After the sweet taste of victory, it was time for Ashlock to enjoy the spoils of his fight. He could now understand why cultivators were so bloodthirsty and prone to killing each other over the slightest grievance. Cultivation was a costly and time-consuming process. Why waste time traveling the realms when he can sit here on his mountaintop and have fools come and offer their lives and treasures to him?
At first, Ashlock had been baffled by the sheer quantity of belongings the Voidmind Elder was carrying, but it made sense. He had observed that cultivators preferred to carry all their personal belongings around in spatial rings rather than leave them in a room or vault.
For instance, Stella and Diana had never claimed a specific room within the pavilion to serve as a bedroom or storage for their belongings. Rather, they would often be found half-asleep, cultivating while perched on a runic formation, or on rare occasions, resting on a musty mattress left behind in an old servant's quarters.
It made total sense as in a world where people could teleport through walls or random Dao Storms could come by and rip your pavilion to shreds, leaving anything out in the open was far too risky. It was far safer to keep everything of value on hand at all times within spatial rings.
That is why, when Ashlock looked within his expanded pocket space that functioned as an inventory for the system, he saw a literal mountain of various items that he had extracted from the Voidmind Elder's spatial rings.
Undoing the 9th stage Star Core seal around the rings had been a breeze, and he had even been able to extract the items from the ring's pocket dimensions while they were still around the old man's gnarly fingers. The power one commanded within their own soul was nothing to scoff at. He was practically a god within, especially since he was totally immune to void Qi.
"I'm so glad my inventory expanded when my Star Core grew in size..." Ashlock remarked, eyeing an ornate sword hilt jutting out from the immense pile of artifacts and porcelain pill bottles.
When he had gone on his sign-in spree for low-rank items in the past before his merge, his inventory hadn't been big enough to accommodate all the junk, and items were soon popping out, and he had to stop signing in.
Ashlock went to focus on the sword hilt but frowned when no system notification manifested. "System?" His status screen appeared, but that wasn't what he wanted. "Why isn't it telling me about the sword?"
When he signed in and drew items, the system informed him of the item's name, grade, and potential use. The only other time he had been given an item that he'd stored in his inventory was the SSS rank Divine Fragment which was now merged with his soul and might result in a Monarch Realm tree trying to turn him into nutrients.
Impending doom aside, why was his system not helping him?
He tried changing targets to a porcelain pill bottle but still nothing. No matter what item he glared at, he received no information. "Don't tell me I need a stupid appraisal skill or something." Ashlock sighed as he stopped trying after his tenth attempt.
If he couldn't use the system to identify these items, how was he supposed to know what to give out and keep for himself? He could act as a dragon and sleep on his horde of gold, but he was a nurturing tree that wanted to uplift the strength and protect those around him.
"Maybe I should just give them all to Stella and let her handle it alongside Diana?" Unfortunately, he knew almost nothing about any of the items, and apart from controlling some swords with telekinesis, he couldn't see a way he could use these items himself.
"I should definitely start a sword collection," Ashlock mused, spotting more than ten exquisite swords within the pile. A sudden thought struck him. If he correctly understood the potential of his new {Consuming Abyss} skill, he could wield the vines like limbs. Could he curl a vine around the hilt of a sword and fight people with it?
"If you keep ignoring me, I will get mad." Stella's voice made him sigh. He had already told her he was fine! So why was she nagging him so much?
'Hello.' Ashlock wrote on his trunk, and Stella threw up her hands, "What do you mean hello. Yes, hello, can you tell me what happened? You said the Elder went supernova, and yet everything is alright?"
Feeling good after enhancing his abilities, getting a good night's rest, and finally freeing himself from the invasive presence inside his soul, Ashlock found it challenging to take Stella's distress seriously.
Using telekinesis, he broke off one of his leaves and used it to pat Stella on the head. She let out a yelp, swatting at it as if it were a bothersome fly. "What are you doing?!"
Eventually, the squirrel sleeping on her head reached out his paw while still half asleep, grabbing the spatial Qi-coated leaf and reducing it to dust that floated away in the wind.
Ignoring the horrifying thing Maple had just done to the leaf, Ashlock wrote on his trunk, 'Stop worrying so much. I said everything was fine. The Elder is dead, and I now have many items I was looking through.'
