enjoy the luxuries from reclaiming a land.

He even had a new class, on top of his original class, the [Defender Hero].

[Noble]. And, if he wanted, the system allowed him to exchange some levels in [Hero] for [Ruler]. One level for five levels, at least, for the first thirty [Noble] levels. So he did. He gave up ten levels of hero, and instead he got fifty levels of [Noble].

This was fine, Harris told himself. The gods had abandoned him. So had his friends. What was wrong with him indulging a bit? This was the reward after the victory, no? This was what the gods promised.

* * *

Gerrard had always been drinking. His heroic body meant he could enjoy the benefits of being drunk without ever suffering from the medical and health issues that over-consuming alcohol usually brought.

In fact, if he ever felt too tipsy, all he needed to do was activate [rejuvenate], and he would be as good as new again.

But he enjoyed the state of being ‘drunk.’ It gave him, if anything, a clarity similar to what he used to have before. When he was still just a normal person.

Which was insane, because here was a debauched man whose favorite hangout was sleazy brothels where the scent of aphrodisiacs, alcohol, and drugs was the only thing one could smell. In between rounds of drinking, he would often laugh at how insane it was, that here he, once a good student, a law-abiding young teenager who loved playing with toy trains even when he was already in his early teens, turned into this.

He cursed the gods. It was when he had a damned good wine that was imported from far away that he realized this whole thing was fucked up. Or maybe he was granted a blessing by the gods of wine and alcohol, if there was such a thing as a Bacchus of Dionysus equivalent in the world.

Today, he found that wine again. That special ginger-mixed herbal liqueur. The merchant was grinning, and he tossed a small pouch of gold and gems over. The merchant gladly passed it to one of the two ladies next to him.

“Should I open it?” a voluptuous lady next to him asked; she was half undressed, anyway. She held the bottle up, wondering what was so great about the herbal liqueur. “Or should I order something more expensive?”

“No. This is mine. Only mine. You two drink something else.”

He inspected it. It was a very old liqueur, made around three hundred years ago, mixed with the leaves and fruits of an ancient grove. That grove was destroyed during one of the demon king’s battles a hundred or so years ago, so the legend went.

He opened it gently and poured himself a small sip. And when he drank it, he felt it again.

Clarity.

That annoying haze suddenly pushed aside. And he could hear the voice in the drink again.

A gentle one. As if his grandmother was talking to him. He was quite sure it was the Earth Mother itself that was talking to him.

6

YEAR 90

Ugh. My attempts to manipulate demonic mana and energy had been mostly ineffective. I’d been too used to just ‘flooding’ any demonic creatures I met without actually being focused and specific about it.

I tried all sort of manga-inspired moves.

I attempted to ‘spin’ the demonic mana, and instead all it did was cause the fires around me to spin into a tornado, kind of like a whirlpool made of fire.

I tried to concentrate the demonic energy, but all that did was cause one particular branch where it was concentrated to just explode violently once it passed a certain breaking point, and I experienced a pain so intense I instantly lost consciousness.

I also tried to push and pull it back, tai chi style, into the outer valley. That just made the ‘demonic mana’ move faster through the designated ‘channels’ and did nothing else.

I then also tried to force it underground, into the depth of the ground below. Nothing happened other than some shaking and tremors.

All in, not very successful.

So I spent time in my soul realm.

* * *

The soul realm had always been this flexible space, a pocket dimension for the departed to rest and recuperate for their onward reincarnation. The cycle must continue, and the pieces would be replenished for the next bout.

The number of souls had dwindled quite a bit, the backlog starting to clear out. Many had left to go into this unknown other world, this plane where they would go to be further reincarnated.

Maybe they had to roll the wheel like I did.

Or maybe they’d get lucky and wouldn’t have to.

I thought it was quite boring in the soul realm, and if I was trying to fall asleep, it was quite easy. All I needed to do was count all the little souls that popped up.

*pop*

*pop*

Kind of like counting sheep, but only wisp-like souls instead.

I mean, if souls were still appearing, logically that meant there were people still dying, which also meant there were survivors. Else everyone would have died instantly and no souls would pop up after that.

Since I had nothing else to do, I theorized that the presence of survivors was due to a few reasons.

One was that there were people who had skills to protect themselves and others in such situations. Perhaps the heroes, since it seemed like five of them survived. Or there may be crouching tigers and hidden dragons, hidden experts who had laid low but now, in such situations, used their powers to protect themselves.

Two was the existence of ancient artifacts and formations. Similar to the heroes’ magical protections, past heroes could have set up ancient formations or made powerful artifacts that triggered under such serious events. Surely, there were some who were paranoid about demon kings and had made ancient preparations for such things, especially heroes who survived their first demon king.

Three was perhaps divine interference. Given that the heroes were summoned by gods, and these gods did have some leeway in interfering with the world, maybe they would step in for such exceptional circumstances.

Four was luck and terrain. Perhaps the terrain’s curvature or the presence of other natural energy sources ‘repelled’ the demon king’s corruption.

What else…high-levelled individuals, ancient magical formations, divine intervention, luck and terrain…or… Perhaps, most unlikely, was demonic selection. Maybe some kinds of people had skills that allowed them to resist demons?

Unlikely.

Anyway, I went back to looking at the little bobbing, floating souls. I poked some of them. I was bored.

They flickered a bit. Like little fairy lights being disturbed. Or like little fireflies.

I should have fireflies on my actual tree.

They looked pretty cool. I remembered this photo of a swamp where there was a bunch of fireflies. It was both beautiful and creepy. I thought that was a look I should aspire to.

I could even use fireflies to talk, you know, kinda like a massive LED board if I could control the fireflies and control which firefly lit up. Of course, that also depended on them understanding the language.

But yeah, fireflies as a board of LEDs was entirely workable. I should do that once I woke up. I wanted fireflies now.

I should find some in a swamp or a bog somewhere. Once I got out of this rotten demonic bog thing. Seriously.

7

YEAR 91

The fires were still pretty bad. And I was still thinking what the hell to do to get myself out of this situation. But because I didn’t seem to be making much progress, I’d decided to disturb the souls in my soul realm more.

But then I had an epiphany one random day.

Why did I even need fireflies?

I was able to somewhat manipulate the fires by moving the demonic energy within the body, guiding it in a certain manner.

So…could I move the demonic flames to make letters and signs? To tell those outside that I was okay?

But!

Was anyone watching?

Would anyone know what I was saying? I didn’t understand the languages of the world!

So if I were to use the demon flames as a ‘screen,’ I could probably show…shapes? Would shapes work? I wished I’d taught the elves some basic Morse code or binary-language signaling.

Maybe I should still try it.

* * *

The deaths in the continent had slowed to a trickle. There were still deaths, of course, but I was starting to wonder where they’d come from, so I’d been poking them more.

Maybe some of them could talk, like how Meela was able to talk.

Most of them couldn’t. Most. Actually close to all. I thought Meela being an ex-hero and Eriz being a contracted soul were different.

I kept trying to interact with most of them. And I would say one in one hundred thousand did not respond. Maybe higher, I wasn’t really keeping track, but eventually one did say something.

“DIE!”

“Oh, you can talk.”

“I. DIE!”

“Yes. Yes, you died.” It sounded like Meela when she first came. When her soul was damaged, she too spoke in short words and sentences. Maybe most regular souls just suffered far more extensive damage, except those that somehow died close to me.

Wasn’t it? But darn! That meant I missed the boat on all the souls that died immediately after the demonic corruption! Maybe those could talk!

But oh well, I was asleep anyway.

“Where did you die?”

“MORKAN.”

Where in the fuck was that? Morkan?

“How?”

“MONSTER!”

“What level were you when you died?”

“Fifty-four!”

“Oh, pretty high. What kind of monster?”

“DEMON THING!”

Helpful. Yes. Very helpful. Maybe I could fix them. But I had no access to my soul forge. Darn it. What else, what else?

Anyway, a couple of months later, another soul could talk! Yay!

“DEATH.”

“Hi, little soul. Who might you be?”

“ADAM.”

“Hi, Adam. Where are you from, and where did you die?”

“PURKAI. PURKAI.”

“No idea where that is. Cause of death?”

“MONSTER. DEMON THING.”

“Okay, another one for the checklist. What does this monster look like?”

“DEMON. HORN. ANIMAL.”

All right. It was a demon, it had horns, and it probably looks like an animal. A demonic unicorn, a black unicorn perhaps, or a bicorn? Or maybe it was just a demonic cow? “All right, how many horns?”

“TWO.”

Okay, bicorn or cow. I went on and asked a bunch of questions about the monster. It was sort of a horned monster with two horns, spiky body, and resembled a cow more than a horse. So it was stocky.

Things I did to entertain myself in the incredible idleness of…being in a coma. It was pretty much a tree-coma, if such a thing were to exist. A state where the mind and the body were disconnected, because the body was in incredible pain.

Why didn’t it rain? Could rain put out the fire? I mean, if it rained, maybe the fire wouldn’t be that strong, then maybe I’d be able to regenerate faster.

It wasn’t going to rain, was it? I didn’t recall it raining for a few years now. I wondered how the elves were doing, at least those surviving.

8

YEAR 92

Well, it was still pretty quiet. Nothing much was happening, other than me constantly attempting to endure the pain and practice with the demonic flames. I sort of thought I was getting the hang of it. I thought, anyway.

9

YEAR 93

Time just felt…like a rubber band. At the rate this was going, I thought the next demon king was going to appear soon. I wondered whether the world could take something like this again.

[Ivy was destroyed.]

[Treeveller was destroyed.]

[You gained 1 level. Level 146.]

[You gained Ivy’s skill - Surveillance State.]

[Surveillance State allows monitoring of multiple individuals simultaneously and allows playback of all recorded interactions. Also automatically flags individuals in accordance to a perceived threat level. Note – This ability may not identify all threats.]

Oh. That sucked.

Ivy had been so helpful in keeping track of all the bad people that came to New Freeka, but I did recall the skills were not perfect, in the sense that they could be bypassed. Like that druid from Hutan that managed to elude our detection until it was in New Freeka. Or that assassin fellow.

I supposed a key thing I needed to remember was that skills were all fallible. They were offset and beaten by skills of other people, so I must always consider the possibility that there were always people who had the right skillset that happened to counter what skills we had.

Like this stupid demon king. I had tremendous anti-demon resistances, and yet I was still in this immense pain.

Pain. Some days, I felt the pain and woke up to see fire. I attempted to move the fire aside and attempted to look past the fire, and all I saw was just more…fire.

What was happening out there?

Ivy was dead. I wondered what destroyed her after so long.

Monsters? Or just other things? Had the monsters or the survivors turned on each other? How were they going to cope with the next demon king?

I kinda missed my fellow minds. It was nice having their gorgeous overlays. I thought my supermind project was still around. I didn’t recall seeing a notification it was destroyed.

I wondered whether all my orchards were still around, too.

I couldn’t sense any of them.

It didn’t make sense. Why did the demonic fire burn all my contact points to the outside world? There must be something I could do. I didn’t like being trapped. It was annoying.

Like, I was a tree! I was meant to feel the earth, taste the air, absorb the water. Fire was part of the renewal cycle of trees, no, like some countries and places had regular fires that helped refresh the landscape.

A tree could survive fire. No, it could thrive and coexist with fire.

I already had fire resistance. What more did I need to reach the point where I could endure this fire?

Or was it not actually fire? I mean, what if…uhm…let’s see. What if this corruption was just pure mana and the fire was something of a reaction? Kind of like a lightning strike. The lightning created the fire, and it was not as if the fire itself was what burned me.

Was that possible? Perhaps the demonic corruption had a low burning point, so it always tended to flare up, but it wasn’t actually fire.

Maybe it was like…oil? Coming back to my whole Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon comparison, if this entire demonic corruption was just a massive magical oil sludge, and because magical oil and tree equaled a recipe for easily combustible fire, therefore it became this way?

Hmmm…

Wait, were demons actually just…cars? Like some kind of steampunk, magical demon oil-powered creatures? And the people of this world were powered by water? Was that why their demonic bodies were so ‘dry’?

I should see whether I could test that concept, whether it had any actual basis.

* * *

I went and checked on the two heroic ‘shadows.’ And they were almost entirely demon now. Eighty percent, I’d say.

“Help.”

“I can’t even free myself.”

“Help us,” Simone said, her body entirely demon; what was left was her head and her neck and, strangely, one of her arms.

“I can’t. Not in this state.”

“WHAT. STATE?” they both asked together, and I knew it was the demon now. Its presence was unmistakable.

“You sound smart. You should figure it out.”

The two flailed like mad men, but like two angry people on an internet video call, they couldn’t reach me.

There was no saving them. Not in this state. And maybe not me.

10

YEAR 94

Nothing much happened. But the demon king should emerge soon.

11

YEAR 95

[THE DEMON KING IBLIS HAS DESCENDED.]

About two, no, three months later, I felt it: an incredibly intense surge of mana and energy from a hexbomb, but…way, way stronger. I wondered how many people were sacrificed this time. One hundred thousand? One million?

And then…

[The Demon King Iblis has been destroyed.]

[The Hero Astra has been excommunicated.]

[Astra is now a Fallen Hero.]

[Killing of a fallen hero grants special blessings and gifts.]

[Killing Astra will not create a hero fragment.]

What?

What the fuck was happening out there?

12

YEAR 96

Another year passed, and finally, I got something. Dammit. I’d been fighting the pain for so long!

[Skill: Pain Endurance upgraded!]

And that was when I realized I could stay awake a little bit longer. But the fires still remained. My body could endure the pain, but it still remained that my senses were still gone.

Fire, I thought. If this was oil, maybe I could…be like a refinery and have a designated flare-off location instead of it burning my entire body?

So I tried that. I tried to push all the demonic energy to the very top of my tree in a way such that it only burned the top off. I had no senses, but my body was still mine, so my branches now burned a lot more.

Along my trunk, there were still a few large lines of demonic flames, the ‘tunnels’ used to carry the demonic corruption sucked in from the surroundings, and that tunnel was charred. I kept it up, and gradually, gradually…

Over a period of six months, I’d gradually concentrated the demonic corruption such that the fires were just on the very top of my head.

I imagined myself to look a little like Hades from Hercules, with fiery hair. Only, well, I was a tree, and he was a god.

* * *

The two heroes were still somehow holding on. Their face was half human, half demon.

I somehow expected both of them to give in already. I would have. I thought. Or maybe not. I did last in this world until now. Maybe I’d also stay around.

“How are you guys doing?”

“Could be better,” Simone responded. “We’re getting the hang of it. Maybe we can fight back soon.”

“Really?” Well, that was unexpected, but I supposed heroes were special.

“LIES,” they both said simultaneously. And then they were back to their human selves again.

“Why are you doing this, actually? I’ve never had a conversation with a demon before. Tell me more about yourself.” I mean, it was true. No one ever had a conversation with a demon to find out what their motives were, what they were trying to achieve, or whether it was something more fundamental.

“I think it’s just an animal.” Victor was the one who responded. “We just feel…strong emotions. Like, a need. To grow. To find. To conquer. To…have things. To seize things. To…multiply.”

“Really?” I thought that was quite strange. Its recent behavior clearly suggested it was somewhat intelligent, I meant the demon-king especially, so it was really strange to be told that it was actually, well…just a beast. Feral. “Is it…local?”

“I…I think it’s from another planet. Another…world. We see visions of this vast wasteland quite like our current decimated terrain. Areas filled with spires and crags that seem to spawn more of those monsters. It’s so big, yet so…broken,” Victor said.

“Why?”

“I…don’t know. It just…craves. It has something it wants.”

“But its recent behavior has been intelligent. The humanoid demons, what’s the deal with that?” I suspected whatever possessed these two heroes may not be truly intelligent, and that was why they just felt its craving. If I may, maybe this was just a ‘program’ or ‘software’ the demons had. Maybe demons had artificial souls, too, and the demon king was the only truly sentient one that it sent over.

Victor didn’t reply. Neither did Simone. A while later, the demon came again. “WHAT. ARE. YOU?”

“Tree,” I responded. I was going to be factual about it. “Who are you?”

They both muttered something incomprehensible.

“Well, I didn’t get that. So I’ll call you demon for now.”

“CONSUME!” Okay, I understood that word.

“Where are you from?” I had the golden opportunity to have a conversation with a lesser demon-alien. Why not take it?

“HOME.”

“Why did you come here?”

“ORDER,” they both muttered, and then a long pause later, “MOTHER. EARTH MOTHER…”

I paused. Mother? Earth mother? Hmm. I didn’t think the demon was referring to Earth itself; it was merely copying and reading the two’s memories to find a comparable word.

The demon responded to some kind of order, so they were compelled to invade our world.

“Why? What does Mother want?” I felt a bit corny saying that. It almost felt like I was talking about how Sephiroth kept talking about Jenova. It was so corny. Mother here, mother there. Especially Advent Children. I hoped it didn’t even repeat the same kind of corny motivations.

“CONQUER!”

I mentally sighed in relief. Thank goodness. “Why do you want to conquer our world? What’s here that Mother wants?”

The two paused. “CONQUER!”

Ah. For conquest. I guessed this was all I could squeeze out of a demonic artificial intelligence. Maybe a demon king would offer a proper conversation.

13

YEAR 97

[You gained a level. You are now level 147.]

[You gained a passive skill: Demonic Energy Transmission.]

“What in the fuck is that?” Well, I got the answer soon enough. The demonic corruption that was being sucked in through my roots, well, there was now a dedicated pipe-like root that now covered it, essentially reducing the damage from the rest of my body. It still hurt like hell, like being electrocuted, but less. And more specific.

I was starting to stay conscious longer. I could stay awake for two to three days straight for a month. The demonic energy was still strong, even with my new skills. But every small step counted.

Every level counted.

[Demonic energy interferes with all telepathic and magical abilities. Most non-core functions are disabled.]

“Shit.” I had so many heroic fragments. Why couldn’t my heroic fragments offset the demonic energy? I mean, could I use my heroic fragments as some kind of cleaning device?

But maybe I could just wait this out. If more heroes died, I would get heroic shards, and that would make my anti-demonic powers stronger, and that would eventually break me through.

So wait.

A tree could wait.

14

YEAR 98

Despite the demonic interference, I still sensed huge magical energies flying around. I couldn’t pin their location, other than a vague general direction. It was one of the few things I could still sense.

Was it something about blood magic that made it so…detectable?

15

YEAR 99

Well, not exactly how I was expecting to spend the year before I turned one hundred in this world.

Quiet and in the silence of my own world. I wondered why I’d not gone crazy, honestly. It was like…cabin fever. But I supposed it was quite silly for a tree to have cabin fever, right, since I mean…I was part of nature itself, and my nature was to stay still.

I could totally imagine the heroes felt claustrophobic, restless, because, well, they were trapped. But to be still, and to be here, was exactly where I wanted to be.

The two heroes were still somehow hanging on. Not much deterioration to their state.

“Is the demon keeping you around intentionally?”

“I think so. It wants you. Not us.”

“Oh.” So the demon intelligence was intelligent enough to keep the two heroes around, because that was the only way it could interact with someone it didn’t have some sort of mind control over. Well…suddenly I felt like I walked into a trap visiting them.

“It sees you as some kind of ally.”

“Ally? Why so?” Huh. Now that was even more unexpected.

“I don’t know. We don’t know.”

“Well, let me know if you find out. Happy to see the two of you holding up.”

Victor shrugged. “Now that it isn’t actively trying to take over us, we’re getting quite bored trapped in this stinking little place. It was even feeding us things to tell you.”

“So it’s listening.”

“Of course it is. I thought you figured it out already.”

“Just wanted a confirmation.”

“Heh.”

“So, what does it want to tell me that it doesn’t want to tell me itself?” Well, if the demon wanted to talk to me and wanted to show me something, then, well, let’s see it.

“It was actually quite strange. It was just showing us scenes of some kind of animals that resemble goats, dogs, apes, and elephants. So many different kinds of animals.”

“Well, they should have your memories of animals?” I mean, the demon read their minds; surely the topic of animals must’ve been covered somewhere. “This world has cows, dogs, goats.”

“I’m not sure if some of my terms will make sense, but it was a timelapse-like thing, if you understand me. The demon let us see scenes of creatures changing over time, slowly, and then some kind of red lightning struck, and then the earth around it cracked, changed, and then those creatures warped into the demons. It was like watching evolution happen, and then something disastrous happened and they turned into these demons. And then the demons were sent into this portal here. To fight.”

“It was giving you the history of demons? Why would it do that?”

“I don’t know?” Victor shrugged.

At that moment, I felt like I’d been given a monumental task. The heroes didn’t know why, but me, a tree, why would I get a history lesson? There must be something about that history, wasn’t it? That red lightning reeked of divine intervention.

Between Lilies’s history and the demons, I thought I sort of had enough to piece together what was actually happening. The gods were behind everything. Maybe there were two factions of gods or they were just the same faction toying with us, or something, but the gods were behind this.

What did they want?

No, what did the demons want?

Were they…pawns of the gods as well? Sacrificial lambs forced to play the role of an NPC in this world? Even if that was true, what could I do about it?

16

YEAR 100

Ah. I finally made it to a hundred years!

[Title: Centurion obtained.]

Oh, okay. I made it to a century old. The title did mostly nothing, anyway.

Quite a letdown. Maybe I should throw a party of some kind to celebrate that I’d survived a hundred years in this new world. Seriously. But then I would reveal my otherworldly origins and attract all sorts of people.

And I was trapped. If there was a time for a sad smiley, this would be it.

I guessed I should reflect a bit on my first hundred years, even if I was in such a terrible state. The first sixty or so years was just me…well, doing nothing. I couldn’t do much. Then I moved to that Gaya temple’s compound, and after that the move to Freeka, that little elf village, where I was till this very day.

Come to think of it, it was probably the second time Freeka was destroyed since I came. The people of this world were quite hardy, able to rebuild after so many disasters.

The next town should probably be called Neo Freeka. I mean, once I was out of this quagmire, I should propose the next town to be called Neo Freeka, but then that would also probably reveal my otherworldly origins.

Ah, naming matters for later.

The people of the world were hardy. So many species still survived despite constant world-ending level disasters; I supposed they must have patrons that watched over them in difficult times. Gods.

But difficult times also created high-level characters. I believed that to be a law. So…

Where were all these high-level characters hiding? Was there some ‘elevated’ world where all these high-level people ascended to, like some cultivation fics with different tiered worlds?

17

YEAR 101

If I had dogs every year, this year I would have dalmatians. Maybe 101 decorated hellhounds. Woodhounds. I was pretty sure it died. There was no way it survived this. I would have all 101 of them, all with flowers.

One hundred one years, I mean, if there was a time for a tutorial, well, 101 was a good time to start. Like come on, Basics of Isekai-ing to Another Magical World As A Tree 101. Probably given by a lecturer or some sort, explaining things that were too freaking boring to understand but ultimately useful someday later on.

But nope.

Nothing. Like come on, give me a hand here, system! I wanna get out! Like, uh…give me some regeneration skills. Or some skill that bypassed the pain.

No?

No?

* * *

Bored out of my mind, I went into that part of my soul realm that was linked to the two trapped part-demon heroes again.

“I’m back. I’m bored out of my mind. How are you two holding up?”

The two look the same as last time. “We’re part demons. All things considered, we’re doing all right.”

“So, now that it knows you are from another world, with your otherworldly heroic origins, what are the demons going to do with it?” I asked.

“Nothing much. It’s still processing, and I think it’s having difficulty transmitting the information back to its…homeworld. So in a way, the information is stuck with us, or whatever that’s possessing us.”

“It’s not a hive mind? I had the impression the demons are a hive mind of some kind.”

“Uh…it’s complicated, from what we’ve seen. It’s like a tiered intellectual system. All levels are capable of intellectual thought, but less so at the lesser levels. And despite that, there is an overarching command that it obeys without objection.”

“And it’s telling all of this because?”

“Look, Mister Weird Person who looks like a tree. I don’t know anymore! It doesn’t want to tell us, and yet it’s still showing us all these, about them… It’s random, and it’s making us confused!” The look of confusion on the faces of the heroes seemed to suggest it was true. The demons didn’t seem able to manipulate emotions just yet. “Look, I wish it could just show it to you directly instead of using the both of us as connectors. We don’t understand why it’s telling us about itself, and we honestly don’t really care. We were just ordinary kids on a bus that somehow got into the wrong place, at the wrong time, and now we’re going through this fucked-up nightmare of fighting demons, watching the world burn, and now being consumed by a demonic mind of some kind.”

Okay. They were snapping.

“Not only that, we’re only here because this damned demon wants us to somehow relay messages to you, and so it’s keeping us barely alive in this pathetic, miserable state. And then, you, of all people, only drop by once every few years! So we just spent days, the two of us, just in this miserable state, being bombarded with demonic imagery and scenes.”

True.

“So I’m sorry if I can’t freaking answer your questions, because I don’t fucking remember what it showed me for the past few years, other than what it repeats all the damned time! Have you ever been watching television, the same damned series, perhaps a few hundred times—no, make that a few thousand times? Well, we both have, and it sucks. It fucking sucks. Even if it’s awesome on the first watch, by the one thousandth time, it all sucks. I am sick of it, and if there was dialogue, I’d be able to repeat the words, word by word.”

I was confused. He said he didn’t remember, but he also said he was watching something so many times.

“Fuck you, Tree Creature. But I’ll tell you everything just to get this damned demon to show me something else for a fucking change.”

The Victor guy went on for an hour about demonic…society? There was a kind of hierarchy, and there was this…mother at the top. The mother made a decision, and they followed. They were sent into this portal, and then they were here. And he talked about their world. Dry. Filled with smoke and fog. Spires. Crags. Creatures that emerged out of weird spawning pools. All kinds of spawning pools.

And stars. Scenes of multiple massive spires shooting some kind of beam and creating the rift.

Well, demon origin story.

Now, what should I do about it? Leak out some kind of speculative story of its origins? What if I ended up empowering the demonic cults? Would that make things worse?

What if this was what the demon was trying to do? It wanted me to spread this knowledge. And what good did that do to me? Would the world start suspecting and looking for a demon sympathizer?

18

YEAR 102

Nothing of significance happened. I met the two heroes, they seemed bored, and well, the demon didn’t show them anything new, either. I was still trying to fix my shit and improve my pain endurance even more.

19

YEAR 103

Would the next demon king pop out around now? I mean…no? I sensed some magic flying here and there, but I had no clue what else.

20

YEAR 104

I had a dream. Usually dreams were divine or oracular in nature, since they often foretold or spoke of divine intervention, so this one was strange. There were like…five asteroids, bright red. They crashed on the world. And…that was it.

But it felt different. I wasn’t quite sure why.

* * *

“Still nothing?”

“Nope,” the two bored heroes responded. “Same imagery.”

“Ah.”

Based on when the previous demon king battle happened, the demon king should appear again in another year, so the world should be facing demonic attacks already. But there were five heroes remaining; I supposed they should be doing all right. Even if one of those heroes was somehow expelled.

I was sure they were doing fine.

21

YEAR 105

This year was the year the demon king was supposed to descend. After all, it’d been ten years, so, in the second half of the year, it did.

[Demon King Phenex has descended.]

I wondered what happened this time.

22

YEAR 106

Four months after the demon king descended, I felt it again.

A huge, huuuuuge surge of magic, so overwhelming that it was disgusting. Even when my limbs were torched and burned, I could feel it. It even resonated with my very soul.

I was sure it was blood magic. There was something really sickening about this magic that made me feel like puking, if I could. A tree couldn’t puke, sadly.

I felt whatever it was headed toward its intended target. Like how you could feel the sun even with your eyes closed, I could feel it move, the change in its angle.

But the demon king lived.

[The Excommunicated Hero, Astra, has died.]

Huh.

That…was not expected. Indeed, not expected at all.

About one to two days later, the demonic corruption around me started behaving erratically. As if supercharged, I felt the demonic corruption surge through my body, my roots. I felt it push strongly against the root-walls of my valley.

I felt cracks in my root-walls. More cracks.

Here. There.

The demonic sludge that stabilized over the past twenty years suddenly started moving, flowing, and it pushed against my root-walls.

More cracks! I felt like I was trying to use sandbags to hold back a tsunami, and there were pockets where the levee broke. The demonic corruption rushed in, together with the sludge.

And then…all at once, it stopped. The sludge stopped.

[Madeus has died.]

[Yvon has died.]

[34 other familiar-users have died.]

[You gained two levels. You are now level 149.]

[Skill: Pain endurance upgraded!]

[Obtained new skill: Root Fortress.]

[Obtained Yvon’s soul.]

[Obtained 7 experience seeds.]

And on top of that, I received a long string of notifications about class seeds and skill seeds. From the many that died, there was [wizard], [swordmage], [brawler], [druid], [knight] and a whole list of many other classes.

I felt…sad.

What happened out there?

“Monsters.” A voice. I recognized that voice.

“Yvon?” I turned to face a glowing blob. It was, in fact, Yvon.

“Hi,” I said. I mean, I kind of missed talking to someone that wasn’t a demon.

“Happy to see you, Aeon. We…really could’ve used your help.”

“I’m not sure if you can see, but I’m stuck in this state holding back the demonic energy.”

“That’s what we thought, too. You look like…a tree. This is the ‘soul’ realm that Jura told me about? He said that you have this ‘space’ where the dead linger.”

“I am a tree. Why wouldn’t I look like a tree?”

“Mistress Yvon!” Eriz’s soul detected her previous mistress’s soul. “Oh no. You died.”

“Well…it was inevitable. Things were looking really bleak for us. We have barely enough food and water, and every time we lose someone with familiars, a bit of our food supply goes along with it.”

I was very curious what’d been happening outside. “Stop. You two can catch up later. Tell me about what happened outside.”

“Uh…well, we’re in this valley where your roots are holding up the hardened sludge. But every now and then, cracks in the sludge appeared, and those cracks would spit out demonic hybrid monsters. They attacked us almost every other day.”

Yvon paused a bit.

“And well, what happened was a huge crack happened, and sludge flowed in. On top of that, larger monsters came in and attacked us, so well…I died killing a few. Many of us did.”

“Any idea what happened to the outside world?”

“We have no contact. The demonic sludge causes magic to decay, so all our attempts to communicate with the outside world have been unsuccessful. Our attempts to use other means of communication, like…climbing up that hole on top of you have been unsuccessful as well. So I have no idea.”

“Darn.” I sighed. “Well, the demon king appeared again. And it somehow amplified the effects of the corruption temporarily.”

“Fuck,” Yvon cursed. “That explains it.”

“How many of you are left? I’m blind at the moment. The demonic corruption robbed me of all my senses.”

“About…three thousand? Maybe less after today. Perhaps about two hundred died today.”

“That’s not…bad?”

“We're at a higher level now. Many of us leveled tremendously over the past twenty years to survive this. But things are still bleak, with food in short supply and our equipment limited. At least, none of us were dying to the demons for a while…until today.”

“I see.” I mean, I felt kind of sad. “What about the forest? The trees?”

“Uh…oh. Erm…quite a bit of the giant trees are still there. Some of the weird trees are still there. We managed to locate a few surviving flower bushes and herbal spots, so that’s our spices. We also found quite a bit of potato buried, so we’re also eating that.”

“What about water?”

“A few of our druids are able to use their mana to create water. So…that’s our water supply.”

“I see. Let me think.” I let Yvon and Eriz catch up a bit. They spoke about Roma and generally about life in their new environment. It’d been a long time since they last met, almost twenty years, so they had much to talk about.

But I had a new skill. [Root Fortress].

So, when I was awake again, I quickly activated [Root Fortress] and felt, for a brief moment, all the roots strengthen. It was like a sonar pulse, and at that moment I knew exactly how many trees survived, as I felt the effects of my skill spread throughout the valley.

And I stayed awake longer.

I thought it was my two new levels.

Now, if only I could get more levels.

“I can see why you can’t help us now.” Yvon’s blob of light sighed. I briefly explained my situation of being trapped in this demonfire. “You’re not even awake most of the time.”

“Not exactly ideal, but I hope I’ll be able to break free of it soon. Tell me about who’s left.”

Lausanne, Laufen, Roma, and Jura lived. Two of the Valtrian Order’s captains survived, too. One of the herbalists and quite a big chunk of the druid-in-training Valthorns also survived, by sheer coincidence that they were foraging in the forest during that time. It was a day they remembered, the day when the Valley sank.

* * *

At the later part of the year, the demon king was slain.

[Demon King Phenex was defeated.]

[Becky has died. You received one fragment.]

Oh wow. Only one hero died.

[You gained 3 levels. You are now level 152.]

[Skill upgraded: Demonic Energy Transmission]

[Skill upgraded: Subsidiary Trees - 100,000. Giant Attendant Trees - 1,000]

[Level 150 crossed. You may select a DOMAIN.]

[Domain is your focus on the path of divinity and will impact future domain choices. The first choice is your primary domain. Choice of domain greatly influences type of future skills learned.]

[Choices are:]

[Domain of Nature]

[Domain of Spirit]

[Domain of Astral]

Holy…

This was probably the first time I recalled ever being offered a choice in what I wanted for a skill. Like…domain? It sounded very much like what kind of god or deity I wanted to be. Was this like Age of Mythology where I got to choose which patron god I got to pray to and so had different kinds of perks?

How did I decide?

Nature, Spirit, and Astral.

Nature sounded like I was headed to more tree-like powers. Spirit sounded like I’d get even more soul and spirit-related perks. Astral…

What did astral mean again? Ah, stars. So…more star mana powers? From what I knew of star mana, it was super effective against the demons, which was why the heroes got it, so going into the Astral path may be the most effective way of getting myself out of this mess.

But then, I was not keen on that at all. I thought it conflicted with my sense of self.

I was a tree. I would like that being a tree was my identity. Well, I was a human, but by now I’d lived so long that my life as a tree had far exceeded that of my human life. Even if it felt brief because I spend so much of it sleeping.

How about spirit, then? Should I go into the entire path of spirits? Ghost, souls, and all. Well…I hadn’t actually found much joy in it.

There was nothing like watching a barren field being brought back to life. An empty plain transformed into a verdant forest. A volcano calmed into an oasis of giant life.

I thought I liked trees, flowers, bushes, and all of that. So nature was more in tune with me.

I thought I’d be a fool if I chose Astral because it was going to get me out of this shit. I’d get out of this eventually, with levels, and with more hero fragments. So I should play the long game. Choose something that I would like.

So I thought about it for a day or two, then selected.

[Domain of Nature selected.]

In an instant, I felt a spark and felt something rush to every tip of me. Every burned branch, every charred root.

[Domain Ability: Roots of Life. So long as you are rooted to the ground, the ground will nourish you, heal you, and debuff negative statuses and effects. Strength of domain ability proportionate to amount of roots connected to the ground.]

[One domain ability is unlocked every 10 levels. Next domain ability at level 160. Next sub-domain focus at level 200.]

[Demonic Curse is suppressed by your Domain Ability. Effect of demonic curse is reduced.]

My roots started to heal, even as the demonfire burned. It healed faster than it could burn, and within minutes, the demonic corruption was confined into the dedicated ‘tunnels’ used to expel the absorbed demonic energy. So, even though the top of my body and the very tips of the branches were now emitting demonic flames, the branches themselves were no longer burning.

I’d become…an oil refinery that flared up. Okay, that was lame. Maybe Hades, then?

About one day after the healing, I saw my valley once more. Then I felt the reconnection of everything in the valley. All my fellow surviving trees, flowers, bushes, herbal plants, and roots. My brethren.

It filled me with joy to hear them all again, their ambient voices in the background. I felt my energy flowing back to them and theirs back to me.

I surveyed my valley. Oh, how terrible it looked. My roots were holding back the demonic sludge from the back, the roots hardened.

There were still a few large ‘tunnels’ of demonic energies, but now, with my new [Domain], I could forcefully suppress those flames into smaller, much smaller ones. It was like a gas stove, and with my new powers I turned the knob, and the fires shrunk.

[Reconnecting to Trevor]

“…mAsTeR?” A familiar voice.

“Yes, Trevor.”

I felt what amounted to joy and relief, and immediately after that, the overlay returned to me. Things were dire. About twenty thousand or so trees were left in the area protected by my wall of roots. There were also about one thousand or so natural giant trees and about fifty or sixty subsidiary trees that survived. The Grand Mind Tree was damaged and would need some materials to repair. Most other structures were gone. New Freeka was gone, too.

I mean, I knew that, but seeing it again really hammered that reality in. What was once New Freeka was replaced with blocks of demonic sludge, by now mostly hardened. But there were gaps in the sludge, and the demonic hybrids would emerge from them.

“Welcome back, Master.” Trevor quickly found back his composure. “You’ve been away for twenty-one years.”

“I know. What happened?”

“The valley has been attacked by demonic creatures. Without access to you, Master, we were unable to use your delegated abilities and could only activate our own abilities. As such, our attempts at defending the valley have met with mixed results. We attempted to aid the survivors where we could, but with our limited skillsets, we couldn’t do much. And after ten or so years, our functions and awareness began to decay. Until…today.”

“I see.” That was when I finally zoomed back on the survivors. I hardly recognized them now, it had been so long, but then Trevor’s overlay started to populate my vision with whatever data that he collected so far.

And I saw Jura, Laufen, and Lausanne. It’d been so long.

“Glad to see the three of you alive.” They were clearly observing the changes in the valley, and when my telepathic voice reached them, all of them froze. Jura immediately knelt on the floor, Laufen just froze, and Lausanne made a fist pump.

“OH, YEAH. I KNEW IT WAS TREETREE,” she said. “I KNEW IT.”

Laufen and Jura both seemed unable to say a word.

Lausanne…well. She wasn’t young anymore. She looked like an adult. She was…thirty-seven? Oh my. She wasn’t a young teenager anymore, even if she spent twenty years holed up in this valley. They all looked really skinny, like they’d not been eating well. In fact, they all looked malnourished.

At that moment, I suddenly remembered that Jura had some villager skills that were useful for such situations. Skills he didn’t let me remove because they were nostalgic. Looked like he was right; he would’ve died without those skills, with how this environment seemed to lack sufficient meat sources. All they had been eating were fruits, vegetables, leaves.

“All of you look like shit.”

They didn’t answer. Well, except Lausanne. “Of course we do. We’re not exactly having a feast here! Now get us out of this valley!”

“Easier said than done, Lausanne.” I attempted to look further, beyond the valley, and couldn’t do so because all my subsidiary trees outside this cocoon were all destroyed. Maybe those further away survived, because I didn’t get a notification for Dimitree, or those that guarded the volcano, or those near Lilies, too, but that was for another day. I would need to reclaim the terrain from the demons in order to see further, but for now, let’s get the house in order.

I focused back on the valley. Three thousand or so survivors. Quite a bit of treefolks, some centaurs, some lizardpeople, some dwarves, too, and the rest elves.

Trevor was already busy at work, quickly reconnecting me to all the surviving trees in the valley. I felt their voices return, and at the same time, their power. The valley’s root walls hardened, and in an instant, a bit more life returned to the land. The sickly looking trees, deprived of sunlight, started to sprout more green leaves.

I used my roots to force the hole on top of our valley to open up, and bit by bit, a little more sunlight came in. Well, not exactly sunlight. It was a stormy firestorm out there.

“Oh wow.” The survivors admired the sunhole expanding overhead. It wasn’t sunlight, but finally, a bigger view of the sky. They’d been missing the skies.

“Bad news is whatever happened, happened to probably most of this continent,” I said to Jura, Lausanne, and Laufen. The survivors had gathered up and heard their announcement.

“TreeTree…it’s so weird to hear your voice after so long,” Lausanne said. “I’ve grown up now. I’m also level eighty now.”

“…yes.” And I hadn’t quite come to terms with that. She still felt like a young sixteen-year-old girl last I saw her. This wasn’t quite right.

I felt like I’d woken up from a twenty-year coma to discover the world had changed and I was still that same old fart. I would need some time to adjust to this new reality.

They all looked really skinny. Jura looked haggard. Famine in this environment had been exceptionally hard. Sucked even more that the demons were not edible. Unlike monsters, some of which were edible.

Wait. Level eighty? That meant she’d capped out like Jura? “Is that your cap?”

“…yes,” she said.

“How many of you hit your level caps?”

“Me. Uncle Jura, there…uh…Nero’s close, like level seventy-ish. And, uh…Roma’s level seventy-ish, too.” Well. In fact, about fifty of them were at level seventy to eighty, which was exceptionally high level for a band of survivors. “But in terms of class, I think me, Uncle Jura, and the captains have the best skills, since we have the familiars for extra power.”

That explained how they managed to stop the deaths after a while. With fifty level seventy to eighty, they could take on most high-level creatures. Even with just ordinary [Knight] or [Soldier] class, that was a very good place to be.

Twenty years.

I kinda felt like I just had a manga powerup timeskip. Only, well, it was these elves that had a big powerup.

“If all of you are so strong, why don’t you break out of this place?”

“Uh…the demons are strong, and there’s a lot of them. Like…every wave is a few hundred of them,” Lausanne said. “And that hole was our only exit. None of us wanted to break through the roots because we don’t want more monsters coming in if we fail.” She pointed at the hole.

Wave? And then I felt it, too. There was a crack in my wall of roots, and monsters emerged from it. Five hundred.

I was more than happy to unleash fury after being asleep for so long. A huge wave of root strikes, and all of the monsters crumbled.

“Where’s Horns?”

“Horns is in stasis, Master,” Trevor advised.

“What?”

And I saw him in one of the surviving subsidiary trees in the valley, his body severed in half, and left with his head. The subsidiary tree’s energies kept him alive and maintained him, but there wasn’t enough to heal him.

“I couldn’t communicate with the survivors to get their druids to help,” Trevor apologized.

“I see.”

I took a mental deep breath.

It was time to rebuild.

23

YEAR 106, LATTER HALF

Rebuilding. There was much to do.

I had a mission, and I wanted to return the forest to the continent. This devastation was foreign, alien, and it was my task to restore it.

Or at least, that was what the trees were telling me. A tree spirit’s role, along with many other similar creatures, was as the world’s fixers and balancers, the guys that cleaned up the court after a game, the cleaners and repairmen. I could feel the call of duty. A duty to the world, to fix it. To restore it to nature.

I wondered whether that was an effect of the Domain. I mean, just as I gained power over a domain, did it mean I also inherited some responsibilities to that Domain? It was strange, but I believed that the power imposed this sense of duty. I reckoned the heroes and the other tree spirits of this level felt it, too, that they had a calling. Why else would they go about their ways so single-mindedly?

I wondered what kind of duty I would have had I chosen Spirit or Astral. A duty to ensure the proper transmission of the dead? A duty to the stars? Or did Astral imply a more anti-demonic role, that I would have to play a bigger role in fighting demons?

Questions, of course. Stupid world. There needed to be a guidebook somewhere.

And the wisp was gone. “Wisp?” I couldn’t find him anywhere. No answer from him, either. I wanted to start using Eriz and Yvon, too, but that was stuck because the soul forge was out of commission.

[Soul Forge requires a power source. Due to the effects of the weakened curse and reduced sunlight, the minimum normal tree required to power the soul forge is calculated to be 100,000.]

“So…what’s going to happen?” Lausanne asked a few days after my awakening. I was still coming to terms with my new power and the realization that, well, there was this duty thing nagging me at the back of my head. With power came responsibility. Just as the energy of the earth nourished me and broke me free of this, it also imposed its desires on me.

I wondered if I went down the Spirit Path, maybe I didn’t even need other trees to power a soul forge. Oh well.

“I don’t know, Lausanne. I’ve been asleep.” I needed to rebuild my knowledge of the world. Twenty years may mean a lot had changed; at least, that was how it was in my world. In twenty years, we went from clunky landlines to smartphones. I wondered what the surviving heroes brought to this world.

“That’s…true. But we’ve been trapped in this place for twenty years, too. So we’re not much help.”

“Well, I suppose first things first, we need to get ourselves out of this hole. This isn’t a good place to be, and we need contact with the outside world.”

“How’d you plan to do that?”

“I don’t know.” I mean, I really didn’t. I needed to see what worked and what didn’t. I had some idea of what already worked, in the sense that my roots did manage to block out demonic corruption, so I wondered whether it was possible to push back at the corruption with more roots, kind of like using my roots as the blade of the bulldozer and pushing the corruption back.

I also needed to examine my own state. My [curse] was suppressed by my roots of life, but what did suppressed actually mean? Was I going to experience some kind of degradation, or would the curse flare up?

But the survivors, they felt a sense of calmness that’d been away for a long time. It seemed the entire beetle army had vanished after Horns was in stasis, so they didn’t have help from the beetles, either. Now, the horde of beetles returned, no longer in hibernation.

Horns still needed a lot of healing. It’d take a few months to rebuild his damaged body, but it wouldn’t be a problem.

The demons came again. More of them.

The demons now felt the full brunt of my stronger [demonic suppression aura], no longer hindered by the curse. And they crumbled quickly. These strange, hybrid things. Some were less susceptible to the aura’s effects, but with the beetles back in large numbers, it wasn’t much. We only had to focus on the larger creatures that had the strength of a demon general or so.

I could now house the survivors in the [secret hideout] and the various subsidiary trees’ [external rooms] and [tree lodges], a much-welcomed change from their basic homes, and also, I had beds! Beds that were stored in my [secret hideout] and various other supplies previously stockpiled in there were now available again.

Still, among the survivors, some of them resisted. “We can take care of ourselves. We did so for twenty years!”

It was understandable. For me, these twenty years feel like a dream; it passed by so quickly, it felt like two or three weeks, maybe a month of solitude and confinement for me. But for these guys, they lived twenty years out here, fighting the demons all the time. Life had been miserable for the past twenty years, but they’d made it through without me.

Why did they need me?

Most were more than happy to return to the comfort of proper beds and a safe environment.

“Tell me all you know about the monsters you’ve been fighting over the past twenty years. What abilities do they have, what are they like, when do they appear, any weaknesses?” I asked.

Those who frequently led the fights—Lausanne, Jura, the captains, and many others—all gathered around and talked about what they experienced. The demonic creatures were like half demon, half monster, and the larger monsters had two hearts, one demonic, one monster, and they had to take both of them down to kill it, else they would regenerate. These demons also retained the ability to agglomerate themselves and form a larger creature, something less powerful than a walker, but it was probably due to size limitations within the valley itself.

They had mini-projectile energy blasts, also similar to walkers, and the more humanoid forms tended to have crude weapons.

They had no tactics, other than a strange ability to sense and track them. Stealth abilities were not effective. They had heads, but their heads were actually just decorations. Chopping their heads off did nothing, because the heart was the engine of the monster. The part that resembled a head was nothing more than an arm. The eyes on the monster were also similarly useless, and blinding those eyes merely disabled the beam abilities.

In short, the parts that resembled a regular monster were there because the ‘template’ required those sorts of appendages and parts, but they were not critical to the monster’s ‘life.’ If it had one.

Other than that, they’d mostly taken life day by day. Living in the moment.

Monsters.

Unlike demons, their corpses lingered around a bit longer but were entirely inedible because their innards were contaminated with demonic juices. Demonic bodies decayed significantly faster than monsters, so it was quite difficult to harvest any of their body parts for materials or equipment.

The monsters had large spikes, horns, and tentacle-like features. Had they not decayed and could be preserved, maybe they could be made into strong weapons. But like wood, these ‘organic’ materials needed treatment to last or they decayed quickly, and no one had enough time or survived demons to even research it.

Well, except these guys. One of the surviving war leaders, out of sheer boredom while trapped in a valley, soaked the small remains of a demon in olive oil and noticed it didn’t decay. Preserved demonic appendages in olive oil.

“Fascinating thing.” I observed the specimens shown by that seventy-year-old elf. They did have a surplus of olive oil since some of the olive shrubs survived. They cooked with it, seasoned their vegetables with it, preserved chunks of fruits with it, and this one elf had the inspiration to preserve demonic remains.

My inner biolab got to work quickly.

[Preserved Demonic Parts - olive oil used to significantly slow and stop the decay of demonic matter.]

“Yeah. I thought it was interesting, but I only worked with small parts of the demon.”

“Did you gain a class for it?” I reckoned there should be [fermenter] or [preserver] or something like that.

“I didn’t, ’cause I’m already capped out at level sixty [soldier] and level twenty [villager].”

Ah. “A shame. I would’ve liked a bigger sample. To observe demons in their native state without decay.” I did recall having captured hellhounds, and those were very interesting. But here I had other demonic specimens, and these were even half-demonic hybrids. So they had a lot of value to be understood.

Even the survivors were very interesting. It seemed twenty years of solitary confinement had also changed their physical appearance. Their ordinarily fair, pinkish skin had now turned almost gray. I wondered whether it was Vitamin D deficiency; perhaps elves, creatures of the forest, needed more sunlight than others, so lacking sunlight, their skin lost much of their color?

The treefolk seemed to suffer the effects of being trapped in the valley a little harder than the rest. The treefolk at first glance seemed the same, but they remarked their bodies felt weaker, more sickly, and the effects of little to no sunlight were especially pronounced on the quality of their inner structures. They were more prone to fall sick, and a few had died from sickness.

Some of the centaurs suffered from muscular degradation; they were used to having large areas to roam, like horses, so confinement into a valley meant their lower body parts became weak. Those with certain unique skills like [tiptop condition] or [peak performance] were able to remain physically fit, but for the rest of them, they had to resort to all kinds of exercises to maintain their health.

The dwarves, well, they seemed perfectly fine. Apparently, being in a valley trapped underground wasn’t something uncommon for dwarves, who remarked it sounded quite like being trapped in a mining accident. A few of them even had skills that made surviving in such an environment comfortable. I thought one dwarf probably had some kind of ale-making ability that he wasn’t sharing with others.

But oh well. It was something to examine, for sure, but I wanted to get out. My duty called to me.

And I had to work with some of the survivors that were still a bit skeptical of me; some of them wondered whether the flames on my head were signs of demonic influence, and they didn’t buy my [curse] explanation all that easily. Still, they were obeying my requests, but they were guarded. I could hear their conversations.

They must have forgotten I could do so since, for them, the memories of twenty years ago were probably hazy.

So, after a bit of information gathering, I decided to try pushing back at the sludge. It was a strange thing, this sludge. It had all hardened now, and yet monsters could spawn in it. How? The sludge itself created them?

Anyway, I pushed. At one corner, furthest away from where the survivors made their home, I pushed. The corruption from outside was strong, but now that I was awake, I liked to think I was stronger. At least, in this area.

The pushing worked. I pushed back at hardened sludge, and it buckled. It bent. And I kept pushing. Each time I pushed, my roots moved in to form a protective barrier. The protective barrier didn’t work every time, though, the roots sometimes would run into an aquifer or something, and it would squeeze out a bit of water, and those leaked through the gaps in the roots.

“Uh…water?” The survivors were watching with great interest from the safety of their treehouses.

Well, it made sense that there were pockets of water in the ground. I mean, I was sure rain or precipitation or condensation continued even if the demon king corrupted the land.

I pushed, and my ability [root tunnels] triggered to form a wall. But they were unfortunately porous and water could leak through.

“Aeon, please stop,” one of the survivors said. “The water is still coming in.”

Ah. The water was still leaking through the root walls. Why? Maybe I should push upward instead?

So I started to push my roots upward and outward, in a way, like a stadium with movable roofs. It was already partly open from my earlier efforts, but I stopped midway as I realized more of the firestorm was getting into the valley.

“Maybe just one side, Aeon,” Lausanne remarked. “Would it be possible for a tunnel or path that leads up to the surface?”

Indeed. That was what I tried over the next few days. Strategically, a tunnel would be better. It would be far easier to defend if anything massive came around rather than an open path. The sludge became a natural wall that hid this valley. I should keep that strategic advantage.

So a tunnel.

A second attempt. Hopefully I didn’t bump into pools of water trapped underground.

I pushed upward this time, again, from where the previous tunnel started.

Unlucky!

There was more water, the tunnel ran into a pool of water, and the water rushed down the tunnel like rainwater in a storm drain, spilling into that segment of the valley.

“Well, at least we’re not there.” Some of the elves, well, if the makeshift houses were there, they’d be in trouble. Eventually, the flow of water from whatever pool I bumped into, slowed down significantly.

There were small trickles of water that seeped through the tunnel walls, and those trickles turned into a small stream of water down the tunnel and into the valley. Unlike the first surge, it was just a small trickle, so no big waves there.

I pushed on. We were quite deep, and so I had to keep pushing. The angle couldn’t be too steep or it would be useless as a path.

It took a few weeks of constantly pushing, dealing with the monsters that appeared from the sludge, and eventually the tunnel was done. A reinforced path to the surface.

24

YEAR 107

The surface was hellish. More monsters roamed on this strange, apocalyptic land. Jura and the group that went out and explored it the first time remarked it resembled nothing. It was just as strange as a place that’d been thoroughly corrupted by hex.

The surface was not empty. There were many different demonic monsters that roamed the terrain, some of which they’d met in their twenty years of battle.

And there were stationary monsters.

That was what they assumed at first: stationary monsters that looked every bit like a monster, and they didn’t move. But they attacked things that approached them, or emitted poison. This was entirely new to the elves, because, well, these monsters couldn’t move, and they were stuck underground. There wasn’t a way for the two groups to ever meet.

Until now.

But, on closer observation, they noticed some of these monsters had branches. Like trees. They thought they were horns at first, like how antler horns resembled some branches.

It was reddish leaves on one subtype of demonic hybrids that finally made some of them go, “Aha!” Hybrid demon-plants.

If there were hybrid animals and monsters, surely there were hybrid plants!

This fact was extremely interesting to me, and I had a million and one questions.

Like, why did they exist? Magic? Divine powers? If divine creation was the answer, why were they created as hybrids and not pure monsters or trees? Or did it mean the influence of the terrain was able to interfere with the process of divine creation?

Or were these creatures products of the demonic corruption, that the demonic corruption borrowed from the land and thus created these hybrids?

Then there was the question of whether they were ‘trees’ in the sense that could I, with my powers as a Tree Spirit, hold any influence, communicate with, and control them? Were these tree-like demonic things actually trees? I thought they might be part tree, just like how the demonic creatures that attacked the valley were part monster.

And how did they exist? How were they powered? Did they produce seeds or fruits? Any chance those were edible, or poisonous and thus could be weaponized? Did they have abilities or powers, like certain species of trees? Could they be made into items like how certain trees were harvested for timber? Was this their ideal environment? Did they respond well to different environments? What did they consume?

Did they need sunlight? Did they need water? Was that why there were puddles and pools of water underground? Did they have roots? I didn’t recall encountering any, but was that because their roots were shallow?

“Master.” Trevor’s voice broke through my deep contemplation. “A decision. The survivors have been waiting.”

I didn’t realize it, but I spent a month just studying the few demonic samples brought back by the scouts. It was just that fascinating to me. “Waiting for what?”

“They are asking whether you can start creating trees on the surface.”

“Why?”

“Oh, they wanted somewhere to stay outside the valley. Somewhere…safe.”

“When did I agree to this?”

“You didn’t. I recall Master ignored them the first time when you were studying the demonic specimens.”

“I did?” I didn’t even realize that they were talking to me. When did it happen? That was strange. Did I somehow ignore everything when I focused on the demonic tree samples?

“Yes,” Trevor said quite matter-of-factly.

The hybrid tree samples were too fascinating. Or did I somehow tune them out? “I don’t recall even having the conversation… Never mind.”

The terrain and the demonic corruption took the form of a sludge. The demonic energy passed through the sludge, kind of like a current of electricity travelling through a conductive liquid. It also radiated it like a radioactive material. According to the elves, some of them with the gift of darksight could see a faint glow in the sludge.

So the process of clearing the land meant either removing and pushing away the sludge or neutralizing it. What I had been doing so far was a mix. By pushing it away with my roots like a natural bulldozer, my main body acted as a filter and cleaner, using my roots to absorb the demonic sludge and the volatile, combustible mana that came with it.

It was slow. Because I was the bottleneck. Back to the oil pollution analogy, there was a limit of how much ‘oil’ I could process per day, and against the constantly expanding oil, I felt like I was in a game of Candy Crush fighting against a field of ever-expanding chocolate. Or like Alpha Centauri where the native vegetation was encroaching on my forests. Come to think of it, this was very much like Alpha Centauri. Alien creatures attacking what it perceived as enemies? The only difference was, well, we’re the natives, and they were the aliens.

Were the demons colonists?

I’d gotten sidetracked again. Oil analogy. I had a processing rate, and the terrain itself imposed a minimum on me to ‘process,’ else the root walls wouldn’t hold. Every time the strength of the root walls increased, I needed to process less, because the walls could hold back more of the corrupting demon mana and sludge. The walls were like an oil silo, then, and it had a capacity.

So could I increase my processing capacity now that I was back to consciousness?

Could my [Giant Attendant Trees] play that role to a lesser capacity? I would have to design the Giant Attendant Tree’s available [customizable rooms] specifically for the function to have much higher self-healing ability and demonic absorbent abilities.

* * *

The two heroes were still there.

“Hi.”

“Oh. You’re back. You must be bored to come and find us again.”

“Well, yes. I’m free now.” After I said that, I instantly regretted it.

“Oh, nice. Can you help us?”

“Not sure. I don’t even know where you are.”

“I think I do,” Simone said. “There’s a red, crystal-like thing somewhere near the demon king site. I think we’re there. Or at least our souls are imprisoned there. Free us.”

“Huh.” Fuck. Did I just get myself into a quest? “No.”

I felt a massive headache (ahem, I didn’t have a head, but yeah) then, like something trying to force me to say yes. I resisted. Fuck this. It was probably divine in nature, because the calling of duty generally radiated from my roots.

“Why not?” they asked.

That pain was getting stronger, but I pulled the energy from within me to resist it. I even pulled the energy from the nearby trees and the earth.

[Domain has resisted divine influence.]

“I’m no hero.” And fuck, did the gods just try to mind-control me? Since when did the gods directly attempt to influence things? I thought they weren’t supposed to do that.

25

YEAR 108

The important equation was how much demonic sludge we could process versus how much demonic sludge was expanding in the area. As long as my processing rate was higher than the sludge, we were taking back territory from the hybrid demons.

We were doing so very, very carefully.

Because, well, we lost a few people when some of the demonic monsters exploded. The forest of demon trees had a few types, and these demontrees actually fed and helped sustain the firestorm, because we’d discovered some of them spit out some kind of flammable gas that got ignited super easily. Another kind of tree was just perpetually smoking, and it constantly released dark smoke like an ancient super-polluting smokestack. The smoke-trees created so much smoke that it made a perpetual layer of dark smog that hung over the entire area and caused the lack of sunlight.

The exploding gas trees added to the mess and created areas where the gas might just suddenly ignite and blow up, and yet those trees were quite resistant to the effects of the explosion.

Not a pleasant environment to be in.

So, slow and steady. Thanks to the microclimate generated by these kinds of demonic trees, the weather was perpetually hot and stormy. The effects of the seasons were subdued.

We reclaimed the area immediately around our valley and the hole, mostly by me pushing back at the sludge. It was a long process; in one week, I could clear and clean the area the size of a football field, but the speed slowed the further away it was, because a larger area meant an increase in the overall root surface area with the demonic sludge, so it took up more of my demonic sludge processing ability.

In order for the expansion to continue, it was paramount—crucial—that the Giant Attendant Trees were able to add to the demonic sludge-processing capacity.

Else, the rate of expansion would stop the moment I hit the sludge-processing limit. Unless my roots got stronger.

It was just the math of the matter.

* * *

During this time, the survivors also brought a lot more of the demon tree specimens back to me. It was a slow process, and my ability to assist was limited because the demonic sludge essentially blocked my roots from interfering. I had to reclaim the territory from the demons for my abilities to work in that area.

It was quite difficult to bring the specimens back, of course. They were, after all, spawned of demonic matter, and the survivors abhorred the idea initially. But I just convinced a few of them to play a part, and that was all I needed. The survivors were not all uniform; some were more cooperative than the others.

I studied them like an obsessed scientist.

I wanted to know everything about them, and I wished I had a soul forge to look at them in far greater detail. For now, I would have to make do with analyzing them with my [biolab] and hope to understand these demonic plants.

Like the demonic hound, its inner structure was dry. And instead of a spring, there was a barren one. When I looked at the structure of the plant specimens, they had odd flames throughout the entire space. Every now and then, there would be flares.

How did it get the skill? Was that like some kind of basic racial or species ability, if it didn’t have a soul spring and the stones that signify the skills around it?

Clearly, this exposed one flaw of my understanding of the soul system. Sure, if you gained levels, the skills you gained were around the soul spring. But for these demons, they didn’t seem to be gaining levels, and they also didn’t seem to have a soul. They resembled automatons, machines, and yet they were not.

So, where were the skills? Or was it something elsewhere? Or if they were some extraterrestrials like the Earth heroes, then they must have had a mind somewhere that helped them to do things. Or was it biological, in the sense that their abilities were not born out of skill but out of their physical design?

Again, the flaw of my understanding was quite obvious. My [biolab] allowed me to look at their inner structures, if they had one. This worked well with the natives of this world, since they had souls. But with demons, they didn’t seem to have one, and using this [biolab] to examine them, in hindsight, was clearly an incomplete picture of the whole story.

But!

I did know that when I flooded their bodies with my mana, like with the demon walker, and prior to that, with the hellhounds and Alexis, I was able to take control of them. So it was either this ‘soul’ thing existed as a higher-order control system, and the demon’s base structure was on a lower tier…or something. I didn’t know what.

I needed a living specimen.

These dead demonic trees were not good enough.

But the survivors were not able to capture a demon while alive. They did not have the strength to do so, and it was too high risk for them.

“You could dig and reclaim the area around a demon tree and then, uh, capture it that way?” Lausanne suggested. In short, encircle and siege.

Which was exactly what I did. Over twenty years, these demon trees had massively proliferated and they occupied huge chunks of the terrain. And it wasn’t hard to find many of these demontrees near our valley.

It took a bit of time, but essentially I would go around the target, and then once I trapped it, I would spawn a [Giant Attendant Tree] next to it and pull the targeted demontree into the [biolab] inside my tree.

And soon I had live specimens in my labs.

* * *

The survivors had been trying to message any nearby civilizations, but they had no idea who survived, so all their messages so far bounced. They wanted to try cities that were farther away, too, but those weren’t getting anywhere thanks to the interference from the demonic sludge. The survivors were in a meeting.

“We know which direction the demon king came from,” one survivor presented, and he pointed. “So, logically, if we head in the other direction, we will eventually find lands untouched by the corruption. I don’t believe the demon king destroyed the entire world.”

“Why not? We don’t know whether anything survived!”

Of course I did. Five heroes survived that demon king and went on to beat the next two demon kings, too! Surely, there were survivors.

“Still, I propose a squad of us go on an expedition.”

“We can’t even get far without losing people, and you want an expedition?”

“Yes! I’m pretty sure we’re not at the center of things, so we must be closer to the edge. And beyond the edge must be normalcy! Don’t you all want that?”

“Hmm…that’s true.” Lausanne nodded. “I agree with it.”

Jura shook his head. “I prefer we play it safe, ask Aeon to clear a path for us toward that direction.”

“It’ll take too long,” Lausanne said. And some of the other survivors agreed. “We need to get in touch with civilization as fast as we can. If it’s up to Aeon, it’ll be years before we get there. You know it’s true, Uncle.”

“But it is safe. Think about it, you want to face all the monsters out there? We’ve seen so many.”

“We’ve faced them before,” a survivor said. He too was one of the capped-out fighters. Level seventy-five. “And we’re high level. We can survive this.”

“Have you guys actually thought this through? Where are you going to live? What are you going to eat? The terrain is not what it was.”

“Better than being trapped in here for the past twenty years, Jura. Some of us have decided we want to see civilization again. It’s worth a shot.”

Jura frowned.

Lausanne agreed with that group. “Uncle. He’s right. We can’t stay here forever, and the fact is we need to rebuild the lines of communication. Get help. Find some people who’d be able to get us out of this mess. The town is no more, and the people deserve better.”

“At what risk? You can’t protect all of them.”

“But staying here as it is isn’t a way to live. We’ve been here for decades!”

“Aeon’s getting there.”

“Aeon’s going to take forever,” a survivor said. “No disrespect, but Aeon works on different timescales. We’d be having kids before we are out of this place. It’s been more than two years since Aeon woke up, and we’re still just clearing up the surrounding area.”

“We’re making slow, defensible progress. We can protect this place.”

“It’s too slow. Two years, Jura. For some of the centaurs and dwarves, it’s a big chunk of their lives. I know it means less to the elves. But they’ve already spent twenty years here, and another two years since. Let us go.”

Jura frowned. This was a common issue, in the fact that people of different life expectancies had different perceptions of the value of time. Like, two years for an elf that could live to five hundred to eight hundred years was different from a centaur or dwarf that usually lived up to one hundred fifty to two hundred.

Jura wasn’t too happy, but the survivors were split into those too afraid to take the risk and were willing to stay here, and those who believed it was worth a shot to get back their normal lives by making a trek across the hostile terrain, with their warriors protecting them. So Jura walked away.

“A small group is easier to protect. We have enough preserved food and our familiars can continue to produce fruits,” one of the survivors said.

Lausanne nodded. She asked for some beetles to accompany them, but the demonic sludge’s interference meant their operating range was limited. Go farther and they’d just shut down.

A day after they had that discussion, Lausanne came and talked to me.

“Aeon.”

“Yes?” I was still studying the demonic trees at that time.

“I’m going to leave the valley.”

“I know.” I was still processing the matter. I didn’t know how to react. I mean, I just woke up. Okay, ‘just’ was relative, because to me, it felt like I just woke up, but the survivors had a point; it was two years for them. Two wasted years, in a way. For two years, the world zoomed past them, and I could see why they wanted to rejoin society again.

“Are you…mad, Aeon?” she asked.

“You used to call me…TreeTree.” I wasn’t sure what made me say that.

“Ah…I’m already thirty-nine, Aeon.” She looked a bit embarrassed. “It’s…been a long time.”

For me, I felt awkward. In my mind, she was still a child. I felt like it was yesterday that I saw her as a teenager, and now, at thirty-nine, she was pretty much an elven adult. I couldn’t accept that. No, I must accept that. People changed. Everyone changed. It was foolish of me to expect anyone to stay the same for years or, what’s more, decades.

“We’re always here, Master,” Trevor added. “We have gained levels, but we are the same.” Well, except them. And my fellow trees, who were as eternal as I was.

“Well, this was something I’ve been hoping to do, and I’ve waited years for it,” she said. “Remember when I used to say I wanted to visit the other spirits?”

Ah, yes. It was just yesterday for me. Really.

“Well, I don’t want it anymore.”

“Huh?”

“I had so many years to think about stuff,” Lausanne went on. This was…nostalgic. I recalled my earlier days in Freeka, when it was a small village, when the elves used to always sit down next to me and talk about their affairs. About how they felt about life in general. How Casshern used to make comments about the younger elves, or even Laufen then, about her worries of childbirth.

Lausanne paused a moment. She was in my secret hideout, the place that was once her old room. Nothing had changed in the room, but she had. She touched the things that she once used.

“Twenty-two years, Aeon. In that long period of time, I felt broken. I felt robbed of my opportunity to travel the world. I was angry, Aeon. Angry. So mad that the world did this, that our world, this stupid, stupid world, would be so self-destructive. That demons constantly came for us, and for what? We don’t even know why we are here, serving as fodders and decorations for the heroes and demons’ eternal conflict. It didn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t.”

“But there wasn’t much I could do about the demons and heroes. Not with my powers. So after my anger, I grieved for my lost time. I felt sad. I felt lost. I wondered what the purpose of living was, Aeon. Have you ever felt like that? Wondering why do you even exist in the world, like…why was I born into this world? I wanted reason. I wanted to know. I wanted to see a bigger picture.”

Well…honestly, for me, it was an accident. One that I accepted quite willingly, which was extremely strange in hindsight. How did I accept it so easily?

“Maybe it’s different for you, because you’re this great tree spirit that’s always been here. But for me, I felt lost. I have this…power. Your gift. But why? Why did the fates conspire for me to receive such gifts and power? And yet it’s insufficient in the face of such great evils. So I wallowed in that misery for a few years, every day just fighting the damned demonic monsters that came for our lives.”

Okay…

“But I eventually moved past that grief and into acceptance. I’ve accepted that I’ve lost twenty-two years being here in the valley. So I spent time just honing my skills. Even if our levels are capped out, it’s still possible to upgrade our skills to be stronger versions. And now my goal is different. I just want to see the world and appreciate what’s out there. I mean…I’ve accepted that I’m not a hero.”

What? Okay, how was that related?

“Surviving this disaster, then hitting my level cap. I realized that I wasn’t meant to be a hero and that, well, life’s not that great. You know, before this whole thing, I used to think I was special. I mean, Mom told me I was special, and everyone treated me like I was special because I had your special powers, and I even believed I was special. But I’ve come to accept that I am not that special. Special, but not much.”

“Well, that’s not a bad place to be.”

“Yeah. It isn’t. I wanted more at a point, but I believe it’s not really what I actually want. So…Aeon. Uhm, TreeTree. I will leave with the group that wants to make the journey. I had to have this conversation with you, because I recalled how well you treated me and all these special powers and blessings you’ve given me. I’m leaving, and I want to thank you.”

Huh.

“Thank you, Aeon. For all you’ve done for me so far. But it is time I go out there and find my own place in the world. It may not be much, but I’d like to think I’m like a bird. Finally freed of this cage, I should try to fly away. Maybe I might return, or maybe I may just drop by, but I have to take this chance.”

I felt…betrayed. And yet I felt that feeling of betrayal was wrong. I was a tree, and it was normal that animals occasionally stopped by, and maybe in the larger scheme of things, everyone was just a transient contact for the tree.

She waited.

I didn’t know how to feel. Was this reality for a tree?

It didn’t feel that long ago that I thought she was going to be loyal to me! This was betrayal! BETRAYAL!

Or was it? I mean, why did I feel like I owned her? I didn’t. Even if I helped her and watched her grow up, did that mean I owned her? Was I like a parent that watched a child grow up, and now that the child had grown up, the parent refused to let go?

But if I lost even her, then who could I trust?

I felt frustrated. And it was then some quotes from my human days came.

“If you love someone, set them free.”

So corny, and yet something told me this was the truth. Strange. I had trust issues, clearly. Was that why my relationships as Matt failed? How did I trust her?

“Aeon?” she asked. I thought she waited for half an hour already.

I inwardly sighed. I shouldn’t be like this. Was this me being upset and possessive? I was a freaking tree, damn it. Shouldn’t I be more magnanimous? What would Treebeard do? What would Grandmother Willow do?

“Ah. Go, Lausanne. It is fine.”

Even though I said those words, it felt difficult. I didn’t quite accept that time moved so slowly for the rest of them and so quickly for me. It was strange and uncomfortable to think others had far different expectations of the world and their life and that I couldn’t expect loyalty from them. At least, not on a longer term.

Was this why Lilies was a lot more ‘big picture’ about things? They weren’t attached to individuals, and maybe because it was like that whole elf thing in The Lord of the Rings: we were doomed to watch those we loved grow old and die before us. Was this our fate for living so long?

“Are you sure, Aeon?” Lausanne asked.

No, I wasn’t sure. Why couldn’t I let go? I didn’t own her! I wasn’t even her parent, but then, I had showered her with powers and care. Was it because my investment, my sunk cost, that I cared that now she was pulling away? If so, I should’ve seen it coming.

So I decided to speak to Laufen, her mom. Twenty years had passed, but she’d aged only slightly.

“Lausanne is finally leaving.”

“Yes, Aeon. It’s something I’ve always expected to happen. I remember they used to say that young adult elves have a calling to see the world, to see more of it. It’s something they must do to get it out of their system. I remember I used to do it, then I met Ricola and settled down.”

Oh. An elven thing. Was it like humans back home, where parents kicked their children out once they turned twenty-one?

“I hear human adults have that, too, though like us, it is stronger in some than the rest.”

“And you are not sad or worried or, well, disappointed?”

“Children must grow up, and Lausanne has been talking of this day for many years. Trapped in this valley for so long, it is quite a waste for her. Besides, how would she find a mate if she doesn’t visit the other elven cities? I’m sure I’ll still be worried sick, though.”

Trapped? But they were here with me! Okay, that was a fairly selfish and ignorant statement. I was a tree. I was a freaking one-hundred-year-old tree. I should act like one.

Lausanne was still in her room. I decided to just calm myself down and, well, do some breathing exercise. For a tree, that meant actually taking in the air and making oxygen, I supposed. I had to let her go, or should I force her to stay?

“Would you ever consider staying?”

Lausanne paused very briefly. “Maybe after I’m done?”

26

YEAR 109

Just like that, she was gone. A group of four hundred of them went on a quest to find the nearest surviving civilization. They packed up after months of preparing and finally set out when the weather was slightly less hostile.

I didn’t know when I’d see her again, or ever. I recalled those who left me usually died. But oh well. A choice had been made, and she had to live with it.

I didn’t know what lay out there, but maybe she would reach the edge way faster than I would. I was constrained by the terrain; I couldn’t move forward without clearing the demonic corruption that contaminated my path.

I tried slowly and worked to upgrade my [Giant Attendant Trees] so that they could help absorb and process the demonic corruption. It was a very long process and not very successful, so I went back to researching the demonic trees.

I had two main ideas of getting myself out of this place, and they overlapped in a way.

One was what I was doing presently: dispersing and processing the demonic mana using my super-high demonic resistance. Problem was this hinged on me having a high-level natural healing and demonic resistance from my hero shards, which was unique to my main body, and the benefits were only partly shared by my other trees. I wanted to upgrade the various healing and endurance abilities of my subordinate trees such that they had higher demonic resistance, better base healing, and toughness such that they could play my current role to a lesser extent.

To use an analogy, it was as if I and my other trees were made of water, and the demonic corruption was fire. Right now, my other trees couldn’t withstand the fire, so they just burned down before putting out any of the water. I had a finite amount of water I could produce, and the water I produced was used to fight the fires, kind of like what a fireman did facing a wildfire. If I had more water than fire at the boundary, I could expand that boundary. If not, my boundary would shrink. It was quite like fighting a perpetually growing wildfire, come to think of it.

So I must have stronger, tougher trees that could also produce that ‘water’ to help fight the fire. This restored the land to what it was, too.

The other area of focus was something a little more inspired by my recent fascination with these demonic hybrid plants.

If I could not expand the safe areas and recover the corrupted lands, could I coexist with it such that my trees and roots all gained an ability to grow on these corrupted lands, instead of being blocked by it? It was a difficult endeavor, and my initial attempts at studying the live demon-trees were quite good.

I would need to figure out how to either be able to control the demonic trees or assimilate some of their natural attributes and qualities, which could then allow me to enhance my existing trees to better operate in the demonic terrain.

Going back to that earlier analogy, instead of looking at fire as the problem, I was attempting to create plants that could operate in fire or absorb fire instead of fighting it. Far harder than it sounded, since I was essentially attempting to graft demonic biology onto my trees.

But I thought it was possible. The fact that hybrids could exist meant I could create hybrids. Certainly possible in theory.

This idea, of course, was hugely opposed by the trees in the valley. They abhorred it. I could sense their rejection of the idea and that earlier duty to just restore the land to what it was before.

Duty. Responsibility.

The more it was imposed on me, the more I resisted it. Or was this just me after I woke up? I recalled being sucked in by the powers and influences of my fellow trees. Did the Domain make me more aware of all these influences and yet, at the same time, attempt to influence me?

So strange. It was a duty: restore and clear the world of demonic corruption.

Which I did. I mean, I resisted the thought of being told to do things, but I understood the principles of it, and so I did it anyway.

I supposed I was like a petulant child that hated to be told to do something but knew that it needed to be done, so I did it. How immature. I was a hundred-year-old tree. Now wasn’t the time to mentally regress and act like a child.

There was now a sizable area that’d been cleared of demonic influence around my valley, so much so that some of the survivors were now moving outside to live there. Once the corruption was cleared, the weather too quickly returned to normal. It seemed the corruption and the demonic vegetation did generate a microclimate, as predicted.

It was about as large as the former territory of New Freeka, so a semblance of normalcy had returned to the area.

Yet the corruption stretched far and wide, and there were more demonic monsters to attend to.

Every day we would be attacked, and our beetles would be at the forefront of the battle. Luckily, Horns was back in business after a few months of recovery. And he’d been incredibly chirpy.

“It’s totally awesome,” Horns said. “All I do all day is fight all these demons! I can’t level up anymore, but still, it’s awesome! I love fighting!”

I didn’t realize I’d created a combat maniac in Horns.

“Master, perhaps more Artificial Souls will help with the reclamation of the corrupted lands. We do produce some mana, or if some of us are dedicated mana-producing trees…”

I had been drawing mana from all the normal trees anyway, but they were not as effective against the demonic corruption as my own. I was guessing that was because my mana had anti-demonic properties.

What I did need was a massive mana cauldron. I pulled the mana to my main body and attempted to mix it. Maybe I could infuse the anti-demon qualities into the mana generated by normal trees. It was sufficient, previously, because I had the advantage. With the demon walkers, with Alexis, I could constantly draw on more trees to overwhelm whatever creature.

But the changed terrain limited the number of trees and cut off my connection to the volcano and the ley line, two of my bigger sources of mana. Now, I needed to squeeze a bit more efficiency and performance out of every drop of mana, to do more with less. Thankfully, I’d also been able to get my soul forge back online now that the surrounding area had been cleared of demonic corruption and replaced with a thick forest.

And so I experimented with mana in my main body, just like how I used to do it with my soul forge. I added star mana to the mix, too. I still only had three hundred star mana, but mixing star mana, my own mana, and the mana produced by the normal trees, the effectiveness of pushing back the demonic energy increased by a few multiples. Good enough to keep the expansion going.

We had not heard anything from the group that left, but it was fine. I thought it’d be years before we got news from them.

Food-wise, as the forest started to reclaim the land, the gods started to work their magic and regular monsters and animals started appearing again. I mean, it was really just divine spawning ability.

And with regular monsters and animals, meat started to return to the survivors’ diets. A welcome relief, really, and the remaining survivors now looked a lot better.

Although I felt sad that so many decided that they had enough of being here for over twenty years, I supposed I should then focus on those who remained instead. After all, although four hundred had left, three thousand still remained!

That was a big amount of people who’d decided to stick with me rather than go away.

With meat, proper lodging, and a bit more space and time for activities, the survivors were, of course, much happier.

“Well…why didn’t you leave, Laufen? Go with your daughter?” I asked Laufen one day.

“Nah. I’m too old for that.”

“As an elf, you still look really young. Elven agelessness is amazing. You should be able to go.”

“I’ll just hold Lausanne back from her adventure. It’s her coming-of-age moment. Me as her mom, I should just stay out of her way. She’d hate me if I tagged along. Besides, I am really quite content being protected and safe!”

“Really?”

“It’s better for her that I stay here, where I am safe. It’ll put her at ease that her mom is under your protection. She wouldn’t have made the decision to go if you weren’t around.”

Hmm, true. I supposed I’d become the safe harbor for her to come back to.

There were few children among the survivors. The young that grew up didn’t think of having kids, not in this hostile environment. Some did, of course. Perhaps an accident, or perhaps they didn’t care, but the more rational of them chose not to. It was a tough choice. I imagined it was like, well, how would you even know if you and your family would even have food or proper shelter? But I guessed that was also partly due to elves, centaurs being more rational than humans, who would just fuck and get pregnant regardless of the situation. It was more draining on their body, perhaps?

Many were now finally considering it, convinced by the recent three years of safety, comfort, and stability, and many approached me for advice on whether they should have kids.

I had yet to study the effects of pregnancy between different types of species. Would I then be the first pregnancy doctor? I mean, surely the effects of childbirth of different species were worth studying, and there was probably no worldwide compilation of various herbal and traditional remedies and therapies.

I digressed.

But I said sure. I would support and feed their young should they fail to.

It was not much anyway.

* * *

“Are you here to gloat?” the two heroes asked.

“Not really. I came to talk, as usual. With the demon, if possible.”

“WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT?” They instantly turned to the demonic voice.

“Tell me something. What would make you stop coming to our world?”

“GOD. MOTHER. PLANET. STOP. THEM.”

“Stop the gods. Kill the gods. Sounds impossible to me.” I shrugged. I was a tree; killing the gods didn’t sound like something I could do. “Then why do you come every ten years?”

“ANCIENT. MAGIC. RULES.”

Oh. Okay. There was a magical rule behind it?

Well, I didn’t even know whether the words of this demon could be trusted. It could’ve lied to me.

I mean, we must assume a demon or evil creature had no incentive to tell the truth, but let’s consider that if it spoke the truths, there were some key points.

There was an ancient magical rule that clearly whatever god or thing that controlled these demons had to follow. I could therefore surmise that this ancient magic existed above the gods, and so the gods of this world were not entirely omnipotent or omniscient, and it may actually be possible to stop them.

Next was that they conflated the god with mother and planet. Their homeworld’s god was probably some kind of earth-god, then? Something like a nativist conscience like the will of a groupmind like Alpha Centauri again? Or perhaps it was a tree mind taken to the extreme? A global network of trees that functioned as a planetary scale neural network and brain?

Or were those spires some kind of artificial intelligence and they were collectively a super AI, and the demon kings sent to us were their version of Terminators?

Or more fantasy-aligned, just an evil sleeping god and the demons were its worshippers?

“What rules?”

“ANCIENT.”

“Why? Who?”

“ANCIENT.”

“Who is GOD?”

“GOD. MOTHER. PLANET.”

If I had the power, I really should catch a demon king and try to talk to it. I felt like I was talking to some rudimentary chatbot from the earlier years of my life. I was stuck in some kind of conversation loop despite trying to ask more. This was probably the lowest-level answer they could give.

With that, the demonic voice faded and the two trapped heroes returned.

“Well, did you learn anything?” The two heroes looked quite annoyed. “We didn’t, and honestly, it really does sound like some kind of computer program. It’s really simplistic in its logic once you get it.”

“So you understand the demon now?” I asked the hero.

“To some extent. It just wants to grow, and build, and do whatever its mother asked of it.”

“Mother, not god?”

“It feels like a mother rather than a god. It nagged.”

I smiled and probably would’ve chuckled if I could.

“You’re not going to help free us?” Simone asked.

“…maybe?” I thought long and hard about this, even though I rejected the divine mission. I didn’t want the gods to start having influence over me. But should I still help them, then? “I probably can’t free you.”

“Oh.”

I probably could guide the few surviving heroes to them to help free them. But I chose not to reveal this to them. The demon was always listening, and I wondered what it would do with such knowledge.

Yeah. I probably could get the other heroes to free them rather than me doing it personally. They were mobile and would have the right skills for it. The heroes had every reason to help their fellow friends, didn’t they?

* * *

As the year approached its end, I had a small breakthrough with my demonic tree research.

[Skill: Hybrid-botany]

[Able to communicate and cultivate hybrid trees.]

Hell yeah.

I tried it out. Even though it was supposed to be winter, the localized effects caused by the demonic trees meant it was an exceptionally warm winter. So warm that it was probably like spring.

Well, all I got was spam.

It was nostalgic. Like when I had [rootnet] for the first time and all the grass and trees started giving me weird shit. It’d take some time before I understood these demonic trees.

* * *

“Is our combat ability significantly impacted by Lausanne’s departure?”

“With you back…no,” Jura said. “Lausanne is strong, but there are a lot of us who are level eighty. Me, Nero, one of the captains, there are easily fifteen people left who are now level seventy-five to level eighty who can play her role to a lesser degree. Her key advantage is that her special familiar has a lesser version of your power, so without you, her aura was key in reducing our casualties.”

Hmm…

“Everyone’s replaceable, I suppose.” Jura laughed out of nowhere. “I mean, that’s how it always has been, right? That’s why so many kings raise so many different children. You never know which one turns out a little crazy.”

It was risk management not to put all your eggs in one basket. But even for people?

“I suppose if you could give your special familiar to more of us, that would really help us. I guess the Valthorns were a step in that direction, until that day came.”

You know, maybe the kings had the right idea. I focused too much on developing Lausanne, and I lost track that Lausanne was also partly meant to be my first try at doing this at a larger scale.

I was a tree, and my domain was nature. Grow, strengthen, cultivate. I should now use what I’d learned from all these years to massively expand that program.

If I was to rebuild, I should do some things differently, and some things bigger and better. I had Jura, Lausanne, and a few others as my ‘elite,’ then. In hindsight, I should’ve thought on a larger scale.

Like any nation or even a large company, talent scouting, hiring, development, and retention were an ongoing affair, constantly expanding to meet future needs. I somehow got sucked into the minutiae and messed up on the bigger picture. I needed a proper process for this, and on a larger scale, some dropouts and loss like Lausanne’s departure were just part of the natural attrition of any large body of people.

Scale. What else should I do on a larger scale?

27

YEAR 110

Another year. Time passed really quickly these days. I thought it was the effect of the curse. Even if I was awake, I felt as if it wasn’t totally gone. It was somewhat like nursing a mild headache, and I never quite felt like I was at my 100 percent state.

I supposed this was what a [curse] felt like, and that was why Jura never quite performed at his best when he had the curse. I wondered whether that princess I saved last time, the one that still had a bit of the curse left, was still alive. Maybe she’d died since Baroosh was destroyed. She, too, had a curse, and so did Meela, at least until that hero removed it.

Curses could be removed, and they could also heal naturally.

So my curse was one of overexposure to demonic mana. It was honestly very similar to the princess who had overexposure to void mana. Therefore, treating the curse was likely to be similar to the princess. In the case of the princess, her soul spring was wrecked, destroyed by the exposure to void mana, and so she was dying. In my case…

My soul spring was not destroyed, so I was able to survive those twenty-plus years. But perhaps it was damaged, and if damaged, I would have to find out how to mend my own soul spring. All this was conjecture; I didn’t even know if my soul spring was damaged yet.

After a while, my musings led me nowhere, and I attempted to find out.

I mean, I’d never seen my own soul spring. It was kind of like asking a doctor to self-diagnose. Not exactly possible to be objective about it, and I may have certain bias, too! But oh well, I needed to know whether something’s wrong with me and how to fix this curse!

I thought at lengths about whether it was possible to build a soul forge that was aimed at me while being powered by me. If the soul was the engine of the individual, then like a car engine, I must be able to add sensors, readings, thermometers, and all, and from that gain a sense of what’s happening.

“That analogy may not be the most suitable one, Master,” Trevor commented. “It’s more of the driver trying to figure out what’s wrong with the driver. If I may, it is similar to trying to figure out whether the driver is sick from the way he is driving.”

“Uh.” That was…how’d he do that? Was he using my memories?

“Yes, Master. We have access to your memories.”

Still, I tried.

I did something similar to a meditative state, trying to feel my own body and be one with myself. It was like Buddha meditating under a Bodhi tree, only, well, I was the tree.

And my senses were once again assaulted by the demonic mana. After all, the edges of my network of roots and trees were a constant battlefield, where the mixed mana produced by me and my fellow trees faced off against the demonic mana.

“Not working,” I mused to myself after about one month of constant meditation. In hindsight, it was obvious. I wasn’t able to meditate myself out of the curse, so why would it work now? “Any suggestions, Trevor?”

“Before you go there, Master, I would like to remind you of the things you wanted to do last year and the years before, which was to work on expanding your mana pool, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your mana, work on your experiments on the hybrid demon trees, and also develop even more Lausanne-class individuals.”

Once again, my scatterbrain reared its head.

“May I add, Master, you have yet to decide on a vocation for your two contracted souls, Yvon and Eriz. You backed away from turning them into Mana Farms.”

“That wasn’t the most effective use of their skills.” I had a lot of thinking to do. I mean, this [soul contract] should be extremely overpowered since the person retained their memories. Even if they died, I could reuse their souls constantly. An individual who gained a ton of experience and therefore could retry different things at each life would be super powerful.

That was, after all, what made reincarnators like myself, or even heroes, super powerful, because their existing body of knowledge was brought over to their next life! So, as I wondered what happened as my soul contractors died, it appeared. The dreaded notification.

[No penalty for first death. For subsequent deaths, one-year time penalty will be imposed and doubled with each subsequent death. One-third of all memories are wiped with each death after this first. No penalty on reassignment, as not considered as death.]

Ah. The system wasn’t stupid, after all.

So, in a way, it was best to use their living knowledge and match it to somewhere where they could be most useful.

So I assigned Eriz, the maid that was responsible for caring for Roma all this while, to a subsidiary tree that was focused as a childcare area, and she took the form of a [Nursery Tree]. I wanted someone dedicated to look after the new children that the survivors would have and feed them supplements to make strong, high-potential individuals to support my future Lausanne-class project. Yes. Lausanne-class was a name for an individual at that grade. I imagined the Lausanne class to be something like the Corvette-class, and I would like to eventually reach Battleships and Aircraft Carriers.

As for Yvon, I fused her into one of the [Training Trees], creating a different version of Treeiner. This was because she did have a long stint serving in the Valthorns as their guide and trainer, and she had good combat skills that I wanted her to pass on to the next generation. Though we didn’t agree with each other, she had some wisdom and knowledge of the world that would definitely contribute to a more holistic education and training for the next batch.

“I won’t have to care for people for a long time,” they both said, noting that the population of young children was extremely small. The survivors were almost all adults now. It’d been twenty years, and there was no immigration from abroad to fix the lopsided population pyramid.

“That’s fine.” I would think they needed some time to get used to their new bodies and their newfound abilities. I wanted to monitor what they could do. I had initially just let Meela and Alexis somewhat free rein, and I must admit my awareness of what Meela did was close to none. “You can provide training to the existing people. Consider it a gym.”

“How about me? It’ll be some time before any of them have kids,” Eriz mentally responded. She found her new body awkward. All of them did, since they were far too used to humanoid forms.

“Create supplements for the new moms. I’m sure they need to boost their body to take on the load of having children.”

“These two…trees are Yvon and Eriz?” Jura seemed extremely perplexed when I informed him of what I’d done.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Jura seemed to think about it at length.

“Lady Mika was one.”

“Oh.” After a while, he asked, “So if…if I were to have a soul contract with you, and I died, you could, in practice, make me into a tree?”

“Yes.”

He paused, and then of course, he quickly told Laufen about this, and soon the entire group of survivors knew about it. And then some interesting comments emerged.

“Well, I know the elves used to say that when we die, we return to the trees, but I didn’t expect it to be a literal statement. I always imagined it was more of a figure of speech.”

“What did they give for that?” Jura asked later that day.

“For Eriz, it was a punishment for luring an army here. For Yvon, she traded her soul for a patch of grapes and blessings on the land for her winery project.”

“Really. Was I there when that happened?”

“Yes.” I recalled Jura was in the same room. He was quiet for a moment.

“Lausanne got one?”

“No.”

Jura breathed a sigh of relief.

“I trust her.”

“That’s good to hear. I…I don’t think we want to be turned into trees, like…literally.”

Was it? It wasn’t that bad. Yvon’s Training Tree had a humanoid-shaped tutor that was able to verbally communicate once she gained a few levels. For now, as a level-one training tree, she was just like a combat dummy that was unable to talk. Eriz, I was not sure whether she would eventually gain the ability to talk, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she could. What was so bad about trees?

Trees didn’t really need to eat; we could generally regenerate almost all our body parts, and well, we could keep growing! What was not to like?

“Did you offer it to Lausanne?”

“No. Why?”

“Ah…am I right to say this is more of a punishment than a reward?”

“You could say that. I have rarely offered the soul contract.”

Jura looked relieved, and then he changed the topic. “Good, good. So…children. That’s the plan for them?”

“Yes. We will have more children, and they need to grow up strong. I hope to make them as strong as Lausanne, if not more.”

“Ah. Planning for the long term.”

“Yes.”

Then Jura spoke about some other priorities, such as weapons for the survivors. Over the past few years, as the responsibilities for defense shifted to my army of beetles, the survivors were able to take a break from combat. Still, it didn’t escape anyone’s notice that they all needed anti-demon weapons, and that was something Lausanne had requested from me before she left. All her spears were damaged or broken over the decades. I dedicated some time to equip the remaining survivors with anti-demon weapons.

Over the past few years, the repairs to the general environment had been ongoing. This meant things like farms, houses, outhouses, gardens, things that generally contributed to happiness.

Some even asked for the [Tree of Prayers]. I gladly made one, again.

I went back to the next topic on Trevor’s list.

“Hybrid demon trees.”

I had a dilemma with them. If it was to be seen and known that I had some limited ability to control these demonic trees, would the outsiders suddenly suspect that I, too, might be a demon? After all, I already had demonfire on the top of my branches like Hades; it wouldn’t be a stretch for these narrow-minded natives to suspect that I was perhaps a demon, and that would make me a target of the world’s temples and kingdoms.

Yet understanding and controlling them were key to my attempts of breaking out of this place. If I could break them free of the demon’s controls, I would be able to accelerate my expansion. And I didn’t trust any of the survivors to not leak this fact to the outside world, and that was not because I doubted them. This world clearly had mind-controlling and mind-reading magic. The fact that the demons were able to access the heroes’ memories was obvious enough.

So, some things must be kept absolutely secret. Just like the fact that I was also an Earther.

My newfound abilities over the [hybrid-botany] meant I could vaguely, very vaguely, influence them. It was not yet outright controlled, like with the regular trees. We spoke different languages, and I was just a beginner in their language.

I would need more time with them. Secretly.

“Mana.” Trevor read out the list. “Mana processing, mana efficiency, mana allocation.” Yes. Mana. That juice that powered all the living beings of this world. That involved working on the Giant Attendant Trees to create super-mana farms.

“List of repairs. Grand Mind Tree.” Trevor went onto the next item. “We’ll need resources for this, Master. Which we do not have.” I wondered whether I could configure the Grand Mind Tree into a diagnostic program to check me, since it did have the ability to reduce the effects of any mind control on me, so it should have some kind of scanning ability to identify what the curse did to me.

“Inventory items. Forest Rod.” I wanted to keep the forest rod for any magical ley line I found, in order to get access to other kinds of soul forge colors. Though I believed they would’ve been extremely useful in converting this general area back to normal, I still thought the forest rod’s unique ability to capture special magical locations should not be wasted on just any regular sludge and corruption.

Well, unless I found the main source or node of this corruption, then I would want to use the rod. I mean, I’d risk it for the chance to convert the entire corrupted continent into my domain. That would just be awesome.

“Preparations for the next demon king?” Trevor asked. “Would that be something of concern?”

“Yes. We have to be prepared.” Though, if something like this happened again, what could I have done differently? Well…I honestly had no answer to this. If this corruption happened again, what could I have done?

As the year drifted ever closer to its end, a group of survivors returned, about thirty of them. Their return was met with a massive celebration.

“Aeon,” the leader of the returned survivors spoke. “There is civilization out there. After four months of travelling, we finally got out of the corrupted area and made contact with a kingdom. Only our continent suffered significant damage from the corruption, and many are amazed that a pocket of us survived in the middle of the Rottedlands.”

“Rottedlands?” Jura and the rest of the survivors asked. They were very interested in the outside world.

“Yes. The outsiders refer to the entirety of the corruption as the Rottedlands. Well, it differs by region, but most call it the Rottedlands or the Blightlands. Many that we’ve met are interested in forming diplomatic relationships with us, but the terrain is too hostile unless the group is at least level fifty and above and has the ability to create their own food and filter water, since there’s nothing to harvest for a whole two months, and there’s no clean water anywhere in the entirety of the Rottedlands.”

“How many did we lose?” a Remainer asked.

“Of the four hundred, we lost one hundred on the journey out. We lost twenty on our way back, even after we came with better equipment and supplies.”

“How’s Lausanne?” Laufen asked.

“Lausanne is fine. She and a small group of the younger ones are on a journey to the other cities and kingdoms. But more importantly, we have a map.” The returned men unfurled a massive map that indicated the edges of the Rottedlands, and as Jura described it to me, it seemed Lilies was so far away that she wasn’t harmed.

But my other forest and the Verdant Volcano were both in the range of the Rottedlands. Were they destroyed?

I only lost connection, but I didn’t get a message that Dimitree was destroyed. What about the Verdant Volcano?

The map was important for a few reasons. One, it showed the shortest path to civilization, where the edges of the Rottedlands and where Freeka once were. Next, well, who we wanted to form any sort of diplomatic relationship with. As it was, it was a large distance, and I may be able to open one path out of the Rottedlands. Maybe a few more once I got stronger.

On the flipside, I may also not open a path, such that the Rottedlands formed a natural moat or barrier. After all, the prospect of marching an army through these Rottedlands would greatly discourage any attempts to invade us.

So who and how we exposed and declared our presence was important. And I needed to balance this with other aspects of my long-term plans.

The demon king incident was my first but certainly wouldn’t be the last one I faced. If I lived for hundreds of thousands of years, as great old trees often did, then I must consider the plans to prevent such events over the longer period.

Sure, the first time wasn’t really my fault, but if I let it happen to me more than a few times, that was entirely on me.

The heroes and the demon king were part of a continuous cycle and therefore were a predictable, preventable crisis.

What could I do?

Find ways to let them fight it out elsewhere far from civilization and nature? How could I prevent them from destroying all the gains made by the jungles and forests? All the destroyed natural habitats?

That involved knowing, no, influencing where the demon king and heroes appeared. That was…unlikely.

Or should I aid the heroes such that they killed the demon king as soon as possible? I had hesitated in participating in this conflict, but as I predicted previously, it came for me whether I liked it or not.

Or could I…kill the demon king myself? How did the demon kings die so quickly? Was there some trick? I clearly needed to investigate this hex power and see whether I could make a safer version for myself. Like Clean Nuclear!

So…how should we approach the future? It came for us.

Hex. And I would need to gather power to slay the demon king myself. Only with power could we preserve nature. Without power, nature would just remain a setting for their conflict.

28

YEAR 111

“I didn’t think that the great protector of New Freeka lived,” Harris said as he arrived at the edges of my restored valley. He came with a group one hundred strong. “The rumors of the survivors are true, after all. Good decision, Commander.”

A commander bowed next to him. They saw the field of normal green trees. “Indeed. I wonder where they have hidden the past twenty years.”

“Perhaps they were biding their time.”

“All right, let’s stop. We’re in their territory now,” Harris said.

“Yes, Your Highness.” They nodded, and the group of one hundred moved nimbly. They were clearly well trained and of a decent level. They didn’t look like guards, and they were armed with magical star mana–enchanted weapons.

Jura went to meet them, along with one hundred other survivors.

“Stop. Who goes there?” Jura and all were well-armed, but their equipment paled in comparison. In a straight fight, they would’ve lost easily. Still, they were alerted to these visitors, and they moved quickly.

“This is the entourage of His Holiness, the Emperor Harris the First, Slayer of the Demon King, Supreme Ruler of the Harrisan Empire, and you stand before the Emperor himself. It would be wise to kneel, peasant,” one of the men said. He leaped ahead with his armor gleaming, showing off his enchanted gear.

Jura shrugged. He hadn’t lost his distaste for royals. “Greetings, Emperor Harris. You walk on the blessed lands of Aeon the Ageless, the great Tree Spirit and Defender of the Valley. We, the believers of the true spirit of the land, kneel before no king or royal.”

The man was quickly offended and wanted to attack, but then Harris stepped in. “Greetings. Pardon my entourage. Their zeal to glorify my name is but a minor crime. Truly, does Aeon still live?”

Jura shrugged. “We’ve never doubted him. But it seemed that the outsiders have.”

Harris laughed. He was no longer a child now, a man in his late thirties, yet the glow of his heroic presence was unmistakable. He was equipped from head to toe for war, every item he wielded radiating enormous amounts of star mana. It would not be out of place if anyone assumed he was preparing to face the demon king.

“What brings you here, Emperor?”

“Watch your words,” one of Harris’s lackeys interrupted.

Jura ignored it. Harris took a step forward. “I stayed very briefly in New Freeka, before my fateful battle with the demon king. I still remember the great Tree Spirit’s massive wooden shields that blocked out the demon’s attack. In hindsight, I should’ve predicted that the Tree Spirit lived. I still have his familiar, after all.”

Some of the lackeys expressed surprise. Goodness, the hero surrounded himself with sycophants?

“Anyway, may I speak to the Tree Spirit? I have much to discuss with a being of such great power.”

Jura paused, but I thought he wanted me to tell him what to do. I mentally agreed, and Jura looked at Harris. “Certainly, but the Tree Spirit would not have all of you armed, and only you alone.”

The lackeys were about to say something ridiculous again. “If there are any accommodations or rest stops for my group to rest, that will be sufficient. Perhaps a hotel, if such institutions survived. It’s fine for me to meet the Tree Spirit myself.”

“Unfortunately, twenty years without customers has been extremely hard on our hotels, so none of them remain,” Jura joked. “Let’s go this way.”

Jura led them into one of the tunnels, and from there, they arrived in the submerged valley. They looked quite surprised to see a massive tree with a burning top that was hidden underneath.

“How did we miss this?” Harris said quietly. But before the sycophants could answer, he cut them off. “Rhetorical question.”

Jura and the survivors watched the group carefully, and soon, they saw the beetles. But right before one of the sycophants wanted to attack the beetle, Harris stopped it.

“Idiot. Can you use your brain and think why is there a beetle here? It must be the tree’s servant. I see they haven’t changed much.”

“Oh?” Jura asked. “You’ve seen them?”

“Yes. I have. Over twenty years ago,” he said. “So…where can I meet the tree?”

“Ah, right this way. Could you request your men to wait over at that area?” Jura pointed to a resting area that had been made last year. There was a lot of wooden furniture, a small blossoming collection of fruit juice stalls, and some barbeque stalls that roasted the local meats, kind of like an alfresco food court.

Harris nodded, and the men obeyed. Only Jura and Harris walked to one of the larger Giant Attendant Trees that’d been converted to a meeting room. He sat alone inside.

