The cold early winter breeze rustled Ashlock's leaves as a familiar face returned to the desolate courtyard. The lazy tree stopped cultivating to focus on Larry crawling through the hole in the pavilion wall while dragging a sack of silk five times his size.
As Larry hauled the sack, a deep trail was left in the training courtyard's sand as he approached the wall separating the central courtyard from the training grounds. Larry then decided to hurl the sack of corpses over the wall—it sailed through the air before landing with a sickening crunch and squelch as if the sack contained a soup of bones and organs.
"Thank you, Larry," Ashlock said his first words in over a month. With nothing to do except watch birds eating his seeds and dying, he was starved for any kind of interaction.
Larry just stood there—clearly unresponsive to Ashlock's praise. Which was unfortunate... Ashlock was sure Larry could be a fine gentleman if the mind control was lifted, but for now, that was impossible. Larry had become too strong to let off his leash. Ashlock could feel the power in Larry's presence had grown since his evolution but clearly hadn't entirely broken the A-grade barrier, as Larry wasn't asking to evolve yet.
"Should I send him out to the wilderness again or..." Ashlock knew Stella and Diana would return eventually. He needed human corpses for communication, and the cold weather would keep them preserved for longer. "Larry, go out and hunt. Keep casualties in one area to a minimum before moving, and keep the cultivators on their toes. Then, return when I call for you through the link."
Ashlock knew their link was weak at far range, but he could still transmit something since Larry reacted to his message last time with some confusion, so the spider should respond this time now that he has clear instructions to return when called.
Larry didn't dawdle and left immediately to fulfill his summoner's orders.
After watching the massive spider leave, Ashlock felt sleepy due to the cold weather. Luckily he had a bundle of corpses to keep him busy.
With no sign of Stella or Diana returning anytime soon, Ashlock decided to indulge a little and confirm his fear that the system would limit his growth somewhat.
As the sack had been left lying against one of his exposed roots, Ashlock used his Qi to burn away the silk. Unfortunately, some of the corpses also got charred by his lilac soul flames—but Ashlock was fine with that—as he lacked control without any techniques to guide his Qi usage.
The heap of corpses spilled out onto the damaged runic formation in a surge of blood and guts, and Ashlock didn't recognize a single monster as a creature from Earth. There were the occasional similarities, such as a few monsters with black exoskeletons that made them look like overgrown termites. However, they were also covered in red warts and a mysterious blue slime substance that seemed poisonous.
Overall, something Ashlock would expect to be present in a sci-fi world rather than a cultivator-themed one. Ashlock noticed that the insect-looking monsters were far more enormous than they should be, likely due to the dense ambient Qi out in the wilderness. "Kinda like back on Earth in the dinosaur era where the higher oxygen content allowed dinosaurs to grow far larger?"
Now that Ashlock thought about it some more wasn't this world basically a prehistoric age world imbued by a magical essence that made everything able to compete with one another through cultivation? The strongest cultivators could triumph over the most infamous monsters through the power of Qi. Hell, even a tree can become a spirit tree and develop a semi-conscious mind.
Another example of this world's bizarre speed of growth was his demonic tree seeds. The first one that sprouted from the corpse of that reptile bird was now two meters tall after only a month. Of course, some of that early growth spurt was likely due to the tree growing from the Qi left in the bird's corpse, but its growth was still ridiculous.
Every day, birds came by and consumed his fruit like clockwork. Ashlock had begun to grow many different types of fruit that weren't poisonous in hopes the birds would bring their flock to feast on his fruit, where around ten percent contained poison and a seed.
So far, this had resulted in around one in every ten birds dying somewhere in the forests at the base of his mountain peak, causing a baby demonic tree to sprout from its corpse.
Ashlock stopped thinking about his children and focused on his courtyard. With the corpses now sprawled out and hunger tugging at the back of his mind, Ashlock got to work on his experiment. Using {Root Puppet}, he targeted the monster with the highest cultivation and most intact body within the heap, a basilisk with three heads and a purple horn of varying length sprouting from its three foreheads.
It took almost an hour due to its size, but eventually, Ashlock managed to take control of the basilisk, and he could estimate its Soul Core was at least a few stages higher than his own, perhaps around the 7th stage of the Soul Fire realm.
"Does that mean Larry is at least at the 7th stage? Maybe even stronger?"
Ashlock couldn't imagine how Larry defeated such a giant basilisk with its armor plate scales and high cultivation, but luckily that wasn't important right now.
Using the basilisk to move the corpses, Ashlock separated them into three distinct piles.
Due to Ashlock's higher cultivation and the corpses releasing their Qi slowly into the atmosphere, Ashlock could guess their cultivation level within a few stages of accuracy. For example, the first pile contained a lot of insect-like creatures. According to Ashlock's estimation, these were all lower level than him, likely in the late stages of the Qi Realm.
Deciding to test this pile first, Ashlock cast {Devour}. When he had been a small demonic sapling in the 6th stage of the Qi realm, a stack of mortal corpses with a few early-stage Soul Fire realm cultivators sprinkled in had been worth over 700 sacrifice credits.
A few hours passed, and the dreaded notification came in.
[+98 SC]
"Less than a hundred credits for a similar-sized heap of monster corpses." Ashlock mentally frowned. There was always the chance this was because the corpses were monsters rather than humans, but he couldn't think of a plausible explanation for why that would matter.
