Year 76 Month 10 Continued

So.

Now that things are returning back to normal for me, somewhat, is to focus on the volcano. The volcano clearly is a point of great interest to me, as it generates so much heat and energy, something I would need for my valley.

But, the next phase involves defeating the magma monsters that spawn near the volcano, and protecting my trees. And from the initial skirmishes between the beetles and the magma monsters, they didn’t do well at all. It takes about 5 beetles to beat 1 magma monster, because the magma monsters are able to burn the beetles when they get near, and the beetles attack by ramming the magma monsters with their horns.

So, bad matchup, really. And that’s one problem I need to fix. I can’t manually go in and use root strike on the magma monsters. Okay, actually I can, but it’s just that, if I do that personally then I don’t have time to do other stuff, so I need the beetles or whatever solution I come up with, to be able to act somewhat autonomously.

“Horns, any ideas?”

“Research fire resistant protective shells, and magical horns, for more power!”

“That’ll take 3 and 6 months, master.” Trevor giving the numbers, “But that’ll delay our other research on further enhancements to the tree’s resistances.”

“Ugh.” I want all the research. This feels like playing those games with huge tech trees and you just want to choose all of them available options, because in some ways, you do need them all. “Recommendations?”

“We could spread out our time on both of them.” Trevor and Dimitree said in unison. “But it’ll be a 2 month delay for the other 2 projects.”

“No. I want them too.”

So, the next step is more forest minds, but clearly I am limited in this aspect.

“Are you willing to consider my help, now?” Alexis speaks up.

“...” I’ll think about it.

Year 76 Month 11

Winter! Well, its rather comfortable this winter, thanks to the hot water piped from the lake, and my new winter resistance aura.

The New Freekans are doing well, fortifying themselves and they did manage to build up a large stockpile of food. It seems their indecision led to Salah denouncing the truce, and now they even accuse the New Freekas of collaborating with the enemies. So, the truce is off!

But, even though the truce is off, it did not descend into war directly. After all, Salah is still tied up in their conflict with Nung and Takde, and the winter also severely impairs their ability to wage any assault on New Freeka. Its actually a norm in the world, that war is declared but actual fighting does not happen until some time later, and for certain human nations, there are even rules of engagements that the rulers follow, or they find themselves having awarded cursed titles, for falling out of favor of the human war gods.

Gaya, apparently, is one such god that demand certain rules of engagement. That battles are fought on open fields, each battle starts with a commander leading the charge, there is clear publicly declared casus belli behind the conflict, and that a large prayer is held before each large war.

Strangely enough, despite how restrictive it sounds, Gaya as a god, participates rather directly in terms of larger conflicts, often granting commanders tremendous gifts. It is said that if heroes, the singular most powerful humans in the world failed, they would turn to the commanders of Gaya to defend the world, though, in reality, there is still a huge gap in their power. Gods in the world interact with it in a few ways, one through gifts, and there are rules around such gifts, that all gods follow, even the dark gods native to the world.

Well, I partly learned this from Alexis, because Alexis’s first acts when coming to this world, is actually to figure out how to go back, so she went on head on diving into books on gods, magic and all that. But of course, there are restrictions on going back, and one of those restrictions, placed by the million-headed hydra that watches over earth, is that the souls return clean. In short, they return without their powers or memories, though they may still experience dreams which reminds them of their past lives.

So back to war. The New Freekas are of course annoyed by the development, but knowing that Salah’s engagement won’t happen so soon, they decide to fortify themselves, to prepare for the coming conflict. Despite the cold winters, New Freeka’s population is a respectable 35,000, and so, they have the ability to field close to 13,000 fighters to the battle, which is a decent fighting force.

Salah may easily sent 50,000, or perhaps 100,000, but they are a far larger state with more competing priorities, and an ongoing war with the Nung and Takde. So unless Salah really provokes them, they may just let this little conflict carry on for a bit more.

Yvon though, is still trying to avoid war, so her negotiators now are instead focusing on who’s the real culprit of the Blood Blizzard, which, increasingly, is pointing towards the acts of a terrorist group that infiltrated the senior army leadership of all three nations, in order to carry out such a large sacrifice.

In short, even if they did find who was behind this, the emerging fact still points to all three nations contributing to the blood blizzard, and none of the three nations will want to implicate themselves in the spell, so… the war’s just going to go on.

So… too bad.

This week, I converted one of the large [subsidiary trees] into a training room at Lausanne’s requests. The weather outside is now far too cold for combat practice, so their swordfighting practice goes indoors.

