After the disastrous chain of events that left me helpless in the new world that was going through a hopeless undead assault, the last thing I had expected to have a…
Holiday.
It certainly felt like a holiday with everything that was going on. The area was a gray hellscape when I had first visited, and right now, an area of several miles was covered with a lush, beautiful forest, one that filled me with relaxation as I walked, my feet wading through thick grass.
There were forests as thick back in the main material plane, of course, but I could never fully relax back then, not with the ever-present risk of monsters attacking. Here, the growing forest was safe enough for me to drop my guard for a moment and enjoy the clean air, nature mana surrounding me gently.
Of course, I wasn’t having a moment to relax because I decided to avoid my responsibilities, a fact that was reminded me by an alert from a ward at the distance. I smirked as I moved toward the flicker, not even bothering to go to my tunnels, just pulling a simple illusion spell around me.
After a week spent hiding among elves, I had long realized that they relied upon their affinity with nature mana even more than their sharp eyes to notice any possible interloper. An excellent method to catch the undead, or even another elf, but not so good against someone with a greater competency of manipulating magic.
I passed hundreds of elves on the way to my destination, some caring for the trees, some preparing food, some going to a patrol with bows in hand… But most were busy worshiping, each moment creating another divine spark for me to enjoy.
Their presence was the reason I was spending time here rather than not moving. I didn’t need to move, with the elves migrating to my location in droves.
Already, the number of elves that were living around the tree were counted in tens of thousands, not just warriors, but also children, more than happy to move to a location that promised more safety over whatever little defense they had in their own tribe.
Luckily, they didn’t come empty-handed.
They brought their trees with them.
The presence of another guardian tree was what I felt, and I started moving toward the edge of the land, passing hundreds of other trees, and arriving at another robed mage — this time a young man — casting a spell to allow the trees to root.
I flared my magic, and the roots of the central tree wrapped to the guardian tree, flooding it with its presence, stealing two-thirds of the divine spark that was in the newest guardian tree that joined to the ever-growing forest, split equally between me and the main tree.
{+16 Nature Spark, God Tree}
{+21 Pure Divine Spark}
Well, almost equally.
I didn’t feel any guilt robbing the guardian tree of some of its divine spark, because, in exchange, its structure was flooded with nature mana, with purity and an amount that was impossible for it to reach on its own.
The tree was already tall when it was first brought, larger than a hundred feet, but it still looked at the edge of death, half of its leaves yellow, and the rest already brown and dried, outer branches showing signs of rotting.
Yet, the moment it merged into the forest, that reversed. Under the flood of nature mana provided by the tree, every sign of decay disappeared in seconds, and the tree started to grow with a visible speed.
Triggering another ceremony of worship for the elves.
It didn’t matter how much it grew, I thought as I looked at the center of the growing forest, to the original tree that was just a seed a week ago.
Now, hovering above the forest like a small mountain, already taller than a thousand feet, a giant radiating a sense of protection.
Most of the elves were encamped around the tree, dancing and worshiping the giant miracle that had given them hope against the ever-growing threat of the undead. They had seen the effectiveness with their eyes as undead sent several probing attacks, only to be destroyed under the flood of nature mana.
Not even able to reach the outer perimeter.
Unfortunately, those were probing attacks, without any necromancers to lead, or death knights to support, giving me only a few points of divine spark to me.
A point that would have saddened me greatly if it wasn’t for the hard work of the elves, constantly providing me with more and more divine spark, both as a burst by bringing their guardian trees with them — most having somewhere between twenty and a hundred based on their maturity and the amount of worship that had gone to them — and the constant worship, tens of thousands elves enough to generate more than a hundred divine spark daily.
After I had completed the integration of the guardian tree into the growing forest, I added several wards, one to channel the necrotic mana back to the main tree to be converted, the other to transfer large amounts of nature mana as needed.
By that, the forest was not only a generator for divine spark, but also a surprisingly effective defensive structure, capable of not only defending against the growing threat, but also creating a surprisingly effective fortress against the undead attacks.
To the point that they had temporarily changed their strategy, probably gathering their armies while they tried to rely on harassment techniques.
Pity their biggest tool, the river that they used to deliver mana, was not working, a fact that they were unaware of, if the intensity of mana was any indicator. The water carried an amazing amount of mana during their earlier attack as well, easily measured in hundreds per second.
After their probing attacks failed, they increased it to thousands per second, unaware that they were just granting my god tree more mana to convert.
Forcibly converting one mana into another was difficult, but not as difficult as breaking down Aether.
With that task done, I had returned to the underground, to my little residence — one that I had turned into a beautiful hovel of several comfortable rooms — if I was going to live underground, I was going to do it comfortably.
I returned, ready to rest after a long day…
Only to realize that I had an uninvited — yet certainly not unwelcome — guest.
My elven priestess. “I can’t believe that idiot, daring to say I don’t deserve the touch of nature…” she muttered in anger.
“Tough day, Seldanna?” I asked, enjoying the benefits of learning the language enough to have a casual chat. With my intelligence — finally increased thanks to all the Divine Spark I had gained during the week — and my hard-working tutor, I progressed a lot.
And as a nice side benefit, I also learned her name.
“Yes,” she growled in shock. “Another feud between tribes, this time about an insult three generations ago…”
I chuckled, listening to her angry spat, making no attempt to stop her. It was not the first time.
Apparently, before the undead invasion, most of the elves lived as insular tribes, with little to no connection other than occasional spat about hunting grounds and other ordinary spats, which turned into long-lived feuds.
Until now, more than fifty tribes had joined our growing forest encampment. And with it, thousands and thousands of feuds, some between tribes, the others between individuals. As a consequence, my priestess, as the never-seen-before chosen of nature that was essentially a prophet for the elves, had to spend most of her day trying to break fights and mediate arguments.
Rather than spending time getting used to her radically-enhanced magical abilities.
The result was a great deal of frustration. She knew that I was busy reinforcing the defenses much better than she could achieve while she was busy keeping order, but that didn’t remove the feeling of annoyance from dealing with pointless activities again and again.
“It’s tough to change the way they lived, give them time,” I said, trying to sound more compassionate than smug, more than happy that I wasn’t dealing with that repeated nonsense. I loved to trick and tease people, but that was when I managed to get a sense of progress. I didn’t enjoy repeating the same tasks, again and again, with no progress.
“I know, but it’s so frustrating. Against a disaster that already swept most of the border, while that arrogant morons at the Great Tree were willing to bury their heads to the ground…”
The Great Tree and the strongest tribe, a reveal that didn’t surprise me a bit. I had already assumed that there would be stronger elves than the occasional tribe that was easily destroyed by the undead, and the fact that they chose to ignore the growing threat due to some unknown internal reason didn’t surprise me even a bit.
I had seen that movie many times.
“I wish that there is something I could do,” I said with a shrug. “But a massage is best I can offer, but you seem to be rather reluctant,” referring to the times I had offered to help her relax, only to shut down quickly.
But this time, the answer didn’t come instantly…
{Strength: 8 Charisma: 10
Precision: 8 Perception: 9
Agility: 8 Manipulation: 10
Speed: 8 Intelligence: 10
Endurance: 8 Wisdom: 9}
{Purified Divine Spark: 520}
{Pseudo-HP: 2869 Mana: 10460}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Tree - 2106}
Elven Priestess - 14}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