Slumping onto the bench, Stella exhaled a sigh that was equal parts frustration and exhaustion. "I can tell when you are sleeping by the way your Qi flows, but I was really worried all night that you might have suffered some internal injuries or soul damage because of that bastard Voidmind Elder."
Looking up at Ashlock's scarlet canopy rustling in the morning breeze, she continued, "I'm so relieved you're unharmed. You didn't respond to any of us for hours yesterday, and then the entire mountain shuddered at midnight. Finally, you fell asleep without reassuring us you were okay!"
Alright, that was fair. The Elder within his soul had been so distracting that he had mostly ignored the outside world. Glancing around the mountain peak, he saw Stella and Maple on the bench under his canopy. Larry was off to the side, with Kaida coiled around one of his horns. Despite further searching, Diana and Douglas were nowhere to be found.
'I apologize,' Ashlock wrote in lilac flames dancing across his black trunk, 'I was busy interrogating the Elder prior to his demise, then I had to rest to purge the void Qi from my soul.'
Stella tilted her head and mumbled the words to herself as she quickly translated them, and then sighed, "Fine, those are pretty fair reasons to be distracted."
While half concentrating on Stella in case she said anything else, Ashlock delved back into his inventory, scouting for a suitable gift for her. Without the system's assistance, deciphering the use of each item was challenging, so he aimed to select something that would suit her, even if it proved to be useless.
Of the ten swords nestled in the pile, he picked out two.
One was a black blade hidden from the world in a black sheath engraved with a gold star pattern—he felt it would harmonize with Stella. Conversely, the dark blue blade in a blue leather sheath seemed a perfect fit for Diana. He felt Douglas didn't quite deserve one of the swords yet, and something about the number seven bugged him.
"Perhaps if I distribute four and keep six, that would work," Ashlock mused. The thought crossed his mind to offer a sword to the Redclaws, but he quickly dismissed it.
These swords had been owned by a very powerful and influential cultivator that had been part of the Blood Lotus sect for a long time. If the Redclaw Grand Elder began walking around with one of these swords drawn, if anyone recognized it, then there could be problems.
Another consideration emerged from his past experience with the wooden stick he had drawn long ago. Once he removed items from his inventory, he could not put them back. "But that was before my demonic eye created an opening in my trunk. Perhaps I can find a way to get items back into my inventory now," Ashlock pondered.
Before proceeding further, Ashlock decided to test his newfound theory. He selected a seemingly random gold coin, a currency from a distant empire, and observed as it disappeared from the pocket dimension, only to reappear a meter away from his trunk in the outside world.
Stella eyed the coin that randomly appeared floating in the air with understandable weariness, "Tree, is that yours?"
Ashlock flashed his leaf with Qi to calm her down. He then opened his trunk to reveal his {Demonic Eye}.
"Actually, isn't it quite worrying if people have direct access to my soul by entering the slit in my trunk." Ashlock wondered as he shuddered at the memory of the Elder reaching his hand in and caressing his {Demonic Eye}. Wasn't this similar to how his portals are two-way; if he could attack someone through it, they could attack him back?
Setting aside these unsettling thoughts, Ashlock moved the coin towards the opening in his trunk, his {Demonic Eye} closely observing the approaching object. Stella watched the unfolding scene through her fingers, clearly unnerved by the sight of his eye.
To his astonishment, the coin slipped through the one-meter-long, half-a-meter-wide gap with ease. It disappeared momentarily before reappearing atop the pile in his inventory.
"The system still won't tell me about the item," Ashlock grumbled but was glad to see he now had a way to get items in and out of his system inventory.
"Tree, was that one of the Elder's items?" Stella asked as she watched the slit in his trunk close. "Is there anything I could have?"
Switching back to the pile, Ashlock looked for something to give to Stella. Annoyingly, most of the items were clearly for a man and would be far too big for Stella to wear. She was tall for a girl, but the Elder had been a tall, wide-shouldered man.
Finally, he unearthed a pair of black gloves fashioned from a material resembling leather. The gloves left the fingers exposed, and the inner lining was adorned with a tapestry of intricate silver runes. "These appear small enough to fit Stella's hands," Ashlock reasoned after a thorough inspection. With a mere thought, the gloves disappeared from his inventory, materializing above Stella.
