Ashlock looked around the colosseum from high above and found Elder Margret standing under the demonic tree's shade.
She was calmly watching the proceeds of the finals with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. It seemed she was a rather impatient and fidgety person.
"Sorry, Elder Margret, but this needs to be done..." Ashlock murmured as he reactivated {Abyssal Whispers} and targeted her consciousness. So long as she remained within the range of his roots, he could reinstate the telepathic connection anytime.
His only other options for communication would have been using telekinesis to write on the ground or utilize his soul flames, but due to sharing the spatial affinity with Stella, he didn't want to give Kassandra any ammo to use to accuse Stella of cheating.
So that left him with one option.
Elder Margret abruptly winced and clutched her head, earning her a confused over-shoulder look from the Redclaw Grand Elder.
"Everything alright?" The Grand Elder murmured through half-closed lips.
He never fully looked back as he tried to avoid drawing attention to Elder Margret's strange behavior as he was entirely out of the fog and exposed to the thousands of mortals. Whereas Elder Margret was a few steps behind and partially obscured.
While Elder Margret summoned a Mind Fortress pill to her hand and gulped it down, Diana calmly answered the Grand Elder's question, "She is receiving a mental projection from the immortal."
The fog carried Diana's voice to ensure nobody outside the demonic tree's shade could listen to their conversation.
"The immortal?" The Grand Elder murmured as his eyes widened a little, "What does the Patriarch need of Elder Margret?"
Elder Margret straightened up and tried to act like nothing had happened, "I will find out shortly. Just give me a moment."
Ashlock found it a little funny how they seemed to forget he could see and hear everything that occurred within many miles so long as he focused on the area.
"Patriarch, how may I be of service?" Elder Margret asked through the telepathic link.
"I have been observing the tournament, and I couldn't happen but notice that Kassandra is creating a pill with seven ingredients, whereas Stella was only provided with five," Ashlock replied.
Elder Marget's eyes snapped open, and she searched until her gaze landed on Kassandra. There was a long pause as Elder Margret examined the cauldron's contents with her spiritual sight.
"You're right. Kassandra seems to be creating the Spiritual Enhancement Pill from the ingredients she's using," Elder Margret mentally replied, "Although she isn't cheating, this goes against our agreement. Do you want me to disqualify her and explain the reason privately?"
"There's no need to waste time and breath on a dead woman. All I care for is further establishing the Redclaws as a powerhouse for alchemy, so I need Stella to beat Kassandra in her Roselyn persona," Ashlock explained, "Not to mention, if Stella won because we disqualified Kassandra, she would be furious."
"The immortal is infinitely wise. What action do you require me to take?" Elder Marget asked, and that was a good question. What did Ashlock want from Elder Margret?
"I want to know, does Stella have a chance of winning? How does her pill recipe compare to Kassandra's?"
Elder Margret tapped her chin as she glanced over to Stella, who was hard at work trying to make the best Heavenly Purification Pill she could.
"If a pill's ingredients are purified and created to perfection, it's possible to start with a Mortal tier pill recipe like the Body Strengthening Pill and increase its potency by multiple tiers. However, it's easier to start with a simple Mortal tier recipe and perfect it to Spirit tier than to follow a Spirit tier pill recipe from the start due to the escalating complexity that comes from more ingredients."
"I know little regarding the art of alchemy as it has evolved a lot over my time," Ashlock lied, "But why would you want such a complex recipe with so many ingredients when you can use a lower-tier recipe and increase its potency."
"Because it's the ingredients that provide the pill with its effect. Therefore the more ingredients carefully crafted into a single pill, the more powerful the pill's effect will be." Elder Margret patiently explained. "I believe Kassandra has a fifty-fifty chance of creating a low-quality Profound tier pill because she managed to create a Body Strengthing Pill with Spirit tier potency."
"I see, but what happens if Kassandra manages to create the Profound tier pill? How can Stella compete with her Spirit tier pill recipe."
Elder Marget sighed, "Stella must create a near-perfect Heavenly Purification Pill to be graded the same as a Profound Tier Pill. How many ingredients does she have left?"
"She only has a single Nine-Tailed Fox's Tear droplet left."