“Aeon will speak to you here.” Jura nodded, and he shut the door. Inside the Giant Attendant Tree, there was only him.

He looked around, as if he was waiting for something. “Hmmm…”

“Hello, Harris,” I said.

“Ah. Makes sense that a tree spirit is telepathic. The last time we met, all I got was a notification about the familiar when Lady Mika spoke. Greetings, Aeon. Much has changed.”

“I was told you sought us out once you learned of our existence.”

“Indeed.” Harris sat. “Let me cut to the chase, Aeon. We are four years away from the next demon king, maybe five years if we are lucky. I’m trying to gather a force to defeat the next demon king as soon as it spawns, and your defensive abilities are something that’s quite firmly etched in my mind. Would you help me?”

“Interesting offer, but I suppose you did not forget that I’m an immobile tree?”

“That’s true. But we could make artifacts that could temporarily store some of your abilities as a single-use skill. With a bit of star mana and some special crystals, we could create a spell-matrix that could store some of your shields. In fact, I’d also like to store that demonic suppression aura of yours. It would prove incredibly helpful in a battle against the demon king. At least it would help to weaken the lackeys for the rest of us.”

Hmmm. Well, it seemed all the survivors were making plans for the demon king, so that was an encouraging sign. Certainly, it was aligned to my own goals, so in this case, I should cooperate.

“Agreed. But I will demand some of those spell-matrices for my own use.”

Harris laughed. “That was quick. I expected a tree to take a longer time to deliberate such things. There’s also another matter.”

“Oh?”

“Over twenty years ago, New Freeka played host to many…refugees. Royalty of many families. And you might remember many kingdoms were destroyed, essentially beheaded, because the demons possessed powerful ranged weapons.”

“And?”

“Well…may I ask you to offer the same protection to my offspring?”

“I find that hard to believe, hero. You have star mana and the ability to create powerful magical defenses. Certainly your capital has been enchanted many times to prepare for such an event.”

“Yes, it has. But the children are fools. They squabble with each other over petty goals and trigger their star mana artifacts too easily, exhausting them. Artifacts meant for greater dangers,” he said, sighing.

A cup of tea appeared next to him.

He sipped. “And damn, I missed this tea so much.” He drank another sip. “Seriously. This damned world is trying to kill us.”

“Huh?” Who?

“They got Becky. Ah. It’s the tea that makes me feel upset.” Harris sighed. “The demons. They killed her a few years ago. Even though we fought together. Well, maybe except Gerrard, who’s too busy getting drunk and hiding in strange places throughout the world.”

The human hero looked sad, confused, and tired all at the same time. I wondered whether the tea was alcoholic, because I was damn sure it wasn’t. It was just a bit of hospitality.

“Fuck the gods, y’know. This fucking game is just engineered to kill us. We’re leader-heroes. We have armies of magical summons, and the gods just fucking turn it around and spawn super-demons where our army of magical summons are just fodder, and wide swathes of my army-boosting abilities are just absolutely useless. They made this game and tied one of our hands right behind our backs.”

Why was he ranting?

“Ah. It’s just so nostalgic to come back to the first place where we were saved. Dammit. I suddenly feel like I’m a young teen again.”

I checked whether any of my [Tree of Prayers] or [psychedelics] were active. Nope. I thought he was just having all these things pent up.

“Fuck it. I mean.” He took a deep breath. “I mean…yeah. Stupid kids. Would you protect them? They’re still my children, but damn if they are not idiots. I don’t remember being so idiotic as a young teenager.”

“When you look back, every generation has always thought the younger generation was idiots.”

Harris paused. “Well. Yeah. But still, they are my idiots. And that annoys me. This fucking world is out to kill us. Me, Mirei, Gerrard. Just three of us left. I just hope my stupid kids don’t get involved.”

“How many kids do you have?”

“Uh…” I thought he blushed. “I think about twenty-six. The youngest one is…one. Two of my wives are pregnant.”

I didn’t know what to say about that. Wait. He was only in his thirties; maybe he was going to turn forty soon. Didn’t that mean he had at least one baby a year?

“Well. Ahm.” He finished the tea. “Can I have more?”

A small vine produced hot water, and another added crumpled, dried powder into the cup. “You’ve been productive.”

“Ah. Yes. So uh…”

“You’re asking me to offer protection to a very, very large number of people.”

Harris frowned. “Yes.”

“I still don’t get it. You don’t trust your own magic, and you prefer to trust me?” I was skeptical. Extremely. This sounded like a royal asking for protection again.

“I thought long and hard about it. So long as I live, I am certain my family will survive. My star mana and my heroic powers mean I will still be able to protect them with my powers. I’ve tried my best to store my powers in spell-matrices and all that, but artifacts able to store hero-grade powers are few and far between and very often usable only once, sometimes twice. Unlike other generations of heroes, our powers are mostly summons and creatures, and that doesn’t extend to grand magical formations. We could still do them to a far lesser degree, but it’s not the same as what a ritual-focused hero or what a pure enchanter hero could achieve. When we level, our hero-grade skills are given, and it’s not like we can force those skills into something they are not. For example, Mirei has extremely powerful lightning abilities, but none of those are a usable shield of any kind. Strange to say this, we are constrained by the scope of our gifts. Our talents for skills outside our designated hero class is ordinary, and if we want more, we have to trade our hero levels for them.”

He paused.

“And so, if something falls outside our rather specialized scope, we have to then turn to native experts for aid. My life is unfortunately fragile, weak, and I am a marked man, hunted by future demon kings. I will fail eventually.”

“Before that, tell me how did you survive two demon kings?”

“Oh. The first one…Astra.” Harris took a deep breath. “He did a cursed ritual, melding blood magic, star mana, and the magic of the land. And whatever he did, well, it blew up the demon king. When the second demon king came along, he tried the same thing, but something happened and he died. That meant me, Becky, Mirei, and Gerrard gathered together to face the demon king when we found out it was headed toward the Northern Isles. And although Astra died, whatever it used weakened that second demon king significantly. Yet we still lost Becky.”

Ah. So whatever that hero did worked. Only the price was too high to pay for it to be done more than once?

“The next demon king, we won’t be so lucky.”

Harris seemed to be waiting for a response from me, but I didn’t reply.

“So, my family. My luck will run out eventually. I intend to still protect them, and existences like yourselves is an insurance I hope I never have to use.”

“Decades ago, though to me it feels just days ago, I told the royals then that they are free to seek refuge in my lands. I intend to maintain that principle, and so your offspring is free to seek refuge in my land. But like then, no special privileges.”

Was this the fate of people like me, repeating the same sentences over and over again? I felt like a broken record, and it should fucking annoy me. I should outsource it to an artificial soul or train a bunch of people to repeat my principles. Kinda like a call center or a visitor center that repeated the rules to a bunch of unruly tourists. It’d be even better if they got to do it with the same lack of enthusiasm and boredom.

Yeah.

I should outsource and automate it. It’d be the first TreeTree service and call center. Or maybe an artificial mind, tasked to repeat the same responses many, many times.

“Hmm…not what I hoped it’ll be, but that will do.” Harris frowned. “So…where have you been hiding for the past two decades?”

Me? “I was asleep.”

He laughed. “Ah. And the survivors, they somehow made do in this…sunken valley?”

“Yes.”

“Never mind. Back to what I initially came for, once I return, I will begin commissioning the construction of the spell-storage gems, and I will have them delivered. Let me know once you’ve finished infusing your skills in them.”

“How?” I mean, I’d never seen such an item. I doubted they came with easily understood manuals, and even if they did, they were usually made for humanoids, not trees.

“Good point. I’ll come over with it.”

At this point, I remembered the two heroes that were trapped. I pondered whether to let Harris know about them, and I considered the consequences, whether he would doubt or suspect that I had anything to do with it. Then I decided it was probably best if I told him anyway. Maybe heroes got special rewards for freeing their friends’ souls. “Harris. When I was asleep, I saw your friends.”

“My friends?”

“Simone and Victor. Their souls were captured by the demon king, and they are being corrupted.”

Harris’s face paled instantly. “What?! Where? How? How do you know?”

“I don’t know much, and I saw it in…a dream, but they are likely to be near where you all fought the demon king. Look for a red crystal, and break it.”

He paused, and he paced the room in circles. “I swore we cleared out the field in an attempt to clean up the corruption, but then again…it could be hidden underground. I must let Mirei and Gerrard know if this is true. It explains the weird dreams we’ve been having. They must have been trying to speak to us but couldn’t get through.”

Outside, Harris’s entourage was getting restless. It’d been almost two hours.

“I’m not able to free them, but maybe you could.” Honestly, there really was no way I could reach the demon king’s site, with all the sludge and corruption between us and them.

Harris nodded. “On this matter, I will handle it. I will be in touch.”

And with that, Harris and his entourage left. There wasn’t much he could do about the [message] system’s failure in this area, because the magical interference came from the vast fields of sludge, and the hero with the communication tower ability died a few years ago.

Theoretically, if I cleared out enough of the sludge, magical interference and decay would drop and the [messaging] system would restore itself. I supposed on top of behaving like a polluting oil, it also emitted some kind of magical wave that caused magic to break down over time. Very similar to hex, really.

“He was here before, TreeTree?” Jura asked.

“Yeah. You don’t recognize him?”

“He said he was mostly with Lady Mika, so he didn’t really particularly stick in my mind,” Jura said. “It’s hard to recognize people I met twenty years ago. He doesn’t even look the same.”

“He looks largely the same to my spirit vision. But his glow is larger than before. I suppose it’s the levels. He’s not exactly hiding his presence. Or maybe he can’t. He doesn’t have the right skills.”

“Ah, well. Thankfully, his entourage was well behaved once he was out of sight. They’re just putting up a show when he is around. Interestingly, they don’t like each other all that much. I think they all work for different people.”

“His different wives, perhaps.” I mentally chuckled. Was this the logical outcome of a harem? I mean, sure, the harem could get along, but once everyone had their own children with the same father, it was just a source of conflict, wasn’t it? Every mother wanted to protect her own offspring, so they competed for attention. Human nature made it so that it was hard to be fair and be seen and perceived as fair. Even if he acted fairly, it may appear as favoritism.

Jura laughed, too. “Well, that’s why I’m single. I spend too much time practicing.”

* * *

My efforts to mix normal mana and star mana did help to improve its efficiency, but I still hadn’t gotten a skill for it. Thanks to that, we’d managed to expand the forest to cover a long strip of land that led to one of the nearby towns. I’d decided to still leave a large patch of unconverted sludge between my forest and the town, just as a moat, but this entire process meant they only had to travel about one month through the sludge, and they’d arrive at the edges of that long forest.

Viewed from above, it was like the forest extended one long-ass vine to reach for the town.

Meanwhile, my research on the demonic hybrids also made some progress. I’d gained some more understanding of their nature, such as their bodies actually absorbed ambient energies and converted it to their demonic mana. In a way, it was…air-powered. They didn’t need sunlight, but they did need some water, and they absorbed it from the air, which was why they could exist in multiple forms and colors. They also had some kind of water-vision, which meant they would often target non-native animals, like elves or humans, or even ordinary wildlife that had far higher water content than the demonic hybrids.

Were these demons like…some kind of reimagination of animals in a post-water scarcity world? Mars in its dying days?

I’d yet to connect to the wider network of these hybrid trees, fearing that they may overwhelm me. So far, all my attempted connections had been with standalone hybrid trees that had been isolated. They responded well to demonic mana, but when flooded with my normal mana, they just froze and entered hibernation. Still, I persisted, and I carved a segment where I experimented more on them.

Maybe these hybrid trees could act as a first line of filter, such that they ‘weakened’ the demonic energy’s pressure at the edges. Something like an absorbent or suspension, having a transitory species of trees that could act as a medium between the two varying ecologies. Maybe I could engineer something.

A new plant species that straddled the two worlds. At that very thought, I felt a huge repulsion from the rest of my network of trees. These feelings, they came from the native trees, and they despised that thought.

Hah! Natives. I was a foreigner, outworlder, too! Why did you not reject me, then?

Besides, plants certainly evolved in my world. These hybrids were clearly an adaptation, an evolution in this world. Why exclude these newcomers?

29

YEAR 112

At first, I left a gap of Rottedlands between the wider, uncorrupted world and my recovered areas as I expanded. Beneath all the once-corrupted lands were normal lands, and some of them had minerals or had geological features that were once hidden by the sludge. Clearing the land meant all these were revealed, and the new trees used to clear these spaces discovered the higher concentration of certain minerals when their roots extended into the ground.

Some of these were common minerals, like regular iron or copper. Some areas were just certain types of soil that were suitable for making pottery or clay. I’d imagined these resources would be suitable for construction or allow the creation of certain industries. Though our population was still only about three thousand, if the refugees came along, I would see this amount increase over time.

There would be refugees.

“How would they get past the Rottedlands?” Jura asked.

“Good point.” That was when I realized my idea of creating a moat was quite stupid. Sure, the moat made it harder for enemies to come in, and it also helped to thin any army’s numbers by having to fight the demons, but it almost completely denied the refugees or anyone who wanted to live in my domain. And that meant I would forever have a far smaller army to work with.

Refugees in this world were mostly escapees of war; though they were desperate and may have levels, they were mostly unarmed and would not survive a whole month through the Rottedlands.

Since any army that wanted a piece of me would march through the Rottedlands anyway, with all the necessary logistics to survive the journey, I decided to make smaller paths to the outside world, which would then be fortified with walls, various tree-defenses, and a huge bunch of beetles. That way, prospective refugees could still get a safe path in.

I couldn’t do the same things and still expect a better result.

An expansionary approach was something I didn’t try, though I was fond of the turtling concept. In fact, maybe that was why I was even a tree. A tree by nature was immobile, but perhaps I should embrace rapid expansion of weeds.

“We’re already drawing attention,” a few of the survivors said. “Aeon’s expansion has made our lands very attractive.”

“There are so few of us. We can’t hold off those lands.”

Jura shook his head. “Aeon has decided to hold on to those lands. Anyone who wants it will have to go through his army.”

In fact, a nearby kingdom officially launched an invasion force of thirty thousand. They would cut across the small strip of Rottedlands and then start to settle in reclaimed areas closest to their kingdom. It wasn’t much of a battle. By the time that army did cross the Rottedlands, they lost about two thousand people. They gained levels, though.

When they emerged from the Rottedlands, Jura helped make an announcement that they were invading my lands. Of course, they ignored it. Then they were attacked by hidden beetles scattered across the newly made forests. There were some high-leveled individuals in there, perhaps around level fifty to eighty, and I dealt with them personally, mostly by just harassing them with [serpentine rootstrike] and a volley of poisonous fruits from everywhere.

Didn’t take long for the thirty thousand to become only twenty thousand, and then deciding that it was better to just run away, since they soon realized the army of beetles was a lot bigger than they were prepared for. I had one hundred thousand subsidiary trees, and that meant if I ever maxed out on beetles, that was a total of five hundred thousand beetles. Five hundred thousand beetles that regenerated to one hundred thousand beetles per month. It was just…I could zerg-rush the nearest kingdoms. How many kingdoms could fight off one hundred thousand beetles each month, anyway?

Of course, I couldn’t practically max out beetles, since I had some dedicated for other roles, like housing, like training areas, or some as defenses.

There was also the issue of levels. I mean, if someone killed one hundred thousand beetles, I was damned sure the system was going to give him some super beetle immunity or beetle resistance or beetle-slayer abilities.

In fact, this very issue was why it was better to have a diversified army, because if at any time your opponent ever gained a skill advantage, it applied over the entirety of the army. Imagine if a [general] had [beetle slayer general] or something like that. That would mean my beetles were effectively useless. Or maybe some mage got [Bugspray] or something.

Ugh.

After that defeat, there was no more invasion for the rest of the year. I counted that as a yay, because obviously now the other kingdoms realized it wasn’t easy trying to take land away from a tree.

Trade and commerce were gradually returning, so the survivors reorganized themselves as a new administrative body for the entire land, once again with me as the spiritual leader. There was no large-scale refugee movement yet, not with the land being relatively peaceful. The demonic rifts had yet to reopen, and the hybrids of the Rottedlands didn’t seem to stray far from their native environment.

“Any opinions?” Jura went and met Yvon in her training tree. Yvon gained a wooden form that could talk and communicate with people, but unlike Meela or Alexis, her wooden body remained stuck in her tree. Quite strange, and I reckoned the heroes just had special treatment.

“Strategically, Aeon should communicate with all the nearby kingdoms for alliances, and since the land is unoccupied, perhaps he could arrange some kind of lease or vassalage system. Maybe work with some unhappy nobles in the kingdoms who’d be happy to defect over to Aeon’s side, since Aeon would probably allow for a wider range of flexibility than some insecure king. In short, an arrangement similar to New Freeka, but open to the rest of them.”

“There’s going to be conflict.” Jura shook his head. “You’ve seen how sensitive Aeon is with certain matters.”

“It can be managed. I personally have begun to realize it’s a question of distance. Aeon cares a lot less about what the kingdoms do when they are far away. I suggest declaring this entire valley some kind of Holy Land, then all the cities that spring out around the valley to be the Holy Land’s Defender Nations.”

Jura just paused and stared at Yvon’s wooden face. “Seriously?”

“It’s what the human kingdoms did a long time ago. The lesser human vassal nations around the main human country were referred to as the Paladin Kingdoms, and the capital was the Sacred City of the Hero King.”

“Huh.”

“History’s interesting. It tells us what has been done before and what we can do again.” Yvon nodded. “I would definitely recommend this strategy to Aeon. Lesser nations under one Spiritual Protector. Aeon’s already worshipped back in the days of New Freeka. A returning deity surely can sway the minds of many. He should very much take advantage of his past reputation and his now-public relationship with the hero.”

The hero, Harris.

Ah yes. Harris’s visit was widely publicized. The affairs of Harris, the Harem Hero Emperor, were tabloid fodder. They speculated whether there was a woman waiting for him at my place, or perhaps an illegitimate child. Harris had quite a special position according to the merchants, as he built his empire by reclaiming vast amounts of Rottedlands. In fact, his entire territory sat on reclaimed Rottedlands, with his army of summoned knights to patrol and fight off any monsters. Each time one of his many women had a child, he would reclaim more land, which would be awarded to that newly born child, though still managed by the crown.

I couldn’t help but mentally laugh at the idea. I mean, he was living the life of many isekai main characters, and the consequences of that sort of lifestyle, such that he had to reclaim land to secure the future of each of his many children. As it turned out, heroes’ children actually did not inherit any of their father’s or mother’s special blessings, so their children were absolutely ordinary, except for their special station in life.

Of course, their special station in life meant they got the best trainers, teachers, equipment, and gear, which, if they used it properly, that’d be good. But his oldest child, a teenager at seventeen years old, was rumored to be arrogant, abused his status as the prince, and like his father was a womanizer. I mean, he had fun during the years having so many women; so now he had to deal with the consequences of having so many women, right?

Once he passed away some day in the future, maybe his kids would squabble and a war would break out among their children over the land. Since all the children all received special star-mana weapons, extra enchantments, and stuff, surely there would be perceived inequality and there would be war. I’d seen it in telenovela, or even business empires!

In a way, maybe Yvon was right. I was in the unique position of being a nigh-immortal tree; surely any empire I built would last longer than one of human heroes. It was a norm that few empires survived their founders.

I spent some time thinking about it, and I thought it was a good idea and totally worth trying. Let’s try an expansionary strategy. I did like the idea that this entire valley was sacred land.

The survivors grouped together and split the territories around us into ten parcels, for now, with more to come as I expanded further, and a declaration was made: ten parcels of land awaiting for settlement, a constitution drafted, with terms closely resembling that of the old New Freeka, but with some modifications.

A map was made, areas marked as ‘protected’ territories, where no large-scale settlement or logging could be made, and areas where the settlers could build their own homes. Each of the ten parcels were to determine their own rulers or governors, but they would have to operate under my umbrella, provide a contribution to the overall military and magic defense, and accept instructions that I may periodically bestow.

In short, I’d become the tooltip or foreign monarch that was now going to hand out duties to my new vassals. Kind of like Tropico.

Then, with the aid of some merchants, an invitation was made to everyone on the entire continent. Though I supposed the message first got to the rich and powerful, eventually it’d spread to the common folk.

Come. Join the Rottedlands Restoration Effort! Open up New Lands! Rebuild the Lost Cities of the past! Be part of Aeon’s Domain. Aeon’s Frontier! Be a pioneer! Ten largely self-governing parcels for the taking! Come!

And I waited.

Of course, this decision rather surprised Yvon and Jura. Neither thought I would do something like that. I knew I probably wouldn’t. But my old strategy was not working; I wanted to grow! If it didn’t work, I could just crush them with my army of five hundred thousand beetles!

With that settled, I moved on to other matters.

Harris was supposed to return with a bunch of artifacts that could store my skills, but he didn’t come this year. A messenger came and notified us that procurement of the necessary materials took far longer than expected.

And Eriz’s transformation into a [nursery tree] was quite interesting and fascinating. She was essentially a large tree that was like a childcare center, and like Yvon, she too could take the form of a tree person. Interestingly, she could make multiple copies of herself within the childcare center, and her mind somehow allowed her to do all the things together. A part of her tree was able to produce all sorts of milk and saps to feed the young children, some even directly via vines that were shaped like milk bottles, or for the centaurs, udders, or for the treefolk, thick sap-like drops. It was really cool, and she gained levels quite quickly.

“It’s quite surreal to still see you, Mom,” Roma said to Yvon. He sat inside her tree, practicing. “I mourn your death, and yet here you are.”

She tapped Roma on the head. “Well, looks like fate has other plans for me.”

“More like Aeon had other plans for you. And I’m not quite sure if I like it.”

She shrugged.

* * *

As the year slowly reached its end, after all that fighting and expanding, I got something I wanted.

[You have gained a level. You are now level 153.]

[Your skill – Natural Mana Overwhelming has been upgraded.]

I hoped for a new skill, but it seemed the system was more keen on just upgrading my skills. Still, it made it easier for my mana to push back and put out the demonic mana.

Next year, I would be closing in on the volcano and the southwest forest. I’d hoped to see how the rod and Dimitree’s artificial mind was holding up. I had the notification that I lost my connection to Dimitree, but not one that indicated that he died. Perhaps, with the use of the magical ley line, he was able to use its mana to push back against the demonic corruption. That would be great, since I wouldn’t have to rebuild that entire southwest forest.

I would like to start reconnecting with Lilies again. I had a lot of questions, and I thought only great old beings like them could answer it.

Oh. Naming!

“So, we need to brainstorm a name for our new city.” The survivors reconvened. Apparently it was an important matter, because they didn’t know how to describe themselves, and they didn’t want to use the name of New Freeka, which was destroyed.

The conversation went somewhat like this:

“Neo Freeka.”

“Too similar to the old name.”

“Freekabaru.”

“Eww.”

“Free-la?”

“No.”

“AeonFreeka?”

“Sounds too much like a bad nickname.”

“Aeonland?”

“No!”

After days—and maybe even weeks—of numerous meetings, no one could settle on a name, because everyone wanted something else, and in the end, they voted as a whole to force me to name the area.

I didn’t have a good name, either.

NewNewFreeka? Nope. EvenBetterFreeka? Freeka 3.0? Nope.

In the end, because we were deep in the Rottedlands, I decided something that opposed the meaning of ‘Rotted.’

Freshka.

Yes.

The City of Freshka. I felt numerous facepalms in the entirety of the valley, as if a million dreams were silenced and crushed all at once. I thought I was quite clever, but everyone else didn’t. But they reluctantly accepted my proposed name. Because Freshka was fresher! Fresh! Like new, but fresh! It was like a bad, cringey commercial. If Meela was here, she’d say my naming sense was atrocious.

Freshka! The good thing was it was just going to be the name of the new city that was going to be built at a new location, quite a distance from the valley. I mean, now that large areas were back to their normal, forested ways, not everyone wanted to live near a giant flaming tree anymore. So they found a place where there was a river, a nice slightly sloped flatland to start their new city.

Three thousand people made the move there to the second new capital of the other restored lands. The other was Harris’s empire, of course, which was on the other side of the continent. If the entire Rottedlands was an apple, his empire would be shaped like a bite into the apple.

Should I call the general area Freshlands, then? Freshans. Freeshkans. Freeshans didn’t sound that bad, either.

30

YEAR 113

Time was running out, and Harris’s panic reflected that.

“Only ten?” I asked. I looked at the ten crystalline objects.

“It’s a lot harder to obtain spell crystals at the necessary quality and purity. These ten spell-matrices are able to store one skill or ability, which can be reused up to three times each.”

“That’s only thirty uses.”

“It’s a lot better than nothing.” Harris nodded. “If I manage to get more, I certainly will bring them over, but rather than wait, I thought of just testing these ten out now.”

“True. Never know if they might fail.”

Harris was alone in the valley; his army of entourage was not allowed in, so they made themselves comfortable in the new city of Freshka. I looked at the ten items and asked, “So you’ll give me some of them?”

He paused, and he rubbed his head. “I know I agreed to give it to you, but, uh…it’ll affect my survival chances. Can I just give you one first? And if I live, I’ll give you five of these spell matrices.”

“Will they break after they are used?” I sort of thought they wouldn’t because they looked incredibly well made, and the material was gorgeous. I’d imagine these things to fetch an incredibly high price if one were to even try doing it.

“Uh, they shouldn’t. They need to have the skills re-inserted again. They just become empty. You can try it out, though, uh… There’s a recharge time before they can start receiving skills again.”

It wasn’t hard to input a skill into the crystal. All I had to do was think of the skill I wanted to use and then sort of ‘will’ it into the gem. I got it after, like, twenty tries. So, all ten gems now had [Steelwood Barrier], and he kept nine of them. They had a faint greenish glow.

“Partly why it took me so long is because I wanted a gem that essentially replicates all the effects of a skill, not just stores the skill. There are plenty of spell-matrices out there that store just the skill, but those lose the passive effects and other caster-specific qualities that make the spell or skill strong. After all, I’m quite certain your strength comes from a lot more than just the skill alone.”

I didn’t have to reply.

Harris probably noticed my reluctance as he quickly changed the topic to something else. “Oh, I didn’t tell you, but we found the red crystal that was mentioned. It was indeed hidden under a massive pile of sludge. And we broke it.” Oh. I hadn’t checked on the two heroes in a while. Indeed, I couldn’t access that area anymore.

“We?”

“Gerrard and Mirei found some time out of their busy schedules to visit. They should be on their way here.”

Two more heroes? I wasn’t prepared for that. “Why are they coming here?”

“Nothing much, just to meet up and discuss some things in your presence. Gerrard seems to have something that he says will be valuable to you and us.”

“Me?” What could a hero say that could be of use to me?

Harris took some time to stay in the new buildings in Freshka as the rest of the heroes arrived a few days later. They looked different, and in Mirei’s case, she’d grown a lot taller. Gerrard was lean, tanned, and had shoulder-length hair. They both had aged and now looked like actual adults.

“So, this is where the tree is?” Gerrard asked.

Mirei nodded. “Yeah. We got lucky when we started out around here, and we got our basic combat training here. At least, well, when it was here.”

“I see.” They soon approached Freshka and regrouped with Harris. After a bit of chitchat and catchup, they came to see me.

Gerrard seemed quite interested. “It’s really, really big.”

“I had the impression that all tree spirits are large,” Mirei said. “Or is this one of your half-drunk statements?”

“Not at all. I might be half drunk most of the time, but tree spirits do go through regular growth periods! I’ve met small tree spirits before.” Gerrard looked quite relaxed around me.

Harris took out the spell-matrices and showed it to the other two. Mirei ooohed. “I’m still working on spell-matrices that are able to absorb and temporarily recreate the anti-demon aura. It’s a lot harder than I thought.”

“I could upgrade your familiars to special familiars. It comes with the demonic aura after a few levels,” I said as I recalled Lausanne did have a lesser version of the aura. “It’s not as strong as mine.”

They agreed, so I upgraded them. For Mirei and Harris, it seemed the levels that the existing familiars carried over to the new star mana–powered familiars, and they unlocked the lesser demonic suppression aura instantly. For Gerrard, this was the first time he received the familiar, but he didn’t seem entirely surprised by it.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Harris said.

“Not bad,” Gerrard said.

“So…you said there’s something you wanted to share?”

Gerrard nodded and opened his bag. He took out a strange item; it resembled a really, really dried piece of wood. “Yes. I also have a gift for Aeon, actually.” He placed the dried piece of wood on the table, and the moment I touched it, I felt a notification in my head.

[You’ve received a fragment of the ancient tree that was destroyed thousands of years ago.]

That very moment, I felt happy. It was a joy that came from the entirety of my network, like all my trees felt happy to be touched by that…fragment.

I couldn’t respond for a while, as I had to manage a rush of emotions that went through my head. Thoughts, too.

There were objects that could do this to me in the world! Was it because my [Grand Mind Tree] still needed repairs? The three heroes waited for a while for my response, and they just talked among themselves.

“Aeon?” Harris asked. Gerrard looked at Harris and Mirei and then just sat down.

“It’ll take a while. I gave this same thing to a few other spirits, and they all froze or didn’t respond to me for at least a day. Maybe we can go have a drink first.” The heroes chatted among themselves again, and then they left.

[You’ve analyzed the ancient tree’s fragment. You gained a level. You are now level 154.]

[Skill: Subsidiary tree upgraded. 200,000 Trees!]

[Skill: Woodshaping significantly upgraded.]

Then I started to see…visions. It felt like I was watching television, as scene after scene flickered before me. Memories of the ancient tree engraved in its body. Like how a tree recorded what it suffered through in the rings of its trunk, the fragment contained its ancient memories.

A vision. Vast expanse of forests, jungles. Sea. Monsters. Dragons. Humans. Elves. Small towns and some cities.

Then a falling red star. Then it was an…emotion. Not a scene, but a feeling of instability, of falling. Like I was pulled out by something and then started falling.

Then demons. Demons everywhere. I saw visions of…dragons—

Then it ended, so very quickly.

No. More? I tried to access it again, but it felt like a teaser trailer that was too short. I accessed the shard again, but all it did was play the same scenes in repeat.

“I need more.” I spoke to the three heroes, who were relaxing in Freshka. That feeling, was like I was robbed of knowledge, of knowing some but not enough. I needed more.

“I’m afraid that’s the last one I have. I’ve given out every shard I have to other tree spirits. You’ll have to get it from them.” Gerrard shook his head. “I didn’t even know there was a tree spirit here, so I only kept one.”

“How many did you have? How many have you given out?” I asked, my entire being trying to hold back a sense of need and desperation that came from the rest of me. Was this a kind of mind control? I needed that [Grand Mind Tree] repaired as soon as possible!

“Uh…I had three. I gave one to you, one to Lilies, and another one to the Frozen Tree in the Northern Isles.”

Lilies had one. Maybe I could negotiate directly with Lilies for a loan. I didn’t really need to keep the fragment, just analyze it to get a more coherent picture of the past. Wait. Why was I going down this train of thought again?

Harris ribbed Gerrard. “So, uh, wait. What were you trying to do?”

“Oh. You know I’ve been going around making all sorts of herbal liqueur? I found that collecting those from ancient tree spirits or powerful tree spirits can produce a high-quality herbal liqueur with strong suppression qualities. So I set out creating, uh…a blended herbal liqueur. I’ve collected about seven tree spirit herbs, leaves, and barks.”

Mirei just smacked her palm to her face. “Oh. So all this just to fulfill your alcohol desires?”

“Look. Don’t judge me and my hobbies. Harris has his harem, and you have your ballroom and fancy otome-game politics. Leave me as the hermit eccentric brewer of strange drinks.” Gerrard got quite defensive. “I even gained levels with it.”

“What?!” They both paused. “I haven’t gained a level since we fought the demon king!”

“The system’s busted. We all know that. But it turned out you can actually gain levels from doing non-fighting things.”

“That doesn’t match my experience.” Harris frowned. “I’ve been clearing up large areas of land and all, not a single level.”

Mirei nodded, too. “Which class did you gain a level in? Your [Hero] class or something else?”

“No, not [Hero]. My [Master Brewer] class. Collecting unusual and rare items and brewing with them did gain me levels. ANYWAY!” Gerrard shouted. “Aeon, right? Uh…I want your herbs, leaves, and a bit of your bark.”

“Fine.” He gave me a level; that was fair, I supposed. I’d made herbal drinks and tea all the time, anyway. Herbal alcoholic drinks, well, I sort of mentally smacked myself there. Why didn’t I think of that? Wait, maybe the wineries did create herbal versions of the wine. “But I want the other piece, the one with that Frozen Tree. Tell them it’s a loan, and you can return it to them after I’m done analyzing them.”

“Uh…” Gerrard seemed even more defensive. “A gift given to a tree spirit is never asked back. I won’t do that. I’ll lose my supply of magical frozen herbal leaves!”

Hmm…how did I negotiate this? Maybe I should do so directly. “Then bring a small sapling of mine to it. Place it near to it.” A small [Tree of Prayer], a messenger from me. I would have to find a way to communicate with my other trees that were outside the network. Could I have roots that crossed the ocean? But the chance to communicate with another tree spirit!

“That…that I can do,” Gerrard promised, and he looked at the small bag of leaves, bark, and roots with great interest. He took a small piece of root out and smelled it. He licked it a bit. The other two heroes looked at him, and their faces were just plain disgusted.

“You lick your materials?”

“I’ve got to know how they taste. My tongue has a special skill, [Brewer’s Taste Buds], which lets me know how well it’ll go together with the rest of my brew! Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up.”

“Eww.”

“You guys don’t know how hard it is to get an audience with tree spirits. So far, this tree fragment has been my most successful method to get new herbal materials!”

“Where did you even get such a thing? I don’t imagine you would end up checking every single fragment of wood you encounter,” Harris asked.

“It was in a random abandoned temple on the Shaffar Coast of the Western Continent in my quest to find rare herbal ingredients for my herbal alcohol. I was led there by a druid who spoke of a dead religion of some kind.”

At this point, I intervened. “Never mind. Are there more?”

“Uh…I took everything. Unless I missed it, which I could have, because honestly, I didn’t pay those fragments much attention. They look like half-rotten wood, not exactly something my eyes are drawn to.”

Half-rotten wood!

“Let’s change the topic.” Mirei shrugged. “Harris said Aeon has some rather interesting…weapons.”

It was then that Harris brought out some of the wooden spears and swords. “Yes. These are the anti-demon weapons, and I’m wondering if we, the three of us, together with Aeon’s wooden weapons as the chassis, would like to explore that possibility together.”

Harris didn’t mention this the last time we met, but heroic-grade anti-demon weapons made sense. The weapons they created using the rare materials from this world were strong, but not specifically anti-demon.

So the three heroes spent days with me. I used wood-forming magic to form wooden weapons infused with my anti-demon powers, and the three heroes added their enchantments. Later on, they formed the wooden weapons together with me as I shaped the wood into its weapon shape; their star mana joined in and helped.

It was a long process, but the heroes clearly feared for their lives. I could sense all three of them had lingering, deep-seated memories of their many battles with different demon kings, and it reflected the sudden focus they had.

After two weeks, they all had wooden weapons they were satisfied with, yet they still feared whether it was enough. As Mirei put it, they were summoner-heroes, and yet the world forced them to still play the role of a combat-focused hero, so they had to resort to such preparations.

“We can’t do this forever.” Gerrard looked at his curved wooden blade infused with a mix of wood and heroic energy. He sounded a bit dejected. They left all the rejected ones behind for me, which were all incredibly powerful items in their own way but just not to the level they needed. I intended to later spend some time to further analyze them and see whether I could use my own star mana to similar effects.

“No, we can’t. But we must try.”

“Age catches up to us, even if magic keeps us young for now. Killing the demon king is just…temporary. If there’s some way we can just seal the demon king, I wonder whether that would stop the demon king from repeating,” he said, and then he had a headache immediately. He quickly opened a gourd next to him and drank from it.

“We can’t even seal a demon walker.” Mirei laughed. They left a few days after.

Seal the demon king. Would that actually stop the cycle?

* * *

My prior year’s effort to market myself as fresh land for refugees, unhappy nobles, and all that brought a huge amount of people. There were fights, naturally, among refugees squabbling over the best spots, but the space was large enough that they dispersed over the ten sectors. Even then, fighting was going to happen, and this time, I was staying out of it. I would work with whoever their chosen ruler was, and so long as they operated under my framework, I would leave them be.

That was what a vassal was, right?

This promise of unclaimed lands attracted all sorts of people who were unhappy with their existing ruler’s tax regimes, or with insecure borders, or people on the run. Some just wanted to try out something else, and eventually, a few smaller settlements formed. Over time, many of these smaller villages and settlements would agglomerate and form into towns and cities proper, but that’d be over a few more years.

Freshka, too, located in what was considered the ‘core region’ of the new land, experienced some influx of settlers. The promise of fertile lands and bountiful harvests blessed by a watchful tree spirit was attractive to some farmers.

In each sector, after the migrants started coming in, I placed a [Tree of Prayer] and a few [Giant Attendant Trees], which acted as their segment’s focal points.

Jura, and some of the followers, set up a new Valtrian Order. And the Valtrian Order’s task, this time, was to recruit promising young children from all the ten segments to form my new Valthorn Initiates. Of course, for now, no recruitment had actually started.

It was only the first year they were coming in. I’d start next year. But the plan and infrastructure were ready.

By the end of the year, five of the ten sectors had been settled, and on average, home to about ten thousand each, for a total of fifty thousand! There were a bit of gang wars and internal fighting, but nothing overt yet.

I probably should get someone to watch them, like Ivy, to keep watch of any high-risk individuals, so I created a new artificial soul.

Jasmine. Not the princess, of course.

During this year, I’d also stretched my trees to reconnect with the Verdant Volcano and the Southwest Forests.

I was relieved to discover they both survived, even if the area they covered had shrunk significantly. It seemed that the energy from the volcano and the ley line was strong enough to push back at the sludge, and it helped that they were quite far from the epicenter of the sludge than I was, so lucky for them, the pressure from the sludge was weaker.

Dimitree, which I’d lost connection to, was still alive, if not a bit…insane. He went off in gibberish for a good three months as I spent time ‘repairing’ his internal structure. So I was just glad to not have to start from scratch. Dimitree eventually recovered from his insanity caused by being disconnected from me for so long.

I didn’t allow him to speak for a long time, because he was just incoherent.

The volcano crater and the Forest Rod survived, thankfully, but the sludge got as far as halfway up the volcano.

So, with this, my soul forge’s other abilities were restored, and my soul collectors were back in business.

31

YEAR 114

A group of five mages came, selling some kind of service. For payment, they would help create spell formations around and on city walls for use against monsters and demons. They were all quite high leveled, around level fifty to sixty, and they quickly met the Freshkan leaders. In their mind, every new town or city must have protective enchantments.

They all were well dressed and clearly made good money making these enchantments for many towns, but they came to the wrong place. The new ruling body told them they were not interested, and they soon left to the rest of the smaller towns to ply their wares.

That said, I was actually quite interested in defensive spell formations, so when one of the new smaller villages actually coughed up a bit of money for a spell formation, my trees watched it intently.

Simply put, I was trying to learn their defensive spell formations by observation. Clearly, if I could augment my defensive formations with magical spells, that’d make me even more tanky.

Though, from what I could see using my [spirit vision], the defensive spell formation was essentially a five-part process.

The first part was the power source; in the case of the small village, this was a set of mana stones they embedded in the village head’s home. The second was a set of runes or spells meant to extract power from that mana stone and also an activation keystone.

The third was the actual defensive spell, written into a formation of runes or stored in crystal matrices. Unlike the ones used by Harris, these crystals had the spell written into the crystal itself via physical carving of runes into the crystal, so that the spell memorized didn’t get forgotten.

The fourth was the projection and casing of the crystals, such that they didn’t get accidentally knocked out or triggered unnecessarily. So, there was a smaller set of items, usually metallic or wood, with some more runes to protect the crystals from other triggers. There was also an item—in the case of the village, a wooden holder that pointed the crystal outward—so that it projected the spell in the right direction.

The fifth was a coherence and synchronization process, such that all the crystal matrices triggered at the same time and responded to the same activation key.

Of course, the mages were more than happy to explain the mumbo jumbo to the clueless villagers, because they knew the villagers probably wouldn’t remember it anyway, nor would they be able to reproduce it. One of the mages was more than happy to show off how smart he was as he explained the process of creating defensive formations to a bunch of young ladies. Maybe he would get laid that night, but I didn’t care.

Essentially, if I were to think about it for me, it was entirely possible for me to use a magical ley line, or the volcano, or even myself, as the centerpiece of a magical defense formation. Or use a vast field of [tuberous storage], which stored mana, as a massive battery array.

Then I’d use the mana from the tuberous storage to power a huge set of magical runes, which super-charged my various [shield generators] to create far stronger wooden shields.

Or if I could create star mana storage arrays, that would greatly work, too, but from what I overheard, the ‘extraction’ method from the storage would need to be compatible with the spell. Runes were sensitive things and needed to be written to the right size and with the right types of mana.

I should learn runic enchantments, no? A magical tree with runes! What could go wrong?

Later, I spoke of this idea to Yvon and Jura. Strangely, Yvon was quite supportive. Then it hit me.

“It’s a good idea, but I don’t recall runes working on living beings. Runic carvings and symbols are usually on inanimate objects.”

“Oh.”

But why?

We did some research, Jura spoke to some surviving mages, and it seemed that runes needed to be fixed, in the sense that the shape and material needed to be fixed. So because living things grew and moved, the runes on living skin or bark would change shape.

In short, runes were like a language that somehow mana could understand and interact with, but it had to be fixed.

This concept was quite easy to understand. I imagined it as an integrated chipboard, where the shape and layout helped to produce a certain result. There was an energy source, and that energy source passed through a set of logic gates and then out came a result, as designed.

These runes were quite similar to wifi or wireless emitters, and their specific shape, design, and material allowed them to absorb or release these mana-waves. A specific runic shape, therefore, triggered an interaction with mana, which caused it to do certain things.

So, now that the communication channels had returned, I insisted that we gather all the known runes from the world. If I could understand and use runes to make myself even stronger, I must do so.

“Aren’t you concerned that your mana may interfere with the runes?” Yvon asked.

“True, but mana can be manipulated, and certainly I can shape it in such a way so as to not interfere with each other.” Taking the logic circuit concept a step further, surely there must be a way to isolate each rune’s input and output such that they did not clash with each other.

Jura and the Freshkan Council soon put out a request for rune-related books. A young mage was nominated to read the book to me, in Lausanne’s place.

Eriz levelled up quite quickly, and she was now level twenty and had the ability to create a split-body of herself, which I placed in the largest new town outside Freshka. Her service as a full-time babysitter was invaluable for parents who wanted to work the farm and all that. That was the angle we worked with, though she did have to hire some of the older folks to work with her in her [Nursery Subsidiary Tree].

Unlike me, her limit was very low, and right now at level twenty, she could only create one subsidiary. In a way, it made sense, since I did get my subsidiary tree level at maybe around level eighty, so mine could make more parts. Now I could make tens of thousands! If she could make that many nursery trees, she could definitely flood the market and put nannies out of business.

Still, children were few, but at least people were giving birth to kids. Laufen, now that her daughter was not around, had more time to dedicate herself to the charity arm of the new Valtrian Order, again to help support and provide social services, which were so formally lacking in this world.

“You never give up on that idea of orphan children as weapons of war, do you?” Yvon rebuked me one day as I discussed the idea with Laufen. “That’s why you’re always out gathering young children.”

“They have few attachments and nothing to lose. They have everything to prove to the world, and they need protection. Training them to fight is only natural, and giving the path of serving as potential fighters is a benefit.”

“I still think that isn’t the best way forward. Fighters and mages are best when they have motivation and drive from deep within them. Some of these kids will get that, but most of them won’t. Don’t force them to fight if they don’t really want to,” Yvon disagreed. “I can tell from how they swing their weapons that they’re here because it’s the way to get fed.”

“Then what system do you propose to replace this? Unless parents are willing to subject their children to extensive training. The odds of creating the Lausanne-class warrior battlegroup are next to none.”

“A recruitment event. Promise them things. Find those with a passion for what you do. In this world, it is often better to have one level-ninety man than one hundred level fifties. Everyone loves heroes, and they aspire to be like them.”

“So you want me to sell a dream instead of training all these children who can’t fend for themselves?”

“Just give them basic training, but whether they want to move on to the next level, that depends on their passion, talent, and whether they really want it or not! They’re children. I wouldn’t force Roma to learn what he doesn’t want to learn. What you are doing, even if these young, impressionable children seem eager and willing, is forcing something on them, but they don’t really know what they want.”

“Wouldn’t that postpone their growth?”

“Why do you think so, Aeon? Levelling is not limited by age. A teenager that goes through hardship in his teens can gain as many levels as a young child under ten. Starting late is in no way a bigger impediment. A big part of levelling is about our own understanding and comprehension and is in no way slowed by starting late.”

“Wouldn’t a person who learned how to swordfight younger than an older man who just started be more skilled?”

“Yes, but the older man’s intellect and wisdom would have grown, and if he was the same level, he would catch up in time. Life experience contributes to level growth, not just starting from young.”

That made no sense. Lausanne clearly gained and reached levels far faster.

That was when Jura and one of the migrant scholars came into the training room. “Lady Yvon’s explanation of the late-bloomer levelling effect is fascinating, but it’s still unclear which idea is right.”

Huh. “Oh, pardon me, Aeon. The idea of whether to start levelling young or levelling older is something that’s quite contentious, though most still prefer to start levelling from a younger age. In Lady Yvon’s defense, her argument can be modified that it is better for a young child to level in a wider variety of levels, or in generic levels, and only specialize in a later age.”

“True.” Yvon nodded. “That’s a good point. It’s really about specialization, not whether a child should learn and level. But back to our earlier conversation, Aeon. What I’m trying to say is that a child may not know where his passions lie. I agree with training from young, but they should be exposed to a wider set of skills and let them see where their heart takes them. Passion for a cause and a set of skills is important, and people are more likely to find it in their later ages, as their life experiences tell them where they fit best. Passion contributes to levelling speed, not just age.”

“I’m confused, but I take it that I will continue to train children, but only at a base level for a wider skillset, and then let them choose their own focus or specialization.”

“Yes.”

I was not actually attempting to reinvent the wheel here; this was just a rehash of our common primary school education system, where the kids went shallow on a broad number of subjects and then went deep when they found something they liked.

Only, well, the curriculum was more combat and survival focused, like combat training, basic magic assessment, farming, basic businesses.

But Yvon, now a [Training Tree], quickly renamed herself, with a big signboard outside her tree. “VonAcademy.”

“Quite full of yourself to name it after…yourself,” I teased her. Academyvon. But at the same time, I was pretty sure my poor naming sense infected her. Or was it just a Tree thing that trees weren’t good with names?

“What? I’m now a tree that focuses on training. The big training schools in the world all have big, well-known names, so I should have a name, too.” Naming aside, her job was to produce the future Lausanne-class warriors, and part of this was to recruit from the growing countryside. Because of that earlier discussion over late and young bloomers, she’d decided to accept disciples from all ages, though the training was age-segregated for now.

Jura, deciding that he didn’t want to do much politicking, converted his role to an advisory chairperson role in the Freshkan council, and he introduced a centaur migrant to me later that day.

“You stand before Aeon, our true guardian of the valley and the refresher of the Rottedlands. Introduce yourself, Kavio.”

Refreshka. That was the next name if Freshka fell again.

“Wow.” The centaur Kavio had never entered the sunken valley before, referred to now as the Valley of the Unrotten. “So there really is a giant tree that survived in the valley.”

Jura shrugged. “Why do people even think we invented that story…in spite of all the evidence for it?”

“I mean, well, rumors.” Kavio nodded. “They tend to be massive, and because rumors are so common, the truth, if strange, becomes difficult to believe.”

“Anyway, introduce yourself.” Jura pointed to me.

“I’m supposed to shout?”

“No. I can hear you just fine,” I spoke. He instantly stumbled, and for a centaur with four legs, well, he wasn’t expecting it.

“Ah. I’m sorry. I’m Kavio, the newly elected leader of the Freshkan Council. I migrated here last year, and I was told that the council is in need of new people to help. I’ve been told that all incoming leaders of the council should meet you… I just wasn’t expecting it to be so…erm…massive.”

Jura smacked his head. I knew he tried, and anyone with a half-decent intelligence network knew I existed. But still, there were a lot of ignorant people in the world. I mean, in a world of demons, you didn’t believe a giant tree existed?

“So, uh…”

“The intent of such a meeting is simple,” I said. “The valley exists because I do. My powers hold the demonic sludge at bay. It’s important that any leader who enters the Freshkan Council is made fully aware of that my will is law here.”

Kavio gulped. Jura smiled. I thought he did say I needed to be more…aggressive in what I said. Being too tree-like and passive meant everyone’s going to try and get their way.

“The Freshkan Council’s ability to govern is a delegation of authority. My authority. Is that clear, Council Leader Kavio?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Your audience was well noted. You may leave. There are more lands I must reclaim.”

Jura nodded, and they both left. But I listened to their conversation as they walked out of the Sunken Valley’s tunnel.

“I’m not really a leader, am I?” Kavio asked Jura.

“Well, there’s a reason why no one wanted the job and you got it. Your new job requires you to regularly meet Aeon and advise him on what is happening. Key diplomatic and military decisions must be approved by Aeon personally.”

Kavio smacked himself. “No wonder none of the original survivors put themselves up for election.”

Jura smiled. He had the unfortunate task of being my spokesperson, and it was something few others actually wanted to do. “So do you still want the job?”

He paused and sighed. “I must.”

“Good. Aeon’s not that bad once you get to know him.”

“Really? I need to get myself some [fear] charms.”

* * *

Meanwhile, the expansion of the lands continued. With my improving control of mana and the increasing effectiveness of [natural mana overwhelming], we’d reclaimed more land. I estimated by now, I’d reclaimed about 5 percent of the entire Rottedlands, and that made my domain far larger than Harris’s country, which was 4 percent of the Rottedlands.

Of that land, some two hundred thousand migrants in total had begun resettling in the ten segments, and slowly they were forming up into new towns. There was still no city proper yet, but I observed the presence of new guilds, new adventurers.

The new villages and towns were given a choice, that if they contributed a certain number of bodies to the Valtrian Order, which I would train into a proper military force, warbeetles would be stationed near the villages and protect them from monster attacks.

But, if the citizens were to stray, on their own volition, into the protected forests, the monsters there would not hesitate to attack them. And there were no beetles to stop them. The protected forests were essentially my ‘national parks,’ and the beetles only served to mark the barrier. What happened inside was at their own risk. If they lost anyone, or if anyone was lost in the protected forests, they had to mount their own search party.

For those villages who did not contribute headcount to the Valtrian Order Militia, a levy was instead imposed, a tax on all income or produce, in exchange for protection. For newly setup villages that were still trying to get their industry growing, I gave them a one-year to two-year tax-free incentive period.

Also, as I expanded, I eventually managed to breach past the southern part of the Rottedlands, and I found that my subsidiary trees that were outside the Rottedlands were all in hibernation mode.

They were all sleeping, resembling ordinary trees.

Once I reconnected them, I felt the entirety of my southern network return to life. Including my Titan Walker that was still covered in vines and leaves.

< Lilies, are you there? > I asked, using its way of communication.

> Ah. Fellow Tree. We are glad to see you live. <

< Yes. But before that, you have a shard from the hero? A fragment of the old tree? > I referred to the item that Gerrard gave. He said one fragment was with Lilies, and in my mind, I imagined to myself that it’d be difficult to get it and wondered what I could give to entice her.

> Yes. We have. A memento of the tree that was, a time when we were few and tiny. <

< Can I have it? I just need to borrow it for a while. >

Silence. Was Lilies going to reject me?

> Certainly. Where should we send it to? A memento’s value is a memory shared. Let us share them. <

Oh. Wow. < Send them to my main body. Do you know where? >

At that moment, I felt a root make contact with one of my subsidiary trees. In an instant, right in front of my main body, a small flower bulb emerged, and it gradually unfolded itself, revealing a wooden fragment.

What kind of magic was that? Wait. It was like that teleporting ability that I had with my star mana! Lilies could do it, too!

< Thank you. >

It didn’t reply. But my focus turned back on the fragment.

Such a small fragment, but I knew its history there. So old, old.

I greedily took it and started analyzing it. There were now two pieces. Then I saw the vision again. It was the same.

—dragons. Monsters. Dragons soared, and they fought…demons? They fought, and then a large demon appeared. It was massive; it resembled a demon king. The dragons fought the demons. Then the vision shifted. Giants of other kinds. Ice giants. Krakens? They fought the demons—

And that was it.

Fuck. I felt that greedy feeling again. I wanted more. I needed that third piece. The two pieces floated in my biolab.

[You have gained a level. You are now level 155.]

[Skill: Psychedelic Dreams and Therapeutic Dreams upgraded.]

[Skill: Regenerating Sleep significantly upgraded.]

[Skill: Dream Academy upgraded.]

What? Me going on a vision trip upgraded my dreaming and sleeping ability? And wait, was that four skill upgrades with one level? How did that work?

32

YEAR 115

The demon king didn’t come that year. The entire year, though, the heroes were out and about attacking and fighting any demon walkers that appeared. This time, they mostly resembled regular demons.

No unusual demons. The large demon champion or demon walker-class monsters were just giant upright demons with massive wings and claws that resembled something out of typical RPG games.

It was a good thing, I thought. Just regular demonic monsters that looked demonic. As the heroes travelled the world to fight demons, they occasionally dropped by.

This year, Harris managed to obtain another fifteen spell matrices of very good quality, so the heroes now had twenty-five crystals, of which I kept four, so each of them had twenty-one crystals, with three charges each. Sixty-three charges. These crystals were far superior to the ones used by the mages from last year that created the defensive matrices. They contained more runes and various crystals meant to absorb a different aspect of a spell or ability’s effects. It was through a combination of all the components within the spell matrices that they were able to store a wood shield that contained almost 90 percent of my real wood shield’s power.

It was impressive crafting and something Harris paid a lot of good money for.

“I come here so often I probably should set a teleportation beacon here.”

“If you want to set it, set it up in Freshka. Not here.”

“Of course. It’s good that the [message] system is partly online. Even if it takes a bit of…work.” Thanks to extensive clearing of the demonic sludge, and the conversion of more hybrid trees into my network, I was able to suppress the effects of the magical interference, and so [message] could now work, but it must be routed through the southern exits. Kind of like having to build telecommunication towers around an impassable mountain.

Without Astra, the heroes no longer had a flexible teleportation system, so they were forced to use the teleportation system of the natives, which meant portal magic, like the one used by Madeus when I healed the princess.

Harris was not a mage, so if he wanted to use portal magic, he had to use a beacon and a scroll, something normal mages didn’t, since they could manipulate the portal magic spell directly.

Of course, this was a good lesson. Just like me, as a tree, there were some things I was naturally better at. Like offensive abilities, mine was very low, if not for all the other boosts I got. The class system, while it worked to amplify certain skills, at higher levels was quite limiting.

“Why don’t you take mage classes?” curious, I asked Harris.

“I already have five classes: Shield Hero, Warrior King, Weaponmaster, Inquisitor, and Master Trader.”

“Don’t some of those overlap? Why not remove it?”

“I needed their offensive abilities to cover my defensive-focused [Shield Hero] class, else I would be quite useless in the battle against the demon king, and magic didn’t synchronize well with my base hero class.”

“Then the trader class?”

“My kingdom was poor when I started. The Master Trader skill gave my kingdom some financial boost.”

“Oh.”

Five classes for a human hero?

“You must be very high leveled.”

“If I add everything up, I’m almost level two hundred twenty. But I think that’s not how it works, because one hero level converts to about four to five normal class levels at the higher normal class levels, and if you divide it up using that principle, I’m probably about level one hundred forty or so.”

“So your base hero is about…level one hundred twenty?”

“Yes, about there with forty or so levels in king and about twenty levels each in the other three classes.”

“You haven’t unlocked a domain?”

“What’s that?”

“…Nothing.”

“In terms of pure hero levels, Gerrard’s the highest because he only traded away ten hero levels for his forty-five levels in Master Brewer. So his hero class level is one hundred thirty-five. Embarrassing, isn’t it, to think that Gerrard the Drunkard actually managed to keep most of his hero levels, and we two, the sane ones supposedly, traded more of our hero levels away?” Harris said. He placed his cup on the table.

“Is this supposed to be some kind of classified information?” I asked. Levels didn’t seem like something one should state out publicly.

“On the contrary, as king, it’s in my interest to publicly state my levels. My levels help to encourage and convince the citizens of my ability to protect them and the benefits that we have. Assassins are deterred by the fact that I’m so high level that they don’t even bother. But my children…well…they have reasons to keep their levels secret.”

“They’re going to fight each other?”

Harris sighed. “I could use another pot of tea right now. Yes. Everyone’s jostling to be the next crown prince. I’ve already told them that the will explicitly states that the country is to be broken up should it fall.”

“Isn’t it better for it to be together?”

“Honestly…yes,” Harris said. “But already I can see that my children are preparing for conflict should I not survive this next demon king.”

“Disgusting. Why do you not punish them?”

“I can’t. In the end, they are all my children, and what they are doing is building up their own group of supporters, and they have been clever enough not to actually start a fight. My spies tell me they’ve been goading and baiting each other to start an incident.”

“The younger ones will suffer.”

“I know, the lines are somewhat drawn by my wives.” Honestly, I was not interested in his kingly drama. This was the kind of thing that China or Hong Kong’s Ancient China Period dramas were super fond of. Courtly dramas. “It’s going to be like the warring states era.”

“Oh, so all the children of the same mother band together. That’s clever. How many wives do you have again?”

Harris frowned. “Uh…seven?” Seven splintered kingdoms.

“And how many kids?”

“I think twenty-nine now.” Twenty-nine smaller districts split into seven wives.

“You’re absolutely insane,” I mused. “You aren’t even being a good dad.”

Harris sighed. “Look, I’m not cut out for it, and my wives…they’re so sexy! And hot! When they speak and tease me, I just can’t help myself, and my wives refuse to take any contraceptives! They say it’s a sin to not receive my seeds, and the way they say it is so sexy and hot, at that moment I just can’t think! I’m human, too, and I need their care, their gentle touch, their pleasant, warm embrace. I’m alone in this world, and they are the closest thing I have to my old family, and they are my new family! I feel their love is genuine, even if I’m aware they are subtly manipulating me and taking full advantage of my status as a hero.”

I just felt so sorry for Harris then. I used a vine and poured another pot of tea for the poor guy being manipulated by his harem. But it was an equal exchange, no? “All human?”

“I took one elf, one they call Sandpeople, and yes, the rest humans. I prefer humans, I mean, but elves are sexy, too.”

He was just thinking with his dick, wasn’t he? But then, the demon king was defeated, and he was at the age where his libido was bursting. He wasn’t even twenty, and no wonder he succumbed.

“Honestly, I’m not even sure if that’s all the women I spent time with. I only invited seven into my harem as my consorts, but I may have had more than that. I mean, before I even started the kingdom, I already was kinda…uhm…fucking around.”

He was absolutely thinking with his dick. “Well, now that you might die, your mistakes are now starting to act up. I wonder what your kids think about you having that many wives.”

Harris laughed. “That’s a strange question from a tree of this world. Most people in this world are very accepting of a harem, and that question has never popped up. It is a medieval world where kings like to have many wives.”

Oops. Did I just out myself? Did I reveal my otherworldly origins?

“But my kids, well, they accept it. It’s just the norm here… Maybe because heroes that survived in the past…many end up having harems, too. Even the women keep an army of pretty boys around them.”

Harris finished his second cup of tea.

“Anyway, let’s get to work.”

We made armor and shields. One of the ideas they had, if the crystal matrices were insufficient, was to make actual shields that were strong enough to take a few hits. Gerrard and Mirei both were a little weak on defense, so Harris, being the guardian, with an army of summoned shield units, wanted to make real versions using my enchanted anti-demon wood as the base.

It was a mix of both heroic enchantments, star mana, and a dense, naturally anti-demon wood.

Over a course of two weeks, we made five sets of enchanted wooden armor for each of the three heroes and ten shields for each of them. They would store them in their pocketspace for later use. As payment, we also made five sets for me, which I may someday award to any of my promising minions. Well, actually one set was already meant for Jura.

I called these five sets the Woodshield Set.

I’d learned a lot from making these items with Harris.

The heroes essentially got a special system bypass, since they got to use their mana to shape a certain item, just by thought, without needing much effort.

They also had a special skill that all heroes got called the [Hero’s Forge], which was used to make the special hero-class weapons.

It was kind of like some games where the heroes had the option to unlock upgrades and buy new equipment without actually having to go to a blacksmith or physical shop. The system handled the nitty-gritty stuff on their behalf.

The rest of us plebeians just had to do it the old-fashioned way. But observing how one of them used it constantly made me learn more about how the system did it, and I developed a better understanding behind the process of making their heroic weapons, and as a result, I got my skills upgraded.

[Skill: Woodshaping significantly upgraded.]

[Skill: Subsidiary Tree option expanded. Woodshaping Workshop unlocked!]

I wasn’t sure why Harris was quite amicable with me. Why couldn’t I have such a relationship with Meela and Alexis? Where did I go wrong? Or was it them that did it wrong?

They must be alive. I didn’t get a notification. What had they been doing the past twenty years?

* * *

I shifted my focus back on the hybrids and the growing of Freshkans and Freshlands. To me, they were segments one to ten, but each of them referred to themselves differently, and they had names that I felt too lazy to even remember.

Kavio, too, came rather frequently to provide briefings. He was gradually getting used to the role, and to ease his mental state, I made a [Tree of Prayers] at the meeting place and told him to present it as if he was talking to the smaller, much, much more peaceful-looking Tree of Prayer instead. It was a mental crutch, because apparently his [fear] charms broke every other week.

The regular updates were mainly for news, diplomatic activities, things that I couldn’t see using my trees.

Jasmine, Ivy’s replacement, had been hard at work securing the border together with Trevor and Dimitree, and I made three more artificial souls to help oversee my massive territory. I named them Acacia, Brootus, and Cyprus, and their task was to monitor the new refugees and ensure that the protected forests remained protected.

“How about some more beetles?” Horns asked. “We represent massive untapped potential, Master! Imagine it, an army of massive, hero-level beetles.”

And I agreed. It’d been too long since I had made more subordinates, and now was the time for massive expansion.

Exponential growth!

All right, I actually struggled with that concept.

So I made two more artificial souls to accompany Horns. I named them Bugsy and Thorex and sent them out to gain levels. They needed to fight monsters, demons, to hit their level caps, but Horns was just super eager to show off to his two new juniors.

I thought Horns was going to be quite useless in actual combat against the demon king, since, well…they were too powerful.

I needed to think about activating my Titan Walker, preferably with a hero’s soul. Maybe it was a good thing that Harris was close to me. If he somehow died of old age, I’d get the soul. Oh, and Lilies. I’d better check in with them.

< Do you want the fragment back? Could you lend it to me again once I get the other piece? >

> Hold on to it. We do not need it. <

< Okay. I have questions. You once said that the demons won before. Do you know the details? Like, how did it happen? What happened next? What do you mean by won? >

> Gods’ champions destroyed, a decade of slaughter. Still, the world recovers, and life finds a way. <

< But why? Why do the gods not intervene? >

It didn’t answer me.

Seeing that I wasn’t going anywhere with it, I went back to my own affairs. My attention was back on my large territory and the hybrid trees.

Within each protected forest, there were patches of demonic hybrid trees. I was beginning to understand them, at least their inner structure.

In a way, imagine a natural tree that had to deal with an overabundance of oil, and part of its chemical reaction was to manage the oil surplus in the environment. Naturally, they may try to break down the oil, or burn the oil, or store the oil somewhere. The demonic tree reacted to the natural mana, air, and water, so it ‘spent’ these natural mana the way it knew, which was to blow it up.

In a greenhouse environment tailored to them, they were probably just as harmless as a normal tree.

Something tried to make trees that were adapted to the environment. I suspected maybe it was the spawning system.

Perhaps there was a spawning god whose main job was just to populate the world, quite like playing a strategy game with randomly generated maps and enemies. In its logic, it tried to create something that suited the environment.

Now it would be quite lame if this entire thing was just a game, no?

[Skill: Hybrid Botany upgraded.]

[Control over hybrid trees improved.]

33

YEAR 116

The demon king arrived. The heroes were ready. A battle was fought in the Southern continent, far away. It was the battle of legends. The heroes fought valiantly, and after days of constant fighting, they won a hard-fought battle.

The battlefield was ripped, the ground itself twisted by the magics.

[Demon King Nergal was slain.]

Or so the news went.

But on the very day the demon king died, the heroes teleported to me.

“Aeon.” Gerrard was so frantic, he ran. “All of us have been cursed by the demon king’s disease.”

Gerrard looked extremely pale, and though he ran, I could see his spirit flickering, not a good sign by any measure. Mirei was awake, too, but she was flickering as well. Harris lost an arm and a leg, and he had a massive gash across his body, the armor that protected him half-charred and burned. Mirei, too, had lost both her legs, and two massive lightning elementals carried their master. In Harris’s case, one of his summons supported him like a crutch.

Gerrard was the only one with his limbs intact, but it looked like big chunks of his skin were covered in…pus. They all used their heroic magic to hold themselves together.

“A damned plague demon,” Gerrard said. “And we don’t have a healer!”

“And…”

“You’re a great healer,” Harris said, coughing.

I paused, and inwardly I took a deep breath. “Fine. But my medical services will cost you.” At that very moment, memories of exorbitant medical-insurance bills flashed before my very eyes, but then, I was the hospital. I could probably earn a lot of valuable supplies from this endeavor.

That was how I had three heroes in healing pods in my body. All of them suffered, and somehow, even though they lost their limbs on that very same day, the demon’s plague-touch meant it couldn’t be regenerated.

In normal cases where the cut occurred just recently, the soul hadn’t forgotten its limbs, so it was possible to regenerate a limb. But this demon king somehow inserted something into the soul that stopped that. I had to quickly intervene so that the limbs of their souls didn’t disintegrate. I also had to quickly use all the healing I had to gradually extract the demonic energy out.

But this was a plague-focused demon king, and its power here was not to be trifled with. It was almost like the demon king who received the bombardment of hexbombs learned to use the disease-like power of hex.

Adaptive demons.

That was such a scary, scary thought.

The three heroes rested in their pods for days as I tried to lessen the effect of the wounds. Gerrard, comparatively, had it easier than the rest. It was significantly easier to just cut off the ‘sick’ part and then just regenerate it.

“Couldn’t you cut off for us, too?” Harris and Mirei both asked.

“In both your cases, the demon king’s damage is in the soul. Cutting it won’t fix it. The corruption must be purged from the soul, then only the limbs will regenerate.”

“Shit.”

Gerrard, relieved to be the first to be discharged after a week in the pod, didn’t leave yet. He stayed in the [secret hideout] and watched his two fellow Earthlings.

“We would’ve died if not for Harris’s beacon. There was no way we could get anywhere with a good enough healer in time.”

“Tough fight, eh?” I entertained him. Harris and Mirei, since the damage was a soul-level damage, had to go to sleep. I reckoned they needed something like my [Domain: Roots of Life] to actually fight back the demon king’s corruption. I had to use my soul forge to prevent decay of the soul’s blueprint for their limbs.

“Yeah. It wasn’t very physically tough to kill, but its use of gases, poisons, and that gooey stuff meant we were all constantly taking damage. All our armors were destroyed.” Gerrard showed off his specially made anti-demon weapon; it was half rotten, as if somebody poured a fuckton of acid on it.

“At least it didn’t detonate.”

Gerrard nodded. “That, too. I for one am relieved this demon king didn’t have a death-bomb ability, just a death-plague ability.”

“Plague.”

“Yeah. This game is rigged.” Gerrard took a deep breath. “Will they die?”

“As it is, no. They won’t die. But they won’t heal, either. I can keep them on suspended animation or probably prevent further deterioration, but unless I find a way to overpower the demon king’s corruption, it won’t actually heal.”

I wondered how those demonic cultists removed the [demon king’s flames] from my trunk so many years back. But then, that was just a ‘physical’ ever-burning fire, not soul-level damage.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s…that’s great. At least they live. When will they wake up?”

“I’ve put them to sleep for the next few days. I’ll inject them with food via my vines. You can get a drink if you’d like.”

He opened a magical holding bag and withdrew a really old-looking wine and some cups. “Yeah.” He sat there quietly and drank the wine for some time, and once he was done, he left for Freshka and found accommodation in Freshka’s many inns.

Harris still needed constant medical care as the demonic corruption and sickness were still in his soul. But physically, other than the lost limbs, he was fine. He still had only one leg and one hand, and I had Jura come in and teach both Mirei and Harris how to use their familiars to create a wooden leg.

“I lost my hand until Aeon healed it for me, but still, it’s a useful ability to have. You need to first let your familiars take up the armor form, and…”

“Got it,” they both said and were able to replicate it. To them, magic was easy, and the system aided them, so they quickly understood what Jura wanted to do.

“Wow.” Jura was impressed. It took him some time to learn how to do it. “Heroes really are a different breed.”

But even with the tree familiars functioning as their artificial legs and hands, the two couldn’t leave very far. In Mirei’s case, the demon king’s attack penetrated near her chest, so there was a swirling demonic corruption very close to the center of her soul, and it took a lot of my energy to just suppress it.

This situation was different from what I expected. The demon king’s very own attacks possessed high-tier soul-damaging abilities, which meant it could potentially hurt me directly, even if I had extremely high anti-demon defenses, though, like the demonic curse, it may be possible to suppress with [Roots of Life].

Harris, now that he began to feel a bit better, despite his limbs still burning in pain, sent a message to his subordinates and minions back home. I wondered if they were happy or sad that their king lived. Perhaps the kingdom would hold itself together for a bit more. Or it may just mean the conflict that happened when all the kids were older would be more deadly and ferocious.

“We both can’t leave this place,” Harris said. He sat in the lounge area in the [secret hideout]. Even with my healing, I was only able to suppress it so that they could still afford some degree of freedom, but left unattended, it would flare up within a week.

“We could teleport there and back,” Mirei said.

“I can’t run my kingdom like this,” Harris complained, and he had a lot of concerns. “I would have to delegate my role.”

Mirei just laughed at her friend. “Good! Finally, you have to bite the bullet and cut the damned cake. Handing over power and ensuring that they don’t fight each other before you die is the best thing you can do as a father, Harris. This medical issue is the best thing that has ever happened to your kingdom.”

Harris seemed reluctant to face the problem. It reminded me of myself, and damn, that hurt. I, too, hesitated far too much when faced with problems. “Aeon, any chance you can uh…remotely heal me from my capital?”

“Uh…no.” Truth was there really was not. The kind of mana and energy needed to suppress the demon king’s curse on their bodies was something I had only here, and it needed the presence of my main body’s energies.

Mirei was cheerful, even though her condition was the worst of the three, because of the curse close to her soul spring. She took some time to enjoy herself in Freshka and went for long walks. As a hero, her powers meant she could still move around very quickly.

“Won’t you miss your pretty boys?” Harris laughed.

Mirei just shrugged. “That was my hobby a few decades ago. I’ve moved on now. How often do we talk about it, anyway?” To be fair, even though she was now in her mid-forties, she still looked really fit and youthful due to the influence of heroic magic. Heroes, I reckoned, if they survived, would probably live until they were in their two hundreds, just like the humans that practiced magic.

“Then what do you spend time on?”

“Like most typical ladies, good food, tea time, good cakes and cookies, and fashion!” Mirei laughed. “All I have to do now is move my entire operation here.”

“Oh.”

“You can’t move a kingdom!” Mirei ribbed him. “So let it go, Harris. It’s better to let your many children have their thrones now. At least you can watch and advise them.” After days of discussion, eventually Harris succumbed to Mirei’s idea.

Anyway, now that I was their healer and essentially their lives were in my hands, I’d started to demand for more things as compensation for my healing services. Like gems. A lot of them.

So, this finally allowed me to repair my [Grand Mind Tree].

With that, I felt a return of more statistics and numbers to my mind, and it checked my thoughts for the presence of external influences.

Throughout this entire time, I continued with my Rottedlands expansion and claimed more areas. So, once a good amount of area was reclaimed, I opened up five new segments for new refugees and migrants. There were some areas I’d set aside as ‘hybrid-tree’ parks, where these were the hybrid plants that I’d gained control over.

I reckoned some of these new refugees would be surprised by it, but I decided to let it be.

“You guys seriously didn’t find anything that was the source of the corruption?” I asked Harris about the crystal that they destroyed a few years back.

Harris probably was quite surprised that only now I spoke about it, since, well, we had that discussion many years ago. “Uh…no. We were honestly just looking for our fellow heroes. After we destroyed the crystals and got the notification, we just…stopped?”

“Is there a source of all this corruption?” I wondered to myself. It may be possible, if my understanding of the hybrid botany improved, to trace its energy source through the roots of these hybrid demon plants. It must come from somewhere.

But it was something I feared to do.

If it was the abyss I was looking into, it may well look into me as well. Would I end up like Zeratul, accidentally revealing the location of the homeworld to the demons? I immediately set the Grand Mind Tree to act as an antivirus and firewall to block out any attempted intrusions into my mind. Alexis had already revealed plenty to the demons when she was trapped in the fire-demon mode, and so did Simone and Victor.

* * *

“I’m home!” Lausanne returned after years of travelling. She gave Laufen a hug. It was pretty much the first thing she did.

“You’ve been away for very long.” Laufen looked at her growing daughter. “How was it?”

They had lunch together. “Oh. I’ve been to all the continents! I fought lots of monsters and creatures.”

“That’s good. Did you find anything or…anyone?”

Lausanne nodded shyly. “Yes. Erm…that’s part of why I came back, Mom.”

“Oh?”

“I…uh…joined an adventurer team when I was in the continents. And, erm…I travelled with them for a few years.”

“And?” Laufen had the look of an expectant mom, like, come on, drop the bomb already.

“I’m thinking of getting married to him. My captain.”

“Ah.” Laufen nodded knowingly. “So is he here? Did he come?”

“Yes. He’s in the inn. I wanted to just, uh…tell you about him first, before you meet him.”

“Don’t be silly. I was expecting this to happen! No young elven girl goes travelling around the world for almost seven to eight years and does not find someone to fall in love with.” Laufen smiled and gave her daughter a knowing look. “So you’re here to invite me to the wedding, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” Lausanne said shyly.

In my mind, well, that escalated quickly. She was just a kid. Then a teen. And now she was getting married. I…if I was human, I’d probably need to take some time off and accept this. Like…wow. Time sure moved quickly, and it was even more pronounced when I saw all these other people moving on with their lives.

I felt…lonely. At that moment, I could feel a sense of warmth and belonging from all my fellow trees, like they were trying to comfort me.

[Grand Mind Tree has intercepted attempted Influence from trees. The following message was deleted: We are one, we trees are all one.]

Yeah. A tree’s forever alone. All these other trees in the forest, but I was still just me.

34

YEAR 117

“This way.” Jura led them into the tunnels, fifteen of them, young teenagers who’d trained for a year or two. In another world, they’d be school-going teenagers, but here, they were warriors, rangers, mages, druids, or knights, ready to face monsters to the death.

“This way?” one of the young mages asked. He held up his staff, and the crystal glowed in the darkness of the tunnel. It was one of the many [root tunnels] that led to the Valley of the Unrotten. They’d never been there, after all; access to this area was restricted to the heroes, Jura, Laufen, Kavio, and a few others of the new priesthood, who escorted the dead bodies to their burial grounds in the valley.

“Yes.” Jura pointed. They walked past a bunch of beetle guards. They stood, a little surprised to see the unmoving beetles. “Your promotion awaits. Come.”

The fifteen nodded. They knew this was it. The moment many had been waiting for. They saw the faint light at the end of the tunnel, and they soon stood at the entrance of the Valley of the Unrotten.

The valley now was home to very few people, so Giant Attendant Trees, many of them on fire scattered throughout the valley, were the main source of light. There was still one small stairwell at the top, above my main tree.

The valley glowed with the orange fire. The trees here survived mainly on the nutrition and energy I fed them. Herbs and flowers were everywhere, and then there was the small stream of black fires, the suppressed energies of the demonic corruption. The excess corrupting energy gathered here to be processed by my main body and the trees.

Their path was made of wood, hardened from the roots that covered everywhere, and flanked by wooden statues. I made them, as practice. My surplus wooden weapons and the large anti-demon bolts were also used as fencing, since I had little place to store them.

They soon passed a field of olives, fruits, and a mix of other crops I had cultivated in small quantities, remnants of the earlier era when the survivors still lived in the valley. The old buildings looked like they’d seen some years. And ghosts. Soul harvesters and nightmare harvesters. Here in the valley, where they were closest to me, they were easily visible to anyone with the slightest affinity to magic. They resembled giant shrouds, and they floated everywhere.

Some of them felt fear.

[Haunted Forest].

Jura tapped them on their backs. “Don’t embarrass yourself. Aeon’s watching.” A test for the young Valthorns to receive their familiars. In many ways, this was actually a ritual more than an actual test, walking to the Valley of the Unrotten to see the origins of their institution.

A beetle would occasionally run across their backs, and they would turn, startled, the rangers especially with their bow and arrows.

Eventually, they arrived at where Kavio gave his briefing in a small, round area flanked by tall trees, with a small Tree of Prayer in the middle. There was also a pedestal, where they could stand to see my main tree.

“Well, we’re here. Stand on the pedestal and receive your familiar.”

A ritual. It was a silly thing; I could just as easily give them their familiar when they were sleeping in their rooms back in Freshka. But given easily, they would not know the weight and value of what was given, and they were young, impressionable teens. A part of me felt it was important that the weight of the responsibility was made clear.

So, a ritual it was.

A walk to the Valley of the Unrotten to see where the survivors lived and meet the protector of the valley.

How could one receive the familiar without ever knowing what gave you your familiar?

The fifteen teens broke down in different ways when they received their familiar contracts. They’d never been here.

One cup appeared for all fifteen of them, and each of the tall trees that flanked the tree of prayers revealed a pod.

“Time to drink,” Jura instructed. “Finish it and enter into the pods.”

[Tree sap], [Mystical Dreams], [Dream Tutor]

A dream was just a dream, or it could be more. For these fifteen young teens who’d accepted their familiar contract, I’d given them a dream of what the familiars could do, like a tutorial. At the same time, it was also…a message. Familiars had served many masters over the century. Many had died with their familiars, and I felt it was important to drill in to them the fact that when it came to familiars, though useful, it ultimately was up to them to make the full use of them.

Again, with power came responsibility. But also, with responsibility came power.

After about three hours in the pod, they all emerged a little dazed, and Jura led them back to Freshka.

I wondered about my methods. It was probably a little too…big brother. What I did with dreams maybe in another world would reek of a government reeducation camp.

After the kids were back in Freshka, Yvon asked Jura, “How’d they take it?”

“They’re quiet. I think they’ll be okay.” Jura nodded. It’d been a long day; he had a large cold tea mixed with a bit of lemon and ginger for refreshment.

“I wish I could be there.” Yvon sighed. “My form restricts me no further than ten feet out of that door.” Again, heroes were unique like that. Eriz’s ability to split her body into multiple nursery trees was special to her class, and Yvon too could split her body into each of the training trees she was in. Right now, she could have three training trees.

“Just talk to them when you see them. I think they all need a bit of sleep after what they’ve seen.”

Yvon frowned with her wooden form. She’d been their trainer for some time now, and she was about level forty as a [Training Tree]. Naturally, she cared for her students. “I hope Aeon didn’t give them the dreams of brutal warfare.”

Of all the kinds of dreams I could give a person, the dreams of the brutality of war were apparently the scariest. It was the dream where they were placed in a massive battlefield and everyone around them was killed and mutilated in different ways, and all they could do was run, flee, feel pain, and scream.

“I think he didn’t. They didn’t look that horrified.”

“I see,” Yvon said, but she was not convinced.

* * *

The New Valthorns were recruited from all over the Freshlands, from all of the small villages and towns, to the few growing cities. Politics was messy, and Freshka was like the federal government squabbling with the cities and towns that functioned like municipal and state governments.

Kavio, the elected chief, had the difficult task of managing the loose federation, and he had to frequently rely on the strength of the beetles to make his point.

Fighting eventually broke out between two cities. To the refugees, I was but a distant, faraway image. In the minds of the cities’ quasi-independent rulers, they did not believe I would impose my authority until I did.

One hundred thousand beetles descended on the two cities, along with the Valtrians’ men. The size and massive show of force meant the two cities surrendered quickly, and those responsible were quickly captured. Both leaders and those we found to be involved were publicly judged in accordance with the founding constitution of Freshka.

Defiance against their delegated authority was death. A root-spear through the heart. Gruesome, but a statement.

It was a statement I had to make. I had already foreseen my power to be challenged every few years, as the people did not believe what they did not see. This was my experience from New Freeka.

The law was meaningless until enforced. In the medieval times, order was established through force and fear. So, for a time, Kavio found his job as the chief mediator of the various segments easier. It was a job Jura did not want to do, because he saw how different the scale of things was. It was a difficult task for one person, so it had to change.

It was ironic, I supposed, when I remembered Freeka itself suffering because their king then demanded a draft and was punished for not complying. And now, I did what the king’s men did. I could only hope that I meted out these punishments justly, instead of randomly like the soldiers of Salah.

Soon, the Freshkan Council had to be expanded into something resembling a parliamentary or congressional system. Each city and district would send a representative, and those representatives together would elect a segment leader, for a total of fifteen segment leaders, one for each segment.

All of the segment leaders were given an audience with me.

Again, a ritual.

Just as how monarchs of my world had coronation ceremonies or how religious orders had complex conclaves, I saw it fit to drill the weight of my authority and that these men were delegates, that the constitution of this land had its weight and power derived from me, and it was important to cement the thought in their minds that their position represented a delegation of power. My power.

Perhaps I was a bit too power crazy. The thought of going crazy with power stirred in my mind for a moment. But this was a world of power and conflict. A world where higher-leveled people would not hesitate to have their way, and sometimes I thought maybe all this power was too much for one person. Then I recalled their stupid conflicts, and all my concerns faded away. Not everything from our world could be transplanted over. Not when the balance of power was so whacked.

The fifteen were brought to the Valley of the Unrotten, and unlike the young Valthorns, I gave them a different…drink. I gave them visions of the past.

The lives I’d taken. The foes I’d slain. The destruction of the valleys in the hand of the demons. The burning of Freeka. The corruption of the demons. The haunting screams of the dead. Wars.

The fifteen came out, holding their feelings in. Kavio escorted them back to Freshka, where a comfortable inn awaited. But a message was made, and these representatives now understood their place.

* * *

“You will outlive him, Lausanne.” Laufen held her daughter’s hand one day as they sat in a café in Freshka.

“I know. It is something I thought of, and you need not counsel me otherwise.”

“I didn’t mean to. Not when your wedding is tomorrow. I outlived your dad, too, even though we were both elves,” Laufen said. She sipped on a cup of coffee, a newly imported delicacy. “Our long lives mean little when the world is so cruel to us. Few survive till their hundreds, like Grandma Casshern.”

“I never met her.”

“You have, but you were just a baby.” Laufen smiled, and she tapped her daughter’s smooth palm. A human might think these two were good friends, or perhaps sisters, since elven aging slowed down dramatically once one reached adulthood. Maybe, except an elf would notice the faint lines around the eyes or the aging colors of her hair. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I already went through one. I don’t think our Aeonic wedding is going to be more challenging than the Hawa-styled ceremony.” For Lausanne, she held two ceremonies, one a Hawa-styled one in accordance with the Eastern Gaya Temple’s traditions on the Eastern Continent. It was meant for her husband’s extended family, and the need to travel from one continent to another meant it took a whole year to get both of her events sorted out.

“Good.”

The next day, a ceremony was held at the Freshka’s Valtrian prayer courtyard. It was an entirely new city, so we had space. I, together with some of the surviving priests, had designed this large park-in-the-temple-style courtyard, where there were multiple [Tree of Prayers] so different ceremonies could be held simultaneously.

It was also where I designated one of my many [tree eyes], so here, the trees took on different colors every season. I remembered the verdant flower patches of home, the colors of fall, and spring, and winter, and had it recreated with the local plants. So it was a lovely place, a wedding in a garden, but still in a temple. An Earthling may vaguely tell the influences of Asian gardens and temples, and even the vast courtyards of many historical sites in the West.

Lausanne and her husband stood before a [Tree of Prayer] with light pink leaves. It was a garden of many colors. The couple wore ceremonial dresses and shirts. A ritual, for a wedding.

In a world of systems, rituals were also a means of communicating with the system. Weddings, burials, all acted to inform the system of change in status. For married couples, it was not unusual for them to receive a temporary blessing immediately after the wedding.

There was a small pedestal, and on it were two small pieces of wood. It was smooth, except for one part where it had a thorn, and they both pricked their fingers on it, a drop of blood on both pieces of wood. The wood absorbed the blood and was made into a necklace with a bit of magic, and the two would exchange necklaces. Wooden necklaces of the two’s blood.

It was a relatively new process, adapted from the practices of nearby nations. After all, ancient traditions were oft forgotten, so new ones must take their place.

Jura said quietly, “From one generation to the next.”

“Doesn’t that only happen when Lausanne actually has a baby?” Laufen grinned. She was clearly happy to see her daughter find a husband.

“Well, are you pressuring them?” Jura smiled.

“Maybe not in the next few years.”

“That’s a yes.” Well, in elven terms, a few years was very short. “So eager to see a grandchild?” Laufen grinned.

* * *

There was another event that happened during the year, and one with greater geopolitical impact on the continent: the great dissolution of Harris’s empire into the seven queenly states of his seven wives.

Harris had set up a teleportation beacon, and all of his wives and children came to Freshka. He used the tremendous funds he had at his disposal to construct a vast verandah on the outskirts of Freshka, where a treaty would be signed.

The treaty of Freshka. If it was up to me, I’d totally call it Tree-aty of Freshka, but oh well. Maybe a future treaty would enjoy that tree-atment.

Harris declared the Royal Capital his personal imperial holdings and essentially delegated the management of his empire into seven parts, each under one of his wives, turning them into queens, and then his now thirty children each princes or princesses of their own regions. Armies, budgets, artifacts, and magical items were all divided into seven parts, and any undividable parts were to be held by him personally.

Of course, this wouldn’t be ideal. But Mirei was right; it was better that the separation lines be drawn now rather than later. At least he lived to mediate any conflict. The signing was held. Everyone was present, even neighboring royalty. A big party was held, and the emperor himself, Harris, gave a long speech explaining that he had hoped for a peaceful transition of power to the seven wives and their children.

Jasmine, my spy-in-chief, quickly made me listen in to some of the politicians and some of the royals.

“It’s insanity, no? Has the emperor gone mad, to break up his own empire this way? The other nations will surely take the chance to bite!”

“It’s a hero’s naivety, perhaps,” another delegate explained. “Heroes have made very strange choices in the past. It seems Emperor Harris is no different.”

“Ah. Still, this is a wonderful opportunity for us. Which queen do you think will be easier to convince?”

“I reckon we should speak to each of the young princes and princesses, who are eager to show off their chops. We could give them some winning chips but trap them into our influence. Trade and wealth is the way forward, with the emperor’s summons still around to maintain peace.”

Though Harris was unable to depart for long, his army of summons still roamed his empire. No nation was foolish enough to fight the summoned armies of the hero; their strength in combat was legendary.

“A long-term investment, at least…until the next demon king.”

“A tough decision, honestly,” the delegate said. “These dissolved seven queendoms will surely fight the moment the emperor falls in battle with the next demon king, but then, if he cannot leave this place, surely the demon king will come here.”

A look of horror was on the other delegate’s face. “Oh. That would be bad. We may not be able to retain our investment if the next demon king targets this continent.”

“Perhaps that is a question we should ask the emperor, what his plans are for the next demon king.”

So, as Harris socialized with the rest of his children and wives, one of them asked.

“Your Majesty, what’s your plan for the next demon king? With your condition, would you lead the fight with the next demon king?”

Harris smiled. “Well, though our condition generally requires us to remain close to Aeon’s healing powers, I foresee it’s not a problem for the three of us to fight the next demon king. With a set of teleportation beacons, we could fight the demon king and then be back. We are also working on an alternative, should that day come, but it is not something I can reveal.”

If there was a metaphorical moment when everyone was taking notes, that was it. I could sense a flood of magical messages outward, and I was damned sure Harris and Mirei could, too. They were heroes, and they had innate magical sense.

But he just smiled and let it happen. Eventually, the ceremony ended, an empire officially broken up. Harris let everyone choose whether they wanted to enjoy the comforts of Freshka or whether they wanted to go back. All of them went back, and surely, Harris himself predicted a torrent of planning and politicking.

That night, he met Mirei for a drink.

“You left early.”

“I didn’t want to steal your thunder. It was your event, Harris. No need for two heroes in the same event.”

“Heh. I still tire of such politics, even when I have levels for it.”

“You lasted the whole day. I’d say your levels did their job.” Mirei smiled. “How does it feel, a weight off your shoulders?”

“A bit. At the same time, I fear I may have laid the foundations for a civil war.”

“You could use this time to make more magical enchantments, such that if war ever breaks out, the magical enchantments will stop it. You know there are magics that do that.”

“It’s inevitable.”

“Indeed.”

“Ever regret sticking your thing into so many places?”

“Sometimes.” Harris sighed, and he got drunk on herbal liqueur that night.

“All the time, you mean.” Mirei laughed.

35

YEAR 118

Mirei’s condition deteriorated, despite my best efforts to heal her. A part of me felt conflicted about it. If she died, I got a titan soul. If she didn’t, well, there’d be one more hero to fight the demon king.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” she asked.

“Why is she deteriorating?” Harris asked. It didn’t make sense to him, and it didn’t make sense to me, either, but somehow, she just deteriorated like a sudden relapse. I spent months looking into her body, and I kept trying to suppress the demon king’s curse, but it was…weird. It was able to break through whatever my means of suppression and create new curses.

“If she deteriorates, you might, too,” I told Harris. “I’m trying, but I don’t know why it behaves this way.”

“It hurts,” Mirei said while she sobbed. The pain she felt was intense, and it was throughout her body. She described it like she was being roasted alive.

Some days, Mirei was absolutely delirious, and she just kept screaming, shouting, and struggling as the pain possessed her.

“Can’t you sedate her or something?” Harris said, upset at his screaming, semi-conscious friend.

“Uh, really? Do I have permission?”

Mirei herself shouted, “Yes. Do it! Just knock me out!”

She was a hero. Status effect resistance was the norm for heroes above level one hundred. My attempted sleep drug wasn’t strong enough to have any effect. “Not working, I need to overcome your natural hero resistance.”

“How?”

She screamed. She yelled.

I tried more things. Injected sleeping pills. Didn’t work.

“I don’t get it,” Gerrard, who was also around, said. “Why doesn’t it work?”

“Maybe she must want to sleep herself,” Harris said. “I mean…her body must let Aeon’s drug do its thing.”

“Oh, you mean like my alcoholism,” Gerrard said. “Mirei, try to, uh…disable or suppress your hero status. You can do that by thinking about your hero class and then think about turning it off.”

Harris glared at Gerrard. “You can do that?”

“Uh, I don’t recommend it to everyone.” Gerrard shrugged. Mirei’s screaming was blocked by the panel.

“Is that a good idea?” I asked. “It’s entirely possible her hero class is what’s helping to delay and suppress the demonic curse.”

The two heroes nodded. “True. Didn’t consider that.”

Mirei continued to scream for days, my attempts at suppressing her pain or putting her to sleep not working. But she really needed sleep, yet her body’s pain didn’t let her.

“This is just cruel,” Harris said. “I never imagined our hero’s resistance to status ailments would sabotage us in this way.” It was really this ‘cliff effect,’ where the hero’s resistance of status ailments did not prevent a demon king’s curse, and yet it prevented all attempts of ‘suppressing’ the symptoms of the curse.

“It’s partly your level.” I remembered being able to put Meela to sleep, but then, she was a lot lower level at that time.

“What?”

“The effects of the hero’s natural resistance to afflictions are correlated to the level. The higher your level, the stronger your natural resistance.”

“She can’t give away her levels. We need her for the demon king!” Harris complained. Gerrard just stared at his fellow hero.

“Is her life more important, or is the demon king more important?” Gerrard asked.

“No. That’s not what I meant.”

“It sounded quite like what I think you meant.”

“Now’s not the time to argue. Let me see what I can do to put her out of her misery. Get me the strongest painkillers and sleeping potions and items in the world. My own sleeping and pain-suppression abilities are not strong enough, but together with the world’s best items, maybe I can still do something.”

The two heroes did so. Mainly Gerrard, since he was free to travel. Harris’s condition had to be monitored; his condition may suddenly deteriorate, too. They acted quickly, and within days I had all kinds of strange medicines and ointments from all over the world. Such was the power of heroes to mobilize their immense financial resources.

And we attempted to use each and every one of those ointments. Apparently, the ‘sleep’ status, unless internally done, was viewed as a status ailment. Surely, there was a way to trigger sleep, even if her body was in pain?

The body naturally slept. That was a fact, and the hero system didn’t intervene with that. Yet all these ‘inbound’ influences that attempted to put her to sleep did not work.

So, logically, if I could somehow fake the system to think that I was ‘natural,’ wouldn’t that work? I was a tree with a nature Domain. If I couldn’t do it, who else could?

Days of struggling. Weeks. There were days when the pain somehow became more tolerable, when the demonic curse somehow subsided. Perhaps it was the alignment of the stars, but I could totally relate to Mirei’s pain. After all, I too went through something quite similar.

If she could somehow gain levels to be level one hundred fifty, would heroes gain a Domain, too? Wouldn’t that mean they’d become even more overpowered if they got their heroic divine blessings and a Domain?

I tried all my healing and sleep skills, from [suspended animation], to [mystical dreams], to even trying to use [hibernate] on her, but nothing worked.

The heroes tried using their own heroic energy to help suppress the demonic curse, but somehow it just made it worse, so they had to stop. They cursed and wondered how the demon king managed to create a curse of this strength and persistence.

They left again and went to look for other kinds of cures. Gerrard, it seemed, tried to go visit other healers and spirits.

< Lilies, are you familiar with demonic curses? >

> No. <

Ah.

How?

I mean, was there a way for a doctor to reach to the soul and just…turn off the [Hero] class for a while? Like general anesthesia or something?

< Are you then familiar with how to…disable a class? Temporarily. >

Lilies paused. They replied to me a week later.

> The system has the power. <

Well, no shit, the system gave us the power of levels, pretty damn sure it had the power to remove it, too. < How do I acquire it? >

> Such power is beyond mortals. <

Well, thank you for telling me nothing. I’d have to find some other way.

* * *

Mirei would have days where the pain subsided, and I would do extensive tests. Some days, the demonic curse just…shrank by itself. Its behavior was erratic and annoying. I didn’t understand why a curse didn’t behave consistently.

So I wondered whether it was outside interference, like…maybe something was remotely controlling the curse.

Could I form a magical barrier?

I had shield abilities, but did they work with demonic curses…uh…erm…entanglements? I mean, I guessed if the heroes’ magical transmission towers were somehow intertwined with each other without any obvious connection, that did suggest that a curse that was intertwined magically to something else was possible!

So I tried just that. Layers on layers of magical barriers.

It did nothing.

Maybe the type of barriers wasn’t right.

She yelled and screamed every now and then. It reminded me of a mental ward, where some people just couldn’t control their own mental state and frequently descended into shouting fits. Was this one of those?

Frustrated, I took Mirei to the soul forge within my body. I wanted to try to use my soul forge powers to temporarily suspend the effects of her hero class. Maybe I could then put her to sleep.

So, with the power of the soul forge, I examined her body again. At first, everything seemed the same.

Her soul spring was there; there were two massive vases that poured sparkling star mana into her spring. The spring was massive, and there were large chunks of it that resembled white marble. The curse was there, too.

Right next to the spring was a massive, swirling black pool of stuff. The swirling curse was fenced up by little bushes, which I thought was the result of my various healing abilities.

What powered this curse?

I used my soul forge, as I did before, to try and suppress the curse, but it did nothing. It was already fenced up.

Was it something else?

There was nothing else in here, in this inner body of hers. All…except the spring.

So I went back to my earlier idea. Could I turn off the hero ability temporarily? To do so, I attempted to reach for the spring, and nothing happened. With the power of the soul forge, I pushed at the spring itself. It creaked but didn’t do much.

Then I pulled. In a way, the entire spring was made of blocks, kind of like large LEGO bricks stacked on one another to form a spring. Each of them represented a skill or some a class.

It was then I saw it briefly. A small black thing. Something hidden in between the blocks. Then the blocks pulled themselves back together. Kind of like magnets snapping back once you let go.

“There’s something in your soul spring.” I told Mirei, Harris, and Gerrard the bad news. “I don’t know when it got in there, but I’m guessing it’s the cause of your pain.”

“Uh…” They didn’t understand the concept of a soul spring, of course. It probably felt like a young child listening to a doctor going about medical jargons.

So I had to explain in detail what I was doing and what I saw. They got it rather quickly. One of them described it like, “Oh, it’s like Naruto! That shikigami thing that pulled out the snake guy’s soul and chopped his arms off! So even if he had arms, he didn’t have arms, right?”

“Yes?”

“Cool. So, now we know that in her soul, that’s something that’s living inside the central key part of her soul. That central part is tied to all our levels, our mana and stuff, right?”

“Yes.”

“What if…we give you more power?”

“Huh?”

“You can’t move it with your power. But you have two heroes here. Me and Harris. We’re both heroes who have star mana, and star mana’s like crazy juice. Could it work?” Gerrard asked.

I thought about it for a moment, and I supposed it was worth trying. The star mana didn’t do much in suppressing the curse, because, well, it was already suppressed. That made sense in many ways now. We were targeting the wrong source.

“I don’t know, but it is worth trying. I will need both of you in the pods.” I wrapped their bodies with many vines and branches, simply because star mana was immensely powerful, and I was not sure regular vines by themselves could draw their mana.

Then I started the soul forge again and telepathically gave them the signal to start the star-mana transfer.

The overwhelming quantities of star mana. These heroes easily had a hundred times of my star mana each. As it flooded through my body and into the soul forge, I had to quickly increase the quantity of vines, so much so it essentially wrapped them up entirely.

Then, with their star mana and all my power, I pulled at Mirei’s soul spring again. It felt amazing. I felt like I was working with a small hammer before this, and now I was given a massive excavator. So much…power.

I pulled, and indeed, the soul spring started to come apart. Piece by piece was dismantled, and then I saw it.

A large, entirely black piece of rock. Rotten and festering right in the soul spring itself. When it got here, I had no idea.

But with their power, I pulled it out.

Mirei was in intense quantities of pain. Pulling apart one’s soul spring was like ripping through one’s very core. I sensed all her readings and measurements shoot through the roof, and if she could scream, she would’ve screamed and fainted.

I flooded her with all the sleep powers I had. [Mystical Dreams], [Psychedelic Dreams], [Suspended Animation], [Tree Sap - Sleep]. Everything. I threw everything into her body, hoping it worked this time.

And it did.

The soul spring was broken, so the [Hero] class could not play its part.

I then added more pain relief and pain suppression tree saps. She quickly calmed down and entered into sleep.

A black piece of rock stood before me. It oozed a blackish liquid. What in the fuck was this thing? My [inspection] just went [????].

I decided to just destroy it then. I hit it with all my borrowed might. A massive root. It cracked and broke and turned to small black ash. Then it disappeared.

Mirei’s soul spring was still broken. I had to start repairing it.

‘My star mana’s running out,’ the two heroes telepathically communicated.

“I used too much to destroy that thing.”

‘Is Mirei alive?’

“Yes, but let me do some basic repairs.” I tried to put her soul spring back together. I could move the lesser pieces, those that did not look like white marble. But the [Hero] pieces, I couldn’t budge them at all, unless…I had their star mana.

“My mana’s out,” Harris said.

Ugh. “Fine, let’s stop here.”

The two heroes came out, absolutely exhausted. “I’ve never had so much star mana used up except when we fought the demon king!”

It was only expected, wasn’t it? Altering one’s soul was such a difficult thing, especially a hero’s soul.

Mirei was in the longest, deepest sleep in a long time. She was in a dream. I could sense it. A long, long dream. I thought I detected that she cried at parts.

The two heroes needed a few days to replenish their star mana before we could get back to repairing Mirei’s soul spring. I had, in the meantime, done all the other pieces, and with each piece, her condition recovered. But throughout these few days, she just slept and dreamed.

The heroes said that their star mana used to refill a lot faster. When they fought the first demon king, all they needed was a four-hour nap and they were good to fight again. These days, a few days was the minimum. They claim it was the ‘downgraded’ blessings.

We got to work, and again, with their star mana, I finally managed to put everything back together without that one piece that rotted.

Done, I jolted Mirei out of her dreams.

When she woke up, she screamed briefly, then cried for an hour. Then she gave Harris and Gerrard both a hug.

“Mirei, are you all right?”

“…no.”

“What, it didn’t work?”

“Whatever you all did, it worked. I’m not in pain anymore,” Mirei said. “But I’m not all right. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw home.”

“Home?”

“Earth,” Mirei said. “I dreamed of Earth, but it was so real, so vivid. I was back in school again. Friends. Our family. I could remember all their names and faces again.”

Gerrard and Harris looked at each other.

“We’ve known for a while that the gods suppress our memories of home. But during that long sleep, all I dreamed of…was home.”

“Aeon, what did you do?”

“I put you into a dream state, but I have little input on what actually happens other than the type of dreams. I gave you a pleasant one.”

Mirei bowed briefly. “Thank you, Aeon. I needed that reminder of home. Harris, Gerrard, I want to go home.”

