"Our wills are linked, but they are not truly one," said Iona with a sly smile. "So, I cannot read your mind, no matter how much I so desire. I await in anticipation of what you shall bestow upon me."

"First of all, I have to give you a proper farewell. I do not know how long I will be away, though I sincerely doubt it will be too long."

"We are never apart, Great One," said Iona. "Though your physical form may wander, here-," She touched a hand to her heart. "We are always connected. A farewell is quite redundant in that regards."

"Yes, but proper farewells never hurt. I would have given you one before you were my Root, so I do not see why that should change now," said Li. 

"The sapling priest is right, too," said Iona. "Your absence is temporary. No need for dramatic goodbyes, especially when we ponder the vast breadth of time we shall occupy as spirit and divinity."

"I suppose you are right, and I can see your difficulty to accept basic kindness is starting to show again. And sapling?" said Li amusedly. "I'm sure Ivo would be quite peeved at having his many decades of experience and collected wisdom reduced to the moniker of 'sapling'".

"To mine eyes, he seems a sapling. All mortals do," said Iona. "Which is why it is so rewarding to see them learn and grow under my tutelage."

"I was not able to relate to that feeling before, but now," said Li. He looked to eastwards, to the fields, where even now, he could feel the lives of his followers beat and flow and flux as they struggled and laughed and worked. "I can understand that sentiment, if even a little."

"More than you think," said Iona. "The amount of divine strength you are bearing now is worthy of praise. In a year's time, I am certain you will be able to shoulder the full burden of your true nature with ease."

"A year?" Li knew that sounded like a long time, and before he came to this world, he would have felt it long too. But now, when he heard time broken down into years, he felt it all too tiny a measure. A little droplet in the expanse of infinity he would occupy.

A few times, when he sat down to meditate, his mind sometimes wandered, thinking, reflecting, and when it touched upon the topic of immortality and what it meant and its inevitable losses, he felt twinges of loneliness. 

Twinges that he smoothed over by knowing that he would always have a greater duty to work towards.

"I suppose that is quick, all things considered. In any case, here is my true gift," said Li. 

Li put a hand into his pocket, closing his eyes as he felt his hand sink into the void of his treasured seed pouch. He mentally envisioned the garden he once planted, the precious seeds he had spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours toiling towards with so many friends. 

For quite a while, he had been planning to use this seed. It symbolized so much. Where the Everfortune Blossom signified a new beginning, this one symbolized the highest of heights. The greatest accomplishment of his guild and of his own personal gaming career.

In his reflections, he had deemed this seed the one to plant many years down, after many of his mortal connections had frayed with age, and when he would transition his faith into something greater. Something global. 

But, as it stood, beyond all the sentimental values attached to it, that seed was also the strongest defensive tool that Li had in his entire arsenal. Beyond any spell he had, Ultima-rank or not, and he would not hold back on using it to protect what he had made for himself now. 

He would take this precaution without a shred of hesitation. He knew the chance was infinitesimally low, but in the incredibly rare case that, in his absence, his followers were attacked by something that exceeded the power that even Iona or the twelve Justicars could muster – and there were beings or objects in this world capable of that -, they needed something to protect them.

Something that could protect them absolutely. Without question or cause for concern. Regardless of whether they fought an Armageddon inducing salvo of weaponry or a corrupted god wielding unimaginable power. 

"Here," said Li as he withdrew his pale hand from his pocket. 

At the center of his palm, a glowing, iridescent bright light shone, completely burning away the dark of night in its green-tinged radiance. The culprit of the shimmering, ever wavering glow was a surprisingly mundane looking seed. 

It looked like an elongated oval of flaxen, light green material, and it only spanned the size of Li's palm. Between each individual plant fiber, however, there seemed to be little crystalline growths, and looking deep into them, in each little twinkling diadem, one would be able to see sights of monumental vastness – crashing waves atop oceans, canyons spanning unimaginable distances, forests dominating the horizon, and the like. 

