Level 100 and the rank up brings change, and a lot of benefits. One of the key changes is a UI change, as my interfaces become much more organised, and menus expanded. There are more tooltips as well, and information about my skills improved.

Size wise, the rank up brought about greater size and range. Twice as large, almost eight stories high, and my roots extend wider. And deeper roots, which leads to my discovery of how the demons appeared.

Deep tunnels. The rock centipedes dug tunnels deep beneath the ground, and used them to move their forces without beig detected. They covered the entrances, but these tunnels, their reach is well beyond my range, and perhaps even into the demon lands as well.

Valuable information, perhaps I can trade something for it.

The sudden increase in size overnight scares the humans, but they are too preoccupied with the dead to do anything. It seems to [camouflage] and [illusion] confuses them. With this new size, I have eight large branches, and the new skills allows me to set some of them as an [essence generator], creating essences of the moon, the sun, and nature. These can later be used as part of the forming process of the items and things I want to create as weapons. From the little I gather of the heroes and warriors, demons are generally weak against stellar materials, like metals of an asteroid.

My healing room too changed, and now it has something like a pod, where a body can be fully submerged within. Rebuilding bodies some day in the future. Attached is also a lab-like area, a small underground room filled with roots, pods, and other things, like a spawning pool.

I activate [soul realm]. I feel my consciousness shift, and I appear in a vast space filled with little floating lights. These, little wisps, they float and swirl around, and… they seem to whisper and chatter endlessly in a language I do not understand.

“What is this place?”

“This is your soul realm, and this is one of the strongest powers of a spirit tree.” A wisp floats before me, it is different from the other wisps in that it is green, while the others are white. “Here, are all the souls of those who have died in your vicinity. Here, they lay dormant, resting, waiting...”

“For?”

“For their onward travel to the afterlife. Tree spirits, as the elves once advised you, are the beacons of souls, attracting those who died. You, also function as a pitstop, refreshing the souls, and souls who are stronger are more likely to make the travel to the afterlife, where will they reenter the cycle of life. Your very existence here prevents the presence of regular stray ghosts, but in turn, the ghosts exists all in and within you.”

I pause and I look at this green wisp explaining all this to me. “And... you are?”

“I am Wisp, a creation made of the combined souls who did not make the cut for the journey to the afterlife, and my role is to support and guide the newly dead. I have existed within you, from the very moment you transformed into a spiritual tree. You have many questions, and I will answer them.”

He first guides us to a tree filled with little lights, like fireflies in a swamp. "These are souls of the recently dead. The faint white ones are humans, and as you can see, its currently mostly humans, but we can also see that there are little souls with different colors, and these are the mixed race humans."

Wisp floats over to one black tree branch, with tiny little lights there, these lights are smaller than the other souls. They look like little blinking sparks on a dark tree.

“These are the leftover souls, fragments and souls that have degraded, or some that just do not want to be reincarnated. At their current state, they have lost their identity and awareness, so they become just a shell. So, they can be used to create things, custom familiars, infused into weapons, merged together… quite versatile, all in.”

And after that, Wisp led me to another black branch that’s split in half.

“This is the [soul forge], where you can make even more things with the remnants, but it’s inactive at the moment, as you need to either connect to a magical leyline, or gain more levels such that you can power it yourself. It connects to the pod in your secret hideout."

I pause, and I ask, "Why is the soul realm a powerful ability?"

The wisp twirls. "The soul is at the core of power in this world. It is souls that gain experience and levels, and the body expresses that extra experience and levels."

"But why do people train their bodies then?"

"Because the body changes the soul. It is a feedback loop. A strong healthy body nourishes the soul, and vice versa."

"Okay. You said this is a strong ability. Why?"

"..." The Wisp pauses. And twirls around.

And it twirls and spins a while more, before it pauses.

"...because to change a soul, is to amend destiny."