The two men didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve had enough of playing here. Thirty years we lived here, fought this stupid war of the gods. I want to go home now.”

What could they even say to that? How could they even go home? How could I even go home?

“Mirei…”

“I’m not going to kill myself, but if I’m heavily injured in the next battle, don’t save me,” Mirei said. “I had enough. I want to go home.”

“Mirei.”

“Harris, you had your fun. Don’t you miss your parents? I saw them in my dreams. They were there. The gods told us if we died, we’ll be back where we started. I’ve had enough, Harris. It’s time to wake up from this silly game.”

She looked at the two dumbstruck men.

“I’m going to need some time.”

“Yes,” the two answered and quickly gave her space.

Mirei was alone, and physically she was fine. She sat on a chair inside my [secret hideout] and spoke. “Aeon, was that real?”

“I gave you dreams. But I don’t know exactly what was in them.”

“Can you give me more of those dreams?”

“I…don’t know whether your hero power will interfere with it.”

She paused, and then she asked me a question I never expected. “Can you take my hero powers away? If I give them to you willingly, is that something you can take away?”

The answer was yes, of course. It was entirely possible to give away one’s levels and skills. It had happened before so many, many, many years ago. “Yes.”

“I see,” she said. “Harris probably wants me to fight with him the next time. But I’m tired of this artificial life. I miss my parents. I miss home. I miss being…normal again. I hate this hero thing now.”

“Things may not be well back home.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Mirei sobbed. “I didn’t realize how sad it is to never dream of my parents or my siblings all these years, that we’ve somehow accepted and rolled with this new role of ours as heroes so freaking easily. It’s just fucked up, so fucked up, and all I want to do is quit this game.”

“It’s not a game.” Well, who knew?

“It might well be, with how they’ve been toying with our feelings and emotions,” Mirei said. “The worst thing is I didn’t even know until you disabled my hero class! I never even realized how weird it is for us to just roll with it and forget so many important things about our world!”

I didn’t say much. I just gave her some tea, and now that she was not in pain, there was no reason to lock her up in here. Her curse still remained, though, and that was something even with the heroes’ star mana I still couldn’t solve. Maybe not yet.

She rested for quite a long time, alone. “Aeon. I have a favor to ask.”

“Yes?”

“When it’s time for me to die, can you take my levels away?”

“I can’t do that. Levels must be given away freely.”

“I can give you my levels now. Or can I make it into a magical contract such that you take my levels the moment I die?”

“Why not give it to Harris or Gerrard?”

“They don’t realize it, Aeon. Maybe Gerrard knows, but he is drinking away his worries. Maybe he knows and doesn’t want to admit it. It’s a kind of suffering to continue this game, knowing that our old life, our real family, is all waiting for me over there, on the other side. Giving them levels just prolongs their suffering.”

“It’ll help them.”

“It’s a twisted kindness, that heroes die frequently. Imagine never being able to die and being stuck in this world. If you realize that your loved ones are still there…”

Hmm, at this point, well, if she wanted to give it to me…

“I’ll give it to you.”

But then again, I couldn’t use it. If I remembered correctly, levels surrendered were converted to [experience seeds]. It just went into my growing pool of [experience seeds]. But… “Sure.”

* * *

That day, I gained a level. I thought it was when I used the hero’s star mana to crush that black [????] thing.

[You gained a level. Level 156]

[Skill: Natural Mana Overwhelming upgraded.]

[Skill: Soul Forge upgraded. Improved control and abilities over soul forge functions.]

I was really slow at gaining levels. The last time I gained levels was five years ago!

That was slow, right?

36

YEAR 119

During the past few years, I’d been studying runes and formations. It’d been something on my mind since I saw those mages do it, and with the heroes’ financial resources, I had a lot to read and study.

Of course, I couldn’t read. So the task was left to some poor Valtrian Order magic student whose ‘job’ was to come to the Valley of the Unrotten and read the book out loud. Kind of like Audible, but only a lot more boring because the subject matter was runic formations, magical theory, and stuff like that.

This, of course, served multiple functions. It was a means of education for these students. Reading out loud was a good way of learning and committing to memory. Two, it helped me! Three, I got to have a sense of how these young children were. After all, their behavior was quite clear when they were asked to read a book alone in a strange and scary place.

I didn’t get a skill, sadly.

But that was fine. I developed an understanding of the magical formations, and I began experimenting on them, mainly in some corner of my growing domain that wasn’t inhabited.

I had a few things I wanted to do, one of which was to use formations as a source of mana on a large scale. Instead of using mana, you could create formations that did the reverse of generating mana, like some kind of mana-gathering facility. There were smaller-scale variants, but I was quite inspired by the former hero Astra’s ability to apparently channel mana from various sources to create a super hex-bomb, no matter how he did it.

Mirei had been particularly cooperative, and she was very amused with the children reading books in the often uninhabited valley.

“Tree Spirits sure have strange ways of doing things.”

She helped with the mana-gathering formations.

“I had the impression trees are able to do this quite naturally. As in, trees gather mana naturally, do they not?”

“Yes.”

Mirei, after the earlier set of outbursts, stabilized. I suspected it was the effects of her hero class, now restored. It suppressed those emotions.

“But it’s a slow process, and I’m hoping to speed it up.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” A massive defensive array required mana. A lot of it. It took many, many iterations, but eventually we succeeded in producing an array of runes and structures able to produce more mana than it used. It had to be big, too, so it wasn’t something you could hide.

But that meant I could channel more of this mana to fight off the demonic energy and expand even more.

Gerrard returned in the latter half of the year with a fragment, the third piece that was given away. I scanned it, and sadly, it was still an incomplete image.

—demons. Dragons. Combat. A lot of combat. Earth cracked, and so did the skies.

It was still incomplete. There were pieces out there. But how did we find it?

[Grand Mind-Tree has blocked attempted influence.]

Ah. Again.

“The Frozen Tree was very willing to share,” Gerrard explained. “It told me that it would like to meet you someday.”

“Likewise.” A frozen tree spirit. That was extremely fascinating. This Frozen Tree lived in a frozen lake in the far north, in an uninhabited island that was almost completely frozen over. Home to ice giants, monsters and all that, the Frozen Tree was the overlord of that island and had kept the island free of demons for millennia.

I wondered what other tree spirits thought of this entire situation? Surely they didn’t just accept it like Lilies? Or they all did, because that was how trees were? Nature was what it was, and they just accepted it.

Was going against the rules of the world a thing that trees didn’t do?

[Domain and Grand Mind Tree has blocked attempted divine action.]

Uh. I took that as a yes. It seemed that trees really did not attempt to break the cycle, even if they were long lived and could see things with the benefit of history. Surely, this systematic, demonic destruction was not acceptable, since it was way more than just regular ‘constructive’ destruction.

And yet they did nothing.

Why? I didn’t get it. Gods. Had to be the gods. Meddling, meddling gods.

[You’ve gained a level. You are now level 157.]

[Skill: Natural mana overwhelming upgraded.]

Uh. Why was the same skill getting upgraded over and over again?

And I still didn’t get why I gained a level from it.

* * *

The constant expansion of my territory and also the influx of more refugees meant the population had increased significantly. Outside of my research, I spent more time, together with Jasmine, watching over the multiple towns and cities that had popped up.

It was a very big area, and for the most part, Kavio and the new Council of Representatives all dealt with me directly.

The focus was on the next demon king and our preparations, readying ourselves for the coming wars.

The heroes also worked on making more anti-demon weapons, more armors, and more sets. Weapons! Yay! Over the years, I’d managed to equip a two hundred–strong group with a full set of anti-demon armor, and I hoped to grow this force to five hundred strong.

Of this group, about fifty were now at least level forty. Once they hit level sixty to seventy, they should be able to handle a demon walker without my assistance. They gained this level by hunting naturally spawning monsters and made regular trips into the Rottedlands to fight the hybrid spawns.

In a world where the Rottedlands was like a large ‘dungeon,’ the level of the residents should be high, else it was jarring, even with protection like my army of beetles. But then, if their levels went up, that made them more dangerous to me, didn’t it? I was not too worried about high-level merchants or craftsmen, but then…warriors, I had to get them on my side.

Anyway, we regularly deployed soldiers and recruits into the Rottedlands to fight monsters. That way, the soldiers and recruits who worked for me gained levels and prepared for the real demonic attacks.

Was this what rulers did? I mean, I didn’t really actively do it, but it must be trying to do this whole play-each-faction-against-each-other schtick, balancing levels so that all the factions never got too powerful and they continued to obey me. Too fucking time consuming.

I mean, I was on this train of thought as news of civil war broke out in Harris’s now-fractured kingdom. I mean, the man was still alive, and already they were fighting. Children, fighting each other.

It must suck to be a father and watch your children fight. I suppose it was like a typical family drama where a wealthy tycoon passed away and the kids squabbled over the riches.

In fact, it absolutely drove him into depression of some kind. Well, I was not sure whether it was actually depression, but it made him feel very, very sad.

So much so that Mirei was the one comforting him.

“What should I do?” Harris was sad. Already, some of his sons and daughters came to talk to him and asked him to stop it. But he gave away his rights to those lands, and some of his more ambitious children were taking the chance to do something.

“Stop him, Father,” a boy said to Harris. “He’s attacking one of us.”

But the truth was everyone was provoking each other, and Harris had his own network of informants that seemed to suggest none of his children were entirely innocent. If he wanted to lay down the law, he would have to do it to everyone.

And yet he was but one person. He was not surprised if even those who served him were already taking sides in the conflict.

“You can do two things,” Mirei said to a sad Harris. “Stop it, and enter into a loop of constantly interfering. And eventually when you do die, they will still continue the fight that they’ve postponed. Or do nothing. They have land and territory now. Let them fight each other over it. Let them prove themselves by blood and war.”

“That’s so cruel.”

“It’s always been this way. Territorial disputes are as old as nations themselves, and the right to rule is one protected by might and magic, not by name or heritage.”

Harris regretted breaking his country up, then. He knew he would just be kicking the can down the road until the day he died and they’d fight it out anyway. But at least he wouldn’t be alive to see it.

So, as much as he knew it was a stupid thing to do, he started leaving frequently to stop the fighting with his summoned army. There was no way he could let it continue, even if it did lead to a constant, vicious cycle.

A cruel fate.

Mirei said as much as she watched her friend feel like shit.

“You know, that’s partly why I didn’t want to have children. After I discovered what happened to so many heroes and their families, I just felt really sad. I don’t think I could ever watch my children drift apart and start doing that.”

“Conflict is eternal. But perhaps so is reconciliation.”

* * *

I used more and more runes and formations to gather more mana and added runic formations to the Valley of the Unrotten. Mana meant territory, and I was pretty damned good with using mana to push back against the demons.

More mana.

More mana.

More runes.

More mana! Eventually, I made a formation large enough to trigger a notification that I wasn’t quite expecting.

[Soul Forge: Yellow Unlocked]

[Artificial Souls Level Cap increased to Level 60.]

[All artificial souls now have Yellow option unlocked.]

[Class/Skill/Experience Seed merging unlocked. Ability to merge souls and classes, and multiple class seeds and experience seeds together.]

[Class/Skill/Experience Seed upgrade unlocked. Able to upgrade classes, skills, and experience seeds to superior forms.]

OOOOO.

Looked like I was one step further, and closer, to make myself an army of super elites.

Yellow Soul Forge from just using a massive array and formation to gather mana. Who would’ve thought of that?

That meant soul forges actually just required different ‘types’ or ‘origins’ of mana, not necessarily unique or special magical ley lines. But…wait.

If I got enough star mana, could I have Soul Forge: Star? I mean, theoretically possible, perhaps? What overpowered ability would I have?

Or what about demonic mana? Could enough demonic mana power some kind of soul forge, too?

So I began to explore both aspects of these mana, experimenting more on the hybrid demonic trees. I hoped to unlock a better understanding of the demon’s mana at least somehow, even if it didn’t lead to a soul forge.

At the same time, I started the whole class seed upgrade and merging process. Essentially, class seeds were upgraded when one added essence, mana, and materials. Combining them increased their strength and power, and fusing multiple class seeds created special ones.

It was a bit like crossbreeding, splicing and grafting different trees together to create something different at the end.

I began rather conservatively, like fusing multiple [ranger] and [druid] class seeds together, which formed the [Mountain Druid] class. Or multiple druid classes were fused together and then obtained the [Great Druid] Class. The ratio was like ten normal classes to form one single better class. And I kept at it. I had a lot of class seeds and essences accumulated over the years, and I’d finally found a place to fuse them all!

Twenty [Knight] classes made one single [Grand Knight] class, and ten [Warrior] and [Soldiers] made a [Warmaster].

It was honestly extremely enjoyable, and I felt like a cook when I fused all the different classes together.

Adding essences to it also did some strange things. Iron and mineral essences fused to a [Knight] eventually created a [Steel Knight] class.

But there was a limitation. Not all of these evolved classes could be further fused. I was still trying to find what could be fused.

Eventually, one of the few twice-evolved classes I discovered was thirty [Great Druid] classes fused into a single [Lord of the Forest] class and fifty [Grand Knight] classes fused into a [Knight Master].

I was eager to test it out. So I selected one young, promising thirteen-year-old Valthorn.

His name was Faris, and he’d been living in one of the outer sections of the Freshlands before he was recruited to join the Valthorns three years ago. He’d been training with Yvon for a while, and in three years, he was already a level-thirty [druid].

A regular [druid] class. I gave a [Great Druid] class seed to Yvon.

“You want to give this to him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why not?”

“I mean…this is a rare class, right?” Yvon didn’t know I unlocked the class-fusion ability. Let’s keep it that way.

“Yes, I believe it is time I stop hoarding these things and grant them.”

So Yvon did, in fact, give it to Faris. There was a small ceremony, something like a small award ceremony in school where the principal would then give out certificates, only he received a small seed.

“This, young Faris, is a gift from Aeon himself, a fruit that will grant you the class [Great Druid].”

Everyone in the room clapped. Faris didn’t waste much time and chomped down on the fruit. I observed him that entire day, and I watched his soul change slightly as the new class merged with his own. After one night’s sleep, he found himself with increased mastery over his druidic abilities.

[Domain and Grand Mind Tree blocked passive influence from a Great Druid.]

Ah. I supposed I should be more careful with giving out classes relating to control over trees. I thought that was a passive.

Faris and Jura came to me for an audience the next day. He was still a young boy in the end, even though he did have a good class.

Children.

So, so young.

“Aeon, I bring the one that you’ve granted the seed.”

“Greetings, Faris.” I spoke mentally, and already I could sense some pressure pushing back.

[Domain and Grand Mind Tree blocked passive influence.]

“I believe you may be unknowingly using some passive abilities, young Faris.”

Faris flustered, and he seemingly nodded. “Ah. I…I’m sorry.” Then I felt the pressure lift. Did druids have these abilities all this while? Was this how they attempted to control trees?

He was still but a young child. “Good. How do you like your reward?”

“It’s quite amazing, Aeon. Upgrading my class to a Great Druid at my age is unheard of anywhere in the world. All my skills are stronger now.”

“Good. It is a gift, and a reward, and with it responsibility and expectation that you will do more and better for us. Our land remains heavily damaged, and we need people like you to help heal it.”

Faris nodded. He was very agreeable and impressionable.

At that moment, I wondered whether I’d made a mistake in giving him such powers, the same way the gods gave their powers to young teenagers.

* * *

One of the foolish things about people was that, well, they seemed to forget that trees in the forests had eyes. So Jasmine and my artificial souls alerted me to the presence of some cultists.

It was common. A land newly reclaimed and filled with people, where law enforcement was still not yet secure and where leaders were still vying for power and position among themselves, some would inevitably turn to magic and occasionally blood magic.

So, in the depth of the unnamed woods, a group of thirty-five men and women were gathered. One of them was an old noble from the nearby city who migrated to the Freshlands and settled there. They had with them about fifteen slaves. The slaves all looked extremely afraid.

“Should we save the slaves, Master?” Jasmine asked. There were beetles and spiders who could easily intercept.

“Wait.”

I’d wanted to see this for a long time now. Blood magic. I was sorry, slaves, but I believed the benefit I gained from learning how blood magic worked would allow me to save more lives in the future.

Thirty men formed a circle, and with a quick cut, one of the slaves was killed. His body splattered in the middle of a strange formation. They chanted, and I could see the soul very clearly, torn apart by the blood magic.

They did so repeatedly, with all the slaves. I watched, with all my sensors, magical and not, blood magic being executed right before my eyes. I saw their magic rip the soul out of the slaves and fuse them together.

Oh wow. It really was a kind of soul fusion. But it was incomplete. I saw the core of their souls break free and the remnant, the outer souls of the slaves, stitched together by their rough blood magic. Incomplete. Irregular and messy.

But it was strong. Just like how my artificial souls were without a soul ‘core,’ from this alone I could easily see that their blood magic was essentially using the ‘outer’ part of the souls and fused together into this mess.

After a chant or so, the blood magic compressed the tangled, fused souls into a small reddish drop on a plate. The noble took it, and he drank it. Instantly, I saw his body’s energy levels spike up. This was quite like using blood magic to strengthen himself, and his features quickly turned younger.

Ah. Youth. Interesting.

The ritual was done. I thought I had an idea why the hex could be reversed gradually via those negative emotions.

No more reason to leave them alive. Most of them.

“Well. Capture the two chief ritual masters alive.” There were two of them that led the ritual, and I had plans for some good old interrogation.

An army of beetles and spiders descended on them. The noble was strong, his strength amplified by the blood magic. So it still took me a few hits of [Serpentine Rootstrike], and an army of beetles quickly slaughtered the rest of them.

Hex. It was essentially an unstable fusion of the outer souls, which was why it leaked so much negative energy. And, because this negative energy was contagious, it caused others close to it to also suffer hex poisoning. Walking into a field of hex was like being infected with depression that killed you from within. A rot in the soul caused by exposure to unstable fusion of soul fragments.

37

YEAR 120

I gave away a [Grand Knight] class to a promising young student. She was fit, but with the Grand Knight class, she became fit and unnaturally strong. She had a skill that strengthened all the armor that she wore, and she turned into quite a monster to fight.

“These upgraded classes, Aeon, how did you get them?” Yvon was extremely curious. At the same level, an upgraded class was at least 30 percent stronger. Perhaps this was the comparison between a lord and a king, or a king and an emperor?

“I collected them.” Which was partly true. Through all the souls of the dead, I’d been accumulating so many class seeds that I’d lost track of all of them. I’d also been growing ‘class-tree-plants’ that produced more class seeds of the rarer classes, like [Dark Knight].

I mean, would thirty Dark Knights give me a Dark Paladin?

“You know, this news spreads out, many are going to come calling. Fruits that can grant an upgraded class are unheard of in the world. Even kings may grant royal variants, but those are nothing like true upgraded classes.”

“And?”

“Well. Theft, for one. We’ll need to prepare for that, as there will be thieves who want to steal your stockpile of upgraded class seeds.”

Let them try. It was all inside me. How would they steal? Perhaps these thieves had some kind of skill, then?

Wait. That did sound possible. A thief with a skill able to take from one’s presumed safe pockets sounded exactly like what a high-tier thief should have.

“Jasmine, can you increase your surveillance for thieves?”

“Master, we’ve located many thieves.”

Already? Oh. It had been a year since I gave away my [Great Druid] Class.

“Most are petty criminals, but some appear highly skilled.”

Thieves. Should I just kill them?

* * *

Meanwhile, the captured blood ritualists were forced to do my bidding, mainly to conduct more blood rituals, using criminals that were on death row.

I had to learn a bit more about blood magic. There were some fundamental similarities between my soul forge and blood magic, and I intended to learn more of it.

The blood ritualists cooperated and used the criminals to cast all sorts of blood rituals, such as strengthening rituals and summoning rituals.

Of course, after over fifty rituals, they leveled up, and I thought they were close to level sixty. Then they got overconfident and started to attack me with the summoned creatures. Each ritual made them stronger, but I, too, gained a deeper understanding of blood magic.

I had a large army and now more elites.

I deployed my new [Grand Knight] and [Great Druid], together with an army of beetles. The two ritualists didn’t stand much of a chance. They honestly should’ve used blood magic to cast some kind of warped teleportation, but perhaps that had too much risk.

Blood magic was inherently unstable; it was power derived from the stitching of the outer souls together in accordance with ancient writings. Those writings guided the ritualists, bound the fragments of the soul together into a shape, and each shape then created a specific effect. Some of these shapes were actually benign, and hence they empowered their hosts. Still, they were inherently unstable soul fragments, so over time they decayed and created problems for the host.

It was like cancer, really.

The two overconfident ritualists were captured again. This time, their punishment was death, and I gave them a punishment that I gave a long time ago: death by deconstruction in a biolab.

I received [Blood Mage] class seeds.

I wondered whether I could somehow get [Hero] Class seeds.

“Mirei.”

“Yes, Aeon?”

“Would you ever be willing to give away your hero class?” I asked her one day as she rested in one of the courtyards of Freshka. She had slowly dismantled her business and sold it to various merchants eager to take over her clothing chain.

“Yes.” She had a headache after she said it. “The hero class is pretty much the god’s remote-control button. It’s a trojan horse in our body.” It was quite predictable, and to some extent, Mirei got better at figuring out what triggered the headache. It was always something about heroes and gods.

She took a while to collect herself, and she continued.

“I mean, I would give it away, but I can’t. The system doesn’t let me do it. I just tried to do it just now.”

“Really. Yet it allows you to trade your hero levels for other levels.”

“Yeah. I could theoretically trade away all my hero levels for something else and then give you all those levels, but it sounds like you are interested in the hero class itself, Aeon?”

“Well, that’s right.” I mean, the [Hero] class itself was what was incredibly fascinating, like…was there a way I could trace it backward to the source, i.e. the gods? Did the gods actually have a physical location in this world? Like, was there a magical heaven somewhere, where they gazed on this world? Perhaps they were like players, looking at us through the screen. “Have you not considered it, giving away all your hero levels so that you can remove their influence?”

“I did think about it. But I didn’t do it because I wanted to still help Harris and Gerrard. I doubt the gods would just let all three of us trade all our hero classes away. Pretty sure there’s like a limit or something.”

Made sense that the gods would put in a failsafe like that. They already went ahead to actively ‘mind control’ and ‘mind wipe’ these heroes; why wouldn’t they put restrictions?

* * *

“Tending to flowers, Great Druid?” the young lady said. She was in full armor and had two large swords on each side and a long wooden anti-demon spear at the back. Edna, the [Grand Knight], was only sixteen.

“As I am often compelled to do, yes.”

“Has Aeon summoned you recently?”

“No, why?”

“It’s…well. I have had offers from nearby kingdoms to defect to serve them.”

Faris paused. “If it’s a good offer, it is worth considering. Though the term…defection is a bit too strong.”

“Oh?” Edna sat on a rock in the flower garden. “Explain.”

“I believe Aeon may be open to us acting as his mercenaries.”

“Mercenaries?” Edna frowned. “That’s quite against the very nature of my class as a Grand Knight.”

“I spoke to some observers, Principal Yvon and Master Jura, and they agreed that Aeon may be willing to consider stationing us in those other kingdoms.”

“Willing to consider doesn’t mean he will.”

“Aeon’s willingness, of course, has a price. A good enough reward, he would definitely consider it. I believe if the kingdoms may offer something rare and unique from the ancient pasts, Aeon may well be swayed into it. At least, Principal Yvon strongly thinks so.”

“I highly doubt he is willing to give any of us away.”

“Not give. Stationed. We are still loyal to him, and we act as his agents. Our services to those other kingdoms are similar to those of an adventurer. We would obviously abstain if those conflicts meant we would end up fighting each other.”

“So you have been similarly approached.” Edna smirked.

“Of course,” Faris said. “When the kingdoms, or even the Hutan Council, first gave me the offers, I quickly notified Valthorn leadership. Master Jura’s advice then was to ignore it, as if these kingdoms truly are desperate, they would offer far greater rewards than what they offered now.”

Edna shook her head. “That really makes it sound…mercenary. I wouldn’t do so.”

It was Faris’s turn to laugh. “If so, it’s best you stay put. I doubt the principles of these other kingdoms would be better than ours.”

“But a part of my class is enhanced by serving a [King]. There are knight-specific abilities for people like myself.”

“If there’s anyone who can ‘make’ a king, it’s probably our great Aeon.”

I didn’t have a [King] class, though. Wait…did Roma have the [Prince] class?

“Yes. But it’s still level two,” Roma said quietly when Jura approached him. “Why do you ask, Master Jura?”

“Aeon asked, not me.”

“Ah.” Roma’s an adult, like Lausanne. Unlike Lausanne, his focus had always been more academic and magical in nature, and now, having survived, he was mostly an administrator for merchant companies. It was almost like someone who’s a prince relegated to an office boy, though he certainly didn’t seem any bit bothered by that sort of reality. “Well, if anyone’s asking, I’m honestly not interested in the whole prince thing. I’d even give the class away, if I could. I’m honestly not sure why I even still have the class.”

“Salah’s still around, in some form, so the title remains.” Well, I wanted the [Prince] class, and so Jura asked. “So, since you do not want the class, would you consider giving it away?”

“That is…possible?”

“Aeon may have the ability to take it away from you.”

Yvon objected strongly. “It’s your heritage!”

“The hell with it, Mom. I’m not interested in being caught in stupid political games that this faraway kingdom of Salah would probably have. I have no relationship with Salah, I never lived there, I don’t know anyone there, and honestly, I may well be a lifetime citizen of Freshka! I don’t know my father, either, and honestly, this [class] isn’t worth it.”

Well, turned out, I couldn’t take it away, simply because his level as a [Prince] was far too low. He needed to have at least ten to twenty levels in Prince for me to actually ‘take’ it away from him.

Help, on this matter, came from a very odd party.

“I’m a king,” Harris said, back from his many peacekeeping duties. He had to come back frequently, but still, the ‘civil’ war went on. His wives, now all queen mothers in their own right, squabbled over territory.

There were days he felt sad. His wives truly adored and loved him, and that part wasn’t a lie. But his harem was held together by him, and him alone. With him giving up his right over the entire kingdom, each queen had to protect her own children. Some of his children were more ambitious, and so, fighting broke out. He had no right to imprison his children now that they were legally king and prince regents of their own country. He could only reprimand them as a father.

“If you want my class, you honestly can take it. It’s useless now. I’m probably going to declare my capital city independent, and let what’s left of the council of ministers decide where to go.”

“You just sound incredibly sad.” Mirei tapped him. “What do you say, you know, let’s go out with a bang? Let’s end this farce with the next demon king.”

The two heroes plotted their plans for the next demon king. Indeed, they intended to win, but they also intended to die.

Harris was able to give me a few levels of his [King] class, but no more than 20 percent of it. But strangely, in my hands, the [King] class was unusable.

I mean, I had a [King] class seed, but I couldn’t give it or use it on anyone.

[The class [King] cannot be used.]

Could I change it such that I could use it?

So, with my [Soul Forge: Yellow], I tried to experiment on the [King] class seed…and well, after injecting my own energy into it…it changed.

The [King] class seed transformed into a unique class seed [The Anointed King, Aeon’s Executor].

Uh…that was quite corny, wasn’t it? But that was so Starcraft. Executor. Maybe I could create a Hierarch, like uh…Artanis?

I had a dilemma now. I have a special class seed, and I wasn’t quite sure who to give it to. I didn’t want to give it to the heroes, because they had no ties with the valley and me. Ultimately, they were under the influence of the gods, and I wouldn’t want them to be ‘king.’

The first person I had in mind was Jura. He served me loyally over the years and had demonstrated all the necessary skills of war.

He shot it down. “No, Aeon. Me, a king? There’s no way I can do it. I prefer to just teach.”

Lausanne, perhaps? But she was happily travelling with her husband. Laufen? She shook her head; she was happy tending to young children at Eriz’s childcare centers and didn’t want the stress or the duties of a king.

So I reluctantly put this class aside. But I had my fellow artificial souls pay attention to the young Valthorns. Perhaps of these young ones, some of them would show promise, and of them one that I could elevate to a ‘king.’

* * *

“Six more years to the demon king.”

“If we’re lucky, seven.”

“Six. I want it to come sooner,” Mirei said.

She was really quite eager to return home, so when I told her about the entire [Soul Contract] and how it worked with Yvon, she immediately rejected it. To her, a Soul Contract extended her misery in this world by one thousand years. She didn’t want any of that. She missed home, and she wanted to go home.

The idea of ‘suicide’ didn’t quite work for her, so she was in this odd situation, perhaps quite like a Norse warrior seeking Valhalla through glorious battle with the demon king. Because little else could kill her.

Her curse had remained relatively stable since my last operation, and I still continued my experiments. I suspected there must be something that bound the curse to the demons, because I didn’t understand why it fluctuated at odd times.

A fluctuation may be internal or external, and after all my abilities, I was rather certain I ruled out the internal factors. So, that left the fluctuations in the curse down to two possible external factors: the gods, or the demons. The curse was a matter of the soul, and something I wondered was…what if a hero was sacrificed in a blood ritual? Or could blood magic’s ability to interact with the outer soul be used to fix the curse?

Harris, of course, hated the idea. “Blood magic should be outlawed. It’s a gruesome ability that shouldn’t even exist in this world.”

Ngeh. The world’s pretty gruesome. I mean, you gained experience by killing stuff; wasn’t that gruesome? How’s blood magic different? It was just the way of killing, wasn’t it?

I’d concede that the only thing different was that blood magic reached into a person’s soul and ripped it out, and perhaps that was a kind of ‘desecration’ of the sanctity of the soul. Again, only if one believed that the soul was ‘sacred.’

A mortal belief, really. For someone like myself who now had a good understanding of the soul, it certainly didn’t feel sacred.

In fact, I felt a bit of desensitization that came from knowledge that a person’s inner soul could always reincarnate, and death was but the departure of the inner soul from a physical vessel. If so, in this cycle of death and reincarnation, it was just a convoluted version of swapping one car for another or stopping one game and starting another new game.

So…why should outer souls or lives be sacred? If anything should be sacred, it was that moment in space and time. Space-time was sacred, because death took it away, and each period of time was unique, and what happened in that space was unique. So, death robbed away one’s ability to experience each unique segment of space-time.

Anyway, back to the blood magic. I certainly wanted to use my [blood mage] class seeds, and I wanted to use them differently.

All the previous [blood mages] had quite warped perspectives and were up to no good, so I was going to try to train a ‘good’ blood mage. There must be something in their magic that was worth learning.

Jura, Laufen, and Yvon were horrified at the idea of training young blood mages. “No. No. No.”

“Our existing trainees generally gain their levels and experience against monsters and hybrids. Blood mages require blood sacrifice, and that means people! No.”

Something like that. Didn’t make much sense, though. What was wrong with using those about to die anyway?

38

YEAR 121

My own curse flared up. I wasn’t sure why, but if it could happen to the heroes, it certainly could happen to me.

Thankfully, [Root of Life] helped suppress it, but it felt like one of those days when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and had to nurse a migraine the entire day. It was really one of those days.

And well, it was one of those years.

I had a few rebellions to crush. A few invasions to defeat. A surge in monsters and creatures from the Rottedlands.

But there were some good parts. I sent three of the ancient-tree shards to Lilies. Strangely, they actually agreed to give an ‘enchantment’ should I ever ask for it. They had some powers over death.

They gave me a brief origin story of their powers of death. Because they took death-ceremonies to another level.

In the Lake of Lilypod City, any and every death was brought back to be submerged in the lake in a tradition almost a millennium old. Lilies had developed a method of gaining experience from the bodies of the dead. Beneath the lake’s murky waters were floating roots and vines that consumed the corpses of the dead.

They had somehow developed a skill that allowed them to collect experience from the dead. I mean, I got experience seeds, but they got experience and levels! I wondered if it was a function of their different species?

< When we were small and few, we lived in this lake where the dead were thrown away. The dead fed us, strengthened us. >

Class. Experience. Levels.

Perhaps, so many years ago, did Indra set me off on this path of being a Soul/Spirit Tree by requesting a familiar? Had I received experience in a different way, would my evolution had been different?

* * *

“I’m afraid not.” Jura shook his head. “Aeon has a rather poor opinion of the Hutan Council after his encounters with your people a few decades ago.”

“Could you talk to it and convince it otherwise? The council has changed a lot over the twenty years. Surely it’s unfair for the Tree Spirit to pin the blame on this generation for the sins of the previous generation?” The Hutan Council had sent a decent-size delegation to Freshka after the news of the Great Druid class being gifted to Faris. It took them some time, but here they were.

Many wanted the class, of course. Some of these druids had been regular druids for decades and saw the upgraded class as a chance to break through their stagnant lives.

Jura shrugged. “Trees have long memories. I suggest you come back in, say…fifty years.” I thought that wasn’t true. It was just that we trees perceived time differently, so those memories felt quite fresh to me. It took more time for me to forget a grudge, even though it felt just as long or the same to me.

“No. Great Druid! To a child!” the druid shouted at Jura. “Even the entire Hutan Council, only two druids have that class!”

Jura frowned. “Perhaps Aeon sees something in the child. And I don’t recall druids ever challenging the wisdom of the Tree Spirits.”

[Domain and Grand Mind Tree has blocked attempted influence.]

“And Aeon has just said that he is annoyed at your attempt to use your power.”

The druid frowned. A few other druids looked unhappy. And they stomped off. Jasmine helped to monitor them, but then, a bunch of them were spotted sneaking into the Valthorns’ offices and buildings.

“The tree spirit may have hidden some of the class-granting fruits in the premises. We should sneak in and try to find it.” They managed to bribe a Valthorn employee to reveal where valuable items were hidden in the Valtrian Order’s premises. So they snuck in.

“But wouldn’t they hide it in its main tree itself?” another Hutan druid asked. At this point, I thought no one ever revealed to the druids that I had line-of-sight of the entire valley. Wouldn’t anyone be able to figure it out?

“Do you want a chance to find a Great Druid class or not?”

They snuck into the premises and then got a shock when they saw the valuables store only had money.

“It’s just storing money.”

That was because all the weapons and other items had all been given to the Valthorns, and they were responsible for caring for their own goods. Seriously, the concept of a store was not really valid when Jasmine and the other artificial minds could pretty much track all movement of these items almost all the time.

Distributing them minimized any risk of theft, and since the valley itself was under heavy surveillance, it wasn’t hard to find who took what, especially if it was of value. Money, on the other hand, was rather worthless to me, so its security was left to the Valtrian Council.

“You know it won’t be there.” Edna appeared behind the druids. There was a group of other Valthorn Knights with her. “The fruits of a special class only appear when Aeon itself decides it is so.”

“You!” The Hutan druids turned and summoned animals to fight. They were outnumbered, honestly. There were knights everywhere. The knights overwhelmed the druids, and those who surrendered were arrested and thrown into a prison.

Time for Freshka to hold them ransom for some rewards from the Hutan Council. I had the impression they were on the decline, though, so I wondered what they were willing to cough up.

* * *

Later on, I awarded two more Valthorn Initiates with special classes: one a [Mountain Druid] and another a [Ranger Master].

To some extent, a part of me began to enjoy the chaos that these advanced classes caused.

“I’m rather surprised that you have so many unique classes, Aeon.”

“I’ve been hoarding them for some time.” There was some truth to it, but I also had an orchard of class-seed growing trees in the Valley of the Unrotten. And it helped that I gathered class seeds, skill seeds, and experience seeds when people died.

Everywhere, as long as it was within the range of my soul harvesters, essence, class-seed, and skill-seeds continued to come in. So I always had materials to fuse into ‘bigger’ or ‘upgraded’ seeds.

“Master, we need upgrades, too!” Horns reminded. Their level cap had increased to level sixty, but as previously, their upgrades required materials and gems.

I decided to upgrade Trevor and Dimitree first, since they’d been supporting me for so long, and they were both at their level cap anyway. After that, I upgraded Horns and Jura’s Bamboo. The Yellow-type upgrades generally granted my artificial souls to choose a ‘class-specialization,’ so in Trevor and Dimitree’s case, they both gained ‘Administrator’-type skills. Horns gained [General]-type skills to control my large army of beetles.

I also created more Artificial minds, placing them subordinate to Trevor, Dimitree, and Jasmine to oversee my vast empire. I already had Acacia, Brootus, and Cyprus from earlier, but since Trevor could now hit level sixty, I elevated him to be pretty much my chief of artificial souls. Dimitree was his deputy.

I felt that my artificial souls or minds were like extremely good AI. They were extremely competent at monitoring and administration, but they were constrained on creation in scope and only improved by the new soul-forge colors.

The level cap also meant that they would never be able to really ‘fight’ at the level I needed, simply because enemies like the demonic walkers needed a force around level eighty. Thinking about it, they were probably an organization’s field managers and middle managers.

Somewhere, in a quiet corner of my vast kingdom, I also had a secret experiment.

This was far from the rest of the inhabited area, away from Jura or Freshka.

I created a tree and infused it with blood. A lot of blood. My roots were able to transport liquids, so I stocked and absorbed the blood from the sick, the dead, or the dying and then infused a tree with all the blood.

Though the elves didn’t agree on my experimenting with [blood mages], I could very much do it myself.

So, a tree.

I did so secretly, and eventually, I received a notification.

[Unique Tree: The Bleeding Tree created.]

I was swept with a sickening feeling, like nausea.

[Grand Mind Tree blocked attempted influence from unknown source.]

Then I felt better.

I needed to further upgrade the Grand Mind Tree.

Then I had my beetles secretly smuggle criminals to that location. It wasn’t hard; after all, through the entire Freshlands, all these vassal-states had criminals of various kinds. I supposed I was doing some mental gymnastics when I justified my process that these criminals were on death row anyway. So I may as well test some basic blood magic with their bodies.

Conceptually, runes were a kind of rituals. Blood magic, too, was a ritual. I myself, and my entire network of trees, was pretty much a massive magical array.

I tried to use my roots to ‘cast’ a blood ritual.

It failed.

I tried again.

It failed.

By the time I was done with the fifty or so criminals, I had failed all my attempted blood magic. Why did I fail? Was it because I used a bleeding tree?

I was frustrated, but I got a skill.

[Skill upgraded! Magic Labs - Blood Magic Sensor unlocked.]

So, later that year, I spotted another bunch of blood mages. The world was filled with blood mages, very much a legacy of the hexbomb-era, when the knowledge of how to cast a hexbomb was widely distributed to so many kingdoms and countries.

Once again, I let them use their blood magic, but with my new blood magic sensors, I thought I began to understand it a bit more.

Blood magic essentially used their own soul as a chip in order to hack into the souls of those sacrificed. Each use of blood magic weakened their own soul and made them even more susceptible to the corruption of blood magic and the strange voices from beyond. It was like taking a part of themselves, making that into a consumable nail.

So the insanity and curse that came with all high-level blood mages was an inherent outcome of their use of such abilities. That insanity was also mixed into the very fabric of the loosely knitted outer soul fragments. Maybe it was like using a diamond to cut another diamond, because they didn’t have enough power for its alternatives.

“Have you never found who was spreading the hexbombs?” I asked the heroes one day.

“Find them? No one’s going to reveal themselves as a blood mage!”

In truth, it should be possible to find them, since their souls would clearly be ‘damaged.’ Each use was like leaving gunpowder residue on their soul. But then, one would have to be able to spot it. I would be able to spot it; all I needed to do was put them under my [biolab] and it’d be clear as day.

[Curse: Weakened Soul from Blood Magic]. That was what appeared in the few captured blood mages. Their soul spring was clearly tainted, the spring itself cracked, and the waters in their spring were a muddy brown.

Based on all this, I was confident in my assessment. Hex was essentially a radioactive decaying outer soul fragments stitched together with blood magic. The decay was how the outer souls ‘untangled’ the stitching and decay into normal matter.

39

YEAR 122

I did another controversial series of tests. I hauled a bunch of death row criminals to my soul forge and attempted a ‘clean’ version of the outer-soul stitching. If blood magic was ‘incomplete’ work, then could I, the master of four colors of the soul forge, perform a ‘complete’ version?

I failed at first.

I failed my first ten tests, and in doing so, close to five hundred criminals were killed.

“That’s hell of a gruesome way to die,” the heroes said.

“But it’s painless. The overwhelming energies of my soul forge instantly kills them and liquefies them.” It was true. The amount of mana used to attempt ‘clean soul fusion’ was absolutely insane, so much so that when I used it, everyone in the entire Freshlands could feel the mana flickering in the air.

Each time, I had a better understanding of the process.

“Aeon, where do you get these ideas?” the heroes asked, unaware that I’d been watching and experimenting on the blood mages.

“Dreams.”

“Trees can dream?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t have brains.”

“Are brains necessary for dreams?”

Anyway, it was key to separate the inner soul and the outer soul as smoothly and cleanly as possible. After separation, the inner soul core was released so that it could proceed with its reincarnation, and what was left was a floating magical plasma blob of outer soul fragments.

Next, I used my overwhelming mana to forcefully compress the outer soul fragments together. The first few times, I didn’t control my mana properly, so the outer soul fragments leaked out, and then it just dissipated.

Then, as the soul fragments fused together, it finally turned into a small, solid object.

[You’ve created a Soul-Strengthening Seed.]

[Consuming the Soul-Strengthening Seed will increase the level capacity of one individual. Needs to be combined with an herb of sufficient quality.]

What? I thought. I expected something far more powerful than just a soul-strengthening seed. But then, the level capacity seemed to suggest that each individual had a ‘cap,’ and I had just discovered the item that broke the cap!

And I knew exactly the person to give it to.

“Jura.” I fused the Soul-Strengthening Seed with a high-quality five-year-old ginseng from my Ginseng Trees. “Eat this.”

He did, and he felt like his entire body burned for the rest of the day. “Aeon, what are you feeding me? Why do I feel like every part of me is breaking?”

Well, a good day later, he woke up and felt much stronger and healthier, as if he was younger by a few decades.

“Aeon…I…I have a blessing! And I gained seven levels in [Warlord] overnight!”

“Oh?”

“[Soul-Blessed].”

Did the Soul-Strengthening Seed give levels, or were those like overflow levels that were not affected because he was capped at around level eighty?

The only way to prove it, of course, was to make more and give it to someone else that was not stuck at the cap. It was a little disappointing, though; I had hoped to create something comparable to say…a fusion power plant. But I supposed a level-breaking ability was not bad, either.

That meant Lausanne could also break past level eighty if she wanted. But I thought she was still happily adventuring in the world.

* * *

“I want to talk about Aeon,” Harris said to Gerrard and Mirei. They were gathered in a room in one of the lodges in Freshka.

“You know he’s listening, right?” Gerrard looked at Harris like an alien. “Aeon’s presence permeates the entirety of this region. This entire region is a police surveillance state. We agreed on this. No talking about tree spirits anywhere near them! All of us have his familiars! Who knows if they’re eavesdropping on us?”

“I know, but I think I don’t mind if he listens,” Harris said. “I just wanted to say that he seems to be very intimately familiar with our world’s thought processes. Almost as if he knows what we know.”

“Evidence.”

“Remember how Jura described our wooden arms as ‘Power-Armor’?” Harris promptly showcased his wooden limbs, made from familiar. I was still unable to fix the two lost parts, due to the effects of the curse. But at least it wouldn’t get worse.

“So what?”

“There are so many little references here and there that he understands. I believe he knows about Earth.”

“Look, I can posit a few theories of how he knows about us. One, he’s old, and he met a lot of us Earthers. Two, he has the power to create and alter dreams; by extension, he must have some access to our memories, such that he can create those dreams. Three, his soul harvesters harvest the souls of the dead, and each time, he gains something from the dead. If those dead include Earthers, it is no surprise that he knows what we know,” Mirei said.

Harris froze, and after thinking for a long time, he said, “You’re right. I probably didn’t think it through.”

“We have four years left till the next demon king. We’re in no condition to fight it,” Mirei said. Though she wasn’t dead, she was weakened by the curse. “If I must admit, we must be prepared to lose and die.”

Gerrard nodded. “So let’s do what Astra did. Kill ourselves and bomb it to death.”

“No!” Mirei said. “You saw what the system did to him! It made us hate him!”

“Well, if we want to go out with a bang, I can’t think of a better way.”

Mirei stopped. “Bang? Maybe we could make ourselves into a living bomb. You know, like that manga! This old dude fought the Ant King but as a failsafe planted a nuke into his heart. We could try that.”

They all got a headache at the same time, but Gerrard had already prepared cups filled with some herbal liquor. They all took a sip.

“Damned system meddling with our minds.”

“It’s a good idea, but who can make a bomb that powerful?”

“Aeon’s been experimenting with souls. We could ask him to try it. Maybe he can do something about it.”

Harris looked confused and bewildered. “I cannot believe that both of you are suggesting to make yourself into some kind of suicide bomber.”

“It’s not suicide bombing. It’s a…contingency,” Gerrard said.

“I wouldn’t do it.” Harris frowned.

“If the demon king lives, it’ll still kill you. You know it can and will look for us. You’ve felt it. We’re just like the Ringbearer. The demon king can see us, one way or another. The higher levels we are, the brighter we are to him,” Mirei said. “It’s better for us to knock it out.”

Harris had been still busy quelling the conflict among his many sons and daughters, so the idea of dying to the demon king really didn’t sit well with him.

“So what are your alternatives, Emperor Harris? You know you can’t outrun it, and you cannot move your children’s kingdoms. Do them a favor, buy them some time, and knock out the demon king when you die. If the demon king lives and comes for you, your children’s kingdoms will be in ruins anyway.”

Harris was silent.

Gerrard looked at Mirei. “Well, if anything, both of us will find a way to make us self-destruct if we die. It’s honestly a pretty fitting way to end our lives, and ironic, too. We all died in a car crash. Now we get to die with a Michael Bay–style explosion.”

“Why can’t we summon the next generation of heroes?” Harris said. “There must be a way I can trade powers for the right to summon more heroes.”

Then he had a massive headache, so much so that it looked like he was having fits. Gerrard and Mirei quickly fed him some herbal liquor. “Wow. That’s some intense mental attack.”

“Ugh.” Harris took a while to recover and then said, “I mean, it takes power to summon heroes, right, but can we summon heroes, or perhaps aid the gods in summoning heroes? That way I don’t have to die. I don’t mind surrendering my blessings or my levels as cost.”

“You know, that’s really a rather good idea.” Gerrard nodded. “But where do we even start? How do we even commune and discuss this with the gods?”

40

YEAR 123

Since time immemorial, man searched for means to make themselves more powerful. That was true then, and that was true now. Even nature itself was forever locked in an arms race, as species evolved for an advantage and other species evolved in response to that advantage.

War and evolution were tied together in many ways. “This is the latest generation of wood-formed weapons.”

I showed my latest upgraded versions of the wooden spears to Jura and the selected Valthorns. I had given out two more upgraded classes, one [Grand Knight] and one [Spearmaster]. It was a small group, less than ten.

“Is its effectiveness against demons improved?”

“Slightly.” I had spent a lot of time analyzing the crystal matrices and had managed to copy a little of its effects. But to replicate it wholesale was still beyond me, for now.

Every iteration was slightly better, slightly more powerful. Sad to think that my [Woodforming] was used in this way. I should’ve made statues instead.

One of the wooden spears shrank, and the attendees jumped. “Wow.”

“It’s now…expandable. That way it’s easier to move around. I copied the idea from one of the heroes’ star mana withdrawable swords.” In hindsight, I should’ve made something like this way earlier. It was essentially just a magical lightsaber, but with wood. Not exactly difficult to make a seed-like thing that released a spear and later on retracted it. Nature already had many similar mechanisms.

In a way, it was also partly pocketspace, similar to my [secret hideout].

“It’ll be tuned to all of you.”

“Tuned?”

“Yes, with runes. The gem-inserts have runes, so add a drop of blood to it and it’ll recognize you as its owner.” Again, not an original idea. Some heroes had invented star-mana weapons that only recognized people who had their blood, essentially as a means of preserving power for their descendants.

“The heroes have this?”

“Well…no.” They had better ones.

“Ah,” Edna said, examining her new lance and shield. As a knight, she got some mount-specific boosts, and so there was some new wooden protective gear for her mount. “Seems like I’ll have to fight demons soon.”

“It’s not hard. The rule is simple: focus on your target, and don’t stray too far outside Aeon’s suppression aura,” Jura explained. He was now level ninety.

“Aeon’s suppression aura should be everywhere,” Faris said as he too examined his wooden staff and armor. There were not many weapons I could make for Faris, because he was a ranged and support hero.

I agreed. But sadly, my suppression aura was weaker as I went further.

“This means Aeon puts the odds of the heroes winning the next battle at close to zero, doesn’t it?” our [Spearmaster] asked.

Jura paused. “It would be so. It’s not exactly uncommon for heroes to die to the demon king. Their recent string of victories is quite abnormal and has happened no more than five times in the past few hundred years.”

“And so the peace of Harrisan ends,” Faris said. An era of relative peace named after the most visible of the hero kings, Harris. “It seems our upgraded classes have not been given out for no reason.”

“Are you afraid, [Great Druid]?” Edna smiled.

“Should I not be?”

“Worry when the time comes,” Jura spoke. “For now, practice, and keep gaining levels.”

“Certainly.” Edna nodded. “Aeon, are there any restrictions of use for these items?”

“No. Try them out on the hybrids. I recall a large group has been spotted.”

“Gladly.”

Those with the upgraded classes and Jura went for it. I believed they would succeed. Maybe even Jura himself would be sufficient with his recently acquired strength.

On the home front, the heroes had been experimenting with new kinds of spells. They wanted to make themselves into a bomb, just like the demon king. I couldn’t help them. I mean, I didn’t have the ability to give them that kind of power. Trees didn’t blow up. Except for hybrid trees, but that was an outlier.

So they had to speak to others, and Gerrard had been travelling everywhere.

Harris, too, had to frequently intervene in his family conflicts. It was just lucky that his curse did not flare up when he was temporarily away.

“Aeon,” Mirei said when the two heroes were away. “What’s it like, being a tree?”

I didn’t answer. It was more like I didn’t even know where to begin describing it.

“Sorry. Must be offensive. I suppose it’s the equivalent of you asking me what’s it like being a hero,” Mirei said. “I asked because, well, I’m an alcoholic and tea addict now. Rumors are swirling about, that the heroes would not survive the next one. Of my curse, and Harris’s.”

She looked wistful.

“What do you think of this idea, the hero-bomb?” It wasn’t the first time she asked. I said it was a wise decision.

“It’s a good one. It’s pragmatic.”

Mirei paused. “I hoped you’d not give me the same answer. Tell me it’s wrong.”

“It’s wrong.”

Mirei laughed and then cried. “Fuck it. Gerrard’s running around in a wild goose chase. I don’t think there’s any mage who knows how to make themselves into a walking nuke. Even if it’s a damned good idea.”

“Keep cursing.”

“Yeah. I should probably stop wallowing in my misery.” Mirei stood. “Here’s an idea. Write runes inside my soul. Can you do that? There must be a nuclear rune somewhere. Invent one.”

“Runes work on physical objects.” Well, in honesty, I’d never tried. I wasn’t aware whether runes could be written in the soul realm, but then, the soul spring did have rune-like inscriptions and patterns.

“Says who?”

“No one.”

“Then can you try?”

“Writing runes in the soul spring…” I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but certainly worth trying.

“Try it on me. Don’t let Harris or Gerrard know.”

“Why not?” I had the impression Gerrard was open to the idea of nuclearizing themselves.

“Fine. Don’t let Harris know.”

I wondered then if it was possible to write a rune or blood ritual into the soul spring, such that it triggered a hexbomb-like event. Was this how we could assure victory, by making heroes into nukes? It was pragmatic, certainly. Sensible, even. But I got Mirei and Harris’s point that there was something quite wrong with it. How was it different from a kamikaze attack? Or in the case of a soldier charging into the firing range, preparing to die?

I couldn’t quite answer that, but no matter.

I poked into Mirei’s soul spring again, and this time I used my feelers to attempt to write runes in her soul spring. It didn’t work.

Not on the rocks of the soul spring. But I could write runes on the water or the ground around her spring. But then the waters from her soul spring quickly washed the rune away.

It was…actually possible. I was amazed. If one could find a way to make the rune stick, then it was possible to have a soul that was covered in runes. Or at least outside of the soul spring.

“What? Does that mean you can make me a nuke?”

No. Not just that. Could I use runes to suppress her curse even further? But…how and where did I start? There were two main hurdles. One, there was a need to find something that made lasting runes in the soul area, around the soul spring. Two, what runes should I use, and what were their long-term effects on a person?

That was, of course, something to research.

* * *

Criminals existed in every society. Each of the segments of the Freshlands administered its own set of rules and justice, and this was something we, as the ‘Federal’ entity, did not generally participate in.

It was a federal-state relationship, though, simply because I didn’t want to be bothered by the minutiae, and I was also not interested in micromanaging people. I’d rather focus on trees, gardens, and stuff.

One area in which I did make orders was that every large town and segment had gazetted gardens and parks and long strips of tree-flanked roads. This was something the Federal Freshlands Authority, headquartered in Freshka, gazetted and required of all of its cities. A small requirement, really, since I’d handle the creation of trees and parks; the towns just had to leave the space and path for it. That was on top of the protected forests and jungles.

In a way, it was almost possible to imagine the Federal Freshlands Authority like the National Parks Service on extreme steroids, to the point that it was the main authority. The Valthorns’ rangers were just a militarized version of the park rangers.

And since they were militarized, they did also catch…criminals.

Which was useful.

Rumors had been swirling about that criminals caught were subjected to my experiments. That the Aeon of Freshka was outwardly a benevolent deity, but it treated its criminals as materials for gruesome experiments.

I was rather amused by it. Because it was true.

Serious criminals were used for my soul-related experiments. For blood magic. For creating the [Soul-strengthening seed].

After all, the legal terminology used to describe the punishment for serious crimes was ‘Subject to Aeon’s Mercy.’ I didn’t know who came up with that—I suspected one clever lawyer or justice of peace—but yes, it was a phrase that had begun to strike fear into everyone.

No one subjected to Aeon’s Mercy had ever returned. How could they, with their souls ripped out of their bodies and turned into living experiments?

Still, criminals persisted, and many of these states had added a ‘layer’ beneath that punishment. Their citizens demanded something less frightening. Most involved life imprisonment.

Criminals were quite fun, actually, and I received some rather interesting criminal classes. I even fused them to create more powerful criminal classes. Like [Bandit Lord] or [Master Thief]. As I thought of this, Jura had just finished capturing a runaway murderer.

Punishment for multiple murders? Aeon’s mercy.

I felt like that was such an evil euphemism. It was like saying walk the plank, instead of jumping off the ship. The criminal was tied up and loaded into a beetle with a cage. A Cage-Beetle. There were hundreds of these beetles, travelling between all the various segments of the Freshlands, collecting all these criminals and ferrying them here.

To me. For my experiments.

A logistical network of high-sec criminals set up to feed my need for materials, coordinated by my artificial minds.

“All right. That’s three.” Jura locked the criminals inside. They wailed and screamed.

“Let me out! Please, counsel, I beg you. Not Aeon’s Mercy!”

“The Federal Law is clear. Multiple murders and domestic crimes put you under Federal Jurisdiction. Aeon has every right to claim you.”

“Please no!”

Such exchanges were common. Why was it that bad? Kings sentenced criminals to death all the time. Usually, an executioner with a massive axe would do the dirty job.

Jura shrugged. “You may consider your appeal before Aeon himself.”

None succeeded. The very fact that my artificial minds had assessed them as targets meant they’d passed the preset thresholds.

A fellow Valthorn just gulped and looked at Jura. Every year they collected about one thousand or so criminals. It was on a steady decline, as more and more criminals learned not to cross that threshold. Not much, when the entire Freshlands region was now home to some four million people spread across the fifteen segments and the fifty cities, three hundred towns, and five thousand or so villages within it.

The Freshlands were massive, now that I had recovered close to 10 percent of what was the entire Rottedlands. Time needed for a beetle to travel from one end to another without rest took a full seven days. Freshka itself now was home to about one hundred and fifty thousand, being the Federal Capital and Administrative Seat of the Freshlands Representative Council.

They’d been changing the names every now and then. Little matters that I left to Kavio and the representatives.

“Oh, the Aeon of the Freshlands.” My attention was drawn to a voice that called out to me. Jasmine was quick to prompt me to look. It was one of the nobles of the outer cities, he was alone, and he called out to me. “If you can hear me, please talk to me.”

“Father, have you gone insane?” His son was behind him; he was a lot younger, in his teens.

“No,” the noble said. Jasmine quickly gave me his brief. He was a level thirty-one [Noble], and he was the ruler of this city. It was a mid-size city on the northern edges of the Freshlands and mainly worked with mining and farming from the recovered lands.

“Then why are you talking like that?”

“I got a skill, young foolish son of mine, and that skill tells me Aeon knows I’m talking to him.”

“Really? What skill is that?” the teenage son asked.

“[Territorial Awareness]. It’s common for kings to have a version of it, but it seems I got lucky and somehow obtained this.”

“And so you’re testing it out by shouting and calling out to Aeon, our faraway supposed benefactor?”

The noble smacked the young teenager. “Watch your words.”

At this point, I supposed I should respond, so I telepathically spoke to both of them. “Yes, nobleman. You called?” A vine emerged from the ground and crawled in through the window. The teenager looked deathly pale.

The nobleman instantly prostrated himself before the vine. “Greetings, Aeon. So it is true, those rumors of Aeon’s ever-presence in the Freshlands.”

“Had it not been true?”

“Indeed. It is just that us, those on the fringes, do not feel your presence.”

“Have the Valthorns not sent their men to deal with the hybrids?”

“…ah.” I was wasting my time.

“Is there anything serious?”

“No. I just wanted to test my skill.”

Ah. I sometimes wondered whether my presence and surveillance was a good thing.

* * *

I floated in my soul realm and watched the souls drift in. There were about one hundred fifty thousand souls in my [soul realm], all awaiting reincarnation or whatever awaited their next step. When they were ready, they would shed their outer shells, and only the inner core would move on to inhabit whatever the gods had planned.

I wondered whether there was a standard process to it. I recalled Mozart, the being that reincarnated me, referring to himself as the administrator of this entire process. To think, since that day, I now played a part in the same process that they administered.

A cog in the big machine.

I once described the soul as a car and a driver, the driver as the inner core, the car as the outer core. But maybe it was also more accurate to imagine their bodies as the car, their clothes and look as their outer core, and their physical body as the inner core.

One could change their outer soul shells, just as how Meela and Alexis adopted new [classes] and new [skills]. The outer soul was, after all, just a frame and the skills that were attached to that frame.

Now that I had four colors, my ability to interact with these floating souls improved. Some of them were in need of repairs. In a way, this entire realm was my ‘body,’ and there were segments where these damaged souls were repaired.

There were a lot of memories. Of their families. Of life in this world. I had chosen to just ignore these flashbacks. In a way, I was just behaving like a soulless office administrator, putting a stamp on their documents before sending them on their way.

I didn’t want to care about their life story. It was too much. In fact, the more I learned of their life story, it just made me feel worse, because here I was, as a soul tree. It was like that meme from the MCU movies. I guided others to a treasure I could not possess. And here, I saw memories of a life had and lost that I could not obtain.

> Are you a soul tree, too, Lilies? Do you have a [soul realm]? <

< Yes, but we accept only the souls of those thrown into the lake. >

Ah. > What do you do with their…memories? <

< Nothing. >

I paused. > Yeah. Me too. <

Maybe it was right that I didn’t go through their memories. Did they deserve at least that bit of dignity?

I recalled that Lilies was rather aloof about this whole arrangement, that they looked at it all from the angle of an overarching ecosystem. That the death of one was but a necessity.

Was I becoming like that, desensitized to death? Now that my Domain and Grand Mind Tree were able to block outside influences, was this…really me that had transformed into this jaded tree?

> I’m…I’m afraid of what I’m becoming. < I didn’t know why I said that to Lilies, but at that point, I really didn’t have anyone else to turn to for advice on life as a tree.

I had become desensitized. When I thought about it, some of my choices were not my best. Even when I tried making better choices, it didn’t always turn out better.

Lilies didn’t reply for a whole week, then one day they just responded.

< We are many things. >

< Some, forced onto us by the gods. >

< Some a reaction, or as a response. We think, and we act. Or we don’t think, and act. A reaction nonetheless. >

< What we become is a path on a confusing road. >

< Our faces are many, even if you are just one. >

< Fear not what you’ve become, because this world demands monsters of all kinds to do what we must. >

How? Where? I didn’t know.

[Grand Mind Tree had blocked outside influence from fellow trees.]

Override.

[Grand Mind Tree has temporarily allowed outside influence.]

I felt a sense of comfort. My fellow forests. Our now-vast network of trees that stretched the entirety of the Freshlands. The land had been damaged by the demons, but we’d brought it back from the dead. The land was hurt, but we could fix it. Must I become one with the rest of the forests? Our fates were tied together. These trees depended on me, and as it was, I too depended on them.

> Do you lean on your fellow trees? < I supposed as a crutch. Maybe Lilies didn’t need it, because she, they, were born this way. But I was human, and my mind still had the lingering structure and processes of a human. It was a lot.

< Certainly. Numbers are strength. Lean on them, but let them not be your crutches. >

I felt like it was.

* * *

The two of them sparred. Jura was quicker. Edna was still about level sixty, though she had an upgraded class; Jura’s [Warlord] class was pretty much an upgraded class, too, though a common one. But as a [Grand Knight], she had a unique set of skills.

It was the whole debacle of the fused classes, such as warlord versus specialist classes, such as Grand Knight and Great Druid.

The other Valthorns watched, Yvon, too.

“Jura’s gotten a lot stronger.”

“He somehow broke through his level cap.”

It was a secret, of course. No one knew how he broke through the level cap, just that it happened. But Yvon was no fool, and she quickly concluded that I did something. After all, it wasn’t the first time I tried to help Jura break through the level cap. She was also smart enough not to publicly say it.

Faris was level fifty-plus; his leveling was a little slower as somehow he didn’t gain levels as frequently from battling hybrids or demons. If he wanted, his ability to influence trees was quite strong.

Luckily, he couldn’t get past my defenses.

I wondered if the [Lord of the Forest] could, so I decided to just destroy that seed instead. If I wanted it again, I could just merge thirty [Great Druid] seeds, but keeping it lying around was a risk I didn’t want to take.

41

YEAR 124

The demon king’s coming closer, and the weakening barriers somehow strengthened the hybrids. Then we spotted the demonic portals, and out came the champions.

Ah, shit. Here we go again.

Champions. Walker-class demons. Or more like walkers were champion-class demons. The Rottedlands occasionally spawned champion-class monsters, but they were quite passive, usually just roaming around where they spawned. But a return of the champions meant the demon king wasn’t far.

“So, are you guys ready for the next one?” The three heroes were in their fifties now. They came forty years ago, and this would be their fifth demon king, although they didn’t have to fight the second one, thanks to Astra’s bomb.

“No. We haven’t fixed the fundamental weakness that we do not have a healer.” I couldn’t fill their role; I was not a battlefield healer. I was like that hospital back in town that they rushed back to. “And we do have a gap in damage output.”

“We could recruit Jura,” Gerrard suggested. “I sparred with him a few times, and I think he’s about 20 percent of our level, maybe less.”

“No.” I was quick to smack that down. I wasn’t going to send my best man to his death. But that was an interesting estimate. The heroes were around level one hundred thirty to one hundred forty, and yet a level-ninety Jura was only 20 percent of their strength. That meant the growth at the higher levels was higher, in terms of stats.

“Aww, I guessed it. But Aeon, you should train an archmage that can reach level one hundred fifty!”

Easier said than done. I’d used so many experience-gaining and training-related abilities on my elite Valthorns, and Edna was only level sixty-two. Which was just a little bit faster than how long it took Lausanne to get there. I reckoned the speed was due to experience and also an abundance of hybrid demons for Edna and her batch to fight as real combat experience.

Anyway, Jura led my elite squad of Valthorns to one of the champions. They would attempt to fight one, with one of my [Giant Attendant Trees] nearby as aura and support. I wouldn’t let them die, of course, but I wanted to see how my new elite squad stood against a champion.

Could they do it?

Anyway, this was a good time to watch.

The demon champion wasn’t an exotic shape or form; instead, it took the form of a massive winged demon with horns. A typical demonic look.

Jura stood. “Well, it’s more intimidating than I expected.” It was a group of ten: Jura at about level ninety-two, Edna at level sixty-two, Faris at level fifty-five, and the rest about level forty to fifty. The gap was honestly big, but most of them had upgraded classes, which put them above the strength of their level.

“[Fear Ward], [Morale Boost].” The Grand Knight used her skills. “Well?”

Jura nodded, and he too had received upgraded familiars. “[Aura - demonic suppression]. All right. It’s ten on one. Aeon’s watching, and he needs to know whether we can take it.”

There were swarms of beetles around to ensure that their ten-on-one fight was not interrupted.

They fought. They fought hard.

And they were still inadequate. Mainly, everyone else other than Jura. Even Edna’s shields and abilities were not at a level strong enough to parry the demon champion’s attacks, until she switched to the anti-demon weapons.

I supposed I cheated, because I had these hero-fragments, which just made me intensely overpowered against demons. Still…

They won. But I had to use a block or two. Conclusion, all of them needed to be around level seventy for the fight against the demon-champion to be a certainty. They also needed a far stronger damage dealer and live-healer.

A druid was not a pure-healer. Not like someone with the [healer] class was. I had some [healer] class seeds, and I wanted to create a pure high-tier healer.

It was not just healers. I wanted high-tier mages, too, and high-tier [runemasters] as well, to do the things I wanted.

Meanwhile, the heroes were getting ready. There was two years left, and already the continents faced the demonic attacks. It seemed that this time, the demons would be concentrated on our continent, because most of the demonic rifts had been detected here. Based on the heroes’ network of informants all over the country, this demon king was shaping up to be another conventional demon king.

Was that a good thing?

“We should be expecting hellhounds soon.”

Ah! That was nostalgic. I had a woodhound from back then.

“And the demon knights and their elites.”

“So, what should we prepare?” Edna asked.

“Anti-fire magic? The conventional demon king is heavy on fire, axes, and overwhelming force,” Jura advised. “What have you learned from our combat with the champion?”

“We need to be stronger, and our team-composition can be better.” Edna shrugged. “I have a few anti-demon skills as [grand knight], but not enough.”

“I’ve been rather useless throughout the entire battle.” Faris frowned. “My vines are not strong enough to damage the demon champion at all! My summons are quite useless, too!” In truth, a druid and a fire-demon were a very bad matchup. The only reason I personally had any use was because my fragments made me overpowered.

“Stronger skills.” All of them agreed they needed stronger skills, but I wondered how I could give them some of my ‘anti-demon’ properties, other than through my weapons and items. If only they could get some of my passives.

“Hero-weapons?”

“The gear we have here is as close to hero-weapons as we can get,” Jura explained. Well, I did have many, many sets of weapons I made with Harris and gang, but I kept that for now, mainly because after this generation of heroes, I may not get the chance to interact with the next batch, so I should keep this generation’s weapons as a rare item. “It ultimately comes down to .levels, and I agree with Faris. Faris should therefore be stationed in the back. I will request Aeon for the [grand knights] to be deployed.”

Later on, the Freshlands Federal Authority and the representative of the segment-states had gathered for a military briefing. The topic was obviously the demon king. For these representatives, this was their chance to extract maximum benefit from the federal authority.

The states had all appointed their own generals and military commanders, but as enshrined in the constitution of our federation, and with my blessings, the beetles would be deployed to defend all the segments against the demons. The Valthorns, of course, had to join the battle as the ‘elite’ force.

The heroes, too, had deployed their summoned units to fight demons beyond the borders of the Freshlands. Gerrard was frequently away to tackle the demon champions that appeared. He, a high-leveled hero, could handle the demon champions easily.

I was wary of another Rottedlands-style event, so I increased the number of [Giant Attendant Trees] in the distant regions, forming a ring. The idea was that if something like the Rottedlands happened again, the giant trees could last a bit longer and give me ample warning to prepare.

The last round, the demon king was on another continent, so I too somehow felt safe. It was totally a flaw in my thought process, but yeah, there was an urgency to this matter. I had reinforced the root walls on all the borders and had begun stockpiling my [tuberous storage]. If needed, I’d have to release large quantities of mana at one go to offset the pressure from a Rottedlands-style corruption bomb.

I also added another of trees and root walls around Freshka and the valley, for a total of three layers. One at the borders, one around the Freshkan region, and one around the Valley of the Unrotten. If a bomb blew up, I’d be able to buy two to three hours for a response.

I had made a basic strategy framework for a demon king.

One. Survival up till the point the demon king was slain. This meant constructing defenses, mobile populations, and armies to deal with the lesser demons. On this point, we had the beetles and a growing Valthorn Elite, and each of the regions had their own armies, adventurers, and so on.

Two. Supporting the heroes to slay the demon king. The longer the demon king was not slain, the more damage it could cause. So, once the heroes appeared, they needed to be supported so they could get to the level needed as fast as possible. Sometimes this took one to two years, and during this time there was absolutely nothing that could stand in the demon king’s way. Maybe I could, but I wasn’t sure, and I had no intention of taking that challenge on. Once the heroes were found, they should be groomed and properly armed. This, of course, was somewhat against my past practice of non-interference, but clearly it didn’t work that well.

Three. Surviving the aftermath. We’d seen from the past few demon kings that there was usually a death trigger and a post-recovery period. In some cases, it was a bomb, in some others a plague. We didn’t know what this demon king would bring, but walls, mana, a widely distributed force, and time would be needed. If it was a corruption-bomb, rootwalls would be effective. If it was a nuke, the rootwalls would be destroyed, but they would reduce the fallout area.

“What if a magic-interference ability happens again?” Jura asked. “We currently still have very little ‘good’ alternatives to the [message] spell. That’s the number one risk, I think. A communication breakdown will damage our ability to mount a response.”

Ah. So I had Jura train and set up a system of runners and messengers.

The Valthorns were a bit taken aback when I suggested having a system of locating and supporting the heroes.

“You want us to make items for the next generation of heroes?” Harris and Mirei were both rather surprised by it.

“Yes. If you don’t make it, you should leave something for the next generation of heroes. I’ll keep it for you and give it to them. Unless you don’t trust me.” This was a response to point two, of course. How did we get the new heroes up to speed as fast as possible?

“No…just that that’s a good point. Why didn’t we think of it?” Harris said.

“Because there’s no one we could trust that would ever give up a hero-class item to the heroes. Why would they even tell the new heroes, who arrived a year or two after we died, that there are items for them?” Mirei answered on my behalf. “It’s a good idea, really. I just don’t know why I didn’t think of it, too. But then, we didn’t have an eternal tree that we could trust. I mean, our lives are already in Aeon’s hands. What are some items?”

“Try to make enough for five generations of heroes.” If a hero could inherit the weapons of multiple generations of heroes, that may give them the leg up they needed. Or make them too powerful. But the heroes were already too powerful. The fact that there was always a successor generation of demon king, in ten years, essentially kept them in check. “If you want, you can also write a special journal or writing that can only be opened with star mana that you can leave for the next generation’s hero to read.”

They nodded, and they spent months on it. They made items, wrote magical books. Things. Memories from one generation to be passed on to another. They all made things. Harris made shields that summoned shield soldiers. Mirei made lightning axes and staffs that also summoned lightning elementals and flying thunderbirds. Gerrard made multiple swords that also summoned magical gladiators.

When they made items for others, like their descendants, they needed to be mindful that the items needed star mana to activate, so they had to ensure the items contained enough self-sufficient star mana such that their descendants, who were born without them, could still use the items.

But when they made for future heroes, who would have star mana, they could pretty much go all out, since they didn’t have to consider the star mana supply. So the power of the items contained, nigh unusable to anyone else because of its star mana requirements, was extremely high. Again, I didn’t see why they couldn’t have made it and stored it somewhere.

No one could have used these items other than heroes anyway. At least, the full abilities of it. It was still limitedly useful in the hands of non-heroes because it was generally strong and all that stuff.

And I had them stored. “I will give one of each item to one hero of the next generation, so each generation will receive around five to fifteen items.” It was rather difficult for the heroes to make the same items, so what I would do, as discussed with the heroes, was let the next generation of heroes choose what they wanted.

I’d become the tree of items, too.

[Secret Hideout upgraded.]

[Woodforming upgraded.]

42

YEAR 125

[DEMON KING GUIHWANG HAS ARRIVED.]

The demon king was early. At first, nothing much seemed to have happened. “The demon king is here, but we don’t know where it is.” The heroes convened.

“You don’t?” I was rather surprised by this. It was on this continent, no? No damage?

“Not a single sighting so far.”

“Huh? But then, isn’t it destroying anything?”

“I have no idea, either.” None of the heroes had any idea what was happening. Every demon king in the past left a trail of destruction wherever it went, so this one being absolutely unseen was strange.

“Is it in the Rottedlands, collecting its strength?” The Rottedlands were vast, and I did recall some demon kings generally just lazed around doing nothing for a while.

“We looked with our summons. Nothing,” Gerrard said.

“Then…”

Was this demon king…invisible? Or an assassin-type? If so, I had ensured that everyone was on high alert. “Aeon thinks this demon king’s going to ‘jump’ on us?”

“Yes. Likely to be an invisible or assassin type that would only pop up when it’s really sure it’s seen us.”

“We can sense it, right?” Gerrard closed his eyes and attempted to use his heroic sense. And yet, nothing.

“We should just travel together, just in case—” An attack on the border. Demon champions, three of them. And an army of hybrid demons. I sent beetles to fight them, and then I allowed the demon champions closer. Once they were in the vicinity of my Giant Attendant Trees, I unleashed a flurry of anti-demon skills and my hoarded pile of anti-demon bolts.

They were tough. After all, the battle still occurred a distance away from my main tree, so the effects of my passives were weaker. But I eventually destroyed all three of them.

[You gained a level. Level 158!]

[Skill obtained: Demonslayer Pit]

[Creates a pit that significantly weakens demons trapped within. Attacks made within the pit all gain anti-demon properties.]

Huh. A stationary trap-ability.

What was the point—

My thoughts were instantly interrupted by a surge in power. The heroes were fighting. The demon king finally made its appearance! A large-winged demon, its scales so shiny they resembled polished chrome. It had large claws, and its swipes made large gashes in the ground with every swipe.

How and when did it appear at the outskirts?

“We can’t let it fight here!” Harris shouted as he dodged an energy attack. The ground cracked where it landed. I felt the pain of the ground and the trees damaged by it, and soon, the area was already decimated. “There’s a city not far from here!”

“Then we lead it into the Rottedlands!” Mirei said, and she transformed into lightning itself, and all three heroes were sucked into a lightning sphere. The demon king effortlessly followed. It was out to kill them!

They didn’t go too far. They managed to travel about one beetle-day’s journey into the Rottedlands and bought some space between themselves and civilization. I could see it…because this entire area was filled with hybrid trees that I gained control over.

I was relieved that even with the demon king so near I still had control.

“Should we cut it off, though?” Trevor asked. “The demon king may use some kind of psychic attack.”

“No.” I wanted to watch the demon king fight. “Just prepare countermeasures.”

The heroes crashed in an uninhabited area far away, filled with hybrid demon trees. It was rocky terrain, filled with small mounds and hills and the explosive demon trees.

The three heroes were all fully armed, and they dodged. The demon king wasn’t about to let them talk, as the demon king’s massive claws created another scar in the ground. I felt it, the sudden extinguishing of lives, trees that often just got destroyed in every single combat.

The heroes used attacks I’d never seen before. Beams of starlight, slashes that had energies of the star mana. Bright, white-colored energy slashes.

The demon king and the heroes traded blows, and dozens of demon champions appeared as well. The demon king summoned them to annoy the heroes, because in this star-mana form, they could destroy the demon champions with a single skill.

Yet the demon king stood strong and took hits like it didn’t hurt. But it probably did, because Gerrard managed to cut away one of its six silvery wings.

Each time they traded blows, some trees got crushed or destroyed. It reminded me of the saying, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

But the heroes were too weak. Mirei’s performance was dragging them down, and Harris, too, was slower.

“My curse is acting up!” Mirei winced in pain. The curse, long suppressed by my magic, was aggravated by the overuse of star mana and her physical exertion. The demon king didn’t let them have a break, either. Barrage after barrage.

They may not have noticed that I’d been gradually replenishing the vegetation so that I could maintain my vision over the event.

Harris took a hit, his armor crushed by the sheer force of the demon king’s silvery claws. A silver-demon. The other two heroes unleashed an attack similar to a mini-nuke; they tried to put some distance between the demon king and Harris.

Harris was first to die.

The demon king just tanked the attacks and lost one of his remaining five wings. But he got into distance and with his claws grabbed onto Harris. The demon king caught him and crushed him.

[Harris has died. You received a fragment.]

But Harris had prepared for this eventuality, and his body exploded into a mist of blood. The blood mist then transformed into multiple sharp, spear-like shapes. Those blood spears then smashed into the demon king’s body. It pierced through multiple parts of the demon king’s body with tremendous force; an attack made of the hero’s blood surely was something else.

The power of the attack stunned my magical sensors temporarily at this distance. It was honestly off the charts.

Another set of the demon king’s wings were knocked out. The two heroes didn’t flinch as they watched their friend die. They’d been through loss, and they were still focused on the demon king.

The demon king took damage, roared, and shot out beams of energy. Their tanker and defender were taken out, so they had to rely on a wide set of items, like their crystal matrices, which created massive wooden shields. Those items didn’t hold up for very long.

Each of the shields took two hits.

Mirei’s curse acted up some more. But rather than retreat, she seemed to gain a boost of energy, and she threw herself at the demon king. “Damn you!” she shouted, and she ran in with a staff of lightning. I felt all my magical sensors go nuts against them. She was drawing her soul into her attack!

And the demon king, already weakened by Harris’s blood-spear, had half of its head blown off by an intense purple-lightning blast that contained all of her soul’s power.

Then Mirei collapsed.

[Mirei has died. You received a fragment.]

Gerrard was the last. He stood alone, against a silverish demon king with two wings left, half of its head and body destroyed. Purple lightning seemed to constantly attack it from nowhere. A thunder and lightning curse. Each lightning strike seemed powered by the hero’s soul.

“Just you and me, buddy.” Gerrard closed his eyes. “It’s finally time for me to also return home. Wait for me, my friends.”

He, too, threw his entire soul into his gladiator’s gladius. It shone with a bright-blue light, its energy distorting the air. Its glow was so bright that it seemed like the sun itself appeared. Once again, all my magical sensors went insane.

“I won’t live through this anyway, but you are going down with me.” Gerrard charged at the demon king. The demon king somehow roared, and I felt the world’s demons all drained into it. Some of the hybrid trees were sucked up, and the demon king’s two claws glowed.

Both of their attacks found their targets. Gerrard’s gladius stabbed right in the demon king’s chest. It pierced through the blood-speared body. The demon king’s claws stabbed through Gerrard’s stomach.

“Die with me!” Gerrard shouted. “[Drunken Explosion].”

His body seemed to turn into an alcoholic mist, and it ignited all the naturally explosive hybrid trees together.

There was a loud and massive boom.

It set off a chain of hybrid-tree explosions that destroyed everything within a hundred miles and created a smog so thick that it lasted for three weeks.

[Demon King Guihwang has been destroyed.]

[Gerrard has died. You received a fragment.]

[You received 3 heroic souls. You can now create 3 titans. You currently possess enough energy to support 2 titans.]

[You gained 10 levels. You are now level 168.]

[Skill significantly upgraded: Woodforming]

[Skill significantly upgraded: Hybrid Botany]

[Skill significantly upgraded: Constriction]

[Skill significantly upgraded: Subsidiary Tree. Subsidiary tree limit increased on 300,000. Great Attendant Tree Limit increased to 10,000.]

[Skill significantly upgraded: Demonic Suppression Aura]

[You reached level 160. Domain ability: Aeonic Variation unlocked.]

[Aeonic Classes and variants have been introduced to the world. Class-users worldwide can now obtain Aeonic-variant classes such as Aeonic Ranger, Aeonic Knight, Aeonic Priests, Aeonic Druids, etc. You may also now upgrade a class to their Aeonic variants. Aeonic variants have slightly different skill sets and gain extra boosts when using Aeonic items. Animals and monsters around Aeon’s valleys may also have Aeonic variants.]

[You’ve unlocked two unique classes. Each of these 2 classes can only be awarded to one person at a time.]

[Aeon’s Demonslayer. Class focused on demon-slaying. Gains significant anti-demon slaying boost. Able to remotely apply demonic suppression aura that’s equal to Aeon’s main body around itself.]

[Aeon’s Field Scientist. Class focused on magic and research. Unlocks a wide range of lab-related and soul-related skills. Can instantly set up teleportation beacons between a field lab and the magic labs within Aeon’s secret hideout.]

I gained ten levels!

“Holy cow.”

And it wasn’t over. There was a string of messages and notifications that came from Mirei and the other heroes.

[Mirei has bequeathed 30 experience seeds.]

[Mirei has bequeathed ten Lightning Mage class seeds.]

[Mirei has bequeathed twenty Mage class seeds.]

[Gerrard has bequeathed 22 experience seeds.]

[Gerrard has bequeathed 15 Brewmaster class seeds.]

[Harris has bequeathed 10 king class seeds. King class seeds absorbed into Anointed King class seed.]

[Harris has bequeathed 10 Master Trader class seeds.]

[Harris has bequeathed 10 Inquisitor class seeds. Inquisitor modified to Aeonic Inquisitor class seeds.]

[Harris has bequeathed 25 experience seeds.]

Ah.

Where did I start?

43

YEAR 125 (CONTINUED)

All three heroes died in their fight. They’d managed to kill the demon king, but they fell with it. Harris’s broken empire immediately devolved into war. War was declared the day the news arrived in their cities. He must be sad if he knew that the truce he brokered didn’t even last a day after his death.

It was a common thing and had happened throughout history. After the heroes died, whatever they built tended to fall apart.

“If I die, the Freshlands will collapse, too.” I realized in a way this ‘empire’ I had right now was almost the same.

“Certainly,” Jura said. “As it is, the safety of the entire valley is backed by your prowess. Without you, nothing much else holds the valley together, other than a shared area. And we’ve seen them, happy to slay each other.”

“Conflict is eternal,” Yvon said as she trained a new bunch of children. “But so is progress. Train, and we get better.”

Progress in level terms, or progress in a society?

Also, I could create Titans. That meant I could choose to power up that dormant walker I had. But those were not the only choices I had. For the titan souls, the system gave a few options.

[Giant Tree Serpent, Nydus - A massive serpent. Able to use earth and wood magic. Starts at level 70. Gains powers to summon all sorts of serpents and poisons. Master of poisons and has the ability to brew multiple types of potent poisons and cures. Able to grant poison immunity.]

[Giant Storm Bird - A massive bird with powers of wind, water, and thunder. Gains power to summon eagles and hawks. Eagles and hawks can carry goods and people. Has power to grant [Wind Mage] and [Flight] ability to those worthy. Can control the local weather and improve irrigation. Starts at level 70.]

[Fusion with Jura’s Bamboo to form a Titan-class summon. Starts at level 80. Takes the form of a massive wall of thorns. As a summon, it has high burst type output. Transferable, and also significantly improves its host’s strength and base stats. Host of the Titan Summon will not age.]

[Fusion with Horns. Starts at level 80. Transforms Horns into a Goliath Kingbeetle that’s able to use earth magic and various other protective and offensive abilities. Goliath Kingbeetle can create Royal Warbeetles. Also produces very high-quality beetle-silk. Royal Warbeetles can improve crop output in the area.]

[Fusion with a Giant Attendant Tree - Creates a Warmaster Treant. Starts at level 70. High toughness and use of wood magic. Warmaster Treant is able to create lesser treants to assist in combat and other duties. Also produces high quality teas and fruits.]

[Fusion with Grand Mind Tree - Creates the Tree-Over-Mind. Starts at level 75. Massive psychic magical abilities. Expands secured telepathic communication to the entire continent. Unlocks Mind-Reading Ability for anyone within the local valley, which allows limited mind-reading of any targeted person in the local area. Also unlocks psychic/mental attacks and the power to send nightmares and dreams to anyone in the local valley. Psychic attacks do not work on demons.]

And lastly, activate the walker.

[Fusion with Walker Corpse. Creates the Walking-Tree-City. Starts at level 75. Has the ability to produce wood-warriors and also simultaneously control them. Limited to 5,000 wood-warriors at any point, and wood-warriors cannot travel far from Walking-Tree-City. Has ability to use long-range projectile attacks. Also carries a mobile healing spring and accommodation on its body able to accommodate and feed up to 1,000 people. Produces fruits and vegetables on its back, too.]

I was quite struck by analysis paralysis, and I had no real urgency to select one, since, well, I had three of them and I could keep them until I noticed what I really, really wanted. I mean, I had three titan souls, and I could support two of them!

In truth, I wanted all of them. And from my experience with this system, it was likely that I’d unlock even more choices as I went along or just became ‘aware’ of them. So there may be merit to choose the next option later, when I had more choices.

I mean, all of the titan choices were good, one way or another!

> What do you think, Lilies? <

I shared the news of the Titan Souls to Lilies. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but I wanted to tell someone, so I told Lilies and Jura. Jura was too stunned and didn’t quite know what to advise me. To him, this was the realm of gods, and he wouldn’t be able to choose. Which was strange, but maybe he just couldn’t bear with the weight of the choice.

< Any choice is a good choice. >

> No preferences? <

< No. Choose and live with it. >

Hah! No! I was not going to do that. Or maybe I should? I didn’t know. I wondered what kind of choices Lilies would have gotten if they were in my place? Maybe something over death or something like a city? Since that was what they had power over?

> Lilies, if you made an item for the heroes, what would you make? <

It didn’t reply to me. I mean, I asked that question because the heroes were making items for the few next generations, and I wondered what was a good item I would give.

I mean, could we cheat this system in some way? A sword that accumulated power as it passed through the hands of each and every hero, eventually reaching the point that it could kill the demon king outright? I mean, that was like an anime plot, but magically and system wise, that was possible, right?

A weapon that kept gaining levels. A weapon to slay all the demons. I had that idea a while ago to fuse an artificial soul into a sword or spear, but that didn’t really make a weapon that much stronger. A weapon made by the hero, formed from star mana, was still stronger. Partly because artificial souls on their own weren’t that strong.

But if I could make a Titan-Soul version of a living, growing weapon, wouldn’t it eventually reach a point where it could slay the demon king?

* * *

“The heroes are dead,” Yvon announced to the group a few days after it happened. The Valthorns were mostly quiet. For them, these young ones, they’d lived their entire lives with Harris, Mirei, and Gerrard as the surviving heroes.

To some extent, this was Pax Harrisan, a period of relative ‘peace’ thanks to the quick destruction of the demon king by the heroes. This era had finally ended.

“What now, Principal?” they asked.

“Nothing. It was just an announcement that all of you should know. For us, we go on as usual. We prepare for the next demon king, and the next.”

Edna looked at Faris. “Well. Our worries were for nothing.”

“What, you wanted to face the demon king? Did power get to your head?” Faris rolled his eyes. Since their last battle with the demon champions, they’d been constantly gaining levels, and now Edna and Faris were both in the early level seventies.

“Ah, no.”

“Another ten years of relative peace.”

“Eight. Data collected suggests that the two years before the demon king arrives is filled with demonic attacks.”

“Minor attacks. Nothing we can’t handle. Especially now that there are three of us [Grand Knights],” Edna said. “I hear from Master Jura that he may be considering a second [Great Druid], too. With all this strength, I think we can handle a demon champion or two.”

“Really?” Faris seemed worried. “Who?”

“Who do you think?” Edna smiled back.

“Ah, come on. Don’t play coy with me. You know the answer.”

“I don’t. I swear.” Edna just walked.

“Hey, you two seemed happy.” The [Spearmaster], Lovis, poked in. “Are we having a gathering of the upgraded classes soon?”

“Ish.” Edna frowned.

From what I could see, all of them were still somehow around 70–80 percent of Lausanne’s full strength. Lausanne had the special familiar, the [possession of the devoted], and that alone made her stronger, even if she had just regular classes. But the possession of the devoted had strange, unwritten conditions, and I had not been able to award them to anyone yet.

As the young batch of upgraded-class Valthorns talked, Jura and Yvon just looked at each other. “What do you think of this batch?”

“They’re good,” Yvon said. “At their level, stronger than me.”

“Well, you used to be stronger than me.” Jura smiled.

“Used to be. Not anymore. On that topic, tell me, how did Aeon break through your cap?”

“Well, something that won’t help anyone. I think only he can do it. It’s something soul-related.”

Yvon shrugged. The Valtrian Order’s staff strength had increased to about fifteen thousand, with twelve thousand in Freshka itself, and the remaining three thousand in the various city-states. They acted as our representatives, recruiters, and caretakers.

The Valtrian Order’s two main wings, the military wing and the social wing, were meant to be mutually reinforcing. The Social and Health wing, in addition to its social support services, was also a means of funneling young children with nothing much to lose to the Valtrian Order’s ways. It worked well, and the local rulers recognized it, so they often set up competing institutions in order to divert talent away from me.

The Social Wing, in addition to regular orphanages, also included funeral parlors, hospitals, childcare facilities, some schools, and some food stores.

Then the Valtrian Order started getting notified of it.

I could feel them. They were scattered throughout Freshka, at first, ten, then twenty. Then a hundred. It was like I instinctively knew where they were.

“My class…it changed when I woke up. It’s now [Aeonic Ranger],” a ranger said to his colleagues on the walls of Freshka. He was not the first, but many others started getting similar notifications.

“What does it do?” Not everyone got it. Some did.

“I…don’t know?” the ranger said. He was still coming to terms with his changed class. Those whose class changed generally were a bit more spiritual, and they tended to either pray to some kind of tablet or regularly visit the temples and other social sites that I had. Some were familiar faces; I’d seen them at my [Tree of Prayers].

They would be healthier, and as long as they were near to me and my network of trees, they would be stronger. Their defensive moves were upgraded, too, and they would gain some advantages when fighting demons.

A few priests, who regularly performed rituals, funerals, and births gained [Priest of Aeon]. As a priest, they gained the power to grant [Protection of the Valley], a temporary ‘blessing’ that granted them energy from the valley.

Faris, too, woke up one day, and he was [Aeonic Great Druid]. “You didn’t get an upgrade, Edna?”

“No. I suddenly feel inadequate about it.” Edna frowned.

Indeed, Jasmine and my artificial minds were quick to theorize that all those who got the [aeonic] classes were, to some extent, believers. Perhaps not to the degree of a god, but as a local deity. And now that ‘belief’ had manifested itself as a class.

There was a small uproar, too, among the priests.

“Aeon has ascended and has gained power to grant unique classes. This is proof of divinity!” they shouted and claimed. I cringed. Sure, now I could grant special classes. But divine? There was a massive spectrum to the gods, surely.

< Congratulations are in order, > Lilies spoke suddenly, abruptly.

> Huh? <

< We lived for centuries, and it’s been a while since we sensed a new deity. >

> What…level are you? <

It didn’t answer. Maybe asking their levels was like asking a woman’s age. It was probably offensive.

> Sorry. <

< We feel your energy stretching throughout the fabric of the world. >

> What? <

< Beware of the Others. They now know you exist. >

I didn’t know what they meant for a moment. But then I soon got a rather quick notification from my network of informants.

“The Church of Neira has declared Aeon as a heretic and a demon. Accordingly, the Valtrian Order and the Freshlands are monsters that must be exterminated.”

“The Temple of Gaya has formally cut all ties with the Freshlands.” Woot. “We do not recognize and will not do business with anyone who professes to be a believer of Aeon.”

“The Church of Aiva has declared Aeon of the Freshlands as an enemy of the religion.”

“The Church of Hawa has declared Aeon of Freshka and the Freshlands as a heretic and enemy of the faith.”

Ah. It came suddenly, but four churches suddenly declaring me as a heretic? And just as quickly, I had an uprising in my own realm. All this while there had been believers of all these other faiths co-existing with us, but now these temples and religious organizations pretty much declared outright war on me.

I felt a sense of anger. And fear.

What could they throw at me? Did their gods suddenly realize that I’d stepped closer to the realm of the gods and now considered me an enemy? If this was going to be a conventional war like with the other lesser kingdoms, I would crush them.

“Aeon,” Jura said, a large council present. “The four temples have declared you a heretic. Many of our own have decided to emigrate. There will be a slaughter, and there will be war. The temples have vast armies that they can summon. Resources that they can put together.”

“And yet they still depend on heroes to defend them from the demons.” In our broken continent, the hold of the temples was weak. There was little faith in these temples when they’d seen so much damage. But the faith of the believers was stronger where the temple institutions were strong. So, if there were enemies, they would likely come from the other continents. “How many?”

My artificial minds got to work quickly. “Across the entire Freshlands…not that bad. Ten percent of our population may leave.”

Not that bad at all. Ten percent was small. Perhaps the issue of faith meant little when their safety was constantly threatened.

“Among the nobles and leaders, though, it’s about 30 percent.”

I had to do something. I couldn’t fight a war without leaders. So I turned to Jura and the representatives.

“After the fall of the demons, my power has grown. My most recent powers involved the introduction of Aeonic-variant classes into the world.”

A silence among those present.

“Even among some of you, I can sense the presence of an Aeonic class.” One of the present representatives was an [Aeonic Warrior]. “And so this provoked the temples in retaliation.”

“They fear your rise, Aeon,” one of the representatives said. “This is a mark of a jealous god.”

“Not uncommon. The crusades of the Northern Frost was one such war.” The representatives discussed the matter among themselves.

“A tree’s roots will break through rock and stone, if it must. If they dare to step foot in my valley, I shall break them,” I declared. I was high level; surely I could hold my lands against some templars.

The representatives nodded, and they all went out. The Freshlands Federal Authority would prepare for war. I had things to think about.

From the declaration, and the consistent timing, I concluded that this must be a divine message. Else, why did four temples act in unison to denounce me? The gods, or whatever they were, were in limited contact with the temples, and at the same time, their ability to ‘see’ or ‘perceive’ the world was probably limited. Somehow, when my [Domain] ability added new classes to the world, that made them aware of my presence.

So would the temples summon heroes to counter me? That would be a very interesting data point. Or were the gods tied in that they were unable to summon heroes?

I thought they couldn’t. If they could summon heroes to destroy me directly, they would have done so. There was no need for the temples to publicly declare war on me. So the declaration of war must mean the gods had limited tools when dealing with non-demonic matters. At best, they would request the heroes to attack me when the next demon king arrived in the future, but that was still some time away.

In short, I could expect the forces these temples would muster would be conventional in nature. Nothing extraordinary.

* * *

About a month after the declaration, I’d heard of various ‘crusading’ forces preparing for an invasion. It took time for them to form a coalition—after all, the temples’ own standing armies were generally small, and they called on a network of ‘believer’ states to donate forces for their cause.

Per our network, we’re looking at about one to two million soldiers in total across the four temples’ armies, but in actual fact it’d be less, simply because not all kingdoms would give the full amount requested by the temples. At this point, it was a good thing to ask, “So, where was this same army when the demon king was rampaging throughout the world?”

“Defending their home cities.”

Stupid. Politics was stupid. At this point, a part of me wanted to smack some sense into them, like, hey, I’d been protecting the world from demons, and this was what I got?

“Aeon, we detected a spy approaching. He’s moving quickly,” one of my [Aeonic Rangers] commented. He must have believed that he would not be found.

“Intercept him.”

My Aeonic rangers attacked, and he dodged. “Wait!” he shouted. “I want to speak to Aeon. I bring an important message from the church of Aiva.”

“If it is war, you have war.”

The spy shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that.”

* * *

The spy was led to an area with a large [Tree of Prayer]. “Speak,” I telepathically said. Edna and a few knights were there. Just in case.

“May I have some privacy?” the spy said. “The things I say must be only for Aeon.”

“No,” I said.

The spy sighed, but then he took out a small pendant. Instantly, I felt a kind of ‘holy’ energy, and Edna’s sword moved in. “What are you doing?”

“This is Aiva’s Pendant of Truth, one of the five sacred treasures of the Church of Aiva and proof that I speak for Aiva.”

Edna’s sword closed in. The spy’s finger gently touched the tip, pushing it aside slightly.

“Aiva has no intention of going to war with Aeon. But the other three temples have received divine messages to some degree. Aiva, our patron god, has decreed that a war is declared as a formality, but no hostilities will break out.”

“Breaking of trade routes does not count for hostilities?” one of the rangers shouted.

“Some concessions must be made to keep up the charade,” the spy said. “But we will not send anyone of significant skill or power for this endeavor. This war is a silly thing, with demons at the border.”

“What do the temples want?” I asked.

“I do not know. But Aiva was clear. This is a fake war. An act.” Well, an ‘act’ of war, then.

“But there will be real wars with the other three.” I felt sad. Especially with the temple of Gaya. I recalled being housed in a temple of Gaya. It must’ve been destroyed by the Rottedlands. It didn’t have to be a war, no?

Was this the part of my life where I was going to play tower defense against a wave of attackers from across the sea?

44

INTERLUDE

Circa Year 125, immediately after the time the demon king died

“The [Captain] said we’ll reach Port Killos soon.” One of Lausanne’s party-mates announced the news to the group of ten. They were adventurers, the Playing Swords, and they’d been sailing for a good five weeks from Port Anggar of the Southern Continent to Port Killos on the southernmost edge of the Eastern Continent.

The oceans were vast. It took a month from one place to another, sometimes three months should the weather be exceptionally bad or some of the large monster-fishes created hostile patches. There’d been times when a sea serpent made a whirlpool large enough that trade was disrupted for years across the straits.

Port Killos, the Southern Fortress. Home to one of the largest Aiva temples, and seat of Grandmaster Engka, one of Grand Triumvirs of Aiva. Its walls were made 830 years ago by the Summoned Hero, Don Mex, and one of the strongest hero-enchanted walls in the world. Still, on the southern part, there was a large hole, a crater from a demonic supercannon blast. A relic of the era of Demon King Sabnoc.

There was also a memorial there to remember the seventeen thousand who died from that explosion. The ship was finally ready to dock.

“All right.” Lausanne nodded. She wore a deep green jacket, and she had three wooden spears on her back. “So what in the world happened in a month?”

The party and many other passengers disembarked. The crew and the docksmen started unloading cargo, too. But they quickly picked up something that felt different. There were far more soldiers and templars.

Aiva had templars, but the templars rarely left their training grounds except during the demon wars.

“The demon king has fallen! The three heroes died!” They got the news, and Lausanne just nodded. That’s good, she thought.

A templar approached them. Normally, it would just be a regular port official that did visitor screening. “Name? Which party?”

“I’m Ardi, of the Playing Swords,” a man in his early forties answered. He quickly showed his many adventurer guild badges. Lausanne’s husband. It was funny, because Lausanne was more of a spear-user. Swords were pretty low on her list of proficiencies, but the party had a lot of sword users. Each kingdom recognized their own adventurers differently, so most parties obtained multiple certifications.

“All right.” The templar nodded. “Cleared. The temples are off-limits, however.”

“Off-limits?” one of the party members asked. She was the party’s healer, and she was a priestess-warrior. That meant she actually had a holy-enchanted sword, albeit a lesser one. “Is it open for the clergy?”

The templar looked at the healer. “Clergy may access the outer temples. Central temples off-limits to everyone. The Triumvir is receiving a divine message.”

The priestess-warrior’s jaw dropped. “A divine message!” The templar nodded and signaled them to move along.

Lausanne walked next to the priestess. “Lexi, what’s a divine message?”

“The gods, they sometimes send a divine message. Only those who have the right levels and skills can receive it. But the messages usually need a long time to be received, sometimes months, so the high priests would enter into solitary confinement, often with only a skeleton crew to support them.”

“Why do they want to receive it?”

“Usually it comes with some kind of divine blessings, and almost all priests level up quite a bit after receiving a divine message.”

“Really?” Lausanne just nodded. Ardi patted his wife on the back. “All right, let’s get to our inn. We’ll check out what quests we have tomorrow.”

They woke up the next day to sounds of marching men. An army.

“What’s happening?” Ardi asked the innkeeper. It was about time for breakfast anyway.

“Not sure. But the central temples have been closed for three weeks already. I don’t recall something like this happening in a long time.”

Lexi nibbled on a piece of meat. “That usually means the divine message is quite long. Usually.”

“Have you ever received a divine message, Lexi?” Lausanne asked, curious.

“No. It’s a gift for the select few, those chosen by the gods as their [voice]. For mere mortals like us, we never get a chance.”

Lausanne nodded. Ardi came back with a few files. “All right, the guild’s got some typical hunting missions and some demon extermination missions. I think the jobs seem relatively easy, so we can split up into two groups. Lausanne will lead the demon-hunting mission. The usual split.”

She nodded. That usual split meant Lausanne, two swordsmen, and one mage. Their team was usually smaller, simply because Lausanne, at level eighty, due to her unique history, massively outleveled everyone else in the party. Everyone else was around level forty to level fifty-five. Ardi himself was only a level fifty-two [Swordfighter].

They spent the whole morning going through the quest dossiers, but then a group of ten heavily armed templars marched into the inn.

“We’re looking for the Playing Swords,” one templar captain said, and Ardi nodded.

“Yes. We are the Playing Swords.”

“Per our records, is Lausanne Searwind, of the ‘Greenspears,’ present?” the templar asked.

Lausanne stood. “Yes. That would be me.”

The templar nodded. “All right, Lady Searwind, I’m afraid we need you to come with us. The rest of you can stay here.”

Ardi panicked. “Wait. She’s my wife. Is everything all right?”

The templar paused. His brain was probably processing the information. “I’m afraid the Triumvir only ordered for her. The rest of you, please wait here.”

