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[Tree] Chapter 272: World Stage
🕑 Added 2024-02-27 19:59:54 +0000 UTC"Morning, sleepyhead," Ashlock said to Stella as she sluggishly got off the bench and wandered over while yawning and rubbing her eyes.
Her hair was disheveled, and it seemed a few fallen fruits had smacked her on the head in her slumber, judging from the variety of colors staining her blonde hair.
"Morning Tree..." Stella yawned again before smacking herself awake, "Wow, I am exhausted. So... why is everyone shouting so early in the morning? Oh, hi Larry."
Larry waved one of his legs, "Hello, Mistress."
"You look shinier than usual," Stella squinted.
"That's because I am a demi-divine being now."
"Oh... I see," Stella shrugged, "Good for you."
"Thank you, Mistress."
"Why is there smashed fruit everywhere?" Stella grumbled as she reached up to comb her hair out of her face with her fingers, "Ugh, it's even in my hair."
"Ashlock got a little angry that Larry ate his breakfast. Let me help you." Diana summoned a ball of swirling water to her hand.
"What are you talking about—agh!" Stella spluttered as Diana hurled the water in her face, drenching her head to toe. "Diana! What the hell."
"Relax..." Diana drew back the water alongside all the fruit juice and dirt, leaving Stella dry and clean. Discarding the water on the ground, Diana smiled. "See? Isn't that better?"
Stella blinked, clearly wide awake now after being splashed with cold water. "Yes, though I disapprove of your methods."
Diana shrugged as the water she had just discarded rose from the ground toward her hand, "I can always give it back."
Stella vanished and reappeared behind Diana with the blunt side of a dagger's blade pressed against her neck, "Oh yeah?"
"I forgot you could do that," Diana clicked her tongue and let the water drop back to the ground.
"Okay, enough nonsense, you two. We were discussing the beast tide and potential countermeasures. Care to join us, Stella?"
Stella stepped back from Diana and spun the dagger in her fingers before it vanished in a flash of silvery light. "Nah, that sounds like a headache and rather pointless." She frowned, "Wouldn't Ash just win against a wave of monsters? Sounds more like a feast than a threat to me."
"I appreciate your blind trust in me, but this is definitely something we need to plan and discuss. If you don't want to join in, what are you going to do today?"
Stella shrugged, "Train my Disciple, I suppose."
Ashlock could tell Stella was in a bad mood just by how she spoke and acted. She was likely still exhausted from yesterday and was now annoyed because their shouting interrupted her sleep, and water was thrown in her face.
"Sorry to ask this of you, but could you grab a heavenly contract from Kaida and deliver it to the Silverspires while on the way to pick up your Disciple? That's the only task that needed completing today. Oh, and you can return here via a root near Nox."
Stella huffed the freshly dried hair out of her face, "Fine. But no more meetings. I'm done with those for a lifetime."
"Sure, I promise," Ashlock said as Stella vanished from where she stood and reappeared at the entrance to the ink Bastion, where Kaida resided.
Now that she was gone, Ashlock glanced back at the illusionary map cast over the stone pulsing red. The beast tide was most certainly a threat, but with two years to go, that gave him dozens of Mystic Realm visits to power up, and he already had some solutions at his disposal to help him survive.
"You really plan to fight this thing?" Elaine asked seriously.
"What other choice do I have?" Ashlock laughed, "Worst case, I can teleport all of you to another leyline and face the tide alone."
Elaine shook her head, "Stella would kill me if I even suggested leaving you behind. If you are staying, so is she. And therefore, so am I. Whether I like it or not, it seems like fighting this thing is our only option. It may be two years away, but laying down the groundwork for a defense would need to begin today."
That was true. Some things couldn't be rushed, even with Ashlock's powers and the system. Examples included making Bastions and Ents as he needed to farm the credits and find the necessary corpses. The cultivators of the Ashfallen Sect would also need time to cultivate up to Nascent Soul Realm.
"Be honest with me," Elaine looked up into his canopy, "What are your strengths? Since you will be the focal point of our defense, Ashlock, we must work to your strengths and cover your weaknesses."
Ashlock had no intention of sharing anything to do with the system with anyone except Stella and maybe Diana, but he could still give Elaine some clues.
"My strengths? Let's see... I have a massive pool of Qi and can quickly regenerate my reserves by pulling on all my offspring."