She’s going to turn 8 soon, and despite her earlier lack of talents, she somehow managed to pick it up. Perhaps through a combination of [dream tutor] and [powerlevelling], she did acquire sufficient swordfighting skills to have simple spars with Jura.

And she has also started to gain levels. There seems to be some kind of barrier from gaining levels for very young children, but this level barrier is inconsistent, and varies across races. Out of curiosity I had her dip into one of the biolabs, just to check on her. I had a theory previously that young children, where their “spring” that connects their body to the soul, and vice versa, is not yet fully mature, then that person is unable to gain levels. I mean, prior to this I could not even have an assessment of Lausanne’s estimated soul rank, but now I could.

And my intuition is right. Indeed, her ‘spring’, the fountain which produces mana now has a consistent shape. This raises a big set of questions, as in, what exactly influences the size and shape of the fountain? I also have a few thoughts about this, one is whether all souls are the same, but there is some other thing which acts as the link between the soul and the body, and that then influences a person’s full ‘potential’, or, if the souls are different, then there should be a way to manipulate and change the qualities a soul have.

“Master, your using my root-brain to augment your theories again…” Trevor grumbles. Ah yes, it seems I sometimes unknowingly tap into the processing power of the trees to think. But this has the effect of taking away processing power from Trevor, which then impairs his performance. Think of the root-brain complex as a computer processor, and if I’m using it, Trevor can’t.

“I should have more root-brains.” It’s logical, no? I come from a world of quad cores and more. It would be fascinating if I somehow stitch all these root brains together into some kind of collective super-brain, no?

[Special project unlocked]

[The Grand Mind Tree - significantly boosts tree-related research output, and grants wider understanding of soul magics. Gains additional psychic-type magical abilities]

[Requires 10 x root brain complexes, and 1 ton of gold and 1 ton of quartz crystals. Once all prerequisites are complete, construction will take 1.5 years]

Ah. My own supercomputer. Well, kind of.

“Alexis, you’re redundant if I get this.”

“Noooooooooooooooooooo.” Alexis sighs, but then she pauses, “But you’re not going to get it so quickly. It’ll still take time. So, assign me to a biolab, please? You’re going to have to wait probably 2 to 3 years before you achieve it. Maybe more.”

She’s right though. It’s going to take a while. Construction of the root-brain complex itself requires 10 x Blood Crystals, and 50 x fresh animal heads, and so 10 root brains means a whole lot of blood crystals, and that means money, which we probably do not have.

“You’re right, Alexis. But I still don’t really trust you, so, I’ve decided that I will merge you with a biolab someday, but you will be watched and observed.”

“That’s okay. I rather tinker in the biological structure of trees and beetles than being stuck in this dark and dreary place. Can’t you do something about how gloomy your soul realm is? A biolab it is then.”

“It’s a transit lounge for souls to reincarnate. Not helpful for it to be a pleasant place to be. I can’t have too many souls not wanting to move on.” Well, to be fair, the souls only linger around for 6 months to a year, and after that they will move on. The soul realm, whether pleasant or not has no influence on this.

I got side tracked again. I mumble to myself and resume watching Lausanne. Her body’s really young, after all she’s only 7 turning 8. All the dream tutor has given her a rather varied set of skills, and so she’s actually pretty versatile as a person.

She still wants to be a hero, but lately she’s starting to understand that there’s a gap between herself and the true heroes that could change the world with their power, though somedays, she still believes she can stand up there. She’ll have to gain a lot more levels if she wants to. Only with levels, can she even think of standing up to a hero, who’s blessed by the heavens.

“TreeTree, do you have powers to you know… make me stronger?”

I do. The ginseng tree, and it grants a permanent boost. But the problem is that they just keep dying, usually after their first unlock. If I grow a ginseng tree inside me, maybe that’ll work. And it doesn’t help that they die within two to three month’s in this cold weather, so I’ll have to wait till the wizards actually manage to weaken or dispel this cold weather, before resuming my replanting of my 3 ginseng trees.

“I do, but you’ll have to wait.”

“Okay! I’ll need all the help I can get!” Lausanne raises her hand, like hurrah. “Uncle Jura says heroes are super super strong, and I’ll need all the blessings the world can give me to be as strong as them.”

Hmmm…

That’s actually possible. Perhaps throughout the world there are various ‘permanent’ blessings, similar to ginseng trees. If a person could gather enough of them, they could be as strong as heroes.

“I think I should go on a journey someday, with Uncle Jura and mom. To get those blessings.”

“That’s a good idea Lausanne…”

Jura’s healed, but his bones still need to fully recover. So he’s just doing simple exercises, and relying on Bamboo to provide training to Lausanne. Bamboo and Jura actually manage to achieve some kind of bond, and Bamboo now manifests itself as a flexible wooden arm for Jura, so Jura’s back to being two-handed.