“Will she be all right?” Ardi asked again, noticing that the templar didn’t answer his question.

Lausanne smiled. “I’ll be fine.” Honestly, what could they do? Lausanne had the best chance of escape; she did have her Warden.

* * *

The templar escorted her to the Core Temples. They didn’t attempt to restrain her, so Lausanne assumed it had not been a crime. At least, not yet. She did not take her woodspears along; her three woodspears were with her party, but still, if she needed a weapon, Warden was more than able to create a few.

The Core Temples were large, ancient buildings, built during the era of the hero’s descendants. Don Mex was summoned by Aiva, at least, according to Aiva Scriptures. Who knew how the scriptures had changed over the hundreds of years? Regardless, it was still imposing and grand, and Lausanne nodded. She felt a pressure pressing down on her, but it was a lot lighter than Aeon’s [Haunted Forests].

The templars guided her to one corner building that resembled a small keep. It was the templar’s headquarters. She noted the armored guards throughout the building, as the templar captain led up the stairs to a higher floor. Eventually she arrived at a large room with glass windows that had a beautiful vantage of the ports and the bay of Port Killos.

“Greetings, you must be Lausanne,” a middle-aged man said. He sat on a large, beautifully decorated seat, and he was flanked by a few high-ranking templars. She nodded and vaguely sensed some kind of skill.

[Warden has applied Magic Suppression Aura. Skill effects cancelled.]

Lausanne just smiled. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to use a skill on her. Warden, a special familiar, was unique in many ways. It was like having a mini-Aeon around, with many of Aeon’s abilities, to a lesser degree.

The man’s head jerked a little. He’d probably noticed his skill was cancelled and the presence of an aura. “Well, I should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. All right, let me just give you a brief explanation of why you are here and why you should cooperate.”

Lausanne didn’t respond.

“Our records say you originated from the Freshlands and were born in New Freeka. You lived there until sixteen or seventeen years ago.”

“Technically, I was born in Freeka,” Lausanne corrected.

“All right. So you confirm you lived there until sixteen to seventeen years ago?”

“Yes.” Lausanne didn’t see where this was going.

“So, what do you know about…Aeon?”

Lausanne paused. She didn’t like talking about Aeon, simply because, well, most people didn’t understand what it was like to live with a massive demi-god whose energies just permeated her world. She grew up under his care, and to everyone else, that was an alien concept. In fact, she spent a few years adjusting to the reality that her experience was extremely unique. “What do you want to know?”

“His powers. His weaknesses.”

Lausanne had a gut feeling it wasn’t going to be good. “Honestly, I don’t know of his weaknesses. Maybe…demon kings?”

The questioning templar’s eyebrows moved.

“His powers…he can summon beetles, create walls of trees and roots, and attack with root strikes. He also has a lot of healing abilities, like, he healed my uncle’s dismembered arm. He also has massive shield abilities.” Lausanne honestly didn’t know the full breadth of Aeon’s abilities.

“How far can he attack?”

Lausanne shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What’s the furthest?”

Lausanne paused. “Everywhere in the valley? That puts it at…sixty to eighty miles, maybe even one hundred?” Honestly, Lausanne didn’t know, either. She was not aware of Aeon’s battle with the faraway walker, nearer to Lilypod City. These questions actually made her wonder how much she knew about Aeon, because she realized that she couldn’t give a definite answer for most of it.

The templar’s eyes widened, and he quickly jotted that down. The middle-aged templar flipped through his notes and a book.

“What is this about, really?” Lausanne asked.

“There will be war, milady,” a templar answered. “With Aeon as a false deity.”

“False deity?” She didn’t like the sound of that at all. To her, he was a deity and guardian spirit in every way. She stared at the templar. “On what grounds?”

“Our god decreed so,” the templar said. “From what I understand, so will Hawa, Gaya, and Neira.”

Lausanne paused. She wasn’t sure how to take the news. Was this war? Were all these people going to march on the Freshlands against Aeon?

Were they insane? Had they not seen the thousands of beetles he had? As far as she could remember, Aeon’s supply of beetles seemed almost limitless. Sure, a high-levelled individual could kill hundreds, if not thousands of beetles, but exhaustion eventually sank in. They needed to sleep, eat, pee, and poo. Aeon could just repeatedly throw beetles at them until he finally won.

He was a tree. Roots could break stones, and he was not afraid of taking forever to do it. She wanted to speak. No, she was quite tempted to just shout.

But the templar said, “We’re rather confident. We are even authorized to use hero-items.”

Lausanne paused. Hero-items…she thought about it for a moment, and she recalled the hero-made wooden armor that Uncle Jura had. She remembered it quite vividly. If they could deploy hero-items, Aeon had them, too. She knew for a fact that hero-items were weaker in the hands of regular folks, and Aeon had way more mana to power the hero items than the temples.

Had these templars lost their minds? Emperor Harris made so many hero-items for Aeon; did they know about that?

She felt conflicted. TreeTree would probably tell her to not say a word. He was fond of pulling off little surprises like that. Maybe he’d even use tunnels and sappers, like he did so many years ago.

“Am I under arrest?” Lausanne asked. She was relatively sure they wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Even now, she was confident in defeating everyone in the room.

“Oh.” The templars flipped through some notes. “Uh, yes. I’m afraid we have to keep you under house arrest for a while.”

The higher-ranked templars walked toward her, and she shook her head. “It’s all right. I won’t resist.”

The templars led her to another area of the Core Temple grounds, and she was given a small but comfortable room. “A maid will attend to you, but during this time, I’m afraid you have to be here. We cannot have you leaking our troop movements to the Freshlands.”

Lausanne shrugged. She sat, and she processed her feelings. She believed Aeon would be fine. No. She knew they would be fine. Only someone with a hero’s power could stand up to Aeon. All these cities struggled to even contain a demon walker; that was why they resorted to hexbombs.

They’d have to bring out their hidden big guns to even have a chance.

* * *

“Are you all right?” Ardi came. The templars strangely allowed her husband to visit her and even gave him the option to stay with her during her ‘house arrest.’ “I heard the gist of it from the templars.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” Lausanne nodded. “We’ll just have to stay here for quite a while. The team can go on with their missions. In fact, you can join them if you want to.” Lausanne winked. Being confined for a few years, what was new? She was confined in a valley for twenty years before and had to fight hybrid demons every other day; this wasn’t a big deal. In fact, this was pretty much a staycation.

“Do I need to warn anyone?”

“Nope.” Lausanne shook her head. “I don’t want my mother to know.”

Her husband sat next to her and gave her a hug. “All right.”

“Go with the team. Pretty sure they need you more than me. I’m just going to be trapped in this building for a while, nothing particularly dangerous, really.”

He paused, and he looked rather conflicted. Eventually he nodded. “We’ll probably drop the demon-hunting missions without you around.”

Lausanne shrugged. “Give yourself some credit, dear. I’m sure you can handle them. Go, don’t waste your time trapped here with me.”

Ardi gave her another hug. She gave him a knowing look. The I-can-break-out-anytime look. He smiled. “All right.”

“Good.”

He left later that day, and Lausanne spent some time exploring her new ‘prison.’ It was a simple bedroom, and she looked into the mirror. Her hair was short now. She had it cut a few years ago after she found it rather annoying during combat. Short hair didn’t get tangled so often, especially when they were in close-combat situations. A templar came in.

“Milady. Your presence is requested by the grandmaster.”

“Oh?” Grandmaster Engka. Now that was a person she’d never met. He was famously reclusive and refused to meet. And now she had the chance to meet him.

They met in a small, cozy tea room. There were four sofa chairs with plush cushions, and the grandmaster was known to be an old man and had maintained control over the Aiva temples for almost half a century. His hair was entirely white, yet his body was in no way frail. In fact, his body looked as fit and muscular as any of the templars. From a distance, one may think he was no older than forty.

He gestured to the sofa opposite his, and Lausanne sat. A few servants served them tea and cookies. “I was told ladies like tea and cookies. Have some. They are the best in the region.”

Lausanne smiled and took a tea. She sipped it. It was a kind of flower tea, a rose and chrysanthemum mixture. It had good balance and a bit of light, fluffy sweetness. The aftertaste was very gentle and didn’t stay long on the tongue. “It is a good tea.”

Grandmaster Engka nodded. “Good. You must be surprised by these sudden developments, but I’ll be direct. I’ve received a divine message from our patron god, and well, it certainly is complicated.”

Lausanne just smiled. She vaguely sensed a skill, again, and she pushed back at it. It wasn’t a problem to push it back. She was, for all that it was worth, an [Aeonic Weaponmaster] with a total level of eighty. She was originally a swordswoman, but after she increased her use of spears and bows, her class fused together. The grandmaster was perhaps of a similar level.

The grandmaster chased everyone out of the room with a wave, and he activated another kind of skill. “What I say here is for your ears only. We don’t want war with Aeon, but we must be seen as doing war with Aeon,” Grandmaster Engka said. “The other three temples do want war, but Aiva’s more interested in just being seen as participating.”

Lausanne frowned. Why was he telling her this? What was the point? There was nothing she could do.

“Are you able to communicate with Aeon? My scouts and past reports claimed that communicating with Aeon is a perilous affair. Many suffer nightmares from being around him.”

Lausanne wondered again. She had to ask; that statement was borderline absurd. “Why? There’s no such thing as a pretend war. The world’s certainly not a safe playground where people can play-fight. Anyone else will tell you that you are bullshitting and trying to lie to me.”

“Indeed. That’s my dilemma. It’s a difficult message, one that I had not told anyone yet. How do I tell others that my god wants me to send these men to their deaths, with no actual intention of victory? For what?”

“Then?” Lausanne didn’t get it. “Why am I here?”

“Can you communicate with Aeon?”

“Yes. But not here. Only back in the valley.”

“My informants told me that you have an extensive history with Aeon. So can we find a way to communicate with him? Any…how should I say this, pointers?”

Lausanne frowned. “Be frank and honest. Tell him what your god said, word for word if possible. I believe Aeon may understand your gods’ intentions far better than we do. In my experience, we cannot understand the thoughts of a tree spirit, so the best tip I know is you can only say what you want and see how he responds.”

Grandmaster Engka nodded and visibly relaxed. “Indeed. Us mere mortals cannot truly fathom the thoughts of greater beings. In honesty, this…war is a futile endeavor. If Aeon is really a semi-divine being, we mortals have no way of truly harming such a being. Perhaps only heroes and ancient monsters stand a chance.”

Lausanne leaned forward. That was an upsetting thing to hear. “Then why?”

“The gods have a wish. We, their humble servants, must try our best to fulfill it, lest we lose our classes and suffer a divine retribution. A curse. The closer one steps to the gods, the more we are bound by their whims,” Engka said. “Even if it seems as if the task is futile, we must believe in the gods that they will bless us and that we play our supposed role in their larger, unfathomable plans.”

“So even if it seems like suicide or stupid, you will do it because it’s part of the gods’ plan?” Lausanne asked. She couldn’t help it.

“Yes. We must put aside our disagreements and carry out our god’s will.”

Lausanne felt tormented, and she stared at the grandmaster. He seemed every bit the wise and smart man, and yet something like this came from him. Were the gods all like this?

Now she felt like she should send a [message] home and ask Aeon to be merciful. She thought of the heroes again, and she remembered how they, too, seemed like they were pawns of their gods, despite their incredible power. How they were constantly, subtly influenced by the gods.

She sighed. “And because of this foolish endeavor, I’ll remain under house arrest?”

“I’m afraid, yes, milady. Though I can tell our walls honestly cannot hold you back should you ever wish to escape.”

Their eyes met, and she felt it was they who were imprisoned.

45

YEAR 126

The first wave of attackers was just plain conventional armies. Wasn’t hard to scare them away with an equally massive display of force. I had a lot of beetles, and my beetles were strong. In a straight fight, I’d win.

When the first wave knocked on our doorsteps, those who wanted to leave had already left—or, at least, most of them. There were some that stayed back, and I suspected they were in cahoots with the temples. Jasmine and my artificial minds were actively monitoring them.

I didn’t arrest them immediately, because I wanted to know what they knew. It may be a good idea to find out how deep their network was. So, for now, I’d play along, let them win some small victories, and catch all of them in a single swoop. It was like dangling a lure to catch a prey. There was a general consensus among the populace that I knew what they were doing, but that didn’t seem to have stopped those that sympathized or supported the other four temples from plotting.

Most plots were rather simple, really: find a way to cause damage to me, or find a way to convince people to change sides, or reveal/expose some kind of strategic advantage.

It also relied on a great deal of trust, that those who plotted could trust those who assisted them. So it wasn’t entirely difficult to cause the whole thing to collapse once a bit of fake news and intelligence were added to the mix.

Were they willing to act on intelligence that may be fake?

“There are skills that help that, such as [discern truth],” Yvon said. Apparently, plotters had some means of verifying facts. That said, kings and rulers had counter-plot skills, too, such as [discern loyalty], or [unravel plots], or some rather cutely named ones, like [Monkey Wrench], which apparently caused the forces of chaos to mess things up.

Of course, I wondered whether there were abilities that therefore interfered with my ability to observe them. I believed there were; after all, I’d seen the heroes do something like that. Like a [silence bubble] or something.

There were largely three groups, one of Gaya and Hawa, one of Aiva, and another one was a ragtag bunch. The last temple apparently was more straightforward and did not believe in plots. I didn’t believe it, though; I suspected this was some kind of false information.

Some operated in a typical military function. They focused on gathering information about my military forces, and well…

[Domain has blocked attempted espionage skill.]

Yeah. That happened multiple times during this month. It seemed that Domain also interfered with a wide variety of skill types, especially those that came from afar.

[Domain has blocked attempted scrying.]

The temples sent many waves, and throughout my borders, those kingdoms and nations had been forced to let the crusading armies pass. It wasn’t a choice for them.

“Should we just let them march through our neighbors?” The council gathered. It was more of a war council now, with the representatives across the Freshlands sending their generals and leaders. There were many who were now my sympathizers.

As I was a divine-tier being, the nobles and rulers of the various segments and cities had a clear choice: side with the temples, or side with me and earn some of my divine favor. For the local nobles, it was actually quite a clear choice that I could bring more to the table.

“Unless Aeon permits us marching an army of beetles into our neighbors’ lands…”

Most of our neighbors were economically intertwined with us, so they were in a difficult position. They were mostly smaller nation-states or kingdoms, and they did not have a large standing army. Nothing that could stand up to a three hundred thousand–strong crusading army.

I paused and wondered what the objective of this army was. Did all of these three hundred thousand really share the goals that the gods and temples’ leadership decided?

They probably didn’t know the true extent of my reach, and so I’d extended [subsidiary trees] in all directions, even through the lands of these other neighboring kingdoms. I also made [subsidiary trees] all the way to the port city where most of the crusading forces landed. Most people did not notice trees by the roadside.

The port city’s packed. It was not the only port to receive the crusading army. These forces were coming through five to six different port cities and would converge along the way to me. In a way, if I wanted to spring a surprise attack, the best time was when they were still here.

There was a lot of idle chatter. A sense that the enemy was still really far away.

“I still can’t believe I sailed across the ocean just to fight a tree,” some of the soldiers said. “Can’t they just send a woodcutter and chop the tree down?”

“I’m sure the temple thought of it.”

“It’s not just any tree. It’s a tree that attained the cursed power of the evil gods.”

“An evil-tree god, really?” Some of the soldiers seemed baffled by it. “I mean, all I’ve heard of the Freshlands is that this evil-tree god has been shielding them from the demons, and suddenly they tell me this magic tree is now evil?”

“Shush, don’t let the templars hear that.”

“Aw, fuck them. I’m just here for the money.”

“I’m just here because the big boss says so.”

The soldiers didn’t seem like they all believed in their cause all that much. It was a shame that wars, being what they were, meant we would cross paths, and they would die. From my observation, the composition of the crusading army was roughly similar to a typical army: 90 percent regulars with soldiers or warrior classes, and 10 percent unique. It was the 10 percent I needed to pay attention to for any unusual skills or classes.

It’d been some time since I had a large-scale fight with other humans.

“Council.” I spoke to the war council. “Reach out to all the neighboring kingdoms and ask for an alliance. If they want to side with the temples, we will declare war and we will invade. If they join us, I will offer them protection.”

The council did as they were told, and surprisingly quite a few of the kingdoms agreed to form an alliance. They instantly rejected the crusade’s demand for freedom of entry, and I populated the allied kingdoms with my [subsidiary trees]. Fools, these temples. I had five hundred thousand beetles I could use in combat, and they regenerated in about three to four months.

But I needed to get their effectiveness up. They’d been traditionally geared against monsters and demons, but since I was facing a large-scale war, I needed to have additional advantages and perks.

“Horns.”

“Yes, Master?”

“What sort of anti-army or anti-templar research do we have?”

Trevor and Dimitree popped in. “We have numerous potential research. We can deploy poison-laced beetles.”

“I want assassin beetles,” I said. “I want beetles that are able to hunt down their elites.”

“All right, we’ll get the research started.” Horns made a fist pump. It would take a few months, so I’d just drag the battle on.

* * *

Meanwhile, a few smaller skirmishes broke out. I had not deployed most of my own abilities yet; it was better to keep some of my powers hidden. The less they knew about me, the more mistakes they would make.

The Valthorns needed some pep talk before every battle, though. They were trained to fight demons and hybrids, so an all-out war against other humans, elves, and sentient races still needed some mindset change, even if I had included it in their training regime. If it wasn’t for Jura, I’d have a lot more to worry about.

I also had to make sure that the enemy didn’t level up too much, especially survivors. Survivors may often return far stronger, and since they survived a fight with beetles, they would gain anti-beetle skills. It was really a case of just killing everyone.

I wondered whether there were anti-human or anti-elf skills. “There are,” Jura said. “Such accursed skills exist.”

This crusade, I felt, was going to drag on for a while. The temples could keep reinforcing the ports. If I wanted to cut them off, I must march on the port itself.

If I could hold onto the ports, the temples would have to take a long detour.

“There are six ports that are on the side of the temples. Honestly, I think a few of them will fold if we manage to capture one or two of the port cities. Their loyalty to the faraway temples is tenuous at best.”

“I see.”

So, again, I was a tree. I could fight wars differently. The enemy, from what I’d seen so far, had not been able to detect subsidiary trees. Or, at least, they didn’t display that they were able to.

If I wanted to end it, I’d have to swiftly capture all six port cities in one go. They had some defenses, but nothing too big. And I already had trees all the way into the city. Now, I just needed to make sure I had trees in all six cities, and I could spring a sudden surprise attack.

Therefore, I called on the council and changed the tactics. I wasn’t sure whether any of the council leaked information to these crusaders, perhaps unwillingly or unknowingly, so I didn’t disclose the full plan. The strategy, simply put, was to delay the crusaders as long as possible. I told them that I would have a way to decisively win, a special weapon.

This was partly true. I could deploy my titan souls against this crusading army, but I felt that was a waste.

I wanted to drag it on, because I needed the time to design and research special beetles, assassin and anti-human beetles that could fight effectively in cities, not just open areas. Spiders, too. I had the web spiders, and I figured spiders would operate a lot more effectively in the city area, so I increased research on poisonous spiders.

And I created a few more artificial souls for Horns. Five beetles, and five spiders. My new insect-army commanders.

Now that I’d leveled up to level 168 and had trees that stretched the entire Freshlands, my artificial-souls limit was quite high. Sure, I could field a large quantity of these sentient assistants, but they were still no match for elites. They would take a few months, at least, to reach the mid-level twenties to thirties, and before that, their combat strength was mediocre.

And so, the plan was on the way. Tunnels were made into all the six port cities, and a lot of subsidiary trees were created. I’d also created [Giant Attendant Trees] in the forested locations nearby and used my [camouflage] ability to hide them.

I would unleash at least seventy thousand to one hundred thousand beetles on each of the six cities in one go, effectively cutting off their supply lines. Then smaller attack forces would strike at the crusading army.

Because the crusading army was so large, they were led by multiple [generals] and [lords]. It was also a logistical challenge, so the army was split into two large groups of about two hundred fifty thousand each, and a few smaller, ten thousand to twenty thousand contingents. It was entirely dependent on imported supplies and resources, so a targeted attack on its supplies would thin out the force rather quickly.

A few of the [generals] had the ability [Create Food Supply] or [Army Skill: Reduce Hunger] or some variation of it. But the power had a ‘size limit,’ so a large portion would be outside the effect of the skill and would therefore desert the army.

But, for now, smaller skirmishes.

It wasn’t time yet.

Timing was everything.

* * *

“I’m getting a little frustrated,” Edna complained after a skirmish with the crusaders. It was trench warfare, really. I’d reinforce a large segment with walls, and the crusaders would march on it. They’d fight a bit, but they usually didn’t make much progress.

“Me too.”

“I wish I can just charge out there.”

“You’ll die, though.”

“I know.” There were about eighty thousand soldiers on the other side. They were bombarding the walls with rocks and magic, but wooden shields and barriers meant those bombardments weren’t making a dent. There was also a thick web of thorns and human-eating plants.

They’d been using fireballs and all, trying to make a dent at the walls, but with a Giant Attendant Tree at the back, they could take a few hits.

“This is just a boring stalemate.” Edna frowned.

“Aeon wants it that way,” Faris said. “And I think the enemy knows it.”

* * *

“We should just charge in.” The enemy seemed to forget that even grass could have ears. And there were roots that could just peek out of the ground just a little bit. Right below the commander’s camp. “This is a waste of time.”

“The general said we should hold.”

“What for?”

“The general’s giving the enemy too much credit. Other than that massive wall, we outnumber the enemy force by five to one. And we have one thousand elites of at least level thirty. Why send us here if we are just playing this waiting game?” The commander was a young man, eager, anxious, and wanting to prove himself.

He walked a bit, and a thorn gently pricked his leg. A little bit of sap to stimulate his hormones and testosterone. A hormone-filled mistake, here and there.

“I command our force to charge in.” His body flared up, hot. Anger. Frustration. The sap merely pushed him off the cliff.

“Commander, the general said…” The assistant and captains tried to say otherwise.

“I am the commander here. And I say we charge.”

They charged into a wall of thorns and maneater-plants, while [Aeonic Rangers] and archers rained death. They quickly realized the folly of their attack and retreated. But that mistake cost them ten thousand lives, and none of the defenders.

Meanwhile at another front…

“I was told to expect large beetle armies.” The general was in a large camp, flanked by his advisors. “And in all of our intelligence, we’ve only seen beetle armies no larger than thirty thousand. Whatever it is, our enemy is hiding its strength and wants a long-drawn war.”

“Does that mean it wants to test our supply lines?” a strategist asked. “A long war becomes a test of logistics and resourcing.”

The general nodded. “That makes a lot of sense. Our enemy, as a heretic tree on the very edges of divinity, must have tremendous powers over plants and growth. It must be confident that it can continuously feed its population, so it is not afraid of a long siege.”

My beetles were just mostly doing hit-and-runs on smaller forces.

“So it wants to draw it out until the temple decides it’s no longer worth it. It expects the temples to pull their funding and supplies,” a strategist concluded.

“A swift attack might be just what it’s not prepared for,” the general said. “But it’s rather clear that we can’t mount a swift attack, either.” It was a big piece of land, and even with the [general]’s skills, it was probably too much.

“We should do a precision strike, then. A group of elites right at the center of the enemy.”

The general of the Coalition of Crusaders pondered the idea. “I have ancient records to suggest that it won’t work. Written by one [General] Ackbar. It’s probably a trap.”

Ancient? Forty years was ancient?

“It’s our best chance.”

“Not if we use our heroic artifacts.”

Now my ‘ears’ perked up.

“The temple has not authorized use of the heroic artifacts.”

“If the temple wants us to slay this heretical evil tree, then we should be allowed to use our heroic items. A heroic weapon can destroy that wall, easy.”

Ooh. I’d be on the receiving end of a heroic-grade item. Now, that was something worth testing out. I was a level 168 tree; could I survive a hit from a hero-grade item?

“Then we must send a request,” the general said. “Outline our observations, insist that a quick victory is ideal, and demand authorization for our hero-grade items.”

The temples had a lot of hero-grade items. Items left by previous heroes, or perhaps just claimed by the temple. People like Harris and Mirei even donated some items to the temples, too, for political reasons. So the temples, over the years and decades, accumulated a decent stockpile of hero-items.

Of course, they couldn’t make full use of it, but because they were hero-items, they should still pack a strong punch.

Well. Bring it on.

46

YEAR 127

“Activating the hero-item, the Holy Cannon of Alantara!” the templars shouted. The hero-item itself was a small item, but to power it, they had to build a massive array of crystals and mana-storage items. The array was ten times larger than the hero-item itself, and that single use broke most of the crystals.

The cannon was really just a small, shotgun-shaped item. Probably one of the heroes was a gunner or something when they made it.

The item glowed, and whoosh, a huge blast of energy shot out toward the walls.

I activated five [Steelwood Barrier]. Was this power stronger than the demonic supercannon’s long-range attacks? It easily tore through my five barriers and then defensive shields that were already there. Then that entire section of reinforced wall exploded.

“Wow.” I was impressed. The hero’s item really made my wall look like cardboard. So, in short, the demon’s attacks had previously failed to break through my defenses because of my innate anti-demonic properties. Against the hero’s items, I was blocking it entirely based on stats and levels, and on that front, it was still not enough.

Did this mean if Harris or Mirei tried to kill me, they could have succeeded? From this incident alone, I thought the answer was yes. They could. They really could.

So I decided I needed insurance of some kind.

Like the grass that regularly regrew after fires scorched the lands, like the plants of the floodplains that respawned after every flood, I decided to extend my roots deep underground. As deep as I possibly could.

Then I put my [Tree-heart] there. Even if they chopped off my entire tree, as long as my [tree-heart] survived deep underground, I believed I could survive. I also added a big batch of [tuberous storage] around my tree-heart, like a seed; I had the nutrients and energy from the storage potatoes to respawn should I need to.

“They won’t be using that for a while,” Edna said.

“But we don’t know what else they will use,” Faris said as the crusaders charged at the hole. The forces quickly retreated to the next defensive point. “The temples have a lot of inherited items.”

“But each use is a waste.” Edna frowned. “Why didn’t they use such items against the demons?”

“I’m sure they did. They just have a lot of them.”

“Maybe since the heroes were around, they didn’t see why they needed to use it, unless they were really desperate.”

Since the strategy for this entire plan was to delay the enemy as long as possible, there were numerous layers of walls made.

Jura came and mentioned his concern. “Since the temples are willing to use heroic items, it’s possible they may attempt to use an elite force, armed with heroic items to attack you directly.”

“I agree.” Of course. There were probably heroic-grade teleportation items or heroic-grade stealth items that they could use to attack me directly. The problem, of course, was that their users probably couldn’t fully activate their abilities. Which was why the most heroic items were defensive in nature, because they needed large magical formations and runes to channel power to the heroic items.

Unless there were heroic-grade batteries. Which made a lot of sense.

< They grow weary. A few more years will blink by, and they will stop. >

> Already? < I responded to Lilies. > I had hoped this war would last until the next demon king. <

< Mortals, they are not suited for long wars. They forget their grudges and pain far too easily. Conflict is but a temporary dance. True wars are long and last a few thousand years. >

> Surely the older races would remember. <

< Time is memory’s archenemy. This is but a casual spar. >

> It probably is. <

Lilies, again with odd commentaries. I didn’t recall whether there were any long wars in this world, not any more, at least. Unless that war was invisible?

> Your long wars…is it the demons and the gods? <

< Maybe. >

Maybe? That was a yes, dammit.

The Crusaders advanced a little.

My forces slowly moved into place. I’d had tunnels ready, and I’d secretly occupied various little forests near the port cities. Maybe they had a heroic item able to detect me? But still, I wanted to drag it out, see what exactly these temples were able to bring to the battlefield.

* * *

“This sucks,” Edna complained. “I don’t like being forced to retreat.”

Her compatriots just rolled their eyes. The crusaders revealed another hero-grade item. A large bow. They brought an army of mages along to create a runic formation on the ground, and they shot it again.

This time, I used ten [steelwood barriers]. It still tore through all of them, but at least it didn’t cause my walls to explode. All it did was blast a big hole in the wall.

So the magical number was around ten? Or maybe twenty?

“Unless you have a solution for the hero-grade items…”

“Master. Research on assassin beetles completed. We are working on the flying beetles now,” Horns updated, and I quickly started transforming my beetles into their assassin forms. They were smaller, leaner, but with sharp limbs and spikes. They also had poison and could shoot out a poison horn.

“Great!”

Another piece to the puzzle.

Eventually, the second layer of walls fell, and the forces retreated. At this point, Jasmine quickly updated that morale was falling, and we needed a small victory to keep the stalemate going. So the temple used the Holy Cannon of Alantara again, this time at a fort. It blasted the fort’s walls and a segment to smithereens.

But it was a ruse. Using [root tunnels], I had the army sneak around them and then, with my new assassin beetles, rushed in for the kill. I would seize the Holy Cannon of Alantara for myself. There would be no survivors.

It was chaos. Perhaps a slaughter, too. Fifty thousand assassin beetles appeared from the ground, together with the Valthorns and the regular armies. A proper counter-attack.

The enemy died, and now, I had the cannon. In the chaos, the commander was able to send a distress signal.

“This is the commander of the Vanguard force! We’re being attacked by new beetle types! The cannon is lost. The cannon is lost!” A root strike dismembered him.

* * *

The general was a day away, and he got the message. “Hmmm. New beetle types. I have an ominous feeling.”

Well, you should, General. You stretched your supply lines, spreading your men thinner, and when I strike, you won’t be able to rush back and save your port cities.

Letting the crusaders push further in was an intentional plot to spread out their men and their elite forces. Even if it seemed like we were losing, only Jura was aware that something was up.

“When is Aeon going to bring out his superweapon?” the war council asked. “The new beetles, are those the superweapons?”

Jura nodded. “I believe that’s the first of the many weapons Aeon plans to unleash.”

The next weapon was the spiders. I wanted assassin spiders to take control of the cities. The first time the enemy would see it would be when I attacked the cities.

Jasmine noted that our morale quickly improved as we had secured the hero-item.

The general gathered his advisors. A priest was present, and he read out the statement. “The temple has authorized use of more hero-items.” Ah. Looked like the temple was really going for it, but the fact that their ability to power the hero items relied on large arrays meant they were so obvious when they were about to be used.

Could a small assassin group really sneak in with it? Unless they built the array on site…or used an existing array.

But I didn’t want to drag it out too long. I had been observing them when they used the hero-items, and now that I had claimed their hero-item, I turned it against them. My mastery of runes meant I, too, could quickly set up an array and activated the Holy Cannon of Alantara against the enemy force.

One blast drained all the runes and broke some of the stones and ground that channeled the power. The enemy retreated. That one attack killed probably a few thousand, and that wasn’t even its full power.

I decided to try channeling my existing star mana into it. The hero-item drained all my star mana easily, and it was so greedy! After it used up all my star mana, it wanted more, and the item easily used up my normal mana, too!

Did the heroes always have so much star mana? How’d they keep their weapons working?

“Master, based on my surveillance of the heroes, they have approximately five hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand star mana each,” Jasmine commented, pulling on her past records of conversations between Harris, Mirei, and Gerrard.

I had three hundred. No wonder the hero-items just drained my star mana like I had nothing. They must be using at least one thousand to two thousand star mana to power the hero items each time. The weapon was now partially charged, and I used it on one of the crusading armies. The explosion was massive, far larger than what it was when powered by regular mana, and still it wiped a quarter of that army. Probably ten to twenty thousand just died instantly. The enemy panicked and then quickly retreated.

I was sorry, but death was what it was. I even felt their souls enter my main tree.

But I only regenerated star mana by a pitiful amount every day. That meant I couldn’t even use the hero’s item if I wanted to. My full three hundred star mana took an entire two months to regenerate, so the weapon could be used once every two months to this level of strength. So it wasn’t as if I could just use the cannon like a machine gun.

Despite the enormous destruction caused by the hero-cannon, I was fairly certain this wasn’t its full strength. Also, the hero-items used by the temples, and all the various nobles were inferior to pure hero items, in the sense that they had been made to also work with regular mana. True hero-items could only be operated with star mana and were useless to everyone else. Those pure star-mana hero items were superior in output and strength.

* * *

The army regained a bit of our lost ground, and we managed to retake the outermost walls of the Freshlands.

“How much longer till we research the next upgrade for the assassin beetles?”

“A month, Master.” The assassin beetles had not been revealed to our enemies yet. At least, I hoped that they were not detected.

The tunnels and my bases next to the six port cities continued to expand. I’d researched tunneler beetles and had also commenced research on more types of spiders. The beetles made additional tunnels into the port cities, and I wondered whether the enemy realized it by now. I could tell some of them felt something, at least.

The mayor of one of the port towns kept sending miners to dig the ground. He said he felt there was an infestation or something, but he wasn’t sure. I had to order the beetles to hastily collapse the tunnels before they were detected.

Surely, that mayor couldn’t be the only one that possessed such skills. In fact, some of the military leaders we observed clearly had the skill, but they just didn’t react to it.

“I can’t shake off this feeling that we’re all walking into a big trap,” a commander said to a fellow captain. “It’s a feeling that’s been nagging at me since I landed in this city.”

“Seasickness.”

“I feel like it’s my skill.”

“You’ve had it since the day you landed, and it’s been a good three months since then.”

It was funny that one of the ways to beat such ‘alarm’ skills was to keep scaring them until they stopped treating it seriously. Kind of like training one’s body to ignore its daily morning alarm.

“If it’s something, it should’ve happened.” The other captain just shrugged. “We’re doing okay. The heretics are not making progress.”

That was just one of the many captains that was eventually lulled into a sense of complacency. For the rest of the year, there were smaller battles, but I was still waiting for more beetle upgrades. I wanted my conquest of the six port cities to be simultaneous and decisive. I wanted to break the crusaders once and end it.

“Aeon, there should be another four hundred thousand soldiers arriving on our continent,” Kavio and the war council reported. Ah, this was in addition to the five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand soldiers that were already deployed across the entire battlefront.

I wondered why the war doctrine in this world still insisted on throwing numbers at an enemy at first, but eventually I got it. In terms of actual combat, sure, an army of high-leveled individuals could do way more damage than an army of lower-leveled conscripts, but I increasingly believed the temples were intentionally hoping that from a large pool of low-levelled individuals, some gems emerged. It was an interesting tactic; to sieve the gems from the scrap, they sent these large numbers to their possible deaths.

The Freshlands’ own defensive army was about three hundred thousand strong, conscripted from the massive population of the Freshlands. Yet that excluded my million-strong beetle and spider army. There were various smaller city-states that decided to side with me, and they volunteered in total, another sixty thousand fighters.

“And so, they send more to their doom.”

“They would outnumber us three to one once they land. I believe they may try a decisive strike once they land to minimize the load on their logistics,” one of the hired [Generals] advised. It was funny and rather strange to have [generals] on my side now, but I was not complaining. “They would try this path, I believe.” The general pointed to one of the entrances into the Freshlands. “Or force a way through this segment of the Rottedlands.”

It was a large army and may end up in a lot of bloodshed. A situation I’d like to avoid, if I could.

I wondered whether I should pull my attack at the moment when they land or after. What was their supply situation? Was their food and accommodation going to arrive before the actual army of four hundred thousand?

Trevor tapped into the [grand mind] and quickly created a massive overview of the entire battlegrounds. He highlighted all the various supply positions. “Master, should we intend to cripple and starve our opponents, we may be able to do so by attacking all these locations. A decisive strike before they land may force them to redirect.”

The logistics and supplies usually arrived before the army. So the right time to strike was when the four hundred thousand were still at sea, but their supplies and all had landed. That way, the coming army was forced to deal with a lack of supply. Eight hundred ships, carrying five hundred soldiers each. Large galleons of the four temples.

I wondered whether my attacks worked in water. I thought the impact of my root strikes would probably be weakened by the water.

“How long before they arrive?”

“In two weeks?”

There was a tiny window, when the supply ships arrived just before the army itself. I paused, and I thought. By all the odds, it wasn’t ideal. My fully researched assassin beetles were not ready, but if I wanted to cause the most damage, I had to take this window.

“Ready all the armies. There will be a strike in six to eight days. All mobile units, prepare for a long-range strike.”

That declaration made the entire war council pause before Jura himself, invited as a translator, mostly, asked on behalf of the war council present, “Aeon, repeat that, please?”

“Ready all our forces. We will strike in six to eight days. Valthorns will receive specific instructions.”

* * *

About two thousand of my best Valthorn fighters gathered at a forward base near one of the outer walls. There were three [Giant Attendant Trees], and they flanked a tunnel that led underground.

“Briefing time,” I announced telepathically, and the Valthorns stood to attention. Edna, Faris, and many other upgraded class holders were there. “All of you will be marching into the tunnels. You will be split into six groups, and your next orders will be given when you are there. Be prepared for urban combat and a siege, enemies expected to be high level, and large numbers.”

The order given, they started to board the carrier beetles. The fastest beetles were selected, and they had supplies for a month. The beetles would carry them to their targeted destination in a week. The Valthorns chatted. “Are we attacking the nearby forts?”

The crusaders had set up numerous advance forts to hold their supplies. These were my targets, but it wouldn’t be the Valthorns’ target. I had intended these two thousand Valthorns to coordinate the attack on the six port cities.

These were my best and most loyal Valthorns. Most of them had [Aeonic] variants, such as [Aeonic Rangers] or [Aeonic Druids] or [Aeonic Knights].

The beetles would provide the numbers, but I needed the Valthorns as the secret sauce, with their higher levels and special skills.

* * *

Two days later, I had moved more beetles into various locations near the port cities. There were now one hundred thousand beetles and spiders at each of the port cities, waiting for the time. [Root tunnels] were made as close as possible, and as many [subsidiary trees] added as I could, were in all the locations where I could place a tree without raising too many alarms.

“Aeon, what are we doing in four to six days?” the [general] asked. He’d noticed the Valthorns were gone. “The enemy clearly is behaving strangely, and some of the smaller battalions have attempted to attack our walls. Is there something that was leaked?”

The enemy was nervous. Their [generals] and [strategists] all had some combat sense, and they knew something was happening. They just didn’t know what, so some of them just attacked.

There was an air of tension.

“We’re preparing for war?”

“Is Aeon revealing some superweapon? The Valthorns, what’s their plan?”

“What’s the enemy up to?”

I decided to confuse them a little. “We will be striking at their fortified locations.” The council thought this meant all the nearby forts, and they started to make plans with the resources available to them. I had given them use of one hundred thousand regular beetles to supplement the regular standing army.

On the other side, I detected their discomfort. The generals and strategists all had skills, and so the crusader generals all increased their scouting efforts, and since there was only one week left to the trap, I didn’t hesitate to kill their scouts with a root strike or a poison.

“Aeon’s forces are able to kill our scouts this far away from the walls.”

“They have an infiltration force? An assassination squad?” they wondered and increased their guards. They truly were not experienced in fighting against a [tree]. They assumed my tactics to be similar to regular kingdoms.

“What’s their force projection ability?” The generals discussed at first the likelihood of a long-range strike from me. They noted it was possible, but they rated the risk as low, since they did not expect that I could field a war-significant number of combatants far away.

This trap was something I could only pull off once. All these enemies would learn of my tactics, and they would be prepared after this.

So, if this trap succeeded, I must hold onto the port cities and deny the temples a chance to regain a landing zone. At least, they would have to land further away and march a lot further.

Still, some of the more paranoid commanders reshaped their forces into defensive formations. The effects of skills were really interesting.

* * *

Another two days and the supply ships started to land. Some soldiers too had landed, but the bulk of them had not arrived. The small group of soldiers started to set up new tentages and areas, where the newly arrived soldiers would rest before joining the rest of their armies.

Too bad they wouldn’t find any place to rest.

The Freshland army cavalry was ready, and the crusaders were clearly preparing for a cavalry charge. “We spotted Freshland cavalries and archers massing behind the walls and cities. They may be preparing for a charge.”

“If they want to strike at us before our reinforcement comes, then let them.”

In another day, most of the supply ships had arrived, and about seventy thousand of the four hundred thousand additional soldiers had arrived. True, not all would come at the same time, but no matter.

Already, some of the soldiers had a bad feeling. I was sorry, but war was a cruel thing. The temples had decided to declare war, and peace was off the table. Perhaps I must display a decisive victory; only then could a peace be negotiated.

* * *

The Valthorns arrived at their designated locations underground. They’d been travelling in the [root tunnels] for an entire week.

“Where are we?” They were mostly lost. Their sense of time and place was distorted in the tunnels; there were no markers for the day-night cycle. They’d lived with food prepacked or those made by the [aeonic druids]. They even had special fruits and drinks to help them tolerate the effects of travelling underground for long periods.

The two thousand Valthorns had split up in the underground tunnels to their respective targets. Each group gathered in a small clearing, protected by the [camouflage] of subsidiary trees.

Time to start my second briefing. “Once you step out of these forests, you will be at the port cities of the crusaders. Our enemies. Rest well, because once night falls, we will attack the port cities.”

The Valthorns were nervous. “With so few of us?”

“No. The beetles and spiders will assist you by the tens and hundreds of thousands. They are hidden throughout the city and the land beneath you. You will join the battle once they start the attack.”

They nodded, and I let them soak in the information. I created a few wooden displays of the targeted port cities, and where the weak points are, which they took their time to analyze. They had never participated in a siege before.

The Valthorns chatted and planned, and I told them to rest well before nightfall. I gave them all a tree-syrup filled with energy nutrients. They’d go into the attack with their full strength, whereas the enemy was exhausted from a full day’s work.

* * *

The moment of fighting finally came. The weather was pleasant in all six of the port cities, and the soldiers were all in various stages of sleep. Some were alert, for sure. I had decided to strike in the late evening, as my assassin beetles and poison-web spiders benefited from the cover of night.

I steeled myself and sent out the command to all my beetles and soldiers. “Generals and commanders, it is time to strike.”

The first port was home to two hundred thousand, but now it was temporarily home to an additional fifty thousand soldiers.

As the city itself didn’t have enough accommodations, most of the newly arrived soldiers and their support team lived in makeshift housing outside the city itself. That meant they were always vulnerable to subterranean attacks since they didn’t have fortified foundations.

It began suddenly. Tentages and their temporary bases collapsed beneath them. Multiple, almost a few hundred, holes appeared at the same time, and the beetles rushed out. A well-timed root strike also caught one of the commanders by surprise, wounding him severely, before a beetle finished him off.

The soldiers, most feeling safe and comfortable this far away from the front lines, were suddenly jolted into panic. Some of them slept without their weapons; many were not alert at all. The beetles took full advantage and attacked and killed the enemies by the hundreds and thousands.

“Attack! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!” the commander shouted, but his voice was soon silenced by a spider that ran into his mouth. The port itself found its walls broken. Some of them had been magically reinforced, but I had found weak spots after the past few months of planning. There were already tunnels that allowed my spiders and beetles to enter the port city itself. After all, not every city had the luxury of master builders who made thick foundations.

The soldiers scattered as loud explosions spread.

The Valthorns, too, joined the battle. They rode beetles and rushed for the walls, and some appeared within the city itself. They focused on the higher-leveled ones who managed to react and fight. Assassin beetles were more than a match for the level ten to twenty soldiers, but if the enemy soldiers were level thirty to fifty, it would require the Valthorns to effectively disable them.

A mage ran and tried to send a [message], but an arrow went through his head. He collapsed.

[Aeonic Rangers] and [Archers].

The fifty thousand soldiers quickly thinned to only twenty thousand to thirty thousand that fled, and the port city itself was flooded by beetles and spiders.

As a statement, the beetles dug up one of the squares, and I made a [Giant Attendant Tree] right in the middle of it. The giant tree emitted a [healing aura] and [magic suppression aura], which made my beetles a lot more hardy.

Then an explosion went off.

“Master, a group of mages just activated a hero-item.” Right in the middle of the port city, it created a summoned giant fire elemental and started attacking the beetles. Ah, my beetles couldn’t get to that group in time.

“Ugh.”

Thankfully, with my [Giant Attendant Tree] right in the city, it was rather easy to just launch [constrict]. My vines could take a bit of fire, and they could ensnare magical creatures since fifty years ago. They could even drain mana! So it was perfect for summoned fire elementals. The vines latched on, and gradually, the struggling fire elemental shrank until eventually it was extinguished.

The mages cursed and fled. The magical item summoned more fire elementals, but I had a lot of vines, and these fire elementals were pitiful. Had they been summoned with star mana, they may be worth taking seriously.

Most cities had some military resistance, but nothing I couldn’t really handle. Progressively, I captured more and more artifacts and treasures.

They had higher-level units, too. A general here, a commander there. Some master swordsmen, too, who cut through my army of assassin beetles like nothing. But as my beetles or the Valthorns distracted these masters, a vine would occasionally ensnare their legs, and they would find themselves weakened, poisoned. The beetles would then deliver the knockout punch.

Once we got a strong foothold in the city, and my beetles had seized most of the key locations, I would telepathically speak to everyone in the city. “Surrender, or we will kill you.”

The Valthorns, like Edna and Faris, would then help to coordinate and communicate with the captured and surrendered civilians.

The port city fell by end of the day, civilians all under home quarantine as beetles patrolled the streets, and the enemy forces were all corralled into the squares. My main focus was ensuring that the port was no longer operational.

I still didn’t have flying beetles, but some of the jetties and docks were made of wood. So it was easy to destroy them. Whatever supplies they had were quickly hauled away by beetles. Even if they managed to dock at one of the jetties made of stone, they would immediately have to fight beetles and spiders.

A similar chain of events repeated in all the other five port cities. All of these cities had magical defenses and high-level individuals, some more than others.

In one city, the Valthorns had to deal with a group of master pyromancers, and in another, a group of expert axemen.

Without [healing aura], and the element of surprise, the losses would have been a lot higher. The soldiers, as ragtag as they were, were quite good once they found their weapons. Most were around level twenty, so they could go toe-to-toe with one beetle in a straight fight. Still, the element of surprise, coordinated strikes at all six port cities, and multiple other supply locations easily overwhelmed their ability to respond properly. Some of the soldiers retreated. Skilled ones, too, they had the right instincts to respond correctly. But sometimes, even doing things perfectly led to failure.

One of the port cities experienced constant combat till midnight, with long fights throughout the day. They had a few platoons of very well-trained soldiers at least level thirty to fifty. For them, the Valthorns fought hard, and I had to frequently assist them with my vines to prevent any unnecessary Valthorn deaths.

Two thousand elites meant only about three hundred to four hundred Valthorns per city. A small number of elites on my side, against whatever elites the temples had. I had to protect them. They were an investment into my future. I had vision, and I had beetles. So the Valthorns would usually attack from an advantage. I would never let them be wastefully sacrificed.

They were crucial to my longer-term plans. We were the trees, the anchor of the ecosystem, but the ecosystem must have other moving parts. I saw the Valthorns as a key part.

Nearer to the various crusading armies, surgical strikes that targeted their supply chains popped up everywhere. It hit at their tents, destroyed their food. Spiders poisoned their water. For the crusaders, this was their first brush with assassin beetles that popped out of the ground.

The crusaders had two large, two-hundred-thousand-strong forces, split across two campsites.

We didn’t attack them much, just little hit-and-run attacks.

It was intentional. I had hoped that a portion might break off and try to rescue the port cities. I chewed through the smaller forces easily. For larger armies, the element of surprise was not as effective.

If they could keep themselves calm and hold the entire force together, they’d survive.

Their generals, startled awake by the sudden onslaught of messages and calls, actively tried to reassess the situation. “All our port cities have been captured? The supplies have been stolen?” It wasn’t hard for beetles to haul away goods. That was part of their regular peace-time duties. “We’ll be out of food in a week with the ports out of commission.”

“We must rush back to retake one of the ports!” Furious discussions broke out. Some pushed to retreat to the ports, and others recommended a push against Freshlands.

“The paths have been cut off.”

I was a tree. Terraforming terrain wasn’t exactly difficult. I could easily add trees to a path and populate them with hostile vegetation. Then add beetles! Instant-terrain difficulty +1!

Trevor and my artificial minds had been planning for months on how to knock out all their transport routes overnight and leave only smaller, less useful paths. Even vast plains had tunnels collapsed in order to create a cliff.

“How?” That was a word that gave me joy. I felt like a master strategist who finally revealed his trump card, and the generals were my victims.

“Monster-trees?” Monstree. That was a bad pun.

In a period of about a week, the balance of power switched. Their entire logistics network and supply chain crippled. The general could probably beat the Freshlands force in a straight fight, but I would never fight them that way. I always wanted a subtle way.

There was a saying, if one was to remove weeds, they must also remove the roots. I thought these ports were the roots.

I was going to drag it out until they starved, and even if the general was a good one, a starving army still represented a significant weakness. No amount of [skill] would suppress widespread hunger. Maybe a level one hundred [general] could, but I thought the enemy [general] was in their level sixties only.

Meanwhile, the Freshlands army finally got their marching orders, and they soon encountered the deserters and those who fled from my army of beetles and spiders. No army was going to hold itself together when food and water ran out.

Some segments of the two crusading forces broke off and marched toward the nearest city in hopes of securing some supplies. But morale dropped quickly as they encountered terrible, unforgiving terrain that was never there previously, and the two large armies fractured, as each force wanted to seek out their own sources of food.

The generals, lords, and priests tried to hold the army together, but ultimately, they were a coalition army.

The temples cobbled the force together from the armies of various kingdoms. There was never true unity or proper discipline. Once they fractured, it was a lot easier for the Freshlands army and my beetles to pick off the smaller forces. Many surrendered. Many soldiers did not have a personal stake in this conflict and were not blind zealots.

Within a month from that day, both of the armies’ leaders decided to surrender, while the three hundred thousand or so soldiers that were unable to dock had to forcefully redirect themselves to further ports, with whatever little supply they carried. There, their crusade stopped.

The ‘First Crusade Against Aeon’ had ended. I lost about two hundred thousand beetles from the one million deployed across the six cities and various smaller targets. Horns and my new artificial minds all leveled up quite significantly from the battles.

[You gained a level. You are level 169.]

[Subsidiary trees limit increased to 1,500,000.]

Of course, this sudden upheaval made my war council angry, frustrated. “Aeon had planned to take the six port cities all along,” the general said. “We were the distraction from the main attack.”

“And he didn’t tell us because we might leak it to the temples, so Aeon just let us drag the war out.”

Jura earned a bit of sounding, but Jura himself had very little knowledge of the actual plan, other than there was one. In fact, he knew of the plan to attack all six port cities at the same time I announced it to the Valthorns.

A victory.

But the crusade was not over, not yet.

The temples remained formally at war, so this was pretty much just the ‘First Crusade.’ I made sure research continued into more types of beetles and spiders. I would want to add flying beetles and bomber beetles. I’d like to bomb the ships once they got in range of the shore.

There was also the political complexity of assimilating the six port cities into the Freshlands administration and the negotiations with the nations and kingdoms in between. Those that had chosen to side with the temples quickly switched sides when they watched the port cities fall. All of them also fortified their walls and reinforced their foundations to make it harder for tunnelling.

Politically, the six port cities were now a part of Freshka. I declared that since they declared war on me, I had, by the norms of this world, properly conquered the port cities. Something none of the kingdoms dared oppose, even if they privately mentioned their worries. Some of them got so paranoid that they chopped all the trees from their cities. Treeless cities.

Enemies. I declared cities without trees as enemies of the Freshlands. The few small city states that made such a decision surrendered in fear.

All in, by the end of the year, we had conquered six port cities and eight other kingdoms. Many expressed their regrets for siding with the temples.

I had initially considered being more ironfisted and considered executing their leaders but decided to demand resources, gems, and various other treasures as compensation. Throughout the new kingdoms that now came under my influence or indirect control, I thought of expelling those who sided with the temples, but instead opted for a widespread conversion program.

Like a forest reclaiming urban lands, I could convert them. I would try.

Wololo. I was the priest from Age of Empires, converting enemy units!

Most priests in this world were not specific to a god, though some did specialize and in doing so gained special classes for that god. But in most part, the priests of the world were generally polytheistic, and it was a mishmash of the pantheon and whatever local animistic belief that existed in a particular location.

It was this tolerance of various beliefs that allowed me to recruit some of my earlier batch of priests. The world had spirits, after all, and unlike home, the priests of this world acknowledged that each god had a focused scope, and at times, local spirits would reign over the wills of the gods.

In a way, it was strange that the gods outright declared a crusade against me. Why? They’d shared the world with so many others, so what was wrong with just letting me rise?

Why a crusade?

Why send an army and so many lives to waste when there were demons to prepare for?

Why?

What was this insanity?

* * *

“It’s my first time seeing the ocean,” Edna said. She had lived inland. The Freshlands itself was landlocked; after all, the corruption bomb happened in the middle of the continent. “Little did I imagine for my first time, I’d be part of a covert army conquering a port city.”

“Fate is strange, Edna.” A fellow Valthorn nodded. There were a few deaths. I couldn’t save everyone, but a few deaths were still infinitely better than many. The losses on the opponent side were far larger, and the beetles gathered the surrendered soldiers into groups.

More of the regular army and cavalry had marched all the way from the Freshlands to reinforce the Valthorn strike team, including various local nobles and captains. They had a lot to do, like stripping the surrendered soldiers of all their weapons, briefings, taking over the military administration.

There would also be officials from the Freshlands Federal Authority. They had to set up offices to integrate these new cities into the Freshlands.

Formally the six cities were declared to be the Freshlands Six Ports, and they would have a sub-authority known as the Six Ports Administration. It made sense that all six ports were administered together, even if all six were previously independent states. Quite a few of the existing administration surrendered, and Kavio recommended that we assimilate them into the existing structure once they passed some loyalty test. A suggestion I agreed to.

But a lot of new people had to be parachuted over. It was kind of like when a company forcefully acquired another company. Some of the employees would remain, but usually the heads of departments would change. There would be a lot of system changes and migrations. Laws and processes needed to be modified to comply with the new acquiring holding company.

“You’ll get sick of the ocean soon enough, Lady Edna,” a soldier said. The Valthorns were a sub-nobility, so they were often referred to as lady or lord, even if they did not formally carry the title.

“Indeed.” Edna nodded. She was in the southernmost port. “But for now I’ll enjoy it.” There were wreckages to clean up and holes to patch up.

Most of the civilians had private complaints about the new [Giant Attendant Tree] that now dominated their city, but they soon accepted that they lost, and the Tree was there to remind them that we would watch over them.

The Valthorns would be stationed there for at least a few years as a peacekeeping force, with regular rotations back to the Freshlands. A long-range beetle-transport service was set up, and the kingdoms in between happily gave permission. It wasn’t as if they dared oppose me at this point.

* * *

Most of the nations swayed with the wind and changed allegiances. Like new converts, they compensated for their foolish past by insulting their temples with vigor and vitriol.

It was fine. Geopolitics was disgusting but ultimately necessary. There was no way I could populate the land without people, and people naturally gave rise to politics.

After the battle, I created more artificial minds. I had to. My lands and dominion had increased so much more, and Jasmine and the existing artificial minds could not handle the monitoring of so many new citizens. I also didn’t expel those who believed in the four warring temples; I only demanded that they did not support any war effort against me. But that required my artificial minds to observe so many of these cities and kingdoms.

Intense monitoring and surveillance were required.

“Why not kill them?” my artificial minds suggested. “After all, we have killed so many.”

I didn’t want to, though. But I felt comforted, too. This was a part of nature. In nature, death was perpetual. Did we weep for the millions of ants who died in their wars with each other? Did the ant queens cry when the super ant-colonies waged planetary warfare?

No.

[Grand Mind Tree has blocked influence from trees.]

Override.

Death on a personal level was a tragedy.

But in the wars I fought, they were but a statistic. A number.

A score at the end of the game.

A tree in its life would create thousands, even millions of seeds. All potential lives. It did not weep when mortals ate the seeds. It was part of a greater calculation that some would survive, and as a whole, we would all prosper and grow.

Pain and death were but a step—

Wait.

This was too far. I was going too far. No. I paused and pulled myself together. “Indeed, but they surrendered. As such, I must abide by the norms of those who surrendered that they are not overly punished.”

I could not go too deep at that end. I would become a pest, a locust. A tree of nature must never let itself turn into plague that destabilized the ecology.

“But they may well go against you, Master.”

I must mold the narrative correctly. I sought to change and prepare, but I must look to be constructive, not overly destructive. Even if I did use tools that were destructive.

“A risk, but a calculated one. Only by displaying mercy and the willingness to assimilate these people, these heathens that they once were, can we convince the world that we are here to stay. If one of every two converts to our cause, we are stronger as a whole. The risk is worth it. To build a stronger tree, we must sometimes accept some risks.”

The artificial minds mentally agreed. They would agree anyway.

“So, we watch.” Fifty new artificial minds. My second [Grand Mind Tree] would take eighteen months to be completed. The various surrendering kingdoms gladly volunteered the materials for its construction. They didn’t know, of course. I merely asked for the materials, and the losers gladly coughed it out.

It would be long. Those who lost would nurse unhappy feelings.

I only hoped that we picked them up before those unhappy feelings led to more war and conflict. The temples started a war, but I had no intention of letting this crusade last for centuries, even if I was very much suited for a long war.

< A swift victory. >

> Relatively. <

< They will regroup. > Lilies had not participated in the war. In fact, Lilies’ city didn’t send soldiers out at all, even though their city was home to many followers of these temples. < And we see that you will be ready. >

Hah. Was that a pep talk from Lilies?

> If only it wasn’t so. <

< Achieving equilibrium usually requires conflict. >

> So it is. <

47

YEAR 128

A year of relative peace, though publicly, we were still at war. It was kind of like the whole South Korea–North Korea situation. No one wanted to back off and sue for peace, and yet the temples needed time to rebuild their military force.

Nearby, none of the neighboring ports wanted to host the crusading armies, lest a similar incident unfold. Fear crept into the hearts of many kingdoms that suddenly a giant tree appeared in the middle of a faraway city and overwhelmed with a tide of beetles and spiders.

The Giant Attendant Trees, they towered in the six cities, as symbols of the crusade’s foolishness. The Giant Attendant Trees were so large that they could be seen from the boats and ships far from shore.

But our own informants indicated that the temples were mustering another force.

Why?! I didn’t understand this foolishness.

In the meantime, the victory had made the Freshlands Federal Authority extremely busy; they spent a lot of time reallocating people and implementing a ton of new rules. A lot of the prisoners of war were made to do hard labor or farm work, but some were released to those kingdoms that surrendered.

There was a long set of agreements and treaties to ‘secure’ the shifting allegiances of the kingdoms and nations sandwiched between the Freshlands and the Six Ports. I did not care very much for the regular prisoners, so I was happy to let them go. These were mostly low-ranking soldiers mostly under level thirty; their threat level was not that significant anyway.

The loyalties of many conscripted soldiers were suspect anyway. Most of them just obeyed their kings and rulers and may not truly believe in the cause.

“A heretic god? What does it have to do with me?” It was a common expression amongst the soldiers. “I’m here because the king sent me.”

Quite a fair bit didn’t even know what they were fighting; they only knew they had been instructed to invade the Freshlands.

I supposed it was rather difficult to ensure the correct messages were transmitted to the five hundred thousand to one million soldiers caught in the conflict. Especially in a world where messages frequently still traveled by mouth. [Messages] and magical spells remained a luxury of the elite class.

“What does it feel like, you know…to cause the death of so many?” Strangely, it was a prayer from a random citizen of the Freshlands. He made the prayer sometime after the armies surrendered. “Do gods treat us mortals as just playthings?”

I thought so. The gods certainly did. And I saw why. If the gods could disassociate the person from the body, that meant to them, each living person was nothing more than a gamer holding an avatar, and when they died, it was just game over for that avatar. It was like humans with our games. Many certainly thought it was weird to care when our avatars died. Most just sighed and just started a new game with a new avatar.

But for those living in the moment, they didn’t know that, and even if they knew, they didn’t feel that connection to those future new lives. Each ‘life’ and ‘death’ were not connected to the next reincarnation.

Maybe…maybe I was also starting to think that way. I should not. It was a flaw.

* * *

The war council met daily. There were always new things to discuss. Kingdom A switched sides. Kingdom B switched sides. Kingdom C demanded for so-and-so. Kingdom D went this and that. After a while, it was like little notifications in my in-game menu that I’d gradually gotten better at ignoring.

Especially if it didn’t require my action. It was like some corporate paper pushers who received hundreds to thousands of emails a day, mostly CC’ed. That corporate drone would click on the email, read the first few sentences, notice that he didn’t need to do anything, and click delete or archive.

“Trevor, can you notify me if any of these daily meetings have something material?”

“Certainly, Master,” Trevor answered. “You may want to direct your focus on the beetle and spider research. We are making progress, but we do require your decision on the numerical allocation of beetle-types.”

“Horns. Update,” I mentally called out.

“MASTER!” Horns shouted with gusto. I wondered how he did it. “We have successfully unlocked Bomber-Beetles. We can further advance this into Explosive Beetles and also upgrade its range and damage. Each will require one to two years and additional resources.”

Trevor interrupted, “Which will not be a problem. We have secured means of collecting the necessary resources from our vassals. We can afford to undertake all of the research. It’s a matter of allocation that required Master’s attention.”

“Yes, yes. Trevor’s right, Master. But I must talk about beetles. We also have made progress on Flying Beetles and also improved our existing beetles’ jumping strength. Our assassin beetles are able to leap twice as far, and our tunneler beetles can last twice as long!”

Well, that was great. Reality was all these upgrades did add to utility, even if its combat strength was mostly unchanged.

“Wait. Why do I need to decide on allocation?”

“The process of transforming a beetle from one variant to another is a long process, and the subsidiary trees need about two to three months to shift from one form to another.”

“Ah. Ninety percent regular beetles. I have no intention of alerting our opponents to our unique beetle variants. For the remaining 10 percent, can I ask for them to be split equally to all different types?”

Horns intervened. “Master…we also have Hybrid Beetles! Based on your advances in demonic-hybrid botany, we are also able to see some potential in demonic corruption–tolerant beetles. Do you want us to research those, even if they are ineffective against humans?”

“Uh. Why not, but no allocation of beetles to them?”

Jasmine also commented. “Master, there may be significant value in small beetles that can operate as stealth units.”

“That’s what assassins are for.”

“Assassin beetles are still quite large at the moment.”

“Master, Jasmine is right! We must have all kinds of beetles!” Horns nodded. “Can we undertake all of them?”

I felt like I was dealing with children. “All right. Trevor, do we have resources for all the research? And sufficient artificial minds to work on each and every one of these research projects without interfering with our operations?”

“Yes, Master. If you may create a few more…”

“All right.”

Power was really not the problem now. All in, I could power a good one hundred twenty artificial minds. The entire Freshlands, a massive space, was home to around two billion normal trees and ten to twelve billion shrubs. The conversion of empty land into large forests had been rapid, spurred on by Trevor and the other artificial minds’ dedicated and constant expansion of forests.

They were persistent and relentless, and the forests grew so quickly that the Freshlands was a woodworking mecca. Housing was commonly made of wood, because of its abundance in the Freshlands, and there were a lot of vegetarians. The Freshlands as a whole had a lot of food supply, particularly grain and fruits, and many of the city states exported their food as one of their key sources of income.

That meant there was always a natural place for the Six Ports in the Freshlands, and many merchant lords quickly jumped on the opportunity. Skip intermediaries and additional middleman taxes! They lobbied for a flat Freshlands tax instead, since the goods would be exported out of Freshlands-owned ports.

Kavio, in one of his many briefings, spoke of the intense resistance and trade disruptions as a result of this war.

“We still have trade, but the temples have implemented multiple blockages at sea. They have sanctioned privateer groups to sack ships affiliated or carrying goods from the Freshlands.”

I was a tree. How was I supposed to attack ships out at sea anyway? My beetles, too, had an operating range, limited by my trees. I could not send them far out to sea, nor were they suited for it. The ocean was really a massive wall for me, unless I was able to research seagoing plants. Lilies would probably do well at sea, at least better than me. They were a lake-bound existence; surely the open sea wouldn’t be that much of a stretch?

“We’d have to have our own navy.” Which I agreed wholeheartedly. “We’ll have to start from scratch, since as a landlocked realm, we’ve never had to have a proper navy beyond our riverboats.”

A navy.

But how did I fix our economy that was disrupted? High-level individuals would usually not have problems.

Wait.

I could create upgraded classes. I could create upgraded trade classes. I totally could create upgraded trade and crafting classes and supercharge the economy. If so, I should totally start doing it.

“Kavio. What class are you?”

“Me?” Kavio the centaur shifted uncomfortably. “I’m a…[Manager] and a [Trader]. With some classes in [Diplomat] and [Councillor]. It’s…an odd mix.”

“I see. Total levels?”

“Around sixty, but it’s rather spread out, so I’m honestly quite weak,” Kavio said.

Jasmine whispered into my mind. “I believe he also has classes in [Smuggler]. He’s been observed smuggling certain mind-altering substances for nobles. In fact, Master Jura also helps to procure the calming teas and psychotic leaves for Kavio.”

“When did that happen?”

“In the past few years. The substances help to calm the minds, apparently very popular with the leadership of the FFA. They say it helps deal with their anxieties and stress from interacting with you, Master.”

I paused. I caused my supposed leaders to have mental breakdowns and anxiety? Oh wait. That was my intention. I wanted them to be afraid of me, right? This was the natural consequence of that. Inevitably, some would turn to drugs for assistance.

I felt conflicted. It was right for them to be afraid of me; for them to be druggies, that certainly was not the outcome I intended.

I checked my massively growing pile of skill seeds and class seeds. My [soul collectors] constantly brought these back to me, on top of the other class seeds I received when my [Aeonic Priests] performed funeral rites for the dead. I had all those class seeds. Even [smuggler]. I could make upgraded versions of them.

A simple formula I discovered, really, was to just mash twenty to thirty of the same class together, and it became an upgraded version. Sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty. Some needed forty. Classes that had to do with ruling over others or were faith-related were a bit more tricky. They sometimes worked, but sometimes they didn’t. I hadn’t quite figured it out why or what. Perhaps there was an underlying mechanic to their upgrades.

“Is there something, Aeon?” Kavio asked. He looked really nervous.

“How is the economy of the Freshlands?”

Kavio paused, and he looked extremely puzzled. Was jumping from classes to the economy too big a mental leap to make? He stood. “If you desire a more complete and precise report, Aeon, I would need to gather some of the merchant lords and administrators. But largely, trade with the regional kingdoms is holding up. We have a healthy supply of food, though we are still working on distribution and allocating. The Valtrian Order is committed to distributing food and aid to the poor and those affected. Financially, the Order and the FFA have committed huge amounts of money to rebuild the lands destroyed in the last two years of war.”

Jasmine, my sky-eye and spymaster, intervened. “Master, should you ever desire a report on transaction numbers, you may actually ask us. We monitor the region, and we have in-depth insights into the number of wagons moving from place to place, the population size, and the general health. There is no need to speak to the centaur.”

I nodded but rebuffed her. “I appreciate your statistical input, Jasmine, but I believe when it comes to qualitative measures of trade, I must consult Kavio and the citizens.”

Indeed, Jasmine’s data was like a satellite system that tracked trade movements, but in terms of value and quality, that was a more subjective measure. Jasmine’s ability to provide insight in whether corn tasted good, or where the market trends were, was quite limited. Even if she and the artificial minds had a wealth of data.

“I have heard of the FFA’s plans to rebuild and integrate the defected nations. But tell me, from your view, how does it go?”

Kavio paused. “It’s…complicated. We honestly don’t know how much we can trust these defected nations, so even if we have contracts and all, enforcement of those contracts is suspect. The alternative is maintaining military presence so they don’t try anything funny, but that is treated as a sign that we do not trust them. So that sows future discontent and unhappiness.”

Ah. I see. How did we peacefully and successfully integrate an enemy nation? One that fought wars against us? How could a population that lost their loved ones against me choose to even side with me?

“Time, trade, and communication,” was Jura’s recommendation, using his perspective as a [Warlord]. I thought it was a [Diplomat] aspect that’d merged into it. “Time, really. Time will heal the wound, and we would have to encourage a constant flow of people to and from those countries.”

Kavio agreed, of course. “I agree, those are commonly understood principles for long-term integration, but we still have to deal with the short-term bumps. It remains that each kingdom has a cultural difference, and they want to maintain their pride. They have defected, but they do not want to be seen as subservient, even if they are, in substance, forced to be. It’s a difficult balancing act.”

I had to pause to unpack that. Essentially, for the Six Ports, the FFA formally annexed those ports as new territories of the FFA. But for the kingdoms and nations in between, that formerly sided with the Temples, they ‘surrendered’ or ‘switched’ sides. So their status was a lot more ambiguous as, although they were on ‘our side,’ they were not my ‘servants.’ As such, they had every right to resist my attempts to ‘integrate’ them into the wider Freshlands community, as they felt as that was me attempting to encroach on their sovereignty.

It was like some countries trying to force their allies to learn their language. Sure, they were ‘allies,’ but don’t shove your culture down my throat. Even if these allies were formerly affiliated with my enemies.

We’re talking about kingdoms. Nations. I could crush them. I could, if I needed to. But it had not reached that point. In the jungle, a species would have to find a niche to survive, and an ecosystem and the species needed each other. I would like to build an ecosystem where these nations could exist in a framework.

Many resisted the FFA’s framework, one where I sat at the stop as the spiritual overlord of all the ‘vassal’ states. A few agreed. Mostly those nearer and weaker, they were willing to accept me, a strange, magical being, a monster, as their supreme overlord. Most wanted their own dignity. Might made right. The world had no overarching enforcer of laws, as much as the gods pretended that they were.

Some of them still believed in their own strength. I ended the briefing and with Jasmine surveyed my lands.

The quality of the FFA’s soldiers’ equipment was average. Not better than those of my opponents. I had thought I’d made arrangements for their equipment to be upgraded? And from my surveys, it seemed that, yes, there were higher-quality items in the mix, but ultimately, there was a volume issue.

“I wasn’t aware we did not have skilled [blacksmiths],” I asked Kavio.

“We do. But the quantity of high-quality goods our masters can make is limited. Certainly not enough to arm three hundred thousand soldiers. And the quality of our metals has been inconsistent. But they are trying.”

Why was I not made aware of this issue? There was an awkward silence.

“It’s an ongoing process of renewing our force’s equipment. And there’s also the issue of channeling the higher-quality output to the Valthorns, who consume the higher-quality equipment at a higher rate.”

But I’d already given them my wooden-made weapons… I spent a little more time observing my Valthorns and noticed that they treated my wooden-made weapons with unnecessary respect, using them only on missions that I’d personally ordered. On their general duties, they’d used regular steel weapons. Even though I told them to treat them as expendable, they certainly still used them very, very sparingly.

“They mostly use them only against demons, due to their anti-demonic effects. Against regular monsters, they would equip regular weapons,” my spymaster updated.

Again…had I been so focused on the big-picture stuff that I did not notice how things decayed? I thought there was an expectation gap, in that when I gave a command, I expected it to be carried out consistently and constantly. But what I was observing was that for the citizens of the Freshlands, they would forget the orders and commands I gave a few years ago or there was a change of guard and the commands previously set out were not properly passed down.

It wasn’t a surprise that the enthusiasm and obedience to orders and commands decayed. It would be strange if employees remembered everything their bosses said since many years ago. So for the general populace, this ‘bureaucratic drift’ should have been expected. I recalled my own experiences working in that indie company; it was common to forget discussions and decisions that were made as we were busy with our own parts, especially if they seemed inconsequential at that time.

“We never forget, Master,” Trevor said. Indeed, my artificial minds resembled AI more than actual people, and as such they remembered my orders even from long ago. Things like overlays, constant expansion of forests. All made possible because my artificial minds almost never stopped once an order was given.

But people did. It was perhaps also why they were able to change, because one was not shackled by one’s past decisions. I looked at the Freshlands as a whole and wondered, Do they need more change, or more order and tradition?

* * *

I checked my classes. I had [pirate] classes, probably from some of them who died. [Captain] and [Sailor] classes, too. I could make upgraded versions of these classes if I wanted to start a navy.

But…how did I control them?

Once they were on ships, out on the open waters, I couldn’t monitor them at all. My trees did not have vision in the ocean. What if those with upgraded classes defected with my ability to supervise so lacking?

“Trust, Aeon. Unfortunately, that is the best we have.”

I sighed. I had gotten quite used to being able to monitor those who served me, at least directly or indirectly via my artificial minds. Now this required me to let go; I felt a little strange. Trust. That was an extremely heavy word.

It was especially if the class I was creating was a [pirate]. [Pirates]…did they have strong respect for authority?

“Pretty sure they do have some respect for authority, especially if they have good captains.”

I merged the Pirate and Captain classes together and noticed that five of each, combined, turned into a [Pirate Captain] class. I could create a pirate captain, but would they be loyal? They wouldn’t. The best I could do was somehow align our interests. But sponsoring piracy against the temples was also not something the neighbors would desire.

Though I once vowed to avoid the game of politics, the fact that I had power and territory and neighbors made me a player in this game. Politics was unavoidable. I could not avoid people forever, unless I did not care of the decisions other nations made and their consequences on me.

Where should I go with this?

I wanted a cultural victory. Which sectors needed it the most? [Blacksmiths] and [Navy]? [Smugglers] to break the temple-navies’ blockade? [Master Farmers]? The Freshlands needed to be strengthened and reinforced such that the overall quality of life and the quality of goods were higher than the rest. Better [adventurers], fewer monsters.

What was the best way for me to ‘distribute’ these upgraded classes among the population, such that they aided the Freshlands?

“Based on our surveillance of the population?”

“Master, perhaps the Titans would be useful.” I nodded. I wanted to know how my people ticked. I may not predict what decisions they made once they were in the open waters or outside my domain, but the best I could do was screen them, vet them, and interview them properly.

I took one of the Titan Souls and nodded. Commencing fusion of [Grand Mind Tree] and the [Titan Frame] and upgrading and unlocking of [Tree-Over-Mind] would take a few months.

48

YEAR 129

A moment I long awaited, and I felt it happen quite clearly. The Tree-Over-Mind was shaped like a massive blob of neurons at first, but once it was complete, it shrank to the size of a small bush. But anyone who saw it would be able to tell it was no ordinary bush. It was as if a thundercloud was plucked out of the sky and made into a bush.

Lightning jumped from one part to another constantly. Flashes of light happened regularly. If not for various other strange, burning trees, it’d look very out of place.

“I am awake, Master. I am the [Tree-Over-Mind], and I can now be given a name.”

“Telepatreeck. Patreeck.” I had spent some time thinking of what would be a good name. It was either Telepatreeck or Psychiatreest. But I decided Patreeck would be a more common name.

“Activating local area [Mind Access],” Patreeck said, and my mind was assaulted by the thoughts of almost everyone in Freshka. Freshka was the nearest town to the Valley. A lot of people suddenly jerked when they felt the [Mind Access] happen. It was like a sudden headache.

Jura was quick to detect its presence. “Aeon…did something happen? I felt my mind was suddenly touched.”

The Mind Access felt quite like a version of the memories that the [souls] had. When the dead souls arrived in my [soul realm], and after three additional colors to my soul forge, the quality and quantity of memories I could see from the dead had increased over that time.

This was a very similar feeling. I could ‘feel’ little bubbles of thoughts. Not everything, quite surely.

That was when I could feel Jura’s worry. He was wondering whether that feeling was a mental attack. It was the same throughout Freshka. Faris was back in Freshka after a stint at the Six Ports, and he felt it, too. Those who were higher level could feel it, something touching their minds. They didn’t know what, though.

A deluge of random thoughts. Stupid things.

“Patreeck, can you filter those that are irrelevant?”

“Define irrelevant, Master?”

“Uh…anything that doesn’t have to do with me.”

“Everything has to do with you, Master. Eventually. Please narrow down your choice.”

“Exclude thoughts about love lives, friendships, and issues of sanitation, food.” What else could I exclude? Or more like, what should I focus on?

Or was it better that I go about this in a machine-learning way?

So Patreeck spent quite a bit of time with me as we went through the thoughts of the people around me, grading those thoughts using a not-interested versus interested criteria; he would develop a framework of what would be relevant to me. But of course, this required training data, so I was swamped with random, silly thoughts for a long time, because though he had my knowledge, he still needed my decision making to properly assess what would be relevant to me.

Most of the thoughts were mundane. Thoughts about family. About their work. About food. I wasn’t interested in things like that. I wanted things that were a ‘risk.’ There was a context to it, too. Like, I would be interested in more ‘mundane’ things from Jura than a random person I didn’t know?

“But you do know them, Master,” Jasmine added. “We have knowledge about so many people. It is just a thought away.”

Ah. It was weird.

It was like one moment you didn’t know them, and the next, all this knowledge got downloaded. It was uncanny and weird.

So weird. For a human. But so natural for them.

“Trees take forever to get to know a person. For us, interacting with a person for a year is good enough to make us relate to that person and makes him feel like we’re good friends or sworn enemies. For a Tree, one year’s interaction is probably just a one-liner in the story of their incredibly long life.” Yvon was giving a talk to the new batch of Valthorns. “So don’t feel discouraged and wonder why Aeon still treats you like he doesn’t know you. I believe this is actually a common feeling across all of us normal mortals when we interact with ageless creatures.”

There was actually a segment or class in their curriculum called ‘Interacting With Ancient Spirit Trees.’ Apparently Gerrard helped them with the syllabus when he was here and was mainly for those who had a ‘druid’ specialization.

“Druids must learn how to manage spirit trees. They are the creatures of the land, given power by their age or special events. The theory of how spirit trees came to be is complicated, and as druids, it is best not to presume each of their origins. According to one rare ancient script, spirit trees used to be far more common. This, of course, is a highly contentious statement.”

A young boy raised his hand. His name was Eiran, and he was a ten-year-old [Druid]. “Why?”

“The ancient script implies that there was an era before the constant destruction and war. If you believe this, then the theory that many trees surviving and achieving sentience would be true.”

“But do we know whether it’s true?”

“No. Other than one rare ancient script, we have no other descriptions of spirit trees from the old era. Many records were lost to the numerous wars and battles. It could well be that this ancient script is a story of fiction, as this script was incomplete. Or the work of a speculator or troll. Most of the more recent [Great Druids] or [Arch Druids] believe that Spirit Trees are not created by the age of the trees, but more by unique magical circumstances.”

That would be fair, like me. I was not an ‘old’ tree, just unique.

“For example, records about Aeon did not exist prior to fifty to sixty years ago, when Freeka was founded,” Yvon said. “Where was Aeon before that? We did not know.”

So close.

“Perhaps he was just asleep.” Yvon obviously didn’t think so, but she didn’t know the answer. I vaguely sensed she was still trying to unravel this mystery, and I discovered that it’d been something she had been wondering for some time. It was just that no one knew the answer, and all Jura told her was that I was brought here by some druids.

“Maybe it’s just magic made real,” another boy said. He believed in magic, that it was possible for magic to take the form of things. It was a remarkably pure view of magic. And I felt embarrassed when I felt the part of that boy’s thoughts, that I was a magical existence. It was…weird and jarring to encounter these kinds of emotions. It was like being on the receiving end of a confession. Weird.

It was not all positive. Many did view me as a tyrant, a benevolent dictator. These thoughts were common among the visitors to Freshka, merchants or travelling nobles. Many had mixed views about me, most a grudging respect. On a day to day, though, most of them didn’t really think about me that much. Their focus was mostly on their immediate issues. Food. Trade. Jobs. Safety. Relationships. Mundane stuff that I mostly filtered out.

For those who were used to Freshka or had lived here for a long time, their issues related mostly to jobs, studies, relationships, happiness, progression, and justice. Safety wasn’t much of a big deal, because Freshka was extremely well-fortified. We had built many, many walls, and the Valthorns’ tremendous presence meant safety was not something they thought about.

Naturally, I’d used my new mind-reading, though it was not pure mind reading. It was like I was able to access little thought bubbles that leaked out of their minds. It was a bit like The Sims, where there were little blobs over their head indicating their thoughts.

“I’ve looked through the memories, and I believe this display would be most consistent with the present layout,” Patreeck said. “Do you want me to present their thoughts in other forms? I can also arrange them as a ticker-style display or a live-thread.”

“This is fine. Can you color code it for the type of thoughts? Mundane ones as a pale gray. War or combat related as red.”

Patreeck instantly revised my interface, and most of the speech bubbles changed into pale gray. Little gray speech bubbles.

This was entirely possible because these companions of mine were able to intervene and connect to my mind directly. It was pretty much live editing similar to how TV channels added the banners and overlays for live sport events.

On top of that, I now had the ability to transmit thoughts and dreams into any one person. I could project emotions, feelings, and ideas into them; these powers were strongest right here, in Freshka. Honestly, these sort of psychic attacks felt like a big step toward outright mind control.

Was I becoming a hive mind that mind-controlled all the citizens in my valley?

I was quite sure I was long past the point where I could say this was too much power for one person to handle. I’d had various powers that already qualified for that ‘too much power’ thing. Like [subsidiary trees] and [soul forge].

“Master?” Patreeck and the rest of my artificial minds were concerned. I thought they detected my emotional state.

“Ah…just…having some thoughts about my new powers.”

* * *

I summoned a few individuals to the valley. It was the same place where the Valthorns or the representatives visited. This time, Jura and a few Valthorns escorted them, and I reduced the effects of my [haunted forests] along the path.

“Master Jura, did we do something wrong?” one of the merchants asked as he walked carefully behind Jura. He was one of the few merchants who actively traded with us and with my newfound powers viewed me rather favorably.

“No,” I responded to them telepathically. I tried to control the strength of my projection. Jura had recently said that my telepathic messages had become rather overwhelming, even though the messages were simple. I honestly had not considered how my [telepathic communication] scaled with my levels, even if it made all the sense in the world. Patreeck’s presence, too, of course. “It’s actually a happy occasion.”

The five individuals were two merchants, a carpenter, an herbalist, and a healer.

“The five of you must feel like an odd bunch.”

The herbalist mustered all of his strength to respond. “It is an honor.” I could see his thoughts. He was worried sick, and he wondered what would happen to his family if he didn’t go home today. The others were thinking how to run. The merchant’s leg was wobbly. I had the Valthorns serve them some calming, relaxing tea.

“But I promise you you’ll return home today.”

The tea worked swiftly and calmed their nerves. Then I got to the point.

“I’ve heard of your efforts to use local goods and promote local trade, and I’m here to reward you.”

[Trademaster], [Aeonic Master Carpenter], [Advanced Aeonic Herbalist], and [Advanced Aeonic Healer]. Somehow Trademaster didn’t have an aeonic variant, but then again, maybe that was because I myself had very little involvement in trade. But from what I understood, certain classes that did gain Aeonic classes either gained some mastery over wood and growth, some variant of my healing powers or anti-demonic properties.

The five were stunned at the fruits, but they all took it. Except one merchant.

“It is a great honor, but I must refuse, Aeon,” the one who rejected it said, and I saw the speech bubbles. He didn’t want to be seen as beholden to me, and I could tell he was extremely conflicted about it. “My independence is something I greatly value as a merchant. My skill [Trustworthy broker] relies on my continuous independence.”

“I see.” Oh well. But the other four were more than happy to take it. “That is fine. It is a gift, and you are permitted to refuse.”

Eventually they all left the valley, safely. It didn’t take long for the effects of their upgraded classes to show up. Their works were finer, stronger. I wanted to see what their presence would cause.

The other nations who got wind of their new classes were quick to offer, but I had believed they had enough sense to refuse. At least, for a while.

“I suspect the Trademaster may move to other towns,” Jasmine commented a few weeks after that day. “But the other three are still based in the Freshlands.”

I mentally sighed. I guessed that a trademaster must move around to maximize his returns. Setting up a trading base was nothing more than a step to profit.

* * *

At this moment, I felt my ideas of a cultural victory seemed extremely farfetched. I could definitely assist in ‘forming’ and ‘shaping’ a culture, but ultimately the culture of a place was formed by its people and built over decades and centuries.

It was also constantly changing. The Freshlands was a newcomer in the world, culturally. There was no goodwill that’d built up over the decades, unlike the temples that were cultural and political institutions.

I’d managed to sway a lot of the local nobles to at least give lip service, a word of ‘faith’ and ‘loyalty,’ to the Freshlands. But many of them conflated the ‘faith’ and the ‘authority’ together. I was both god and emperor, a religious and an administrative authority. The temples were ‘religious’ figures, even if they lacked administrative clout.

The temples were gathering their forces.

There were already kings who opposed the crusade, not because of the cause, but because they were too weak. My victory had scared many of them, certainly; I was not the ‘easy prey’ they believed I was.

On the Central Continent, most of them viewed me quite favorably, and so, one of the projects I had this year was to cut a path across the Rottedlands.

Right now, if we took the Rottedlands as one big pizza, I’d taken a large slice out. Same for the remnants of Harris’s empire. What I wanted to do now was cut across and make a ‘highway’ to the surviving kingdoms on the other side.

After analyzing the maps, I decided to do it the politician and capitalist’s way: to the highest bidder.

“We’re going to launch a bid,” I told Kavio and the council. “I intend to use my powers to clear a pathway through and across the Rottedlands, so I want to invite the kingdoms who are interested in an alliance with me to participate. This means a trade route, protected by my trees and beetles. We can also set up new towns and cities along the path.”

A new silk road. A new…Tree Road. A Countree road.

The entire representative council was excited by what that meant. A pathway that crossed the Rottedlands would open up so many new economic opportunities for trade! It could massively reinvigorate the inland nations that bordered the Rottedlands.

“So invite the kingdoms to bid. What they are willing to offer for a connecting path? We’re also willing to offer a conditional defensive pact should a nation feel ever threatened by their neighbors.”

“Is this capitalism?”

“No. This is just me sending my roots to wherever that’s juicy. We’ll open multiple paths eventually.”

This task would involve me cutting across where the demon’s corruption was densest, but lately, I was feeling confident. I thought it was partly because of Patreeck. These Titans, they generated massive amounts of mana, and his psychic powers meant that he could help to offset the corrupting influence.

I could now dream of The Transcontinental Treeway.

The announcement was met with chaos. Even more than I had expected.

“Does this mean Aeon is able to extend his reach as far as the entire continent?” That was pretty much the number one political and military question on everyone’s mind. Because if that answer was a yes, they had to quickly revise my ability to project power anywhere on the continent.

“Clearly the answer is a yes. Why else would the Freshlands put out an auction for a safe pathway across the Rottedlands? They must be able to do it.”

“No country on the continent is safe if this is true. If the Freshlands’ beetles are able to pop up on the other side of the continent, are we not sharing this continent with a monster? How is our throne and kingdom safe?”

“I think you mean, how are we still supporting the temples? This declaration is clearly a thinly veiled invitation to the rest of the kingdoms to switch sides.”

The temples were quick to attack the plan as some kind of tree-imperialism. That this was me building an empire. Well, yes. Of course. I was fighting temples who could summon armies from all the continents. Surely I was going to retaliate by expanding to such a point that I could force a stalemate and a peace treaty?

The FFA was extremely busy after the bid went out; many kingdoms, previously uninvolved in the affairs of the Freshlands, now had this offer. They’d previously ignored me simply because I was on the other side, and the Rottedlands was this thick, impenetrable wasteland. As a potential neighbor, everyone wanted to do their own due diligence on what they were potentially inviting to their corner.

Some of the kingdoms quickly formed a coalition agreeing not to bid and to convince others not to bid. Well, they didn’t want me next door.

But I just needed one. Someone to agree. A kingdom desperate enough to agree. A kingdom that’d been harassed, ignored, and bullied. One that was willing to accept a new benefactor and patron. The temples were suddenly willing to open their purses and give aid to the border kingdoms just to dissuade them from participating.

Ah, geopolitics.

Was it this chaotic when the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal opened? Surely the politics of having to skip a long detour for trade made everyone jump?

While the discussion went on, and the actual auction would happen one year later, I started to expand.

I had so many subsidiary trees. I pushed deeper into the Rottedlands.

[Skill: Hybrid Botany upgraded]

I pushed deeper to the center. Where was the daemolite? The center should naturally be where the demon king fell. There should be daemolite. Instead, I found a crater. A massive, smoldering crater.

What in the world?

Oh. Was this because Harris and gang destroyed whatever that was trapping the souls of the heroes?

The air here was different. The energies were chaotic.

I wondered whether this constituted a magical ley line.

49

YEAR 130

Strange how information was often volunteered when one was in a position of power. Across the world, many observed the Freshlands’ rise and were eager to make ‘friends.’ I would not have called them allies, given their fickle nature, but for now, they were friendly to the Freshlands.

The temples were in conflict, of course. Political conflict, rather than actual war. Accusations appeared, perhaps from the kings and emperors, that the temples were dishonest. It’d been brewing for some time, but the in-tree-continental tree highway added fuel to the fire.

“Why do the temples demand our best forces when the temples refuse to send their best templars?”

I’d seen templars. But in our first war and the string of battles, there were just a few hundred, at most a thousand, templars. Templars. The temple’s military arm. Quite similar to my Valthorns, and surely, they were better suited for anti-demon activity than actually fighting me. Unless their god had marked me as some kind of enemy of the religion, and they got a boost fighting me. That made sense, too.

Again, free informants seemed to suggest that the temples had considered it, but their own intel suggested that their templars were ineffective against me. Simply put, the first few hundred templars were sent on a suicide mission. The temples, too, did not know whether the templars received any ‘blessing’ or ‘buff’ from fighting a non-demon enemy of the temple; their common understanding was that the blessings applied only against demons.

A common complaint, and at this point I was rather happy to be left alone. I didn’t see the point in a war that proved nothing. There really was no ‘outcome’ that was good as a whole. Like, so what if the temples won? Had they given up on their best chance of reclaiming the Rottedlands from the demonic corruption? The demonic corruption was weaker after the demon king’s death. The last demon king had recalled some of the demonic energies in the Rottedlands to fight the heroes.

The Rottedlands may very well undo itself if each demon king called on its residual demonic energy during the fight with the heroes.

Perhaps that was how the world maintained its current state. It would take a string of Rottedlands-type explosions all over the world to terraform the entire world into demonland. However, if the demon kings ‘recalled’ the energies that powered it, eventually the Rottedlands would shrink.

“There’s really no daemolite left in the wreck?” the representative council asked Kavio, and Kavio asked me. “Both locations?”

“Aeon had only explored Sabnoc’s location, as it is older and the corruption was weaker.”

The place of the demon king’s corpse had been thoroughly destroyed. I made trees through the area last year, and even now, not a single daemolite was left. The heroes had really destroyed the place. Of course, I was quite embarrassed that it took me so long to put two and two together, but then…who knew?

Daemolite wasn’t just a great store of mana. It was also a good prison for souls. The two heroes were likely trapped in some kind of unique daemolite. Was the demon king harvesting souls, too? Or only certain kinds of souls?

“Our war potential would be greatly improved by having daemolite weaponry. After the great exhaustion of the daemolites in the last few decades, a new attainable source would be great.” The heroes didn’t like daemolite. I recalled a conversation between the heroes about the perils of daemolite mining.

The global daemolite supply, which powered a small fleet of high-speed cruise ships, airships, and so on, had been heavily affected by daemolite shortage, partly because during the Sabnoc era, some of the daemolite was magically turned into greater demons. Then the two subsequent demon kings’ corpses were unharvestable due to the overwhelming presence of hex. It was the equivalent of poisoning a productive oil well.

It didn’t help that the airships were unusable in the Rottedlands. Daemolite would interact with the demonic energies and behaved erratically, sometimes exploding. The terrain itself, hostile, meant if something went wrong, they would crash in demon hybrid–infested territories.

Darn.

But wait, if the demonic influence was weakening, would we be able to use daemolite?

I had the Valthorns send an exploratory delegation to the site of the demon king Sabnoc’s fight. Other than the heroes, it was the first time someone had been here.

“So this is it. Where the demon king fell and Emperor Harris made his mark on the world,” Faris said. Harris was naturally the most famous of the five who survived, even if they all finally died.

“I’m more interested in where he died,” Edna said. The landscape was apocalyptic. There were massive holes and gashes on the ground that four decades did not heal; only recently was some of that damage beginning to undo itself.

Still, it was a place where the demon king and heroes fought, and so the air and ground were unsettled, disturbed by the pain that this land once saw. Though I managed to remove the demonic corruption from this location, the ground was still poisoned from magic. Too much magic was used here. Here, magic itself was weak. Not a nice place for a [mage], as they would find their magic less potent. Maybe in a few decades, the residual ‘drain’ on magic would fade and this place would return to normalcy.

“Our briefing suggested that these places were always filled with daemolite.”

“It’s been four decades. Maybe the heroes mined all of them already.”

As I pushed more and more of the demonic sludge away, it revealed a battered terrain. There were huge underground holes, caves that were made out of magical blasts. We could tell from the circular shape of the caves, the smooth edges that indicated something annihilated everything in its path.

Faris was most affected by the devastation—the perils of a [aeonic great druid]; their emotions were very much affected by the condition of the land. He would witness a massive crevice, and he’d pause, touch the ground briefly.

“You all right?” Edna walked over. There were many other Valthorns; they checked the area thoroughly for any potential magical items.

Faris had to pause. “Not really. This landscape…it weighs on me.”

“Huh?”

“A druid in some ways can be considered to have three main branches to their power. Trees and animals, wind and water, and lastly earth,” Faris explained. “Our connection to these three branches can be said to be almost equal at first, depending on our class, though we are usually more known for our connection to trees and animals.” There were variations across classes and teaching schools, of course. Some druids were pure tree-only. I believed my [aeonic druids] were more tree focused, though Faris as an [aeonic great druid] should be similar.

Edna got it instantly. “Ah, so the earth’s pain speaks to you.”

“Something like that,” Faris said. “Not a nice feeling.”

Edna smiled and teased her friend and compatriot. “It’s like being sensitive, I suppose.”

Faris hit her with his stick.

The next location I wanted to explore was where Guihwang, Harris, and all died. I witnessed their death, of course, and the massive explosion left a large crater. That explosion destroyed the demon king and any trees I had in the area. Since then, the area had been inaccessible due to a perpetual firestorm.

“Magic storm.” Edna and the Valthorns observed the terrain. Residual magic. It’d calm down eventually. Maybe in a few years. It didn’t happen all the time, though, which was strange. It was as if the gods rolled a dice whether there would be a magic storm or not.

“We’ll have to wait for it to calm down,” I mentally spoke. “There are days when the firestorm weakens a little.”

Maybe there was daemolite in there.

* * *

Multiple kingdoms submitted their bids, despite the protests from the temples and so on. Some did so secretly. They didn’t want to publicly declare to the temples that they were looking for alternatives.

The offers were interesting. Our invitation to ‘bid’ went out quite generally, that I was looking to create a transcontinental path across the Rottedlands.

Some kingdoms offered their princesses for marriage. Some offered a cut in taxes. Some outright offered control of their entire army.

The representatives sat down and evaluated the offers.

“What’s the point of this?” one rather cynical representative asked. “In the end, Aeon’s the one that decides, right?”

Kavio nodded. “Aeon had agreed to three potential alliances, and he had said he would decide on two of them. The last one will be for us to decide.”

The reason I did this was simple. Jasmine, from her observation of the people, and Patreeck’s mental ‘reading’ had indicated that the council was growing weary. They had great authority over the lesser matters, but I had sensed that they were feeling ‘left out’ of the greater direction of the Freshlands. Letting them have a say in the big things would help, I guessed?

I watched their thought bubbles. They were all thinking whether I was serious or whether this was a test.

“Kavio, had you ever thought of marrying?” I telepathically spoke to the representatives present.

Kavio’s face paled instantly. “Aeon, you don’t mean…”

“Some of the kingdoms offered marriages. Certainly…our representatives should be more than worthy and deserving of the station.”

Their minds spun, and I detected some horniness among the representatives present. Some of them were nobles, being the delegates of their parents who ruled their cities or domains. Some were elected representatives from their home state. There was some variation in how this station was perceived by the local rulers; some viewed this as a key training ground before they returned home to take over from their families; some houses sent their lesser children here, while their first sons were back home, actively training.

I considered that this would make these representatives not-so-loyal, since now they would have the input and influence of these faraway kingdoms. Their wives, or husbands as it may, would use them as their door to communicate with me.

A reality of geopolitics. The Freshlands wasn’t just the valley of Freeka anymore.

I must have wisdom and accept that it was possible to manage competing priorities and influences. Just like how there were trees in the lush tropics to the cold, snowy areas of the high mountains to the dry, vast steppes. The world was not just one type of environment. Trees adapted and evolved, too, even if it seemed ever so slowly.

People, too, were different. The Freshlands was a growing, vast space. The ways and means of a city-state and that of an empire should be different.

The representatives had days of serious debate. There were about seventy-two representatives now, as the inner Freshlands had grown to over twenty segments. There were also delegates from the Six Ports, and then the representatives of the surrendered or allied kingdoms.

“Perhaps the hand should be offered to the High Representative of the Six Ports?”

“Or the hand of the kingdoms?”

It was a mess, and I didn’t pay much attention to it. Each representative wanted something for their home state. After all, only one of the three spots would be chosen by the representatives.

* * *

“Glad you’re not Kavio’s place anymore?” Yvon smiled and tapped Jura’s shoulder. Yvon was almost level seventy as a [trainer-master].

“Totally.” Jura nodded. “I may be a [warlord], but dealing with squabbling nobles is really tiring. I’d rather be fighting greater hybrid champions.”

My elite Valthorns were almost capping out, too. Edna was at level seventy-eight as an [Aeonic Grand Knight], and Faris was level seventy-six. Many others were in their level sixties. They still had regular expeditions into the Rottedlands, but these days, it was harder to find champion-class demon hybrids to fight. So their growth accordingly slowed.

Instead, many started to moonlight as adventurers, fighting other monsters that spawned in the Freshlands.

According to our constitution, I had mandated security for certain designated routes. Beetles would patrol those places, and so these areas were safe. Monsters, however, still frequently happened, and magical anomalies, lesser necromancers, and nuisances were left to adventurers to deal with.

It was a concession for the adventurers’ lobby group.

“Are you level one hundred yet?” Yvon asked.

“Nope. Still at level ninety-four,” Jura answered. “But honestly, it’s not a cap issue. It’s just a lack of suitable opponents at this level.”

“Maybe you could just dive into a dungeon by yourself and destroy them single-handedly.”

“There are no dungeons in the Freshlands. Aeon’s presence ensured that. All the dungeons are outside of the Freshlands.”

An unfortunate turn of events was that my overwhelming presence had prevented the growth of naturally spawning dungeons, so the Freshlands didn’t have dungeons! This was a problem for adventurers, of course. Like, what proper fantasy empire didn’t have adventurers? But if there were no dungeons, then the number of adventurers and their quality would naturally be lower.

I was aware of this issue for some time… It was just that, well, I could only focus on a few things at a time. Dungeons were natural events created from magical accumulation. The presence of trees and my roots that extended everywhere essentially ‘drained’ magic and prevented too much magical energy from accumulating.

Instead, the magic was distributed and accumulated in forests instead. So the forests and jungles of the Freshlands had stronger monsters on average. Wolves, birds, and all that were generally larger, stronger, and more likely to have magical features. Some even had [aeonic] variants, and I could give these [aeonic] monsters ‘instructions,’ though they may not always obey it. Most of these forest monsters were territorial, so they stayed within the forests, and coupled with the forests being protected territories, they were rarely encountered by the general populace or adventurers.

I was conflicted. If I wanted to strengthen adventurers, they’d have to fight stronger monsters. In the Freshlands, it was either I find a way to create a dungeon where stronger monsters could spawn or let these adventurers fight these aeonic monsters. But I didn’t want to; I was generally fond of these fellow forest creatures.

“We can use the adventurers to ‘cull’ populations of monsters that have grown too large.” Currently, Trevor managed the population of the monsters in the forests. If they were too big, he would put them down with an army of beetles.

I still felt conflicted.

But really this was a short-term solution. Population cullings of large packs would not be sustainable, nor would it give a lot of ‘quests’ for these adventurers.

* * *

The representatives eventually settled on one of the kingdoms that offered three princesses, a large amount of trade, and a regular payment. I still had to decide on the other two.

Which I soon regretted. I stared and contemplated all the choices and decided I wasn’t very good at making decisions.

“Patreeck, Trevor, Dimitree… Give me a hand? I mean, a thought?”

“Certainly.”

There was some buzzing for a few weeks, and my artificial minds soon gave me a presentation. I felt like I was the CEO who was given a briefing on what was the best decision to make.

“We have evaluated the following proposal bids and have shortlisted the following five kingdoms for your consideration, Master,” Trevor started. He was the oldest of the artificial minds, so somehow he was like ‘in charge.’

“The combined bid by the twin kingdoms of Illisar and Alenas are our first choice. They offered four children of the two kings as potential marriage partners. They also have access to four large precious gem mines, and they’ve agreed to offer 15 percent to us, and their location is close to the northern rivers. They have had a history of war with their neighbors, and their two larger neighbors have always wanted to conquer them. They’ve failed in the past due to the two kings that were of a high-level, and they have a small circle of strong generals. But their strongest king died of a demon wound a few years ago, and the new king is weaker.”

I mentally nodded. All right, they were weak, and they had every reason to cooperate with us. They also had gem mines, which I needed for upgrades.

“They are also a landlocked nation, so they really need this alternative trade route. Their traders are frequently targeted by river-pirates, especially once the ships travel to the neighboring countries’ land, and so the main river that runs through their kingdom is an unreliable source of trade.”

All right, they were desperate.

“The second-best bid, in our opinion, is from the Kingdom of Tiapesok. Again, they offered five children of the royal family of our choice.”

“Patreeck, Trevor, maybe cut out the part on the children. Really irrelevant to me.”