The second pile of corpses had more mammal-looking ones with a few strong insect types. This pile was smaller than the first by about half, but Ashlock could feel the amount of Qi radiation off to be much denser. Casting {Devour}, it took him until the following morning to absorb everything.
[+327]
"About what I expected." The pile contained a half corpses, yet had netted him over three times as much. "So devouring corpses of equal strength to me is six times more efficient than devouring monsters at the peak of the Qi Realm."
Now Ashlock was really curious about the third pile. It contained only two corpses. A half-eaten polar bear-looking monster and the basilisk, which he had released from his control before its Soul Core shattered. Despite only two corpses, due to their Qi-dense meat, muscular bodies, and size, Ashlock took until evening to finish his meal.
[+603]
The point gain was surprisingly high for only two bodies. Due to their cultivation being higher than him, it was hard for Ashlock to gauge their exact strength, especially the bear, but it had been in such bad condition Ashlock didn't wish to control it with {Root Puppet}.
Deciding it was time to cash in his points, Ashlock summoned his Sign-In system.
Idletree Daily Sign-In System
Day: 3204
Daily Credit: 54
Sacrifice Credit: 1050
[Sign in?]
"Yes."
[Sign in successful, 1104 credits consumed…]
[Unlocked an A-grade skill: Magic Mushroom Production]
"..." Ashlock didn't know what to say. Magic Mushrooms?
He waited for the system to bless him with his new skills capabilities, and once he learned the contents, he knew he was beyond fucked just from their vague description. "I am going to become the most sought-after tree on this continent..."
Opening up his new mushroom production menu, Ashlock selected a truffle as it was the most expensive type of mushroom in terms of Qi to produce, and then he looked at all the options he could add.
{Qi Fruit Production} allowed Ashlock to add skills as temporary buffs like {Posion Resistance} or just add poison to his fruit. He could also add seeds and change the flavor, color, size, and more.
Whereas the {Magic Mushroom Production} let him alter the psychedelic effects the mushroom induced and what impact those would have on the cultivator.
"I can add hallucinations so a cultivator can face their inner demons or divine inspiration about their chosen Dao." Ashlock scoffed at the estimated year production time while also taking up a small percentage of his total Qi intake.
Qi he should be using to dig deeper with his roots, grow taller, or increase his cultivation stage. Ashlock scrolled through the options. If he was going to sacrifice some of his growth to raise a darn magic truffle, then it better be the greatest cultivation drug of all time.
And then he found the perfect option for Stella. To his knowledge, she didn't have any heart demons, and the divine inspiration was listed as having a slight chance of working. But there was one option that was both perfect and guaranteed.
Improve Spirit Root.
Ashlock selected the option and set the truffle to grow deep underground next to one of the thickest roots through the mountain. There was also a deposit of spirit stone ore nearby, which might help lighten the load on Ashlock to provide all of the Qi for the truffle's growth.
With the truffle set to be completed in a year, Ashlock went back to sleep.
***
Stella stretched her back and rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes. She felt like she had become part of the library's chair as she relished in the warm afternoon sun cascading through one of the skylights built into the library's ceiling and huffed to get her bed hair out of her face.
Diana lay on the opposite side of the table, catching a nap with opened books that looked older than the world itself encircling her head. Stella cheekily moved her head to the side, allowing the sun's beam to land directly on Diana's sleeping face.
The black-haired girl groaned and tried to subconsciously hide behind the pile of books to escape the sun.
"Say, Diana." Stella poked the top of Diana's head with a pencil.
Diana pushed herself off the desk with another groan and squinted at Stella, "Whatchu want? Morning already?"
"Afternoon." Stella corrected the girl with a smile, "Do you think we should head back?"
"Head back?" Diana blinked, and then relief washed over her, "Oh please, yes, I hate books, and we have been here for months! But wait..." Her eyes wandered over the mountain of old books and hundreds of pages covered in squiggly lines that were apparently ancient runes. "...you learned it all?"
Stella shook her head sadly, "Not even close, but I should be able to piece together the general gist of a message Tree leaves. But more importantly—" Stella pointed to the stack of paper, "—I copied all the books so I can continue to practice once we leave here."
Diana huffed as she stood up, "Some crazy dedication there to learn such an old and useless language."
Stella laughed lightly as she walked around the desk and the stack of paper vanished into her spatial ring, "Old? Definitely. Useless? Absolutely not. I'm on the cusp of figuring out how to make some runic arrays with this old language. Maybe Ash can help me fill in the gaps?"
Diana's voice dropped to a whisper as the pair walked side by side through the labyrinth of bookcases, "Are you sure shortening a future world tree's name to Ash is a good idea? Will it tolerate that?"
Stella rolled her eyes, "Ashlock is such a long name. Ash is so much cuter."
Diana let out a long sigh as the two walked down the marble steps and made their way out of the library into the summer afternoon sun. She almost wept tears of joy at finally smelling fresh air. It had been many months since Diana had last been outside.
"Talking of cute..." Stella grinned from the side as she pushed her hair behind her ear, "Wanna go shopping before we head back?"
Diana had never heard such sweet words—she grabbed Stella's hand, causing the girl to yelp, and dragged her toward the most expensive shopping district. She still had a lot of crowns saved up in her spatial ring to spend.
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