Kinda like a prosthetic, but with a summon. Quite a cool outcome actually, I frankly didn’t think of that. It’s not as good as a real arm, of course, but as workarounds go, it’s pretty good since Bamboo and Jura as a familiar has a mental link.

“Bamboo is due for upgrade too.” Yes, So is Horns.

“I think i’ll go on a journey when I turn 15. That’s when they say we’re old enough to start travelling. Then Uncle Jura can go with me.”

I nod. Lausanne talks to me a lot and that means she listens to my thoughts about the future. Strangely, I think this means I’ve influenced here to think about what she wants to do, unlike the rest of them who tends to look at things at a shorter time frame.

“How’s Brislach and Wahlen doing?”

“They’re working in New Freeka. I think Brislach’s working in a shop selling potato breads.”

“Ah…” Wasn’t she doing something else. Ah well. Not everyone has ambitions of the grand kind, and that’s not a fault.

“Wahlen’s working in the treasurer’s office as a administrator. He’s learning how to read and write too.”

Literacy. It’s a mix and match in this world, most of them time it is taught by a village elder in the small villages, and to some extent it is a valuable skill, useful in government matters and trade. Some cultures have stronger emphasis on reading, some less. Elves surprisingly do not have much emphasis on writing and reading, as their long lives tend to mean they will pick it up over the years. They also seem to favor oral traditions, having an appointed old one in every village to remember the traditions and ceremonies. Certain subtleties that the written word cannot capture.

“I should learn to read and write too. A hero must be smart!”

“Knowing how to read does not make you smart, Lausanne.”

“Is it? But at least I’m not stupid!”

“Not knowing how to read does not make you stupid.”

“Less stupid.” She mumbles. “I can work if I know to how to read and write. Good for travelling.”

“Good point.” Writers are useful, they are often paid to write letters and messages. Some writers double up as messengers, and sort of mailmen, and this is usually a relatively good way to gain admission into a merchant association or guild. “Ever thought of being a merchant? That’s a good way to travel the world without involving yourself in too much fighting.”

“A hero as a merchant?” Lausanne slumps, but then she is actually thinking about it.

“Yeah. Why can’t heroes be merchants?”

She’s seriously thinking about it.

To be fair, I haven’t heard of a merchant hero before. Their neutrality kinds of make it hard for them to play the role of a ‘hero’, which has to take a side.

“Lausanne, rest time’s up. Practice.” Jura calls, and he picks up a wooden practice sword and shield. Thanks to Bamboo’s augmented limb, he can now teach Lausanne the standard sword and shield method of fighting.

“A hero as a merchant…” It’s still on her mind, but then she stands and rejoins Jura in the middle of the training-tree. Essentially, it’s a large empty room in a tree.

As Jura and Lausanne resume their regular practice, I then turn my attention to the volcanic area once more. Some of the magma monsters are getting a little bit aggressive and I have to periodically kill them to protect the subsidiary trees there.

The volcano is an active volcano, it’s caldera partly blown apart, so there’s a part where there is liquid lava flowing out of it. As is the norm in the world, this leads to magma monsters spawning, and from what the beetles have seen further inside, there are larger magma monsters closer to the caldera.

So far, they are territorial, so they don’t seem to attack us if we do not approach.

“Master, it is time I get an upgrade.” Horns suggests. He’s fully recovered now, so he is due for an upgrade, since he capped out at level 20 earlier. Bamboo too, so I took the chance to review their upgrade requirements.

[Horns, Level 20 Beetle Knight]

Upgrade options available :

Blue - Baron Beetle - 5 x blue crystals, 30 x almost-complete skeleton of a large animal

Gains commander effects, which grants nearby beetle increased abilities

Black - Beetle Dark Knight - 10 x obsidian rocks, 20 x large claws

Gains combat skills

[Bamboo, Level 20 Woodbear Eidolon]

Upgrade options available :

Blue - Armor path - 50 small copper ingots & 5 medium red rubies needed

Gains defensive abilities Black - Claw path - 50 small iron ingots & 5 medium onyx needed.

Gains offensive abilities

[Trevor, Level 27 Forest MInd]

[Will be unlocked at level 30]

Black - Skull Shell - 10 x Bone of a wyvern, 1 x heart of a lion and 50 x Bones of a lizard

Gains a ghostly projection

All these upgrades impose a lot of resource requirements. So I’ll need more resources.

‘You require more minerals.’ Dimitree chimes in, with a russian accent. It reminds me of a wraith. Or is that a terran goliath?

