Aldred stood in front of the giant silver ape, ready to fight. "I will be your opponent now."
The silver ape opened its mouth and showed its fangs. It roared and charged towards Aldred with an intimidating growl. Aldred moved backwards slightly but it didn't matter; he didn't intend to run from it anyway.
He used Phantom Doomblade and swung it horizontally towards the giant silver ape's head. The sword didn't make any impact but a moment later a large shock wave emerged from it, sending the ape flying into the air with incredible force and landing on its back on top of the rock floor.
The silver ape growled and snarled in anger as it tried to stand up but it was unable to do so because it couldn't stand up properly with its back on the ground.
Baendjbi was once again shocked by this. Sword usually could only cut and slice the enemy, so when there was an enemy that was highly immuned to cutting damage, swordsman would have a terrible time. But some sword master developed a skill to cause blunt damage using their swords, and some of them used shockwave to do it. How could Aldred learn such skill? When did he learned it?
The silver ape roared and absorbed more energy from the spirit tree. It stood and and both of its arms shone in green. Raising both arms, the ape slammed down.
Boom!
The floor cracks from impact, and the cracks made its way towards Aldred. Powerful energy exploded forth from the cracks right in front of his face.
"Aldred!" Mary shouted.
After the energy dissipated everyone saw Aldred had entered the state of meditation, effectively reducing 90% of the damage taken from the energy explosion.
The ape raised both its arms again and charged at Aldred once more but before it could do anything, it suddenly froze in place and started trembling violently. Then it exploded into countless pieces that were sent flying around as it turned into dust.
"..."
"What happened?" Mareona asked.
"It exploded because it absorbed too much energy," Aldred said. "The ape did not realize its body has limit."
Mareona was amazed by that explanation and said: "Is that possible?"
Aldred nodded with certainty as if it was something he had done many times before. "Yes, it is possible because it's not normal for a living creature to have that much energy inside itself. At least until you reached a higher rank. The higher you rank, the more quantity and quality of energy you could create and store."
"I see." Mareona said with a smile on her lips. "That's great. Now we can pick the spirit fruits."
"You can pick them already? Let's hurry then." Aldred began walking towards the spirit tree again when he heard Stella speak up: "Wait."
"Why?" He asked curiously as they neared the tree.
"The spirit tree is shining again." She pointed at it. "It looks like it has enough spirit fruits now."
Aldred looked closely at the tree, which had started glowing as well.
"Thank you," a little girl's voice said.
"Are you the one that sang the song?"
"Song? No, I believe not."
'I see. So that's a different spirit." Aldred turned his head to look at the silver apes that were surrounding them but they were gone; they were nowhere to be seen.
"Thank you again for saving me. I don't have much, but you can pick my fruits as much as you like."
"Let's pick these spirit fruits then," Mareona said excitedly, looking forward to taste those fruits as well. They looked so fat and juicy.
While his friends looked at which fruits to pick, Aldred asked the spirit tree. "What is your name?"
"Name? I don't know... I don't think I ever have a name."
"I see." Aldred saw his friends plucking the fruits. "Is this okay? Are you not hurt when we pick the fruits?"
"Not at all. You can take as much as you like."
"Okay, but won't you run out of fruits? After all, it could take decades for you to create one, right?"
"Oh, not at all. I can make as many fruits as I want, but I mostly held back because the silver ape would hurt me. But the problem is, I cannot stop producing fruit. Every decade or so, the excess energy would produce fruit."
"Hmmm. I have never heard that a spirit tree could talk before," Stella said.
"Have you seen one before?" Aldred asked.
"Nope. By my guess, it's almost non-existent on the Coureroy continent."
"Is that so?"
"Yes," Stella continued. "It's a myth that one of those trees is located in the kingdom of Sorcié and that one fruit can bring eternal life."
"Can your fruit bring eternal life?" Aldred asked the spirit tree.
"I am not sure, but the apes love eating my fruits, and they do get stronger because of it."
"Really?"
"Really."
Aldred smiled at the spirit tree and picked another fruit. "Well, I guess I will take some."
Mareona, Stella, Mary and Aldred were standing near the spirit tree. They had already picked up all the spirit fruits that were nearby but there were still many more to pick. Some fruits were bigger than their size and some were smaller. They had also found a variety of colors such as blue, green, yellow and even purple.
Mareona looked at all the different fruits and then to the spirit tree. "So we are going to take all these fruits and put them in your stomach? Is that safe?"
"Yes, it is," the spirit tree said.
They then sat around the tree and enjoyed the fruits. Aldred and his friends chatted with the spirit tree and they shared stories.
"Oh my... I don't know there's such a wonderful world out there. I wonder if I would ever have the chance to explore it," the spirit tree said with a tinge of sadness.
Aldred was eating a piece of fruit when he got an idea. "You know. Maybe you can."
"How?"
"I can turn your body into a golem!"
"..."
"A... a golem?"
"Yes. If I turn your body into a golem, you can move around however you like."
"I... I can do that? Really?"
"Really."
"Okay. Turn me into a golem."
Aldred stopped eating and put away his fruit into his pouch. Then he focused on the spirit tree with his eyes closed and began meditating while sending mana to his body to move it to where he wanted it to be. He made sure he was only focusing on the spirit tree while doing so so that he didn't accidentally mess up his body's form while he was doing it. It was an advanced skill that took a lot of effort to learn, so he didn't want to mess up something just because he wasn't
"Usually I have to carve you bit by bit to turn you into a golem."
"Eh?" the spirit tree yelped at the idea of being cut.
"But my golemification skill has improved, so there is no need for that."
"Ohh... that is... fortunate." The spirit tree was relieved to hear that.
Opening his eyes, Aldred activated his golemification skill.
"I feel something weird. My body. It's changing!"
The spirit tree began to become smaller and smaller, until it formed into a wooden, shining golem with the appearance of a little girl. She wore a cute clothes with the texture of leaves, and a little hat was on top of her head.
The little wooden girl looked at her hands, and then looked at her feet. Then she ran around the cave. "I can move! I can move!"
She giggled like a small child. "It's great! It's great! It's great! It's great! I can move!" she continued to say, as if she was repeating herself over and over again.
Mary, Mareona, Stella and Aldred watched the little wooden girl move around. She jumped from one spot to another and laughed non-stop.
They were all happy for her.
