As I returned to the cave under the tree, I was satisfied with the gains I had made from the battle. Not only I had destroyed the most immediate threat of the undead assault, but I achieved that without revealing myself.
The giant guardian tree in the middle of nowhere was not any less inconspicuous, but for all intents of purposes, it belonged to elves, which the undead was already fighting against. They had no idea there was a meddler in their battle, nor they had the ability to actually give chase without identifying me.
That didn’t prevent me from creating a new plan for my underground base, one with several more escape tunnels. If the worst happened, and the undead decided to attack with a force that I couldn’t push back despite my abilities, I could always drain the tree of its divine spark and leave.
The battle already netted more than four hundred points of Divine Spark, which was far more than I had hoped, enough to improve all my stats by another point.
A rather excellent gain for a day’s battle.
When I arrived back at my cave, I split my attention into two. Most of my attention went to digging new tunnels and crafting new wards, with much greater speed than I could push ordinarily. The undead was already gone, I wasn’t afraid of them.
I avoided the attention of the elves in a different manner, and directed the physical roots of the tree to spread around, the constant mana output hiding my own tunnel spreading deep into the ground.
A thick root moved toward the river in particular, and created a complicated web, and I had created a ward on top of it to channel all the necrotic energy into the tree. I even wasted some Divine Spark to create the ward, softening the necrotic mana before it was devoured by the tree.
{- 5 Pure Divine Spark}
A waste, maybe, but after the gains of the battle, I was more willing to treat divine spark as a resource than a treasure that needed to be kept hidden desperately.
The tree started converting all the mana the undead continued to provide into its food, which, combined with the impressive amount of mana it could get from the Aether, created a wave of nature mana.
Curious, I even poked my head to observe my surroundings. As the mana spread, the dead land regained its vitality rapidly, desolate turning alive.
On the other hand, I continued to observe the movement of the elves. Most of them were already worshipping the tree, and only a small portion of it going through the battlefield to find a clue or work to prepare defenses.
Normally, the lack of practicality would have annoyed me, but considering their action was already generating benefits for me, I was more than happy to forgive the strategic stupidity of their actions.
{+0.7 Nature Spark, God Tree}
All that remained was to make a decision about whether to communicate with them directly or indirectly, and what would be their method of communication.
After some consideration, I decided to choose a mixture of the two in, a direct, but restricted manner. And, the best target was the priestess that was currently leading the worship, which could be the best way to communicate.
Of course, it was a completely practical decision, and had nothing to do with her beautiful strawberry blonde hair, or the way the furs she wore wrapped her body in a way that showed an extremely curvy body.
Not at all, as I was never a person that would compromise my strategic decisions based on attraction.
Never…
No matter how delicious was the glimpse of flesh I received whenever she moved.
I chuckled even as I cast a spell, and several branches moved down toward the priestess, and roots burst out of the tree as well. Just like the attack I had delivered on the death knights, just much slower, enough to show that it was not an attack.
It triggered a discussion between the priestess and the others. Even without knowing their language, the situation was clear. The priestess was willing to follow the mysterious direction of the tree, while some argued against it.
It seemed that the priestess had some power. She was able to dismiss their arguments quickly and let the roots and branches gather around her, until it created a chrysalis around her, cutting her from the outside.
The nature mana gathered around the wooden chrysalis, thick enough to make any probing attempt completely useless even if the elves stopped worshiping.
Meanwhile, the tunnel deposed the beautiful priestess to my lair. She looked at me with panic — understandable — as she took a step back, her arms raised.
Her alertness reduced as I raised my hand, letting a great amount of nature mana filled the room. She said something.
I shrugged before I cast a spell, and several pictures appeared in sequence, the magic allowing me to draw those pictures in a very detailed manner.
The first picture showed me fighting against a group of undead, and the second picture showed the same, but against many more undead, enough to make it a desperate battle. The third one showed me floating in a complicated device as the undead destroyed my plane — as I didn’t want to casually reveal my ability to travel unaided through primordial Aether.