Ah yes. “You’ve been taking in a bit too much of my game references.”

“Ah whatever. If I want these resources, I’ll get them from New Freeka.”

---

“The tree spirit demands what?”

The advisors look concerned, when Yvon shares my resource demands with the rest of her council.

“Blood crystals, gold, quartz crystals, copper and iron ingots, rubies, onyx, blue crystals.” Yvon repeats, but she clearly understands their concern.

One of Yvon’s closest advisors then clarifies, “it’s more of a… request than a demand, right?”

Yvon shrugs, “I’m not too sure if I understand the tree spirit correctly, but I think it sounds more like a demand than a… request.”

“Should we?” One of the advisors look really worried. “It feels a bit like extortion.”

“I believe most of you have seen the Tree Spirits combat abilities, and it’s incredible abilities throughout this valley… The recent hot water spring around the tree of prayer is a recent addition.”

“It’s hard though, those goods are not regular stuff. They are jewels or crystals…. I mean, even the cheapest of those are the blood crystals and the quartz. The tree’s asking for a lot.”

“Well, the recent burst in natural growth, and the hot water in the valley helped us alot too.”

And it quickly seems clear that it’s divided into two camps, one who thinks that my demands are reasonable given my assistance to their survival, and there’s a bunch who thinks it’s excessive and they should only give what they can manage.

Yvon mostly stayed out of it, asking the council to decide, as her soul is contracted to me, she says she is not a ‘neutral’ party to the decision.

Of course, from my point of view, I know that these people need a bit of… encouragement.

So I decide to withdraw all the hot water piping into the New Freeka, and so in this cold month, they had a really cold week.After that week, they met up again and agreed that it is best not to offend me, so decided to support my demands. I think between Salah and me, they’ve decided to be on my good side.

Year 76 Month 12

[Monsters slain. You’ve gained a level. Level 129!]

[You’ve gained a new skill : Training Treehouse]

[Training treehouse improves experience gain, skill gain chances, and reduces injuries significantly]

Uh. This sounds like an extension of my training room. Seriously, this system leans heavily of the nurturing, growing side of things, but really sparingly, grants me offensive abilities.

I suppose if I want to work around the tree, I need to think like the system. If I was designing a system for a tree, what would I think about?

My suspicions is that a system in which a soul tree is at the center of, focuses on a few core principles. Again, this is just a theory that I have, based on what I experience so far.

‘Grow, nurture and endure’

This is the first, core principle with any tree. The logical driver behind any tree is to grow, to expand, and so, I should get a wide range of abilities that promote growth, and allow me to endure wide variety of damage, and still recover. And with it, the ability to ‘support’ young things, and also build an ecosystem with the tree as the foundation.

‘Enhance and adapt’

A tree that expands would need to adapt to various environments, and react to the challenges that are unique to this world. This is the evolutionary, research side of what I suspect is a natural inclination. If trees are unable to react in a world where magic is native, then trees would quickly go extinct. So, I believe the trees in this magical world have natural adaptation abilities superior to that of our world, and the system supports them.

Then, there’s the ‘Soul abilities’ which arise as a ‘soul tree’. These are not natural tree abilities, but exist because I am a soul-related kind of entity, and so the system has to grant me abilities that are natural for a soul-tree to have.

Thinking along these lines, if I intend to get more offensive abilities, it would grow as a result of working towards more ‘enhancement’ and ‘adaptation’, as a result of a tree being forced to defend itself.

In other words, to ‘game’ the system to give me offensive abilities, I must put myself into a situation where self-defense is a required adaptation.

Now how do I go about doing that…

…

…

Never mind, I quickly upgrade that empty training room into this “training treehouse”, so that Lausanne can benefit from it.

Oh, and I begin to test out those carnivorous plants that I got.

They function more like traps, really, and they spring out to eat anything about the size of wolves. Which is pretty good. But, the drawback is the digestive period is quite long, so essentially, if a huge swarm of demon hounds come along, they’ll be full very quickly.

So, useful under certain circumstances, but it’s use in a large scale combat is probably limited.

If anything, what I would need is a firebreathing tree. I mean, imagine it, if a tree can breath fire, or even poison, that would be pretty useful. And such options are indeed available on my research options.

Being frustrated at how slow my research it, I eventually decide to take a chance on Alexis.

“If you try anything funny, I will kill you.”

“Understood, but I am soul-contracted to you, so don’t worry about it. We’re aligned, trust me.”

“I can’t. But I’ll give you the opportunity to prove me wrong.”