They fell down into her lap, and she gave them a look, "Oh wow, these look expensive. Definitely artifact gear." She then put them on and looked at her hands, turning them around so she could get a good look.
'They suit you.' Ashlock wrote, and Stella grinned after translating the words. "I think so too."
She then sprang to her feet and struck a pose, aiming her gloved hand away from him. As Ashlock watched, the gloves pulsed with energy. "Oh! They can absorb the Qi from an attack. Neat!"
"So a defensive artifact then, although still helpful in combat," Ashlock noted and then went hunting for more stuff to give Stella.
"How can I dig deeper into this pile?" Ashlock had looked at everything on the surface and wanted to see the items buried but wasn't sure how to. He then tried to mobilize his Qi, but it resulted in nothing. "Stupid system granted space, not letting me use my Qi in here," Ashlock grumbled as he resorted to just depositing a load of random stuff outside.
As a mound of items materialized on the mountain peak, Stella, her arms crossed, watched with amusement. "You truly plundered that old man, didn't you? This is all high-grade stuff, similar to what I saw the merchants in Slymere trying to sell me."
Ashlock's interest was piqued at Stella's suggestion. Could they exchange some of these items with the merchants for spirit stones to construct more formations? To him, these items were largely superfluous, useful only as gifts for his sect members or as rewards. Moreover, they were now cluttering his inventory.
'Should we sell these?' Ashlock asked.
Stella read his words and tapped her chin. "I'm not sure. Best to ask Diana when she gets back from observing that Voidmind assistant, as she knows a lot more about merchants than me."
That seemed reasonable. Ashlock looked back at the pile and buried under gold coins and many herbs for alchemy, he saw a bit of white cloth poking through. Focusing on it, the garment vanished and appeared outside.
Stella hadn't demonstrated much interest in the accumulating artifacts and items, most likely because unidentified pill bottles and strange devices without instructions were of little use.
But she seemed interested in the newly appeared item, a pair of white trousers with a black snake decor embellished with branches ending in red leaves sprouting from its body, running down their sides. They seemed to be made of a soft material that rustled in the wind as she held them up against her legs for a size comparison.
They didn't quite seem long enough for her figure, but she seemed to love the style. Had these been clothes for the Voidmind's Elders daughter or something? The end of the trousers seemed to end just below her knees, but due to her slim figure, she was sure to fit in them.
With a flash of gold, her current white leggings and fishnets vanished into her spatial ring. The short white trousers in her hand followed suit, only to reappear fitted around her legs.
She spun around, giggling with delight. "I love these! Although they don't quite match my top... Tree, did you find the matching outfit among the Elder's belongings?"
Ashlock revisited the pile, displacing more items to burrow deeper. He successfully excavated a cavity in the center, reminiscent of a volcano, and unearthed additional pieces of women's clothing. It seemed increasingly plausible that these were purchased by the Voidmind Elder for his daughter, or perhaps... "I really hope these weren't intended for that assistant woman Diana is observing."
Whoever they were intended for didn't matter anymore as they were his rightful spoils of war that he could give to Stella as he had no other use for clothes.
Stella smiled as she saw the second clothing piece as it continued the same decor design and was a bit less revealing than her current outfit. She used the same spatial ring technique to instantly swap out her clothes in a flash of gold and grinned as she felt out her new outfit.
Ashlock brought out the black sword, and Stella reached up to catch it. She opened the sheath to reveal the beautiful blade and whistled, "Even my father didn't have a sword this majestic looking. Are you giving it to me?"
'Yes, but keep it hidden for now. Someone might recognize it.' Ashlock wrote, and Stella nodded in understanding, storing the sword away. She then glanced around, seeing the beautiful scenery for many miles. "We really need to build a pavilion. Doing all this out in the open is risky."
Ashlock had to agree, especially with the Silverspire family staying nearby.
"Do you want these back, or should I hold onto them?" Stella asked while walking over to the mountain of items. She crouched down and began to shift through them but paused when she found a book. It had an odd title: Journey of Hazel. Stella flipped the book open, and after reading a few pages, she concluded, "Seems to be detailing a master alchemist's journey through life."