Iona froze, and her lip trembled as she beheld the seed. She looked at Li, her eyes glowing with bright fire that signaled amazement. She seemed hesitant to even look at the seed, let alone reach out and touch it. 

"This…this is…" Iona could not finish her sentence, absorbed as she was in the sheer gravity of the seed's presence, but Li could tell from their shared connection that she recognized what it was. He could not say he was surprised.

"Yes," said Li. "I am entrusting the [Seed of Yggdrasil] to you. Keep it with you, keep it close to you. If ever in my absence you feel this forest or my followers facing something that can threaten their entire existence, then plant this, and do not let any know of its existence otherwise."

"To plant such a seed, why, I do not know," said Iona. "I do not know how the World itself will change. I am not worthy of deciding such a change."

"But I am, and I know it will change for the better," said Li. "And, at the very least, the lives under us will be safe, no matter what. I am willing to risk any measure of change for that."

The [Seed of Yggdrasil]. Perhaps one of the rarest, if not the rarest seed in the entirety of Elden World, even throughout its many expansions. Rivalled and mirrored only by the [Heart of Darkness], a seed that embodied all the darkness flowing through the world, but Li did not have that seed. One of the few seeds that escaped Li's grasp. 

For it was only one or the other.

The plotline for obtaining the seed was as dramatic as it got. It involved the entire world ending due to an invasion from eldritch entities, and it was one of three server-wide events, and the last one that Elden World ever conducted.

It caused players from across the entire server to engage in massive raid battles with the Old Gods. Some players who managed to deal enough damage to the bosses even went back in time to chase down the raid bosses as in lore, the entities could freely pass through the space-time continuum. 

Some even went to other planets to finish them off, though the planets ended up basically just being large arenas for the boss fights and not actual new worlds to explore. 

At the very end, a select group of one hundred of the top players that had done the most damage to the eldritch bosses would engage in a mass raid against the final boss, learning to cooperate with each other where before they very likely would have been at each other's throats from having been the top players of opposing guilds. 

And with that boss's defeat, the one hundred mightiest heroes of Elden world saved the world from annihilation, and each of the one hundred players was granted a Celestial-tier item completely customized and tailored for them. The devs even allowed the players to talk with them and suggest what type and kind of item they wished. 

For Li, it was a decision between the [Seed of Yggdrasil] symbolizing life or the [Heart of Darkness] symbolizing death - a fitting choice for his game character that balanced both light and dark aspects. After some deliberation, he had settled on the [Seed of Yggdrasil], wanting to reward his guild for their strenuous efforts instead of using the [Heart of Darkness] which was solely an individual boost to strength.

When the seed was planted, it sprouted into a World Tree, the strongest defensive fortification in the entire game, and atop of its celestial branches, Li relocated Arboretum, crowning the tree and sharing success with the entire guild. 

Li loved those times. That was the absolute peak of the guild, and the peak of the game, too. 

Strangely on part of the devs, they pushed out precious little new content afterwards, and some players speculated that the huge event had cost them too much money or that they were burned out and were working on a new game. Some believed the game was just at its natural end, as it was a little hard to develop new content that felt challenging, fresh, and new after such a massive event.

Nevertheless, eventually, the players of Elden World moved onto different games, and in three years' time, Li was one of the few remaining players staying in a game that had far passed its prime.

Although, Li thought with some amusement, perhaps it was just like him to fixate on things that had passed their prime or lost meaning with time. 

"This also means an immense amount to you," said Iona as shades of Li's memories and feelings flickered into her. "Your most prized possession, and rightfully so. Are you truly, truly certain you wish to entrust this with me? I cannot be worthy of this."

"This is a relic from another world. Another life." Li smiled. "It is no longer my dearest treasure. You are. You, and all the lives that have let me experience a new life with real meaning. A life with hope where I can reach out and shape my future with my very own hands.

It belongs to you, and hopefully, it will come to belong to all those who wish to seek shelter under the branches of the tree it sprouts."