Elaine brought out a parchment and made notes. "Big pool of Qi, and you can... pull on your offspring? What does that mean."
"I am linked via my roots to every demonic tree you see, whether on this mountain range or out in the wilderness. I can pull from their Qi reserves to substitute my own. Each may have a small amount of Qi to spare, but it becomes a significant amount when there are thousands of them."
Elaine scratched her head, "I see. But spirit trees cultivate extremely slowly, right? So this must be a one-time thing you can do. I will note it down as a trump card—"
"For a typical spirit tree, cultivation may be slow. But these are my offspring. Not only do they cultivate and grow faster than normal, but during the night, I take them to a dreamscape where their cultivation speed can increase upwards of ten-fold depending on the moon's position."
"Huh?" Elaine glanced at Diana, "Do you understand what he is talking about?"
Diana shrugged, "Not really? It sounds like he takes all his children to an alternate dimension during the night."
"How is that possible? I have never seen him or his offspring go anywhere."
"Trees are mystical beings, Elaine. I have seen him create rifts and drag creatures through them when he was weaker in cultivation than you are now. I stopped trying to understand Ashlock's nonsense a long time ago."
Elaine let out an exaggerated sigh, "Okay, fine. Your main strength is effectively unlimited Qi. That is certainly useful. Anything else?"
"Mhm..." Ashlock ignored his production skills and summons as he didn't consider them his personal strength since they gave him indirect strength through others. But on that topic, he did have something. "I could technically create an army of Ents and Bastions to fight back against the beast tide."
Elaine glanced at Khaos, "I see; what's the cost of making these, and how many could you control?"
"Other than upkeep, they cost me nothing to make. I just need a mostly intact corpse. As for how many I can control, it should be unlimited."
"Unlimited?" Elaine noted that in disbelief, "And no cost to create?"
"Well, the main cost for me is that I gain power from eating corpses, so those I turn into Ents would become external power rather than personal power."
"I fail to see the downside," Elaine grumbled, "Both options result in more power under your control."
Ashlock chuckled, "I suppose so."
"Right, so you have infinite Qi and the ability to turn the beast tide into your own army." Elaine pushed up her glasses, "Dare I ask, is there anything else?"
Ashlock thought for a while. Since this would basically be a war, gathering information and holding down locations would be important. "I can see and project my influence to anywhere within the reach of my roots and unleash my full power through any of my offspring."
"Mhm, yes, how reasonable." Elaine muttered as she noted it down, "So just to be clear, you can fight a faraway battle without even being present? How far do your roots currently go?"
"That is correct, and if I had to guess, my roots currently go around a thousand miles or so in every direction," Ashlock replied, "I am also burrowing deeper as we speak to seek out the leyline."
"Fascinating, anything else?"
Ashlock thought awhile, "I can kill things with my roots and void tendrils. I can also turn small areas into bubbles of a certain affinity by overlapping a pocket realm. I think that's about it other than the strength of the Ashfallen Sect."
The scratching sound of Elaine's quill was deafening as she noted everything down. Ashlock felt like he was taking a test and being graded for his worthiness. It didn't help that Elaine kept pulling different faces between disbelief and resignation. She finally laid the quill to rest and pushed up her glasses.
"Despite your ridiculous advantages, survival is still not assured. The weaker waves of beasts can be ignored since you have infinite Qi to deal with them and can create an army of your own." Elaine mused, "However, there is still the issue of the Nascent Soul Realm and possibly even Monarch Realm monsters. You seem to lack direct attack power compared to your other advantages, so those strong monsters still pose a significant threat."
Elaine clicked her fingers, and the illusion rose from the ground, becoming a three-dimensional map. Zooming in by spreading her hands, Ashlock could see a vague reconstruction of Red Vine Peak with a projection of him at the top of the mountain. Purple glowing lines that he assumed represented his roots began to sprawl through the mountain. Some spread outward in all cardinal directions, while others continued into the depths.
"Unlike you, I don't have my presence spread out for a thousand miles, so most of this is guesswork." Elaine clapped her hands, the map zoomed out to show the leylines, and Ashlock could see his purple roots sprawl out. "From the maps I have seen, this is around where I would guess your roots reach as of now."
It was nowhere near as big of an area as he expected. In fact, his roots barely touched the edges of the thick leyline upon which he was growing.