'You can take all of those items.' Ashlock wrote, and Stella quickly stowed everything away between three of her spatial rings. She then sat back down on the bench and hummed while reading the book she found.
While Stella was busy, Ashlock thought over his rather exposed existence up here on the empty mountaintop. He had grown to an enormous size, making him stick out like a sore thumb, even when surrounded by so many other demonic trees. Moreover, the Qi gathering formation here transformed the location into a potent Qi hub, something that cultivators were highly attuned to.
Entertaining the thought of having Douglas construct an enormous pavilion as a form of camouflage seemed absurd. It would simply draw more attention, sparking curiosity as to why the Reclaws, the apparent lords of this territory, resided in a lesser palace on the neighboring peak. Inevitably, questions would arise concerning the mysterious resident of Red Vine Peak.
When he was a small tree in an abandoned pavilion with nothing but Stella living here, keeping lowkey was a simple affair. But now he had too much influence and had made too much of a scene to stay under the radar.
"Diana's haunted mist worked quite well, but that requires her to be here." Ashlock's gaze landed on his large spider pet, "Larry could produce an ash cloud to shroud the peak, but that would be rather obnoxious and block out the sunlight I need."
Who was always here that could keep the place obscured? "Oh me..." Ashlock chuckled, "Maybe I should figure out a solution with spatial Qi?"
***
Ashlock looked at Red Vine Peak through his {Eye of the Tree God}. At a casual glance, the scene appeared ordinary, but a more discerning eye would notice the oddities: the shadows cast by the colossal demonic tree didn't match with the sun's position, and a bird, suspended in mid-flight, seemed frozen in an eternal wing flap.
It had taken a few hours, but Ashlock had succeeded in fabricating a space-time illusion via an altered application of his portals. It required constant upkeep and used a large amount of Qi, but it did the job until he found a better solution.
Basically, he had made a screen around Red Vine Peak that kept replaying a single frame from a few hours ago.
Of course, this weird area of distorted space might attract attention, especially from the Voidminds, if they ask about their missing and now dead Elder, but he felt it would be fine.
Maybe it was misplaced arrogance, but after defeating a peak realm Star Core Elder and unlocking {Consuming Abyss}, he felt a lot more confident about facing stronger foes.
Switching his view back to Red Vine Peak, he saw Stella look up from the book she had been engrossed in and glance around. She furrowed her brows as if confused at what she was seeing.
"Tree, why is everything so... still? The demonic trees aren't swaying in the breeze, and it just all looks so wrong," Stella asked, and he carefully explained what he had done.
"I see." Stella whistled, "I'm jealous. I couldn't even conjure up such a massive spatial technique, let alone maintain it."
She then looked back to her book and continued reading.
With his surroundings now secured and without the risk of someone seeing him testing his new {Consuming Abyss} skill, he mentally activated the skill. Before, he would need a target, and the system would handle the rest by sending black vines relentlessly after the target until they perished or left his range. However, now he could activate the skill freely.
He was careful to avoid the areas with a runic formation to avoid damaging it. A moment later, black vines far thicker than before rose from cracks in the stone or the purple grass surrounding his trunk with sharp spikes gleaming in the distorted sunlight.
They all ended in a single large spike, and he marveled at how he could control each of them independently like extra limbs. They were far more flexible than his roots, and when he then surged spatial Qi through them, he could further shepherd their movements with telekinesis.
Entering back into his inventory, he summoned a sword that materialized outside, and he floated it over to one of his black vines with telekinesis. "Now, let's see if I can hold it."
The black vine coated in spikes coiled around the sword's hilt, digging into and scratching the metal. The hold was a bit awkward, but with the help of telekinesis, he could keep it in place.
Ashlock chuckled, seeing Stella's astonished expression as he waved the sword around.
Was he the first ever tree swordsman?
'Care for a duel?' Ashlock wrote on his trunk, and Stella grinned, summoning the sword he had just given to her hand. She rolled her shoulders and approached the vine waving the sword around, "Don't get too angry when you lose!" She declared with a laugh.
Ashlock had no plans on losing, and after testing if this was a viable combat technique, he planned to test the void form of the {Consuming Abyss} skill.
This was going to be a fun morning.