The fourth one showed me landing in their plane, and the fifth one showed elves and zombies fighting. Then I added several more, each detailing some of my more visible contributions to the battle — though I had positioned more as some kind of alliance with the tree rather than directly controlling it.
Naturally, the pictures didn’t show my real origin, but a fictional origin of another dimension fighting against the undead, populated by humans that also used nature mana to fight against the enemy.
A good explanation for my current status.
She tried to say something, but I failed to understand, and she draw a picture. One that asked me to go upstairs.
My answer was ready. With another picture, I displayed that, if she actually told me about my presence, I would just leave.
She nodded hesitantly.
I smiled as I flared my mana, and a wooden chair grew next to her, and she sat down, thoughtful, trying to come to a decision.
I used the opportunity to examine her in a more detailed manner, taking note of her beautiful almond eyes, bright green enough to rival the leaves of the guardian tree, her flawless skin that contrasted interestingly with her wild aura, her pouty lips that curled in indecision.
After some long consideration, she drew another picture, with her talking with the other elves while pointing at me, then crossed, then draw a large square, empty.
Asking what to say if she stayed silent.
I didn’t find her decision too suspicious. The undead invasion was a desperate situation, with their defeat certain, making such a trust less reckless and more hopeless.
I drew another picture, this time showing two of her, one showing her casting a spell, with limited impact, the other showing her casting a much bigger spell, even more ease, with the shadow of the tree behind her.
She looked at me, her question clear without drawing a picture.
I summoned a small fruit, glowing with energy.
Her panic was clear. She quickly drew a picture, of eating a glowing fruit, with power. Then, she drew another picture, this time someone eating two fruits, and dying.
The rather expected result of different Divine Sparks clashing. There were many ways of stopping that, but all required a significant amount of mana control. For all intents of purposes, that level of mana control was not accessible for elves, at least for the ones I already met.
I responded with another picture, first similar to hers, two fruits killing someone. Then, I followed with the picture of a ritual, treating one of the fruits with some kind of ascension, and the next picture showed someone eating two fruits, one ordinary and one special, and getting powerful.
She looked at it, thoughtful.
I threw her the fruit. She grabbed it in panic and reverence mixed, then turned to look at me, her expression sharp.
I couldn’t help but chuckle as I caught her expression, surprisingly similar to what Helga wore whenever she noticed me treating the books with disrespect.
That didn’t last long, however, as she turned her attention to the monumental decision in front of her, trembling in hesitation. I said nothing, giving her a chance to make her decision without interruption.
After several minutes, a determined expression appeared on her face, and she ate the small fruit in one bite, showing her decision.
The fruit was completely empty except for some nature mana, just there to give me an excuse to meddle with her. I let my mana invade her body, checking her current strength.
She was stronger than the mage that sacrificed himself in terms of Divine Spark, almost four points in my new measurement scale, but the divine spark was even more solid and less integrated.
That changed rapidly under my control. I increased the integration with the divine spark to the demigod level, while also transferring some spark from the tree to her.
{-6 Nature Spark, God Tree}
{+6 Nature Spark, Elven Priestess}
It took a while for her to adapt to changes, but I was getting rather proficient in helping the merger process, especially for such small amounts.
As a result, not only did her Divine Spark increase more than double, but her flexibility increased significantly… A nice meeting gift.
As she looked at me in fascination, realizing just how powerful she had become, I drew another picture, this time showing a group of elves digging guardian trees from other locations, burying them around our god tree.
She looked at it a bit before nodding. After communicating with her a bit more, I sent her back to the surface.
I would have loved to seduce her immediately, but we had a lot of work to do.
{Strength: 8 Charisma: 7
Precision: 7 Perception: 8
Agility: 7 Manipulation: 8
Speed: 8 Intelligence: 8
Endurance: 8 Wisdom: 8}
{Purified Divine Spark: 235}
{Pseudo-HP: 869 Mana: 5460}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 2.1}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Tree - 201}
Elven Priestess - 8}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