"No wonder I never saw these mortal cities nestled between the leylines, as I haven't even left the area of my own. However, I am getting close to the leyline along which the Tainted Cloud Sect is built." Ashlock's gaze drifted to the South, "Meanwhile, the Celestial Empire might as well be on another continent. It's so far away."
When shown his presence on the world stage, Ashlock didn't know how to feel. With Larry's evolution, the Ashfallen Sect was undoubtedly a powerhouse of the region, but there was still so much out there.
"I might have a way we can win for certain," Elaine said as she circled the illusion while biting her thumb.
"Really?"
Elaine gestured to the spiritual spring to the North that was easily ten times further away than his roots currently reached, "Do you think you could grow your roots to reach the spiritual spring before the beast tide begins?"
"If I had to guess, I can grow a few miles daily. So yes, I could reach there in a year."
The purple roots on the map spread up the leyline and intersected the spiritual spring to the North.
Elaine tapped the pulsing red area, "This is where we will fight. As far away from your immobile body on Red Vine Peak as possible. This way, we can fight without risk."
"How so?" Diana asked while squinting at the map, "It's pulsing red because it's dangerous. The beasts are concentrated there. It's easier to deal with them when they come in small groups or alone while in the tide."
"No, I can see what she is thinking. Very clever." Ashlock sighed at how blind and defensive his thinking had been. "I blame it on being a tree. While you humans instinctively flee danger, I only considered facing it head-on. Launching an assault on the beast tide before it began never occurred to me."
Elaine nodded, "Ashlock, your main advantage is turning monsters into allies and being capable of fighting wherever your roots are. This gives you a unique way of fighting. Pardon my analogy, but your fighting style is reminiscent of rot. If you sent Larry or anyone else capable of killing a single Nascent Soul monster through your roots, they could ambush the monster, kill it, and then flee. You could then turn the corpse into an Ent and have it wear down or kill the other Nascent Soul level monsters in the spiritual spring. Every monster that succumbs to your persistent assaults joins your power."
"Slowly, the beast tide would become under my control..."
It was a great plan. One with minimal risk and maximum gain. Ashlock had been ready to hunker down and fight the beast tide on his own terms, but if he could carve out an area of the spiritual spring, grow a forest of demonic trees, and wreak havoc there. It might even be too easy.
"Elaine, this is a great plan. There's just a few slight issues." Diana sighed.
"What are they?"
"Larry's main way to attack is by decaying things to ash. I assume you can't turn a pile of divine ash back into a monster?" Diana asked Ashlock's canopy.
"That's true. I need a mostly intact corpse," Ashlock replied.
"That's what I thought... and although you can fight anywhere your roots are, would you be capable of killing a Nascent Soul Realm monster away from your offspring?"
"No, over my roots, the best I can do is make portals, lock monsters in place with Spatial Lock, and attack them with spatial Qi. Even if I am in the Nascent Soul Realm, I doubt I could defeat such a monster with these methods alone in the spiritual spring, which will be overflowing with other Qi types."
Diana crossed her arms, "So we need someone that isn't Larry or Ashlock in the Nascent Soul Realm that can go and hunt monsters far away. A few come to mind, such as Maple, the Silverspire Grand Elder, or perhaps one of us if we get that powerful within the next year, but I propose we kill two birds with one stone and make an Ent out of a certain someone."
"You can't mean..." Elaine muttered.
Diana grinned, showing her fans, "Wouldn't turning the Blood Lotus Patriarch, Vincent Nightrose, into an Ent solve all our issues?"
Comments
Jonathan Willis
Thanks for the chapter.
ManguKing
They are talking about turning the patriach into an ent without even knowing how powerful he is lol guy probably on the sixth stage of the nascent soul. There's a reason why the eternal pavilion has not crushed him
ManguKing
I hate how he continues to baby stella. Bro! Your daughter needs to grow up! The fate of the tree and sect is at stake and you gonna let her walk away cause she can't control her emotions? Come on ash!!
phantom
-waves of nascent realms- Well that is quite the feast but we just don't need to choke. -potential monarch realm- We're in danger.
Ethan Barrow
TFTC! It's ent time!
Vincebourgh
Turning to the next spring would just result in an earlier Beast Tide
Alexey Gladkich
I think 1000 miles radius is too large for Ashlock's size. He'd have reached a few more cities with size this large. Around 100 miles seems more reasonable. He wasn't in star core that long and the dreamscape was a recent addition. Also area of the circle is proportional to square of its radius. So increasing the radius would either require increasingly more Qi or he'd have to lower root density the farther the location is from him.