“I believe they are relevant for our Valthorns, and politically, we may dangle them as rewards for the loyal nations,” Trevor said. “If we must maintain loyalty throughout the vast territory, it would be good to use these as rewards.”

“Really?” What? Was this like a game of Total War or EU4 or Crusader Kings where I matchmade royalties with deserving generals in order to maintain loyalty? Seriously?

“As such, the number is important,” Trevor continued. “Jasmine had also corroborated that many nobles frequently fight over good marriage candidates. As such, there is political and economic value from these marriage candidates.”

“But where do we come in?”

“We control the trade routes, Master. The wealth generated by the trade routes is a button we can turn on or off.”

Jasmine, Trevor, and Patreeck all paused.

“Also, obtaining marriage candidates is also crucial, as they are worth it for the potential hereditary skills.”

“Hereditary skills?” All right, what in the world was that?

“From our analyses of nobility, a common trait that allowed nobles to retain their power and influence, despite the world’s constant change, is the ability to pass on certain skills and benefits to their progeny.”

“…what?” That sounded extremely familiar. Had I had this conversation before? Was it some nobles that spoke to me about inherited skills?

“Master, our proposal required that we incorporate the skillsets of nobility to produce stronger offspring. Nobles and various races have been seen demonstrating the effects of inherited skills. Perhaps it’s a slightly stronger physical strength, or just natural learning ability, or slightly faster levelling speed.”

“Why did I not know of it?”

“Not all nobles possess the ability to pass down abilities. Only some do, and those that never talk about it.”

“And…”

“We can read minds,” Patreeck responded. “Some of the nobles have been hiding this hidden advantage. They don’t even tell their children, until their children gain a similar skill when they reach adulthood. Some of it is just the ability to evade negative traits or just generic healthiness.”

“Go on.”

“We’ve also discovered that some royal families have certain ‘dynasty’ abilities that bless their entire lineage.”

Damn. Even in the world of levels, the wealthy and powerful had a way to rig the game. Seriously.

“As such, the children of the royals have incredible value.”

“Do you think it’s possible to spawn a super-noble, then?” I mean, if the inherited skills could be passed down, and the inherited skills could come from both father and mother, surely the nobles would have been accumulating advantages over time. Wasn’t this like how one-for-all works?

“From our observation, yes, it’s already been done.” The nobles and royalties intermarrying suddenly made a huge amount of sense now. “But from our observation, these gifted children mostly turn overconfident and usually die young before they ever fulfill their advantages and potential.”

“I see.”

There was a very Mendellian quality to this entire thing. Patreeck and Trevor’s proposal of mixing the royals with our elites reeked of geneticism. My soul forge altered an individual. This was altering successive generations via selective breeding.

“I understand Master’s concerns, but the effects of skills are real. The advantages are clear. Creating super-soldiers via selective breeding is possible in the long run. It is fundamentally not much more different from selective alteration of beetles.”

“In a world of magic and levels, we’re still unable to escape the powers of inheritance and inequality.”

“Magic and levels amplify inequality. It gives legitimacy over one’s superior station over another.”

Dammit. Just fucking goddammit.

If I went down this path, eventually I would be selectively breeding my citizens to create supersoldiers.

“Master?”

“I need a moment.”

I’d already taken one step into that path by training Valthorns from their very young age. This was an extension of that thought, by ensuring the quality and potential of the Valthorns were high, even before they were trained.

But there was clearly a conflict here. Valthorns were mostly children who were without families. We’d taken them in and trained them, given them a family and skills, and given them a purpose in life if they didn’t have one, a cause and goal to fight for.

Was there a line I shouldn’t cross here? I’d killed thousands. Tens of thousands?

“Master?”

I needed more time to contemplate this. I could accept the fact that hereditary skills existed. In fact, it made all the sense that it should. A parent’s love for their children may manifest itself as skills.

“The kings and nobles of the world have been doing this all this while, Master,” Patreeck interjected. “We are just taking it a step further.”

It was the difference between free-range chicken and massive broiler farms. I needed to think.

50

YEAR 131

On the proposals, I had agreed to the top two choices that Trevor and Patreeck proposed. For the marriage candidates, I had advised that we would decide on that at a later date. With the three winners decided, I started work on my long overdue Great Tree Road. I was already halfway to the other side anyway when we reached the center of the Rottedlands.

Now for the remaining half.

The Rottedlands’ energy had become weaker. Right now, it behaved quite like creep or ooze; there was still some push and inertia, but I’d noticed the expansionary ‘element’ had been slowly disappearing. That said, hybrids would continue to spawn as long as the terrain remained covered with demonic substances. The god of spawning animals, monsters, and plants didn’t particularly care what was spawned, so long as they fit the terrain. It was a bit of a runaway process.

Maybe some demons or hybrids, if they could think, would see me like I was an evil highway builder, destroying and encroaching on their habitat with this highway right through their homes.

On a macro level, it was like how roots broke rocks or dirt apart. A root went through it, and smaller ones gradually broke it up. Some plants and trees didn’t like hard ground and soil and required worms and all to help loosen up the soil.

Anyway, I started the building of the treeway, and the entire process of spawning [subsidiary trees] and [Giant Attendant Trees] took seven months. Along the way, there were large parts that were submerged under the demonic sludge.

Ancient ruins coated with demonic goop, cities that were somehow not entirely destroyed by the sludge. Caves. Rivers. There were many interesting sights and locations along the way, and I made a note to Patreeck and Trevor to return to them.

“We need another artificial mind. One to control access to the path,” Trevor suggested, and I nodded. I had capacity anyway. I named my new mind in charge of the highway that branched to the three selected allies, Trent. I wanted Treerific, but what would the parents think of that name? So, Trent.

“Hi, Trent. You’re in charge of security and trade taxes of the Treeway. Alert us and escalate any unusual matters.” We mentally linked up, and soon he was on his way. He’d been given a large regiment of beetles to ensure the security of the path.

The Council of Representatives made a request for a formal party to celebrate the new path that cut across the entire Rottedlands.

But it wasn’t ready yet. Although there was a ‘corruption-free’ path, the terrain along the path wasn’t exactly clean. There was still a need to build roads, build bridges, build rest stops. A lot of construction work needed to be performed before the path was ready for use. Some of this construction should start from the other side, since it didn’t make sense for a construction team to travel all the way across the Rottedlands. That was a two- to three-month journey if one walked!

I watched as the other kingdoms, these new partners of ours, sent their builders and armies into the new path.

“It’s rather tiny for a path.”

“Big enough for a few wagons, for sure. But it’s so jarring. It’s like someone planted a row of trees on both sides and now there’s a path through the Rottedlands.”

“Hush!” a lord on a horse said. “His Majesty instructed that we build whatever’s needed for the trade route. This path will relieve our trade issues.”

“It’s probably calculated to be of a certain size. You can’t march a big army through it.” The builders talked. They clearly had no concept of being secretive.

The path meandered through the Rottedlands, there were natural hills and mountains underneath all the demonic sludge, and it didn’t make sense to cut a straight road and force traders up and down the path. I recalled highways from home usually tried to maintain a steady angle or slope, so I wanted to do exactly that.

I watched and admired how [builders] made bridges from nearby rock and stone. They didn’t dare chop down my subsidiary trees, so they improvised and used other kinds of materials instead. Still, given how big and long the path was, the builders’ skills would actually improve travelling speed.

They needed a lot of time to build, and on the Freshlands’ side, we’d sent our best builders to work on it. I even gave out a few [Expert Builder] class seeds to the leaders of the build to ensure that the path was built as fast as possible.

Because of the long distances, there was also a need for smaller towns. Back in the days of the silk road, I recalled that various cities would spring up along it.

Trevor and Patreeck had made some projections and calculated that since it took two to three months to walk from one end to another, horses and various mounts would cut that time by a third, to less than a month. So there needed to be at least four large-size ‘rest stops’ along that path, equivalent to one week’s distance horse-ride, or three weeks of walking, and another twelve to sixteen medium-size smaller towns in between, such that it took about a few days to walk from one town to another.

Back to the builders, they would need a long time to finish the road. A rudimentary basic road with a simple bridge would be ready within a year, but it seemed like the kingdoms and also the Freshlands all talked about multiple upgrades, like bigger reinforced bridges and proper towns.

“The territory on Rottedlands Pass belongs entirely to Aeon,” Kavio repeated to the envoys. “But he had agreed to all three kingdoms that each of these three allied kingdoms are allowed to set up one large city and three smaller towns in these designated locations. It is important that the administration of these cities and towns be made clearly aware to obey the constitution of the Freshlands or risk destruction.”

Envoys from all three kingdoms were the first to make the trip through the Rottedlands’ Pass, even though the [builders] had not finished building. I witnessed how envoys had rather impressive skills. One had the ability to make his horse jump across the entire ravine multiple times, and another envoy could travel for days without rest.

It was easier to communicate and coordinate construction and plans with an envoy from our end. It seemed that Kavio and the council had also sent envoys of our own to the other sides.

It was better that they were here.

Patreeck’s abilities quickly revealed their multiple objectives. One that featured in all three envoys was to assess my strength. Envoys were pretty much spies, and they all had some kind of [level-sensing] ability. It was important when dealing with other kings and lords, since the level of the other king revealed the kinds of power they had.

[Domain has blocked level-sensing ability.]

Well, thank you. It’s really convenient that my Domain blocked most of these things.

“My ability was blocked,” the envoy said privately to his colleague. Each kingdom sent about five to ten people to Freshka. “You should know what that means.” They were most cooperative.

The road would only be ready next year, even with the [Expert Builders] on the job. There was also a second round of migrationary movement as we opened up certain sites for the future cities, which would be directly managed by the FFA.

“Migrate into the Rottedlands?”

Some looked at a chance to make it rich. Some saw it like insanity. I mean, all of them were probably insane when they accepted this plan, but there were second-generation citizens of the Freshlands, where it was their parents who made the move into the Freshlands.

The Freshlands was founded about twenty-plus years ago, some of them who came had children here, and now those children were young adults. That essentially made them second-generation Freshlanders.

A lot of them grew up in the relative comfort and safety of the Freshlands, so the idea of moving deeper into the Rottedlands was strange.

I supposed one generation’s suffering did not transmit to the next?

* * *

Some of the nations neighboring our new allies were unhappy, but they didn’t dare risk my wrath. They’d heard of the stories of the Six Ports, and they were quickly focused on fortifying their own home cities. Some, though, were quick to secretly extend an olive branch to our new allies.

A spy from Aiva was present, too. “We’re actively trying to delay a second crusade.” The spy spoke to a small audience. Essentially me, Kavio, Jura, and some of the Valthorn Elites like Lovis, Edna, and Faris. Lovis was lower level than Edna and Faris, she’d only received her [spearmaster] class a few years back, and she was in her mid-sixties. “I believe we may be able to buy some time until the next demon king.”

“Essentially, you’re telling us that there will be a crusade after the next demon king?” Kavio frowned. “How’s that a convincing argument?”

The spy shrugged. “Sometimes, the best we can do is to delay the fighting. The Triumvirs of Aiva will not publicly renounce the war.”

“And what if we publicly call you out on it?”

“Then it will be a real war. It’s in our best interest to have this stalemate. The priests get to retain their divine duty and obligations, but no one actually has to die.”

“There’s going to be smaller skirmishes and rebellions. There will be death. The Triumvirs’ presumption of a peaceful stalemate is ridiculous,” Kavio said.

“It is.” The spy and envoy nodded. “But it is what it is.”

“Rubbish,” I said telepathically to everyone present, and the spy’s face paled.

* * *

Like dominoes, a few of the kingdoms neighboring our new allies were quick to reach out for communication. They wanted a similar arrangement, lest they let their neighbors benefit. It made no sense to agree to them. They didn’t have the balls to submit a bid, so why should I give them any arrangement now?

There should be an exclusive period where only these three allied nations got the benefit, since they decided to make the investment.

The temples were already in full swing, trying to sow discord and rebellion. A few temple men, realizing that attacking me was useless, decided to target those allied to me. They targeted the nobles, the lords and dukes, the kings, in a massive campaign to sow hate against the ruling government, simply because they were associated with me.

It was quite intelligent. The rulers, after all, didn’t have an iron grip and a big brother over their population, and now their own citizens were fed all these accusations from the temples.

These accusations amplified the present dissatisfaction. The Freshlands’ first victory and the subsequent shifting allegiances relocated many people, and added to that were the surrendering soldiers, a few hundred thousand, who then increased the strain on the cities and villages that received them.

It was something that slowly built up over time. As the Freshlands expanded, natural stratification and fault lines emerged. There were those from the core cities, those who lived in the original segments of the Freshlands, and then there were the newly incorporated and assimilated kingdoms.

Each had different views of each other, and it could be something harmless like one city’s citizens viewing another city’s citizens as strange. All these little differences, suspicions, and varying cultures were a formula for conflict.

It was normal. As species expanded, many would come into conflict with other species who occupied the same niche.

Cultural differences were a source of conflicts, and the Council of Representatives, as diverse as it was, still could not allay all these accusations and suspicions. People just naturally formed in-groups and out-groups. Us, and them.

Rebellion broke out in a few of the neighboring states. It was something Jasmine predicted from her observations. My ability to watch these neighbors was quite restricted, since many had made fortified roads and plazas, and trees were mostly in gardens and designated avenues. Still, we had a good feel of the mood, their discontent and unhappiness.

I had worked out a plan with the war council. They knew something like this was going to happen. In fact, everyone knew. Even the kings themselves all knew that a rebellion was about to break out. Even regular citizens who had a bit more general knowledge could see it coming.

It was that obvious. Those cultural fault lines flared up. In some cases, it took a racial turn. Humans versus non-humans. Elves versus centaurs. Some kings had skills to suppress rebellion and disloyalty and were quick to do it. The weaker kings didn’t, so a rebellion occurred. They would use their army to suppress them. I decided not to participate unless I was invited to.

For those kings who were able to control their kingdoms, we quickly offered assistance to help resolve the underlying forces that triggered their unhappiness. It was usually rather simple stuff, like a lack of food, or poor harvest, or just ill treatment from their local lords. Things that a wagon or two of food could sometimes help ‘solve.’

In a way, it was just regular ‘hearts-and-minds’ programs to help defuse the social pressures that existed in these kingdoms.

Abundance helped to allay the concerns of scarcity. Many of these population groups were barely self-sufficient. Still, abundance would never satisfy the greed of mortals. The only way to ensure aid and supplies were sufficiently shared was if I had people everywhere to distribute these resources in a reasonable manner.

“We’re going to expand the Valtrian Order’s social services arms to all our allied states. All of them.”

Laufen, of course, was overwhelmed. But by now, the Valtrian Order was a massive institution and had grown to almost forty thousand people. There were numerous Valthorns who had more ‘defensive’ or supportive skills who could assist in widespread social and community work, even if it was simpler stuff like improving crop yields or fixing bad housing, to the regular kinds of social work performed by the temples, which were healers and rituals.

“We need a massive priest training system and support system. We can’t just send our people to all these neighboring kingdoms and expect them to succeed without a robust logistic network.”

So the Valtrian Order went into a hiring drive. We had to expand the size of our workforce if we wanted to try and overcome this propaganda attack.

There were two aspects to it: resolving the short-term issue of a rebellion, and then tackling the long-term issue of what caused and fed the rebellion. This wasn’t a conventional war.

This was a culture war.

A group of two thousand priests and various other social workers headed for the hotspots. Places where Jasmine and Patreeck’s social models indicated that there may be unrest.

It felt a little minority report-ish that we were sending social workers before something bad happened, but in a way, that was preventive work, right?

No one rioted overnight. It was a culmination of decades of distress. Similarly, allaying those feelings of unwellness would also require dedicated care and attention. I could spawn more [Tree of Prayers] everywhere. Those trees could reduce the general stress levels and induce a sense of calmness and serenity. But it didn’t work if they were already mad.

If they were in my valley, I could be even more obtrusive and use psychic and dream attacks on them, but that was like using a hammer to cut a cake.

So, a massive hiring drive.

Once I had the numbers, they needed to be educated and trained.

“Let’s set up a massive priest training facility,” I mentally told myself. Since these gods treated me as a fellow deity, even if I was evil, it was time to go on overdrive and behave like a proper religion.

A culture war could only be defeated by another culture. If I wanted to sustainably push back these ‘enemy’ cultures, I must first convert all those in the Freshlands to my culture and religion. Else, one edict or divine message, and I’d have large swaths of my population rebellion.

That was not acceptable.

I marked a hilly area next to Freshka and started work. A large area of forests was merged with multiple Giant Attendant Trees. It was going to be like my Vatican, my Holy See, and I wanted the area to be visible even from afar.

I used my powers to make these the tallest Giant Attendant Trees ever made, and it took about a month of working and shaping with my [woodshaping]. It was easier, since I was working with bigger things. I made housing, lecture halls, training rooms, multiple ritual rooms, places for guests, and all that.

I called on ten of the most experienced and high-leveled [aeonic priests].

“I have been extremely pleased with your efforts in the past few years to counter the propaganda spread by our opponents.”

The ten all knelt in a circle around a [Tree of Prayers]. This was the same meeting area.

“It is time that you are rewarded for your faith and loyalty.” There were five men and five ladies.

All ten of them received either [Patreearch of Aeon] or [Matreearch of Aeon]. These were upgraded [Aeonic] priest classes, which should empower all their regular priests’ abilities to a greater degree.

They ate the fruits containing the classes, and instantly, all ten of them screamed. Their bodies shook, and I sensed their spirits glow brightly. Their skin turned slightly greenish, and all their eyes gained a green ring that glowed.

One of them, he was a middle-aged man who served mostly in the Southeastern Segments, was first to rise. “O Aeon, our great patron of the land, we have received your blessings.”

All of them rose, their bodies healthier and stronger. I sensed the presence of my Domain flowing into them slightly.

Did my [Domain] choices influence the kinds of power my priests possessed? But no matter. “Rise, my Council of Arches, for the weight of expanding our faith rests in your hands.”

The ten rose and sat in a circle. Together, they seemed to emit a physical glow.

“The other gods deny my presence in our world,” I said. “I will need you to push them back. My first order is to set up the School of Treeology, where all the priests will be trained. My second order is to secure the faith and loyalties of all nations allied to the Freshlands.”

The ten answered in unison, their voice seemingly echoing like a choir. “We receive your commandments!”

Then I summoned the [aeonic priests] for all over. If I wanted to be a true global religion, it was time to have a proper structure, a unified code of principles and, well, power. Generic Priests got the usual abilities, heal, cure wound, some barrier and shield powers.

It was time for these new ten Patreearchs and Matreearchs to run the show and spread the faith of the Tree to the world.

51

YEAR 132

“This is the third batch of prospective priests and students.” A priest gestured to the Patreearch as a group of fifty walked into the room. They all bowed and were quickly given a short interview. A test of their faith, as the Patreearch made them recite the constitution of the Freshlands. Then a quiz on my abilities.

It was a strange feeling, but at the same time, I was numb. The school of Treeology had to expand quickly in order to meet the need for social and ‘cultural’ influence in the region, so this school had to grow quickly.

Conflict and confusion naturally emerged. Speed meant planning was not proper, and it seemed the ten Decarches—Decarches, because it was ten Patriarchs and Matriarchs—quickly had different opinions of how to expand the school. They soon squabbled over things like what was the right way to pray, what was the right way to do things, and their methods.

I summoned them all, and they all presented their cases. Each Patreearch came from a different place, and there was some diversity in races, too. One of them was a half-elf, another a centaur, another a treefolk. As such, each had different areas that they felt were important in their faith.

For some, it was caring for the land. That meant they were both priests and druid. For another, it was about the birth and death of souls, and the ceremonies. While they seemed like they could mutually coexist, their arguments would devolve into arguments about what was of a higher value or semantics.

For example, one of them, in their practice of honoring those who had died, would bury the body in the earth and plant a tree on them. Yet the bodies of mortals sometimes carried sickness or poison. For one, it was still right to bury them. For the other, caring for the earth took precedence, so the sick or poisoned corpse should be burned, or at least processed before burying.

It was often little but fundamental differences in which values held strong that created these conflicts. They were ‘small’ conflicts, in the sense that they could still live with each other and operate within the same area, but certainly it was an ideological difference. In a way, it was like different teachers in a school, each thinking their own subject was the most important one.

But at the same time, I didn’t want to clamp down on these differences in opinion. I didn’t see myself as a founder of an orthodoxy where there was only a single source of truth or opinion; it certainly wasn’t aligned with how plants evolved and adapted to their surroundings.

Thus, the faith I had must be able to evolve, and it was only right that the willingness to accept differences of opinion be set up at the start. But at the same time, a faith that could evolve was also one that would squabble and eventually break apart. Yet, as I pondered this problem, whether I set it up or not, faith would naturally evolve as the greed and instincts of man meant the rules would shift over time. It was only proper that I set up the mechanics to do so early on, and finetune it, since I was after all, their ‘deity.’

So, to the ten Decarches, I decided to allow each of them to lead their own ‘departments.’ A student would rotate and go through all of them over the two to three years of training as a priesthood. There would be a debate and a voting system as the ten Decarches would have to decide. In time, I saw that I’d probably expand the Decarches into a proper council of high priests, but that would be in the near or far future.

For now, a departmental approach seemed better. I mean, I could in theory agree with any of the ten and decide that as canon, but a tree existed in the real world, and the proper way to do it was to let the priests carry it out and observe the consequences of such beliefs, then apply corrective guidance as and when necessary.

One thing I was quick to notice amongst the mortals of the world was that they didn’t believe in neither a god’s omnipotence nor omniscience. The concept of a one god of everything did not exist, simply because of the visible divinity of lesser deities and the higher gods.

So it came off rather strangely to me that in this aspect, these people were progressive. They could accept that the gods could change their minds, and frequently, in their prayers to the divine, they often tried to negotiate with the gods. Even if it was futile. Was it because they’d always lived in a world where there was an expectation of a pantheon of gods? And they seemed to acknowledge, without much reservation, that gods had a limited scope of powers.

Still, differences emerged from their different interpretations and priorities. It was only natural, and it was something I should let run its course.

* * *

In this period of tense peace, with the temples still planning for a second crusade, I continued to improve on our beetles and spiders—new assassin and anti-human variants and higher range for my new artillery bomber-beetles. They were larger, about the size of a giant beetle, and they moved a lot slower. But they could shoot out an acidic projectile that could travel a few hundred meters, so that made them a proper ranged attacker. Even if they were absolutely defenseless otherwise.

No matter. Little secret weapons I could use on the next crusade. Best to keep them hidden and only reveal them when really necessary.

Horns enjoyed all beetle-related stuff, but I did notice he cared more for the beetles. Trevor and the other artificial minds were the ones driving the changes to the assassin spiders. I thought I should make more ‘assassin spider’ artificial minds, such that they acted as my assassin-generals.

Jasmine was quick to support the idea and recommended that they be assigned to her, since she and Patreeck coordinated the surveillance and monitoring of the denizens of the Freshlands.

I wondered whether that was the right idea. What if Jasmine and Patreeck made the wrong call and assassinated someone without truly checking? What if they killed someone who shouldn’t be killed?

I didn’t think that outsourcing the business of killing was something I was willing to do. Not until I could trust their judgment, even if they had been shortlisting and compiling crimes on our denizens. I felt rather strongly that I should be the one deciding on whether they lived or died. At least, in assassination situations.

In a war situation, as everyone present was a combatant, I was more willing to give my assistants free rein to decide. But in more covert and subjective situations, I didn’t think it was fair. Many people had rebellious and treasonous thoughts, but that didn’t mean they would all rebel or would be disloyal. In fact, I would suspect anyone who never had that thought at all, because that meant they had never internally considered it. That generally meant their loyalty had never been tested, and as such, they may switch even when they seemed loyal all this while.

So I demanded a dossier for every suspected person. They’d been graded on a framework and risk rated. I felt like this was some kind of risk rating for loans or a little like the social credit scores, but…if I was the only one I trusted to make this decision, then this was the best way to thin down the risk.

“Or we can focus on Freshka and the nearby countries?” Trevor suggested. “Based on the potential damage that these unfavorable people can cause in faraway places, it’s rather limited.”

Ah, a distance weightage. That was a good point. “Then let’s do that. Only flag those who operate within the near-valley zone. For those further out, only flag those as high risk, are a large movement, or have high magical power.”

With that, the list was shortened considerably.

* * *

Trent, my artificial soul in charge of my intercontinental trade route, gave his weekly summary of the trades. It took a year, but the basic infrastructure for trade was finally ready and traders started taking the trade.

They still had to deal with the issue of supplies and resources to make the month-long journey across the central area of the continent. For now, only merchants with the right set of skills or teams made the journey. This was similar to the past, when New Freeka was newly set up. The terrain then was unfavorable; many cities were destroyed by the demons, too. So the merchants that travelled from one city to another usually had some skills that allowed them to stretch their supplies a bit longer or make their journey a little faster on less favorable terrain, or merchants that could boost or enhance their horses and carriages such that they could make it to the next town.

Once more ‘rest stops’ were built along the route, the trade volumes would naturally increase, as the route itself became ‘easier.’ A natural evolution of trade.

In fact, a train service from one end to another would also work, and I could naturally instruct beetles to act like long-haul trailers to move goods from one end to another.

I mean, they were already a means of transport back in the days of New Freeka, and it was time that I resumed their service. I decided to have Horns start research on dedicated Truckbeetles and Trailerbeetles. It just made sense. Giant Truckbeetles could haul goods across the continent. I just hoped they didn’t accidentally bang into someone and reverse-isekai them to another world.

Still, an intercontinental, state-sponsored beetle-hauling service. Of course, there was a fee! I mean, the Valtrian Order must be financed. Alternatively, the beetles could also act as supply trucks, to provide food supplies for the merchants on the route.

“We should price the beetles’ services at a high point. We do not want to outcompete the pioneer batch of merchants,” Kavio quickly suggested. “I’ll summon the merchants guild and we can develop some kind of pricing schedule. As time goes on and the route matures, we can bring down the prices. We must still let the pioneer batch make some profits.”

I pondered this for a moment and decided to agree. I wondered whether I should feed the capitalist elements of this world and let them gain power. But then, in this world, merchants did take very real risks with their lives. The protection of beetles like my own was very much an aberration.

“Master, have you thought of using our network of trees across the continent for trade arbitrage? We could easily make a profit using the price differences between the Freshlands and those faraway kingdoms.”

I thought of that for a moment and decided I did not want to compete with merchants. At least, not at the moment. I was a tree, and at the same time, I was also a singular point in growing government. I saw my role as a facilitator and provider of infrastructure that couldn’t be replicated by individuals. I also was rather skeptical of a government playing the role of businesses, even though the Valtrian Order did run different types of businesses to earn money and support its expenditure.

“No. In the end, we are a governing entity, not a business. We’ll just charge fees and taxes.”

The first thing I needed to do was to set up three beetlestops, each one at the borders of the three chosen allied nations. These future truckbeetles would not be able to communicate at all, so I would need the Valtrian Order representatives to record orders and instructions, have them processed… Wait.

How would they get orders? The merchants couldn’t communicate with the beetles.

“Maybe we can have trees that receive messages?”

I pondered this question for a moment. All the while I’d been relying on my artificial minds to run my operations, and essentially the beetles could only be ordered by them, or by Horns and the other beetle-generals. They reacted by spying and observing, or in the days of New Freeka, the beetles moved at regular routes and made scheduled stops, essentially like a bus service.

I could repeat that, of course. If so, I could set up the beetles to depart on regular schedules and have the merchants work with a timetable. The Valtrian and Freshlands representatives merely acted as ‘booking’ coordinators and allocated or matched empty beetles to the merchants.

While Kavio handled the discussions with the merchants, I zoomed in on the new planned border towns. Each of the three nations had begun setting up a small expeditionary force, builders, farmers, and merchants being the first to make the journey, along with a small military entourage.

There were beetles, but so far, they’d been hidden in the subsidiary trees. After all, there was really no reason for them to appear unless the hybrid demons attacked.

At these designated ‘town’ zones, the area I’d ‘reclaimed’ from the demonic corruption was larger, much larger to allow for some farming activity and buildings and fortifications, if these nations deemed them necessary.

I’d essentially cut the Rottedlands into multiple slices with this long route through the Rottedlands, and it was only possible because of the weakened demonic energies.

“There’s potential of using [Root Tunnels] to create a secret smuggling route,” Patreeck suggested.

“We’ll hold that off until necessary,” I responded. “I’m sure some of them have skills to detect tunnels and such.”

On the Freshlands’ side, we’re also rapidly building up a new settlement on the edges of the existing segment. It was meant to be the launchpad for trade through these new routes, and there were some who would take up this challenge and opportunity.

For now, the first batch of traders mostly brought high-value, high-margin goods. That meant jewelry, works of art, and artifacts. There was always an audience for this sort of goods, and for the traders who had to travel light and fast, these were the best choices. These batches of traders had a lot on their hands, and part of their journey was sponsored by the merchant guilds of their home cities. It was an exploratory run; these traders would return with feedback on the difficulty of the journey, the kinds of prices and the demand for various goods, and what else they could buy.

The Freshlands had a lot of food, so that was something that we could sell in bulk. We’re like…Fresh Foods.

* * *

“Aeon,” a patriarch of the Aeonic Faith spoke privately. It was close to the end of the year. “A question?”

“Yes?”

“Some of us have been debating whether we should expand some missions to the new lands as a result of the new trade routes. We asked Kavio about it, but he was not able to give a firm conclusion on whether the trade agreement included missions of faith. We believe that it is only right that we spread our faith to these new allies, but at the same time, we’re not too sure whether our attempts will be viewed positively.”

Uh. Maybe? “Speak to the merchants?”

“Ah. That’s a good point.” The patriarch nodded, and he arranged a meeting with the visiting merchants from the faraway kingdoms.

I thought back to the older days of my studies. Should I use marriage and royal ‘conversions’ into the faith as a way of expanding my power? I recalled some kingdoms used to marry their nobility and convert other kingdoms to their religions.

Was that too ‘manipulative’ as a religion? Should I go there?

I paused. It wasn’t the first of the many tough decisions I had to make. All these decisions were tradeoffs, one way or another. I didn’t care for royals, but I could not deny the influence of inherited abilities or their powers to sway vast numbers. Having royal assent would make our priests and preachers have an easy job of winning this cultural war.

But at the same time, was I not a hypocrite? I did not care for royals, and yet, should I agree to this whole royal-marriage schtick, it was essentially giving them a lever of power.

Hypocrite.

In some places, maybe I’d be referred to as pragmatic, to make decisions based on what benefits I could derive. If I was human at this time, I’d go for a long run or do some stretches. I instinctively stretched, and it felt like my senses stretched to encompass the entirety of the Freshlands, as overwhelming and confusing as it sounded. It was like…zooming out of a buzzing city and viewing it from high up, like an airplane.

I’d thought long and hard for some time. The issue of meddling with hereditary abilities and skills reeked of genetic engineering, and was I not robbing the young child of choice? Similarly, by pairing up royals for a skill advantage and also to proselytize these royals to my faith felt like an offense against that choice.

But I had not been consistent, either. Certainly I’d changed my mind. Had I given the Valthorns a choice? Not really; I was aware of the huge ethical quandaries of child weapons. Was I prepared to sin all the way to hell and back for that chance to find a path to heaven? Was there a middle ground I could take that still led me to that end?

“Master?” Trevor asked. “We detected a lot of magical activity…from you.”

Ah. It seemed that as I zoomed out, I also drew on the magical energies of the Freshlands. It was a strange feeling, but from this far away, I felt like…maybe I should go ahead with it. Sure, it was hypocritical…

“No.” That was wrong. I must have a line I could not cross. I must have. If not, I’d eventually descend into viewing all the lives I sacrificed as nothing more than statistics. I forced myself to correct my earlier train of thought.

It was a struggle, but I quickly called on my memories of pain. Of destruction. Of death. My memories of those who died around me.

Then memories that I did not recognize started flooding my mind. They were memories of those who lived here, the pain of losing a spouse, a child, a leg, a friend. So many strange new memories.

It was like that moment when I processed the hex, but more real, more vivid, and yet also more nuanced. I could sense strong emotions, fear, anger, helplessness, bitterness, disappointment. It was strong, and from the valley…from Freshka.

“Master, you’ve activated my abilities,” Patreeck said, and I realized that those were the memories of those in Freshka. Their history and past. I saw them flash, and yet it didn’t overwhelm me. It was just at the right pace, the right amount that I could still take in those feelings.

It took a while; there were so many memories to go through. The first generation of settlers of the Freshlands had hard lives. Starvation, hunted by monsters, was very normal. It was a pain that still felt raw for many. Even if it was just decades ago.

“Master,” Trevor too intervened. “The populace of Freshka is behaving strangely.” They were in a state of daze, all of them. The sudden ‘mind-draw’ was like a psychic attack.

“Ah. My bad.” I relaxed and let my psychic hold go. I felt my connection to them disappear. In a way, it wasn’t unusual.

As a tree in the center of a huge forest of trees that sprawled across the continent, each normal tree was like its own brain. It had its own senses and, very rarely, its own thoughts. They were often filtered out by my mental firewall, since it was mostly inane. This felt rather similar, like adding more trees into the network, only these trees had a far more developed thought process and more memories.

I paused again. I had to walk a middle path, between a tree and man. The tree’s aspect could get too macro, and the aspect of man tended to be emotional and micro.

But I did wonder…was this pragmatism? Or a form of enlightened dictatorship enabled by always-on surveillance and an ability to read minds? Maybe to the temples across the ocean, to them, I may well be a hivemind that had the entire Freshlands in thrall.

52

YEAR 133

The rifts opened. I sensed it, vaguely, my magic sensors detecting fluctuations. But…nothing, at first. I wondered whether they were a group of invisible or stealthed demons, like the one that attacked the previous set of heroes.

Quiet. Very, very quiet. Maybe they were not on our continent? If so, that would be a welcome relief. But then, which continent?

No matter, local matters first.

Kavio struck a deal with the merchant’s guild for the establishment of a scheduled ‘hauling’ arrangement between the new trading outposts, and goods began to flow. We charged very steep fees, so that those who made the trip themselves could still earn good margins. That worked, of course, since the beetles were free labor. They were sustained by the subsidiary trees that hosted them.

That meant new goods! Which was always fun. I spent time going through the new kinds of produce and output they made. Especially plants that were not native to this area of the Freshlands.

I had yet to find any non-hybrid plants in the Rottedlands, but these new trading partners were an entire continent away. Surely there were types of plants that were different, so we were also potential customers. Jura helped to request for a catalogue of plants native to those three new trading kingdoms, and from that, I increased my crop and herb varieties.

[Crop varieties increased. Unlocked Cucumbers, Capsicums, Red Barley, and Native Blacktatoes.]

[Herbal variants increased. Herbal patches will now spawn more types of herbs.]

New types of trees and plants, too, some of which were not commonly found in the existing Freshlands.

As a magical tree, I naturally had a ‘boost’ to the growth of trees around me. The way this ability presented itself was by amplifying the growth speed of existing trees, amplifying and magically ‘assisting’ the trees’ seeds to spread, by mechanisms that I had yet to truly understand, to outright ‘creating’ the trees. That said, I didn’t think it was really me that was creating these regular trees and more of me somehow telling the system or the ‘god’ that spawned creatures, monsters, and vegetation to ‘create’ something at a certain location. Or at least, that was how I suspected it worked.

That said, the limitation of this ability was that I could only boost existing trees, or for the creation of trees, trees that I had already seen or were naturally ‘native’ to this environment. So, now that there were these new varieties, I could potentially improve the biodiversity of the valley and the Freshlands with these new plants if they didn’t prove to be overcompetitive and wouldn’t crowd out the native. That said, Trevor and the artificial minds had assured me that they would actively monitor the population of all types of plants and would act accordingly.

These new trees were not that suited for the Freshlands, and perhaps that was why they were not native. In some ways, they were more…tropical than our temperate forests. So we had to introduce them into areas where the weather was warmer and more humid. There were some such patches in the reclaimed Freshlands.

I was quite willing to introduce new species to the Freshlands because it was essentially a blank slate that was once wiped clean by the demonic corruption. The existing species and types of trees that appeared in the Freshlands were honestly rather uniform, and the temperate-adapted trees only survived with some of my passives. Perhaps some time ago these plants were also present in these environments, but I didn’t know.

In either case, the present level of diversity in the environment could be increased.

There were also new types of insects and bugs that came from these faraway places. I wondered whether some of them would turn out to be pests. No. Correction. Pretty sure some of them would be pests, but for now I was willing to tolerate them. I recalled that there were all sorts of parasites, bugs, and stuff that would sometimes cause infestations and massively hammer the productivity of plantations and fields. It was not a problem, between my own abilities, the druids, and the farmers’ skills.

Still, trade-related pests. Unwanted, but they happened.

* * *

I thought about the issue of noble skills and whether that was something I wanted to meddle with. There was something about meddling with the lives, essentially stacking the deck, that made me feel a little repulsed. I believed in meritocracy. At least, in some form I still did. But this honestly was unfair, wasn’t it? But the world never was fair. Everyone’s dice was loaded in some way, differently.

“Master, a choice must be made. Consider that if we grant this right of marriage to the nobles, it will empower the nobility in the long run.”

Was it bad to further empower the nobility? Were they not already ‘strong,’ relative to the regular folk? As it was, the common man with no special skills and levels would find it very hard to oppose a noble with better skills and higher levels. The inequality was already entrenched in the system. This whole hereditary issue was merely an outcome of that entrenched inequality.

I decided that choice was important. My memories of all the pain and death were clear that, yes, power was important, but so was the ability to choose. I could assist and do some matchmaking, but anything would be voluntary. Parents and the child must both have the option to change their mind.

Or was I being too lenient? In a world where monsters and people of a high level didn’t hesitate to flaunt their power…was this a foolish, naive thought process? It felt foolish.

“Master. Perhaps they should only be allowed a limited set of choices. Total freedom is unacceptable. Not when they could choose to attack us,” Patreeck said. “It is apt to consider these allies of ours in a symbiotic relationship. If that relationship were to turn hostile or one-sided, it is very much in our interest to eliminate them.”

“Unless the master were to implement some kind of shackle…” Jasmine suggested. “Or make their class powers conditional?”

“Which thus leads to our next question, Master. Do you have the ability to retract the powers of the aeonic classes, should they ever turn hostile?” Trevor’s turn to ask a question. “Master’s abilities are very much that of a ‘support’ class. An incredibly powerful support class with a niche offensive power.”

There were some powers I was clearly able to withdraw. Familiars, for one. But classes…I couldn’t take them back once I’d given them to the people. It only made sense, because a class was essentially a part of their soul spring; it didn’t make sense that I could have them back so easily. Or familiars like Jura’s Bamboo, which was essentially a spiritual companion.

I briefly attempted to ‘withdraw’ the aeonic classes, but it seemed it didn’t work like that. Strangely, it was Lilies who provided insight into how my aeonic variant classes worked.

< A covenant is the heart of any divine-specific class. The covenant broken, the class and skill, impaired. >

Essentially, I could not take back the class, but each of these classes had a set of inbuilt ‘rules’ that, should they be broken, would cause the class itself to be lost. It was like if a hero of justice suddenly committed an act of evil, they would lose their hero of justice class.

“But what are the rules of my aeonic classes?”

I couldn’t answer that.

But my aeonic priests seemed to have a theory.

Faith. Belief. Intent. In a way, classes behaved quite like soul contracts. They gave the individual power and abilities and at the same time, imposed conditions on them and shaped their thinking. I would have to accept that this was a risk I had to take with any supersoldier and could only have a second layer of oversight from Jasmine.

In a way, it was quite like Lausanne. I invested in her, and now she was somewhere out there, living her life as an adventurer. I needed a talent-management program and succession planning. Indeed, I could not guarantee every individual’s loyalty, but I could, as a whole, improve my chances. In short, I should do what trees did. Go forth and multiply.

No. Spread my eggs into many baskets.

Ugh.

Still sounded strange.

I wondered why I still came back to this topic even though I’d already set up the Valthorns and the Valtrian Order, and now an additional priesthood and Treeology School. Was it because I expanded the Freshlands too quickly, such that I did not have enough talent to manage a sprawling federation of somewhat loosely associated states?

The envoys were not in a good position. The agreement meant that some of the princesses and princes were due to be marriage partners, but the envoys, until now, had not had any news. Their kings pressured them for updates.

“Are the planned engagements on? Who are the candidates? Our princes and princesses aren’t getting any younger!” Again, choice. These poor children didn’t have it. The norm for arranged marriage was when they turned sixteen or eighteen for humans, depending on the society, but for elves and other races, they had different ages of maturity. But generally, their women only got married later, when they were at least thirty to forty, since their children were considered extremely young, even though they were already thirty years old.

It was tense. And insulting. Why wasn’t the wedding happening immediately? These kingdoms were wondering whether we were looking down on them. The task of managing the politics with these three neighboring kingdoms fell on Kavio, and he struggled. Even though he said what I meant to say.

I decided to then summon the three envoys to meet me. All three meetings happened in a similar manner. They were brought to a location in the Valley of the Unrotten, before the Tree of Prayer.

“Hi, Envoy.”

They all cowered before me. Typical. Intentional.

“I heard that there’s been a fuss about weddings and the candidates.” I mentally spoke as authoritatively as I could. I could sense their legs shaking. “Let your kings know that I have yet to decide on who deserves the hand of their children.”

People were weird. I had Kavio tell them the same thing, but they refused to believe it. But when I told them, they believed it. It was really about who said what, rather than what was said in politics. So absolutely annoying.

I mean, I was trying to delegate, but it was annoying when all these other people wanted the ‘source’ or the ‘truth.’ Dammit.

* * *

News of the rifts being detected came in. Mostly in the Eastern Continent, apparently, but they’d yet to see any actual demons. The rifts were spotted opening and then…closing soon after.

The temple’s blockade and embargo were still in force, so it was really hard to get news, but we had our own informants. As long as [message] was still operational, we’d still have news. So far, they hadn’t seen any demons.…which was strange.

Or the news just wasn’t getting in?

Invisible demons? The Valtrian Order requested for more information.

* * *

As the year went on, we had the first batch of accelerated graduates from my school. They were quickly sent to the ‘front lines.’ There were a lot of social issues to be solved, and well, the graduates would have to pick things up as they go. Strangely it reminded me of my time when I first started work.

It was a difficult job, but they had the entire administrative machinery behind them. For many of the smaller villages, they mostly appreciated the help and quickly warmed up to the presence of these new priests. But cities with existing temples and nobles who were already believers of other religions were a harder nut to crack. For smaller villages, where temples and priests visited sporadically, there always was a vacuum that could be filled. It was only because the priests of the other temples rarely devoted themselves to smaller villages and generally set up in the larger towns.

So this was the strategy the decarches adopted. The bulk of the population in the Freshlands and its neighboring kingdoms were in the rural areas anyway. This strategy, however, depended mainly on having a large number of priests. Even so, there were population centers unserved by the four temples.

One of the clear weaknesses of this world was lack of objective data. Most nations had a vague number of their total population, but that was an estimate that was affected by the quality of data collection.

Since I had the power of ever-present surveillance, it was a lot easier to then build a database. I could very accurately do a live count of how many people lived in any particular city, how many refugees moved from place to place, their overall economic condition, and all such datapoints.

Powers any economist would probably kill for. Instead, we were using it to maximize aeonic missionaries and entrench the Freshlands’ social, cultural, and religious influence in neighboring states. But I supposed that would be later, after I had stronger control.

Earlier, I won the first crusade because the crusaders were a coalition army, but now I was essentially the head of a coalition, and I was trying to fuse the coalition together into some coherent, stable form.

After thinking for a long time, I decided to award the marriage, in principle, to the senior clergy, exceptional Valtrian Order, and Valthorns retiring from active service, and selected nobles, at a thirty-twenty-fifty ratio. In short, the existing nobles would be rewarded for their loyalty with the marriage-partners from these faraway kingdoms. As a coalition, I needed some carrots. At the same time, these marriages would be conditional and require both partners to be converts of my faith. I would, accordingly, grant some blessings and gifts as their patron.

The other half of the candidates would be granted for well-performing clergymen. The clergy were part of a social aspect, and they would require the official and unofficial status of the royals more than my Valthorns. Being married to royalty would allow them to tap into the unofficial networks that these royals had.

For Valthorns, I decided it wasn’t necessary to have them be part of this entire matchmaking process, but I acknowledged that some of the Valthorns would eventually retire from service and intend to settle down. This would be a potential reward for their long service, at their choice. It was unlikely that I would use the quota I’d set aside for the Valthorns, so I would use them for my priests instead. I summoned the senior representatives of the Freshlands, the decarches, and the Valtrian Order to announce my decision to the envoys. This meant eight of the princesses and princes would be wed to the priests and another seven princes and princesses to the nobles.

Trevor and my fellow artificial minds had already compiled a list of nobles and priests that they saw performed acts that expanded the Freshlands, and after a quick review of their achievements, I went ahead with it. The nobles, if they themselves were unmarried, could take the award or assign it to their children.

A day after the award, the decarches came to highlight some concerns.

“How would the princesses live with our priests? The gap in lifestyle would be too much and too large.” They saw the marriage between the royals and the priests as essentially setting them up for failure since they wouldn’t get along and the gap would mean these princesses would generally view their marriage as nothing more than a punishment. For these aeonic priests, would these marriages be a distraction from their real task of expanding the faith?

Some nobles, too, had concerns and worries. One of the nobles I awarded the right to marry was rather poor, simply because his land was still developing and it would take a while for him to amass any kind of wealth. Building wealth as a noble was a long process, unless one had exceptional skills and abilities. The right to marry a princess was stressful.

It did not feel good how quickly the complaints and concerns emerged. I had the impression they wanted this!

I summoned the decarches and priests again, and most of the decarches, being the first generation of high priests, proposed that the weddings could be sweeteners for our allied kingdoms. There were some kingdoms that had shifted allegiances to the Freshlands before I captured the six ports.

A reward for changing allegiances early.

I thought about it long and hard and spoke to the priests whom I awarded the rights to. They were all overwhelmed by the idea of marrying a princess. These were hardworking, driven people who spent most of their time in villages giving out aid and converting more and more people to my faith. It was stressful.

Ah.

I had made a mistake. I should backtrack.

So I rescinded the awards and gave them to those kingdoms that changed sides. These marriages enhanced the links between the kingdoms. I just hoped they didn’t eventually transform into a net that trapped me instead.

* * *

The temples expanded the blockage to cover the entirety of the continent. They were essentially forcing the kingdoms on the central continent to choose. The temples were essentially saying, “Attack the Freshlands, or this blockade will last forever.”

Some of the kingdoms and nations from across the Central Continent were amassing their army, and yet they were fearful of attacking because the demons had appeared, and they had certainty over where the demon king would spawn.

It was really the fear of the unknown; the leaders of this generation had lived forty years under the implied protection of Harris and gang. For four successive demon kings, the kingdoms and nations could live without much worry because the heroes were already here. For some of the kings and rulers, they’d never lived through this period where there was no hero.

Fear and panic abounded, and the kinds of messages Kavio and the diplomatic corps received were also mixed.

“Hilarious, isn’t it?” Yvon said at a meeting of the Valtrian Order, comprising the senior Valthorns and various other individuals. Every month, there was a summary of all diplomatic communications circulated to the Valtrian Order, the Valthorns, the senior Aeonic Priests, and also the Council of Representatives.

“Why are these kings asking such things?”

“It’s fear,” Jura said. He remembered the days of New Freeka. “It’s a strange feeling to feel powerless before a demon king. It’s like hiding in a house when a storm hits, and this time, the storm hits when one’s outside.”

For the other group of rulers, they had utmost confidence in their own abilities and believed that they didn’t need heroes. Of course, their own priests and wizards had attempted to counsel them otherwise, but these rulers were probably the spoiled brats who now had power. Or maybe they were just idiots. These groups were taunting me, and they’d sent nastily worded missives. They’d also talked about raising an army but didn’t actually deploy their army anywhere out of their borders. Probably posturing.

* * *

This was the mad rush before the ‘demon winter,’ the time for the grasshopper to build a stockpile before the snow fell. The time for preparation.

By now the living societies must have adapted to the presence of these almost regular ten-year cycles. They only deviated by a small amount, and yet society was no better prepared for it.

I wondered whether they felt like it was an economic recession that always inevitably arrived. Patreeck’s insight into the minds of the regular folk suggested that they didn’t even think about it. Most of the citizens planned at most a month ahead. Nobles and merchants would plan a year ahead. But the idea of ten-year plans would seem really silly for these mortals who felt that so much could change in a few years, that ten-year plans were moot from the day they were made.

53

YEAR 134

Mini-dragons. More accurately, demon-drakes. The demons had opted for a strategy I speculated a few decades ago that I thought would be effective against heroes. No fodder units, just high-tier demons.

They made it into drakes. Fire-breathing and lightning-breathing drakes. At first, news was hard to come by. The Central Continent was on lockdown after all. But the drakes spawned and spread quickly, and somehow, they multiplied rather quickly, too. Just ten drakes could lay waste to an entire town, and the defenses would be hard pressed to even counter them. The drakes would fly up in the air and just use their breath attacks until the defenders were dead.

It reminded me of Alexis. Alexis easily torched the forest, too, when she was possessed by the demon’s will. Decades later, I was still likely to be rather defenseless against a similar tactic. I mean, I had spiders who could fire ensnaring webbings, but I was highly skeptical of their effectiveness against mini champion-class drakes.

As a result, I’d been using my class-fusion ability to train specialist anti-air [Sharpshooters] and [Bowmasters]. These were regular rangers and archers, upgraded a little more. But still, I thought they would be insufficient if there were champion-class demon-drakes. I suspected they would be more like…dragons?

The blockade had faltered in parts, because there was chaos in the Eastern Continent. We received news of the citizens fleeing underground, as these flying demons were mostly unchallenged. What good were walls when these demons just flew over them?

In fact, what good were my walls? My walls wouldn’t do shit, either.

“Jura, we need to restart our underground bunker project.”

In the days of New Freeka, we built a massive sewer that was also an underground bunker. But it proved ineffective when the ground itself liquified into demonic goop. “Will it work this time?”

“Against flying demons…what else?”

This was essentially air superiority. The demons had it, and unless I could field dragons or garudas and whatnot, the best defense was some kind of anti-air defensive array or magical cannons to counter them.

We started work on massive anti-demon ballistas and a special beetle-spider collaboration, a beetle-cannon that would fire spiders at the demons. These spiders would hold onto large vines and ‘ensnare’ these flying demons. It would pull them to the ground where the rest of my forces and my root strikes could easily disable them.

Ballistas, nets, and shields. Harpoons and arrows, too.

This was the time for my upgraded classes to contribute. The upgraded master woodworkers and weapon-makers assisted to make stronger anti-demon weapons. Their skill allowed them to make these ballista bolts lighter, go a bit further, and deal more damage. They could even weave a few extra enchantments than usual.

More weapons, with a focus on anti-air. There was also a side effort on improving my mages, but the thing was mages were hard to scale and reproduce in large numbers. Mages were ultimately dependent on their personal talent, and I couldn’t give them much anti-demonic effects, unlike these ballistas and arrows, where I could easily improve their damage output against these demons by using special wooden materials made from my body.

The demons remained mostly on the Eastern Continent. News was sporadic, and it seemed like these demons didn’t attack everywhere. But they hit really, really hard, with large groups of flying demon-drakes.

So the War of the Eviltree entered a quiet phase. Other than the blockade, no one actually did any large-scale fighting. It was time to hunker down and prepare for the eventual demonic conflict. Every general worth their salt would make plans. How to deal with these demon-drakes. Archers. Ballistas. Huge army of mages.

Every king would be watching the skies for when these demons would cross the oceans and assail their lands. In an odd twist of events, the blockade essentially became a ring of ‘watchers’ that helped the Central Continent act as a chain of lookout points for these flying demons.

“What’s the last record of flying demons?”

“Uh…according to surviving records, five hundred or so years ago?” one of Kavio’s assistants answered. “It was reported then that they were horned demons with massive wings that threw fireballs.”

Ah. “Do we have records of the heroes?”

“Not much, other than their names and the kingdoms they’ve founded.”

Hmmm. It was annoying that the history of the world was in such a great mess. No one actually knew what happened. Even Lilies had only a slice of the world, and only from their perspective. The idea of an objective history rarely existed because of how frequently the demons ‘reset’ every attempt to collect information in a single place.

So, I decided, maybe I should throw my hat into this game as well. “Have there been great libraries in the past?”

It seemed like a thing for Trees to be collectors of the world’s knowledge. It was almost tropey that heroes would inevitably consult an ancient tree for some historical context. So, well, I should play my part in the trope.

“But you can’t read…”

“Correct.” And that was a problem. I had people read to me in the past, like when I was studying the runes. I already had a program to collect books, but that was in the days of New Freeka. Many of the collected books were destroyed when the corruption and flames torched the valley, but some were still safe, stored inside my [secret hideout].

If I could create a library and make it into a skill like what I did with Meela’s hotel, I could fuse an artificial mind into the new library-skill and create a living tree-librarian.

And I attempted this on a few [subsidiary trees]. I made shelves after shelves and stocked them up with books.

In this world, books were expensive. They were handwritten or magically written, so the cost of producing books had not gone down at all. They were also made of paper. But at the same time, this was not true everywhere. There were cities where books were common, because some of the mages had set up book-making enterprises, but in a world where global trade was still in its infancy, this sort of practice had not spread.

But I didn’t get it. Even after two months, there was no special library tree that I could make.

* * *

I could use my special demon-slayer class now. I mean, I could assign it to one of my master archers or Jura.

“I’m not a good matchup against flying demons.” Jura shrugged. “I’d think Lausanne would be a better fit, but she’s not here. Or Lovis, [spearmaster]. Or the new [sharpshooters] or [marksmen]?”

He wasn’t keen on fighting more demons. “Oh, and Lausanne sent a note. She encountered some of these demons, and there’s a ‘birther’ demon that spawns more demons. These birthers are wingless.”

Oh, that was a good thing. That meant that these demons couldn’t fly across the ocean and then start a new nest. Unless a rift appeared here and these wingless demons appeared through it. But that was an assumption that these wingless demons stayed wingless or there was no transformation process for large demon-drakes to become these wingless demons.

In short, well, we still didn’t know whether we’re really safe.

* * *

Consolidation. Jasmine and my team of artificial minds focused on ensuring that the new territories were integrated into the land.

It was a case of fighting fire, really. We could sense areas where there was growing discontent, and we would deploy Aeonic Priests and the Valthorns to help calm the place down and reduce the possibility of an unrest.

It was a very civ-like problem, dealing with growing unrest across the territories, and therefore demanded a social response. It was relatively effective as my artificial mind’s observational abilities gave me insight into the problem. I would then inform the priests of the problem, and they would then solve it.

In a sense, I helped to cut out the ‘discovery’ aspect of their social work. In any social unhappiness, it was very tempting to solve the symptoms instead of the root cause. In fact, this was normally the cause back home, because the governments had no ability to read minds, and also, they were unable to communicate with themselves. Various departments were each like blind men touching an elephant, unable to form a complete coherent picture as they did not communicate.

The artificial minds were overpowered in this sense. Their ability to operate as a unified AI essentially meant they could seamlessly gather multiple data points on a single person and stitch them together, bypassing all the departmental silos common in government institutions and corporate structures.

Using my artificial minds’ observational skills, it was also a lot easier to find out who wasn’t playing their part in society. Like a noble who’s hoarding too much gold. Or somebody collecting more taxes than what the law mandated.

Still, unhappiness was something that not only needed to be managed, the people must also be directed into productive activities that felt satisfying. That usually involved getting to do work and finding enjoyment in that work. A difficult task, but priests of this world were well equipped with skills that helped them to do just that.

My artificial minds also spied extensively on the nobles and the ruling class, and I would then use that information to also help the priests in navigating the nobility.

It was a tense relationship between the nobles and these priests. To them, they viewed our priests as ‘invaders,’ and my priests, though they had training, still needed help. They had to be sensitive and be seen as working with the nobles, not against them. The intention was to convert these nobles to my faith and have them work with us. That, to some extent, involved mild re-education of the nobles.

So it was one of the Decarches who gave an extremely brilliant idea.

“Aeon, as it is, we have a school for priests.”

“Yes.”

“I believe it is also appropriate to have a school for the nobles’ children and the royal children.”

I paused and considered the idea. Indeed, if I did want to culturally indoctrinate the entire continent, I should go beyond that. I needed schools in every single country on this continent such that they all got history and views from the Freshlands’ perspective. I would need it to work hand in hand with the aeonic priests, too, such that they also got exposed to my faith.

But a first step would be to gather all the noble children and give them an education with a Freshlands bias. That way, these nobles would take these ideas and principles that we inculcated and they would later act as our ambassadors. One day when they took over their respective regions, they would naturally seek to be closer to the Freshlands.

It was a first step for a continent-wide compulsory education system. Right now, most children did some kind of labor or apprenticeship. The wealthier ones employed tutors to train them in particular fields.

I could capitalize on the present Valthorns’ reputation as a group of strong warriors to entice the nobles. I would make warriors out of their children. I would make leaders out of them, too. I could even dangle special classes or upgraded classes as rewards for the best performing noble children, thereby granting these nobles a chance to get ahead in life.

A noble-children academy. If I did this, I would be the founder of an isekai academy center. What if the heroes ended up isekai-ing into my noble academy? Or some otherworlder reincarnated as a lowly noble?

No matter. If I wanted cultural strength, a noble academy would work very well in the current framework. I could set up the noble academy, the priest academy, and the Valthorn military academy as competing institutions and essentially acting as each other’s checks and balances. It would work, and I’d get to avoid the whole marriage debacle, too. It was a great idea, and if I set it up within Patreeck’s mind-reading range, I’d be able to get greater insight into the thoughts and personalities of these young nobles.

Even if I hated the whole idea of a noble class, this would allow me to collect data on the nobles’ powers across a vast sample of young nobles. I could then compare this data against the Valthorns and have a good understanding of how nobles compared against regular children. I would then use this to shape my education for the common folk and eventually set up a school for commoners. I would then lift that class up and build another group of elite from that group.

“I agree, Patreearch,” I said a few days later. “The idea of a school for nobles and royals is one with great potential.” Indeed, it was even natural that the idea came from the clergy. The idea of the modern university or college had roots in various missionary schools and cathedral schools.

I summoned Jura, Kavio, and the entire Council of Representatives. The representatives were pretty much entirely nobles from the various segments of the Freshlands, so the pioneer batch of students would most likely be their offspring. I explained the idea to them.

It wasn’t entirely a foreign concept. Some royal families had such similar academies, but they were all small. The various other temples operated a distributed education system where the education was conducted by the clergy.

There was a mixed reaction at first.

Then I dangled the reward for the children. “I would grant the top ten students a select choice of upgraded classes, skills, and equipment.” Then each of these nobles saw the potential. It would be a four-year program from the nobles, and quickly some of the nobles volunteered the children. It would be between ages sixteen to twenty-five for humans; for elves, during their teen years, any time between eighteen to forty; and for the treefolk and so on, during their formative pre-adulthood years.

“Jura and Yvon. Both of you will continue to lead the Valtrian and Valthorn Academies.” Their priorities should remain with the Valthorns. They were my de facto military arm, and I saw the Valthorns essentially as the military academy.

I would have to hire new people to lead this entire practice, so I set out to gather generals, retired administrators, merchants, and people who were old and had a reasonably high level.

I also started checking around the surroundings of Freshka for a location. It would be a massive mini-city of its own, in the same breadth as the School of Treeology.

In my mind, I would call it the Ivy League College, but that sounded too much like copyright infringement, so I decided I was going to call it the Universitree. But then, the ‘Universitree’ would be a better fit for the university of the commoners. I even had a slogan already: Unitree is strength!

Eventually I settled on a name for the school for these nobility: the Freshlands’ Treetiary College of Governance, or the FTC. I wanted to avoid any specific mention of nobles in the name, such that I could eventually convert it into a regular college that could also accept non-nobles, so I had to plan this out.

Also, there was no immediately suitable place for this college, so I decided to call our [master builders] and [grand druids] to terraform and shape a land into a place suitable to build the FTC. It would take a full six months for a place to be built, even with the resources, but at the same time, I also quickly auctioned up smaller, subdivided plots of land in the FTC zone to all our allied kingdoms so that they could build a mini-palace for their offspring in the future.

From what I understood of the nobles, they had a strong need to ‘maintain’ face, so allowing the nobles and royalties to invest in a plot of land to show off to other young children would be popular.

For the first batch, I had to start off with a bang. So I looked at my skill and class seeds and experimented on the [Lord] classes from the dead nobles, and eventually, I made two classes from a mashup of Rangers and Traders with the Lord classes.

[Ranger Lord] and [Trade Lord]. In addition to [Marksmen], [General], and various other classes.

We announced it to our allies that the best two students would be given these class seeds, which they may consume for themselves or gift to anyone they pleased. Then real interest started to come in. Kings from across our allied nations all volunteered to send a small group of their children to vie for the spot.

Of course, now that we had students, we then had to build a syllabus. We already had one from the Valthorns, but the Valthorns were essentially a martial school. They were exceptionally combat focused.

This program would have to be a little bit balanced, across combat, magic, trade and governance, culture and history, and equally important, an education in the aeonic faith.

The goal was cultural dominance on the continent, securing the Freshlands’ place in the world and establishing myself as a legitimate faith and religion, with my own followers to push back against these four enemy faiths. So the combat focus would have to be watered down and the other aspects expanded.

I had to gather a few Decarches and some of the Freshlands’ best traders and makers to give their input, together with those level thirty to forty tutors. I would also have to ‘train’ the tutors such that they became respectable in their own right, else this school wasn’t going to work. Level thirty to forty was…average.

* * *

Freshka would transform into the home of three large competing schools. The Valthorn Academy was located in Freshka itself, along with the associated military fields and locations. The School of Treeology was in another outskirt area of Freshka, as a school for my clergy. Then lastly the Treetiary College was the school for future nobility. Secretly, I also earmarked a large spot for the future fourth school, the Universitree of the Masses. As it was, I could only gather sufficient talent for one school, and I didn’t need to increase the tension from managing noble-commoner dynamics.

It was a plan that would take centuries to play out, but if I did this right, this generation of young leaders would eventually propagate my faith. This was an investment that would only pay off at least twenty to thirty years into the future.

* * *

“I’m impressed, but at the same time, it’s hypocritical,” Yvon said one evening. “Aeon once said he hated the royalty, and here he is, amplifying their power.”

Jura nodded. “I agree. It’s pragmatic, though. But I’m sure he is aware of the hypocrisy. Lately, Aeon is rather…calculative.”

“It’s those trees. I mean, you’ve seen them, right? The weird flashing ones.”

“Nope.” Jura shrugged as he watched a bunch of archers practice another volley. The Valthorn’s focus had been anti-air [Archers] and [Rangers] working with our [master woodworker] to make anti-demonic wooden arrows further enchanted with magic. In a mildly interesting development, the senior [Aeonic Priests] and [Patreearches] gained a skill that allowed them to bless weapons and people with [aeonic-style anti-demonic effects] on top of their regular [holy]-element enchantments. So the Treeology School was also assisting to produce ‘enchanted’ weapons.

I wondered how the [holy]-element could coexist when I was the patron deity and I had only one [holy-enchantment] magic that I inherited from long, long ago.

I’d also observed that the priests’ powers were mostly independent from mine, even if ‘derived’ from me in the sense that the priests could use as much power as they had, and I would not be affected. It wasn’t as if their use of [aeonic-abilities] were a drain on me. Quite unlike Lausanne’s Warden, which had a defined monthly star mana maintenance cost.

How did that work?

Was it like the system created a specific pool of energy from which all these aeonic priests then called on for power? Or were all powers derived from the system, and I was just the ‘lawmaker’ but not the ‘source’ of the power?

This was certainly a rather weird system.

54

INTERLUDE II

End of Year 133/Beginning of Year 134 ~ City of Perhimpunan, of the Sultanate of Timurtengah, Eastern Continent

Lausanne stared at the Aivan templar. It’d been six years since they’d released her from their home imprisonment, but somehow, the sight of templars still triggered her a little bit. Even if her stay was pleasant, a prison was still a prison.

“Greetings, Lady Lausanne.” The templar of Aiva handed her a magical letter. “A message from Grandmaster Engka.”

She frowned, but this wasn’t the first time she’d received a letter from Engka. Engka had convinced her, as part of her release terms many years ago, to assist with demon-related matters. No matter, the letter magically unlocked itself the moment she touched it.

“Investigate the village of Dimusnah. Demon sightings suspected. Local Temple did not respond back. More info at City Temple.” She frowned. At first, this didn’t seem like something that needed her assistance. But then she pondered it, and a gut feeling told her it wasn’t so simple.

Her husband and the rest of the Playing Swords were there, too. A few members changed. Two died. Her husband frowned. “Engka has some task for you again?”

“Yeah. But investigate this village of Dimusnah. Any idea where that is?” Lausanne repeated the contents in private to the rest of her adventurer team.

One of the team members unfurled a map, and they soon found it. It was a few days from the city, a small village that bordered the central canyons.

Lausanne nodded. “All right, thanks. I’ll be going.” She walked with her husband to somewhere quiet and gave him a hug. “I have to go do this.”

Ardi just smiled. “Take care, all right? It’s very close to the start of demon-season. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” He said that every time Lausanne went out on her own, but he knew she wasn’t reckless. Clueless occasionally, but not reckless. “We’ll be taking on missions around here.”

It wasn’t right for her to ask her team to go with her for her personal bargain with the Temple.

* * *

As Lausanne walked up the steps into the Aivan temple, two templars stopped her. “State your business.”

Lausanne nodded and flashed a special Aivan Ring. They nodded and let her in. It was her first time in this city’s temple, but they all had a similar layout. The High Templar was at the top.

The High Templar was already waiting. The High Templar was the lead military officer of the temple in this city. Every large Aivan Temple had one. “Greetings, Lausanne.” There were two other templars in the room. “We believe demons from the rift have been spotted near Dimusnah, and Engka believes you’re the best person to investigate. We would have sent templars, but we’re shorthanded at the moment.”

Lausanne shrugged. All the High Templars always sounded like they were a bit irritated at her. They, of course, didn’t know her Aeonic origins, or else they’d all attempt to kill her. Instead, Engka had constructed an elaborate plan to ‘drown’ out news about her origins so they only knew that she was an elf from the Highland Cities of the North. It was easy to fake her origins when she left the Central Continent so many years ago.

“We’ll arrange a carriage to get you to a nearby town. And here’s a document for you,” the High Templar said, and that was the end of the conversation. The document was magically sealed, but it was more elaborate. There was a small guest meeting room where she sat and opened it. It seemed that Dimusnah was already destroyed, but they didn’t know by what, so essentially, they needed someone who had a scout or ranger’s abilities to track the demons. There were no known markings or footprints.

Lausanne made the journey that night, and in two days she reached the nearest town. From there, she would have to walk. The mood in the town was strange, and she noticed how sparsely populated it was.

She was the only one in the inn that day. Had they disappeared?

“No. Most of them have fled the town,” the innkeeper said. “The sudden destruction of Dimusnah was scary.”

Huh. It wasn’t a secret.

“And no one dared venture near.”

Lausanne just glanced at the map again. This was a sparsely populated part of the continent, anyway. If demons wanted to hide away and bide their time, this was the perfect place. But that implied they could think, and Lausanne was relatively sure not all demons could think. Could this generation think? At least to a limited degree? The very few hints she got seemed to imply it.

She continued her journey the next day. The area was dry, almost-desert like. There was some vegetation, but most of it was small. There were cactuses, too. Still, a village existed here simply because of the mines and the minerals that washed up on the shores of the canyon’s rivers. It would take her a day and some to finally arrive at her speed.

It was early morning when she arrived at the destroyed village. There was visible charring on the floor, as if some intense flame burned through the entire area. She touched the charred dirt, sniffed it a little. Demons. Unmistakably so.

But there were no footsteps of creatures or demons. Well, there were fleeing villages, but the ground burned wherever they fled. She looked at the shape and angle of the charring. Whatever it was, it attacked from a higher altitude. It was possibly the height of a walker.

“Could be some kind of ranged attacker, or a flying one,” Lausanne said to herself as she examined the ruins. She looked at the direction of the flame…and went the other way. If it was a tall demon like a walker, there should be some footsteps or imprints on the ground.

Nothing. There were more flames and charring, but no footsteps.

“Most likely a flyer.” She paused. She briefly remembered one of her many dream-spars, where she fought flying creatures. This seemed to match it. Had the rift opened? It was about time. A generation of flying demons would be frightening.

She mentally informed Warden to prepare some extra throwing spears and adjusted the three wooden spears on her back. If they really were flyers, she’d need them soon enough.

The trail of flames eventually ended at the edges of a canyon.

“Where did they go?” Lausanne looked at the river and at the edges of the canyons as far as she could see. It was dry. There were no monsters, either. “Upriver, then. That’s the typical answer.”

She began walking along the canyon. If they were hiding, they must have found a cave or something. She looked at a map, and there were parts where the river’s hidden underground. Or perhaps on the other side of the tributaries. Vines extended from both her hands, and she used them like long feelers.

At her level, she could stretch it from one side to the other side, and she’d be able to use her vines and swing along the river using the canyon walls as her anchors. That would be a faster way to travel along the canyons.

She steeled herself and began moving. There was nothing. The canyons were vast, and as she moved upriver, she noticed little shiny things in the river. Gems. The reason why the village of Dimusnah even existed.

“Now’s not the time for that,” she said to herself. Maybe on the trip back, once she located the demons. It took about an hour, then she thought she heard something. A soft growl. Almost imperceptible. She reeled in her vine, and it pulled her to the canyon walls. A few vines popped out of her body and allowed her to latch onto the wall like a spider.

Then she saw it, a hole in the wall right at the river water’s edge. This was almost three hours away from the village

There were easily five of them; three of them were massive, winged, and different colors. Black. Dark brown. Reddish-black. Horned. But they also had glowing red eyes.

Dragons?

Lausanne paused and stared a little longer.

No. Demons that resembled dragons. But why were they hiding?

It was then she saw smaller dragons. The smaller dragon stepped out of the hole and dove into the river. A while later, it emerged.

What was it doing? Using her vine-legs, she crawled closer, then she saw it half hidden inside the hole. A larger, wingless dragon. The smaller dragon walked next to it, and it spat out some gems. This larger demon-dragon ate it, and it glowed.

Then it laid an egg.

Lausanne felt chills. This was a breeding demon, like Sabnoc! Sabnoc latched on magical locations to grow massive armies. She looked at them and sensed their magical power. They were not weak. Not as strong as a walker or a champion, but certainly more of the demon-elite or demon-general tier.

It made sense why the village was destroyed so easily. There were only a few of these demons, but they needed someone at least level fifty or sixty to fight them. The demons did not spot her. She used a bit of her druidic powers to move the rock around her, like a natural camouflage.

She waited and watched them a little more. They were eating the gems in the river, and they would also feed the gems to the wingless demon in the cave. What made them suddenly attack the village? Were they spotted? Were they instructed by the demon king to hide and multiply until the time was right?

She waited till night. The demons still didn’t spot her, and she noticed they were constantly eating.

Then two of the large demon-dragons flew away. Only the wingless, larger demon-dragon and two smaller ones were left.

If she wanted a chance, this was it. She waited for the two large demon-dragons to fly further away. She took a deep breath and reached for two wooden anti-demon spears.

She leaped out of her hideout and quickly activated her [Anti-demon suppression aura].

The demons turned, and her wooden spear glowed in a bright-green light, [Spear of Destruction]. She landed right on one of the smaller demons. It was unprepared, and the spear went through the head. It collapsed there and then. The wingless demon roared, and it breathed a jet of fire. The other larger one quickly took flight and opened its mouth.

She threw her other spear at it, accelerated by her power. [Flying Spear]. The demon’s firebreath clashed with the flying anti-demon spear. But she had no time; she quickly leaped away to avoid the wingless demon’s fireblast.

She cursed. She should have attacked the wingless demon first. She thought she could take that one later. The wingless demon’s firebreath continued to streak across the canyon walls as it attempted to chase her down. She called on Warden to produce more throwing spears, and she flung it at the wingless demon. It wasn’t moving; only its head was.

But the other, larger flying demon was already flying into another position. She turned and quickly used her vines to change directions. There was another jet of fire.

She landed on another side of the canyon walls. The demon was still flying, and it breathed fire into the canyon. It intended to coat the entire canyon with fire. “Ugh,” she grunted, and the flames started to coat her surroundings. The wingless dragon was still there. She couldn’t get it. She made a mistake!

The demon-dragon kept breathing fire. If she wanted to fight it, she needed to get it down, lower to the ground. Or…she had to fly up there.

That area of the canyon would be entirely blanketed with fire soon; she needed to do it now. She used her vines and attached itself to the canyon walls and, with some magic, transformed herself into an arrow and shot herself into the sky at the demon. Then she flung another spear with a vine attached to it into its body.

This time, the demon aimed its jet of flame at Lausanne instead of the spear, so the spear managed to pierce the flying demon.

[Steelwood Barrier]. The jet of flame burned the wooden barrier, but she was fine. She landed on the ground and then activated [Constrict]. The vine exploded into a massive tangle of vines around the demon, and she planted her feet on the ground.

[Entrench]. The vines linked up with the roots Lausanne created in the ground, and with the roots supporting her, she pulled the constricted demon out of the sky. It crashed into the ground with a loud bang, but it wasn’t over. It breathed fire again.

[Steelwood Barrier].

A barrier blocked the flames, opening a space for Lausanne to quickly move ahead. She had to do it now when it was on the ground. [Super-antidemon rootstrike]. Three massive roots emerged from the ground and skewered the large demon-dragon. It then disintegrated and left behind…gems and some other things.

A roar, followed by another. The two large demon-dragons were coming back. She had to get the wingless dragon first! She suspected the wingless dragon to be something like a ‘birther,’ so she needed to get rid of it, else the demons would continue to multiply. She used her vines and her abilities to speed up. She needed to get back to where the wingless dragon was.

But it was gone. Only the smaller one was there, and it roared.

“Ugh.” Lausanne decided a demon was still a demon, even if it was small. She flung a spear with a vine attached at the smaller demon. It died instantly from the attack, even though it did try to fight it off.

She heard the roars again. If the two large demons were back, it’d be another hard fight. The mature demon-dragons were just below a demon walker in offensive ability, but thankfully their defenses were rather weak. But where was the wingless one? If it was wingless, there should be footsteps.

She looked around and activated a common druidic ability, which was to ‘borrow’ animal-like abilities. She used [Scent of the Prey] and followed it. It went even further upstream, but it didn’t manage to go very far. It was large, but not very fast. Lausanne used her vines to slingshot herself at the wingless demon. It was a grounded demon, so she should be able to use [super anti-demon root strike] once she got in range.

The demon’s head turned, and it spat a huge amount of fire. It charred the wooden barrier around her, but not good enough. She was almost there. It had a massive tail and moved to strike. It smashed into the charred barrier, but the barrier was still intact. There was another tail that came at her from the right. Did it always have two tails? The tails smashed right into the wooden shield and knocked her into the canyon wall.

“Ugh.” She didn’t see that coming and mentally thanked Warden for a protective shield that helped absorb the impact. Still, the shockwave hurt. At least it wasn’t a walker-class enemy, and at this distance, she could counterattack.

Five anti-demon roots emerged from the floor and pierced the wingless demon-dragon, and it roared. Almost like it was in pain, but it turned and breathed fire. She sensed its energy dissipating, and yet it kept breathing fire into the narrow canyon. Lausanne leaped and then used two vines to latch on to the top of the canyon walls and launched herself up. The wingless demon wasn’t moving. The five roots were still firmly planted in its body. She retrieved another wooden spear from Warden and flung it at the wingless demon.

This time, it smashed into its body, and the body cracked. Then the cracks lit up, and the wingless demon exploded. It left gems and other things splattered all over the canyon floor.

Yet it wasn’t over. Not yet. There were two more larger demons that should be on the way. She heard their roar. They were…fleeing?

She didn’t expect that. Or did something else call them?

“Ugh.” Lausanne found a place to stop and do a short self-check. Parts of her skin were bleeding, and some parts were burned. She’d need a day or two to heal them. One of her prized wooden spears was broken, too. Still, now she had time to think.

Strategically, they would need a whole lot of archers and mages. Way, way more. Anti-demon arrows would need to be the default equipment.

She was in no condition to chase after the two large demon-drakes. The battle used up quite a bit of her energy, so she decided to head back instead.

A templar was already waiting for her at the nearest village. “Lady Lausanne, you’ve located the enemy?”

“Yes. Identified as winged demons that can breathe fire and perhaps other elemental attacks.” She gave a long list of observations of what she’d seen, things like size, attack patterns, types of attacks, and so on. The templar nodded and quickly started to compile it into a document that would go straight to the grandmaster.

Once completed the templar left, and Lausanne rested in the village. She wondered whether the two large demon-drakes would return, but she was too tired to care.

[Summon Spirit Bird]. Lausanne looked at the small, ethereal bird. “Keep watch, little one.” The bird nodded and flew off.

55

YEAR 135

The demon king was late. It didn’t come this year, so we heard more of the Eastern Continent’s struggle with the demon-drakes. More fighting, but so far, the Eastern Continent had managed to hold the demons back and keep them on their continent. It was rather admirable, really.

There were stories of great sacrifice to hold back the flying demons. Of champions and adventurers. Of archmages and all, banding together to slay dragons. It was the kind of tales passed down the family or made into song. Or great bravery from everywhere.

Where were all of these warriors before the demon king? Did they have a mind block that they only displayed initiative, courage before lesser demons? Of course, many kingdoms naturally offered to send some nominal aid to the Eastern Continent, but due to the blockade, all aid from the Central Continent was blocked.

There were strange rumors coming out of the other continents that the Central Continent as a whole was now referred to as a ‘Cursed Continent.’ It was essentially a PsyOps attack meant to target all these merchants and regular people to reduce demand for travel between their continent and the Central Continent.

Had the four temples decided that it was better to just cut out the entire Central Continent from their collective conscience?

“What’s the meaning of this?” Jura and Kavio asked the secret envoy of Aiva. “Is this your fake war?”

“It’s…the best possible outcome to avoid bloodshed.”

Even if we revealed this ruse, I reckoned no one would believe us. Aiva’s conduct had been consistently war-like. “Every single continent outside of the Central Continent has been amending their maps to mark the entire Central Continent as cursed and that a travel ban was instituted.” Kavio was exceptionally mad. “You’re essentially telling all the other kingdoms on this continent that all of them are a lost cause.”

The envoy nodded. “It…is a necessary sacrifice. A curtain falls on the Central Continent. A cold war is better than an actual war.”

Well, since the four temples had essentially gifted these other nations to me, it would be horrible of me to refuse their hospitality. It was free real estate, after all.

As a result, I quickly commanded Kavio to send envoys to all these nations, to discuss cooperation and trade. They must have felt betrayed that they had been essentially locked out of the global trade routes.

“They could have secret arrangements. Some of these kingdoms must have been warned beforehand,” Kavio suggested. “They may rebuff us. I foresee some of them will attempt to negotiate exemptions for themselves, if not publicly, then secretly.”

“Then investigate. Either way, since they are doing this rebranding, we can certainly retaliate in the same manner.” I wondered whether I should, though. What were the implications? “Get some people together and consider the implications of it.” They would need some time to do the necessary investigative research, and I created a few more additional artificial minds to assist Jasmine with the monitoring of the new territories.

A cultural shift. Traditionally each continent wasn’t significantly different from the others—the Central Continent itself usually had a mix of all four temples and the other lesser temples—and the nobility generally communicated with each other via [message], [teleport], and other long-range travel or communication skills. It was the rudimentary framework of a globally connected elite.

But now that entirety, amplified by Sabnoc, and this blockade essentially meant the culture of the Central Continent’s elites would no longer be in sync with the rest of the world, and that would cascade down, since the citizens had a tendency to parrot the cultural practices of the nobility.

Already, the nobility were second-guessing themselves. Throughout the Central Continent, the blockade caused economic problems for the merchant class, and that greatly impacted the wealth of the nobility, even if it didn’t really affect the regular citizens.

The new trade routes had brought prosperity to my three new trading partners. The towns along the trade route grew quite well. The truckbeetles were actually quite popular, mainly to haul heavy, bulky goods that were relatively ‘cheap.’ For some inland countries, they had a relatively monotonous choice in terms of their food, so the Freshlands’ traders capitalized on the reliability and relative consistency of the Truckbeetles and introduced new varieties of food, fruits, and herbs.

The merchants were also doing some demand-side work. They collaborated with [cooks] and [chefs] to introduce new dishes and foods made with a fusion of native food and Freshlands foods. It was fascinating what these merchants did to make people buy their products. There were purists, of course, that resisted these foreign foods, but among the nobility eager to sample new things, and among the poor who could not choose, new types of food were very welcome.

Next were weapons. My woodworkers were still working on more anti-air weapons, making enchanted arrows and so on. Most of these were for the Valthorns’ and the Freshlands’ army, but a small batch of anti-demon anti-air weapons and ammo was distributed for sale. After all, now that the rest of the world had effectively cut off the rest of the kingdoms, there was a vacuum that I naturally had to fill.

I wanted to be seen as sharing my benefits with the allied kingdoms, that I was arming them for their own protection. This was essentially weapons diplomacy.

The temples would usually place some lesser hero items in allied kingdoms or those that had earned their ‘favor’ as a reward. It was this ‘reward’ in exchange for hero items that helped build the temples’ influence. That said, the excommunicated hero Astra did mess with that power balance by selling hero items in large quantities in exchange for territory and resources.

Some countries benefited from the Four Temples’ blockade. Those that had a developed craftsmen class suddenly benefited from having a captive market.

Still, trade tensions were rising, and despite the specter of the demons looming over us, a few of the desperate kingdoms finally launched small attacks. Specialized hit squads were made of their strongest adventurers.

We saw them coming. The moment they entered Patreeck’s psychic range, their plans were all revealed. We even prepared a nice welcoming party for them. Patreeck had used his ability to reveal their plans, so we knew what we were getting into. The moment the adventurer group, a group of level sixties and seventies, about ten of them approached the valley, I had the Valthorns already ready to engage and the necessary traps.

In fact, Patreeck alone could have disabled them with a surge of overwhelming psychic attack. But that wouldn’t allow the Valthorns to level, so we let them fight it out, and right when they were supposed to reveal their explosive artifact, I had a few vines emerge and grab it. Then I sent it into my magic lab for further investigation.

After that, we had our usual interrogation session and then…death. I kept a few mementos of these adventurers and had a messenger deliver these remains back to the kingdom that sent them. That kingdom wanted these adventurers to be unidentified and unlinked to them, but clearly they didn’t know I could read minds. Maybe they should have mindwiped them, if they had such power.

I didn’t want to make it public; after all, it was better to respond with nuance. I suspected the king was desperate, and that was why he’d decided on such acts. A final act, a desperate one. And now it didn’t work, the king’s plan would crumble, and they knew it. This would force them to bend.

Now, I waited.

* * *

In the meantime, the construction of the three schools was complete, and the trainers were actively developing the syllabus. The first generation of students, the pioneer batch of noble-children, had arrived to begin their new study life in the Treetiary College.

I soon found the quality of the trainers extremely lacking. They were low-leveled, in the range of level thirties and forties in the field they were selected to teach. Still, they were chosen because they were willing to do this sort of work.

At this point, Yvon had a very good comment. She did have experience as a [training tree], and she was the principal of the Valthorns’ academy. “It ultimately depends on what you desire in them, Aeon. A good teacher must have the right teaching skills. He need not be a master of his craft. He merely needs to be a good guide along the student’s path. Technical competence and ability to teach are two different matters.”

“In your experience, what matters more?”

“Will these students be granted use of your learning [dreams]? Currently the effects of [training tree] and various other learning-support skills are what ultimately pushed the Valthorns to a high level. If it was just me and Jura, the Valthorns would never reach such a high level.”

Hmm…

I spoke to Faris and Edna, my two highest-leveled new-generation warriors, on what they felt were more important. Both didn’t seem particularly fond of nobles and nobility, so they were torn whether they should give their views or not.

Still. “Practical experience matters. All those battles in the Rottedlands caused me to level up a lot.” Under the influence of my [powerleveling] and other growth skills. “I think the teacher is important, but they only take you up to level thirty or so. After that, it’s all about our own real experience.”

“I agree with Edna. As a druid, I needed to use my powers and be placed in situations where I had to use my powers creatively. Those allowed me to gain levels. Combat, experimentation, and interesting situations seem to correlate with my levelling speed.”

But how did one ‘create’ practical experience for nobles who were doing trade and governance? A business management school like… Oh wait. It was essentially an MBA program, wasn’t it?

“Life experience is really the best. Those lifelike dreams are second best,” Faris repeated. “Nothing like spending time in the trenches to really grow.”

“I see.”

How did I simulate town management for these young nobles? The program therefore needed a mix of practical experience.

“Perhaps they can play some roles in managing the newly reclaimed territories. We’re in need of capable people to manage, and their noble skills would be a boost to the new lands. They bring with them the backing of their own home territories, too.” It came from Kavio. For Kavio, on top of diplomatic issues, he had been struggling to maintain the growing administrative requirements. New lands, new towns, all needed people to run them.

It was hard to convince any decent ruler or mayor to make a move to a new land. But not so for these noble children, who were young and untested. The very fact that it was only a temporary assignment, as part of a ‘holistic’ education program, could convince these young nobles to go willingly. So I could use the whole noble school to tap into their talents and deploy them under the guise of school or college learning trips. I imagined having a blank slate would train their imagination and give them a challenge so they could level up.

“All right.”

I had Trevor and Jasmine pull up the newly reclaimed lands that were still ‘unmanaged’ or ‘poorly’ managed and decided that nobles would be sent to these lands. The students would be judged and rewarded based on their performance and as a group.

I wanted it to be a group event, because I understood that working in groups was a terrible, terrible thing, and it was this struggle against each other that would cause them to level up. Competition, especially direct, visible competition, was important.

The first batch of Treetiary College students were, of course, rather shocked by the task.

“We’re going to manage a new spot of land?” Some of them were excited, but some of them seemed afraid.

“Each group of five students will be accompanied by a merchant advisor, a military advisor, and a people advisor. Each of you are allowed to have an entourage of two people and two bodyguards. The advisors are only there to give you comments and observations. The local citizens are ultimately the ones carrying out your orders, and you are expected to learn to lead and command the citizens. The challenge of the new lands would be a good place for young commanders to hone your skills. For safety, you will be accompanied by a squad of beetles.”

The students had not had such a task before.

“Each group will spend six months at their designated locations, and it will be a competition. The best group will receive a small reward, the worst group a punishment.”

There had to be a carrot and a stick to every plan. If they took it, great!

And off they went. Most of these lands were sparse where I’d just ‘reclaimed’ it from the Rottedlands. Therefore, each group was responsible for a group of settlers, about five hundred to eight hundred, to set up a small village, plan defenses, and everything from head to toe. It was a safe arrangement, in the sense that my beetles would ensure the security of these lands; their only challenge was the management of the village.

I would graduate them to harder challenges where they would have to multitask both growth, people, trade, and war as they matured of the four- to five-year program.

* * *

On the research front, Horns and the labs developed a few additional upgrades for the assassin spiders and beetles. These were more stealthy forms, more anti-humanoid damage perks, more poison.

At the same time, we were also working on more anti-air upgrades. We explored strange and silly ideas, like bungee-spiders who would be shot at the flying monsters, attached with poisons and extremely durable vines and threads. The idea was to either disable the wings or pull them to the ground with the threads.

Throughout the Freshlands, armorers, blacksmiths, bowyers, and fletchers were all busy.

In a way, the entire world was a wartime economy, and the demands of war dominated the order books of the land’s craftspeople. Arrows. Ballistas. Crossbow bolts. Nets and slings. Harpoons. We were preparing for the eventual arrival of these airborne demons.

We trained rangers, and we set up more lookout posts. On the shores, where my [Giant Attendant Trees] stood, we set up platforms where rangers and archers with farsight or similar skills could be on the lookout.

It was likely that the demons would come from the eastern shore, but at the same time, a rift could easily open in our continent. So we kept watch over the Rottedlands, too.

The Valthorns and the beetles increased their patrol frequency. So far, so good. All quiet on the Central Continent.

But that was no guarantee. Where was the demon king?

* * *

For now, the social unrest and unhappiness were kept under the lid. My aeonic priests had proven their worth, quickly earning a spot as a regular feature in many smaller towns, and with them, a huge amount of aid.

We’d gotten rid of many selfish lesser rulers, too, though we tolerated corruption or lesser crimes in these lands. After all, in the Freshlands’ constitution, lesser local corruption and crimes were under the jurisdiction of the kings and nobility, though it still reserved the right for me to intervene as I saw fit. If these rulers were fueling a rebellion with their conduct, then we would step in. It was usually just having the local ruler or lord relocated to another place in their land, things we could still do while being seen as respecting the local king’s power and sovereignty.

The priests would petition the king directly, with our observations and information, and that would usually be sufficient to sway them to see things our way. They, too, did not want a rebellion on their land.

My priests were also a key funnel for future talent, either as Valthorns or as future priests, so it was important to constantly monitor them. I had one of the artificial minds under Jasmine dedicated to the task of observing the priests’ conduct.

Even if the nobles abused their power, I wanted my priests to be seen as good. Certain things should be out of bounds for men of faith. It was important that I reminded the priests that I was watching, because priests were in a unique position of power and trust in the society.

For most part, I’d say forty-nine out of fifty priests were genuinely good people. But a religion’s reputation was often destroyed by that single priest. It was the same for the patreearchs. They were people in greater positions of power, so another artificial mind was dedicated to observing their conduct and actions.

I liked to believe I could trust them, but everyone would be watched.

From our observations, we would have a list of pointers which was then used to shape the School of Treeology’s education.

Already we noted there was a lot of weakness in inter-species preaching and proselytizing. Most of the priests aimed and shaped their preaching and messaging to people of the same species, and they struggled to form a connection with someone of another race.

An elven priest needed to struggle to interact with a centaur, or a dwarf, and harder still with a treefolk. There was a need to improve training and understanding of species-specific nuances. It would never be as good, but at the very least, they would be taught the key mistakes to avoid when dealing with people of another species.

This was also a point that I wanted to put into the Treetiary College’s education, though their angle was more on trade preferences and diplomatic preferences of different species.

56

YEAR 136

The demon king was still late. This was unusual, and we heard of great battles in the Eastern Continent—even though there was supposedly an information embargo, there were still leaks. There were tales of great, incredible battles of archers and demon-drakes. Of battles in cliff-areas where warriors could ‘reduce’ some of the demon-drakes’ airborne superiority.

There was a class of [Drakeslayer-Archers] and [Drakehunters] that emerged from these battles. I would like to get my hands on some of those classes, but I suspected it’d be a matter of time.

The world thanked their lucky stars that the demons were still confined in the Eastern Continent, despite being able to fly, and the rifts remained only in that continent. I wondered what was keeping them there. From the news, it certainly did not seem like the defenders were able to stop them from reaching the sea. Perhaps there were other factors.

So we focused on consolidating power, strengthening the Aeonic priesthood across the Freshlands, and deploying the young nobles on little adventures.

They were pretty average as a whole, but the little outdoor adventure contributed a few levels to their [Lord] class. It was good progress for a few months outdoors, and they helped to stabilize these new territories. I’d also get a good sense of the type of rulers and managers these nobles would become, whether they were kind, ruthless, rational, or emotional.

In the same vein, although practical experience was indeed important, I wasn’t about to tolerate the low levels of the Treetiary College’s teachers and lecturers. I had ensured all of them had training of their own, in the form of monthly doses of [dream academy]. I hoped to improve their levels by a bit, putting them in the level forty to fifty range for at least a single class. They would be teaching young ones who were around level ten or so when they started off, but because these were noble-classes, the ‘power’ of a level ten was actually more like a level fifteen to twenty. This was especially pronounced with those of noble-blood. [Prince] and [Princesses] usually already had some secret hereditary skills, and their class itself was strong as its base.

In a contest of wills, it was usually a matchup of the strongest levels and classes, not the cumulative total levels and classes.

If the trainers and tutors were too low-leveled in any one class, they wouldn’t be able to suppress or control the students. Ideally, I would want someone like Jura as the headmaster. His [warlord] class was a noble-equivalent, and as such, nobles didn’t get an advantage against him.

So I focused on training the tutors. I had taken a liking to one of them: Thordrock, a bearded dwarven man who’s in his late middle age, a little plump and prosperous. He seemed every bit the old headmaster and had the cranky, steely disposition to boot. He used to be a [merchant], then he got too weary for all the travelling his class required, so he found this task of educating the next generation interesting. As a merchant, he had been to a lot of places and fought a lot of bandits and thieves.

Thordrock was a level thirty-eight [mining merchant], level eighteen [blacksmith], and level twenty [axe warrior]. In every sense of the word, the scattered levels meant he was close to capping out as a person, since level eighty to level eighty-five seemed to be the usual cap for normal mortals.

For now, there was no single ‘headmaster’ of the entire Treetiary College, and it was run as if the entire teaching staff was a ‘council.’

Still, the problem was, once an individual hit a level cap, I couldn’t really push his level higher with [dream academy]. Still, not entirely useless. If I could somehow trigger or force a class merger, then only the combined class would be able to stand toe to toe with the nobility-classes.

“What do you think of taking the lead?” I asked Thordrock one day. At that point, they just returned from the students’ expedition from the new territories.

“Of?”

“The entire Treetiary College?”

“Well, yes. Finally! Someone needs to be in charge of this messed-up school!” he said. “First, we need some booze in the school.”

“Some of them are underage.”

“Well, those underage ones have to just suck it.” Thordrock laughed. “Any good, self-respecting noble who can’t handle a drink’s gonna be in trouble anyway. I lost count of the number of times nobles got their drinks spiked.”

Oh. That…was too much info.

“All of these young’uns need to learn how to drink, how to handle a drink, and how to handle stuff in their drink. Like me, I have [spiked drink-resistance]. At the very least, they need to have [poison-detection]!”

“Ah.”

Thordrock laughed, then he asked again, “Are you serious, Aeon?”

“What do you think this school should be?”

“Other than exporting your politics?” he asked.

“Yes. Tell me what do you think this school should be?” I didn’t want to share my ideals, of course. I had a certain vision for it, but the locals mostly saw it as a way I was going to strengthen the Freshlands.

“Ultimately…unity,” Thordrock said as he rubbed his beard. “Unity of the noble-class, however limited and fickle that’s worth. I saw this as a step to truly build a continental trade system, but in the past year I’ve served as a tutor of these nobles, it is also a place for social bonds to be built among the noble class, which would foster more trade and industry.”

“Where do you see me in this picture?”

Thordrock paused, and he couldn’t answer it. But I could read his mind. What am I supposed to say? Do I praise Aeon? Or do I state the truth that he’s seen as a benevolent tyrant? Or…

“I would appreciate the truth, Thordrock. I have no need for fickle praises. They do little for me.”

“I…don’t know. A school founded by an immortal semi-divine being that’s earmarked as a heretical existence? Just thinking about it makes me need a mug, so I rarely do think about it. But if this school wants to exist, it better damn well train some good, capable, competent nobles.”

“Define a competent noble. What is a good graduate student? What do you think a student who graduates from this school should be able to do?” In a way, this was an interview whether he was suited for it.

Thordrock paused again. “One that can hold his beer, makes a good deal, can set up a working, functioning town, and is able to defend himself from his enemies.”

I paused. That certainly fit the defensive noble. “No part of values or principles?”

“The hell with that.” Thordrock laughed. “The things I’ve done to get a deal…”

Ah. He had loose morals. I wondered whether I wanted to create little Machiavellis.

Thordrock continued. “We all want to live, ayte? Lookit me. I paid bribes to not get killed. I paid bribes to run away from hot zones. I paid adventurers to die so that I may live. Y’know. Principles ain’t gonna cut it, not when there’s a monster in front of me. I bit, I begged, I knelt where I needed to.”

There was a part he didn’t say. And right now, you’re the biggest powerhouse on the continent. If not you, then who?

I paused. Hmmm. He clearly had swaying loyalties. Should I still use him, then? Or someone else?

There were the entire Freshlands, home to so many people, surely I could find someone who had the experience to lead a school. Or did I have to make one myself?

So I had to look a little harder. Maybe someone who wasn’t high profile but was loyal. Quiet and unassuming, but got the job done. Ah, damn, thinking about it, I’d fallen for the old trick of looking at the most visible candidates instead of looking at it objectively. There must be someone who was quiet but I didn’t notice because he was quiet.

It was such a rookie talent management mistake! So what if they talked and were more ‘visible’? Talent and competence were not always visible! If you’d done everything right, and everything worked, it often seemed like you’d done nothing at all! The ability to troubleshoot and solve problems was only one aspect; it was even better if one was able to prevent problems in the first place!

So…how did I spot people who were able to resolve problems before they even festered or became bad?

Observation. I had to observe them and see how they resolved problems, how many steps ahead they did things, and how much thought went into doing what they did. People who could balance thoughtful consideration and yet take decisive action when the timing was right.

This demanded a huge amount of processing power and observation, and it was made possible thanks to Patreeck’s special powers and my artificial mind’s ongoing observation throughout my immediate valley. It required me to constantly monitor my candidates and rate them on a scale of various factors, like forward thinking, problem-resolution ability, ability to work with multiple parties, communication, and even manipulativeness.

All these needed multiple hundreds of datapoints. Personality. These traits were especially true when looking for a person who’s suited for trade and governance. To some extent, all traders planned. The very nature of a trader meant he had to be aware of market prices and changes, production data, and the ability to locate an opportunity, a gap.

At least, that was what I thought. But it was not so. The present world rewarded merchants who took risks, who just made a journey from one end of the continent to the other, with little information to work with. The presence of a system for traders, and the effect of various traders’ skills, meant some traders could make decisions based on hunch. Their skills would ‘tell’ them where and what to do.

I needed someone who wouldn’t rely on their skills, at least not much. Or perhaps a skill that switched their disposition toward long-term thinking, despite the system’s tendency of giving skills as mental shortcuts.

Patreeck and Jasmine took a few months to monitor how certain people behaved in context.

Then, one day… “Master, would you consider a young candidate who’s currently an apprentice at a blacksmith?”

Huh. He was way too young to be a master of an academy of young little pain-in-the-asses. But I could start training him really young, then in a few decades he would be ready. So I decided to have a look.

The young apprentice was a half-elf boy named Kastua. Despite his youth, he had demonstrated a quiet focus on preventing and solving problems, so he was likeable but didn’t stand out. It would be decades before he would ever be a master of the colleges. He seemed to like his work as a blacksmith apprentice, but I got Jura to speak to him.

“Hello, Kastua.”

Kastua quickly bowed politely. “Greetings, Counsel Jura.” Jura’s no longer the counsel, but it seemed many still referred to him as such; it was one of those guarded politeness. Never know when a person of such power would take offense.

“It seemed Aeon saw some potential in you and would like to include you in training. Would you be keen?” Jura wasn’t exactly sugarcoating. “What he plans for you, I do not know.”

The young boy’s mind instantly had a lot to think about. “Yes.”

Jura paused. “I…will give you some time to think it through.”

“Yes,” he repeated. “No need for the time. My answer is yes.”

“Ah.” Jura nodded. “Very well, Aeon will speak to you when the time is right.”

* * *

Kastua was not the only one. It was against our nature to put all eggs in one basket. A tree made many, many seeds. I needed multiple candidates across all age bands, so that I had a solid talent pool for proper succession planning.

I wanted someone who had that kind of personality and also faith. The levels and technical ability were something I could work on.

So, on top of Kastua, we soon located four to five more people of various ages whom we thought had potential. They were mostly young and were under level forty to fifty in totality. That was a good thing, since I’d have more room to work on their levels.

Still, I wanted an adult of sufficient stature to lead the school. Else it was just a council of teachers that didn’t seem able to make any big decisions. Was doing something better than doing nothing?

“Should we still tolerate Thordrock as a caretaker principal?” I asked the artificial minds at first. “He is of the right age and has generally good skill, even if his loyalty is a pragmatic one.”

Jasmine agreed. “We will monitor him. The role of a caretaker principal does not require absolute loyalty. A pragmatic, cost-benefit type of personality may be appropriate.”

“Disagree. This is about molding the minds of the next generation of mid-tier managers.” Trevor used some terminology from my memories. “They should be expected to have absolute loyalty. It is expected.”

I paused and considered it. In some ways, the risk was rather nuanced; having a principal with nuanced and pragmatic loyalty may result in students picking up a similar view of loyalty. That was a risk in the long run. But then again, even if I picked a loyal principal, that may not result in loyal future leaders. Would a principal’s influence be that pervasive?

Was this a false choice? After all, loyalty was a mutable thing. I could, by my own actions, transform someone who was pragmatically loyal into entirely loyal and vice versa. The concept that loyalty was for life surely an impossible thing, unless their minds were constructed in such a way.

Were there any other candidates?

Those capable and with the right skill sets would not want a task to corral these noble children in the first place. So in a way, this wasn’t exactly a coveted job. It was new. If anything, it was more important that this newly set-up institution did not fail.

I went back to Thordrock again. “Do you have any ideas on how to improve the Treetiary College?”

Thordrock paused and then answered. “In truth, most nobles do not run their lands alone, and often as merchants, we deal a lot with their adjutants and secretaries. So I believe each noble student should be allowed to sponsor a few of their adjutants. A noble’s success, I dare say, is also quite dependent on capable subordinates.”

That sounded like an officer school? But that was already what the Valthorns’ academy focused on. Combat, tactics, and all. But I supposed Thordrock’s point was toward the bureaucracy. Currently, in this magical world, paperwork and administration were inconsistent.