"That's bad news, anything can go wrong during the pill-making process, and a single slip-up will cause her to lose." Elder Margret frowned, "I'm not liking her odds here."
"I see. I appreciate your input on the matter, and I might be back later if another matter arises." Ashlock said as he withdrew his {Abyssal Whispers} skill and tried to find solutions.
There was a chance Stella wouldn't even need his help.
Kassandra could fail to follow the more complex Profound tier recipe. However, if she succeeded and the created pill was also of good quality, then Stella's lower-tier recipe wouldn't be able to stand a chance even if the pill were of perfect quality.
Ashlock left Elder Marget to discuss their situation with the Grand Elder as his vision focused on Kane Azurecrest. His reason? The teen was still busy inspecting and preparing his ingredients, and he intended to try and analyze them to grow any of the flowers himself.
In the corner of his vision, he had the {Blooming Root Flower Production}menu open, and he was trying to see if he could add the plants just by looking at them.
"Mhm, still greyed out," Ashlock grumbled, "How annoying."
He could see a white flower on Kane's workbench, and an outline of it showed up in his menu, but when he tried to click it, his system told him that he hadn't thoroughly analyzed the flower.
Ashlock had found the best way to analyze a plant quickly was to have it brought to him and placed near his trunk. He had done this for the Blaze Serpent Rose and the Dreamweaver Orchids.
But he knew for a fact he could still have his system analyze plants he had never had near his trunk before because when he had first learned the skill, there were already flowers like the Serene Mist Camellia, which grew in the forest between him and Darklight City.
Kane picked up the white flower and began blasting it with fire Qi.
Ashlock saw impurities falling out of the flower as soot. A minute passed, and the moment Kane placed the now purified white flower onto his workbench Ashlock saw a flash of color in his menu.
"Moonlight Calla Lily?" Ashlock compared the picture in his menu to the plant on the workbench and confirmed they matched.
"So I can add flowers by looking at them so long as they have been fully purified? Then how did I add the Serene Mist Camellia?" Ashlock grumbled but now wasn't the time for useless thoughts. He had many ingredients to steal.
***
Stella felt sweat trickle down her forehead as she leaned over the cauldron filled with her soul fire. Bathed in the purple light of her flames was a beautiful golden nugget, much like the one she had made earlier in the day on her ninth attempt.
She felt incredibly focused—as if the world around her had slowed to a crawl. In this zen-like state, all she could hear was the blood flowing past her ears and her steady breathing. The chaotic world around her was white noise, and her vision was entirely tunneled on the pill.
The recipe was at the forefront of her consciousness as she effortlessly followed its complex instructions. Every ingredient had to be added at certain times and in particular ways to the point that the pill was a work of art.
Her right hand moved away from the cauldron's edge and carefully reached for the glass bottle containing the final Nine-Tailed Fox's Tear droplet. Grasping it firmly to ensure she didn't drop it, she brought it over and popped off the cap with her thumb. Tilting the bottle, she saw the glowing blue liquid wobble on the bottle neck's rim.
Stella let out a long breath—a single movement and the last droplet would fall, sealing her fate. Tilting the bottle, Stella watched as the droplet plummeted into her soul fire and splashed onto the golden nugget, making it pulse with power.
"Please be perfect," Stella whispered.
All she could do now was wait with bated breaths as the pill greedily absorbed the essence of the tear and morphed into its final form.
A heart-racing moment passed, and everything settled. Stella withdrew her soul flame and peered into the depths of the now dark metal cauldron. All that was left in the bottom was a single golden pill.
Reaching in, she retrieved it with a slightly shaking hand, and as she held the pill between her fingers, she snapped out of her focused trance, and the world hit her in full force.
The crowd's cheers were so loud it felt like the ground was shaking, and as her tunneled vision on the pill expanded to encompass her entire spiritual sight, she felt briefly disorientated.
"Stella... Stella... STELLA."
"Huh?" Stella replied absentmindedly as she shook her head, "Tree? What's the matter?"
"You seemed about to faint for a second there. I was worried for you."
Stella blinked as the lingering sensation of the trance wore off, "Can someone in the Star Core Realm even faint if they still have Qi in their body?"