I initially would have preferred Meela, but the soul-contract is an additional layer of protection I have, so after some thinking, it’s actually better to use Alexis first. If Meela gone rogue, I may find that I have less means of retaliating.

[Initiating soul forge]

[Combining Alexis with an external biolab]

[Combining…]

A bolt of thunder strikes the forge tree, and from it, emerges a glowing blue seed, it’s as large as a dog, and it floats over to the external biolab that I’ve chosen, and that blue seed embeds itself in it.

[Alexis has successfully merged with an external biolab!]

[Alexis is now a laboratory spirit, level 1]

Huh.

“Oh wow.” She mumbles, she manifests herself as a glowing blue ghost inside the laboratory. “There’s so much data… so much… data.”

“Uh.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine! This is amazing.” She seems to be looking at some kind of interface, tapping into my stored records of all the biolab scans I have done in the past, including herself. “Even my own records are here. I’ve never realised what you’ve been looking at!”

At this point, I decide to just observe her for a while.

“This is amazing.”

The external biolab which she now possesses, and is part of her, is actually a tree with a hollow interior, filled with pods, and various equipments for testing. It has a ‘transportation’ system, in which a beetle delivers any of its required materials, for research.

“Your visual way of representing the soul and the body-mind connection is incredible. I’ve read books on the theoretical basis of magic, and how the souls interact with the body, but this… this is mindblowing. It’s amazing how intuitive it is, representing it as a spring and a field which that spring nourishes. All those magical theory books make life difficult by overcomplicating the terminology and using difficult to understand words. This. This is concise!”

Oh. Okay. She’s really dived into the deep end. I honestly didn’t think of it as that… unique, but I suppose humans with no access to the [biolab] would find it that way.

“Alexis, are you okay?” Meela asks, sounding a bit concerned.

“Oh more than okay. This is amazing. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to find when I was trying to research magic! You should see this.”

“You know I don’t like that kind of stuff.” Meela shrugs.

“Ah yes, but I’m fine. I’m really fine.”

Meela sighs, “I sometimes forget how much of a nerd you can be.”

“Hey!” Alexis floats and looks at other stuff. “The representation of the demon’s presence as a parched fire with a dried field is also fascinating. It seems to imply the demonic energies is antithesis to our own, and opens up so many options on how we can counteract their presence. What’s this, a data set on our star mana and those floating vases pouring out star mana? Holy cow, this is like… mindblowing too! What else do you have!!!” Alexis is constantly floating about the biolab, looking at more and more interfaces.

Meela turns to me. “When she reads a great book, she can’t stop talking about it. I think she’s in that phase again.”

“Meela! Seriously! This information can advance magic research by decades!”

At this point, I decide to cut in. “Alexis, your task is to research the beetles, and the countermeasures necessary to conquer the volcano. Don’t get side tracked.”

“Ah yes, yes. But can you give me a week, let me just have a look at this huge pile of data you have. I’m sure there’s some other amazing stuff in here.”

“No. I will not tolerate disobedience on your first day of as a biolab spirit. Get to work.”

She sighs, and then she nods. “Okay okay. I’ll do it, but give me daily free time alright. I work 8 hours a day, alright. The remaining hours are mine for rest and my own activities. I really want to look at all these data!”

“12 hours. And you will be monitored.”

“Ah fine. I know.” And she gained a level. Although her god’s blessing is lost when she died, she still retains quite a fair bit of perks, one of which, is the experience perks.

Beetle winter adaptation stage II - 4 Months remaining Volcanic adaptation stage II - 6 months remaining. Tree winter adaptation stage II - 6 months remaining Beetle volcanic battleform - 3 months remaining (may complete earlier) Beetle volcanic defensive armors- 2 months remaining (may complete earlier)

On the New Freeka front, they had an envoy from Nung and Takde. It seems that Nung and Takde now wants to aid New Freeka in their ‘resistance’ against Salah, but the person sent by Nung is slimy beyond belief, so Yvon and the advisors found it hard to agree with them.

There are no ‘good guys’ in this war between the 3 nations. All of them have their own goals, and all three wants a piece of each other, though Nung and Takde are now ‘allies’ as a result of their mutual enemies.

Under other circumstances, they would probably attack each other.

So, once again, New Freeka’s council cannot decide. They don’t really want to turn down their aid, but at the same time, these 2 nations aren’t the most upstanding and honest of nations. Well, one of the key skills a leader needs to have, is to decide. Sometimes picking a choice is more important than evaluating which one is right. But Yvon’s style seems to be more concerned on what’s right. She has a need to be ‘morally’ correct, at least from her perspective, and that clouds her ability to sometimes make tough, probably cruel decisions.

Ah well.