There were no consistent laws, processes, or papers, and merchants had to navigate all of them, often paying little bribes and incentives along the way. Even now the entirety of the Freshlands was a complicated mess of laws and regulations, because in part of laziness and my distaste for this sort of work, and also I didn’t want to force the entire country to obey one single set of laws.

Each of these segments brought with them different cultural norms, and I had expected to let them run their own kingdom, in the way a federation delegated certain areas to the states. In that, every noble was a minor master of his own land, and so each of them developed their own versions of the law, so all in, it was a hodgepodge of different rules and regulations.

But a lot of these could be ‘smoothed over’ if the officers and staff of the nobles all communicated, essentially forming a de facto organized, unified bureaucracy. Like trade could be more efficient when there was less paperwork to be filled.

There were a lot of low-lying fruits to be made as a whole. Why was the merchant’s warehouse located in some inaccessible area instead of somewhere convenient for the convoys? Why were goods not sorted properly? So many mundane areas that needed someone to just spend them time to clean up and organize.

Essentially, what Thordrock wanted was to make the merchants’ lives easier, supplement the nobles with capable subordinates. It was also a good way to transition from a feudal society to a more modern society, since it maintained the nobles’ position as a ruling elite, and yet ‘delegates’ left decision making and administration to commoners. It was also a less controversial way of opening up a wide range of education to common folk without unnecessary noble resistance, since these common folk would be tagged to their noble employers.

But then, would Thordrock’s influence result in administrators that were pro-merchants instead? I decided to look at all the nobles’ subordinates, whether there were any good teachers. This would take a while, too, on top of all the other searches that I’d been doing. The artificial minds needed time to process and assess the nobles, and also the various departmental offices.

At the same time, by allowing these administrators to come in, would that not create the noble-commoner dynamic that I wanted to avoid? Unless I separated them.

But pragmatically, a segregated school was worse. In fact, my initial idea of a school for commoners was essentially elitist because that also implied there was a separate school for elites.

The relationship between commoners and nobles could go either way, but in any case, I’d like to see these commoner administrators graduating and eventually run my future commoner’s school.

It was a rare time where it was good that I was a magical tree. I was seen as outside the whole noble-commoner class system. If I was human, I would most likely face greater resistance.

“Let’s do it.”

So the Treetiary College opened up spots for the noble-vassals to join. The pitch to the nobles was simple: they needed competent subordinates to carry out the details and the grunt work. Studying together gave commoners insight into the noble mindset and thought processes.

I understood this felt like a caste system, but if I wanted to slowly supplant and dismantle the noble structures, I’d have to have a bureaucracy capable of operating with noble oversight and direction.

The initial weeks were rocky, there were some incidences of harassment, so I had insisted that no bullying was allowed and used my artificial minds to keep watch. Students were only allowed to fight and attack each other during combat practice. If necessary, I would use my own abilities to break up any fights.

The commoners came in many ages. Some were the old servants and butlers of the nobles, strangely chosen to accompany their young masters to school. At first, I thought about whether I should restrict the school by age, but I decided since it was the first year, I’d let it go. I would introduce age limits in the later years.

Not everyone liked change. Some needed to have it in little pieces, ease them into it. Some preferred a big bang change. But from what I’d observed, change needed to be slow. A big bang change tended to create a larger and more immediate resistance. Slow, gradual change was akin to boiling the frog.

By the end of the year, the nobles had mostly accepted the presence of commoners as fellow students, even though most of them still felt themselves as a superior class. It was fine.

Boil the frog. Slowly.

57

YEAR 137

The demon king finally descended.

[Demon King Raja-Naga has arrived!]

As the rifts predicted, he arrived in the Eastern Continent, and he quickly made his presence felt. The entire Eastern Continent was in a state of war, as giant, fire-breathing lizards and flying drakes ravaged the entire continent.

A time of war.

“Lausanne is in the Eastern Continent.” At Jura’s message to her, Laufen instantly broke down and cried. “She’s not dead, but…she can’t get out.”

Laufen wept, and I could see her feelings through Patreeck. Worry, helplessness, anger, sadness. She wondered whether she was going to lose her daughter. She was far away now, and I couldn’t reach her from here. Not when she was on another continent. There was no way Jura could get there, either. There was no boat or ship fast enough, and unless we had the heroes’ teleportation array, I couldn’t get anyone there.

She went back to her home and cried for a while. Some of the other ladies of a similar age from Freshka came to comfort her.

Jura, on the other hand, was just sad.

“She wouldn’t do anything stupid, right?” Jura asked.

“I don’t think so.” Lausanne certainly didn’t seem like the type to do anything stupid, but I didn’t know how much had changed in the past thirty years she’d been away. She may have changed.

“Yeah. She won’t,” Jura said, but I could tell from Patreeck’s data that he was worried, too. But there was nothing much we could do. Not when she’s on another continent. I could only hope she was wise enough to stay away from actually confronting the demon king. Very few had done that and survived.

* * *

The demon king’s presence sent the Rottedlands into a frenzy. More demonic hybrids spawned, and the trade routes experienced more frequent attacks. But for now, the Valthorns and beetles had managed to hold them back, so the trade routes held. A great relief, for our allies who feared for the worst.

The expansion and training of Valthorns, priests, and young nobles continued. Just because the demon king had arrived didn’t mean we had to change anything.

“All right. Demon king spawned. As nobles, what should you do?” a lecturer, a former retired mayor, asked the crowd of young noble students. There were some commoners mixed in, too, the ‘attendants.’

“Prepare for war?”

“Well, yes. But how and what? What should you prepare?” the lecturer asked. “Food supplies are a common one. During demonic attacks, trade routes are frequently disrupted.”

Some of this was basic common sense, but no one had actually sat down and put together a manual for dealing with demon kings. In some ways, this was a first step to that manual. I also had the instructors write down key teaching points for storage. Bit by bit, my library was growing, even if I didn’t get skills for it.

“Next up is actually village defense. Demonic forces tend to attack places of large populations first. It is said they have an ability to sense living individuals, particularly large numbers. Of course, no one knows whether this is true or they detect large cities by other means.”

The crowd of nobles went, “Oooooh.”

“So, theoretically, it’s better to focus defense forces in larger cities, since villages tend to be skipped or only attacked by smaller forces. Unless they are so unlucky that they happen to be in their path.”

The commoners winced at those words, wondering whether those villages would be left to die. The nobles just nodded in agreement. This sounded familiar.

I didn’t pay much attention to the classes, since no untoward incident occurred.

* * *

As the borders saw more fighting, I’d awarded more upgraded classes to the Valthorns. For anti-air, I was really quite dependent on my beetles and spiders and also my higher-levelled Valthorns.

The Valthorns had many practice rounds against flying foes, and I used my [dream academy] to give them more practice and ‘dream-battle’ experience against aerial foes. Many of them woke up sweating and needed a separate [dream] for them to rest.

[Dream academy] allowed me more control over the contents of the dream, though it was still just a set of parameters I could control. I didn’t even know what exactly they saw in those dreams, until recently…

Because [Tree-Over-Mind] allowed me to gain an insight to the effects of [dream academy], the two abilities essentially allowed me to view the dreams in almost real time. There was still a small time lag, but I could see how each and every Valthorn had a slightly different variation of the dream. The dreams itself tapped into their minds to bring up the desired effect.

Now, could I essentially stitch their dreams together into a mini-matrix?

“Patreeck?”

“Possible, but I believe that will take up a lot of processing power. But it can be done. I think I can put about thirty people together.”

“Great!” Dreams had always been personalized. It was time to go full mini-matrix and inception on my Valthorns. “Now, is it possible to create a time dilation effect, such that the dreams feel longer than the actual elapsed time?”

“That would require some kind of super stimulant into their brains, Master.” Patreeck was frank. “Not my area of specialty, but I believe it should be possible to create a sap or chemical that increases brain activity and thus allow them to process more within the same period of time.”

So, when I called Jura, some of the Valthorns’ herbalists and druids, and the senior Valthorns for a meeting, they were rather strange.

“That sounds like something quite dangerous, Aeon,” a senior herbalist responded. “There are some herbs and spices that supercharge the mind, but they tend to leave one feeling exhausted subsequently and can be addictive.”

Wait. This sounded like dealing in drugs.

“I thought Kavio had some of those…uh…relaxants,” a druid casually said, and the other druids glared at him. “Oh, never mind.”

“Procure them for me,” I declared. Maybe I could use them differently or administer their effects differently. I already had [psychedelic dreams]. What could go wrong with another different kind of drug-like ability?

It was really the dream, I believed, to invent that medical superdrug that significantly heightened one’s senses and mind. Nootropics, or smart drugs.

“Perhaps the easier method is to suppress all the other forces that prevent learning and levelling, Master,” Patreeck suggested. “Maybe we can try with just…experimenting with a dying man and just maintain their mind.”

“Oh.” To do my own brain-in-the-jar experiment. Would a brain-in-the-jar gain levels? Was it still living? Could it hold a soul if its entire body was artificially supported?

And what point, if we removed a body, would the body and soul part ways? Like, if I just kept the head and the body, would the soul still stay around? Which organ was necessary, and which wasn’t?

“Aeon, may I enquire what this is for?” Faris asked. “Obtaining these herbs can be a rather troublesome thing.”

“I don’t see why. Am I not above the law of the land?”

“Ah, that is true, but as it is, the planting and cultivation of such herbs are outlawed and most nobles forcibly destroy them due to their damaging effects on societal productivity.”

“Then can you just send it to me instead of destroying them?”

“Indeed, but most nobles would want to know what is being done to them.”

“Have the nobles deliver it to me personally, then. I need no more than a few samples to complete my analysis.”

“I will say it is for analysis, then?”

“Yes. That is fine.” I noticed Faris’s mind was still turning. Certain herbs were dangerous, especially for nobles. Some herbs had been used to incapacitate, poison, or weaken nobles, and many nobles viewed such herbs as a threat, so they had been firmly destroyed. It was due to its effects on the mind, bordering on mind control that scared the nobles. So throughout the world there had been numerous movements pushing for the destruction of such herbs, and even till today, there were noble-groups dedicated to eradicating these mind-drugs.

It was said the origins of the movement started after the emperor or a large empire was drugged and mind-controlled by his concubines. It was only when the children and princes rebelled, confronted, and the emperor was finally on his knees that they realized the extent of the concubines’ mind control.

Since then, nobles everywhere had been extremely wary of ‘new’ types of herbal substances. Of course, there was an opposing movement, those who used these drugs to supplement their own abilities. But they did so quietly.

“Jasmine, can you help me locate these substances? Since it’s hidden, I would need your eyes and ears.”

“Certainly, Master.”

* * *

More kingdoms capitulated and changed sides. They’d realized that the four temples were not backing down from their blockade and that the divine edict meant the priests and templars would enforce the blockade with much greater attention.

By now, more than two-thirds of the kingdoms on the continent had formally switched sides, including many of the Harrisan splinter-kingdoms. They were still squabbling and fighting smaller wars with each other, but they were now all formally FFA-aligned nations. It was kind of like I’d become this massive umbrella for all of these little countries, since there were no benefits from staying loyal to the temples.

This merely strained the load on the School of Treeology further. Already, it was difficult to coordinate my artificial minds and the priests; I couldn’t train priests fast enough. The ten patriarchs and matriarchs were overloaded with administering the School of Treeology, and with thousands of young priests and priestesses undergoing training, it was really tough.

I tried to assist by appointing more [Aeonic Senior Priests] to help with the management of the Treeology school.

“Actually, Aeon, maybe we should be given some time to, uh, use our skills in a non-school setting,” a patriarch actually prayed one day and said.

“Oh? You have not been doing that?”

“All ten of us have been working on the Treeology school ever since it started.”

I paused and considered the issue. Indeed, it’d been some time since then.

“Many of us have abilities and powers, and though we labor hard at work in the school and Freshka, we do dream of visiting our new allies.”

I agreed. So first, I pulled together the senior priests and those that had performed well. I defined performing well as those that were able to train new priests to a high level and guide them, or priests who were able to perform their social tasks and convert large groups to my cause, without relying too much on material rewards and lies. Even doing this assessment took a month, but eventually I appointed five more Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

This time, three of them were treefolk, one was a centaur, and one was a human.

With the appointment of five more, I then implemented a rotational shift. Five of fifteen Patriarchs would be travelling to spread the faith on two-year shifts. That meant, over the course of six years, all fifteen Patriarchs and Matriarchs would have had their stint in the field. Like my young nobles, these experienced priests also needed to stretch their legs and see how things were in the lands outside. Things may have changed.

On the side of the FTC, we’d increased the admittance to the college. With more new allied kingdoms, it was important that they showed some proof of their alliance. So, essentially, sending their young children to the FTC, so far away from their home kingdoms, was meant to be this ‘act of trust.’ It was also leverage.

At the same time, we’d expanded recruitment of instructors from all these new allied nations, too, to cater to a growing student population. Freshka, the capital of the Freshlands, was a large university town home to three large educational and training institutions.

Once this whole setup stabilized, I intended to set up satellite campuses and branch campuses for the School of Treeology and FTC, like how Valthorns had mini bases throughout the Freshlands and my allied kingdoms.

The Valthorns, being a military wing, always had multiple forward bases for attacks into the Rottedlands or various peacekeeping and social order assignments. These were centered around a main [Giant Attendant Tree], a relic of my earlier New Freeka days. The Valthorns always had Giant Trees as forward bases. They also acted as recruitment centers and training centers, for orphanages that were previously under the Valthorns’ and Valtrian Order’s jurisdiction.

It was ironic. Not long ago, in the days of New Freeka, I told kings and royalty no special privileges and no special area.

Now, I even set up an entire school to brainwash—sorry, re-educate—their children. Maybe some hero from my world would notice that this entire college setup was nothing more than a glorified luxury-grade reeducation and rehabilitation center.

I supposed life, even in a world of magic, had a way of playing tricks.

Still, the presence of so many young nobles and their entourage brought incredible economic vibrancy to Freshka. Various shops and merchants set up branches and offices to cater to their every whim; luxury restaurants, luxury goods, tutors and trainers, blacksmiths and craftsmen, all made good money serving young nobles looking to impress and show off to each other.

It was also a good way to stimulate the flow of money and trade from these faraway nations to the Freshlands, as these faraway kings and queens would have to send stipends, pay for sustenance, and pay for their servants.

Sending money through such long distances in the age of magic still required a network of merchants, people who were willing to trade goods, and so on. Often, merchants would make arrangements to sell goods to kingdoms, and the merchants also acted as their means to remittance agents.

At times, it was amusing to read the thoughts of these young nobles. At other times, it was just grating.

Still, a school life for the rich and powerful emerged, along with their attendants. Along with it came clubs and little fraternities. Some were on racial lines, like a club for human nobles, a club for elven nobles, a club for treefolks. Most of the smaller, less common races formed a combined club of their own.

Also, I made Thordrock as vice chancellor of the FTC, despite his rather shaky loyalties. I needed someone now, while I still trained my pipeline of future chancellors, and gave him a set of guidelines to follow. I rather liked his pitch about unity of the Central Continent.

I’d also put him through a few trips to [dream academy]. I had hoped to merge his classes together, but instead he just unlocked an additional [Tutor] class. It’d take a while, I supposed.

Still, he really did start on the whole booze-and-wine appreciation and tolerance classes. There were even booze, wine, and whiskey clubs, and it seemed battle lines were drawn. The wine-club members had nobles from more conservative old families and would view the other two as uncultured; the whiskey club seemed to be more urban-wealth, comprising the children of many lords and kings from major trading hubs; while the booze club was more of the rest.

I supposed I added to the fire when we challenged all three clubs to make the best herbal-infused alcoholic liquor: herbal beer, herbal wines, and herbal whiskeys.

* * *

As the year drew to the end, the demon king’s destruction of the Eastern Continent continued. The demon king resembled a large, twin-headed demon-dragon with two massive wings, and it had a wide range of elemental attacks.

Laufen’s still asking for more news on Lausanne, but we didn’t have many informants, and Lausanne’s not contacting us.

But I still sensed my connection to the [Possession of the Devoted] and the drain on my [star mana]. So she was alive. The key was really avoiding the demon king. As long as she continued to stay away from the demon king, she’d be fine.

I told Laufen that much, that I still sensed her presence and that my familiar was still connected to her.

For now, the demon king’s mostly wrecking the Eastern Continent. Where the hell were the heroes? Maybe the heroes would be summoned in the Eastern Continent, too?

Or would that be a bad thing, for them to be summoned there and face a full-powered demon king, when they were under-leveled?

But if they spawned outside of the Eastern Continent, would the demon king follow them? Or maybe it couldn’t see them when they were still low-leveled, like how the earlier heroes managed to dodge the demon king.

“I’m betting next year,” Jura said. “Maybe the gods haven’t got ready yet.”

I didn’t see why they needed to wait so long. They didn’t have to summon new heroes for forty years; surely some of their power recharged. That was speculation on my part, of course, that gods needed to have their powers recharged. It was entirely possible that their powers worked in weird ways.

58

YEAR 138

Ten heroes were summoned. Immediately, I told my artificial minds to look for them. If they spawned anywhere on the Central Continent, I wanted to be the first to know. This time, the ten heroes were new, and I wanted to play a bigger role in molding them as my spear and as my shield. If they survived, they would be my future allies and would supply me with more [Titan Souls].

It took a few days, but it was Trent who spotted a strange-looking young lady fleeing from the Rottedlands. She appeared as hybrids chased her. After she ran past the line of trees, beetles emerged to fight off the hybrids. These beetles were assigned to protect the trade routes from the hybrids’ incursions.

“This is the suspect, Master.” Trent quickly highlighted the presence of the young lady in recognizable Earth-like clothing. She wore a dress and had a watch. She was panting. This was nostalgic, somewhat.

I quickly asked Jura, Edna, and Faris to go meet her and bring her back here.

“Who are you people?” she asked when she saw elves and centaurs approach her.

“We’re from the Valtrian Order, a military organization of the Freshlands.” Jura smiled, putting up his best diplomatic face. “We’ve been asked to escort you back to Freshka, our capitol. It’s a much safer place than this outpost on the Rottedlands’ Highway.”

“What if I say no?”

“We can’t stop you, and we won’t take you by force. But I can promise you that we won’t harm you. I’m sure you are confused and lost, and this is too much to take in.”

Those words suddenly made her cry. She was hungry, tired, and all that.

“We’ll feed you and help you. A bath, some new clothes and equipment, too, if you need it,” Jura said. Both Edna and Faris stared at him. They were not stupid, and they quickly realized this lady was a hero.

She soon agreed. During the trip back to the capital, Jura stayed next to her and ensured she was properly fed and cared for. She had a lot of questions, and Jura answered some, but for quite a few of them, Jura answered, “I understand you have a lot of questions, but I’m afraid I don’t know enough to answer them. Our master and spiritual leader, Aeon, will take your questions.”

It made her slightly suspicious, but the express beetle-ride brought her back from the Rottedlands Highway to Freshka in under a week. During the trip, she was amazed at how the scenery changed once they got out of the Rottedlands. Vast lands of green, cities, and people of all races and species.

Then Freshka itself. We housed her in a special building deep in the Valthorns’ fortress in Freshka. It was a standalone building, purpose built to accommodate future heroes. I envisioned that I would require such places a while back, so with Harris’s help from back then, we built a place tailor-made for reincarnated or isekai-ed heroes. That meant magical items that resembled familiar, Earth-like equipment, like microwave ovens that operated on magical heating stones, hot showers, spring mattresses, and a decor that resembled Earth.

She cried for a moment and quickly jumped on the mattress. She slept for half a day.

“So…where are you taking me?”

“Our spiritual leader.”

She frowned. They brought her to a temple within the Valthorns’ fortress itself, surrounded by multiple [Tree of Prayers]. In it there’s a [Giant Attendant Tree].

“You will hear a voice in your head once you step inside.” Jura nodded. The tree had a meeting room, but essentially, it was me and her.

“Hello,” I said to the girl. Her leg immediately buckled, and she quickly sat on one of the chairs in the room. I could read her thoughts; they were a mess. “Are you one of the reincarnated heroes?”

She paused. “No.” She said her name was Astia, but Patreeck’s mind reading soon revealed her real name was Stella.

Huh. She didn’t trust me, I supposed. “It’s not good to lie. Your foreign attire and that watch on your wrist gave your otherworldly origins away.”

She panicked. “Okay, yes.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. I think those that came with me…they are far away.” Wait. I just noticed she looked a bit older than the previous generation of heroes. She was in her early twenties, though she did look really young for some reason. She seemed to be working in a school, saving money for college.

“Did you get a divine blessing?”

“…sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“See.…uhm…when I died, I wasn’t meant to be in the bus.” At those words, I suddenly felt a sense of dread wash over me. Was Astia like me? An accident? “He said that I was collateral damage, but somehow I had enough merit to be reincarnated in this world with some benefits.”

So where were the heroes? And great—the gods were biased. Was I really such a piece of shit that they made me a tree?

“He said that things will be hard at first, but I’ll be okay if I survive.” Stella sat on the chair. “But he gave me a blessing. [Late Bloomer].”

Really funny, admins, really funny.

“I still don’t know what it does.” She sipped on the tea. I always had tea for guests. It was a thing, and it helped to calm my guests down, make them talk a bit more. “But I was told by Jura, that you can answer my questions? So, uh, what the hell is happening? Can I go home?”

“To the best of my knowledge, you have to die to go home. Not guaranteed,” I answered plainly.

She instantly frowned and almost cried. “Where am I?”

“Well, you’re in a world with demons and heroes. A demon king appeared recently, and so the heroes, those kids you saw on the vehicle, they are the heroes.”

“No. Go back a step. Is this a game?”

“No. As far as I know, this is real, and you’ve died and now you have been brought here.” She was starting to annoy me.

“Then why am I still in this same human-ish body? Can’t I get reincarnated as something else? Also, is it better to just die and go back?” she said, but I thought her last question was meant for herself.

“Do you have a class, young lady?”

“I got one while running away. [Scout] Level 1.” She wasn’t lying. She didn’t get the [Hero] class, either. [Scout] was an average class, though it did lead to pretty good upgrades.

“Do you get to choose your class, Astia?”

“No. I just…got it. I can say no, though.” Hmm, the fact that she didn’t get to choose her class, like most of the other mortals, indicated that she really wasn’t a hero. In fact, it was because the lack of direct choice in classes that [class seeds] were valuable. Most mortals and locals had to keep doing a particular ability and pray the system somehow granted their desired class to them. The ability to get a particular class just by eating a fruit was really awesome.

That said, for the common classes, the system was very generous and had been seen to grant them out frequently. “Do you want your class?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“You’re not a hero, and as far as I know, there are no ways of going back unless you die. So the question is what do you want to do in this world?”

Astia sat and couldn’t answer. “I don’t know, really. It’s not like I had the time to figure out what I want to do with my life when I’m running from weird monsters. Now I’m talking to a big magical tree that speaks to me in my head. I know nothing at this point, so how can I even decide?”

Ah, the lost soul. How quaint. It was certainly annoying that those who did not have the god’s blessings were lost and clueless. Those who were heroes were driven by divine compulsion.

“Well, ask away. I’ll try to answer what I can, then perhaps you can think of where you want to go?”

“Can I be a god?” Astia asked immediately. “Then I can open a portal home?”

“Possible.” The Domain-type skills seemed to suggest that was very possible.

“Do you know what kind of magic brought me here?”

“No. But if I were to guess, divine-magic. As far as I know, only the gods can send someone so far.”

“As far as you know.” Astia sat. “How long will I live?”

“Without magic, your mortality is unchanged. With magic, maybe up to three hundred to five hundred years.”

“Can I get classes based on what I know back home?”

“Possible. In fact, you should certainly try it. The heroes generally get classes from the gods, with little choice of their own.” I was honestly giving a tip.

“Then I want to be a master [chef],” she said. “I want to eat good food and make good food, and I want a restaurant. I’m gonna be more famous than Gordon f-ing Ramsay.”

Uh.

“Then I’m gonna have a restaurant that travels the world, and then, I’m gonna have a magical door that leads me back home.”

Uh. “I certainly applaud your imagination.”

“I’m joking.” She sagged, her boost to high energy vanishing abruptly. “I don’t know what I want, actually. How many classes can I get?”

“Humans generally can have up to six active classes, but I’m not sure whether that applies for otherworlders like yourself. Perhaps you can get more.”

“Since I’m not a hero, will you still feed me and let me stay here?”

Good question. I did intend for the housing to be designed for heroes, but here was an Earther who wasn’t a hero. Kind of like me. Possible, of course.

“I’m really stuck here, aren’t I? And I was just looking forward to college.”

Hmm. Y’know what? “We have three schools here. The Valthorn Military Academy, the School of Treeology, and the Freshlands Treetiary College.”

“Seriously?” The girl frowned and then laughed. “Sorry. Those are quite stupid names. Couldn’t help myself.”

…never mind. “If you are interested, I’ll ask one of the Valthorns to give you a tour. I mean, would you rather be outside?”

“Okay.” She perked up. “But I think I’ll just go to the academy and the Treetiary College. Being a priestess is so…ugh.”

I would later discover that my tea’s effects on her behavior was a lot more pronounced than I had expected.

* * *

“I heard from Aeon that you’re not a hero,” Edna said quite plainly, and Astia just paused. “I didn’t know that was possible. To think the gods could err, some of the templars would kill you the moment they know about you.”

Astia’s face paled.

“But worry not, as of this moment, everyone thinks you are a hero, and I’ve been designated as your bodyguard and guide.” Edna shrugged.

“Oh…I’m…I’m sorry for causing you such trouble.” Astia’s emotions suddenly crashed.

Edna paused. She wasn’t expecting that response. “Ah.” There was a period of silence, both of them didn’t say a word, but eventually Edna had to do her job. “Here’s some protective charms and items. This is a defensive shield ring, and this is an anti-poison weapon. This is a small druid summoning charm that calls for animals nearby to come to your aid.”

Astia still looked apologetic. “It’s all right if you don’t want to help me.”

Edna ignored it. “These charms are not powerful, but they will keep you alive if something happens.”

“Really. It’s all right.” Was she emotionally all right?

“Let’s go on the tour.”

“I don’t want to go now.”

Edna paused. “…sorry?”

“I want to just stay here.”

Edna was told not to push her too hard, so she shrugged and just let her sit there. I told her to send her back to me for a little trip into the [biolab].

* * *

Astia, or Stella, had a normal physique, at least from what little I could see, but it was clear within a few weeks of her stay in Freshka that she was, at random triggers, suddenly turned emotionally unstable and had episodes of depressive behavior. The tea helped to make her calm and seemingly normal for a while, but then it would later cause an emotional crash.

I had thought I could send her to one of the colleges, but then…I thought she needed something else.

I didn’t quite know how to help her.

The locals generally had rather positive mental outlook; they were quite hardy and seem to be able to take some degree of abuse and suffering. So it was possible to use my powers to make them stronger. Those who were young had been constantly ‘guided’ by the influence of my trees and my energies, so the degree of correction I needed to do for those exposed to me usually were minor.

For Astia, my issue was that…I feared that directly interfering with her mind or lacing her with all kinds of drugs and saps or using dreams to change her would possibly be counterproductive or trigger other kinds of issues. She seemed rather far off base that I wasn’t sure whether my usual means of alteration would work.

It was like trying to mentally correct a bloodmage.

Still, I placed a [Tree of Prayer] near where she lived and ensured that the effects of the calming trees ‘drained’ away the erratic elements of her behavior, and even then, they seemed to flare up unpredictably.

With the locals, it was like steering a ship and charting a course from the day it set sail from the harbor. With Astia, I discovered a ship stranded at sea and all of its navigational equipment confused and probably broken.

I summoned my council for a discussion.

“To be fair, Aeon, someone with such an attitude or emotional weakness would have died. This is not a nice world, and if the otherworlders hesitate, dillydally, or are weak, I believe it’s quite clear that the monsters, the demons, or just those less pleasant will get to them first. They either become strong or die.” Yvon had the most dire of assessments.

I wondered how she’d made it out of the Rottedlands. Adrenaline?

“This sounds like a city-disease, the malaise of the large capital cities,” one of the Patriarchs explained. “She needs faith, more than anything else. Perhaps she also needs to spend more time in the company of the faithful, and some time alone with nature. Through faith, and through being one with nature, one can heal one’s soul.” It was a soul-disease, in a way. But was I trivializing depression and emotional disorder to say it was a soul-disease? The priest may have a point; there were multiple ways one could achieve a step out, or at least, make an improvement.

I needed a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Or at least someone I could consult who had a more modern perception and understanding of this issue. They may sound sensible, but who knew whether their suggestions may be counterproductive?

I was essentially trying to deal with modern problems, but with magic and skills. I may get it very, very wrong.

“Are you…trying to make me better?” Astia asked randomly.

I paused, and it was then I could read her jumbled mess of thoughts. “No. Not really. Just trying to understand what’s happening.”

“Good. Everyone thinks they can make me better.”

Astia fidgeted and moved about.

“But maybe I don’t want to get better.”

She was stuck in a hole, and she thought she didn’t want to get out.

* * *

Meanwhile, the devastation in the Eastern Continent continued. Though the heroes had been summoned, our weakening contacts seemed to suggest that they spawned on the other continents instead. If the demon king started moving, it may pass by the Central Continent, and that would be bad for me.

The demon king, the twin-headed dragon-demon, seemed content to dominate the Eastern Continent. Lausanne, thankfully, still lived. I could still sense her, however distant she was.

We didn’t know what was happening with the heroes, with our intelligence network crumbling. It was hard to ‘feed’ and ‘pay’ for informants when all trade was blocked behind a blockade.

The navies of the four temples were still relentless, though quite a bit of Hawa and Aivan ships had returned to the Eastern Continent.

My next project should be to build a naval force able to break out of this encirclement. In a way, this was the four temples, the existing global powers, attempting to curtail my rise to power. On the Central Continent itself there were a few large naval or maritime kingdoms, and they suffered greatly from the reduction of trans-ocean trade.

So it wasn’t difficult to sway them on my side. They were weak, and now, we’re going to commission them to build a new fleet of ships. The Valthorns had to quickly move there to set up a mini-naval academy.

Fighting at sea, running a ship. All these things were very new to the Valthorns, who never had any experience fighting at sea. It seemed I, too, had very little experience of my own, though, from the process of harvesting the souls of the dead, there was a decently sized repository of knowledge.

That was all conventional warfare, fighting the wars the same way the temples did.

At the same time, I was thinking, how can I do this navy thing differently?

Would it be possible to build walker-class battleships, with long-range bombardment abilities or large living ships that hosted a swarm of flying beetles or animals, like a mini-aircraft carrier?

Essentially, the navy must act as a limb, a means of force projection, to bring the battle back to the four temples’ homelands. In the same way, they could be used to push and suppress demonic forces in distant lands.

Or could I have floating trees? Living, floating islands like a massive zaratan?

I would like to find turtles massive enough to carry my trees. Turtle-trees would be like amphibious carriers, wouldn’t they?

Was I contributing to the escalation? The locals escalated this war with the hexbombs. The demons retaliated with long-range bombardment cannons. Now we had flying demon-drakes. The next step should therefore be more long-range weaponry and space-based weapons. Or mobile sea-fortresses able to punch through the blockade and keep it open?

But even if I broke the blockade, the countries outside, on those other continents, they would refuse to trade with me.

What could I offer them, with me being so far away, that could sway their views? A big gun?

Once I did have a large naval fleet, would I be able to force them to open up, gunboat-diplomacy style?

In this game of magical geopolitics, was peace ever an option? A big gun was necessary, even if just to force them to the discussion table.

59

YEAR 139

The heroes made the journey to the Eastern Continent. This was propaganda, at least.

“Miss Stella, oh great, you’re there! Where are you? Are you all right?” one of the heroes asked via a long-range spell, some kind of secured messaging spell service.

Astia, or Stella, was surprised, but she somehow quickly put on a face. “Oh, nice to see you again, Tom. How are you?” At this point, Patreeck’s mind reading revealed more information. She knew most of the kids that died with her! She was an administrative assistant at the teenagers’ school! She was acting the role of the nice, supporting administrative teaching assistant.

“I’m…uh, I’m good. I think.”

“Are all of you together?” I could sense her forcing herself to make this conversation.

“Oh, uh…some of us are in the Southern Continent, and some of us are here in the North. But we’re all planning to meet in the Eastern Continent. We’re heroes, after all, so we’ve got to do what we came here to do.”

“That’s good.”

“Miss Stella, Miss Stella, actually we just wanted to check whether you’re okay. I mean, uh…after that time with the gods, we, uh, parted ways. Where are you, Miss Stella?”

“I’m actually in the Central Continent, in the city of Freshka.”

“The Cursed Continent? Are you sure it’s safe? Are they doing something dangerous or harmful? I hear they eat children there!” the heroes quickly said.

Ah shit. What kind of propaganda had the temples been feeding the heroes?

Stella smiled. I could sense she was forcing herself to do it, but she was also quite good at acting.

“Really?”

“Yeah! You should get out of there!” the heroes said. “It’s not safe for you.”

“Oh.” Stella pretended she didn’t understand the problem. “I feel maybe I’m in a safe part of town. I should be fine. Where are all of you going? Are you safe?”

“We’re fine. We’re going to fight the demon king, and we have all these powers. We’ve been fighting some regular monsters for a while, and we’re strong!”

“Ah. Is that so? Good luck.”

“Okay! Take care, Miss Stella. We’ll come and get you once this is all over.”

“All right. Goodbye.”

Astia breathed a sigh of relief once the magical videocall faded. She quickly curled up back in her bed. That act of hers consumed quite a bit of her mental energy, and she needed a nap. How she even managed to hold a job at a school was still a strange thing to me.

* * *

The quality of news we received from the other continents steadily declined. We’re just getting generic news snippets, propaganda, and such. Things that we could gather from a typical inn or tavern.

The heroes arrived in the Eastern Continent after a month-long magically assisted journey and began fighting the flying demons.

By now, rumor said the Eastern Continent had lost 50 percent of its population to the demonic attacks, and another 20 percent had been driven into hiding, living in underground networks. Again, really? Was this propaganda?

* * *

“It’s not really our problem, is it?” the nobles of the Central Continent said in a meeting. We formed another council of sorts. Personally, I’d like to call them the Nation of Tree-Friends, but they were not actually friends, just temporary allies due to targeted abandonment and neglect by the four temples.

“If the demon king stays on the Eastern Continent, that’s good for us. We have our own problems to deal with, and now with the blockade, there’s even less reason for us to care. They’ve targeted us, so why should we volunteer any assistance?”

A fair sentiment, one which I felt for. Some of the nobles delighted in the fact that the demon king kept its domination on the Eastern Continent. They felt like this was punishment for their actions.

“When the Central Continent faced demon kings, did the other continents extended their aid? The nations that did, I can count them, less than my branches!” a treefolk noble complained. Treefolk nobles were strange existences; they resembled mini-treants, and they were quick to switch allegiances to me once it was clear that the temples no longer wanted to help them. A strange moment of speciesist behavior, even if it’s in my favor. “So, let the Eastern Continent burn. I feel for the period, but the decisions of the rulers have consequences.”

Was this what it felt like to watch a terrible war unfolding across the sea? It was a bit like me watching an attack on foreign soil on television. It wasn’t my problem. Too bad for them and served them right.

* * *

It’d been a few years since the FTC started, and we finally had the first batch of graduates. It took a little longer than expected, but the star student was a young noble from the northern part of the Central Continent. A young mixed dwarven man, he started the program as a level three [Lordling] and ended the course with level nineteen [Lord], level six [Knight], and level ten [Merchant]. A good start, and the growth was pretty good for four to five years’ worth of work. Especially the [Lord] class, which had conditions of the student doing ‘ruling’ things, like making decisions about the land and development.

Still, I wondered how the [experience seed] worked when one had multiple classes? Did the level go to the class that they wanted? The experience seed clearly was overpowered in the sense that it gave a guaranteed level up, regardless of levels. Which was why I’d been hoarding it forever.

The drawback, of course, was that levels didn’t always cover the weaknesses of real battlefield experience.

Anyway, back to the young dwarven lord. As promised, I granted him a special class seed, a [Trade Lord] class, a merger for [Lord] and [Merchant] class. If he took it, it would almost guarantee the merger of the two classes. He could, of course, give it to someone else in the family, and that person would start with level one [Trade Lord].

The dwarf ate it immediately, despite his family’s objections. There was some complicated family tussle for power in the background, something I didn’t care for. It was a typical ‘useless-son-suddenly-excelling-in-life-and-now-family-wants-to-claim-his-success.’ He was, in other words, the fourth son who the parents thought was going to be a spare-of-spares and was now doing well.

After his graduation, he approached Kavio and the Freshkan councils.

“I’d like to work for the council and manage land on Freshlands’ behalf, instead of attending to my family’s holdings.”

They couldn’t decide, since matters of land assignment, especially new lands, were usually my prerogative. I approved a small parcel. It was a rough, recently reclaimed piece of land, with hardly any population. This young lord would have to lead and build it from scratch, but he seemed to take it positively.

This very act, though, seemed to have stimulated the appeal for the Freshlands Treetiary College amongst the younger sons and daughters outside the regular line of succession. A chance, by ‘merit,’ to earn their own lands on top of other existing ways of being a knight, achieving merit in combat, and have the king award some new piece of land.

I supposed I made the family drama worse, but some internal competition was always necessary.

* * *

“It’s a shit job,” Edna said to Faris. The group of upgraded classers had some sort of a monthly drinking session. It was quite a big group.

Faris just shrugged. “She clearly isn’t normal, though. The things she knows are very strange.”

“Thank goodness I can rotate with the other [Grand Knights]. I’ll go nuts if I stay with her too long.”

“Is Aeon giving her some…uh…herbs? I heard the Patriarch tried using some skills on her, but that didn’t seem to really work.”

Edna said, “She’s…like a child. Sometimes.”

“You’re not older than her, though. She looks about the same age as you,” Faris teased. “But yes, I get what you mean.”

“She’s…like someone who’s afflicted with a curse or magical trauma. The kind you’ve seen when something really bad happened. But it’s different,” Edna complained over a mug of beer. They were both approaching their early thirties now, and were good friends, because both of them were first-generation upgraded classers.

“What does Aeon want to do with her?” Faris asked. “Did Aeon tell you? Or is it just babysitting because she’s from the same world as the heroes?”

Edna shrugged. Lovis, the [spearmaster], just nodded. “I’d never imagine that the gods could summon someone who wasn’t a hero.”

Luckily, this was the Valthorns’ private bar, deep within the Valthorns’ keep. Everyone here was a Valthorn. “Indeed. More so if it’s an accident.” Edna sighed. “She herself said her presence in this world was an accident of the gods.”

“Gods can make mistakes, too.” Faris shrugged.

“I wonder whether that’ll get included into the Tome of Aeonic Commandments that the Pentadecarches are compiling.”

The group of upgraded classers collectively groaned. “If you don’t mind me being absolutely honest, that’s honestly the biggest piece of ass-kissing I’ve ever seen attempted,” one of the [Grand Knights] present said.

“What else do priests do, other than sing praises of the deity?” Lovis retorted. “Just smile and nod and we laugh at the way they venerate Aeon?”

“Is that what the outer circle nations are saying?” Edna asked. The Valthorns internally categorized the neighbors into circles, in the same way trees had rings. The Freshlands itself was the Heart, the immediate neighbors the inner-circle nations, and those further out, the outer-circle nations. Again, it was an academic exercise; there were many, many ways to slice and dice the classifications of nations and their relationship with us. One could use race to quickly make classifications, too. For example, the treefolk nations, however small they were, had a far higher ‘natural’ loyalty to the Freshlands than the rest of the nations. This was simply because the treefolks, whenever they were in the presence of the [Tree of Prayer], or any of my trees, could quickly sense my power flowing through the ground, and so they did not doubt the extent of my powers. On the other hand, the human nations were a lot more wary, since they had a longer history of believing in the four temples.

* * *

A familiar visitor came. She even had the scythe. The [Druidhunter].

“We meet again, Aeon.” Leithia was an old lady, now in her nineties, but to me, she looked like she had not changed much in the past forty years; most likely because of the influence of her class, her aging was slower. She was the executioner of the Hutan Council. The Hutan Council was now a far smaller entity than they once were. Many of them died during that long period of the Rottedlands, and the growth of the Freshlands and Valthorns also gradually whittled down their influence to a much, much weaker self.

After all, with Faris, my [Great Druid], and my group of upgraded druids, the Hutan Council no longer had a strong claim as the best place to learn the druid’s craft.

She visited the Valthorns’ keep and was granted an audience with the Valthorns. They quickly sent her to a special area where I had a few [Tree of Prayers]. “I suppose it’s strange, but…would you consider employing me?”

I thought about it briefly. “Yes. But not as a hunter, you shall be one of the Valthorns’ military trainers.”

She accepted.

Funny that our paths crossed again after decades.

* * *

“Glad to see you are still alive, executioner.” Jura smiled. “And the ages have been kind. You certainly don’t seem like you’ve aged, unlike myself.”

“I’m pleased that you still remember me, Counsel Jura.” Leithia bowed slightly. They sat in a small cafe in Freshka itself. “But that’s rich coming from an elf with a naturally long life. I believe I saw Councilor Yvon, as well?”

“She’s a principal now.” Jura sipped on tea. “And certainly. One must remember the person who waltzed into our town and killed four druids publicly.”

Leithia gave a gentle, grandmotherly smile.

“So, tell me of the Hutan Council. How have they fallen so far? To lose even their most feared executioner?”

“It followed the typical path, really. Greed, incompetence, arrogance, and overconfidence.” Leithia shrugged. “How could druids compete with a few [great druids] anyway? Even our most senior [arch druid] is but one person, and certainly the way of the druids in the Hutan is haphazard, messy, very much unlike the structure of the Valthorn.”

“Some would say such is the proper way of nature. I have heard that the Hutan says the way we train our druids is ‘artificial.’ Quite like a farm, rather than the wilderness.”

“So they say.” Leithia nodded. “But in the face of the demon kings, a farm’s speed is superior. The large number of competent druids they can churn out every year means the Valthorns can lose ten for every one we train. The [archdruid] may be a damned good druid, and I respect him for that, but he has failed to lead us through the constant, regular monsoon of the demons.”

“Then what brings you to join us? I heard from Aeon that he agreed.”

“I may be old, but I, too, wanted to see for myself this blend of faith, institution, and might. They are times in legends of yore that individuals must recognize the men and the creatures that change the world.”

“I would never picture you as the kind that could be inspired by legends, executioner.” They both chuckled.

“Well…”

“Do you like what you see?”

“Too early to tell.”

* * *

Back at the Treetiary College, the commoners’ presence was now undisputed. However, there clearly was a large social gap between the noble-born children and the commoners that joined them.

This was because the Treetiary College was in function a tertiary college. There was a certain level of understanding that was implied, and for commoners, they lacked this ‘baseline knowledge.’ Unlike the Valthorns, who were educated from young, and unlike the priesthood, where the priests themselves did the task of educating them on the ways of faith, the FTC went right into management, military affairs, and economics.

Quite a large bunch of the commoners who enrolled didn’t even know how to write, so they couldn’t even self-study if they wanted to. Most of them, as they were sponsored by the nobles, also had to run errands for the nobles, so the amount of studying time they had was actually very limited. Some didn’t know things like mathematics and had limited knowledge of the world outside of their tasks.

When I opened up the slots for commoners as well, it seemed most of the nobles just nominated and sponsored their minders to help them. In some cases, some nobles appointed minders who knew how to read and write so that they could take notes. In most cases, though, the nobles generally just appointed either bodyguards who knew how to fight or just regular maids.

This wasn’t the intention, of course. I wanted an administrative class. A bureaucracy.

These commoners struggled really hard. In a way, they reminded me of my friends who had to work full-time jobs and study part-time. Sure, there was some learning, but somehow it was just not as effective or immersive as a full-time education.

It didn’t help that the trainers themselves were so used to educating nobles that some didn’t even bother helping their fellow commoners.

So this gap in output also created and amplified the sense of superiority that the nobles had.

I had to intervene, so I quickly demanded that Thordrock added commoner-specific remedial classes meant to teach them the basics of reading, writing, language, and math, which he did.

* * *

As the year approached its end, I wondered whether the heroes were making progress. I hoped they were.

We honestly didn’t have much information. The blockade was a pain, and the navy still needed more time. Building warships and training sea-capable soldiers was taking far longer than expected.

So what if we broke through the blockade?

If none of the other countries wanted to trade with us, what was the use of breaking through the blockade?

We needed a strategy that looked past that, so the first thing we needed was a way to communicate with the other kingdoms on all those continents. Some may be open to trade and communicating with us discreetly and ways to make trade happen.

Alternatively, if we did break through the blockade, we must have a naval force able to transport a sizable army to capture and hold a port on one of the other continents. Only from there we could then restore communications and our intelligence network.

* * *

On a fine day, near the end of the year…

[Evans Lake has died. You received a fragment.]

[Agnes Ang has died. You received a fragment.]

[Soraya Mahmud has died. You received a fragment.]

Uh…the heroes were not doing well, were they?

60

YEAR 140

My news about the heroes came mostly through eavesdropping on Stella. After the death of three heroes, they called her frequently, hoping to rely on her for mental support. Which was strange, because I could see Stella struggling, and she turned to alcohol and herbal remedies to cope.

Was I supporting a junkie?

Was I enabling her behavior by giving her things?

“Look, Astia.” I used her name; I didn’t want her to know I was eavesdropping or reading her mind. “I’ll need you to earn some money. I can’t keep supporting you like this, especially if you’re not doing much other than mope around all day.”

I felt like a dad giving a talk. She nodded. “All right…what can I do? I, uh…I can teach, I suppose? Will that work?”

“No. Did you do any work in your past life?” I had to pretend I had no idea what her background was.

“I was, uh…an admin assistant.”

“All right, then you can do paperwork. The Freshlands Treetiary College needs someone to tabulate results, handle time schedules, and manage logistics. I’ll have you work on that.”

“Then my…uh…bodyguard?”

Good point. What sort of paperwork could be done by someone where they didn’t need to interact with others?

“Research,” Trevor suggested. “She may assist with documentation of research results.”

I proposed this to Astia, and she made a trip to one of the [biolabs]. She quickly moped out of there.

“I’m not doing this job. That lab is waaaaaaaaaaay too scary. What’s with all the beetle-limbs floating around in various green vats?! Even if I’m not afraid, I’ll be too nervous to even work.”

I mentally sighed. “How’s your maths?”

“Average?”

“What are you good at?”

“Computers? They don’t exist in this world, do they?”

“Can you do art?”

She paused. “I…could?”

“Then you will do paintings and design. The Valthorns will pass you the materials and requirements, and you can do posters and picture design.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Finally. She was average at the whole painting thing, but it was good enough for the Valthorns’ posters. She made a ‘we want you’ poster as part of the regular Valthorn recruitment flyers. At the very least, she would be paid.

* * *

“Miss Stella.” Tom was on the magical call again.

“Oh, hi.” Stella was working in a painting studio on the next recruitment poster. She quickly put on a smile instead of her usual resting-bitch face.

“This demon king thing…it’s really hard.” Tom sounded really depressed and sad. “But I keep hearing these voices to tell me to go on. I feel like my body’s not listening to my mind.”

“Oh, dear, that sounds really bad.” If that was her attempt at empathy, I thought a certain car-show host could do better.

“I sometimes keep thinking of them, but somehow, I couldn’t remember. It’s so weird.” Tom cried and wept. Then he looked like he had one of those mind-attacks again.

Stella didn’t know how to react. She wasn’t good at this kind of thing. So she said nothing.

Tom suddenly woke up as if it never happened, and the conversation went elsewhere. “We’re all about level seventy to eighty now, but we’re still not good enough for the demon king. We kept fighting its larger demonic dragons, but so many people are dying.”

Stella was silent, almost like a statue.

“We’re going to try, though. So many people depend on us to slay the demon king.” That sounded so familiar. At some point, all these heroes really, really sounded the same. I wondered whether I’d ever meet a hero that could resist the influence of the gods. That would be something, I thought. The powers of a hero, yet without their influence.

“Good luck.” Stella forced it out of her mouth, and somehow she managed to smile.

“Thanks, Miss Stella. Hang in there already. We’ll come and get you once we slay the demon king.” They somehow turned positive again, as if they were entirely different persons. Stella noticed it, of course, but she didn’t say a word. In her mind, the first thing wasn’t god’s influence, but instead, did Tom have bipolar disorder?

* * *

There were about ten seagoing kingdoms building new warships, ships that we hoped to use someday, to break the blockade. The Valthorns’ Naval Academy was new, and though I had the ability to bestow [Captain], [Admiral], [Pirate], or [Privateer] classes, there was a huge body of knowledge about navigation, about logistics of a navy, which we took and adapted from the existing maritime kingdoms.

With intercontinental trade absolutely dried up, some of the merchants had turned to piracy. This was especially true in the nations further away, where my eyes were limited. This created a negative feedback loop, since piracy increased the cost of business and made the business of merchants even more unviable, which drove even more sailors and captains into piracy.

I met many pirates. More like I’d spied on many pirates; many of them were just plain criminals. They wanted money. Some were driven down a path of desperation and couldn’t get out of piracy.

The Valthorns were stretched thin, especially the upgraded classers. I had about one hundred upgraded classers, but the Central Continent had many more kingdoms. So the Valthorns had to travel from place to place, and I could not focus all of my classers to take out the pirates. It also didn’t help that some of the pirates were quite high level, in their level fifties, so they could easily be a match for the younger upgraded classers who got their classes not so long ago.

I needed to strengthen the elite much more.

* * *

Still, I’d reclaimed close to 40 percent of the Rottedlands, except for that magically combustive space where the last demon king perished. The swirling vortex was difficult to tame, and it kept destroying all the trees that I placed. The magical energies were something else. I thought my [forest rod] could be useful, but it had a small area of effect, so it must be placed in the heart of the vortex to work.

So, over the past few years, I made small steps toward the core. I tried to tunnel beneath the ground and discovered that the magical vortex extended even underground. In short, whatever that was left in the middle created a spherical spinning vortex.

That didn’t stop me. Spinning vortexes, that was just like my soul forge. Not exactly a stranger.

So I set up multiple Giant Attendant Trees around it and gradually drained out the mana from the vortex and, at the same time, injected my own mana into the spinning vortex to neutralize the spin.

It was a slow process, since I couldn’t slow it down immediately; that tended to cause a whiplash and a really strong mana-explosion that generally destroyed even my [Giant Attendant Trees].

Still, this was a process that just took time. Eventually, I managed to diffuse and pacify the vortex. It just took a lot of mana.

Then we discovered the vortex had spawned a massive demon hybrid, from all the concentrated demonic and magical energy. It was not a pure demon, as it seemed like a Frankenstein-ish creature with limbs made from a hodgepodge of animals and seemed only lightly affected by my resistances. It was asleep, or at least inactive, up until the vortex was broken.

It woke up.

It was more powerful than a walker but less than a demon king. It had daemolite crystals all over its body and living flesh in other parts. It roared with its worm-like head that was a mix of organic teeth and daemolite.

If the gods that spawned monsters were experimenting, this seemed like it.

I immediately called on my Valthorns and my elites to intercept while I used my abilities to slow it down. I could tell it was working…a bit. It wasn’t a pure demon, so it suffered less from my extensive anti-demon perks.

“Aeon didn’t say there was a monster inside?!”

There were already a small crew of Valthorn Elites when we cleared the vortex. But they were insufficient. It had three long tails made of a mix of tree roots and demonic spikes, each capable of independently attacking any nearby enemies.

I unleashed my root strikes, and it weakened it slightly. Then I used [constrict]. Constrict worked a lot better, since it had various mana-draining qualities. Still, it struggled and struggled. It broke free once.

Then I had to use my abilities again to bring it down. It struggled. It fought. I added more giant trees to the area to strengthen my abilities.

It weakened. Then it pulsed. It felt nostalgic.

It was going to explode.

I used more [constrict] and more [steelwood barriers]. I needed to drain away the core from exploding.

My vines and roots pierced its body, like tentacles attempting to reach a reactor core that was about to go off. I drained it of its mana, as much as I could take, and vented it out in the surroundings.

Patreeck and the artificial minds helped. More vines covered the body of the hybrid demon. It was still going to blow. I quickly told the Valthorns to retreat.

It blew up, but only a small explosion. The power behind the explosion was mostly drained away by my vines. The explosion didn’t destroy everything.

What was left was a massive reddish crystal mixed with streaks of other colors.

[Tainted Demon Crystal Core - A curious mix of demonic and native energies.]

The center of where the Demon King fell reclaimed, there was daemolite in smaller quantities. Thankfully it didn’t all ignite in a chain reaction when it blew up.

The crystal sat unused in my materials lab and magic. I had to run more experiments on it. It was an unstable magic core. It had a lot of potential, though. I just needed to figure out a way to use both of its energies simultaneously, since the crystal only released the ‘blended’ version.

Could it be a color for my soul forge once I’d managed to control it?

I placed it deep within my labs in the Valley of the Unrotten for further experiments.

* * *

The heroes fought the demons many times, and they were gaining levels. But it seemed that the demon king was still too strong for them.

[Naveen Fraug has died. You received a fragment.]

[Ellen Ascas has died. You received a fragment.]

Another two more died in the fight against the demon king.

“That was our fifth encounter with the demon king. Naveen and Ellen stayed back to delay the demon king so we could escape,” Tom said to Stella. “We won’t let their sacrifice be in vain.”

“It must be hard losing your friend.” Stella nodded.

“Yes. But we’ve come this far. We’re almost level one hundred now. I can feel that our victory is not far away. Some of us have unlocked our full star-mana powers. Once all of us do, we’ll take the fight back to the demon king.”

“I see.”

“Then we’ll come and find you and free you.”

“That won’t be necessary, Tom,” Stella said. “Enjoy yourself after the fight. I mean it.”

Stella didn’t want to deal with them at all.

* * *

I’d begun to see some slight benefits to the various schools, as I noticed some kingdoms setting up mini academies to train their noble children, a ‘prep school’ before they were sent over to the FTC.

The commoner students also had some improvement, as I started to give them classes more liberally. [Merchant], [Knight], or [Administrator] basic classes, I gave them out to any commoner who wanted them, since these were common classes anyway. These generic classes helped them to cope with the various topics of administration, trade, and warfare.

Also, among the first generation of graduates, they created new trade routes and formed cooperation agreements, spearheaded by the Dwarven Trade Lord. It was, in many ways, what I wanted to see.

An FTC alumni created a network that would only grow with time. This was a necessary step to bypass the old ways of networking and introduction that relied on royal events and also religious gatherings.

Most graduates left the college with a favorable view of the Freshlands and me. That was important, because the initial goal was to strengthen the culture of the Freshlands. I needed the nobles to act as advocates of the Freshlands culture, and I believed they would come into conflict with the incumbent culture of the nobles, carried forward from the days when the temples ruled.

Still, this was the new wave, and the many of the savvy nobles were quick to get on my side. Really, culture was this strange thing; sometimes it could change quickly, sometimes really slowly. I wanted a cultural change that would stick in the continent as a whole.

The ones who felt the cultural change the most were the priests and the Valthorns. They ventured everywhere in the Central Continent to spread my cause, to carry out social work, to provide protection for soldiers and traders. They were unknown, then they were scorned, and now they got treated with respect.

As a whole, though, the Central Continent still had their conflicts. In a way, the Freshlands had become the Vatican, and I was both the pope and the god. The countries fought wars with each other, and I’d ignored them so long they continued to profess loyalty and faith to the Freshlands. Of course, the Valthorns and our assets were pulled out from the participating countries.

There was no point getting caught in stupid friendly fire.

Countries would have disagreements, and after some discussion with my artificial minds, it was fine to let them fight each other, as long as the source of their unhappiness was not me. In fact, it was also the opportunity for the priests to strengthen their cultural hold, as they stepped in to provide relief to those affected by wars and battles.

If anything, these wars only weakened themselves and strengthened the Freshlands. Cultural victory in my opinion involved watching others make mistakes and then resisting the urge to interrupt them.

* * *

“We’ve fought the demon king eight times now,” Tom said in a call with Stella. “I honestly don’t know what we’re doing wrong. We’re using our star-mana powers, we are all level one hundred-plus, all five of us. We attacked the demon king, and somehow it managed to either run away or find a way to hurt us so bad that we retreated.”

“Keep trying. You’ll get there.”

“The people of the Eastern Continent are starting to complain and grumble,” Tom said. “They didn’t say it in our faces directly, but many cities don’t even want to host us. Often, they would send us a messenger with whatever supplies we needed and told us to camp outdoors, preferably far away from town. They said it’s for the safety of the cities. It’s not our fault that the demon king attacked us when we are in the cities!”

“That’s tough.”

“Any ideas how we should fight it? Sometimes it refused to even attack us, instead fleeing. I totally don’t understand this demon king. The gods told us the demon kings are simple-minded creatures!” Tom sighed, and at the same time, I felt bad. They were clearly being lied to. The demon kings so far had displayed some intelligence, especially in battlefield intelligence and strategy. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they actually were sentient, if they were a step above the demons I’d met.

Stella shrugged. “I’m not one for violence.”

“Maybe we should lure it. We need something.”

“Wave a big stick at it and say come here?”

“Yeah. Maybe we need a way to lure it,” Tom answered his own question. “Maybe with a lot of star mana.”

Another hero jumped in. “How do we do that? Make a big beacon in the sky to tell the demon king we’re here?”

“I thought it could already see us. Why would it even respond to our lure?”

Stella just sat there and waited. The remaining heroes started to talk among themselves. The surviving five were Tom, Jason, Ryder, Adam, and Rick. Strangely common names, compared to those that died, but I wasn’t going to challenge it. Maybe they used a nickname instead of their real names.

They talked about various strategies with Stella sitting there. They clearly had a poor sense of information security risk.

Stella got bored at one point, so she intervened. “Guys, I’ve got something to do. Can you kick me out of this conversation?” She didn’t. She just wanted to have a nap.

“Ah, sorry, Miss Stella. We got carried away in our anti demon-king plan.”

* * *

The year was coming to an end. Did it normally take so long for the heroes to kill the demon king? Didn’t they take a year or two?

Then…

[Thomas Ragash died.]

[Jason Stateches died.]

[Ryder Flynnish died.]

[Adam Eastwest died.]

[Ricky Roller died.]

[You received 5 fragments.]

Wait.

Did the demon king die?

I waited for two days. Nothing.

But, but…

That was a total of ten heroes dead! The demon king lived even though the heroes died? And this was a new batch of heroes!

Did this mean the gods would summon a new set?

What would happen now? The demon king no longer had any heroes to fear!

61

YEAR 141

It was classified information; clearly no one knew it, but I did. I first informed the Valthorns, the Valtrian Order, my Patriarchs and Matriarchs. It was met with a resounding silence. Patreeck told me they were making plans.

What did this mean? Had the demons won?

I wouldn’t be able to get anything from the regular people. At least, I didn’t think I would. The only person who I thought could even attempt to answer what was next was Lilies.

> Lilies. The Heroes died. <

< We know. We sensed their presence fade away in the fabric of the world. >

> So what now? <

< Hunker down. A true winter comes. >

That sounded awfully ominous.

> Tips? <

< Hide and spread far. Demons cannot reach everywhere. >

If we’re doomed, we’re doomed, wasn’t it? But I didn’t believe so, since…well, I just didn’t believe it. I refused to believe it.

Then I announced it to the representatives of the various cities and the nobles of many kingdoms. The heroes had died; all ten of them had fallen in battle.

The entire hall was in uproar. It was a panic I’d never seen the nobles exhibit.

One of the noble lords went a little nuts and shouted, “We’re doomed!”

Some said rather strange things. “Why is this happening? It’s the first time in documented history!”

“Is it?” some nobles challenged, clearly trying to be the level-headed one. “Our historical records only go back so far. What if this wasn’t the first time?”

I recalled when I first arrived, the gods always summoned heroes if the previous generation died to the new demon king. But would the gods summon heroes again if the new batch of heroes died?

“If it isn’t, then we have chosen correctly to break away from the four temples! They’ve lied to us all this time!”

But why? Why were the gods restricted from summoning newer heroes if the new heroes died? Certainly they could try again, right?

“Is that something worth arguing over at this time? We need to deal with the reality before us, that the heroes have all fallen, and yet the demon king still lived. We must focus our efforts on surviving this!”

“Survive? How? I for one am going to be rushing out there and spend all my money and live a life.”

Patreeck’s ability told me all of them were seeing their lives flash before their eyes. This was one of those, “If you died tomorrow, what would you do?” moments.

A noble said, “We must try something. If we must call on the blood mages to perform a ritual of massive proportions, then we must. It is either they die, or everyone dies!”

I was certain some of the kings and the temples out there would be considering this option right now. But based on Patreeck’s calculation and my own historical data, it wouldn’t be enough. From my observations of the hex to date and my experiments, the existing hexbomb would not have enough power to destroy a demon king. Unless I sacrificed close to twenty million people, maybe more. I recalled sensing the huge surge in magical energies with that hex-like thing, and now that I’d got access to the hex on my own, I was able to put the two data points together to calculate the energy needed to replicate a similar power level.

Twenty million. Did he sacrifice so many? I didn’t think so.

Yet how did Astra do it? Was it because of the amplification power of star mana? Could star mana and hex fuse together, or did the star mana apply its anti-demon king qualities to the entire hexbomb?

“What are our options?” I asked the artificial minds.

“The hexbomb is a good direction, Master. We should focus on amplifying the power of the soul in order to create a superbomb. To borrow your memories, Master, the hexbomb is essentially a massive bundle of ten million TNTs. If we could use the soul fragments in a significantly more efficient way, it may be possible to achieve the same effect with far lower sacrifice.”

It still required sacrifice. Just less.

“What level of efficiency can we achieve at the moment?”

The artificial minds paused and started calculating. It took them two days.

“Based on our current knowhow and converting the entire valley of the Unrotten, we can amplify the hexbomb’s efficiency and power by four times,” Trevor said. “Still, that means at least five million sacrifices.”

Was I willing to do this to get just a single shot at the demon king with the hexbomb?

It bothered me. I didn’t think it was the right thing to do at all. It felt like I was cutting off my limbs just to live another day.

“From a utilitarian point of view, Master, sacrifices are necessary. Five million is a number the Freshlands can afford.”

It took a few days, but I then decided, “It must be a last resort. But we must make preparations.”

The preparations required were massive. First, we needed to make sure that there were at least five to ten million people within a five-day walk of Freshka. Next was preparing the structures, formations, and runes needed to properly concentrate the energies released from five to ten million souls.

We didn’t know how much time we had, but preparing the formations and runes needed to perform a blood ritual of this size was going to take years.

In a way, this option was dead from the start. There was no way we could have done the preparations needed in time; if the demon king attacked this year, we would have failed. Even sacrificing twenty million people wasn’t so simple, since the souls of all twenty million needed to be stitched together into a single shot. This endeavor alone required the construction of a massive containment array to control the energies.

How did Astra do it? Was my magical measurement and sensors so far off?

There must be some star mana or hero-level shenanigans at work.

* * *

“The heroes died.” The Valthorns’ upgraded classers spoke among themselves. “This meant the demon king may very well be on the way to kill the rest of us.”

“Does Aeon have a plan?”

“I say we hide, construct massive installations deep within mountains and wait it out. The demon king may rule the world outside, but with our skills, we’d live. Faris and the druids, the mages together could generate all the things we needed to live.”

“Ah, Aeon’s underground bunkers taken to the extreme, huh?”

“Well, yes. But we’re talking extremely, extremely deep. Far deeper than before.”

“It’s a good possibility.” Some of the Valthorns considered the idea. It had a good merit. “The demons certainly can’t sense us if we hide that deep.”

“Then let’s do it. We can expand it if we can create enough space.”

“We better not tell the nobles. They’ll demand we protect them if they know.” All the Valthorns nodded.

The Valthorns started what they called the ‘trench-hideout project.’ They, using their powers together, started to dig really, really, really deep underground. Their project would take a few months, but if they did it right, they’d probably survive.

* * *

At the same time, Lausanne’s still alive. That was a good sign, in the sense that the entire Eastern Continent had not fallen under the demons. There must be pockets or nations that survived.

As the year went by, captains and sailors began noticing that the temples’ blockade now had holes. Some navies still maintained the blockade, but there were pockets where the ships left. The temples, after all, were a hodgepodge of contributed forces, so some of the kingdoms may have given up.

Then we began capturing some ships that strangely sailed into the harbors of our allied kingdoms.

“What’s happening out there?” we interrogated the crew.

“We don’t know, but our supply ships stopped coming, and we were starving. So all of us had to come here! We either starve or sail to the nearest harbor.” They didn’t know much. Even the captains were not very well informed of what was happening back in their home country.

Jura sat and asked me one day.

“TreeTree, remember that time when you unlocked my limit?”

“Yes?”

“How far can you go with it?”

“Hmm?” I didn’t get his point. Were there multiple roadblocks on their levels that I had to keep unlocking? Did the native souls have a gacha-style level cap where they needed multiple upgrades before they achieved max capacity?

“How high can you push it?”

I didn’t know, really.

Jura paused. “Actually, maybe I should cut to the point. TreeTree, are you able to make something like a hero? I know you tried with Lausanne, and it didn’t go far, but that was then, before all of the Rottedlands. We all know you’ve gained strength as the forests and the lands expanded. Now, would you be able to do it?”

Hmmmm.

I probably could not create the [Hero] class. There was something divine about it, or at least the god’s version certainly was divine. But was the [Hero] class truly the pinnacle class out there, or was it essentially possible for any class to achieve a similar power, even if they needed to be a far higher level?

It was worth trying.

* * *

“Astia. Did you get fragments?” She did.

She paused, her mind racing. “Sorry?” She wondered how I knew.

“Fragments of heroes. It’s a thing that reincarnations of other worlds receive. I wonder if you received it.”

“Yes.” She decided to be honest. “They’re dead, aren’t they? How did you know, Aeon?”

I lied. “As a being that’s close to the divine, we can sense it. Their fading presence in the fabric of the world.”

“Close to the divine,” she repeated. She’d been gaining levels in [scribe] and [artist], aided by the boost provided by the fragments. Her work was a lot of painting and paperwork, after all. I wondered whether she had the potential to achieve what I did; maybe she could even do more. “But that’s not enough to take on the demon king?”

“Heroes are specialist demon-king exterminators. We are not.” It was a statement of fact, as far as I was concerned.

* * *

I wondered what the demon king would do or what the gods would do. I got my answer as the year almost approached its end.

[The gods have summoned three new heroes.]

It was almost as if the gods themselves panicked. Why did they do this?

62

YEAR 142

So, new heroes. The nobles and the Valthorns all relaxed considerably once I told them of the new heroes. I wondered where they would appear.

> Has this happened before? <

< Our memories are hazy from the times long ago, but yes, > Lilies responded a day later.

I wondered how long Lilies must have lived. But then, most of the time, they didn’t?

Again, not exactly new under the sun, was it? Life went on. We’d deal with the demons when they arrived on our shores.

In the meantime, we continued our preparations. The school was doing well, and this year, I had a few exceptional students from both the Valtrian Order Academy and also the Freshlands Treetiary College. Talent was a strange thing. It almost seemed like they came in waves, with some years just having a lot more good people than others.

The college had one exceptional centaur [Chiefling], and over the period of the four- to five-year course, he transformed into [Warlord] at just level twenty-five. Right next to him was a master [Ranger Lord]; again, he started just as a [Noble], and as the course developed his administrative and archery skills, it fused together at level thirty.

On the Valtrian side, a young [archer] hit level forty-three at sixteen years old, mostly from hunting hybrids and participating in all sorts of archery competitions. There was also a [knight] who managed to hit level thirty-five as he graduated from the academy, and his class evolved into [Guardian Knight] without needing any prompt or special class seed from me.

It made me wonder what was really the evolution threshold of classes. Jura’s [Warlord] class happened very late, when he was almost level sixty in his warrior-type classes.

The nature of class was a perplexing thing, almost as if the rules didn’t apply uniformly. Everyone’s class system had different thresholds and triggers.

* * *

On the blood magic front, we continued to make preparations for the grand ritual, should we ever need one. Again, it was a last resort, and I wondered whether I should shelve the project since the heroes arrived.

“We should prepare the formations regardless. It can be repurposed for other uses,” my artificial minds suggested, and so I agreed with it.

Indeed, a massive formation used for containing souls seemed useful, even if just for my [soul forge].

The other preparation was partly Jura’s idea, to create a mini-hero by fusing classes together. This was also where I spent quite a bit of time.

It was a process of knocking class seeds together to see what worked and what didn’t. It was a lot of tracking and math, so I created an artificial mind to help keep track of all the ratios and numbers.

There were some successes. I could not upgrade, or maybe I had not found the way to upgrade some classes, but in the process of tweaking the [Knight], [Druid], [Spearman], and [Soldier] classes, I’d somehow merged them with my own essence and created the [Tree Knight] class, and I could then further upgrade it to [Knight of the Woods] and even further to [Knightmaster of the Woods]. There were some classes that I thought could be further evolved, like [Sharpshooter], or [Grand Knight], or [Weaponmaster], but so far, I didn’t make much progress on those.

If there was a class that made life difficult for me, it would be the [mage] classes.

It was easy enough to fuse [mage] with [druid] or [mage] with [knight]. Mage classes also could be fused together at the first layer into [Great Mage]. But things got wacky from there. The higher mage classes repelled each other when I attempted to create [archmages] or [wizards].

It was not as if these classes were rare. I had [archmage] classes, collected from dead archmages. I even had existing Valthorn mages who managed to evolve their [mage] classes into [archmages].

Yet the class fusion resisted my attempts to create [archmages] out of [mages] or [great mages]. I wondered whether this was a deliberate system restriction for high-tier magic, or there was some quirk to it that I didn’t know.

I needed time, and I was partly throttled by the number of class seeds.

Experimenting with class seeds required and consumed huge amounts of class seeds. Even if it took just ten seeds of the same type to fuse it to the next level, by the third level, it needed one thousand seeds.

It was just lucky that I had trees that could grow the normal class seeds by the bucketload so I could do so. I could also create a tree that grew the upgraded class seeds, but then theft remained a huge concern. As my reach extended throughout the continent, all my trees aided me in the process of collecting more class seeds via various death rituals and my [soul harvesters].

All in, the entire continent, now under my direct or indirect control, produced between five thousand to fifty thousand class seeds per year. A rise in the class seeds usually arose from a massive war or battle where many died. Or a slaughter or something.

Per the statistics provided by my artificial minds, roughly one in every fifty deaths would result in a class seed. That ratio was about one in ten if the dead were buried via the Aeonic burial ceremonies. The ratio was better if the ceremony was performed in Freshka, where almost one in two burials resulted in some kind of class seed or skill seed.

There was clearly a problem of proximity. I couldn’t be everywhere at once, not at full strength. As it was, many abilities were just better when they were done near to me.

I supposed if I could split a tree into multiple copies of myself, such that I could be 100 percent there, everywhere. As it was, the [Giant Attendant Trees] could only push up to 50 percent.

Decent, but not great, and that ratio’s wonky for certain kinds of abilities.

As the year went on, we didn’t see demons crossing the oceans. Maybe they went to the Northern Isles or the Southern Continent instead of directly west to the Central Continent.

Why?

If the demons had a head start, they should push hard and expand. After all, if the demons could fly, what was stopping them?

Also, none of the heroes were on my continent. I tried looking for them, but nothing. No stragglers, either, unless they died. Or took a form different from the normal humans.

I wondered whether there were others like me out there, taking their time to hide away. Or had they all died?

63

AROUND YEAR 141 TO 142

Lausanne paused as she cradled the young toddler girl in her arms. It was a strange time to have a child, but strangely, it was not uncommon. The people she’d met and many others had made babies when a war came. It was almost as if war and crisis triggered the reproductive desires in the living.

“She really looks like you.” Ardi smiled, and somehow Lausanne felt and remembered her mother’s words. Ardi had aged. They’d been married for twenty-three years, and though Lausanne wasn’t rushing things, her husband’s hair had whitened, and two years ago, Ardi proposed having a child.

The chaos and mess got to him, and to some extent, being human, even if he aged slower than a regular human. Or maybe it was being confined inside a city while demons roamed outside. What else was there to do but to copulate?

She agreed. Twenty years without a child was quite far away from the human norms, and so Arlisa came into the world slightly over a year ago. At times, she wondered whether this was a mistake. The Eastern Continent, for lack of a better word, was not the best place to raise a young baby girl. Not at all. Even if the city she lived in was doing well.

She had hoped things would improve when the heroes supposedly arrived and that she, and her new baby, Arlisa, and Ardi, would be able to leave the Eastern Continent and head back to the Central Continent.

It didn’t.

The flying drakes continued to destroy huge amounts of land, and Lausanne’s survival depended mostly on underground hideouts and cities. The dwarves, in particular, adapted well to this demon king, their cities often extended into the mountains, and they had ways to prepare their fortified cities for a long siege without exposure to the outside world.

Honestly, it felt very much like being trapped in the valley again. Except the city was far larger, and all they had to deal with was flying drakes that roamed outside.

“Lausanne, the lord summoned you.” A messenger came over.

She shrugged and calmed Arlisa down. “Let him know I’ll be there soon.” Lausanne passed the baby to her.

Lausanne changed into her combat attire and walked to the lord’s subterranean chambers. There was an Aiva priest there and a Hawa priest, and also a group of other warriors. Lausanne had met them before; they were part of the defense force.

“Grandmaster Engka once said you were the temple’s secret weapon.” Lausanne wanted to roll her eyes, but she resisted. She internally regretted taking Engka’s bargain. It’d been a decade, and the temple still made requests for her. She wondered whether she should just say no, now that she had a child of her own.

“I’m afraid I’m no such thing.” Lausanne bowed. “I happen to just carry out too many Aivan Triumvir’s requests.”

The lord smirked. “No matter. You will need to do a task for us. I received a divine quest from both Hawa and Aiva to rescue the new heroes.”

“New…heroes?” Lausanne paused. What the hell? Why did the gods summon new heroes? Did something happen to the ten heroes?

In the Eastern Continent, news was rare. Communication channels were few, and information like the death of the ten heroes was a massive secret known only to the upper echelons of the priesthood and the kings. Rumors spread, but with travel in the Eastern Continent extremely difficult, it was an extremely slow move.

Locals all wondered what took the heroes so long to slay the demon king, and for Lausanne, it suddenly made sense.

Lausanne agreed. Even if the task was difficult, heroes meant a solution to the demon king problem and a path for her new family. The alternative was a perpetual quarantine in this city that offered nothing much.

They found the heroes hiding in a small cave, with a special compass from the priest of Hawa. Three young heroes, hungry, dirty, and weak, hiding in a cave. There were demon-drakes that flew overhead.

“Come with us.” The young heroes didn’t have much of a choice. It was starve or take the only opportunity they had.

They had to fight a few demon drakes on the way back, but ultimately, they didn’t encounter any exceptional number of demons or the more powerful demon-drake champions.

* * *

“Tough day?” Ardi asked as Lausanne walked back to what had been their home for the past three years. They didn’t have much food.

“Yeah.” Lausanne sat. Lexi played with Arlisa in the small room they had. The Playing Swords disbanded two years ago when most of the team died during a massive demon-drake attack. Ardi, Lexi, and one other swordsman were all that was left. Ardi and Lexi both decided to call it a day. They were both not young anymore; the years displayed themselves on their hair, their skin. Even if Lexi still looked good as her holy powers granted her a slower rate of aging, she too had grown weary from the fighting and travelling and wanted a break.

Space was surprisingly abundant. Many of the city’s denizens died when the demon drakes attacked, so there were plenty of uninhabited accommodations.

“I met heroes today. Three young ones.”

“Eh, what happened to the previous ten?”

“I…don’t know. But if there are three new young ones, that can’t be a good sign.”

Lexi paused and nodded. She was a priestess, too, and she knew the rules about heroes. The gods only summoned new heroes if the previous generation all died. If there were three new ones, it only meant the previous ten all died. “It’s probably something you should keep to yourself, Lausanne.”

Lausanne paused, and she, too, realized the implication. “Thanks for the reminder, Lexi.”

Ardi nodded. The demon drakes raided every city on the continent. The cities that survived all relied on their heroic artifacts, but even then, those only granted a short period of protection.

“Lexi, what does the demon king do after it wins?”

“I don’t know. The scriptures all didn’t speak of such an event.”

* * *

The Dwarven City in the Mountain, Gurdarim, was one of the five mining cities on the Eastern Continent, and part of the Dwarven Miner Federation. Each city was ruled by a lord, but the lord may as well be the king of each of their own cities.

There was a massive chamber in the middle of the mountain, the rocky ceilings reinforced with magically enhanced pillars and plates. Home to almost a hundred thousand at its peak, now it was home to a third of that, only thirty thousand.

They purchased one of the abandoned units from the city hall a few years ago, and it had a small garden. There was no sunlight, but magical stones acted as artificial lights.

“Do you think we’ll be trapped here forever?” Ardi asked Lausanne that night. They sat in the garden, both with a cup of tea. Lexi and Arlisa had gone to sleep earlier.

“I hope not. If there are new heroes, that is a good sign,” Lausanne said. “Even if they seemed really, really weak.”

Ardi smiled and sipped on his tea.

“We don’t have a way out, sadly.” All the ships in the nearest port city were all on official missions, either to deliver goods, carry men, or carry critical supplies. They had attempted to buy their way out, but even the merchants rejected. The surviving kingdoms paid top dollar to the merchants to deliver the necessities.

Many more merchants had been essentially ‘nationalized’ during this period of time, and they operated shipping routes that supported the military.

Even if the heroes had died, many cities still chugged along, protected by heroic items so freely given out a few decades ago. Still, they were stressed, as the heroic items had a long recharge time, and if the demons attacked frequently, they would eventually break through the defenses.

Gurdarim, too, had one heroic item in its treasury, a massive mirror that collected energy and would release a heat ray that destroyed anything in its path. Still, it had an extremely long recharge time of two months, so the city reserved its use for the demon champions. Any lesser attack had to be repelled by the defense force. Some of the surviving cities had more heroic artifacts, and although that meant they had more weapons at their disposal, those cities were attacked more often.

Blasphemy, when Lausanne highlighted that the demon kings could sense the presence of heroes and their star mana.

But what else could it be?

A few days later, Lausanne was summoned again.

“The heroes must leave the Eastern Continent to somewhere that they can train.” Lausanne immediately thought of the Rottedlands, but she kept her mouth quiet. She knew that the priest would immediately say she was a heretic for even suggesting it.

“And?”

“We want you, along with our elites, to escort them to the port city on the western coast. We’re not sure which city will be safe when you get there, so Port Helas, Port Kelah, and Port Lawad are all on standby.”

Huh? What did such a statement mean?

“There’s a large pack of drakes spotted. Fifty drakes.” The adventurers and veterans next to Lausanne immediately gulped. One of them quickly said, “Milord, that’s too much for us, even if we are escorting heroes.”

“Couldn’t the heroes handle them?” Lausanne asked.

“It’s…complicated.” The priest sighed. “They are unable to use their powers for the time being.”

Lausanne frowned. That didn’t sound good at all. There must be a catch.

“The demons are looking. If we keep them here in our city, a large army of drakes will soon attack this city. For the good of this city, we must take them away.”

“How could the demons find the heroes? Can’t we teleport them away?” Lausanne asked.

“We’ve recently noticed the presence of some kind of magical interference. We’re not sure what…and we do not dare to risk it. And as strange as it seems, we must face the evidence that the demons are able to see the heroes…somehow.”

The priests, of course, shook their heads. “The demons must have found a way to twist the gods’ blessings. But regardless, we must escort the heroes of the city. The gods command it.”

Lausanne mentally eye-rolled. “So escorting heroes past a large pack of drakes is your preferred solution?” Lausanne challenged the lord, and the lord frowned.

“Alternatively,” a priest said. “If there can be a big enough distraction, a team of adventurers with fast horses can rush the heroes to the port city.”

One of the adventurers present suggested, “Maybe they’ll just go away? The demons may just move away after some time.”

“That’s a possibility. We could wait, but like I said, we’re painting a target on our back.”

“May I speak to the heroes?” Lausanne suddenly asked. She wanted to know how useless or what level these heroes were.

“Sure,” the priests said. She gave a light nod and left the discussion.

* * *

Lausanne found the three heroes in one of the houses provided by the lord. They were practicing with weapons. “Hello.”

“Hi. Are you one of the lord’s people?” one of the guys asked. The three heroes were two boys and one girl. The girl immediately smacked the guy.

“She’s one of those who came for us.”

“Oh. Definitely the lord’s people.”

Lausanne smirked. “May I?”

They nodded, and Lausanne sat on a wooden stool next to them. They continued practicing, at least, one of them. The girl was the first to talk. “Why are you here, lady?”

“I’m Lausanne. I’m one of the independent combatants employed by the lord. I just wanted to talk to you and get a sense of why we’re having this issue.”

“Oh.” The three heroes just stopped.

“I’ll be direct. Is there a problem with your powers?” Lausanne wanted to understand what the priest meant by “unable to use their powers.”

The three heroes fumbled a bit. One of the boys was first to answer. “…yes.”

They sat together, and the boy, Alvin, was the one that explained. “Uh…it’s complicated, but when we died in a bus crash, we met this god. He called himself Claude, and he said, well, we were summoned under extraordinary circumstances.”

Lausanne nodded. “Go on.”

“So, he briefed us quickly that the earlier group failed, so we are now tasked to fix the mistakes. But because we are an emergency team, we had a bit more restrictions. One of which is that our powers are locked for one year. We can level in our ordinary classes, but [Hero] is stuck at level one, and our [Blessing of the Gods] is inactive. It’s also locked for a year.”

Lausanne nodded. They were essentially regular people, then. “Why do you need to leave the continent?”

“Uh…we can’t even fight the drakes. There’s no way we can level,” Alvin repeated.

The girl, Kei, then added, “And Claude, that god fellow, said we should get out of the continent and come back when we’re stronger.”

“I see.”

Hans was the other boy. He just nodded along. Alvin continued. “So we asked the lord to help us. We go back to the easy places, farm ourselves to a higher level, then come back and kick the demon’s ass.”

Kei smacked the boy. “Stop talking shit, Alvin.”

“Hey, I’m just saying we’re gonna kick those demons’ asses once we have our hero powers. What’s wrong with that? All we gotta do is survive for a year. We’ve already survived a month!”

Lausanne just smiled. “I’ll come over and practice with you kids, all right?” It was weird to refer to them as kids, because they were the heroes, but Lausanne had to admit they were kids. “At least, until you get your ticket out of this place.”

“All right!”

* * *

Waiting was a good choice.

About a month after, the flock of demon drakes attacked somewhere else, and there was a small window of opportunity. They quickly rushed the heroes to the port town. Lausanne also took that chance to get her family to the port city.

But there were no ships willing to take them. All seaworthy ships were used for the military and temple affairs.

“We say goodbye here, Lady Lausanne.” Kei bowed. “Thank you for practicing with us and telling us about the world.”

“It’s fine. Remember, it’s a secret you can tell no one else.” Lausanne spoke of her experience meeting Harris, the other heroes, and of the Freshlands when they practiced. The three heroes nodded. To them, it was a perspective different from what the priests had shared.

“We’ll keep it in mind.” A ship would take them to the Southern Continent, where they would grind and practice for at least a year and get their [Hero] levels up. The heroes left that day. As for Lausanne and family, they searched for ships to take them to the Central Continent. None was available, even if they were willing to go to the Cursed Continent.

Then Lausanne stumbled on the old dockyards, where many damaged ships were under repair. Some of the ships were in terrible condition and had been put up for sale. That was when she had an idea. The ships were made of wood, after all, and her Warden allowed her access to some of Aeon’s rather strange abilities, even if they were ‘weaker.’

“If I buy the ship, can I sail it wherever I want?”

“Uh, well, yes. It’s your ship. But we’re full. We’re busy making ships for the army and the merchant corps,” the dock manager said, and she soon confirmed it with everyone else. Lausanne just smiled, and she thanked Aeon for Warden.

So she bought one of the damaged ships. They were adventurers; naturally they had money. Furthermore, the damaged ships were cheap, and since repairs would cost a bomb, no sane seagoing merchant was going to pay a lot of money for a ship that couldn’t sail.

Ardi returned from the tavern with a crew and a captain. It wasn’t hard to convince sailors to sail with them; all that was needed was money.

“So…where’s our ship?” They were all gathered before the unrepaired ship, its wood in some parts rotten and broken.

Lausanne climbed aboard, sat in the middle, and in an instant, there was a green flash of light. Her body temporarily merged with the wood of the ship, and it was as if the ship itself returned to life. Rotten wood started to heal and broken pieces regrew. It took about an hour, but to the crew and captain, it was strange to see a ship heal itself.

[Woodcrafting] and [Wood Magic]. In the same way she and Warden could create wooden spears out of thin air, linking to wooden structures and revitalizing them was just an extension of that ability, taken to a larger scale.

“All right, let’s go, let’s go. This ship will not fail as long as my magic feeds it. We’re getting our asses out of here.”

It was a rocky journey; the oceans were not known for pleasant weather. But with a ship that didn’t break, and Lausanne even able to directly steer the ship by linking Warden to the wooden rudders, it wasn’t that bad. Just a bit of vomiting here and there.

They also fought some monsters along the way, nothing too large or scary. Mostly just common ocean pests. A few of the crew died from sea-monster attacks, too, but eventually, after two months of sailing, they finally saw land.

64

YEAR 142 (CONTINUED)

This year, one of my FTC graduate’s class transformed into [Aeonic Lord]. I don’t recall ever seeing any of the nobles obtaining such a class, so its presence was quite a surprise to me. I was able to upgrade a class to its aeonic variants, but so far, no lord or noble had ever approached me to do so.

So, rather than be assured, I suddenly felt that all my nobles were not as loyal as I thought they were.

“Perhaps it’s a matter of faith, rather than loyalty,” my artificial minds suggested. “I believe many are loyal, in their hearts. You are their [King]. But not their [God].”

Hmmm…

That was certainly possible. The mechanisms of faith were not truly understood.

At the same time, I revisited my [Anointed King] class again. If I gave it to him, what would happen? Perhaps the [Aeonic Lord] was an entry-level class into the whole path of aeonic-aligned noble classes?

Kraviek, the relatively young student, was a treefolk noble. It was appropriate, I supposed, that the treefolks were the first to believe in my divinity. A young sapling in his mid-thirties, he was born in the early days of the Freshlands and grew up in a merchant house in the inner segments and then later was granted his own territory as his family was one of the pioneer settlers of the outer segments.

The treefolk had been one of the first to embrace my divinity, so my artificial minds’ suggestion certainly had a basis.

“Kraviek.” I spoke to the young treefolk lord, and like all my other aeonic classers, I could sense him very clearly.

He immediately prostrated in the way treefolks always had. “Praise the Tree.” Patreeck’s scan of his memories and thoughts was like flipping through the mind of a zealot. One who believed everything. Faith and more. “Please, how can I be of service?”

“Well done on achieving your class.” I started with praise. I wanted to know more from the person. “You are the first I know of.”

“You honor me, your holiness.” Holiness? That didn’t seem right. I certainly was not holy.

“I prefer to be referred to as Aeon.”

“Yes, Aeon.”

“Tell me, how do you feel about your new class? What does it do?”

Kraviek was still prostrated on the floor. “My level twenty [Aeonic Lord] granted me a mix of [Aeonic Weapons] and [Blessed Lands], which supports agriculture, husbandry, and forestry.” I see. So the Aeonic Lord was essentially a nature-focused lord, similar to a druid and lord. A variant, I supposed, of the druidic lords.

* * *

Progress was made on our anti-air research. We’d developed beetles able to fire thorny projectiles, similar to a mobile anti-air tank. The choice for thorny projectiles, instead of their own body parts, was simply because we wanted to amplify the damage dealt by using anti-demon wooden ballista bolts. So, a battalion of ballista-beetles could carry a load of three to five anti-demon bolts each, which they could then use to rain death on an army of flying demons.

They would unfortunately be defenseless once they exhausted their anti-demon bolts, but no matter. I was still quite proud of Horns.

This was like a medieval beetle version of a V2 rocket launcher.

If I wanted to make beetles with unlimited ammo, it was possible, but usually that would compromise on their range and their actual damage output. So if I wanted beetles who could provide long-range support with high amounts of damage, separate ammunition from the launcher was a good idea.

After all, I’d been making anti-demon bolts all this time!

The next matter was an issue of force projection. I was now a continental power, and as a continental power, there would be occasions when I needed to project significant force in a particular location. Currently, I could do so by spawning multiple [Giant Attendant Trees], but I believed that was insufficient.

So I decided to activate my second [Titan Soul] on the Walker. The idea would be to make the Giant Walker into a mobile anti-air fortress, loaded with all the anti-demon bolts and ballista beetles. That way, I could station it on the eastern coast, facing the Eastern Continent.

The Walker, I hoped, would be a walking Aegis supercruiser.

At the same time, my [master woodworkers] and [war fletchers] focused on making stronger, more powerful anti-demon bolts. Together with mages, who wove and enchanted the bolts with [flight] and [target-seeking] abilities, these were the magical equivalent of second-generation surface-to-air anti-demon projectiles.

This was a development that started five years ago, when we found out about the flying drakes, and had roots in the first anti-demon bolts and spears. Next up would be to figure out a way to cram more soul-power into it, essentially adding nuclear-tipped weaponry into my arsenal.

The Walker’s corpse, now covered with trees, bushes, vines, and animals who lived in it, shook. It was as if the ground itself broke apart. New trees emerged as the Titan Soul lodged itself in the center of the massive corpse, its rejuvenating energy repairing broken limbs and making new ones out of wood and stone.

It took a while, about three months, for the Titan Soul’s energies to imprint itself on the massive building, and then finally, it was ready. When it first rose out of the overgrown forest around it, the entire city was immediately on high alert. They thought a monster had appeared.

We even received requests for help from the nearby kingdoms when they saw the massive tree-covered walker starting to walk.

“Do not engage. That thing is a special minion of Aeon.”

The massive Walker mentally contacted me once it was fully awake. “Walker reporting for duty.”

“Ah, yes, I must grant you a name. You shall be Hytreerion. Your first assignment is to walk to Freshka, where you will be outfitted.”

It took about a week for it to walk from Lilies’ lake to Freshka, guided by my artificial minds. As it was so large, it had to take a path away from residential centers. Perhaps for my artificial minds, it was similar to guiding a massive truck.

Once it arrived, I had Hytreerion loaded up with Ballista-Beetles, a massive armory for all the anti-demon bolts and weaponry, and also it needed to be outfitted for habitation. Hytreerion came default with multiple rooms, similar to empty [customizable rooms].

“How many people should be in the crew?”

“Demon walkers don’t need a crew. Why should this need a crew?”

It was slower than a beetle, but it could walk without ever needing rest, so in long distances it would be just a bit faster. But since it needed to detour around habited spaces, it would still take longer to get anywhere.

In the end, after I explained just a few key traits of the Walker, the Valthorns eventually developed a crew. There would be at least two upgraded classers, one [Great Druid] and one [Sharpshooter], and a few [Commanders].

Outfitting Hytreerion took a month, and we spawned a special [biolab] in Hytreerion’s back, which allowed the person inside to communicate with Hytreerion and provide navigation guidance. I expect Hytreerion to be mostly guided by my artificial minds, but I had to prepare for the possibility that my communication network could break up should the demon king have a massive jamming ability. After all, it happened once; I’d be a fool not to prepare for it again.

During the process, Hytreerion’s presence was a havoc of its own.

The Treetiary College students had a mixed view of my presence, and Patreeck detected multiple messages that spoke of Hytreerion to the rest of the continent. Even though we were technically on the same side, there was still a huge amount of suspicion among each other. Some of them were rather factual; a lot were just hyperbole. Some had a mix of worry and suspicion that I’d somehow managed to create a walker-class creature.

For the Treeology priests, they were more deferential. They converted one of the customizable rooms into a prayer room and even asked for a [Tree of Prayer] to be placed in the walker. They spoke of this as a fact of divinity.

The commoners were just disturbed for a few days, and then they got used to it.

The Valthorns and the Valtrian Order were just busy outfitting the Hytreerion. They got to see it and the ballista beetles that had settled into the tree-towers on Hytreerion’s back up close.

Once Hytreerion was ready and fully equipped with all the anti-air weapons I could cram in it, it made the slow walk across the continent to the eastern seaboard of the Central Continent. I reckoned that the demons, should they arrive, would come from the east. They were not going to fly a curved path, unless there were islands that they could stop along the way.

* * *

I continued to experiment on the [Tainted Demon Crystal Core], and I struggled to comprehend it. I could tap into the aspect of the core that was a ‘native,’ but I’d not been able to activate the other part, which was the demonic energies.

“Maybe it’s not a good idea to use it.” I wondered whether using demonic energy was a step too far, in the same league as blood magic. If anything, demonic magic would make me a target for the heroes. The heroes had some kind of demonic-sensing ability, so using demonic mana would instantly flag me.

Still, I’d deal with that later. Even if just for the knowledge.

* * *

Small battles broke out during the year, and we captured a few more temple-navies. Some of them just surrendered without a fight, and some attacked the cities outright. It was strange, but the navies were getting desperate, and the blockade began to crumble.

At the news of the navies deserting their blockade locations, more kingdoms pulled back their navies.

It happened rather quickly, too, and suddenly, there was no blockade anymore.

It ended rather naturally and did not even require any offensive from us. It was a big letdown for the young sailors and navies who were itching for a big ‘break-the-blockade’ kind of fight.

I supposed that was how wars were lost sometimes; the logistics and planning at the back of it all just crumbled.

Now that the blockade was over, it was a lot easier for pirates and merchants to sneak to the other continents. They would have to quickly disguise their ships and attire to fake themselves as locals, but that was a lot easier than fighting a navy. Some of the ports usually would be willing to turn a blind eye if the right amount of money was paid.

So news from the other continents trickled in.

It seemed that there were three new heroes, and all appeared on the Eastern Continent, right in the battlegrounds. They were saved by the temple’s forces, who had been forewarned. Were the gods of the temples the same one that summoned them? I remembered having this conversation with Harris, Mirei, and Gerrard, and they were not sure. It seemed like there was some kind of overlap, but it was also possible the gods took different forms with different people.

They were trying to escape, though, and that stirred a bunch of rumors about the new heroes being eunuchs or impaired.

* * *

Then…Lausanne returned. At least, she and her family, plus a lot of others, sailed a wooden ship to one of the ports. The ship was in bad shape, but it seemed that their skills somehow allowed them to escape and navigate through the ocean.

Laufen was overjoyed. Everyone close to that group was relieved. I felt relieved, too.

At first, when the ship landed, no one knew who they were. But the moment she landed on the shore, the Eastern Coast was filled with my trees, so she was immediately in the range of my telepathic communication. So once I told Jura, a huge convoy of beetles was on the way.

That was when I met little Arlisa. The young one-year-old half-elf toddler girl. There was something about her that was different, the way her soul seemed to resonate with my spiritual vision so easily.

Was this because of Lausanne’s overlong exposure to my energies and the familiar? The second generation was therefore more adapted to it?

Why was I even thinking of it from an evolutionary angle? Maybe she really just was special and was born with a special gift, like how Indra had his gift that gave me this vision.

‘Tree.’

It wasn’t a voice. But more of a thought.

‘TreeTree.’ Arlisa could respond to me telepathically even though she was only slightly more than one. I thought that was way too early.

“Uh…your daughter…”

“She’s cute, right?” Lausanne smiled, and she introduced Arlisa to her grandmother. Laufen was just overwhelmed. She’d been away for years and now she came back with a kid? What was she supposed to think?

“Why didn’t you contact us?”

“I couldn’t. All the normal communication lines were interrupted, and my flying birds kept getting attacked by the drakes.”

For the rest of the crew, we offered them hospitality in the port city. They were in a continent that was said to be cursed, at least for the past ten years, so they had a lot of preconceptions to adjust to. Most of them were just massively surprised to see normal people instead of mutants.

For Lexi, Ardi, Lausanne, and Arlisa, they were on a convoy of beetles back home.

“I’m going to stay put for a while,” Lausanne said.

“You’re only staying put because you have a daughter,” Laufen teased her.

“Well…maybe that’s true.” Lausanne shrugged. Once back, Lausanne soon told me about what she learned from the heroes and her time in the Eastern Continent. There were parts she omitted, but she was not aware of Patreeck’s abilities, so I soon learned of her house arrest by the Aivan church and her subsequent contract of ‘community service.’

The heroes were handicapped. They would take a while before they were even able to kill the demon king.

All this pointed to one thing.

Why was the demon king not more aggressive? This sort of circumstance should result in an aggressive demon king. Unless something resulted in it not being able to do so?

Did the earlier generation of heroes almost win, so that the demon king was still recovering?

Or were the demons programmed to just go to sleep even if it did win? If so, what was the point of this conflict, then?

More importantly, why did the gods even give the new heroes a ‘handicap’? They must have weighed their chances, and the gods must know something. Was the demon king unable to move for the next one year and that was why the gods did this?

Or was the handicap just an outcome of the second time summoning within a short period? I wished I could ask more, but Lausanne’s knowledge only went so far. Maybe even the heroes didn’t know the answer. But the gods must know about the handicap, so the fact that they went ahead with it meant they knew the chances of survival were decent.

> The new heroes have a handicap. Do you know why? < Lilies was one of those I asked.

< The acts of the gods are puzzling. We know not the reason, either. >

Puzzling.

* * *

I had Lausanne’s daughter, Arlisa, tested in the biolab. The young toddler was turning two, and I wanted to know what made her able to respond to me telepathically.

As I dived into the young child’s soul, I noted it was still unformed; there was a small spring in the middle without any bricks around it. The shores were still shifting and moving. This was normal for young children; I recalled Lausanne herself was unformed at that age. Then I noticed a little green crystal right in the spring.

[Inherited Aeonic Compatibility (hereditary - 2 generations) - Skill transforms into [Blessed by a Soul Tree] if conditions met or will be lost.]

[Inherited Skills - (locked) - will transform to new skills on maturity.]

“If Lausanne’s able to pass on skills, Master, I believe Jura and Laufen may be able to pass on skills, too,” Patreeck said. “Given Jura’s level and his unlocked soul, it would be highly likely that he can pass on a good number of skills.”

Uh.

“We should also consider those with the upgraded classes like Edna, Faris, whether their descendants will have inherited skills. If we can merge their skills with those from the nobles, it would create individuals of extremely high potential.”

Yes, yes. But why didn’t everyone have inherited skills? Everyone had their own parents, and their parents all must be of a certain level. Surely there must be some condition.

And why was this the first time I’d seen a hereditary skill? I’d heard of it from Patreeck and the nobles, but surely I’d seen so many Valthorns and so many others… Or did all the hereditary skills transform into a regular skill once they hit a certain age or just disappear? If they all transformed, perhaps I’d been looking at them when they were older, and the hereditary skills by then had already transformed into something else.

Or was I looking in the wrong place? Or perhaps, like my soul forge, I needed a different ‘lens’ to view them?

“Anyone else have Blessed By a Soul Tree?”

Patreeck immediately came up. “Based on the last checkup of the Valthorns, there are six others who possess the skill. But their blessing is only the basic level, not like Lausanne’s advanced blessing.”

Ah. Problems of an empire, I’d delegated most of the [biolab]’s scanning to my artificial minds. But I couldn’t be mentally everywhere at once, even if I sort of was everywhere physically.

“I want to observe all the Valthorns and upgraded classers’ children. This includes nobles. I want to know how this hereditary skill thing works.”

“Glad you finally agree with hereditary experimentation, Master.”

“I have not agreed to it. I’m just analyzing the details.”

65

YEAR 143

We’d made contact with a few secretly dissatisfied kingdoms, and of them, a few more agreed to establish covert trade relations. Rather than fly any national flags, the trade would go via ships that looked like, behaved like, and were manned by pirates. Privateers, essentially.

We would also need to arrange with some independent islands to act as trading intermediaries to cover up the paperwork and trail, disguising the origin of goods. We’re a pariah state, at least in the eyes of the four temples, but clearly not all kingdoms thought so, even if they couldn’t disagree publicly, given how far we were. I supposed we’re like a certain nuclear state in that sense.

It was also a good way to formally ‘engage’ many out-of-work merchants that had already turned to piracy anyway. So, the FFA organized a project to convert a few of the smaller port cities into ‘pirate dens,’ where all these out-of-work merchants could start their new careers as state-sanctioned privateers and merchants.

This was where the [Trade Lord], that young noble from before, volunteered to take up the task of changing the port cities for this purpose. One of the allied kingdoms was rather miffed, but we offered to compensate him for letting us run one of the port cities in the form of tax revenues. Someone else was going to accept the terms, anyway.

I spawned a few more artificial minds to track the ships that called on the ports. There was always a risk that real pirates would then come to these ‘fake pirate dens,’ and the only way we could spot them was if we tracked the ships that were on our side and those who were not. The crews could change, too, so the artificial minds were there.

One of these ‘fake pirate dens’ was in a swampy area, and I’d imagine it looked like some pirate movie, complete with the mist and faint glowing lights that lurked in the swamp trees.

Swamps.

That was a relatively new territory for me, in the sense that there was still a lot of research to be done on swamp-adapted plants. I’d used the [biolab] to analyze quite a few of the swamp samples over the past few years and did gain some understanding, but my focus had been on anti-air weapons and expanding the anti-air and anti-humanoid competencies of my beetles and spiders.

I did have the magic poop-resistant plants from a few decades ago, so those also could be considered a type of ‘swamp’ plants, but those were more of a ‘freshwater-swamp’ type of plant.