Alexey Gladkich
He has never been the final boss of the lower realm... his threat level was always below beast tide and the celestial empire.
SteveS
One thing about this plan, if the beast tide is triggered by monsters fighting for dominance and the first monsters fleeing from stronger monsters, they may inadvertently trigger the first waves of monsters to flee if/when they gain control over that area. They might even be able to use that to trigger the other cultivators to begin their relocation early if they think the beast tide has started.
Demian Buckle
Thank you for the Chapter.
Ray Johnson
I feel like we’re entering a time skip/training arc and I’m here for it! Now all that’s left to do is get stronger, while accumulating more and more sc so the inner world can finally be created. I really hope the inner world. Is it going to be something substantial. I Ashlock has been stated to have a substantially massive Star Core compared to other cultivators, so I hope that same philosophy is extended to his inner world as well.
Timspt8
I feel like it could be done when Ashlock formes his nascent soul
Victor Mijares
I'm thinking that by the time they face off Vincent, atleast tree will already be at nascent hopefully atleast mid way into it. While maybe Stella and Diana barely entering it.
Victor Mijares
I think he needs to consume them like he did the winter waith core. Otherwise he would already have atleast one of those core thanks to his offspring
Me
Vincent Nightrose must be on the upper end of the nascent soul realm since apparantly he is the only nascent soul realm in the sect and yet he is able to scare off the Tainted could sect which apparantly has at least two nascent soul realms, one of them being a sixth stage. So while turning vincent nightrose into an ent is a really great idea, they still have to kill him first and that's not going to be easy to say the least.
Demonlord
Thanks for the chapter 😊
Azvalon
Yeah but now it just seems like it's on a different continent at farthest. Though the whole knowledge from these two chapters is according Ashlock's and his family/friends' subjective knowledge and understanding so maybe it's still as told before.
Gonvas
There were several mentions in the story of the empire that make it clear it was in the 9th layer of creation xD
Azvalon
Until these two latest chapters I had actually thought that the celestial empire where the other tree lives was literally in a upper realm, like a layer of the world similar to Hell, Earth and Heaven. XD
Noctis117
He's the head honcho of the entire sect. I'm not even sure it he's had any interaction other than others talking about him. But he's the guy wanting to turn Stella into his pill furnace. I can't remember if it was him or an elder of the disciplinary board that visited when she killed Diane's brother. Next part is potential spoiler so stop reading here, but I'm guessing he can sniff out bloodlines and the potential of a bloodline fuels his own cultivation more than a regular cultivator of equivalent cultivation realm. Which would explain why he chose stella. Or maybe he knows stella is the daughter of the world tree and thinks that'll provide a needed boost to propell him to the next realm.
Alex Cox
I have a major question that prolly will only be answered in the story, if Ashlock were to make connection to each of his progeny that holds a starcore of each affinity required for his innerworld... would he not be capable of doing so? Or did it say he needed to consume them
TreeReader
Hes the head of the most piwerful family in the sect
Sancturillore -- Élie Simard-Wallot
his title is literally stated in this chapter. He's the patriarch of the sect.
Steven Frey
if you forgot who he is after he was mentioned several times in the last couple chapters, you should stop reading
Kennyevilmonkey
Thanks for dropping fruits on her head. Much appreciated.
Victor Mijares
I was going to recommend making a large enough bastion or pooling a the little ones into one big one. Have mortals and weak cultivators wait it out. While the strong run ahead to meet the tide and do a running fight back to ash, hopefully at that point have only a few super strong monsters left. Or go straight to the spring and slurp it dry. Making the tide notice it's gone so they go ahead and turn to the next spring instead.
Sebastian Lozano
Vincent Nightrose just got demoted from the penultimate final boss of the lower realm to an insignificant snack.
Purple Magi
Bold plan, Diana. We'll see how it pans out
NethanielShade
I’m not going to lie, I forgot who Vincent Nightrose is. Can someone remind me?
SDCard
Thanks for the chapter! Great plan, though it's a year away - Stella might then reach Nascent Soul in that time using the mystic realm
NethanielShade
Tyftc
Quentin Cozzi
Thanks for the chapter!