The issue, really, was saltwater. These swamps were next to the sea and ocean, and saltwater tended to make the regular plants feel dry, and they would die quickly. I also had to quickly pass barriers for my roots, so as not to ‘draw’ too much salt into my root networks. My main body was adapted to all kinds of environments, and that also included saltwater, so I could control my roots behavior to a certain extent. But maintaining a connection to the saltwater and swamp plants meant placing some filters in place.

If I wanted to ever cross the ocean, the first barrier I’d have to pass was to develop saltwater-adapted plants. That was ignoring all the other issues such as high underwater pressures, monsters, possibly underwater druids, underwater civilizations, and possibly even eldritch monsters.

I’d probably start by finding a small island somewhere across the sea and attempting a small crossing. Conceptually that should not be so different from growing a root under the riverbed. Especially if the roots were deep enough not to be affected by the saltwater.

Anyway, I digressed.

The demon king had not been spotted leaving the Eastern Continent. After the collapse of the blockade, and also from Lausanne’s experience on that continent, it turned out that a lot of small cities had managed to survive as they went underground.

By Lausanne’s own measure, though, about 70–80 percent of all kingdoms had been destroyed; the actual casualty rate was probably around 40–50 percent as most of the citizens had fled once the demons started to expand. This even included nobles and royalty, who fled to allied kingdoms, or those with blood relations on other continents. The few kingdoms that were left were usually maritime-focused nations that had cities based on the islands or those who built their cities into mountains or other easily fortified locations.

Yet no demon king was spotted. The demon drakes had been flying and attacking the maritime nations, and so far, only the ‘demon-champion’ class giant drakes had been spotted. I used my magical sensors to try and understand what was happening and couldn’t detect anything, either.

Also, that batch of heroes did arrive and attack the demon king, and they were slightly above level one hundred, all of them.

So I was predicting that the demon king was either injured rather badly that it needed to recover, or there was some residual energy left by the heroes that kept the demon king immobile, or the demon king itself could not move by nature.

If it was the last one, that would be a great relief to the world, but that certainly didn’t align to the drakes.

“No one has seen the demon king itself, actually. Only the heroes have dared venture close,” Lausanne said. Now that she was back in Freshka, she’d taken on the role as one of the Valthorns’ military trainers, together with Ardi. They’d decided to put down their adventurer’s hats and settle down as educators. For now.

* * *

When she was younger, Lausanne did not have much talent. I recalled that I had to feed her so many memories and dreams before she developed combat sense. Or maybe she was just a late bloomer.

But somehow I thought Arlisa started with a natural aptitude. Even as a two- to three-year-old little girl, she seemed like she easily mimicked the movement of her mother. I wondered whether it was because it was her mother that was teaching her, rather than anything genetics or inherited, but somehow, something told me she was gifted.

I wondered if I concentrated my resources on her, would I make her way stronger? Still, that family had been through so much, so I decided to look elsewhere.

Now that there was almost an entire continent under my observation, it was possible for me to spend more effort to spy and locate talent.

To most of the civilians, they thought I derived this ability to locate talent by some kind of soothsaying or predictive ability, but in reality, it was just a massive network of observation trees, artificial minds to crunch the data, and then a layer of reviews. So, for very young children, I actually didn’t know anything, since the data needed to be gathered over a long period of time. This meant the earliest we drafted someone to join the Valtrian Order’s early-stage academies and training camps was around seven or eight years old.

In a way, my observations of Arlisa constituted special treatment from me. Which was partly why just last year I started screenings for the children of nobles and those of retired Valthorns and Valtrian Orders, and so far, I spotted some hereditary skills. Indeed, most hereditary skills were transient, in the sense that they would transform into another skill at a certain maturity period.

That age differed by race, by skill, and by many other factors, which I had yet to understand, and I needed a larger, larger dataset to form anything conclusive. I wanted to institute mandatory screenings of young children in a [biolab] at ages three, and age five, and then age ten, but from Patreeck and the other artificial mind’s assessment, such screenings would be resisted.

If anything, I needed to mask it as something else and preferably tap into faith and religion.

Already, the priests performed some kind of ritual on young children, similar to blessings. So we decided to expand the ‘blessing’ ceremony on young children so as to include a ‘ceremonial’ dip in a biolab.

Of course, the biolab would have to be shaped and formed to be compatible with the priest’s blessing ceremony, a baptreesm at ages three, five, and ten, if I may borrow from the religions of my world. The one aged three and five would be ‘blessing’ with some additional nutrients and healing. The one aged ten could be the coming-of-age ceremony.

I gathered my Patreearchs and Matreearchs to roll out the new baptreesm process. Again, ceremonies, processes, and rituals were things priests loved. It gave them power and purpose. For the people, it gave them peace of mind.

All for the purpose of gathering a massive dataset and assessment of the continent’s talent pool. This was a massive undertaking only Patreeck could handle, and even then I had to set up more artificial minds to take on the recording process, which led to me unlocking a new tree type.

[Unlocked new special tree type - The Registree.]

[The Registree is a library of data and can store all kinds of information.]

Jura sat one day and said something random. “It’s easy to believe that people are destined to do what they are meant to do. After all, we are not heroes. But sometimes when I look at Lausanne and remember how her parents were just ordinary elves, I think to myself maybe it’s really possible for people to exceed what they were originally destined to do. Even me, I thought I’d cap out at level sixty so many years ago, but since then, so much has happened, and now I’m a level ninety-nine Warlord.”

“You need one more level to hit one hundred.” But I thought his comment on destiny, perhaps this register I was building was very much like a caste system, wasn’t it? That I classified people by their innate talent and forewent the part on people working hard and striving against the impossible.

“I know.”

“Do you want to cheat?” I offered him one experience seed, wrapped up in the shape of a fruit. I had a few hundred experience seeds anyway, and I’d been hoarding it forever. I’d always wanted to use it, but I reckoned there must be a restriction of some kind.

He smiled, and he bit it. “We need every edge we can get at this point.”

Once he finished eating, he felt his body ache, and then his entire body started cracking. Those cracks appeared and then disappeared; it lasted for ten minutes. Then once it was done, he smiled.

“Wow.”

“Wow?”

“I’m a level one hundred Warlord of Aeon. I suppose I should’ve seen that coming with Kraveik’s Aeonic Lord.” Jura laughed. “Good skill, too.”

“Good?”

“[Steelwood Barriers of Aeon].” Jura laughed. “I can make your shields with the same strength.” Essentially, with this ability, he could stop demon walker attacks!

Still, for a level one hundred skill, that was quite a letdown now. But since I was on the topic of children and hereditary skills, I just casually asked, “Jura, do you ever plan on having kids?”

Jura laughed again. He laughed for a good ten minutes, then he stopped. “You know, sixty years ago, Casshern actually gave us a simple briefing on what to expect from Spirit Trees. For other spirit trees, it was common to receive questions about family, our intentions to breed, and they would bless our children. I was quite relieved that you didn’t do any of that, so now, sixty years later, I wasn’t expecting that question!”

Well, a part of me wanted to know whether his kids would have the kind of hereditary skills like Arlisa!

“If I meet the right person, maybe.” Jura smiled. “But as of now, I’m fine being a lone twig.”

* * *

Trees now covered large swaths of the continent, and the Rottedlands itself had been cut into multiple slices by rows and rows of trees, kind of like a pizza.

In a way, the entire continent had never been so green and had so much forest cover. It even altered the weather; some places that were once really hot started to become bearable, and some colder places warmed up. Rain also started appearing more frequently in the once-dry zones.

Forests generated their own microclimate and amplified the creation of rain clouds.

[Milestone achieved: 300 billion normal trees linked on the Central Continent.]

The milestone triggered a level gain.

[You gained a level. Level 170.]

[New Domain Ability obtained: Gift of Accelerated Growth.]

[Once a year, you can cause any one person to hit Level 60. Activating this ability gives you a full read of a person’s classes. You may assign the additional levels. Does not work for those above Level 60. Does not work for [Hero] class.]

[New Domain Ability obtained: Gift of Accelerated Skill Evolution.]

[Once a year, you can upgrade any one individual’s skill of your choice by one tier. Does not work on [Hero] or [Divine] skills.]

I immediately wanted to test out my evolutionary powers, and my target was once again Jura. He’d been my guinea pig since so long ago, and once again, he would be again.

The new ability was activated by a simple touch of a vine. Instantly, I could detect all the skills that he had, and they were separated into pools, which seemed to correspond to their types. He had his old villager skills, then those skills that were from his original diplomat and fighter skills, and now warlord skills.

This was a special time-restricted power. Once a year wasn’t so bad, really. That meant ten skill upgrades every demon king. Not bad, in my opinion.

I instantly chose the steelwood barrier. After all, it was his level one hundred skill. Naturally, I should use it on his strongest skill. Of course, it was entirely possible some skills, when upgraded, became far more powerful than even the level one hundred skill.

Still, I had time, and now I just wanted to use it.

It evolved into [Triple Steelwood Barriers of Aeon].

Whoa. Cool. Now I needed to figure out who to use it on next! Could I use it on Lausanne or Arlisa’s [Blessed by a Soul Tree]?

* * *

A lone ship sailed across the Southern Oceans. It was a fast, well-equipped, and heavily armed ship. It came to one of the ports on our southern coast, and instantly the military was at high alert. It flew the flag of the temples.

It wasn’t aggressive, and it did not display any weapons, so the ship was escorted to the port’s most distant dock just in case it carried explosive gems or weapons. This was, by and large, a trading port. It had just a few navy vessels in the dock.

A Valthorn was thankfully in the city at the time, Iasenos, a level fifty-three Centaur [Spearmaster], so he ran to the port, fully armed and ready for a fight.

The ship docked, and out came adventurers.

“The Cursed Continent,” they said.

The soldiers and Iasenos tensed up. That was a horrible way to start. The adventurers didn’t look that interested.

“Don’t worry, we’re sailing off soon.” A young girl hopped off the ship. The adventurers quickly climbed back up their ship, and then the ship started sailing.

“Uh. You guys aren’t even going to come with me?” The girl sighed, and then she turned to the soldiers. “All right, uh…hi.” The soldiers looked uncomfortable; their weapons were ready and armed.

Iasenos put up a stern face.

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

Iasenos then started talking. “All visitors from abroad are required to fill out the necessary forms. Have you completed your documentation? Do you have your papers?”

The girl froze and shook her head. “I…uh…”

“Do you have a merchant’s trade letter or an endorsement letter of your identity from your local authority?’

“I…no.”

“Are you travelling on a diplomatic license or a messenger’s assignment?”

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid you must come with us to our detention center and answer a few more questions.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She was dressed also in typical adventurer armor and weaponry. At this point, I had not sensed her; only my artificial minds were monitoring the situation. In the detention center, she was interrogated by the Valtrian Order.

It was when she finally explained who she was that the artificial minds sought my attention.

“My name is Kei. I’m, uh…one of the three new heroes.”

Iasenos paused as he processed the information. He quickly chased everyone else out of the room. “New…heroes? The one from the second summoning?”

“…yes.” Kei stared at the centaur. The centaur merely stared back. He was quickly using his familiar to reach out to other Valthorns in the region. He took a few deep breaths and formulated a mental response.

“Why are you here, then?”

“I’m here to claim the hero weapons. The one left to us by my predecessors.”

“There’s no such thing,” Iasenos lied.

Kei frowned. “I refuse to believe that. Take me to Aeon.”

“What gives you the right to demand an audience with our divine tree?” The centaur played hardball.

“I’m a hero.”

“Prove it. A hero should be able to use star mana.”

She paused and sighed. “I…uh…my [Hero] class is still low. I can’t use star mana yet.”

“Then what do you have as evidence of your [Hero] status?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Well, star mana isn’t the only hero thing, right? May I demonstrate? I do need to be outside, though.”

Iasenos nodded. “Come.”

In the port city, the Valthorns’ building was a small one, an additional building built next to the existing local ruling governor’s building. Outside, there was a small field for the local recruits to practice.

She sat and then floated. “[Ship-mode].” Instantly, a magical frame appeared around her body, and it was shaped like a…shipgirl with a magical frame of cannons and guns at her side. “I can transform into magical adaptations of my world, and it’ll get stronger when I level. Does that count as sufficient evidence?”

She honestly sounded embarrassed explaining it. A shipgirl. Seriously. Who came up with that idea?

Iasenos paused. “That could be just some sophisticated illusion magic, but very well. I will raise a case with the regional Valthorn leadership for further advice. Until then, take this.” Iasenos gave her a wooden belt. “Tie this around your leg. That way, we know you’ve not fled.”

“If I am a hero, I could just break it.”

“If you break it for any reason, then we know you’re not a good person anyway, even if you are a hero. So it’s in your interest not to break it.”

Kei smirked. “I see.”

66

YEAR 144

After a bit of bureaucracy, Kei and Lausanne finally met again in Freshka.

“Hello again. Has the restrictions on your class lifted?” Lausanne asked.

“Yes, it has, Lady Lausanne.” Kei bowed. Lausanne was pretty much an old auntie for the eighteen-year-old Kei. “I’ve leveled a bit after fighting regular monsters, but still, my hero levels are way too low. Only in the lower twenties. No way near enough, if what you told us last time was true.”

“Well, the Rottedlands is a fine anvil to hone any [Hero] into a worthy shape. I may even take you there myself, but I have a kid to care for.” Lausanne shrugged. “Where’s Alvin and Hans?”

Kei waited for a while, pondering her response. “Uh…”

“They don’t believe me, right?” Lausanne laughed.

“…yeah. They, uh…they’re really into the stories and legends the priests and temples fed them. So I had to travel alone.”

“Well, you’ll soon realize this continent does have its own propaganda.”

There was a period of awkward silence as both sized each other. Kei then continued. “You spoke of Aeon’s, uh…weapons. A stockpile of hero items. I’d like to have them.”

“It is not mine to give, but Aeon’s. The previous heroes entrusted the task to Aeon. It is for you to prove yourself worthy of them.”

Kei nodded. “How may I do so?”

“First, we’ll need to get your levels up to at least level seventy. Without star mana, the items are useless to you, for they respond to nothing else.”

“I can’t be waltzing into the Rottedlands by myself, right? I’m only level twenty in my [hero] class and level thirty in my [soldier] class.”

“Well…that’s actually one of the best ways to level quickly. Put yourself in trouble and fight your way out of it. Or we can spar a bit more under Aeon’s auspices and blessings.”

“Would that make much of a difference?” Kei asked.

“It will. But first, a familiar,” Lausanne said. “My black vines are from my familiar, and I am certain Aeon wants you to have a familiar before he grants you access to the facilities available here.”

“Is that a must?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.” I gave her a familiar at the temple, then they used one of the many [training rooms], with Yvon present, too. Yvon as an upgraded [training tree] would also have an effect of accelerating her level gain.

* * *

When Kei arrived at the end of last year, I had to decide what to do with the hero. It was clear I could not kill her; there was, after all, a moratorium on killing heroes until the demon king died, and I wasn’t going to risk a divine curse. I already had a suppressed demonic curse to deal with.

So, after some consideration and discussions with the many different councils, I decided assisting the heroes was the best choice. Get her on my side, and at least if the other two heroes were nasty, it’d be me and a hero versus two heroes instead of me against three heroes. It was also better to learn what they knew and discover how their powers worked. I would even offer her a familiar and reap the benefits if she died, just like the earlier bunch.

So far the gods had not warned against taking my familiars, so that was a good thing. I wondered whether they really hated me or they were just testing me in some kind of divine game.

Or maybe they didn’t have the ability to communicate directly with the heroes. The people of the world could receive divine messages, but I had not heard of stories where the heroes received divine messages.

If the managers of the reincarnation process, Mozart and gang, were not the same ones as the gods who summoned them, it was entirely possible that certain messages didn’t get through. Thinking back, Mozart did refer to the gods as if they were someone else. Or perhaps it was just a trick. Like seemingly different shops in a shopping mall all owned by the same person.

Anyway, I decided to help her along.

* * *

“Level sixty!” Kei said after two weeks. She was quick, and the regular hybrids of the Rottedlands were now too weak for her. A level sixty hero was easily stronger than a level eighty [spearmaster] or [grand knight]. It was just the nature of absurdly powerful classes like [hero]. Every few levels, a bit more of her regular mana transformed into star mana.

By level one hundred, all of her mana would be star mana, though she could change it to normal mana if she so desired. At least, that was how the earlier heroes had it.

“My two friends are only in the forties back in the south, and still they refuse to come here!”

“Well, a bit more for you to go. Perhaps level ninety, then Aeon will see you.”

“All right!”

* * *

The next thirty hero levels came after four months of constant grinding. She had to travel the fractured Rottedlands to look for the giant hybrids, because only the massive hybrids gave her sufficient experience. Still, it was exceptionally fast levelling speed, but for the heroes, it still felt too slow. Still, I chose level ninety because I recalled one of the first few heroes I met unlocked their [heavenly forms] at that level.

Kei’s level ninety skill wasn’t heavenly form. Instead, it was [Heavenly Guns Array]. It created a massive star mana–powered fortress around her with multiple magical floating flak-cannon lookalikes. They had a large range and clearly were meant to take out aerial opponents.

She was, literally, a walking anti-air fortress. A shipgirl. I had to resist really hard to ask whether she knew what a shipgirl was.

“Damn. Finally, back to civilization after hitting level ninety,” Kei said, finally back in a large city after spending her last few months camping out in the towns along the Tree-expressways. Those towns were her ‘save spot’ as she ventured into the Rottedlands.

We granted her a small escort, mostly as a guide. There really was no need to attach an upgraded Valthorn with her, since her level’s already quite high, so her escorts were mostly a few regular Aeonic priests for healing and a small squad of regular Valthorn soldiers and rangers.

She quickly visited Lausanne. Somehow, Lausanne’s her ‘guide,’ even if she was still busy with Arlisa and just as a trainer.

“I’m level ninety now. Can I meet Aeon and claim my weapon?”

Lausanne just bowed. “I’m afraid the right person to assist you is Jura.”

“Oh.”

She met Jura in the Valthorn Fortress and quickly made her request. “Yes. I believe Aeon has been expecting you. Before that, there is someone Aeon wants you to meet.”

* * *

“Kei, this is Astia. She’s a human from your world, I believe.”

Stella just nodded. She was nervous, afraid, and yet excited to meet someone from her own world. “Hi.”

“Hello.” Kei just nodded. “You’re…not a hero?” She scratched her head, baffled. Stella just smiled at her question.

“No. I’m an accident. Collateral damage.”

“That’s…really strange. And rather than let you die normally, they sent you here?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“Did you…die in a bus?”

Stella answered; she was more nervous. She now wondered why she even agreed to this. What did she want out of this meet, anyway? So what if the hero was from Earth? There was no way they could help her, was there? Those thoughts immediately made her blurt out, “Uh, do you know how to go back?”

Kei looked at Stella as if it was a strange question. “Why would I want to go back? This world is awesome. I get magical powers, I can slay demons, and I get to live like a queen once I win.”

Stella immediately realized Kei was just like the first batch, the kids. They wanted to be in this world. “Oh. I see. Well…uh…good luck, then.” Stella gave a wave and walked away.

“All right. Can I claim my hero items now?” Kei immediately changed the subject.

Jura smiled and led her to a nice garden with a gazebo and a small area. There were cookies, fruits, tea, and some other refreshments. “Well, I’ll take you there, but first, a short break, shall we? I’ve got some questions to ask as well.”

“Oh, okay.” She sat down, took a sip, and started snacking.

“Well, first, on behalf of Aeon, what do you think is the role of a [hero]?”

Kei paused. “Is that a trick question?”

“Not really, Aeon promised the previous generation of heroes that he will grant you a hero item, but he merely wanted to be sure.”

She took another sip. “I don’t know, actually. The god we met, his name was Claude. He said we were, uh…emergency summons. Our mission was to destroy the demon king, and we would be rewarded for it. [Hero]’s probably too big a word for me. I don’t think I’m a hero, at least not yet, so I suppose you could consider us…uhm…demon exterminators?”

“I see, I see.” Jura smiled. “Have some cookies? They are good.” Jura took one and ate it, too. “Are you aware of the history of [heroes] and the [demon kings]?”

“Yeah, I mean, I got the broad gist of it. The priests we met told us about how the world had regular demon kings and us heroes are summoned to fight them. It’s just the way the world is, a constant cycle of destruction and rebirth. Evil monsters from the beyond and heroes to stop them.”

“Well, lately, the destruction has been far too heavy for the world to bear. It is no longer just a regular forest fire, but an inferno that engulfed a continent. If there was a way to stop this cycle, would you ever take it?”

Kei froze at the question and seemed to have a headache. She didn’t respond for a good minute, her eyes blank. “Uh…I’m sorry. It was just really difficult for me to think somehow.” She took a big sip of tea.

“It’s okay.” Jura smiled. “Take all the time you need.”

“I think that’s a choice not for me to decide. I mean, the god entrusted me to slay the demon king. I think I should do it. It’s my purpose, you know.”

“Is it really your purpose or a purpose that was placed on you?”

Again, she took another big sip of tea and ate some of the fruits. “Whoa. We’re onto some heavy conversations before I get the hero items, aren’t we?”

“Well, have you not wondered why it’s so natural for you to want to kill demons? Why with such passion and determination?”

Kei seemed to struggle to respond. “You know…these questions are really making my head spin. I don’t know, but demons are the bad guys, right? I’m given all these powers to kill demons, so what do I do if not kill demons?”

Jura smiled at the young girl. “Surely, when all you have is a hammer…”

“Everything looks like nails,” Kei continued. “So yes, I have anti-demon powers, I’m gonna use them, and then after I win, I’m going to take a break.”

It seemed that Kei’s mindset was quite heavily affected by the [hero] power, almost more than the previous generation, or was this because she had yet to see the destruction that followed?

“What was on your mind when you arrived in the Eastern Continent?”

“Destruction. So much destruction from the demon king. It’s only right we defeat them.”

Jura realized at that point it was useless to continue. “I believe that’s enough. Come.” Jura led her into the Valley of the Unrotten. It was a relatively long walk; there were no beetles to ferry them, even though that was possible.

Jura led her to one of the Giant Attendant Trees within, and inside it, there was a room with a selection of hero items.

“Well, on all the tables are the hero items. The previous heroes said that you may choose one.”

“Only one?”

“Yes. One item. And we will need you to contribute back to the treasury as well by making a hero item.”

Kei paused and thought. “Anything else?”

“There are some journals left by the heroes. They are meant for your reading but cannot be taken. You may also leave your own journals if you feel like it.”

Jura left her alone inside, and that was the first time I telepathically spoke to her.

“Kei.”

She froze. “…Aeon?”

“Yes. These are belongings of Harris, Gerrard, and Mirei. They came almost sixty years ago. They started the four decades of peace when they held back four demon kings consecutively.”

“I see.” She sat down, and she was drawn to the journals first. She started reading the handwritten notes. I wasn’t privy to the contents, since the journal itself was sealed. Yet it opened for her so naturally, as if it detected another hero.

She spent a few hours with the journals, and I thought I saw her weep a few times. There was a kind of heroic energy in the journals that blocked my ability to eavesdrop or observe, and I certainly wasn’t aware of this ability. It was when she finally closed the journal that I could talk to her again.

But she was just stunned. She didn’t say a word for another thirty to forty-five minutes, but I could see she was thinking really, really hard.

“Aeon?” she asked after that period of silence.

“Yes?”

“Do you…still have herbal-infused wines? Or teas? The strongest ones?”

A small teapot appeared in the Giant Attendant Tree, and hot water, too. She quietly brewed the tea and sipped it, her mind still spinning. Patreeck could not read her mind once she passed level forty as a hero. She sat there and sipped.

“I…I wasn’t ready to see those…visions,” Kei said.

“Sorry? I’ve got no idea what is in the journals.”

“I mean…they left memories behind in the journals. Some kind of dreamspell that contained a fragment of themselves. It’s like…it’s like a part of them still lived in the journal.”

“Ah.” I certainly wasn’t aware that a journal could be made so powerful. But since it was made with star mana, I supposed anything was possible.

“The gods want us to kill the demon and keep the cycle going, right?”

“Well, yes?”

“But they also want us to die so that the world’s constantly in turmoil?”

I had no answer.

“Do you believe what the heroes said?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I mean, that this demon and us…we’re the gods’ way of resetting the system? Keep this world stagnant and stuck in a perpetual state of war. Do you believe that?”

“That’s just one of the theories. Without asking the gods, no one knows.” I supposed that sounded like one of the crazy musings Gerrard had. I didn’t know he recorded that into the journal.

She sat. “I…” She looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown.

“It changes nothing for you, really. The gods have already predestined that you must slay the demon king or die. That is a task you have.”

“I can choose to do nothing.” She had a headache again, and she quickly took a sip of the tea.

“Your two friends will do it for you or they will die trying. It is best you go with them. Again, knowledge only changes your perspective, but not the task at hand.”

Kei sat for a while, and then she stretched. “Yes. You are right. And I, too, should do my part.” She walked over to the journal, and she channeled her star mana into it. The journal glowed, and I thought it became bigger. She then spent the next few hours analyzing the other hero items and a few more hours making more hero items.

All in, she spent almost three days there, and she left with a spear. But I felt she changed. I was really curious what was in the journal now.

“Thank you, Aeon. I must now depart and join my friends. It will be time for me to do my duty, whether we like it or not.”

“Good luck.”

Kei left Freshka and started her journey to return to the Eastern Continent. She would have to travel from Freshka and to the port cities on the Eastern Coast, then arrange for a special pirate ship that would smuggle her there.

* * *

“How’re you, Astia?” Stella was in her studio, working on her paintings and posters. That little meet with Kei didn’t go as well as I liked, and strangely, it made her turn to painting.

“I’m fine.” No, she wasn’t. Her mental indicators were a mess. She felt lonely, alone in the world. She wondered whether death would return her to her own world, and yet she lacked the guts to actually kill herself. There was no one who could help her.

“All right.” I decided not to push it. “The door is always open should you ever need to speak or want to go somewhere. The Central Continent is home to many beautiful sights, and if you wish, I may arrange someone to go with you.”

“Thanks.” Her mind’s still locked up. I could force it open, but I decided not to. Perhaps she needed meditation. Even though it’d been years since she arrived, she was still not yet accepted reality; her mind clung onto her old world, no matter how painful her life there was. She still yearned to go home. She had no friends, but many acquaintances.

I had tried to create environments for her to make friends, but she couldn’t let anyone in. So it didn’t go anywhere.

* * *

The runic formations necessary for a supermassive blood ritual were 60 percent complete. Creating them was far harder than I expected. Containing the energies that such a ritual would release was one of the two main struggles; the second point of difficulty was then compressing such a massive ritual into a single shot.

Runes were hard, especially at large scales. I hoped that I never had to resort to such bloody tactics.

On other preparations, Hytreerion, my tree walker, was idle. It was a massive anti-air fortress, and it sat at the edges of the Eastern Continent. It could not walk or swim across the ocean, and I wondered whether flight was a good idea. But then, I also doubted a Flying Titan could swim across the ocean. It was a distance far too large to bridge.

Still, the [Trade Lord]’s efforts to convert a few of the port cities into mini-pirate dens were quite successful. Piracy had a kind of charm to it, and as a privateer, it was even better. They had legal backing of the Central Continent.

The Eastern Continent managed to hold on, even if so many had died. The demon king clearly was incapacitated or ‘sealed’ to some effect.

At the same time, I wanted to activate my two unique classes. “Lausanne. I have a special class, [Aeonic Demonslayer]. Do you want it?”

“…no.”

“No?”

“No. Perhaps you could offer it to Jura?”

“Why not?”

“I think…I think I don’t deserve this special treatment,” Lausanne said. “I certainly lack the kind of genius talent needed to maximize such a class. After spending such a long time as an adventurer, I realized my talent’s honestly just above average. My main advantage was really my high levels and the unique abilities that you gave me. In the hands of someone truly talented and gifted, I think your powers can go much further. And at the same time, it’s also fear. I may not live up to the expectations such a special class would have, and I may do stupid things.”

I wondered whether it was because she wanted to be a mother. But I didn’t say it.

“So…please, offer it to someone else.”

“Very well.”

67

YEAR 145

The Eastern Continent’s war against the demons increased in intensity. The heroes returned, and with it, they brought superior, star mana–powered firepower. The heroes could take on large flights of drakes, and that meant the war was starting to shift in favor of the natives.

We knew this, because the temples’ propaganda machine was in full swing, boasting of the heroes’ success in defeating the demons. So the powers of the three heroes were now public knowledge. Kei essentially was a mobile flak fortress. Alvin was a mobile missile site, and he fired magic missiles by the thousands. Hans was the mobile beam weapons and drones person. Strange that the gods opted for ground-based anti-air powers instead of giving the heroes flight and ability to fight midair.

With their powers, the drakes were not a challenge. They just could not be everywhere at the same time. There were too many fronts, too many cities and towns under the attack of the drakes.

The drakes had multiplied tremendously over the past few years, and swarms of fifty to three hundred giant drakes were now common sight. Lausanne described them as mobile flying fortresses, and they were quite like dragons that she’d seen in her many dreams. I was expecting the war to end soon. The heroes would win, I thought.

* * *

In the Central Continent, the ruling class generally believed the demon king was a goner. They didn’t think the heroes would fail the second time, even if they were the second batch. Personally, I thought they would succeed, simply because the demon king must be in a weaker state, perhaps due to damage from the earlier battles with the first batch of heroes.

So our focus was mainly on restoring the trade connections that’d been lost over the past decade of war, and it was getting easier. In particular, on a few of the island nations, there were some volcanic island nations located nearer to the center of the oceans that were keen to support us and essentially become our intermediaries.

Unlike the continental kingdoms where the temples’ influence was strong, these volcanic islands had a lot more to gain and, honestly, not much to lose.

That said, since most of our ships disguised themselves as pirate ships, privateers all, they had multiple sea battles with the navies of those continental kingdoms. We lost quite a few ships, but it was fine.

On the Northern Continent, often referred to as the Northern Isles, a few independent kingdoms went as far as permitting our merchant ships to dock, without a need to change our flags. Overall, a good sign, that trade and global relations were somewhat thawing. I really didn’t see the point of pointless battles.

Solving the demon king in the long run was a bigger problem.

* * *

The Central Continent was big, and even though almost all of the kingdoms and nations in the continent were now allied to me, either formally or indirectly, there were still places where my root network and trees only had a little coverage.

Since many of these new kingdoms were relatively new to my growing federation, we had focused our subsidiary trees in the inhabited zones. This was in line with our support of the Treeological priests’ social and charity work. It would be quite similar to a network of expressways linking all the large inhabited zones, since I also needed the network of trees to ‘break’ through the shattered Rottedlands and also to act as beacons for the beetle-truckers.

Therefore, in spite of my vast network, there were still gaps. And where there were gaps, there were mysteries to be explained and monsters I had yet to meet.

So, in the northern areas of the Central Continent, in a forest I recently just expanded to, we heard a creature calling out to us. “I sense a spirit in our midst,” a giant wolf spoke. It looked every bit like a regular giant wolf-animal, but the very fact that it spoke meant it was not ordinary at all.

It seemed to be having a conversation with something or someone.

“You are right, perhaps it can hear us,” the wolf somehow said. “So, spirit, show yourself.”

I thought about this for a moment and decided to telepathically speak. There was something strange about his form as a wolf; perhaps it was not really a wolf. “Greetings.”

The wolf paused, and it looked around. “I see. A spirit of the land?”

“I am Aeon, a Tree Spirit.”

“Akrenaf, Wolf of the Hunt.” I had no idea what that was.

“It seems you speak the common tongue?”

“Ah, I am both wolf and man, and there are two of us in our body as we speak.” My spiritual vision seemed to clear up, and then I saw a wolf…and something like a man? But it was not really separated. “The man in me is Varik the Brave, a human shaman who died a century ago.”

“I see.”

“You are…” It paused, and then it seemed puzzled. “Where is your body?”

“Far, far away.”

“So…strange.”

“Not as strange as two souls in a single body.” I didn’t recall that was possible. One soul should have purged the other. I focused my energies; my roots linked to more trees. The trees around them all added to my spiritual sense.

“Ah, we are not really two souls. Our souls fused, and we are one, but we are of two minds.” Ah, split personality. That was a lot easier to digest.

“How?”

“Varik the [Shaman] has a unique ritual skill called [Living Memory]. It made his soul into a memory able to latch onto anything, or in this instance me,” Akrenaf said. “I, the wolf, killed him a century ago. I was but a normal wolf then.” The memory changed the wolf, and it gained levels since then. It was now far stronger than before, and yet it refused to leave its forest.

“Ah.”

“I am dominant, but his memories, voices, magic, and thoughts remain in me. He lives through me.”

“Fascinating. Well met, Akrenaf, Wolf of the Hunt.”

It howled.

Akrenaf was a wolf that guarded this forest, and as a wolf, he was, in many ways, a monster like me. Yet he had memory of the world, and thought, and so he gained levels. As my roots spread throughout the forest… This was a young forest. It was not older than fifty years.

“This forest, it was destroyed before?”

“Yes. The demons came, we were powerless to stop it, so we hid in the mountains till they left. When they left, Varik’s [Shaman] powers helped to restore the land and return the forest.”

“I see.” That explained how the forest didn’t seem special. It was not ancient, and it didn’t have history to it. It was no wonder it fell through all our radars.

This [shaman] class was interesting, so I quickly went through my stockpiles. I did have a few of them, but I’d not given them to anyone. It was certainly a ritualistic class, with a focus on runes, sacrifices, ceremonies, and processions.

* * *

Exploration of the [Tainted Demon Core] continued. More tests and I still struggled. I had to wield both regular mana and somehow create demon mana to unlock it. It was going nowhere.

* * *

Arlisa was five, and she grew quickly. Her physique was at least 20–30 percent bigger than a half elf of her age, and despite her petite figure, her body was exceptionally strong. This was because her inherited class had transformed into [Blessing of a Soul Tree (advanced)], and she unlocked [Enhanced Strength] and [Resilient Body].

It was strange, and like Lausanne, quite a splitting image of herself. Laufen could finally have the joy of teasing Lausanne. “You were just like her. We couldn’t handle you when you got too strong.”

“She didn’t even get started on the dreams yet!” Lausanne protested.

Arlisa made a naughty face and ran away. It was a pain to find her, she hadn’t unlocked any class yet, but she already had the [Lesser Stealth] skill.

“I don’t know anyone who has lesser stealth at five!” Lausanne complained when she caught her daughter hiding on top of the trees in Freshka. “She better not end up stealing!”

* * *

[The Demon King Raja-Naga has been slain.]

None of the heroes died, and the news of their victory quickly spread. The war of the demon king was over…at least, for this decade. The heroes spent two months mopping up the rest of the demons from the Eastern Continent, and then…they all set out on their ways.

So…Kei returned to the Central Continent after that alone, and she immediately went to Freshka.

“I need an audience with Aeon.” She met Jura, and there was a seriousness in her words. “No buts. I want to see him, or I will barge into the valley myself.” Jura shrugged and nodded. If she won against the demon king, then there was nothing Jura could do to stop her anymore. Not at his level.

We led her to the Giant Attendant Tree again, where she last chose her hero item. Once she was inside, she immediately sat down and demanded, “I want tea.” Oh, well.

Tea it was. She poured exceptionally large amounts of leaves into the pot and made a thick brew. She cast a spell to cool it down and then quickly downed the cup.

Then she yelled, “We were so damned stupid!” Thankfully, she was indoors. She poured herself another cup of the tea and downed it.

“FUCK THIS SHIT! ARGH, WHY WERE WE SO STUPID!”

“Uh, may I ask what happened?”

She took a deep breath. “Those fucking gods. Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck.”

Then she seemed to struggle against some kind of phantom pain. She quickly gulped down a cup of tea.

“You won, right?”

“We didn’t have to kill the demon king!” Kei shouted. “We shouldn’t have to kill a weak, defenseless demon king!”

What? I waited. That sounded absurd. The demon king killed so many. Surely killing the demon king was the right thing to… Wait. Was she trying to tell me something else?

“But the gods. Fuck ’em, they did something to all of us. All three of us. We broke the seal that the previous heroes made and killed the weakened and disabled demon king. It was pathetic of us. There was no challenge in slaying a weakened demon king.”

The more I paid attention, this was a very weird statement from Kei. Like, what did she mean, no challenge? Was that all she cared about? No. She was trying to say something without saying it.

She sat and started talking. “We should’ve walked away, rather than let the power in our hands get to our head. The previous heroes were not strong enough to kill the demon king, but the seal they left behind in their final hours left the demon king in a perpetually disarmed state, trapped in a magical tornado and magical web, sustained by heroic mana.”

“The demon king couldn’t harm a fly in that state, and yet we walked up to it and killed it! It was pathetic! We should have waited for a proper fight.”

Huh.

“Why?” she continued. “I don’t fucking know, either, but whatever the fuck that was, I should have slapped the hell out of my two friends and told them to walk away. But I didn’t. The bloodlust won. Fuck the gods. They fucked with my mind so hard. I want a proper fight!”

She was not like that. She had a headache again. Another cup. “Even now, they are fucking with me.” No.

She was trying to say…what?

“Think about it. If we only killed all the other demons and left the demon king there and waited for it to recover, we could have a proper fight. We could wait a hundred years if we need to so that we can get a proper fight on our hands.”

One hundred years? Oh. OH.

She had a mental breakdown, a headache, and started crying.

“Why, Aeon? Why?”

I honestly had no idea. But clever.

“Are the gods secretly sadists? Are they gods of war, like Ares, that relished in victory? They just want the demon king dead, is that it? Even if it’s defenseless? Don’t they care about the struggle? The pleasure and satisfaction of a hard-won battle?”

Kei sat up. “Fuck the gods. Fuck ’em, and fuck my two brainwashed friends who can’t see the mind control for the life of me. My answer is simple. Aeon, I need your help. I believe in the whole wide world right now only you can help me. Even if I die in the end.” Another cup. “Next one, I want a proper fight with the demon king.”

Then she screamed in pain.

“And…”

“You’re a tree, a magical tree, and as far as I can tell, one of the strongest beings to exist in this world. If I give you all the star mana I have, including my soul if you need it, can you…”

She couldn’t say it as she dropped down on the floor and struggled. It seemed like her head was in immense pain, and she pulled her hair.

This was too much for me to take, and if I was a human, I’d be panicking. Thankfully, a tree did not panic. She struggled for a good one hour, and when she recovered, her eyes were blank, her face deathly pale.

She just sat there and finished her pot of tea. Then she asked for the journal, but I didn’t say too much to her. She seemed out of it.

She stared at the journal for hours, then finally she added some additional notes into it. She slept in that room that day, then spent the subsequent few weeks, making more star-mana weapons.

* * *

Despite Kei’s obsession and frustrations about slaying a weakened demon king, I thought she was actually trying to tell me something else without fully triggering the gods’ increasingly overreaching mental influences.

By not going all the way and making me think for myself what she couldn’t say, did she just…figure out how to cheat the gods?

Her statement about a weakened, disarmed demon king opened my mind to a world of possibilities.

Seal the demon king. And probably the heroes, too. A seal that could last a century. Maybe more.

It was strange to think that this entire problem could be solved in such a simple method. Seal the demon king, lock it up, keep it alive but harmless. Essentially, it would jam a metal wrench into the cog. It was a lot easier to deal with the other demons without the demon king.

Peace. Sort of.

But how?

It was a proposal in the right intent, but we were lacking the tools. If this was to be done, it would need a few decades of preparation and far more levels than what we had now.

I gathered my artificial minds.

“The hero Kei was almost in the right direction. If we can somehow figure out how to disable both the hero and the demon king, we can delay the cycle as long as they are both disabled. Failure is unfortunately death, since if either one turns on us, our ability to survive them right now is low.”

“It can be done if the hero is on our side. By our calculations and our present abilities, I think we have an extremely slim chance this would succeed. I recommend significantly more preparation,” Patreeck commented, and naturally I agreed. This was going against heaven and hell at the same time.

“To seal a demon king and also a hero would require a spell far more powerful than anything we have, perhaps at an even higher tier than the superhexbomb.”

“But not impossible, and as the hero implied, a hundred years of peace may be worth it, and it would allow us all the time we need to prepare for the eventual failure of the seal. We are the only ones that can stop this. Only us, with the benefit of our long lives. Perhaps us and Lilies. Together.”

Silence from my artificial minds.

“We would have to convince Lilies to support this endeavor. It is risky, since the heroes will turn on us as our plans involve sealing both sides. We also don’t know how far the gods’ mind-warping abilities can go. Should any of the heroes rebel so publicly, would the gods be able to turn their powers on overdrive and turn her into their puppet outright?”

I believed it was certain that the gods wouldn’t let me seal the demon king. Why else did they load up the heroes’ minds with so much mental alterations? I believed the gods could make them puppets if they so desired, perhaps at a great cost.

“If so, Master, conflict with the heroes…”

“Inevitable.”

I recalled Kei’s words. When she saw the demon king, she was swamped with an intense bloodlust. The heroes that supported and worked with us may betray us at that crucial moment, and that could go really bad very quickly. We would need very specific countermeasures for the heroes then.

The war with the temples would take a far nastier turn, if that happened.

Still, I wanted to thank Kei. She sparked a thought, a chance, of how this entire conflict could end. A perpetual truce.

Maybe it would not succeed in her lifetime, but I had the time to prepare. I’d need all the time to prepare on this path that would make the gods and demons my enemies.

“Master,” Patreeck spoke. “It may be tempting to consider Kei’s suggestion as something achievable, but at the same time, it is possible that you can gain sufficient power to alter the divine arrangement yourself without a need to directly seal both of the combatants in this conflict.”

“Hmmm?”

“I mean…the heroes and the demons are beings from another world, right? If you could…seal this world away, hide the world from their sight, would they still come?”

“Oh?”

“It’s like the powers of the ancient vanishing forest, taking it to the next level. A vanishing world, away from the meddling gazes of the demons and the gods. A global shroud generator.”

Another option: go all out on the path of divinity, then run away, and take this entire world with it. There were other options that may emerge the higher up I went as I better understood the powers of the divine.

Options. Suddenly I felt like there was a path out of this stupid game.

“You are right. We must try what we can.”

68

YEAR 146

We had a lot of thinking to do, and as we seriously considered it, we discovered there were more options.

One of them, which also had some chance of success, was to break one of the heroes free of the gods’ control, permanently.

The risk was an independent hero could choose to do anything, including turn on me. Yet, unlike Patreeck’s idea of achieving godhood and altering the world directly, I had some idea on how to succeed. Already I had some inroads on this with my teas and drinks that helped to suppress the effects of the gods’ influence. I’d have to figure out how to superpower my tea and drinks to make a real anti–divine influence tea.

So we started doing a lot more research on the tea.

What was it about the tea that made it work? We performed various tests, and to most people, the tea…did nothing much. It was just regular tea for most people, though gradually, we noticed that most of them were healthier after a month’s daily intake of tea.

There was a lot more research to do on teas.

Second, which was in the same league of difficulty as ascending to full divinity myself, was to create my own [hero]. If the levelling system allowed me to eventually reach full divinity, I should be able to alter the game either myself or via my agents.

All in, we had a few options.

One, seal the demon king and heroes, thus delaying the summoning of the next demon king or heroes. The risk with this was that what if there was no real restriction? What if the gods’ heroes and demon king could just arrive anyway when the time was right? Could the gods force a summoning?

Two, ascend to full divinity. It was significantly unclear what my options were and whether it allowed me to alter the systems at that point. But this should be a default option. As long as I was strong, sealing the demon king and heroes would be ‘easier.’

Three, break a hero free of the gods’ control. Alternatively, would it be possible to also break a demon king free of their own control?

Four, make my own hero. May not need full divinity if there were worldly ways to reach that level of power.

Five, achieve the ability to kill the demon king and heroes extremely quickly. This would effectively minimize their threat level. Easier said than done, and again, it required me to probably achieve full divinity. Only a god could kill a demigod, no?

* * *

In the past two years, I used my new [gifts] on the priests and Valthorns.

Since skills could be upgraded and I had earlier started doing widespread screening of young children, I already had a decently sized dataset of skills. From there, it was a matter of triangulating those who were loyal, had good skills that could be taken a step further, and probably needed the skill to make an impact.

The first time I used it two years ago, I used it on a Treeologist high priest with the skill [Presence of Calm], which upgraded it to [Aura of Tranquility (Strong)], simply because he lived in an area where the population was angry and upset at the trade and industrial issues. It would take some time to solve the issue, since matters of industry couldn’t be fixed overnight. They did need a period of time for a new reality to sink it. The aura helped to suppress the dissent for the changes introduced to take effect.

This was a people issue sometimes. A solution was available, but when the populace was already angry, often the solution was rejected and resisted. It was like trying to help the person in pain; first we must suppress the pain, then we could get to the cause of the pain. If the victim was struggling, it made life difficult for everyone.

Last year, I used the skill gift on Edna’s [Grand Shield], and it transformed into [Suit of Grand Armor], which pretty much made her a walking tank. It was a little bit of a letdown; I thought it would evolve into Triple Grand Shield or something. But oh well. Skills didn’t always work the way I wanted them to.

So, this year, I went to Arlisa instead, and I tried to upgrade the [Blessing of a Soul Tree (advanced)]. It didn’t work.

Then I went to another of the Patreearchs. He had a skill called [Guidance of the Master], which generally helped the priests under his care gain new skills or speed up their levelling. But he could only use it on one student at a time, once a month. Again, I hoped it transformed into an aura or something, but instead, it just upgraded into [Guidance of the Master (advanced)], which increased the number of students at any one time to three students.

Oh well.

I thought I would try it on one of the blacksmiths or woodworkers next. Maybe he could make something nice.

Yeah. Actually, I should totally make one of the blacksmiths into some kind of super blacksmith. No seal would work without high-tier equipment to match, and I did need alternatives that were in the same tier as the hero-items.

* * *

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to use my new levelling skill, and my sticking point was mainly giving sixty levels and skills may very well be a handicap. From my understanding of the people as a whole, things that were given so easily, especially a level gift, would be wasted on most people who were unable to wrap their head around the sudden surge in levels, that they would lose the ability to estimate their own strength, because they jumped up so fast.

It was like a man who just learned to drive suddenly getting a 1000bhp sports car. He wouldn’t be able to cope with his newfound power and speed. Or how a person who just won the lottery would soon squander his wealth.

It wasn’t earned. Unlike the upgraded skills, which were given to people who were already at high levels of power, the sudden surge in levels would be given to young folks with low levels for my gift of levels to be most effective.

There was also the issue of free will and choice. Since my gift dictated that I select the class and levels, what if they didn’t want this class? After all, this gift was most effective on the young with low levels. It was like I forced someone to study through university for a degree he may not really like but thought he liked when he was young.

I struggled with this power for quite some time until I was then led back to the wolf with two ‘spirits’ in it. Akrenaf was content to live in the forest, and though it was clearly intelligent, it decided to do nothing but stay in its forest.

Monsters.

I should use my gift on monsters. Monsters, after all, didn’t have an issue of class. Monsters couldn’t gain classes, like how I couldn’t gain classes.

I decided to use my gift on a spider. It gained the levels all right, it transformed into a giant spider…

I felt static in my telepathic connections. It was trying to communicate and the spider was extremely confused.

Then it went on a rampage.

I had to kill it.

Damn this gift. It was a trap. I’d need to figure out how to use it properly. Maybe on my artificial souls instead.

* * *

“Ms. Astia.” Kei bowed and then sat opposite Astia in her living room. They were neighbors, at least, for now. “Apologies for intruding. May I sit here and talk?”

Astia paused.

“You don’t have to reply. I understand it makes you nervous. But just hear me out.”

She nodded. Kei had declared herself a resident of the Central Continent, and I agreed. Strangely, most of her decision making was guided by the journal.

“I read in the journal that the heroes receive fragments when their friends die in battle, but I want to know whether you get them, too. Is it something all of us Earthlings get?”

Astia nodded.

“I see. Thankfully, I don’t have a fragment, at least, not yet. Tell me, what do you remember from Earth? Technologies, things. Do you remember any of the scientific formulas and equations?” The older girl shook her head.

Kei sighed.

“Me neither. I curse myself for not studying harder. Who knew all these things would be handy anyway? I wanted to make gunpowder, like, real gunpowder.”

Strangely, Astia interjected. “Why make gunpowder when there are local powders that do the same thing? Spark-powders.”

“…ah. Yes. True, true. There may be native equivalents of our human things. I suppose you don’t remember anything about computers, either?”

Astia was baffled. “Computers are incredibly hard to make. The level of precision…”

“Well, like you suggested, there’s magic. Magic and precision crafting can be a substitute for clean rooms and industrial manufacturing processes…”

“But why do you need computers when magic can do the same and more?”

“Scale? For those without magic?”

It was a bit strange for Astia to be the advocate of this world’s methods. “Miss hero, you might think your way is the right way, and this world might seem primitive. But I don’t think you should be introducing the things you want without thinking it through.”

Her heartbeat was fast and even weirder for her to defend this world’s way of life. Kei was silent as she considered Astia’s words. Patreeck peeked into her mind, and I sensed she was nervous, yet she did truly feel that this world wasn’t that bad.

Kei sat and looked out. “My friends are going to wage war eventually. They will think it is right to continue the gods’ divine crusade against Aeon. They are not doing so because the temples are consumed by the massive reconstruction efforts and funds needed for the Eastern Continent. I hoped we could have an advantage.”

We?

Astia shook her head. She was too nervous to say it, but we could read her mind. Once again, heroes were fools. They didn’t know anything, but since they had power, and someone told them of the issues, they’d champion it even if they didn’t know the truth.

Kei had enough and walked away.

She then brought her concerns to Jura. “The crusades will come again. This time, there will be two heroes on their side.” She wasn’t here for the first one, but she seemed to think there would be a second one. Indeed, the heroes were overpowered. If they attempted to attack anyone, it was unlikely they’d lose. If anything, I should force them to a stalemate.

What countermeasures did I have against heroes?

Could I use poison against them? Did they have poison immunity as default or only for certain types of heroes?

Rather than have a discussion, it was better to just have a serious fight. Kei and Jura had a serious fight deep in a secluded forest.

“So, Aeon is watching?”

“Yes.” Jura nodded. “If your two friends are coming, we must first know how far we are. As it is, I’m one of the highest leveled.” Well, he was the highest level. There was no one else at level one hundred. Everyone else was stuck in their caps at level eighty to eighty-five.

“I see. Then I shall not hold back.”

“Well, don’t kill me.” Jura laughed and prepared his spear. Bamboo floated around his body, forming a wooden structure.

Kei levitated; she didn’t even need to say a word. A massive array of magical guns appeared and floated around her. The guns started to aim and fired rapidly.

Jura immediately used the [Triple Steelwood Barriers of Aeon], and the guns hammered the barriers, breaking off the wooden barriers chunk by chunk. But here was our first learning point: Kei was using star-mana attacks, but it didn’t deal exceptional damage against my shields. This meant star mana was super powerful, but it probably had a special perk against demons.

It held briefly; the multiple guns did destroy the barrier after fifteen seconds. Jura had to quickly move, weaving through the hail of bullets. It was like watching an expert dance through a bullet storm. Kei was a shipgirl, and this was Touhou’s bullet hell.

The shield had a recharge period, so Jura couldn’t use it again, but it was time to go on the offense, return bullet hell with bullet hell, as Jura’s Bamboo expanded massively, forming multiple flowers. The flowers took damage from the bullets, but some managed to activate and fired shells back at Kei.

Yet the same shells were shot down by Kei’s array of guns. She had an array of close-range anti-projectile guns as her defense. Most of Jura’s shells didn’t even get close, and the few that did didn’t do much damage to the array.

“What level are you again?” Jura ducked as bullets flew over his head.

“After killing that weak demon king? Level one hundred twelve. I think my friends barely crossed level one hundred.”

“And you can keep shooting?” Jura managed to create another set of Steelwood Barriers. They were blown up rather quickly. He tried to use the temporary cover to activate long-range spear attacks and then launched them.

“Well. Yes. For a few days, in fact.” Kei’s gun arrays fired like multiple machineguns and knocked the flying spears out of the way.

“Shit, it’s like cheating.” Kei kept firing. She didn’t even have to move; her array of cannons did most of the work for her. Jura, on the other hand, had to keep moving. At this point, I wondered how she’d react to long-range attacks, so I arranged for a spear-beetle to shoot a spear at her from afar.

The spear was shredded in midair, but only after it reached a certain distance.

Jura launched a few ranged skills, one of which created hundreds of wooden spears and flew at her. The guns shot down most of them, but for a change, about 20 percent hit the array and destroyed a few of them.

Kei frowned and activated an ability. The gun was healing!

“Aeon, curse you,” Jura cursed, and he did his attack again. More spears, and even more spears. The guns kept firing, and then he did a ground-based attack. It exploded right underneath Kei and destroyed one of the arrays!

Jura immediately amped up the pace, using his skills to create a massive dust storm. Kei’s cannons fired wildly in all directions, but somehow their aim was slightly worse, so more of the spear projectiles got through the defensive guns.

Point two: she couldn’t shoot what she couldn’t see. She had some kind of super-sight, but even then it could be blocked or weakened. Powers like [mist] and [hidden forests] would be useful in a conflict with the hero. I would also have to consider various ‘passive’ attacks.

Kei’s body glowed, and instantly, a massive shell appeared around her, and it fired bullets in all directions like a turning multi-turret. It blew some of the smoke and dust away and whatever bullets that were in her way.

“That was pretty good,” Kei said. She emerged unscathed. “But you know, one of the heroes has missiles, kind of like flying super arrows, and the other one has lasers. I mean beam-light attacks.”

Damned bullet hell. They had beam dancers, too.

Jura still couldn’t close in. Kei levitated further up in the sky, and I wondered whether lightning weapons would perform against her. Jura clearly thought of the same thing, as he switched weapons and took out two purple spears. He stabbed one into the ground and then ran. The guns seemed to have a sense of where he was going and would fire ahead.

Jura took a few shots to the leg; thankfully, Bamboo immediately activated thick wooden armor to absorb the shots.

He ran again, Kei still levitating toward him. Her guns had never stopped shooting. The ground was battered with mini-gunshot explosions, and then he stabbed the other purple spear into the ground.

“Oh, what is this?” Kei wondered. Her guns shot the spears, too.

Jura immediately activated them, and two large lightning bolts arced toward the other spear and, in doing so, zapped Kei and her array. She screamed in pain, and it seemed her arrays stopped shooting for that brief one or two seconds.

Then it resumed shooting.

“Ouch,” Kei said. She was fine, even if the shock did slightly hurt her. “That kinda hurt.”

The spears only had one lightning charge each.

Lightning worked. I would need more lightning weapons and lightning arrays. In short, extremely high speed was necessary to counter this generation of heroes. My roots could still be effective if they were levitating not far from the ground, but if they floated too high up, my roots would be useless.

Jura stopped. “I think we can have a break. I’m out of ideas, and my leg hurts. Consider it my loss.” He was being honest. Kei could keep this up all day, since she didn’t really get tired if she activated her star mana. Her cannons did all the work, whereas Jura, even though he did have immense stamina, had been dodging bullets the entire fight.

“Oh. Okay.”

“And there’s two of you on the other side.” Jura shrugged. “I need more levels to even think of keeping up.”

“Yes.”

Lightning would work, and I’d activated my artificial souls to gather all sorts of high-speed weapons. Lightning, light beams, death rays, all the sort. I’d need them in large quantities to hurt the heroes.

The heroes would be exceptionally tough from the extra stats of their [hero] class and their blessings, and they would likely have high natural healing ability, too. But they did not have a dedicated healer, and that was a weak point I needed to exploit. If I could wear them down over long periods of time, I could still win.

“How long does it take for your star mana to regenerate?”

“About a day if I sleep. If I keep fighting…I don’t know,” Kei said. “Aeon has a plan?”

“Well, they are two of them, and we are a continent.”

I couldn’t feed the heroes too many kills, though; they might gain levels. In fact, the tactic would generally involve clearing out wherever they landed and using poison abilities to weaken them, then only engaging them with a large team of high-levelled individuals.

“I never thought I’d have to fight a hero. Not in my entire lifetime,” Jura said. “Certainly, I never thought there would even be a reason where I’d have to fight against a hero…well, except if they hunted elves.”

Kei smirked. “So…what does Aeon have in mind?”

For Jura, a lot of [experience seeds].

69

YEAR 147

Jura took fourteen experience seeds, a whole bunch of skill seeds until he vomited, and that moved his level to level one hundred fourteen.

“These experience seeds are so overpowered,” Kei protested. Truth was she was just upset that it didn’t work on heroes. It was also my first time using so many of them, and I soon discovered there was a time restriction to the experience seed. Jura couldn’t take more than fifteen experience seeds in total.

The additional levels gave Jura more power, speed, and abilities, but still, against Kei’s [Fortress of Guns], it was lacking. Kei was still absurdly strong, and even if Jura could get close, the guns would all bombard Jura’s armor to smithereens.

“Today’s practice is a little special,” Jura explained. He was next to Edna and Faris, both level eighties. “Aeon will be joining in our fight.”

Kei paused. “Aeon?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Instantly, her array appeared, and it seemed like she still had some cards to play, as she activated two more arrays of cannons and guns. I wasn’t going to let this chance slide, so I’d activated [poison roots], [mist], and [constrict]. She levitated out of the way, and her cannons started to shoot the ground beneath her.

Jura, Edna, and Faris all spread out and attacked from separate directions, hoping to capitalize on the sight-dependent targeting function of the arrays. Still, the guns just carpeted her surroundings. I tried to buy time and space; I created multiple [steelwood barriers] in many places just so that the three had some cover.

Then she had large cannons shooting some kind of magical bullet. It blasted the barriers to smithereens in a single shot!

Yet Jura got close, his spear almost grazed her, but it was blocked by an array of cannons, which crumbled from the impact. At that distance, some of the cannons managed to land a point-blank hit on Jura, and Jura was flung to the distance. I had to immediately block with more [steelwood barriers].

“Ouch.” Jura was hurt; he bled a little. At the same time, Edna’s new armor-skill also proved relatively useless against the hero. It lasted a good twelve seconds, and then her armor was entirely destroyed.

Vines popped up as she tried to regain her footing from the explosion; some of them managed to entangle her array of magical guns. We pulled in all directions and increased the number of vines. I kept spawning as many vines as I could, and Kei’s guns kept firing. She used fire attacks, bullets, explosions, and this was when I discovered I could spawn as many vines as she could destroy and more.

I had the mana of the entire network of trees at my disposal, and I was going to use all of it if I had to.

It was a tug of war; her cannons kept shooting on the ground around her, destroying the vines, trying to create space between her and the ground beneath her. The vines were exceptional with my energies regenerating them.

The vines drained at her mana, but she had so, so much! It felt like Alexis again, back when she was that demon-possessed fire elemental form. I had beaten Alexis then, but that was because she was a weakened hero with demonic energy possessing her.

Kei struggled, and then her body glowed. Then she emitted an explosion that torched all the vines. At that moment, her array of guns vanished.

Edna and Faris were a distance away. They were horribly outmatched by her cannons and guns. Their armor didn’t last. Jura, too, was nursing his wounds in the distance.

I had more vines appear. Kei took a deep breath and summoned another array of guns. She had different types of bullets, and the ground was covered in exposed roots, my roots. She fired more bullets at them. But somehow, regenerating roots and vines were proving to be quite a bad matchup for a gunner like her.

This constant resistance went on for a good two hours, and then she was slowly getting tired.

I didn’t want to push her further, and I still thought she had a lot more to go.

“Let’s stop,” I mentally signaled, and Kei relaxed.

* * *

“What? You didn’t tell us you’re in the Central Continent!” Alvin and Hans were on the other side of the magical call.

“I did, but somehow both of you seemed to have just ignored it.” Kei frowned. “Why?” She was feigning ignorance.

“Never mind. Then help us sabotage the Central Continent’s defenses. The temples want to launch a second crusade soon, this time with us as the main force.”

“Why?” Kei frowned. She already knew this much. Back when they were on the Eastern Continent, she already knew of the temple’s plan for a second crusade after the war. The plan was only foiled when the first batch of heroes died.

“Because the cursed tree is actually an evil spawn of the demons! Think about it: how else did it survive the demonic corruption for so long? It must be actually a clever ploy by the demons to create a tree that appears to be on our side! The gods have decreed that a war must be waged against it.”

Before Kei could respond, I mentally whispered, “Play along. If we want to win, it may be a good idea to just let them think you’re on their side.”

“Hmmm…” Kei just acted.

“Is the demon tree aware of your presence?” the other two heroes said.

“Yes.”

“Beware of the things it tells you. The temples said the tree has somehow managed to convince and cheat past heroes as well.”

“Really?”

“They suspect the tree may have some mind-controlling abilities, psychotic substances, and drugs, since it managed to convince the heroes to part with their hero items last time. Don’t take things from the tree. Be careful of what you eat and drink.”

Kei paused. “You mean it’s been drugging me?”

“Yeah. Maybe! You have to be careful, Kei. It’s a very crafty tree. It managed to defeat the first crusade!”

“It must be quite crafty.”

“Why don’t you escape? And rejoin us back in the Southern Continent? The three of us can launch the crusade together!”

“I…uh…”

“Has it gotten to you? That evil tree! I won’t forgive them.”

“I mean…I met someone who’s probably from Earth.”

“Oh no. The tree managed to catch someone else! Can you free him, too?”

“Her.”

“Yeah. Her. Can you free her? Both of you, can you escape? I’m sure the temples will be happy to host all of you. They’ve been treating us really well.”

Kei rolled her eyes. “You mean girls, right?”

Both Alvin and Hans blushed. It seemed that the two heroes were serviced by a harem of gorgeous temple priestesses.

“I knew it.”

“I’m sure they have good-looking boys, too!” Alvin responded. “Come back here, Kei.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think. That tree must be sowing doubt in your mind. Be careful of what you think, Kei.” I wondered what the hell the temples were feeding the heroes. But then, maybe the gods had some kind of godly surveillance ability, so it wasn’t a surprise if it could see what kind of powers I had, though I suspected my later Domain-protected powers remained a secret.

Kei found it hard to play along as it went on. “Okay, okay. I’ll need to hide. Before he finds me.”

“Good. See you.”

“All right.”

The connection cut off, and Kei stood. She asked, “Do you have mind-control powers, Aeon?”

“No.” Well, Patreeck’s not exactly mind control. It was…influence and mind-reading.

“Do you have psychotic drugs?”

“Yes.” If a hero wanted to investigate, I was not surprised if they could find the truth. So it was better to just be upfront about it. “I have various kinds of psychedelic substances, generated by my plants and organs.”

“I see.” Kei walked away. She spent a few weeks fighting demonic hybrids in the Rottedlands.

* * *

I spoke to Lausanne about the heroes’ plan for the crusades.

“Hmm, I didn’t realize the two of them were so deeply influenced by the temples’ demagoguery. When I met them, they seemed…ordinary.”

“It’s been many years since the last hero summoning, and the temples are still formally at war with us,” Jura opined. “The rhetoric and propaganda are in full swing. Surely you’ve seen the tales that the people spin about us.”

The propaganda divided the world. Those on the Central Continent thought they were so absurd to the point that rather than improve the locals’ view of the temples, it merely made them look ridiculous. In fact, the fervor and passion of the locals to defend the Central Continent increased every time some ridiculous propaganda got circulated.

It was even a point of comedy.

On the other continents, they seemed to believe the propaganda. It wasn’t a stretch for them to believe it, somehow.

The only ones that reacted nonchalantly to the propaganda were the border nations, the island nations that traded with us, and the kingdoms that secretly made trade arrangements. For them, the propaganda, on either side, seemed like just a sidenote. Money and resources were more important.

“The Valthorns won’t be much help against the heroes,” Jura admitted. “Unless you make more of those limit-breaking things… And even me at level one hundred fourteen now…”

“You’ll need to reach at least level one hundred fifty to hold your own against them.” It was a simple concept that the system recognized level one hundred fifty as the tier of ‘champions.’ Thus, level one hundred fifty must be like an entry-level hero. If they also unlocked their Domain powers at that point, I could see them gaining significant strength at that level, which would allow them to catch up to the heroes.

“Wow,” Jura said. “Level one hundred fifty seems so…”

“Crazy,” Lausanne added. “Seriously, I didn’t know Aeon had the ability to break level caps. When did that happen?”

“Uh…some time ago. Still, it’s insufficient. In our spar with Kei, we lost badly. But Aeon suggested the implementation of multiple high-speed attacks would be sufficient to weaken the hero. But they also have incredibly high base defense and stats, so it also needs to pack a bit of a punch.”

“Crystal bombs, then. We charge up hundreds or thousands of spell matrixes and plant them as mines. Detonate them when the heroes get near,” Lausanne suggested.

“That’s a good idea.” We could try that out.

We gathered that the heroes would approach from the sea, and chances were they would come with a fleet of ships. The temples would give full backing and wouldn’t half-ass this crusade, with the heroes in the lead. It’d be a sizable force, a coalition from all the continents. The temples would be eager to demonstrate their power and redeem themselves from their prior loss.

In short, a lot of bloodshed.

That said, if I couldn’t nuke the demon king, I could nuke the heroes. I thought that had a far higher chance of success, but I thought I would make Kei an enemy. As it was, the chances of success for me, Kei, and my other high-leveled talents against these two heroes were quite good. Almost fifty-fifty.

If I could trap them properly, and Kei didn’t defect, we had a very good chance of winning.

“Then let’s get to it. We should start preparing what we need for the traps, all the crystal matrixes we can make.”

This required better enchanters and crafters, so I used my class fusion abilities to create a few [High Enchanters] and [Master Crystalworkers]. They would work on the base of the crystals to store our ‘lightning bombs,’ and then I would add some of my own runic carvings to enhance them further. Production of these crystal bombs required rare materials and also the skills of my workers, so even after giving out the new classes, we were making thirty to fifty crystals a month. Hardly enough to mine the shores or prepare a weapon.

* * *

The continent was in full war-preparation mode, and at the same time, I’d recalled Hytreerion back. I needed to outfit him for a different sort of battle now, no longer anti-air, but anti-hero. He needed all the high-speed weapons I could make, and the change in the loadout had to reflect that.

The heroes were all dedicated anti-air specialists, but from what I’d seen with Kei, their detection abilities and other ancillary abilities such as defense and healing skills were relatively strong, but not insanely overpowered. It was still possible to capitalize on these lagging abilities and pretty much turn them into weaknesses.

Also, there was only two of them, and Kei’s movement speed was just slightly faster than Jura at his top speed, so these two heroes would be at a similar pace. That meant their invasion fleet would not be as well protected as they thought.

If we could hold the two heroes off and keep them occupied, the rest of our forces could cut off their supply lines and force them to retreat.

A continent turned into a machine readying itself for war.

* * *

“Lord Kraviek.” An assistant bowed to the Treefolk lord. “This way.”

He nodded and was led to a fancy meeting room. A few others were waiting. The lords were gathered for a meeting in one of Freshka’s largest mansions, organized by the [Trade Lord]. “My humblest apologies to my esteemed peers,” Kraveik said. “Pardon my time, treefolks do not move very quickly.”

“No matter, no matter. Come.” The Dwarven trade lord nodded. There were ten lords in that room, all graduates of the FTC. “Come. The Second Crusades will be a storm that will soon sweep our lands. We, the noble class, have much to deliberate.”

“Go on.”

“I have been in contact with a few kingdoms on the other continents.” There was a gasp. “The heroes will lead the charge, and they say the female hero in our midst will turn against us.”

Whispers in the small crowd. “It does make sense that a hero summoned by the other gods would turn against us.”

“Indeed, a worrying thing. Aeon may not be able to hold against three heroes. Few things in our known history have managed to hold the heroes back.”

“You speak like you have a proposal, dwarf,” a centaur lord immediately cut in. “Let’s hear it.”

“Indeed, indeed. We must decide whether we should defect.”

Kraviek slammed the table. “I oppose that wholeheartedly.”

“Or pretend that we are defecting. It would be wise to play along and hedge our bets,” the dwarf said. “If Kei, the hero, really is defecting, I will make contact and suggest that we switch along with her.”

Kraviek again slammed the table. “Enough. I will have no part of this nonsense. Do you all have no shame to even consider it? We were given power by Aeon, and now we turn against him?”

The dwarf immediately retorted, “We earned our classes by performing as the best in our cohort. Aeon has done much for us, but our class is our own, and we must plan for the inevitable. Our survival must matter.”

“And I would rather burn than defect against my patron.”

The dwarf took a deep breath. “Calm, Kraviek. We are peers in this room, so please, hear me out. Aeon very well knows that our present loyalties are because of the role his divine plays. If he falls, the glue that holds this entire continent collapses together. He would not begrudge us if we planned for that inevitability.”

“Again, I would rather burn.”

“I would love for Aeon to win, Kraviek. But we are dealing with heroes. Heroes have reshaped the political landscape of the world many times already. Remember, elven heroes subordinated tree spirits, too. Aeon’s superiority in our continent is dependent on his ability to withstand the heroes’ pressure.”

“He would stand better with us on his side.”

The dwarf sighed, and the discussion was heated. One of the later graduates spoke. “I suggest we keep our options open at this point. We do not know whether Aeon will lose or not.”

“Dwarf, you may be a master of trade, but it is my view this is a trade you should not make,” Kraviek warned.

The dwarf could only sigh. “If it was only so easy. Should the tree fall, are we going to be crushed under it or step aside? What is loyalty if it is death to all we care for?”

“There are times you should have conviction in your positions, not constantly weigh the shifting odds.”

“What if?” the dwarf retorted.

Another lord spoke up. “It is best whatever we discuss never leaves this room. The Valthorns will have our heads if they know we even considered defection.”

“I will keep my silence, but I fear it may be too late. Aeon’s ears are everywhere. Pray that he does not mete out preemptive punishment.”

The dwarf’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“Yes.”

I chose to do nothing. The entire continent had always wondered what would happen if I were to suddenly die or disappear. Every king and lord worth their salt had been planning for that possibility, and so far, all I needed to do was to send a nice warning letter if they took a step too far. I even let them make contact. It wasn’t a problem for them to communicate with those on the other side. Who knew? The defection may even go the other way.

From what I could see, the dwarf’s concerns were entirely from fear. Fear of my eventual destruction. It was valid, and so long as he did not participate in plots against me or reveal sensitive info, I would grant them some leeway.

If I were to execute everyone for even having a thought of betrayal, I would soon slaughter everyone. Everyone had thoughts of change. I could accept reasonable dissent and discussion.

“Patreeck, just keep an eye on them?”

“Certainly, Master.”

But we would always be watching.

70

YEAR 147 (END OF YEAR)

The second crusades brewed in the distant horizon. A thousand ships set sail from all the continents, but most of them would not make land; only the force led by the heroes would first make landfall. At least, that was the plan we heard.

“What is our victory condition?” I asked Kei this question as the war preparations went on. “Are you willing to kill your friends?” I wanted to be sure she was on the same side and what her ‘line’ in the sand was.

She shook at the word ‘kill.’ “I…I’m not sure. I thought of defeating them, and they’ll go away.”

Ugh. Now she lacked the conviction.

“I’ll keep defeating them.”

“There’s two of them and one of you. And then they will come back again. Stronger and bigger. Realistically speaking, if we want to win, for this to be a victory, the two of them must die. The crusades will not stop if the heroes live. The temples will not allow the heroes to retreat.”

“Can we capture them instead?” Kei said. “I want them to see the journals. That’s the minimum I want to try. Maybe we can change their mind.”

This was insane. “The journals can’t leave the room. The heroes enchanted them so that they are magically bound to that tree.”

“Then we capture them and lead them here.”

“What you want to do will put us in tremendous danger.” Defeating the heroes was hard enough. Capturing these star mana–powered superweapons?

She thought for a moment and then said, “Not if I play my part properly. I’ll need your help.”

* * *

“Kei!”

“Alvin, Hans. I got a plan, but I need both of you to come, preferably just the two of you.”

“Huh.” The two heroes paused.

“I think I can sneak both of you to Aeon directly. No need for any large crusading party. If we defeat Aeon first, together, the continent will fold anyway. What do you think? The army can come afterward, and it’ll be a resounding victory for them.”

“It smells like a trap, Kei.”

“I know, but we’re heroes. There’re two of you, and one of me, and the enemy’s just a tree,” Kei said. “What do you think? It’s the best way to save the Cursed Continent without spilling too much blood. So much was already sacrificed in the earlier crusades.”

They thought for some time. “We’ll have to discuss this with the High Command of the Crusaders.”

“Yes, do so. But please, consider my suggestion. A small strike team will be super effective. I’ll also lead you to the Tree’s stockpile of hero items.”

* * *

“Let’s do it.” Hans and Alvin reached out a week later. It was predictable, since the temples were not really willing to risk life and limb for victory. But if the temples were more than willing to let the heroes risk it all, it was really par for the course.

They’d done it with the demon kings, and they would do it again with me.

“All right. Here’s the plan,” Kei explained over their magical conference call.

* * *

Hans and Alvin arrived in a small, high-speed ship. Their ship stopped in a quiet, mostly secluded bay. There was no ship in that area.

The two of them landed with a small team of soldiers from the temples. The soldiers would stay back and keep watch.

“We’re here.” I had already emptied that targeted location once the plan was set in motion. “Rather lax defenses, not what we were expecting.”

I had a feel of their power, I had tree-sensors in the area, and the bay was filled with trees. They were weaker than Kei for sure. Kei had the benefit of power-levelling in the Rottedlands, so she scored more kills during the demon king battles.

“With all the trees here, maybe he already knows we are coming,” Hans said. “But I don’t sense any magic.” Of course they couldn’t. Their detection abilities were just above average.

“Hello,” Kei said. She appeared from behind a coconut tree. “Finally, I get to see you two again.”

Alvin immediately ran over. “Are you all right, Kei? Did the Tree torture you or anything?”

Kei smiled. “Look at me.”

Alvin paused. “Just to be sure, the temples gave me this.” He took out some kind of water, and he splashed it on Kei.

Kei immediately shouted, “What the hell!”

“It’s holy water, the priests said. It’ll wash off any mind control and demonic influence.”

Kei frowned. “As if such things would work on me.”

“We never know. The Tree did manage to brainwash an entire continent to rebel against the four temples.” Alvin gave Kei a hug. “Glad to see you again.”

“Yeah. Come.” Kei took out a bag with a change of clothes. They were military uniforms of the Valtrian Order. “I stole some military outfits of the defense force. Remember, let me do the talking.”

* * *

The three heroes were soon at a military outpost in the far south. It was a small outpost, but there was a beetle-truck stop here.

“Walk normally like you belong. Think spy movies,” Kei said. The two boys straightened their backs. “Walk behind me.”

“Good evening, Lady Kei.” A soldier saluted as the three walked into the outpost.

Kei nodded. She was also in a military uniform, but her uniform was one of a higher status, similar to those of the Valthorns’ upgraded classers. The two walked behind her. “When’s the next beetle arriving?”

“To where, milady?” the soldier asked.

“Freshka.”

“In two hours.”

“Got it. Thanks,” Kei said, and she turned. “We have some time. Let’s eat.” She led them to a canteen in the outpost. There was a very small force in that outpost, and most of them left after seeing them.

“Why do they seem to be afraid of you?” Hans asked once there was no one else.

“Because I outrank them. I’m an honorary Valthorn, which makes me part of the elite force.”

Alvin nodded. “It’s clever that you so easily snuck into—” Kei immediately lunged forward, her hand covering his mouth.

“Don’t say it.” Kei looked stern.

The boys both nodded. This was an espionage! One that I was watching through all the trees everywhere. Even Kei didn’t know I could see so much.

“What are we waiting for?”

“Beetle-carriages. They’re kinda like long-range buses that travel from selected outposts to various destinations throughout the continent.” The two boys nodded, impressed.

“Wow. They’re advanced in this aspect.”

“Yes. Now, both of you are my assigned escorts. Here are your fake name tags and papers.” Kei took out a stack of papers with tags and various badges. She pinned them on them. “Refer to me as Lady Kei. If you see someone with the same uniform as me, refer to them as a superior rank. If you don’t know their name, just say, ‘Yessir.’ Got it?”

“Yes. Why didn’t you tell us all this earlier?”

“I just didn’t remember that I needed all this then,” Kei said frankly. “Now, come. The convoys should be here soon. I’ll get an exclusive one for us.”

71

YEAR 148

“How long will this journey take?” Hans asked a week into the journey.

“Five weeks. Usually it takes only two, but the express beetles are on other duties, and it’s winter, so the travel speed of the beetles are slower. They’re more sluggish during this time. This beetle will stop in a few cities along the way. Maybe we can try to catch an express beetle. This path also has less…traffic.”

They were wrapped in thick winter jackets supplied by the Valtrian Order. The south was usually warmer, but the path they chose took them through to the highlands. The beetles stopped at one of the snow-covered mountain towns. These were the winter-adapted beetles, product of my earlier research to counter the effects of cold. Still, they had to travel close to the [subsidiary trees].

The mountain town also had a small group of soldiers. Here, it was a mix of militia and Valthorns. The local town maintained a militia to deal with various monsters that spawned from the snowlands.

“Let’s take a break. I have to submit some reports to the local Valthorns, and we’ll need to do some monster extermination missions here.”

“Why?”

“To keep up our cover, stupid,” Kei said. They hunted some mountain icegoats and frost lizards for two days and then resumed their journey.

“All right. This beetle is going to take us to Fortress Arkiad. It’s one of the larger southern fortresses and a key staging ground of the defense force. I suggest both of you memorize this place well for your later battles. We will need the local commander, so again, let me do the talking.”

Throughout the Central Continent, we had many, many staging grounds and fortresses. Fortress Arkiad was one such fort. It had three [Giant Attendant Trees] and tons of wooden walls and defenses around it.

“Holy cow,” they both said. It was their first time seeing the giant trees.

“Aeon is larger. So shut it,” Kei said as the beetle approached the gates. A group of six well-dressed soldiers approached them. The beetle also lowered its body.

“Papers, please.”

Kei quickly flashed her badge and handed over her papers. She looked at the two behind him. She coughed. “Papers.”

The two quickly scrambled to find their documents and presented them to the soldiers. “All right, you can pass.”

The beetle stopped right after the wooden gates. “Impressive, right?” Kei smiled. “These are all magically reinforced wood and hyper resistant to fire, contrary to common belief.”

“Resistant to fire?” both Hans and Alvin responded.

“Yes. Strange but true. Come. As a senior Valthorn, I must meet the commander. Both of you will come with me. It’s the first time you’ll meet a Valthorn classer, and the first time in a giant tree.”

The fortress commander’s office was high up in the Giant Attendant Tree, and getting there meant walking in the spiral stairs or taking one of the wooden pulleys. “Shit, this place is straight out of a fantasy.”

Kei glared at Hans.

“Oops. Sorry, milady.”

The commander’s office was a large room with open windows. “Greetings, Commander Lovis,” Kei said.

“Ah, Lady Kei. Welcome to Fortress Arkiad again. How long will you stay this time?”

“Just a day or two. I’ll need to head off to Freshka soon. Aeon summoned.”

“I see.” Lovis instantly leaped and stopped right in front of Hans and Alvin. They both gulped. Lovis recently capped out at level eighty-five as a [Spearmaster]. “Strange, your two escorts…they smell funny.”

Only a select few were privy to the plan. Lovis was genuinely suspicious of Hans and Alvin. The two heroes froze. They were easily stronger than Lovis, but their mental state was weak. I wondered whether it was because they’d gotten their levels too quickly.

“It’s the sea. I believe they were stationed on the outer trade islands,” Kei responded calmly.

“I see. Both of you better get a shower. It’s improper for escorts to make your lady defend you,” Lovis said.

Kei chuckled. “I’ll see to it. If we may?”

“Yes, yes. Go ahead. Use our facilities as you please, Lady Kei.”

* * *

“Who was that again?” Hans asked. He clearly didn’t pay any attention when Kei explained earlier. To heroes, most people were just NPCs. Not worth remembering.

“Lovis. [Spearmaster]. I believe she’s level eighty-five.”

“Shit.” Hans was impressed, even though he was clearly stronger. “I could beat her, but she has a presence.”

Kei smirked. “She’s not the only one.”

“No wonder the first crusade lost. The number of people at that level…I think the kingdoms have only a few.”

* * *

After another three weeks of travelling, they entered the domain of the Freshlands.

“On your left, in the distance, is what remains of the Rottedlands, carved up by Aeon’s magical energies,” Kei said.

“The temples said Aeon made a deal with the demons,” Alvin said.

“Well, then the ground we are now on is all demon, then,” Kei explained. “There will be more demonic hybrids, and they are attracted to creatures that emit star mana like us, so be prepared for more fighting.”

“So, it’s true. Demonic hybrids. This…Aeon made a deal with the demons, and that’s why we have these cursed hybrids. The gods would never create such twisted monsters.”

Kei paused. As they travelled closer, they were attacked by a few demonic hybrids. They also saw beetles emerging from the trees to fight them. Then they reached the first walls of Freshka.

Over the decades, I’d added layer after layer of defenses. There was a [Giant Attendant Tree] that functioned as the centerpiece of the walls and gates. Again, Valthorns and Valtrian Order soldiers quickly did the usual ID checks, both the heroes getting used to the investigations.

“Now we have the centerpiece of Aeon’s propaganda machine,” Kei said, half joking. “We’re passing by the educational institutes.” They passed by the Freshlands Treetiary College and the School of Treeology. The Valthorn Academy was on the other side.

“Should we blow them up now, especially that School of Treeology?” Alvin said. “They are a cult. This entire setup is a cult.”

Kei paused. “No. People don’t need to die for this. Remember, the goal is Aeon.”

The two of them nodded. “Okay.”

* * *

“Come.” Kei led them into the room of where all the hero items were kept. We had intentionally set it up such that it looked like the entire tree was just a simple building.

There were a few hero items on the table. It was a risk if they activated them, but I had to trust Kei at this point.

The journal was there, too, on the table. It was closed, though.

“So…this is it?”

“There should be more,” Kei said. “Where did it go?”

The two boys started searching, and then Hans walked over to the journal. He briefly opened it, and the star mana in the journal resonated with his own. Then he froze. Alvin immediately ran over and touched Hans. “Hans…you all right?”

“…No.” Hans said. “The journal…”

Alvin then went and looked at the journal, its pages open, magical words floating everywhere. Habitually he reached out and touched the journal’s sides, and then he froze. The journal glowed. I still didn’t know what was in the journals and why it evoked such a strong emotion.

Both of them were stunned. The journal glowed, and their own bodies seemed to resonate with it. They didn’t move for a few hours. Kei just shrugged, sat down, and started brewing some tea.

When they finally broke out of the stupor, they both turned to face Kei. “You tricked us.”

Kei smiled. “Yes.”

“You sly woman,” Alvin said. “You wanted us to see this.”

“Yes. It is the only way we can stop being pawns of greater powers.”

They froze. “What now? You’ve just shown everything we’ve known to be lies.” They had a headache. Kei offered them tea.

“I don’t know. But I wanted to show you that this whole crusade is pointless. Fighting you on the battlefield wouldn’t have proved anything, even if we win. I don’t want to fight you, and we shouldn’t be fighting with Aeon. I don’t want Aeon to fight with the temples, either, as disgusting as the temples are. Our true enemies are not each other.”

“Then? We play arbiters of peace?” Hans said.

“The gods want us to be in perpetual conflict. The heroes and the demons are agents of that intention. We trigger more fights. More wars. Maybe this whole world is just a farm and we are the means of harvesting something.”

“How did the previous heroes know?”

“I don’t know, but they seemed to have managed to resist the gods’ influence to a greater degree than us. Either they found a way or we’re just too weak.”

“Then…”

“I want us to take a timeout. There’s really no reason for more bloodshed. We can break the cycle, even if the gods want us to play our part in this. We failed with the demon king, but we can stop this one.”

“You truly think sparing Aeon is the right decision? Not fighting him?”

“We’ve committed too much, and an army will soon be on their way,” the other boy continued.

“A timeout. Please. Let’s just pretend each other doesn’t exist. Why must we fight? When heroes fight, so many people die pointlessly.”

“I…I’ve seen the good things the temples do. The temples are not bad, either. I won’t just switch sides,” Alvin repeated.

“I’m not asking the two of you to be friends with Aeon. But see the value of his presence in the world, even if he made a contract with the demons, which, by the way, I don’t think he did.”

Alvin and Hans both just sat there. “I need more time. I can’t process this. Not yet.”

“I’ll be here. I’ll go get food. Please, don’t do anything stupid. We really, really don’t need to fight anyone. Well, maybe just the demons.”

Kei returned later with food.

“Also, there’s more to the journals. I don’t know how the previous heroes did it, but they’ve somehow copied a large chunk of their minds and memories into that magical journal. I’ve…I’ve added my own to it, too.”

Alvin and Hans glared at Kei for a moment, and then they sighed. “They uploaded their minds into a book. Great. This is next-level crazy.”

“It’s been crazy since we got here, boys.”

That was how two heroes ended up camping in my tree of hero items for a few days. The crusades, thankfully, didn’t move on. The temples were smart to suspend further action once they discovered the heroes had gone silent.

Sometime later, their bloodlust seemed significantly more subdued.

“I think we should head back,” Alvin and Hans said. “We won’t be friends with Aeon, but we agree. We don’t need to fight. It is pointless, as much as the temples want to convince us otherwise.”

Kei happily nodded. “It’s fine. I know you’re too invested in the temples’ hierarchy by now. But all we want is to stop the outright fighting. The world doesn’t need more deaths. We had enough in the Eastern Continent.”

“Yes. We can agree on that,” the two heroes agreed, though they had not truly switched over to my side.

Kei escorted them off.

“So, it’s over?” I asked Kei as their ship sailed away.

“I think they won’t attack us, at least. The temples might still continue the crusade, but it’ll just be the temples’ own forces.”

“Then they won’t.”

Alvin and Hans returned to the Southern Continent and soon advocated a focus on healing and restoration rather than a second crusade. The Eastern Continent still needed a lot of healing, and that was the angle they took.

Jura continued to fear for a large crusade, and personally, I was just happy I didn’t have to fight heroes. But I was now super interested in what was in that magical journal. What did Gerrard, Harris, and Mirei write in there?

“So…all our military work, what do we do?”

“We can slow it down and prepare for the next demon king. Take a break. You all deserve a bit of it.”

This year, I significantly dialed down the war efforts. Still, I kept those things, the anti-hero countermeasures in storage. I may still need them someday.

Kei managed to diffuse the situation with the journal, and in a way, it was very lucky that it worked out the way it did.

Though I knew that someday I would have to fight a hero for real, I was happy that this second crusade ended before it even started. For once, a war was fought and won with cunning, instead of blood. In a way, Kei really did something heroic.

72

YEAR 148 (CONTINUED)

“Thank Aeon that went well.” Edna breathed a huge sigh of relief. The two heroes, Alvin and Hans, returned to the south.

On the very day the three heroes came to Freshka, we summoned quite a few of the high-levelled Valthorns for an emergency preparation. The valley itself was loaded with many traps and magical weapons, ready to go off if the encounter in the Tree of Hero Items did not go well.

I was also personally relieved that, for once, we avoided a battle. That was a rarity in this world, where fighting often was the way to settle large disputes.

“I didn’t know they were the heroes,” Lovis complained, and her fellow Valthorns sympathized. Almost all of them were informed only when they came into the many holding areas prepared around the valley. “In hindsight, it’s obvious.”

Edna laughed in relief. “Most of us are just going to serve as meatshields for Aeon’s magical weapons.” I had multiple hero items prepared and was prepared to even detonate the entire valley around me to secure a victory. In Patreeck’s simulation, we would likely have deaths of about half of Freshka and almost all of the high-leveled Valthorns dead, most of it collateral damage, in a battle between us and the two heroes.

It wasn’t going to be pretty, and I wasn’t sure if the two heroes had any trump cards.

When Patreeck had included a 30–50 percent increase in their damage and power, and I’d probably lose my main trunk, Freshka and all the colleges would be a smoldering ruin. As long as my [heart] was hidden somewhere deep below, I thought I could still rebuild. But if they had some kind of detection ability, I was dead.

I would need more levels.

The goal of breaking this cycle demanded it.

* * *

News from the temples. The refusal of heroes to wage a second crusade seemed to set off a chain of internal conflicts, and rather than let the populace question whether the gods truly were in control of the heroes, the gods seemed to have decided on a second divine message.

Full-scale war was prohibited, but the Central Continent and all that was associated with Aeon was to be a pariah, persona non-grata. Essentially, a return to the status quo. The Central Continent remained ‘cursed,’ even with two heroes on their side.

I was rather amused that the gods would so quickly intervene and issue a second divine message.

Kei also returned to Freshka after the incident.

“Good job.” I spoke to her after she sent the two off. “It went pretty much the way you planned it to.”

“The book only managed to convince them to suspend conflicts. Too bad they weren’t willing to add their own to it.”

“Now that issue is temporarily fixed, what’s next?”

“The next demon king, of course.” It was getting boring, honestly. Come on, how many demon kings did we have to go through? That was the nature of maintenance—it was all boring and no one ever thanked you, but when something fucked up, then everyone was out to get you.

After the announcement, the story from the temples pivoted massively.

“The temples now claim that Aeon is a fallen archangel of the gods that has been punished for going astray and thus turned into a tree, that Aeon is still a servant of the gods that has lost its way, so the temples now preach that the Cursed Continent are people who need salvation and clarity, that Aeon is one in need of guidance,” one of the spymasters explained the news from the continents.

It was a massive WTF moment.

“The crusade was the temples’ attempt of guiding Aeon back to the proper path, but the gods have now found mercy and decided to let time bring Aeon back into their fold.”

Who wrote this sort of propaganda for the temples? And the populace just bought into this sort of wonky reasoning so easily? Seriously?

“So, Aeon, other than the cursed and heretic, is also now the Fallen Archangel of Gods, the wayward one, the deceived and the deceiver. The heroes must brave a journey to the cursed land to reclaim the weapons of gods left in the Fallen Archangel’s hands.”

“Wow.” If I had a jaw, it would be wide open now. “Seriously, the temples’ propaganda machine is quite impressive.”

“So the Cursed Continent is also the Lost Continent. Lost, because our people have fallen astray from the light of the gods Gaya, Aiva, Hewa, and Neira. The heroes, in their mercy, have convinced the gods that it is unnecessary to slay the wayward ones on the Central Continent, and instead, the heroes will devote their efforts in convincing and guiding the lost back from the brink.”

They somehow managed to twist the failed second crusade into a ‘draw.’

“Aeon would denounce the declaration and claim that they are not followers of the gods, but it is a lie.”

If I even came out to say it was wrong, it’d just play into their claim that I was lost. Still, I had to do it. I summoned my Patreearches and Matreearches and made them start a series of counter-propaganda sermons.

But war with the other temples was indeed pointless. Ugh.

The nobles that contacted the outsiders were surprised by how quickly the four temples folded and that the crusades were dead before they even landed. The fact that the two heroes actually came into Freshka and then into the valley was a secret unknown to most, only those alerted to the emergency combat preparations.

The lords were clearly smart enough to deny such a conversation of shifting sides ever happened. It wasn’t in their interest, now that the winds had shifted, to admit so.

I decided to let it go. There was just far too many people planning for contingencies anyway; they would not be the first nor the last.

* * *

Arlisa hid in a small tree in the forests on the outskirts of Freshka. She was now almost eight, and yet she looked like a fifteen-year-old. As a half elf, maybe it was the human side of her.

“Don’t tell Momma where I am,” she mentally whispered to me, her [lesser stealth] upgraded into two skills, [Forest-blending] and [Stealth]. She was dodging her sparring lessons again. Lausanne needed to work to find her.

“Why do you dislike sparring anyway?” She was good at it.

Arlisa pouted. “I like hiding more.”

“Found you.” Lausanne smirked as she appeared next to her in a quick jump. She gave her daughter a tap on the head.

“Ouch.”

“Now back to class.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t wanna,” Arlisa protested. “Let me play.”

“I don’t recall being so rebellious at your age, young lady.” Lausanne frowned. “You gotta go for classes.”

Arlisa didn’t care. She just shouted and protested. She preferred to be playing hide and seek with her mom.

73

YEAR 149

It’d been twenty-eight years since I last used a [soul-strengthening seed], and also, I had a few ginsengs of sufficient maturity. This time, I had a few twenty-five-year-old ginsengs. I’d planted them around Freshka, a few near the ley lines, and some in the volcano. Surrounded by a huge army of beetles.

“Lausanne, do you want it?”

“What…is this?”

“Something to break your level limit.”

She thought for a while and then shook her head. “As with the special class, I believe there are others more suited for it.”

So I went for another.

“Edna. You’ve served me for the past twenty-nine years as my first [Grand Knight], and it is time for me to grant you a blessing like that of Jura. With this, you will be able to exceed your current level limit and take on responsibilities far greater than what you have now.”

She nodded, and as with Jura so many decades ago, she had a whole night of pain and aches. The next day, she looked healthier, her soul glowing just like Jura’s. I could tell she gained a few levels, just like Jura, overflow levels from all her accumulated experience.

“So we were right. Jura really received a gift from you.” Edna marveled at her body. Breaking this limit seemed to unlock more vitality in them, and that reflected in their physical strength, all increased by a bit. I wondered whether heroes were therefore different in this key aspect, that they were born with far greater vitality than anyone else, since the concept of a level limit did not even occur to them.

“Was it not obvious?”

“No. Jura did not explain, and we have been wondering for quite some time.” Edna paused and knelt before the Tree of Prayer. She thought for a while, and then she just quietly prayed.

* * *

After Edna was Faris. I had some concerns of making a druid stronger, mainly fear that the power he gained would allow him to gain control over me.

Lately, I’d begun to gain some confidence in my own abilities, and [Domain] was a far stronger shield for all these subtle manipulations and controls than I expected. So I’d dabbled with the idea of making Faris stronger.

I offered him the same blessing, and he too took it. Just like Edna and Jura, he had a day of pain and aches, and the next day he emerged with an extra two levels. Unfortunately, their classes did not change.

“I believe both your classes will change when you hit level one hundred,” Jura explained to the two. “Just as mine did. It is a great privilege and honor and also a responsibility. More than ever, your lives are now intertwined with Aeon’s will.”

“Aeon’s will?”

“You have spoken and discussed with Aeon many times, but this choice reflects that he, too, has greater plans for both of you.”

“What sort of plans?”

It was then I immediately jumped in. “These plans are not one for the outside world or for the temples. Not even your fellow Valthorns, unless they, too, receive this same blessing.”

The two gulped.

“I aim to end the cycle of demons and heroes. To do so, I must have champions at my side.” Jura shrugged. I had privately discussed this with him earlier. “Over the next few decades, or perhaps centuries, but it will be so. My champions will be there to lay the foundations and to do what I cannot do. It is a position of tremendous trust and responsibility.”

Faris seemed lightheaded for a moment. “End the cycle…”

Edna had a serious, contemplative look on her face.

“Think about it: do you think the other gods seriously want to end this cycle, or are they just content with this present status of constantly fighting with the demons?”

They thought about it for a long while. Edna was first to say. “What do I do?”

“Not immediately. It is important that you gain strength, and secondly, watch your mind. The other gods have attempted to attack my mind multiple times, and I will attempt to aid you to resist those powers. Every day, you shall have at least a cup of herbal tea, and if you ever feel like you have a mental attack or feel lightheaded, you must let me know, and I will attempt to support your mind. It is one of the things we must do to gain the powers to resist mental attacks.”

Patreeck’s able to use his mental attack powers to also provide some limited ‘shielding,’ but only in the valley of Freshka.

“Your goal is to reach level one hundred fifty. At level one hundred fifty, you unlock the first of the [Domain] powers and enter the realm of true champions. Only then, we can dream of catching up to the heroes.”

For me, even at level one hundred seventy, fighting a level one hundred ten–plus hero like Kei was still a fifty-fifty thing. If Kei had a more ground-focused ability or was a more ‘martial-oriented’ hero, she would have won against me easily. Level one hundred fifty was nothing more than a ticket to be in the race, with a huge advantage for the heroes. I thought they would need to be level one hundred seventy or one hundred eighty to fight a level one hundred ten hero.

Or maybe, the Domain choices they had then would be more combat-oriented.

“One hundred fifty!” they both gasp. It was twice their current level.

“I will help you. Some [experience seeds] will get you closer to that goal, but after this, the three of you must fight many strong foes by yourselves. Only then you will gain the experience needed to level up.”

I believed I’d have to give out fragments, too, once I got past one hundred hero fragments. The experience support and anti-demonic buffs would be useful.

“It is a huge task, one we will need to achieve over the decades. It is all right if we miss the next demon king or the one after. All we need is one successful shot, and we can end this madness for good. Too many lives have been lost over the millennia to this pointless conflict.”

They all nodded.

“I’ve always lived thinking this demon king thing was just a regular event, where even kings or heroes can’t stop it. To be part of an attempt like that, I must say, fills me with a purpose I cannot describe,” Edna said. “It is a worthy goal.”

“Speak to no one else of the goal. The other gods are watching, and they will attempt to use their powers to influence you.” Again, another set of nods. “If anyone asks, the goal is to gain power. For now, you are dismissed.”

Faris didn’t return home. He summoned a wolf and went for a long trek through the high mountains. The knowledge seemed to weigh on him a lot more than Edna.

* * *

“I hope they can take it.” I spoke to Jura privately.

“They had to know. Just like me. I had always suspected you have a larger goal, but I was not certain of the extent of how large it would be.”

“Yeah. This is a conflict far bigger than any one of us. They must know. This is a path that may take us in open conflict with the other gods and heroes.”

Jura nodded. “Of the Valthorns, they are most ready. Perhaps Lovis next? Or would this power also extend to Yvon?”

Yvon was a soul-contractee, and I was not sure how the soul-contract would interact with the soul blessing. “I’m not sure whether it can work with Yvon, not in her current state.”

“And that mind control thing…really? The gods tried?”

“Yes. I have deflected divine energies a few times.”

“Shit,” Jura said. “How do we even know if we’re compromised? What if I’m already under the influence of the gods?”

“At this point, I don’t know. It is something I am working on.”

* * *

“Aeon wants all books on heretics, rebellions against the gods, and all such things. If the other temples have records on the prior struggles with rebels and disbelievers, he wants it.”

It was clearly something that made people uncomfortable. “Is Aeon really a heretic?”

“Don’t ask me. Aeon wants a massive magical study on the work of heretics, their weapons, and their processes.” The Decarches received the order first. The goal was simply whether there were some kind of objects that naturally resisted divine powers. If so, those items or elements would be very useful in the process of countering the gods.

> May we know your intent? < Lilies discovered that we were gathering the books sometime later.

The entire continent has swayed to my side, including Lilies’ inhabitants. It seemed to maintain an aloof relationship with their inhabitants, not bothered to really give directions or orders. But they were clearly monitoring them.

Ah. Yes, I should ask Lilies. < Do you know of any items that may protect oneself from divine influence and mindfuckery? Pardon the language. >

> Blackstar Gems. They resist, but not absolute. We have some. <

< Blackstar Gems? How does it work? >

> Best eaten or consumed or fused to the soul. Strengthens the soul from otherworldly influences. <

What did that do to heroes? Lilies seemed to detect my thoughts.

> Reacts dangerously with star mana. Often explodes on contact. <

< Where do I find them? >

> Really deep underground, where the sun doesn’t shine, where the light of the heavens does not touch. If you cannot find, you can make them. Leave most types of precious gems really deep underground, away from all light for a hundred years, with some anti-magic or anti-mana enchantments, and about one-tenth will turn into Blackstar Gems. <

A hundred years to make.

“Blackstar Gems?” The temples seemed to have not made any mention of it, nor any books or records were kept on this. It existed mostly in geological and blacksmith books but did not seem to elaborate much on its use.

We soon found some from the merchants such objects kept in various stores.

It was a rather brittle object, small, really pitch black in color, and seemed to reflect no light. It appeared quite like a matte black stone. It was not hard and did not store magic or mana like most gems.

Quite like coal, if not as shiny.

< We eat this? > I was rather confused by that.

> For a temporary resistance against the divine. <

I decided to just place it into my various types of labs for further study. If such an object really had anti-divine properties, perhaps I could make weapons or armor that granted those around me the ability to resist these forces.

74

YEAR 150

****Research into the Blackstar Gems soon yielded some results. They had mild generic anti-magic properties, but these anti-magic properties were exceptionally effective against ‘holy’ and ‘light’ elements. That said, once consumed, they only stayed in the body for a short moment of time.

I had no way of recreating ‘divine’ magic to test out the effectiveness of these Blackstar Gems.

“Do you have any ‘divine’ abilities?” I asked Kei.

“Nope.”

Sigh. It may be effective against Holy and Light, and it was a conjecture that this extended to ‘divine’ type of magic. I had preferred something more conclusive. Next was research on how to actually use these Blackstar Gems. For Edna, Faris, and Jura, I made specialized helmets with these gems inserted; hopefully that would give them some protection against the mind-controlling effects of the gods.

Again, it was speculation if this worked.

* * *

My requests to gather the documents, records, and books went quite okay. It wasn’t hard to gather details about people who were punished for their heresy.

Heretics were those who turned against their gods. I also wondered whether there was anyone that turned against me with a special class.

Was there a [heretic] class?

The Valthorns and Priesthood were responsible for combing through the documents for any objects or items that may be of interest. Most of them were crap, and there was a lot of misinformation in the records, things written down or speculated by some priest that over time became the ‘canon’ understanding of a particular subject.

Again, rubbish.

But from the pile of rubbish, there were some possible chances. Items or weapons mentioned in passing. Sea serpents and certain items harvested from the deep sea. Strange. Items from the sea were common, but for them to be used by the heretics?

Why?

This was where old myths emerged. Neira, Gaya, Hawa, and Aiva were referred to the four temples of the continents, but in many smaller islands, many had more localized faiths, shamanistic rituals, and animism. For smaller islands with their lives intertwined with the seas and oceans, many sailors paid homage to various ‘sea gods’ and ‘sea guardians,’ and strangely, the four gods didn’t overtly oppose such homages, even if they frowned on them.

If the land had seen so much destruction from the demons, the sea, for most part, had been spared the destruction.

If there were any civilizations deep underwater, they must have watched the surface fight endless, pointless battles, and they would have records from a long time ago. The demons did not invade the sea. Naturally, the faith of those island nations seemed to be a bit more obscure and strange.

I felt like I was going down a rabbit hole, trying to find what was going on, really. Maybe my answer to this problem lay in the past.

If the memories of that ancient tree were true, there may be a time from before the demons and heroes. The lands, which had over the millennia seen hundreds or thousands of demon kings, would have been so destroyed that the odds of records surviving would be close to nil.

But the sea, the ocean, was so vast, if there were records somehow submerged, they may still survive. If luck was on our side.

Thus, I commanded the Valthorns and Priests to gather all the myths, legends, and folklore of the smaller island nations and the beliefs of the seafarers and sailors. If there was an equivalent of Polynesian myths, I wanted to know.

Again, it wasn’t hard to gather a general one, but to have it in detail, most of such myths were spoken from one generation to the next, hardly written. The Valthorns and other employees of the overall FFA would have to go and meet these islanders and conduct interviews. They started with the nearby islands.

The variation in founding myths and all that differed rather greatly, and quite a few seemed to have suffered influence from the four temples. There were far more parallels than I thought was normal.

The sea and the oceans were home to many giant creatures; the largest of them were the zaratans or world turtles. The floating zaratans, large turtles with islands on their backs, were creatures spoken of in legends and tattoos, very rarely appearing, and even if they did, their presence was often accompanied by a thick fog, so no one was really sure. The most unique of these beliefs stated that the first denizens of the world came on the backs of these zaratans and that these zaratans had the ability to sail from one world to another through portals mortals could not even fathom. Long ago when the world was bare and empty, of only land and sea, the zaratans came to the world and brought the first plants, animals, and trees.

Another variant of these myths, more common in the southern islands, was that the world and many others were on the back of massive world serpents, zaratans, and fishes. Those stellar bodies that moved quickly across the sea of stars were travelling on speedy world serpents, the slower ones on the zaratans. If these zaratans did exist, they may well be minor deity class creatures, maybe more if they lived for very long.

If they were indeed of the multiverse, then it would make sense that they had the power to resist the divine. Surely creatures of that level would consider gods nothing more than peers.

There were lesser myths, too, and it still took some time to digest them, to separate those that may have some use and some that did not.

What was strangely common in the island myths were the tales of local heroes, quite unlike the common zeitgeist from the temples that often contained heroes from faraway lands. These island epics were tales of how ordinary men rose up to challenge great beasts. That said, the power level described in these epics were not at the level of the demon kings. They were more local nuisances, dealing with problems that affected the islands or just the smaller chain of islands.

* * *

“The bards are having a good time.” Jura chuckled. Edna and Faris were next to him. They met more regularly now that they had similar challenges. “With all the stories that Aeon’s asking for, they’re making good money.”

They met in Yvon’s academy, in theory supervising but mostly just watching a large group of young students practice simple movements. Jabs, thrusts, parries. These were children aged six to twelve, and they were separated into groups to reflect their relative levels of competence.

“So, did you get a mental attack?” Jura asked. “I haven’t, but then again, maybe I won’t know.” I made them all a necklace and a ring made of the Blackstar Gems after Faris complained that the helmet was impractical. Sometimes, simple stuff was best.

“No. But I really wish there were more of us.”

“Leveling someone up to the cap required something like the Rottedlands, and now that the Rottedlands was much smaller, it’s also harder for it to generate high-tier hybrids for us to fight,” Jura explained frankly. “Outside of our spars with the heroes, we’ll most likely have to travel to fight demon champions and walkers to gain levels. We’ll be busy once the rift opens.”

* * *

“Tree Spirit, are you there?” Akrenaf the wolf asked one day. “We wish to speak.”

“Yes?”

“We wish to leave the forest, and if you may, guide us to where there is magic in the land?”

“Magic in the land, you mean ley lines?” Now that my network of trees and roots spread across the continent, there were actually multiple ley lines. But my soul forge required different ‘types’ of energies, so an increase in the quantity of ley lines merely increased the total mana available to me but did not result in me unlocking a different ‘color’ to my ley line.

There were multiple dungeons across the continent, too, and they were either [black] or [red], or [blue], colors which I already had. So, despite my expansion, my soul forge colors did not grow.

The wolf sniffled momentarily, shaking and nodding its head, and then answered. “Yes, I believe that is what they are called by the mages. The shamans refer to them as just magic in the land. Can you help us ensure safe passage? We see many humans and creatures who would fear us and attack us.”

“That can be done. I shall assign you an escort.”

Faris arrived five days later by express-beetle. “This is Akrenaf, a wolf. He wishes to travel to the ley lines of the land, and I saw it fitting that a great druid is to escort him.” Druids were also commonly seen with animals and tamed monsters, so a massive wolf-monster travelling with a druid would not raise alarms.

“Well met, Wolf,” Faris said with a friendly bow. Akrenaf sniffed him slightly and spoke.

“He smells of the city.”

Faris shrugged. “My tasks often lead me to the cities. But that should not detract from my task of escorting you.”

“It is fine.” The wolf shook its head. “Let us go.” They travelled mostly through the smaller routes, walking the entire way.

When they finally arrived at the nearest magical ley line, a ‘blue’ one, the wolf sniffed and tapped its massive paws on the ground a few times. It was using a skill of some kind, and then…that was it.

That was rather boring. The wolf repeated it a few times in most of the other ley lines or places with natural mana.

“Are you looking for something else?” I asked at the fourth ley line they visited.

“No, not really. This is right. We merely sensed its strength,” the wolf responded. “And your reach is far.”

Ah.

“It is for a shaman to regularly visit nearby ley lines, as shamans tap into ley lines for strength and power. Their health and condition are critical to a shaman’s strength and also why certain types of shamans often live in strange places. Quite like that of a witch.”

Faris merely shrugged. Had I met a witch?

* * *

Kei could fly was something I expected. What I did not expect was how high she could fly. She could fly almost to the edge of the ‘sky’ itself, almost crossing into space. Space was, as she described it, strange. The moons moved erratically at times, as if forcefully yanked out of place.

It also occurred to me that if she really wanted to win her fight against me, all she needed to do was fly really high up and bombard me from where I could not reach. Her magical projectiles would lose some of its power at that distance, but she would not be harmed at all at that distance. Of course, I kept my mouth shut.

The heroes could have used a similar tactic against the demon king, too, unless, of course, the demon king also could fly at that distance. I wondered what the world would be like if the next demon king was some kind of alien monstrosity that floated on low planetary orbit, bombarding the world with dropships filled with demons.

“We killed the demon king five years ago.” Yes, Year 145. “There’re five years left, right?”

“The rifts usually open one to two years before. You can start hunting demons once that happens to raise your levels if you feel not confident. But once you cross level one hundred as a hero…”

Kei nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

It felt like I’d done this umpteen times. Was this what being a non-player character felt like? Repeating the same shit to different ‘players’ every damn time. It was boring.

In the meantime, I scheduled more practice sessions for Kei with Edna and Jura. Edna gained a level or two from spars with Kei.

* * *

The Rottedlands shrunk even more. At this point, it was only a quarter of the Rottedlands’ peak. Furthermore, this ‘quarter’ was sliced up by all the tree-roads and the new nations that now inhabited the reclaimed lands.

I wondered whether there was a way to tap into blood magic as a source of new mana-color for my soul forge. Perhaps by way of a rune on the general population that granted some of their mana to me?

I had [Red] from a volcano, [Yellow] from a runic formation, [Blue] from my existing trees and networks, and [Black] from a magical ley line.

From ley lines throughout the continent, most of them were already Blue, Black, or Red. Did I have green? Shouldn’t trees be [Green]? Or was it from something else? If there was [black], there should be [white], too.

Frustrated, I shared my concerns about the colors with Lilies.

< How do I get [green]? >

> No clue. Mine is Black from all the death of people. <

No progress. I believed demonic magic was perhaps one color. This blood magic was also another. What other sources of magic? Wind? Water?

I decided to try for both.

If Wind could be a source of magic, all I needed was to spawn a lot of trees in places where there was a lot of wind and find a way to convert that wind-energy into mana. Perhaps that’d give me another ‘source.’

If my experience with [blue] was correct, I’d need at least ten thousand wind-harnessing trees to unlock a new color.

For a month, I experimented with various grasses, reeds, and coconut trees, attempting to find a way to convert wind to mana. Of course, my artificial minds submitted some rather fascinating tree species for my consideration, too.

Dandelions. And wind-mill tree-monsters. The windmill trees were trees with flexible branches that could twist along with the wind. They were monsters first, trees second, and they actually attacked people around them. Carnivorous little creatures.

Naturally, they went into the [biolab].

[Research option unlocked: Windmill Trees - 18 months needed.]

[Research option unlocked: Wind Energy Harvesting - Grassy Fields - 18 months needed.]

[Research option unlocked: Wind-to-mana - 24 months needed.]

Fuck. Two years.

I decided to work on water-based plants instead. We were already experimenting with swamp trees and swamp adapted trees. Now, the goal was to turn wave to mana and its associated relationships.

The druids already had a large collection of plants that existed on the shoreline. These also included certain forms of seaweeds and algae.

[Research option unlocked: Algae-to-energy (Seaweeds) Stage 1 - 12 months needed.]

[Research option unlocked: Swamp wavebarriers - 18 months needed.]

[Research option unlocked: Saltwater Tolerance Stage 1 - 24 months.]

Oh, well. I started the research anyway. If I could unlock both of them, that should lead to more mana and hopefully a new color. Wind and water seemed natural enough.

* * *

A few minor wars broke out among my subordinated states. The Valthorns had to abstain from conflict and also work with the Priesthood; together they were tasked with protecting innocents from the fighting.

The entire Central Continent was a hodgepodge of rulers. The FFA and the Valthorns essentially existed as a federal government with power over all outbound diplomacy, religion, certain military rules and rights, interstate trade, racial matters, and certain overarching criminal prosecution powers. There were also federal taxes, and the FFA regulated all of the major transport and trade routes.

Below that were the ‘states,’ who retained domestic power, budgetary control over the finances of their own states, internal state trades, local criminal and law powers. These were the ‘allied’ and ‘subordinated’ states.

It was complicated simply because certain states were ‘captured,’ but we had spared the local rulers in exchange for their cooperation. So there were differences in the laws and powers of the local rulers, depending on their respective history with the FFA.

Those who converted to my side willingly retained most of their domestic powers, surrendering only minimal external-bound powers.

Again, this hodgepodge of powers, laws, and all was from history. I did not want to forcefully standardize the laws, simply because there were local cultures that affected things. For example, a nation with a treefolk majority had certain local rules and regulations that catered to their needs that would be unrealistic and burdensome to apply in a city with a centaur-population as a majority. There simply was no way to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to laws without creating unhappiness.

In fact, in the Freshlands’ Treetiary College, there was quite a large segment of the curriculum that focused on the various variant laws throughout the Central Continent. The administrators and nobles, unfortunately for them, had to be able to navigate this massive landmine of rules and regulations.

Taxes, too, were increasingly complicated. At the federal level, we levied a tax on the nations itself, a 10–30 percent cut of all incomes, depending on their past agreements with us.

Some places, like the Six Ports, and Freshka, were considered ‘directly administered territories’ of the FFA, so they only had a single layer of tax. But for the allied states, they would sometimes face dual taxes, one from the state and one more from the federal authority, if the state decided to pass on the tax obligation to the local rulers.

Naturally this was also a source of dispute. For example, a kingdom where one of their larger merchant organizations moved to another, perhaps for trade and tax issues, would then raise a complaint to the FFA and the Representative Council, but even if we made a ‘good’ decision, things didn’t always work out.

Over time, Kavio explained that it was quite normal for a decision to be made by the council, but the two disputing parties still resolved to war. It tended to flare up more when the entire continent was at peace. It was like, after they were no longer scared of a war with the temples, they now turned on each other.

So we just let them fight. The Valthorns and the federal forces would abstain, and we would also set up certain rules of engagement. Even assassinations were permitted, so long as the targets were all members of the ruling party and the local military force. There were also separate food stockpiles, the general food stockpiles and water sources which were acceptable targets, and the Valthorn and Priesthood’s stockpiles, which were off-limits. If the combatants overstepped the boundaries, the Valthorns would interfere and we would crush whoever offended the rules first.

It wasn’t hard to pinpoint who’s at fault when my army of artificial souls monitored it. If that failed, and I couldn’t pinpoint it, it was also possible to just capture the leaders and ship them to Freshka for a trial. Patreeck would then use his mindreading abilities to discern the truth.

Occasionally, I would send a reminder to all the other nobles by skewering the offending noble. I supposed I was a hypocrite.

Of course, the idea of letting my states fight each other was strange for Kei, who seemed to have the concept that the world should be all kumbaya and everyone should be friends. People would have disputes. Even if there was no demon king, no demons, even if there was excess, people would fight.

It was good for the army, too. Those who fought gained levels, and I had more people that I could poach for the Valthorns. It also helped to clearly delineate the difference between the federal authority and the state authority.

Citizens that lived through such interstate wars all learned that we had different roles and generally had far higher loyalty to the federal authority than the state rulers, simply because the wars caused them to realize that their state rulers were just all about power.

75

YEAR 151

The clock was ticking, and my research continued. Some of my research commenced a little too late, so only the algae-to-energy research was completed. There were many, many kinds of algae, and each type chose a slightly different mix of specializations to excel in their respective environments.

I recalled in my earlier studying days that there were certain types of seagrass or seaweeds that swayed and moved with the motion of the waves, and there were also documentaries about how certain types of deep-sea algae actually fed on geothermal vents or certain fungi that lived in volcanic lakes. These were alien life in some ways.

Either via waves-to-mana or geothermal-algae-to-mana, I’d hoped to arrive at some new source of mana.

The thought about algae also brought me back to my much earlier days of coping with a growing country.

The poop problem. There was also the whole trash-to-energy, an incinerator. There may be a way to do the same to poop. Poop-to-mana. I wondered whether this soul forge thing was just some subliminal messaging about power-source diversity. Anyway. Poop problems. Poop-to-mana, taking my earlier research to the next stage, in combination with the algae blooms.

As the research into water-based plants continued, one of my skills upgraded!

[Rootnet upgraded. Basic connection with shallow seagrass established.]

Then came the usual messaging spam. I had to filter out a lot of garbage from the seagrass. In places where the sea wasn’t that deep, the seagrass created underwater meadows, where fishes and other monsters lived.

I found them similar to floodplains where the grasses and other plants had adapted to recurring floods.

Still, this connection into the seagrass was the first time my ‘senses’ extended out to the shallow sea. Again, everything was really murky, and my hearing and sight abilities didn’t work that well underwater. It was muffled or too noisy and loud.

Yet this was a positive thing.

If seagrass was possible, then ocean-grass would be the next step. I remembered in our world that seagrasses were local and constrained to the seas and did not grow in the deep oceans. But if I could expand my research into seagrass and make them more durable and hardier in deep waters…

Either that or I could have a look at the undersea maps. Perhaps there were ancient land bridges where seagrasses could cross, though from what I saw so far, the Central Continent was really far from any of the other continents.

Or maybe there was a hidden underwater chain of mountains.

Ah, well.

* * *

“Mom,” Arlisa said to Lausanne one morning. “You’re good at fighting, right?”

Lausanne paused and turned to face her daughter. She wasn’t sure where her daughter was going with this question. Kids tended to ask the weirdest things. “I am, but against monsters or bad guys. Why?”

“Can you win against a demon king?”

Lausanne shook her head. “No.” That stung at a part of her that once wanted to be a hero. “A demon king is a special existence, my dear. It’s one of those creatures where only those chosen by the gods can defeat it.”

“He chose you, right? I mean, a long time ago.”

She sipped on her morning cup of tea and bit into a slice of bread. Arlisa noticed her mom’s silence. “Is Aeon a god?”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean, Mom?”

She took a deep breath. “Gods exist in a spectrum, a range of powers. There are weak gods and stronger gods. Aeon is one of the world-bound demigods and is on the weaker side, but he is gaining strength over time. Someday he will be as powerful as the elder gods.”

“Ah.” Arlisa nodded. She appreciated the honesty. She somehow knew, despite her youth. Perhaps it was a gift of children, to be able to sense the truth and lies of their parents.

“So yes, I was chosen. By luck or misfortune, I was there with Grandma in the village then. We hid. We survived. Aeon has watched over us since then. Honestly, I remember little of those early days. I was far too young.”

“Okay, Mom.” Arlisa nodded. Some of the meaning was lost on her, but she got the gist of it. “Can Aeon choose me, too?”

“…I believe you have already been chosen.” Lausanne sighed. She knew of the Blessing—I’d told her—and she took it with a mix of gratefulness and fear. Something she confided in Laufen a lot.

“Mom, how did you deal with it…when Aeon started training me?” Lausanne asked Laufen. “How did you cope with…the expectation?”

Laufen shook her head. “I didn’t. Things were smaller back then, when it was just us in that small ring of trees. When we were just hustling to survive the winters, when the girls had to hunt our own animals without any of the trained warriors. When Aeon trained you, it was just helping us survive. Giving us a chance. Not now, though. Now, Aeon’s power has grown, and he is the guardian deity of the entire continent. For Arlisa, her expectations and what everyone wants from her will be higher. Her challenges, her enemies…they will be like yours in your later years. When you were ‘special.’”

Lausanne blushed. It was embarrassing to remember the days when people referred to the then-teenager as ‘lady.’ They still called her lady today, but somehow, it was a lot more ‘normal’ and ‘appropriate.’

“As your mother then, all I could do was pray and hope for your safety. Elves like us rarely betray the guidance of our home tree spirits, their wisdom and foresight beyond that of our own. If you let Arlisa walk the path, it’s something you should really sit down and have a long chat with TreeTree. His power grows, and so will Arlisa. Even if her talent is no better than yours, she will exceed your power once she reaches maturity. When that happens, she will be fighting nothing less than the greater demons.”

“That makes me afraid. I never knew what it’s like to fear for someone else.”

Laufen gave her daughter a hug. “Then you know what it’s like for me to feel, with you so far away. But Aeon was always with you, right?”

Lausanne thought about Warden. Warden’s power grew with mine, the star-mana link allowing it to always reproduce a lesser variant of almost all my powers. It was something unique about the Possessions of the Devoted.

“She is young, and one day you will have to let go. Aeon will give her wings and weapons we cannot yet imagine, as he once did with you. It’s now on you to choose. Clip her wings or teach her how to better use them. Aeon will not impose if you choose otherwise. He has eyes on the young talents all over the continent. He can spare you that choice. Times have changed. We are no longer desperate, our survival no longer hanging by a thread.”

Lausanne sat and wondered. Indeed, Laufen was right to say I would not force them. The blessings I granted to Lausanne was both her luck and misfortune to be in the right place and at the right time.

Arlisa’s in a position of privilege. In a way, she inherited her power.

* * *

“Hey.” Kei walked into Stella’s apartment. “You sure you don’t want to come along?” Kei tried to reconcile with Stella after their bad first encounter a while back, partly because Kei had matured enough. Kei even told her about the journal, but Stella just shook her head.

“No. I am rather content here.” Her apartment was filled with artwork, much of it made as posters for the various Valthorn projects. She found confidence and joy in painting; if anything, the sense of progression from levels seemed to make her feel better and helped to reinforce her identity.

She poured her energy and negativity into her art. It was strange how the sensation of levelling up made her progress seem more real, more…tangible. Even as she toiled at something as abstract and subjective as art, the levels were an anchor. It made me realize that maybe levels would be useful for those who struggled with their own self-worth. That having something to hold onto, that I was a high-leveled artist, or I was a high-leveled warrior was a strong reminder that things were not that bad.

Kei sighed. “The world is a large place, Astia. Come with me, see the world. It’ll help your art.”

“I will, someday. But let me hit level forty as a [painter], then I will.” She was at the crux, a level thirty-nine [Painter].

“Do you want me to wait for you?”

“No need. If I do travel, I will first visit the sights on this continent.” Though her confidence had seen some improvement, her people skills remained lacking. More like she was still not very fond of being with people. Maybe she was just allergic to people.

Kei nodded and just left. After that, Kei came to see me.

“I’ve arranged with Alvin and Hans to visit them in the south. I’ll be gone for a year or two.”

“Sure.” I mean, what could I say? She wasn’t exactly my servant; we’re just partners at this point. She packed up, said goodbye to some of those she was close with, mostly merchants and some other adventurers. She had a big travelling bug, and she’d been going from town to town, visiting almost every kingdom and nation along the way, mostly to just have some local coffee or tea, sit around, fight a monster or two, make some money sparring with some upstart nobles, have sex with some gorgeously good-looking dude by the beach, things young teens on a European-style backpacker’s trip or gap year did.

I supposed it also tied in with her confusion and lack of direction in her life as a hero. The journal loosened her chains, but she still didn’t know where to go. She needed this time off to think and find herself.

Both of them were lost in their own ways. Then again, most of us were lost.

* * *

There was a bit of drama in the Treetiary College during this year, when one of the lordlings attacked and significantly paralyzed another lordling. My eyes were watching, but I decided not to act, simply because this wasn’t the first time the two squabbled, and it seemed like they had a bit of bad blood. Rivals and stuff.

I thought I could help the paralyzed lordling, but I decided to wait and let the drama unfold.

Life should have consequences, and I wanted to see it. The family of both lordlings got into the fray, and they had discussions that quickly broke down to little wars and skirmishes. Again, we let it happen. I saw this as a way of the natural aristocracy imposing its own cruel version of meritocracy and survival of the fittest.

The principal asked me to intervene, of course. I rejected him and told him to buy a big pack of popcorn and watch the drama unfold. If I let kingdoms go to war with each other and assassinate each other, was I going to stop them here?

“But you said the FTC is a safe place.”

“Safe from everything else. But I suppose not each other. He’s only paralyzed. That can be…fixed. And if they ask me to, I will. At a cost, of course.”

Conflict was natural. Survival of the fittest was natural, too.

I considered the implications of ending the cycle, what would happen in a world without heroes and demon kings. If I removed this source of conflict, what happened next?

It was not world peace, and I thought of my own world, too. Home. Earth was never at peace. They would fight; they would go to war and use heinous weapons. Individuals with desires and needs would inevitably clash with each other.

This world would then naturally go to war. Perhaps the four temples would then be at each other’s throats, the current unity-in-a-common-enemy no longer applicable. But those wars would be less devastating than the demon king. I was sure of it, simply because the kinds of power the temples could unleash was fearsome, but nowhere near the multi-million single-day deaths that demon kings had done before.

So it was still good to end the cycle, especially from the perspective of the living, sapient beings. But for trees, the end of the common enemy would result in an expansion of sapient beings over time, and that would encroach on the natural territory of the others.

Would the next stage of that conflict be man versus nature, once the demon king was out of the way?

It wasn’t a pleasant thought to consider.

* * *

The two heroes that Kei would soon meet were busy doing what heroes normally did. That was build a harem, make babies, establish new kingdoms, and generally enjoy their lives.

Alvin established his kingdom in the Southern Continent by essentially turning a few of the princesses and queens into this harem. Their territories were then amalgamated into his new kingdom.

Hans travelled back to the Eastern Continent and claimed the right to rule over a few cities and towns that lost their leaders from the terrible demonic attacks. Of course, this also involved admitting a lot of women into his harem. The two kings were clearly competing on the harem part, even if they both didn’t say it.

I thought all these heroes needed a harem-education program to explain the risks of establishing a harem and the subsequent problems that would arise. Harris had the problem. Even today, his successor kingdoms continued to fight with each other. They had trade wars, stupid sanctions against each other. Again, I was not in the business of correcting stupid people, so I let them be.

* * *

I gave Lovis the fourth soul-strengthening seed as my specialist [spearmaster]. I also asked the three of them—Edna, Faris, and Lovis—who would want to take on the role as [Aeon’s Demonslayer]. Faris flat-out rejected it, as the new class deviated far too much from his current one as a druid. Edna was rather happy as a knight, so Lovis also accepted the new class as my new unique-class holder.

Once she accepted the new class, her [spearmaster] class disappeared, but her classes were subsumed under the [Aeon’s Demonslayer] class. She obtained my [anti-demon aura] and buffs against demons. In short, the damage she took from demons reduced significantly, and the damage she dealt to demons significantly increased.

But like my own [hero fragment] buff, I was not sure whether it applied to demon kings. We would have to test it out the next time a demon king came around.

It took her a good month to get used to the power of her new class, and it was also a strangely…twisted class.

Once she accepted the unique class, I somehow gained access to her thoughts and memories and also some insight into her history and her past. She was one of the orphans, just like Edna and Faris, and when she received the class almost thirty years ago, back in Year 123, she was a child. She was brought into the Valthorns as the Freshlands recovered and had since then moved up. She lagged behind both Edna and Faris in levelling, though she had practiced a lot more. This was at a level beyond Patreeck’s mind reading, in the sense that it was a lot more personal, more…nuanced, and contained more details of things.

I felt bad, really, that this class gave me such direct access into her mind. It made me realize that perhaps the [hero] class was actually a unique class granted by the gods, and as such, if they had access into the minds of their heroes, then the next step after access was that they could significantly alter them. Which was thus evidenced by all the mind control.

I spoke to her personally, alone as she dipped herself into the biolab for further examination. She was slightly afraid but also excited and honored. Her soul spring was now different; instead of the usual blocks, it was made entirely out of a tree, with roots holding onto all the blocks. The blocks themselves had roots growing into them.

Each class presented itself differently in the spring, and this class was a domineering one. It absorbed all her other classes, and she was now a single-class, [Aeon’s Demonslayer]. Nothing else.

“Can you hear me?” I spoke as I delved into her soul spring, examining her energy. She was asleep, yet awake here.

“…yes.” She was confused, and this, to her, was like a dream-like state. It was not too far off.

The spring was vigorous, like Jura and the other two. The spring’s vigor was the essential component, though not the only one, of a person’s level cap. The vigor seemed to determine how many skills or levels a person could support.

I wondered why I was not affected by it.

< What beings are not affected by the level cap? > I asked Lilies.

> Heroes, because the gods grant them boundless vigor. Us, trees, and other beings like us, for we derive our vigor from the land and the world around us. Dragons and magical creatures that tap into the land or exist on some outside source of vigor, too, would not have a level cap. But mortals, no. Treefolks have a higher-level cap than mortals, as a part of their vigor is from the land, yet they very rarely reach those heights. <

Wait, what? I had so many treefolk followers. Where were my super-leveled treefolk?

The highest-levelled treefolk in the Central Continent was a [Woodshaper] at level seventy-four. He mainly shaped wood into utensils and tools but also did a lot of larger-scale projects like defensive walls, buildings, castles made of wood, and all that.

I decided to speak to him and awarded him a gift for skills. It significantly improved the finesse of his woodshaping. I asked him to aid in making weapons against the demons.

76

YEAR 152

Lilies introduced me to an interesting new friend. It was a massive turtle, the size of a bus, that somehow managed to secretly swim through the rivers and lakes. I had eyes and ears, but in the water, it still managed to evade my detection.

It clearly had some skills, and the way it communicated was strange. The turtle stopped at the side of the lake and touched one of Lilies’ floating platforms. It seemed to use Lilies’ way of communication.

> I am Vallasira. Pleased to meet you, Aeon. <

It was a magical turtle or tortoise thing, resembling a zaratan, but too small to be one. But I asked to be sure. < Greetings, Vallasira. Are you a zaratan? >

> Yes, I am a young zaratan. It is a common question, and I have lived for as long as Lilies. We heard of your search for tales of the sea, and I am here to answer what I can. It is not often that one of the spirits of the land seeks out the spirits of the sea. <

< I see. > Was there a catch? With Lilies, there wasn’t any. Lilies was just willing to share, especially with someone like me whom they view as an equal. < Thank you. What may I do for you in exchange for the favor? >

> So long as we are never hunted on your lands and your rivers, that is good enough. <

< I can do that. It will be so. But it is best to never declare your existence at all. > I said. < Just declaring your existence draws attention to your kind. >

> It is so. It seems you seek the origins of the gods? <

< Yes, and perhaps the origin of this system to begin with. But first tell me, how have you hid away from the demons? > They lived so long, surely there were ways…

> We do what spirits of our kind do. We swim to other worlds where the demons cannot follow. <

I felt like that turtle just dropped a bombshell on me. So there clearly were other worlds, and not only that, the turtle was able to go there!

< Can you take us with you? >

It paused momentarily. > We can only carry what can fit on our backs, and our void mana determines how often we can go and what we can take. For spirits of your power…we cannot do so. <

Void Mana. Where had I heard that before? Ah. That princess from so many, many years ago. So that princess was headed in the right direction…

< I have so many questions. >

> And we have time. < Vallasira spoke. He, or it, floated on the shores of Lilies’ lake. I made a large wall of trees so that he would not be seen and then added a layer of [camouflage] and [mist]. Here was a creature who travelled to other worlds.

< Are the gods and demons on other worlds, too? Have any of the worlds broken free of this…system? >

< Yes, and yes. Some were never even touched, though we know not why. But I have only been to the two nearest worlds. Though I have lived for four thousand five hundred years, my Void Mana is only enough to take me to the nearest of the two. Both worlds are just like this, with their own gods, heroes, and demons to deal with. I have heard of a system that is beyond the reach of the demons and the gods, but it was a few millennia ago when I was but a youngling. I do not know of a path to that world. >

Fuck. So there were multiple worlds with similar problems. But also there was a way to escape. Patreeck’s idea of hiding the world or somehow moving the world away had merit.

< What are the gods? >

> We believe they are creatures or beings that reached a certain yet unknown high level and obtained the second tier of the system. We also speculate there is either a system that existed above this one or a tier to the current system. In any case, the gods have access to a higher set of powers and rights. We do not know how to get there, and those who have could not reveal it to us. <

An admin system, or console access, wasn’t it? Mozart referred to himself as administrator. Maybe it was just a set of administrator passwords that granted them access to that system. < The gods, are they the same ones on other worlds? >

> We suspect so, though their names are different across worlds. <

< You say…we? Are there more of you? >

> Certainly. Zaratans meet each other to mate, to raise our eggs and our young, and to discuss the matters of our safety and of the multiverse. >

< Then what are these demons? Can you stop them? >

> As zaratans of the sea, we know little of these otherworldly invaders. They have a homeworld, or a chain of worlds somewhere, but their world lacks seas, rivers, or lakes, so we cannot create the interplanar mist and swim there. So…we don’t know beyond that, and who controls them there. Our great elder once tried to stop the demons, but the gods’ puppets turned on our elder. <

A waterless world. I see. Also, these interplanar turtles needed large bodies of water to move around worlds? That was a rather odd restriction to their power.

< Can you teach me how to move to other worlds? >

> Our abilities have adapted us to travelling to other worlds and would not be useful to you. Large quantities of Void Mana is the first step to any interplanar travel. <

Void Mana. How did I get that?

It seemed the turtle read my mind. > Void Mana requires one to dabble in higher magics or, if you have it naturally. Like us. <

Wait, did this also imply that the Spirit Trees in those stories may actually have Void Mana instead of Star Mana? Perhaps it was a path along the road of the domains that I may have one of those choices in the future?

I would presume that there had to be further Domain choices, that level one hundred fifty wasn’t the only time one chose their Domain. Given that my first Domain choice happened at level one hundred fifty, it’s possible that the next Domain choice happened at either level two hundred, level two hundred fifty, or level three hundred. If level one hundred fifty was the one and only Domain choice, then I may be quite fucked.

< Do you have a Domain? >

The turtle was silent for a moment, then answered. > No. <

Hmm. That meant a high level was not really necessary to get the power to travel to other worlds. Even that princess managed to expose herself to Void Mana, she was not higher than level fifty then. So there were ways to access Void Mana. Perhaps even naturally. Were there plants that naturally produce Void Mana? If I could create a farm of such trees or plants…

< How do the gods summon heroes? Why them? >

The turtle just shook its massive head. It probably didn’t know. Not that I could blame them. What else did I want to know? Uh. But already I had a lot to work with.

< What do you know of the Domain? >

> Elevated authority in a specified field of the system. <

Ah darn. The system worked like users making and interacting with it, and Domain powers were ‘super-user’ rights? Gods eventually reached ‘admin’ rights? But what was this…system? Were gods the creators of it or were they just glorified administrators? If they were just administrators, surely the creator must be a lot more powerful? The turtle left after a while, but it promised to return again someday.

* * *

“We wish to reopen diplomatic relationships, discreetly.” An Aiva envoy arrived on our shores, disguised as a regular merchant. They met with an audience of the representatives and Kavio. Kavio was about to retire after decades at the helm, to be replaced by one of the representatives. They had a mini-election to select the ‘representative leader.’

“And why would we even bother?” Kavio barked. His mood was rather foul. Another lord in the meeting quickly intervened.

“Representative Leader Kavio, wait. Let’s hear him out.”

“The Temple of Aiva does not believe or participate in the slander against Aeon or the Central Continent.” Absolute rubbish. All the evidence collected so far; it was quite clear Aivan Church participated in the propaganda.

Liars. “They are liars,” I whispered to Kavio’s ears, and he knew it, too. After all, we did not sit idle after the blockade was broken. The restoration of our eyes and ears in these hostile lands was one of the great priorities since then.

“Lies, envoy,” Kavio repeated. “Let it be known that we do not appreciate the lies.”

The envoy gulped. Patreeck used his mind-reading abilities. The envoy screwed up anyway, he knew it was a lie, too, but he was confident. He had a skill to resist mind reading, but he was horribly underleveled against Patreeck. The Aivan Temple did want to open diplomatic relations, but the leadership hoped to extort some kind of agreement or aid, since they had a lot of damage to undo.

“Aeon notes you did not come to our shores in good faith. This negotiation is over.” Kavio sent him off. The representatives were baffled. “Thank your foolish gods that we do not send you back in a body bag.”

The envoy left in haste.

* * *

One of the Valthorns, without the use of my class seeds, managed to upgrade his own class to [Archmage]. [Archmage] had been one of those elusive classes to create, though I did have archmage classes obtained from the dead.

I would say the magic of the Central Continent was not significantly more advanced than the other continents. Magic research was mostly the pursuit of eccentric individuals, so while the Central Continent was safer than the other continents, and my various abilities did seem to improve the speed of gaining levels, they still tended to plateau. To summarize, with magic, what I had were [mages] of a high level who did not have particularly unique abilities.

The process of ‘creating’ or ‘inventing’ new spells or new ways of using existing spells, as it was, remained the domain of the eccentric or, otherwise, luck.

A [Mage] was someone who tapped into the mana of the world and cast spells. A spell could be both a [skill] and not a skill. That meant it was possible for a mage to read an instruction of how to cast [fireball] and cast the spell without having the skill [fireball]. Having the skill, of course, meant the mage could cast the same spell faster, quicker, stronger, and with less mana cost.

A mage therefore learned to cast a spell and with sufficient practice gained the [skill] reflecting that said spell and thus became more competent and powerful. Mages also gained a range of support skills throughout their careers, such as mana-cost reduction skills, passive mana regeneration skills, or elemental ‘boosts’ and ‘discounts.’

The invention of new spells, however, was mostly bouts of madness. A mage tried to mix components of the spells together in hopes of creating something new. Sometimes they succeeded; sometimes they failed. A good healer, like myself, meant that they were more likely to survive failures and have the chance to try again. This, of course, supported the persistent mages, those who worked hard and experimented constantly. They had some successes, but they would see a lot more failures.

The conversation with the zaratan left my mind spinning, and my artificial minds were hard at work processing the ideas. There were ways to travel across worlds. Void Mana.

If anything, I now had to consider sponsoring the mages and wizards in our care to dabble in Void Mana, figure out how that princess managed to do so. It was a risky one; clearly playing with Void Mana incorrectly would destroy one’s soul spring.

Over the decades, my library of books and tomes had grown massively. I had my researchers and mages run through them to find the clues of Void Magic.

I recalled some words back when Madeus still lived: the tomes of the mad-hero Arsene Emir. I quickly called on the Valthorns to locate it. It took a few months, but the tomes and writings of the mad-hero were duplicated many, many times, so we managed to retrieve a few copies. Some of the surviving kingdoms on the Central Continent had a copy in their own personal libraries.

Void Mana. Exposure to it would cause visions and nightmares of otherworldly horrors.

Back then, it was explained to me that Void Mana was a raw, primordial form of mana. Was that explanation then still true?

Quite a few of the mages professed their reluctance to experiment on Void Mana. It seemed that the history of man was littered with mages killing themselves through incorrect use of Void Mana, and no one had figured out how to correctly use them in the first place.

Knowledge of Void Mana wasn’t entirely rare and was used mostly as a reminder of bad magical practices.

Some of the mages commented that Void Mana could be collected, in small amounts, by way of runic formations. However, the runic formations usually must be located high above the ground, usually in towers or tall secluded places that were exposed to the night sky, and a large anti-magic barrier must be present, such that the runic formation was ‘clear’ of all other mana. Then it was a matter of waiting and luck. Sometimes, the runic formations would collect a small bit of Void Mana. Most of the time, nothing. Collecting Void Mana when the two suns were present was impossible as the light would cause the Void Mana to decay.

Of course, their comments were very strange; some points seemed to contradict my existing knowledge, and I believed there was quite a bit of misinformation in that knowhow.

What was Void Mana?

< Would you know how to create Void Mana? > I asked Lilies.

> Some say it is always around us but just undetected. < Ah great. I was hunting for elementary particles. > Some come across them purely by luck. <

< I see. >

I had an entire continent. Surely if it was luck, the statistics would point to me having seen it already.

> Perhaps it is invisible to you, as you rely on Spirit Vision. <

…fuck.

77

YEAR 153

There was not much time to rest as we saw rifts opening throughout the Central Continent. It was a magically fascinating thing to see, to see space and reality crumble and break apart to reveal these gashes in space.

We redirected all the magical sensors and labs to the rifts and wondered whether the demons used Void Mana, too, or perhaps they had some substitute for it.

Were the rifts Void Mana?

“Aeon. Demons spotted on our continent. Your command?” Kavio and Valthorns came to meet.

“Ringfence all the rifts, and let our forces fight them.” Naturally, what else was there to do against demons? “We should aim to take this opportunity to level up the forces. Alert me to all ‘demon champions.’”

“As you command.”

Some of the smaller rifts spawned only ordinary demons. The demons resembled large skeletal structures, a bit more like animated skeleton animals with some dried flesh. From this alone, I was predicted an undead-type demon king.

Since it wasn’t a problem to suppress the rifts, I’d started setting up labs closer to the rifts, hoping that my sensors would figure out what they were.

“Has anyone ever touched a rift?” I asked the entire council and the Valthorns.

“Uh…not that we know of.”

“What if we touched the rift?”

There was silence. I decided to try, and on one of the smallest rifts, a bunch of vines and roots reached out and attempted to hold the rifts. It was weird. The rifts seemed to be both a physical and magical thing and alternated between the two. It felt like touching a floating snowflake that promptly turned into a puddle of water.

There was a…frequency. I could feel it, the way the energy of the rift ebbed back and forth. I instinctively attempted to match its resonance.

“Master, the vines went through,” Patreeck noted.

“What?” The vines got to the other side of the rift; I could still feel them. They could go through if the magical pulse was at the right regularity. There was a sensation of incredible dryness; my vines had to draw more water from the network. Sand. Rocks. But very, very dry.

About an hour into it, the demons seemed to realize, and the small rift quickly closed and cut off my vines, which were now left on the other side.

“Did you see or feel anything?” I asked Patreeck. Patreeck had used my [eye] ability on the vines to see what was on the other side. Patreeck gave me a series of images. It felt like I was looking through the eyes of the Mars rovers, an alien world filled with massive spires and large, red crystals. An army waited at the other side.

The vine’s eye turned and looked back at the rift. We saw a large, ring-shaped gate structure and the rift in it. Around the platform of the gate were six massive arrays of reddish-black stone. It glowed in both red and a black-ish color at intervals. There were also more of those red crystals, further out, connected by some strange chains.

The demons then spotted the vine, and the portal promptly closed. That was the end of it.

But I saw enough. Demons. Alien worlds. Gates that opened the rifts itself. Could I tamper with the rift next time?

78

YEAR 153 (CONTINUED)

Each rift had a different frequency and resonance, but it was still possible to align them. The beetles and Valthorns fought demons by the thousands to gain access and reach the rift. Again, no big deal. With Lovis’s new demonslaying power, the regular demons were easy. Under the effect of the demon-suppressing aura, these demons were more like slow-moving zombies. Together with my subsidiary trees spawning up to the rift itself, it wasn’t hard.

Once they managed to reach the rift, they, too, tried matching their mana to match the rift, but they struggled to do so. They did not possess my ability to manipulate mana in one’s body at such great detail. I did, after all, face decades of corrupting demon energies and also used mana for magical soul-surgery. All of these meant I was capable of incredibly subtle mana control, and I could handle the fluctuations in these frequencies.

I tried wrapping a beetle in my vines and then sending it through the rift. It didn’t work. The vines went through, but the beetle just bounced off.

Again, my vines and roots went through the rift, and once I had vision, I immediately activated my [subsidiary trees] on the other side of the rift. It worked. The subsidiary tree instantly spawned beetles that fought with the demons on the other side and bought me some precious time.

My vines and roots grabbed the red crystals, those red stones, and pulled them through the rift. Then I saw the giant demons. Massive boney mammoths. Their magical blasts destroyed my subsidiary tree in a single energy attack.

Ah. The rift was closed again. But I got them, the red crystals. Never mind, there would be more rifts. The demons seemed like they were unable to stop opening the rift.

I hauled the red crystals back to my labs for analysis. They were not demonic in nature, and instead…they were Void Mana batteries. Each of them was slightly depleted.

One of them exploded suddenly and left a massive crater, killing a few Valthorns and destroying a few hundred beetles. The Valthorns got the message and maintained a large distance from the crystals. Another one exploded when one of my lab-trees prodded it with too much mana. The Void Mana inside was clearly quite unstable and was prone to strange behaviors.

One of the Valthorns injured in the first explosion soon developed symptoms similar to the princess, and testing in the [biolab] soon proved me right. He had the exact same curse, [Exposed to Void Mana]. Thankfully, I was far better equipped now, and I had more mana at my disposal. This time, I was about to crush the curse outright.

But he lost some of his levels and skills from the Void Mana.

This made me wonder…could I use Void Mana to remove the [hero] class?

I supposed this was like using chemotherapy to remove a cancer. It was harmful, in more ways than one.

* * *

There were easily thirty to fifty rifts open at any one time, and from them, out came these undead-like demons. With so many rifts to secure throughout the continent, it was a bit like playing whack-a-mole on a continental scale. This meant our forces and our elites had to be distributed throughout the continent.

Hytreerion, my tree walker, finally saw battle, and it was incredibly fun to watch it stomp demons the same way those demon walkers stomped on us. Have a taste of your own medicine! It was also my first time witnessing the full combat capabilities of a Titan Soul–powered Walker and its accompanying army of Wood Soldiers.

Those wood soldiers were quite like beetles, in that they didn’t have much intelligence. In a way, Hytreerion was pretty much a land-based Protoss Carrier and the wooden soldiers were its interceptors.

So far, the first wave of demons from the rifts did not contain any ‘champions’ or ‘walkers’ and were just large masses of mobs. That meant a single Hytreerion was sufficient to secure one rift or a few if they were located close to each other.

Now that I knew those rifts were actually two-way gates, I’d like to prepare for an eventual counter-invasion to the demon worlds, and Hytreerion, as a champion-tier creature, would be my advance force. But first, I’d have to figure out how to create these rifts on my own.

There were a few good reasons to go to the other side.

One: there may be a chance to figure out why and how the demons were invading our world. This may be one of the best ways to get an answer. Two: more of those void battery-crystals.

Another matter at hand was whether I should tell Kei about these two-way rifts, that it was possible to go to the other side with some mana-synchronization. My concern was if the gods had a read on her mind to some extent, then if she knew, then the gods must know, too. Then again, there were certainly secret followers of the other gods in the Central Continent, and the gods may have observed my actions.

I decided to tell her anyway. She promptly returned to the Central Continent within a month and attempted to assault one of the rifts.

She managed to synchronize herself with it; her natural magical gift as a hero meant this was easy stuff. But once she entered it, the barrier seemed to drain a little of her star mana and then the rift quickly collapsed.

Fucking hell. Because the heroes were almost entirely star mana once they pass level one hundred, and the rifts seemed to be powered by Void Mana, the interactions between the two mana types caused the rift to collapse.

Well played, gods. Well played.

The heroes couldn’t use Void Mana since it reacted dangerously with star mana, so they couldn’t use Void Mana to travel back home or travel to the world of demons.

Of course, this frustrated Kei. “So there’s this mana type called Void Mana that lets you open fabrics of space and time, and we can’t use it because us heroes are loaded to the brim with star mana.”

But Stella was delighted to learn of Void Mana. She, after all, did not have star mana, and now this Void Mana was a way to go home. I would have to ask the zaratans whether it was possible to send her back by riding on their backs, but from what he said, it seemed the distance was too far.

Conceptually, if the gods had star mana, and I presumed that the reaction between Void and star mana was still dangerous even at significantly higher levels, how did the gods summon the heroes from far away? Did the gods store their mana off-body, i.e. in separated shells? Perhaps the gods had the ability to split their being, like multiple trees in a network?

If so, perhaps me and the gods were more alike than I thought. Either that, or there was some distinction between the mana types of the gods. Perhaps Mozart and gang were gods with Void Mana, and the Aiva, Gaya, Hawa, and Neira gods were star-mana gods? That there was some kind of trading arrangement between them?

* * *

“Rift secured, Master,” Hytreerion repeated, and more of my subsidiary trees spawned into place. Throughout the continent, the military and Valthorns had kept the rift’s demons suppressed.

After my first void battery, I’d resolved that I wanted more of them, so it was time for the Rift Robberies. I activated a few more artificial minds and readied them for the task at hand. Vines and roots resonated their mana with the rifts, and all at once, all of them entered the rifts. We invaded fourteen rifts and spawned [Giant Attendant Trees] and [Subsidiary Trees] by the tens and hundreds. Beetles then appeared to fight the demons on the other side.

But the terrain on the other side was incredibly dry, and it was an environmental energy that caused my trees to dry up and shrivel. They wouldn’t last very long in that hostile terrain, the ground nothing more than rock and sand. The roots of my [Giant Attendant Trees] and [Subsidiary Trees] couldn’t extract any water or nutrients from the ground to sustain their strength, so all the nutrients and water had to be supplied by roots through the rift itself.

Never mind. I needed them to buy me time. I wanted a lot of that Void Mana battery. I would keep them and store them secretly as weapons against the heroes. If Void Mana reacted with star mana, it made sense that trapped the heroes in a Noid-Mana-battery field would be dangerous for them.

One. Two. My roots pulled. I saw more of those boney mammoths; they used beam weapons and glowing red horns that shredded through my trees.

They were stronger on the other side. My beetles didn’t last long, weakened by the dryness of the air, and my aura was negligible.

Through one of the rifts, I saw a familiar sight. One I saw during the demons’ dreams, back when the souls of the heroes were trapped.

A massive, city-like structure filled with massive spires of red crystals, the spires were everywhere and stretched to the horizon. A massive serpent of bone and decayed flesh spotted the trees and charged at them. Its body glowed in pulses of red and black, and it rammed the [giant attendant trees]. It crushed my trees easily.

Never mind. More crystals were stolen. I’d grabbed twenty-five of them before all the rifts shut off.

Still, my rift raid triggered something strange. All the rifts throughout the continent instantly closed.

Great. If the demons were intelligent, clearly they figured out that I knew how to go through their rifts. We expected countermeasures.

79

YEAR 154

Detailed analysis soon revealed something that was quite worrying.

These crystals were pretty much [daemolite], but before they were fully ‘emptied’ of their void mana. The demon king’s death always left [daemolite], hence, the rifts would close quite soon after the demon king was killed, simply because their ‘carrier’ of the [void mana] had fallen. In these crystals, we saw these magical patterns powered by the void mana. They were almost invisible, and only now we could see them because of the void mana that caused them to flicker into existence.

Quickly, I asked for some existing daemolite, harvested from the previous demon kings. When void mana from the void mana battery was connected to the daemolite, those patterns reemerged. For now, I didn’t know what they did…but the fact that there was a magical pattern in these crystals suggested that they may have other purposes, on top of just batteries.

It also made me wonder whether the demon’s mana was a form of processed and stabilized void mana.

I didn’t make much progress on this research, and the demonic rifts remained closed for a good six months. At first, I wondered whether this was a way of scaring the demons off.

Then the second wave of rifts opened. Only a single rift opened, but it was massive. I could see the rift open right before my vision, simply because this rift opened right next to Freshka, very close to where my labs were.

Then demonic champions poured out. Large mammoths and skeletal serpents emerged from the rift.

But they picked a fight in my home ground, where my aura was strongest. The battle for the good three weeks was fearsome, as champion after champion poured out of the massive rift. I had to step in and hold them back as my forces, now scattered throughout the continent, rushed back.

Then, as more of my higher-leveled warriors returned, they took the reins. Jura slew one of the skeleton mammoths single handedly, and they leveled. Lovis, Edna, Faris, and Jura fought for days, and ten champions came out of the rifts over the three weeks.

Jura hit level one hundred twenty-five. Edna, Faris, and Lovis soon breached level ninety-five. After the ten champions, there was a lull, where only lesser demons, the mobs came out. They died as soon as they stepped out of the rift.

My roots attempted to synchronize with this rift, and I noticed they’d scrambled the magical resonance. It was no longer the same pattern, but a constantly changing frequency and pulse. Smart, and after a day or two of monitoring I thought I cracked how they changed their frequency.

My roots went through. I saw more demons. They noticed. The rift closed again just as suddenly, then we had another period of peace.

* * *

The demonic attacks became propaganda fodder for the four temples at first. But then they soon shut up when they noticed just how quickly we suppressed the demons.

Kei was personally quite impressed at how the entire demon issue was kept under control. “If every continent had an existence like yourself, the world would be a lot more peaceful.”

I then pointed at the states and lesser nations engaged in small skirmishes and wars with each other. “Once you remove the big bad guy from the picture, those in power merely turn on each other. It’s a form of peace, but conflict remains inevitable.”

“True, true. Unless you want to mind control everyone to submission.”

“That would not be ideal.” I may be a tree, but I sure ain’t no Eye-of-the-Moon.

“Yeah. It’s silly.” That said, I was no saint, either. The Treeology priests and Valthorns engaged in massive social ventures to build positive reputation and also not-so-subtle propaganda and emotional manipulation. Just like the Four Temples, we too used a bit of ‘carrot-and-stick,’ the stick being fear of life without us, the chaos of the times before. I wondered if Kei was smart enough to notice.

“So how’s your trip to the other continents?”

Kei rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not bad. I see a lot of rebuilding in the Eastern Continent, all of which progressed quite well. It’s been eight years, but the scars still remain. There’re also large groups of refugees in the other continents that are stuck in limbo, struggling to decide whether to return or stay in their new home and face a different set of challenges there.”

“That’s just life.” My citizens had been through that a few times. I’d seen so many generations of refugees. “The people of this world are used to it.” The fluidity of their lives was something they were very well aware of.

“I’m going to use my [hero’s forge] and make massive robots,” Kei said. The conversation just went off in a ninety-degree angle. “I mean, after what I’ve seen on the other continents, I think the world needs a lot more than just heroes.”

I paused. Seriously.

“It’s possible, I checked. I’ll need a lot of materials, though, so I’m going to go travel again and find them. I’ll be back for the demon king, though, which should be in a year or two. I’ll try to convince the other two to come, too, if they aren’t too busy stuffing their dicks into their army of sluts.”

“Language, Kei.”

Kei laughed and left.

* * *

“Tell me more of this void mana.” Stella looked through the papers, records, and magical books. She’d been here for a decade or so, and I thought her confidence level was getting better. She still didn’t like to talk to new people, but she was very comfortable with me. At least, to her, I was that voice in her head that’d been around for a decade.

She was now a level forty [Courtly Administrator], and unlike the heroes, she had no star mana. She was therefore a good candidate, if I wanted to work on these void-mana shenanigans.

Void mana was a way home, even if it was extremely remote. I explained it at length about the ‘rifts,’ but I did not speak of the zaratans. Her earlier classes had merged together, [Painter] and [Administrator], and for her to touch magic at this point was a great change.

The risks of how the void mana could destroy the soul spring and all that, strangely, was not really a risk. “If you are right, this void mana is pretty much a reset button.”

“…” Well, yes.

“I get to lose all the stats and levels and start over,” Stella said. “So, there’s really no risk, unless I die, and that’s rather unlikely because you have cured people with void mana curses before.”

She walked a step or two, then turned.

“Fuck it, I’m in. It’s either I get home or I die trying.”

* * *

Dabbling in void magic was quite like blood magic in some ways. It required magical formations and also complicated chants. The magical records left by the mad-hero, Arsene Emir, documented his attempts to call on the void. Once we cross-checked his history, it seemed that he died when defending his home from the demon champions.

A hero shouldn’t die to demon champions so easily. There must be something more, but most of those records were lost to the great Rottedlands disaster.

Still, the magical tome of the otherworldly void was sufficiently interesting. It seemed, per Arsene’s view, that void mana was ever present in the environment, and the issue was actually collecting it. In low quantities, void mana did nothing, and its reality-disrupting abilities only manifested when high amounts were present.

In his own words, Arsene actually said that void mana wasn’t actually mana, but more of a ‘reality-atom,’ that the world was actually held together by Void Mana. So generating void mana was strangely easy, according to his theory. Just spread mana to the general surrounding and let the mana ‘dissipate’ into the world. Occasionally, this would knock off one of the void mana.

The difficult thing was actually capturing the void mana. Holding the void mana was difficult unless one had the right kind of item. The void mana would pass through almost all kinds of materials and would disappear after a while. It was like trying to capture, bottle up bubbles, and hope they didn’t somehow break apart for long periods of time.

It’d take some time. Or maybe I should just reuse the captured void mana batteries? But I was not sure what would happen if I did so, especially with the unknown inscriptions and patterns inside the batteries. Would I summon more demons if I did that?

* * *

Progress with Blackstar Gems and demonic hybrid core—none. Attempts to further refine tea to enhance mental-divine resistance—uncertain. Unable to test efficacy. We gave Kei various types of tea for her to comment on, but again, she wasn’t really the best judge of whether the gods were meddling with her or not.

* * *

Research! I’d completed the first stages of both the Wind-to-Mana and Waste-to-Mana research. The seagrass research also meant my ‘knowledge’ of the surrounding seas was gradually improving, but the vast oceans still remained out of research. Seagrass research, for now, continued.

For the Wind-to-Mana, Waste-to-Mana, and Wave-to-Mana research, it increased the total mana output by a little bit but so far did not unlock a new color for my [soul forge]. I’d added a wide variety of new coastal species to my biological collection, too, especially those that live mostly in the sea.

It felt a bit like I was expanding in so many different directions, even with Trevor organizing all my various labs and artificial minds. With so many different types of mana, so many different types of new plants, weaponry development, research on runes and blood magic, it felt like I was scattering my resources throughout and hoping some of them stuck.

I didn’t know what might work, and concentrating all my resources on just a few things only to end in failure was rather depressing. But this process of ‘carpet-bombing’ everything also felt…cheap. Like I didn’t know what I was actually doing.

80

YEAR 155

The rifts opened again. This time, they went back to their earlier strategy of multiple rifts across the Central Continent.

But we were getting better. My studies into the void mana and the daemolite had produced some useful information. The daemolite had a certain range of resonance with the rifts that was mostly invisible, except when one had void mana. The daemolite’s ability to store void mana was actually quite good compared to almost everything we’d seen.

The next point, really, was why?

The daemolite left by the demon king on this world, did it serve a purpose beyond just a store of void mana? Or did the demon king need that void mana batteries to travel to this world? Or was there some other purpose?

But anyway, our research into void mana and these void batteries made us more sensitive to the rifts, so I had about four to five hours’ notice that a rift was happening, and also their location. It was just a lot easier to find something when you knew exactly what you were looking for.

The Valthorns, Hytreerion, and all engaged in combat over the next few months, the rifts now popping in and out. They barely stayed open for more than a week and would close as soon as my forces got near. If this wasn’t proof of demonic intelligence, I didn’t know what else was. They clearly had some way of transmitting information back to the homeworld and were able to act on it. Thankfully, the type of demons remained the same. It was still the quasi-undead demons. Was there like some kind of facility in their home world that decided on the demonic themes?

As the year went on, it was increasingly clear that something big was going to happen. My sensors were going wild, and I knew exactly where it was going to happen. Of course, we had to be tuned in to that specific magical resonance to detect it. I was betting my money on this being the demon king, and he would appear in the Central Continent. I was quite sure of it.

Immediately, I had that area where we detected the magical fluctuations cleared, emptied of all people, and loaded with all the magical traps and weapons. If a demon king’s gonna appear on our continent, I was gonna hammer it with everything. I also started to flood the area with my [Giant Attendant Trees].

This was my chance to test how long I could hold out against the demon king.

Kei was on the way back from the other continent. The other two heroes agreed to come as well. It seemed to me that they were compelled to fight demon kings, even if they disagreed with me and had no love for the Central Continent.

Perhaps it was a requirement of the [hero] class that they must challenge the demon king.

* * *

Of course, my actions were not missed by the common folk or the elite. I decided it was just right to be forthcoming about it, so I informed everyone that the demon king would be on the Central Continent.

Once again, panic.

* * *

Schadenfreude. That was the feeling from the other continents and the temples. They delighted in the fact that I would have to face the demon king. Damn them. Not that they could do anything to help.

* * *

I called on the kingdoms of the Central Continent to share their hero items. Many of them had a few, legacy of their founding heroes or gifts from visiting heroes. We built bombardment stations around the hero items. We could prepare for this, and so we would. The hero items were all supported with massive arrays of mana-storing potatoes.

If one didn’t hurt the demon king, maybe a few of them together could. Together with the heroes, I’d hoped to make this battle a swift one. After all, apes together were strong.

I even equipped Hytreerion, my massive tree walker, with that Cannon of Alantara I stole from the temples. Hytreerion’s massive mana pool meant he could support one hero item on his own, and to bolster his mana capacity, we also started research of mana-storage beetles. Mobile-mana batteries were meant to augment Hytreerion’s large mana pool.

These mobile mana-storage beetles started off as beetles with a large mana-potato grafted on their back. Over time, the biolabs made improvements to the ‘bond’ between these mana-potatoes and the beetles.

Eventually, I even got them to explode if triggered in a certain way. It was a roundabout way of getting back to Beetle-banelings.

Point was I needed mana-storage, since the point was to create huge ‘bursts’ of energy output. We’d also planted the entire area with modified potatoes and charged them up with all the mana I could get.

If a demon king’s coming, I was going to blow it up as much as I could.

“Seriously, this is…really just camping at the spawn point, isn’t it? What if the demon king doesn’t spawn here?” Kei admired my work when she arrived at the location. We’d built multiple fortresses around the demon king’s spawn point.

My rift-attuned sensors did not detect any unusual changes. For now, all of them pointed here.

“But sure.”

“Can you help?” I spoke to Kei. “Your array of guns, are you able to place them as fixed objects? Since I am quite certain where the demon king will appear, it is entirely possible to really break this.”

“But is killing the demon king the answer?” Kei asked. “We did that last time, and all it did was lead to this point here.”

“If you’re not willing to help me kill the demon king, then help me immobilize it to a significant degree such that we can repeat what happened.”

Kei thought for a moment and then agreed. “This is pretty much trying to injure a Pokemon so that you can catch it, but not too much that it’s dead.”

I got that reference, but I just continued. “So, help?”

“Yes.”

She spent about a month using her [hero’s forge] to set up multiple cannon arrays. But her arrays were powered by her star mana, so for now, they were pretty much like single-use turrets that would expire once the star mana ran out. Still, with so many cannons, traps, and weapons, I’d hoped to at least significantly weaken the demon king.

“When are your two friends coming?”

“They said they will come once the demon king appears.”

Ugh. So glued to their harem.

* * *

“So this is what Mom’s been up to,” Arlisa said. She had snuck out after I asked Lausanne and many others to help with the preparations of the site. She stood at the edge of the cliff and looked at the vast area now cleared into a battleground. The entire area, and anywhere with fifty miles, was evacuated where possible.

Overnight, towns and cities in the area were emptied, the people moved as far as they could. We had large convoys of beetles ferrying people from the towns and cities to large dedicated ‘new-towns.’

“What are you doing here?” Lausanne, of course, could sense her daughter from a distance away. It also helped that one of Arlisa’s bracelets was enchanted.

Arlisa jumped when Lausanne snuck out behind her, undoing her [Camouflage]. “MOM!” Arlisa was about to flip. “Wait. Why didn’t I sense you coming?”

“Your [Detection] abilities are probably too low.” Lausanne patted her fourteen-year-old daughter’s head. She was a level thirty-four [Ranger], and it was considered slow when Lausanne herself hit level sixty at that age. But, of course, Arlisa was also taking life a lot easier and did not have to fight as many monsters as Lausanne did. Naturally, her level would be lower.

There was also a part of her ‘rebelling’ by not following her mother’s footsteps. When everyone expected her levels to soar, she resisted it. She claimed that she was still trying to figure out her life and didn’t want to move so fast.

“Now, you want to see what we are doing?”

“Is the demon king going to appear soon?”

“Aeon thinks it’ll be soon. This entire place is loaded with formations, which…he isn’t sure will work or not.”

Arlisa was worried, and her facial expression reflected that. “Will you be fighting, Mom?”

“Not against the demon king. Hopefully not. Jura is. Along with those who received the seed. But the rest of us will be helping to control the other demons that appear. Aeon expects the demon king to be accompanied by a large army.”

“…I see.”

* * *

The Valthorns went through the plans over and over. Kei, as the hero, was also involved. The moment the demon king appeared, we would activate all the weapons and traps against the demon king, and then only would Kei engage. One-on-one against the demon king was going to be tough, but the rest of us would play support.

Everyone was in their best equipment. We moved our best anti-demon artifacts to the fortresses around Ground Zero. The signals we detected were increasing and getting stronger. The tension in the air was rising.

And yet the two heroes had not even left their continent.

“How long do you think we can hold back the demon king?”

“Based on our calculations and data provided by past heroes, Master…we should be able to suppress the demon king for at least a day. Our base-case scenario varies, but the median is around six days.” Patreeck modelled the potential battle, and six days wasn’t great. The key was whether Kei could kill it. Based on our current data points, we should be able to take the demon king down by about 40–50 percent. Kei’s star mana would have to make up for the rest of the shortfall.

That was barring any cheap tricks.

* * *

I made progress with my various energy research. There was no progress for the blackstar gems, however. Still, the energy research did not unlock new color. At least, not yet. All it did was add more mana to the pool.

It was fine. It was loading the entire area with more mana anyway.

* * *

Jura, Lovis, Faris, and Edna were all level one hundred twenty-five. It seemed there was a natural limit for experience seeds, and that limit was level one hundred twenty-five. All the experience seed did not work beyond that point.

Darn. I supposed you couldn’t cheese your way to divinity through experience seeds. They had to earn their last twenty-five levels.

I also gave my fifth soul-strengthening seed, this time to one of my Patreearchs, Priest Lumoof. He was a level eighty-five [Aeonic Bishop]. Though he was old, he had a lot of support abilities, and I needed someone like that to support the first four.

Now was not the time to save on experience seeds, so I also pushed him up to level one hundred twenty-five.

81

YEAR 156

The demon king didn’t waste time. The rift was massive, so massive that it seemed like the sky itself twisted.

“It’s coming,” Kei said from a distance away. We watched as massive skeleton dragons and mammoths stepped out of the rifts. The ‘champions’ of the demon king.

“Should we blow it up now?” one of the Valthorns asked nervously.

“No. Only when the demon king is here.” There were at least fifty of those champions, and I couldn’t help but remember Harris describing them as fodder once they were at level one hundred thirty. They could destroy a champion in a single star-mana attack.

The demon king’s heads appeared. It was a massive skeletal serpent with large, reddish spires along its jagged spine. It had three heads, a three-headed skeleton serpent; one head resembled the skull of a mammoth, one head resembled a dragon, and one resembled a cobra. Everyone felt it.

“Hold,” Kei said nervously. This was her first full-powered demon king. The last one was a dud. She instantly notified her two ‘friends’ that the demon king had descended.

Indeed. I got the notification the moment its entire body appeared.

[Demon King Tigash has descended.]

Its three heads roared. The demonic champions, who surrounded the area, turned and charged.

I felt a tingle in my network. Fear. Everyone seemed to be caught in its aura and presence. Kei immediately stood straighter and activated her own star-mana form. It glowed like a lighthouse in the dark, and instantly, the fear subsided.

Point one: the demon king had some kind of fear aura.

Point two: heroes had a natural anti-fear aura.

“Ready.” I notified everyone to take cover. “It’s time for some explosions.”

All the hero items prepared in the entire area activated, and the first volleys of energy blasts shredded the demon champions. The barrage of bullets, projectiles, and beams came from all directions, even Hytreerion.

It was beautiful. It resembled Total Annihilation when I let loose multiple long-range cannons or those old videos of battleships going all out. The valley was filled with the sound of all the cannons and artifacts unleashing fury on the demons and the demon king. The fifty or so demon champions were destroyed quickly.

After the volley came the traps. The entire ground beneath the demon king glowed. Overcharged mana potatoes embedded in the ground, configured into a literal mana bomb, and the multiple explosive formations around them. Together, they would explode as one single massive bomb. The single explosion for the mana was so large it could be heard one hundred miles away; the fortress braced for the shockwave of energy.

The detonation left a massive crater.

“Where’d the demon king go?” No. It was an illusion. We saw the three heads still floated, surrounded by massive skeletal shields. Those shields looked like they took some damage, and its body was gone.

The eyes on the three heads glowed, and instantly we saw its body regenerate. It roared, and more champions emerged from the rift.

Kei sprang into action. She could remotely ‘recharge’ her arrays as long as she was within the area, so the cannons kept up the attack.

I felt drained as the weapons and traps called on more mana, but this was the moment we’d prepared for. Two to three years of preparation all for this single moment. We unleashed everything we could as suicidal beetles loaded with mana potatoes on their backs charged toward the demon king.

One of the heads roared, and a huge red energy blast torched the walls. We quickly activated defensive shields, but they didn’t last very long. The beams were as powerful as the heroes! Tower after tower, incinerated.

“These fortresses are a bad idea. We should have built them into the ground instead of above ground!” one Valthorn commented. Which I agreed with. Tall fortresses were a stupid idea against demon kings with beam weapons. Naturally things above ground would be in their line of sight and line of fire! I should have fortresses built underground next time. At least the earth and dirt helped to absorb some of the damage!

The artificial minds helped me reconfigure some of the magical weapon arrays, connecting them to fresh mana potatoes. We needed to keep up the pressure as more demon champions emerged from the rift.

“We’ll take the champions and let Kei focus on the demon king.” Jura, Edna, Faris, and Lovis stood and charged in.

One of the demon king’s three heads, the one resembling a cobra, opened its mouth and shot a huge spire-projectile. Where did such a projectile even come from? The projectile exploded into thousands of smaller spires, and those thousands of smaller spires transformed into small zombie-like creatures. They charged out of the crater and attempted to reach the magical cannons.

Beetles! Thousands of beetles emerged and met the zombie army.

The mammoth-head’s eyes glowed, and all the zombie-minions glowed and gained strength. A buff effect.

Jura hacked through hundreds of zombies and managed to land a finishing blow on a champion. Hytreerion, too, loaded up its mana beetles and shot another projectile. It impacted one of the demon champions, and it staggered and then fell.

It was pure chaos as the cobra head turned again. This time it shot a beam at Hytreerion. Shit. It was too big and bulky. I activated all the defensive abilities I had, but it still tore through them. It knocked Hytreerion back by a few hundred meters and made a large wound on its back.

The mammoth head roared, and a fire appeared between its tusks.

“The fuck is that?” My sensors went wild.

Kei’s multiple arrays fused together into a large cannon and then fired a purple-and-white energy beam. It hit the cobra head, and the cobra head crumbled.

The mammoth head’s fire glowed, and in an instant the entire crater and its surroundings were charred with black demon flames.

It was a very familiar pain. The fire blast hit the surrounding weapon posts, and multiple hero items were destroyed. We felt it as some of my subordinates died. Jura and the heavy rankers immediately dived to avoid the blast, but Faris’s staff was instantly torched.

Kei had a magical shell protecting her. It glowed white, and she had suddenly transformed. This was the star-mana form. Now, she was the core and center of a massive magical-weapons platform. Each of its energy blasts were purple-white and contained huge quantities of star mana.

It was a form I’d never seen, and I wondered whether she was still holding back? Or was this something that only activated when she faced a demon king?

Yet the cobra head that we thought was destroyed reconstituted itself.

“Master. The mammoth’s head, there’s ten slots with six red crystals on it,” Patreeck mentally shouted in my mind. I immediately zoomed in. “When we nuked the entire place, three of the red crystals crumbled, and just now, when Kei destroyed the cobra head, one more crystal turned to ash. It’s a life-counter!”

There were six more lives. “Kei, those heads can regenerate. You need to knock them all out at least six times.” I suspected nine times in total. They only stopped regenerating if they were out of crystals. I quickly explained the details as we kept up the pressure.

The dragon heads turned to glow, and it shot multiple beams.

“Master. Bad news. Rifts opening across the continent,” Trevor repeated. “At least fifty.”

Fuck. Most of my high-leveled guys were here. “Beetles, get everyone not occupied. Activate the adventurers and the local militia, too.” I still had a few guys. Horns was not involved in this conflict since he was too low-leveled, but he could help with the other sites. “Lausanne, I need you to take a team and get to one of the rifts!”

Yet I couldn’t distract myself from the conflicts throughout the continent. I felt my entire body tingle, like static, as if I was right next to a lightning storm. The dragon-head roared and launched more energy beams. These beams behaved more like strings than beams, and it destroyed a few more fortresses.

Kei flew and weaved between those strings like a pro, but even then, she got hit a few times. The arrays took the damage for her. It felt like watching a touhou game. The dragon-head released multiple slow-moving, floating energy-mines. These were like explosive wisps, and they went in all directions.

“Aeon, what do we do?” Edna shouted as she hid in the ground together with Faris. “We’re pinned down and we can’t get close!”

They had a few shields up, but they didn’t last very long. The flames burned them easily. It seemed that either the demon king’s flames were not really flames or my resistance just got nullified before the king or I was still too far.

There were about thirty demon champions left, and the demon king traded blows with Kei. The king concentrated on Kei and focused its attacks on her. Honestly, the rest of us were just distractions for the two true titans.

Kei’s attacks filled the skies, and her barrage of star-mana bullets took out demon champions easily, two shots, and the demon champion was destroyed. But that was not her objective! She wanted to attack the demon king, but these champions kept getting in the way!

“Black fire blast incoming!” I alerted the engaging forces as we noticed the mammoth head had a small spark of fire between its tusks again. This second shot incinerated my beetles and a few more arrays.

I got mental notification that a few of the arrays were ready. I had to shoot or they might get destroyed.

“Go, go, go!”

Right next to the demon king, my Giant Attendant Trees were nothing more than firewood. Its energy beams ripped through the trees like they were a piece of thin scrap paper. It was a mistake to ask my elite forces to engage in this battle, as they scrambled to flee for their lives.

My mistake. Next time I wouldn’t field anyone less than level one hundred. Anyone less than that was nothing more than a liability. It was true that they could help with the demon champions, but with the demon king’s attacks, I couldn’t even protect them. The demon king clearly didn’t care for its own subordinates, as it shot beams that incinerated both ally and foe.

The demon king was beyond them, truly. The traps and the cannons were infinitely better choices.

“Kei. Can you push the demon king to the marked spots?” I asked. We had traps made in the surrounding area as well. We were prepared to nuke this entire area to smithereens if we could take out the demon king.

“Am trying,” she responded as she dodged wave after wave of magical bullets and beams.

Her attacks managed to hit the dragon-head, and it crumbled! Five crystals left! The rift abruptly closed behind the demon king. There were no more champions as Kei’s projectiles and the few arrays took out the remaining champions.

It didn’t take long for the dragon-head to start regenerating. But it was enough to buy time. As Kei’s array transformed into massive mirror structure and temporarily ‘deflected’ the demons’ bullets. The sudden shift hit the cobra-head and it, too, crumbled after five or so star-mana hits.

I quickly attempted to create multiple Giant Attendant Trees around the demon king and used my vines to latch onto them when they were still regenerating. There was only the mammoth head now. My vines grabbed on to all of them, and I tried to drain them of mana.

I heard a voice in my head when that happened. ‘Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ussssss.’

[Mental incursion detected. Blocking…sCraMb—]

[Excessive demonic mana in network. Expelling…]

Fuck. Fuck. Not now. Patreeck and my Domain stepped in and blocked off the attack.

‘Pawns…’ The voice was legible now. I felt it in my head. Shit. Shit. ‘Pawns…’

“Master, we couldn’t block all of it. We must detach. We must disconnect the vines,” Patreeck shouted in my head. “It’s in your head!”

‘Pawns…’ I saw visions of their homeworld again. It was a massive purple world. ‘Long ago. Before the slavers.’ Massive, purple, and they were giants. They were all monsters and their cities were massive canyons. Monsters. A primitive society.

‘Fight the slavers.’

More visions, massive cities of giant monsters. Then…a beam of light.

Kei’s energy blast weaved through the trees and hit the immobilized mammoth head, and it, too, crumbled. All three heads abruptly twisted and fused together, and in an instant, those Giant Attendant Trees were vaporized, along with my vines.

The link to my mind broke, and I was knocked out of the vision.

In its place, the three heads combined, turning into a single head with three faces. The dragon, the snake, and the mammoth. Was that some kind of symbolism? All three mouths opened, and it shot out huge red beams in all directions.

Faris was too close! Still, he kept attacking the demon king, and his attacks made small, tiny cracks on the large three-faced creature.

One of the mouths turned to face Faris and shot a red beam. It happened so, so quickly, and he was too close. Faris was caught in the red beam. He was vaporized instantly.

[Faris has died.]

FUCK!

“Retreat!” I screamed mentally, but it was too late, really. The red beam was crazy powerful. My shields were nothing more than paper before a flood. This power was above and beyond whatever data I got from Harris. When we simulated the past demon kings, my shields still managed to weaken the power of the attack, but this was easily three to four times stronger.

Jura shook his head. “No. We’re this near, and we’re this close. It’s either we win, or there’s nothing left for us.” He threw a magical spear. It hit the demon king’s face and caused a tiny crack.

Kei’s star mana blast managed to hit, and it knocked a big chunk off the demon king’s three faces.

“It traded defense and hit-points for power,” Patreeck commented in my head, quickly summarizing that its defensive stats were probably not that high. It was also a ‘relative’ thing. To Kei, yes, it was totally a glass cannon; to us, it’s still impossibly tough. “It’s a glass cannon.”

“With ten lives. Not exactly a glass cannon.” Still, my eyes were locked on Jura and Lovis. Both attempted to get closer. Lovis threw a few magical spears at the demon king from her location, and it did just tiny bits of damage, too.

“Not anymore. There’re only two red crystals on its mammoth-face.”

The demon’s energy beam and the beam from Kei’s array had a clash of powers normally seen in anime. The two energies met and had a short tug of war, but eventually, Kei’s purple-white beam lost. The demon’s power pushed through, and Kei’s array was destroyed in another big explosion. The beam was so strong it even burned a straight line for about ten miles. I felt like a line of trees just vanished from my network.

Kei was alive. She managed to dodge sideways, but she had lost an entire limb. Blood streamed out of the charred parts. But she stood. Alive and defiant.

I immediately sent vines to surround her and attempted to heal her. At this distance, my root strikes would be weak, but whatever. I unleashed all I could and summoned multiple Giant Attendant Trees again.

The demon king roared, and black flames instantly torched my root strikes. One of them hit the demon king and caused a few more cracks.

“…not yet,” Kei said, my vines now wrapped around her entire body. Her arm was lost, but my vines quickly applied healing energies to suppress the wound. She lifted her other hand, and her body glowed.

Her lifeforce and soul were flickering. I could sense her entire soul spring cracking and crumbling, even the marbled hero-blocks.

Ten magical large projectiles that resembled armor-piercing rounds appeared in the air, made of star mana. This was it, as all of her mana left her body. Her body now felt like an empty shell. If this didn’t work, the demon king would win. A flick of her finger and all ten massive magical rounds flew toward the three-faced demon king. The demon king roared, its three-faces unfurled like a book, and it took the attack head-on.

The projectiles exploded on impact. Each explosion was small, but they were dense with star mana. Each shot resembled a mini-nuke on its own.

There was a short moment of suspense as we watched the dust settle.

It was not enough.

When the dust settled, there was still one face. The mammoth face was still there, cracked and weakened; there was no crystal left on its head. This was its last life, too.

If only the other two heroes were here.

Kei fainted. Her life force flickered and faded; she was weak and dying, even if I managed to suppress the bleeding. I called on my mana to heal Kei and supported her, but I could sense her soul spring crumbling…

The demon king’s movements were sluggish. Its face was filled with thousands of cracks, and it roared.

Kei’s anti-fear aura faded away.

I froze. I had flashbacks of that very first time when I met that demon king, and I remembered how it chopped off my trunk. It felt like old wounds had suddenly reappeared; their wounds that I thought had fully healed just flared up. Old pains and wounds just burned suddenly, things I didn’t even know I had.

What did I—

“Master!” My artificial souls voice broke me out of my flashbacks.

Then I saw Lovis and Jura both charge at the demon king. Somehow, they were unaffected. They were equipped with anti-demon spears and launched an attack together. Their weapons glowed as they used everything they had at the demon king.

“What are you guys doing?”

We have a clear shot. Both of them mentally responded, even though I sensed and shared their fear. I didn’t know what compelled them to even try for the demon king. Their spears crashed into the demon king’s skeletal face. The cracks on its face glowed. It was a familiar look. Things I’d seen in dreams.

It was going to blow. Flames shot out in all directions.

Why did they always blow up?!

“Fuck, get the shit out of there!”

I quickly extended my vines and attempted to drag both of them out of there and used my vines to latch onto the exploding demon king. If I could drain some of its energy, the explosion may not be so big.

I wrapped my vines and roots around Kei—she was too weak to move in her half-dead state—and used my vines to haul her away.

Jura and Lovis ran as fast as they could. I made layer after layer of wooden shields. Everything. I made Giant Attendant Trees, too, by the hundreds.

I pulled and tried to drain as much energy out of the demon king as I could. My vines wrapped around the demon king’s cracked faces many, many times, and my entire body was temporarily flooded with the demon king’s mana, but it wasn’t enough. The mammoth-face still detonated, and instantly, there was an explosion just as big as my traps. Black, blue, and red light cut through my vines and all my shields, and it was as if the void itself was here.

What could I do? Wait. Teleport! My Star-Mana Ropeway! I wanted to activate my teleportation ability to save them, but I had used all my star mana. The explosion was too quick, and my subsidiary tree was charred before it even completely spawned.

The black-ish energies exploded and caught Lovis, Kei, and Jura. I tried to shield them, but the energies attacked my roots, too, and incinerated them instantly. The energy felt like a shockwave of radiation, and it interfered with my roots, vines, and trees’ ability to regenerate.

“Fuck!!!!!” I was far away, but if I had a human heart, it was like watching a tragedy unfold before my very eyes. I felt it sink. I wanted to deny this reality. No.

Jura was closest to the demon king, and the impact of the blast was strongest on him. Even with all the shields and power I could muster, it was nothing before that king. His entire body was pierced by the light and charred by the explosion, and he collapsed.

“Jura!”

He died, even though my vines tried to reach him. I tried and tried to create shields, and I saw Jura activated his familiar to shield himself, too. But the explosion was too strong, too dense.

The notification I dreaded came in.

[Jura has died.]

“FUCK!” I mentally yelled.

Lovis managed to escape a little further, but it wasn’t enough at all. Just like Jura, the demonic rays pierced through and charred her body, and she died within seconds.

[Lovis has died. Aeon’s Demonslayer class was released.]

Kei was much further away when the radioactive shockwave hit. It tore through the layers of wooden vines, and I felt the rays pierce through the wounds. But at the same time, I thought I felt a strange flow push back at the demonic radiation. Something equally powerful, if not stronger.

Yet I got a strange notification.

[Kei has died. You have received a fragment and a Titan Soul.]

Then I looked at her again. Her body had fused with all the vines. Her heart was beating; my vines had entered her body through her destroyed arm to keep her alive. She was no longer human. Only her face was left intact, but her body had…melted into this strange part-crystalline, part-treevine structure. There was a heart in there that was still beating; I could sense it with my vines.

It was no longer a normal heart. It was…a crystal? The crystal collapsed instantly and formed a cocoon made of crystal and a huge tangle of roots within.

“What happened?” I asked, then one of the artificial minds flooded my mind. I saw the explosion rip through Kei’s body, but then she glowed. A part of it crumbled away, and a part of it remained that pushed back against the wave, like how a magnetosphere deflected a solar flare. In that process, the shockwave caused her body to shift and change.

[Demon King Tigash has been destroyed.]

[Due to your excessive contribution in the fight against the demon king as a non-hero, you have been granted a special experience multiplier. You gained 27 Levels. You are now Level 197.]

[Jura has bequeathed the skill - Warlord’s Barrage. Skill absorbed into Root Field. Root Fields upgraded to Fields of Death.]

[Lovis has bequeathed the skill - Spear of Destruction. Skill modified and changed to Roots of Destruction.]

[Faris has bequeathed the skill - Vine Control. The following skills have been merged. Healing Vines, Constrict, and Absorption to Root & Vine Mastery.]

[—hidden]

I…I couldn’t. I couldn’t check the rest of the skills. I had to pause for a moment and consider what had just happened.

So I didn’t. I’d get back to the skills the next time.

* * *

“Oh. I died.” Jura’s spirit appeared in my soul realm the next day. So did Lovis and Faris. “I figured that would happen. I’ll disappear in a few months, right?”

It was a strange feeling to see him there. “…I’m sorry.” I shouldn’t have put them through that. But against the demon king, could I even think of holding back my best fighters? No.

Jura shrugged. “I’m glad I did it. To fight a demon king and manage to land a hit to finish it off? If that’s not going out with a bang, what else is?”

Lovis agreed.

“Thank you both.”

Jura smiled. “I’m glad we still have these few months to say my goodbyes.”

82

YEAR 156 CONTINUED

Edna stood in the ruined battlegrounds. They were now filled with deep gashes and cuts, most of it from the damage left from the demon king’s numerous beams. We couldn’t even find Faris’s body. The beam had vaporized him, and what was left were a few trinkets that were not caught in the beams.

“Life remains so frail.” She knelt and touched the dirt. She saw it first hand, when the beams burned through the air. “So frail before the demon king.”

Faris was Edna’s closest friend. They were peers over so many years.

“And now…” She touched the ground. The dirt and earth in the entire area was magically charged. It was something I would study later on. The demon king’s magical blast also transferred some of its qualities to the remaining dirt that was not destroyed.

Jura was a spirit in my soul realm. “So this is what it’s like to see things from your point of view.” Jura, though, seemed really relaxed and free. “I have always wondered what it’s like to be a spirit.”

“Do you want to stay in this world, Jura? I’ll find a way.” He had a few months.

Jura shook his head. “I’d like to see what’s beyond that, please. The death promised to all elves who died with their spirit trees. Let me just say goodbye to those who I cared for.”

This meant the original elves and the Valthorns that he personally trained. Many were in a way his closest friends and family, even if not related by blood.

“We died gloriously, but no big state funerals, please,” Jura said.

“There will be one for all who died in this war.” I wanted to insist. There were many others who died, and they deserved a proper burial. “It’s the first time anyone has participated in a large-scale battle against the demon king.”

It was a somber event. Throughout the continent, there were many battles, and there were deaths there, too. Thankfully, most rifts were relatively low-risk less than five rifts had demon walkers or demon champions. After the destruction of the demon king, we quickly redirected our attention to those demons.

But the lag meant death.

Relatively speaking, it was good for us. The Central Continent lost about one hundred thousand people to the demons, most of them when one of those demon champions got close to one of the cities or towns. Low, relative to the huge numbers lost on the Eastern Continent. Throughout the entire war, about two hundred thousand were lost. Again, good numbers, good numbers.

Yet the deaths of Jura, Faris, and Lovis felt really personal to me, especially Jura.

“You really want to go?” I was sure I could figure out something. Perhaps a soul contract or something to keep him here.

Jura just nodded. “I think it’s time. The next generation can take over my place. The young Valthorns, many of them have great potential.”

“No. Please reconsider.”

Jura shook his head. “Aeon, TreeTree, you’ve done so much for me, and I am grateful. We’ve fought many battles together and achieved much. To see Freeka grow to New Freeka, only to lose it and then rebuild as Freshka has been wonderful. These few decades were incredible. But I’ve died, and I would like a peaceful passing.”

I sighed mentally, but I thought he could feel it. “Very well. I will dearly miss your presence by my side.”

“There’re still a few months.”

* * *

Many of those who died in the conflict actually appeared in my [soul realm]. Some would stay for days, some for months. Often, it was their own choice. Using a combination of Patreeck’s mental powers and my own [soul realm], we used it to grant special ‘mental audiences’ with the dead.

It was a special ritual—the priests called it the communion of the passing—for those who remained to say and say so much. Many, though, did not want to die.

I felt a little selfish and hypocritical then. I would go to great lengths if I could ‘resurrect’ Jura, but for the rest of them, I wouldn’t. A [soul contract], made before death, would’ve been an easy ‘resurrection’ solution, since I could redeploy them as something else. Yet I felt for young orphans who’d grown up and lived almost their entire lives as my swords and shields; to drag them to service again through [soul contract] was exceptionally cruel even for my standards.

They had given me one life as my weapon, and they would return experience, skill seeds, and level seeds when they died through the familiars.

For the general populace, it was a sense of relief that the demon king disaster passed by so quickly, in about a day. Perhaps this was the fastest we’d ever killed a demon king, because we could predict where the demon king appeared.

If the demon’s intelligence was real, the next time wouldn’t be so easy.

* * *

Kei was not dead, but the system thought she was dead. It was incredibly weird.

Her body was entirely a mixture of crystal and vines, like an overgrown laboratory. “This is not what I expected.” She looked like a golem. A crystal golem.

She lost her [hero] class when the blast happened. It stripped her of all her classes and levels, and she was…temporarily level-less. Then, because the healing happened simultaneously as the demon king’s blast stripped her soul of all her soul-bricks, she didn’t actually die even as the loss of all her levels somehow made the system think she died.

“My friends think I’m dead, right?” Kei said.

“Most likely, if they get the notification.”

“Then let’s keep it that way.”

Ah. Shit. This meant the advantage had just shifted to the heroes again now that Kei’d lost all her hero powers. They most likely wouldn’t believe that this golem was her, either. Shit. Was I going to face the crusades next?

“How do you feel?” I asked the golem. She shrugged and moved. The first few days after the battle, I thought she was dead. After all, that was what the notification said, and it had never been wrong before.

The heart kept beating. Pulsing. I thought it was just residual energies that caused it to beat. Then she moved after a few days and talked. Kei looked around; right now, she was in a resting area within the Valley of the Unrotten. I wasn’t comfortable letting her wander around in Freshka. Not yet, anyway.

“Surprisingly fine, even if this body needs getting used to.” Kei was incredibly nonchalant about the entire transformation. “If anything, I suddenly have a clarity of mind that feels amazing.” Her golem body was mixed with organic elements within, and anyone who laid their eyes on her would immediately say she was an abomination.

“Really.” I considered the implications that the system could be ‘wrong.’ What else was wrong, then? Also, the demonic blast was able to strip a person of their soul and levels. If so, could I replicate it to ultimately free the heroes from their traps?

“I’m now a level one [Bio-crystalline Construct] with no classes. Do you think this is just a copy of my soul and the real me is really dead, or is this really me?”

“There’s no true answer for that, is there?” I could see that she still had a soul, but if most of a soul had been stripped away, was it really still her? It reminded me of the ‘ship of Theseus’ problem.

“Good answer.” Kei laughed mechanically. “I should gain levels. Can you help me?”

“Certainly.” I secretly guided Kei to a patch of the Rottedlands where she could fight hybrids.

* * *

Edna had gained levels. She gained fourteen levels from the battle, so she was now level 139 as an [Aeonic Grand Knight]. She was stronger, and yet at the same time, she was cursed.

“Aeon. How do you do it? Watch our friends perish?” She was actually trying to cope with her own loss. Faris and Lovis were her friends, and as fellow Valthorns, they were really close knit. “I’ve lived with certainty that my friends would survive. Drunk on our own immortality…”

When you were over level one hundred, it was normal to feel like you’d never die.

“I honestly have no good answer for you, Edna. Jura was my most loyal warrior, and he had served at my side since the days when this valley was a village called Freeka. His loss and his presence will be something I keenly feel for decades, perhaps even centuries to come.”

Edna nodded and wept privately. We’d all lost a friend. “This struggle against the demon king destroyed too many friendships and relationships. When you told us you wanted to stop the cycle, I honestly thought I understood it. But only now do I see and feel the real cost of this struggle.”

“It will be a path paved with the blood and bodies of our friends. Victories all have a price,” I said, despite my own struggles with Jura’s death.

Edna didn’t reply and continued to cry alone. An hour or so later, she responded. “Well…if I stopped now, Faris and Lovis would’ve died for nothing, right?”

“Indeed.”

Faris, Lovis, and Jura’s spirits watched that same conversation. Faris just sighed. “I felt like I died like a chump, though. Just a bad position and the deathray just killed me. How does one even stop such things?”

The spirit of Lovis agreed. “I think there must be a way to strengthen our body such that we can resist it. At least, we should be able to survive it.”

Jura’s spirit nodded along in my mind. “That explosion at the end was extremely disgusting. To think that a demon king almost always self-destructs when it is defeated.” Well, almost all demon kings self-destructed. “We should have prepared with some kind of instant teleportation ability.”

Faris nodded. “Yeah. The next generation of Valthorns must have the ability to perform instant-short range teleportation and also super-enhanced senses. There are skills that can grant the ability to temporarily supercharge one’s senses and reaction time.”

Strangely, the three dead spirits were a lot more analytical. Perhaps, now that they were dead, the best way they could contribute was to think about how to prevent their own deaths.

Edna was back to work after resting for two weeks, and then she had a session of ‘mental communion’ with Faris and Lovis.

* * *

A part of me felt numb. I’d always known that as a tree, I would eventually outlive everyone around me. As a magical tree that did not decay or age, but only grew larger and more powerful over time, it was inevitable.

< Did you ever lose those loyal to you, Lilies? >

> Always. One eventually turns detached. Friends eventually become just tools. To lose so many, so often, one learns to draw lines. <

At that moment, a human part of me resisted. No. No. I must have courage to constantly make friends and trust them. If I became more like Lilies, eventually the Valthorns would just be numbers on a battlefield. I would be nothing more than a general, safe in one’s nuclear bunker, pressing buttons.

No. I didn’t want to become desensitized to this. I wasn’t prepared to lose what little was left of my humanity just to accomplish this goal of stopping the cycle. I was already a murderer and slayer of thousands, enslaver and mind controller. To lose even friendships and trust, that was just the next level.

Even villains needed to have people that they could trust. No. Great villains all had people that they could trust.

> Time, and cycles, < Lilies responded. > Cycles, repeating lives and conversations. <

I paused.

> It hurts too much to see those who have fallen in those that still lived. < I wondered which one of Lilies’ many minds was talking. This one seemed a little more melancholic. > Like a widower who sees a woman that looked like a splitting image of their deceased wife. <

I sighed. Maybe Lilies had a point. But I believed I should try. I owed it to those who lived to give them a chance. I couldn’t just wallow in grief and never move on. No.

I would trust and I would make new friends. Even if I would have to suffer and watch them die eventually, it was only right I continued doing so. A tree survived disasters and storms and still bloomed when spring came. The scars did not alter its will to live and love.

* * *

Once the state funerals and about a month had passed, I was finally prepared to revisit the huge wall of notification that I’d received.

I gained twenty-seven levels and I was now level 197.

[Due to your excessive contribution in the fight against the demon king as a non-hero, you have been granted a special experience multiplier. You gained 27 Levels. You are now Level 197.]

[Jura has bequeathed the skill - Warlord’s Barrage. Skill absorbed into Root Field. Root Fields upgraded to Fields of Death.]

[Lovis has bequeathed the skill - Spear of Destruction. Skill modified and changed to Roots of Destruction.]

[Faris has bequeathed the skill - Vine Control. The following skills have been merged. Healing Vines, Constrict, and Absorption to Root & Vine Mastery.]

[Level 190 - Domain Skill acquired: Court of the Deitree. Court of the Deitree has a 50-member limit. Possession of the Devoted now merged with Court of the Deitree.]

[Those granted the ‘Court Familiars’ gain abilities similar to those of the Devoted. Court of the Deitree does not require star mana.]

[Those who served never truly die. Their abilities are recorded and retained. Jura, Lovis, and Faris’s abilities and skills are elevated as Zealots of the Ancestree. Court members function similar to Familiars. You’ve gained the ability [Summon Court]. Court members can be instantly teleported to your location without any mana requirements, with no use limits and restrictions. Skills of those who died with the Court Familiars are absorbed.]

[Level 180 - Domain Skill Acquired: Natural Dungeons.]

[Grants ability to trigger new dungeons. Each dungeon must be powered by either a ley line or magical formation of equivalent power. Dungeons are not subordinates and are mostly independent, but you have some influence to control their difficulty level and strength. Each dungeon generates rewards and monsters based on the chosen difficulty and strength.]

[Active Titan Soul capacity increased to 5.]

[Root Strike significantly upgraded. Root Strikes and Super-antidemon root strikes merged and now all automatically have anti-demonic effects.]

[Healing abilities significantly upgraded. Vines now can perform instant-healing by touch.]

[Wooden materials significantly upgraded. Strength of all wooden items made significantly upgraded and gained passive skills.]

[Giant Attendant Trees defensive abilities and force projection significantly upgraded. Giant Attendant Trees now able to recreate up to 66% of Aeon’s original strength over long distances.]

[Familiars significantly upgraded. All familiars gained additional skills and abilities. All familiars are now Greater Familiars.]

[Biolabs and other labs significantly upgraded. All labs now are significantly more attuned to demonic energies and rift-related energies.]

[Overall physical defense and magical defense significantly increased. Demonic Curse dispelled.]

It was a long one, but ultimately it was still numb to me. All these abilities were achieved with the death of those close to me. And was it worth it? These abilities enhanced my strength and defenses.

There was something extremely bittersweet of receiving powers like [Court of the Deitree], which would have allowed me to save Jura, Lovis, and Faris. It was like having the ability to close the stable doors after the prized horses had left the stables.

Yet it was clear that during the battle, Kei’s magical powers did at least 60–70 percent of the damage.

Regardless, these small steps all led me closer to that eventual day.

* * *

The rest of the Central Continent had some reconstruction to do, and privately, our intelligence services indicated most of the other temples were amazed at how quickly the demon king was defeated. Yet, despite Kei’s death, there were no concrete plans for a continuation of the crusade. Just rumors and discussions.

I wondered what changed on their end.

Lausanne and Laufen were both most affected by Jura’s death at the battle. They spoke to him, too, via the mental communion. Arlisa only sparred with Jura a few times; after all, her training was mostly conducted by her mother. To her, Jura was that uncle that seemed to mostly accompany the crazy tree.

Yet Arlisa, too, witnessed the destruction wrought by the demon king. The craters it left behind all still had residual magical energies, and already labs were in full swing, conducting research.

Lausanne tapped her daughter’s head as she guided her through the battlefield. She wanted to see what happened to all the traps and fortresses, and she was greeted by the hellscape.

“The land will heal. Aeon’s powers would soon undo all the wounds of the earth. Which is why you must see it now, when the wounds are fresh and the earth is torn asunder,” Lausanne said. The magical residue was gradually being cleaned up. Beetles hard at work, they dug and carried them back to the labs for studies. “Those of us who received Aeon’s blessings are more sensitive to the land. We can feel the subtle flow of the energy in the ground, the same way a druid can. If it scares you, hold my hand,” Lausanne assured her daughter.

“Are all battles like this?” Arlisa was both impressed and fearful. It was quite a sight, and the terrain’s energy meant the weather was just as chaotic. Storms and thunder seemed perpetual, and I could feel my own mana wrestling with the unsettled air.

“When the opponent is a demon king, yes. But this is a lot more common. Even demon champions can deal huge damage. We’ve seen things like this back in the Eastern Continent,” Lausanne said, and she remembered her own time in the wasteland that was the Eastern Continent.

“You fought them before?” Arlisa suddenly seemed really impressed at her mom.

“Only the champions,” Lausanne said. “Never the king.”

“But Uncle Jura did.”

“Yes,” Lausanne said. “If the other heroes were here, maybe he would not…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Can Aeon fight the king?” Arlisa, though, quickly switched the question.

Lausanne paused for a moment. “I don’t know, Arlisa. Maybe, maybe not. Unlike us, Aeon cannot move himself to face the demon king head on.”

“Then they’ll have to lure the demon king so that Aeon can smack him?”

Lausanne smiled and patted her daughter. “Now that’s an idea to think about.”

“If we ever face a demon king, what can we do to survive?” she wondered.

“Honestly, unlikely. You may not even be able to run, since its attack range is clearly very far.” She pointed as the gashes in the earth, which stretched for miles. Even the hills in the distance were not spared. There were many destroyed forests and trees in the area, often from a stray energy beam or a deflected projectile that exploded.

“Then we’ll just accept our fate?” Arlisa looked back at her mom. Lausanne nodded.

“Pretty much. Unless you are someone like Uncle Jura. He died a hero, a true champion of Freshka. But his path is not for everyone.”

Arlisa the little rebel frowned. She was underleveled in many ways, at least compared to the Valthorns of her age. Already there were young, upcoming Valthorns just about fifteen or sixteen that had reached their level forties in their chosen combat profession.

Still, she watched the ruins, all the fortresses, so strong and sturdy before this, flattened in a single battle. All those magical traps and hero items activated, and it was still insufficient. The destruction truly hammered in how small she was in the larger scheme of things.

Without levels, one had no say in what the world could throw at them. “Without levels and skills, we are just lambs for the slaughter,” Lausanne said quite frankly. “Our world today is changing thanks to Aeon, but should he fall, the world will revert back to its original state. One where might and power makes right. Aeon’s overwhelming might today is what grants the lesser ones a choice. Without his vast shade, what we have today is not possible. One day, I’ll take you to the other continents, and there you will witness what the world is like without an overwhelming presence like Aeon.”

Arlisa merely nodded.

They had a rest at a makeshift rest stop. The Valthorns had set up multiple ‘viewing points’ since there clearly was an interest in disaster-tourism.

“Lady Lausanne, what a coincidence.” There were not the only visitors. Many nobles, too, came to see the destruction. Some hoped to see daemolite, but somehow this demon king did not leave any behind. Those in the Freshlands Treetiary college even organized large tours for the students to see the destruction for themselves.

“Ah. Lord Kraveik, what luck.”

The tree lord smiled. “Fascinating, isn’t it? Even though it does pain me to see the land in such suffering.” The treefolk could feel the damage when they walk; their exposed feet had little feelers and roots.

He turned to face Arlisa. “And you must be Arlisa?”

The young girl nodded.

“Taking in the sights, too?” Lausanne asked.

“Yes. How many lords and kings can even claim to have seen the site of the demon king’s death? If anything, this is an experience unique to us!” Kraveik smiled.

Lausanne laughed. Indeed, it was heaven and earth, if compared to the vast destruction of the Eastern Continent. Here, the nobles were talking about tourism. Arlisa merely listened as the nobles continued their conversation. Even if her mother said she wasn’t a noble, no one would believe it. In the eyes of the entire continent, her mother was a member of the nobility and perhaps even as close to a continent-wide royalty.

* * *

“Thanks for fighting with me all this while, Jura,” I said one day. I could sense that his soul would soon move on.

He just smiled. “It’s not too bad. Casshern once said, ‘Death comes to us all, but for some earlier than others. Oh tree spirit, take good care of them, those who still lived, and in your Court of the Deitree, truly, elves that die with their spirit trees, never truly die…’”

“May you have a blessed life.” At this point, his heart was already set, and I was not going to hold on to him forcefully. Forcing a soul to do what it didn’t want to do, outside of [soul contracts], was something quite against the nature of soul and spirit trees.

“I’m blessed enough, TreeTree. The heights I’ve reached, the battles I fought, few can even speak of. I’m sure Faris and Lovis feel similar.”

He bowed in my soul realm.

“I remember I knelt that day when I returned to Freeka. I returned expecting to see nothing, and how this tiny village has gone through so much change. Destruction, and then reconstruction. There will be more change, but I know they will have you to guide them.”

I felt sad. Maybe it was that tiny fragment of humanity left in me.

“Goodbye, Aeon.”

“May we meet again, in your next reincarnation.” In the long run, we would all meet again.

“Indeed.”

Tree of Aeons will continue in Book Four!

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