"I have no idea... How do you feel?" Ashlock asked, "You were zoned out and swaying side to side."
"I feel... fine? I don't know what came over me, but I was incredibly focused." Stella replied.
"Mhm, strange... what do you think caused it?"
"No idea. Maybe a lack of sleep." Stella sighed as she looked down and realized she was still holding her freshly made pill. It smelled amazing, and she couldn't see a single defect from a simple glance.
It was perfect.
There was a moment of pure relief, "Tree! I did it, the perfect pill!"
"Elder Marget tried to appraise it from range, and she agrees," Ashlock replied after a pause, "It should be in the Profound tier."
Stella set the pill down on her workbench in a little wooden bowl and frowned. The brief euphoria from completing the task had subsided, and now all she felt was worry.
"It's not good enough," Stella muttered as she stared at the pill.
"Why not?" Ashlock asked, but Stella didn't have a good answer.
She wasn't sure why, but she was confident the pill was inferior. It was as if a small voice at the back of her mind was trying to warn her of an impending challenge to her rule and that such a weak pill wasn't enough.
"Rule?" Stella furrowed her brows. What nonsense was she thinking? Since when did she have a throne or place to protect?
However, the feeling of an imminent threat only grew as time passed. Something deep inside was screaming at her to act in any way possible to get ahead of the competition. It was an almost primal feeling that was bubbling deep within her being.
"What is wrong with me?" Stella slurred as her head felt heavy, and she looked down at her hands—they were covered in blood.
Stella stumbled back in shock as she tried to shake the blood off, but it clung tight to her tiny hands... They were so small as if belonging to a child.
She glanced around and realized she was back home at the Red Vine pavilion—white walls topped with black wood and covered in red vines that had lived only in her memory were back, and her point of view was lower than she remembered.
The roaring crowds and burning sun were gone. It was night, and the stars were out. A cold breeze carrying the scent of death blew by.
Stella shivered as she frantically looked around. All around her were bodies littering the lush purple grass she hadn't seen in years.
Some corpses were cleanly decapitated, their heads lying to the side. Others had holes through the heart with shocking accuracy.
Stella felt a sudden weight. Looking down, she noticed a familiar black dagger she had made from the sticks Ash had gifted her in her blood-soaked hands.
Twirling around on her heel, she was relieved to see Tree was still there, just far smaller than he was now.
"Ash, is that you?" Stella asked but then remembered that back in these days, Tree couldn't talk. She circled him for a while in confusion, but nothing happened.
"Is this a dream?" Stella questioned aloud as she set out to wander the deathly silent pavilion hoping to find a way out. "Hello, anyone here?"
The moment she stepped out of the familiar central courtyard where she had spent most of her childhood under the tree's shade, the rest of the pavilion was a fractured mess.
Pieces of wall floated by as she stared down into an abyss. "What the..."
All that seemed stable was the cobblestone pathway that led to the next courtyard. Stella apprehensively placed her foot on the path as she had nowhere else to go, and the moment her foot touched it, she reentered that trance-like state, and everything slowed down.
Everything sped up with every step she took as the fragmented world began to fill in the gaps, including the abyss below. The floating wall pieces set into place, and rock surged up from below to fill in the void.
Alongside the world returning to normal, so did the details concerning the night of slaughter. It was as if she was piecing together her mind by walking through the pavilion.
This memory, like many others, had always been fragmented. Stella could recall small snippets of the night, but considering how traumatic killing hundreds of people should have been at the tender age of thirteen, she hadn't suffered any issues as she simply couldn't remember what had transpired.
She had chalked up her fragmented memory to the fact it had happened a long time ago or that she had been so overcome with rage that she lost her sense of reasoning.
But now as the memory returned to her while she walked the corpse-flanked paths of her old home. She realized that upon discovering the murder plot against her, that had been the first time she had entered a trance, and her body had moved to protect her domain.
The fight between her and the hired cultivators posing as servants had always been a blur, but now that she recalled the whole battle, she realized there was no logical reason for her to win against such stacked odds unless somebody challenged her throne.
Stella snapped out of her trance when she realized she had circled back around and now stood in the central courtyard before Ash.
Below his rustling scarlet leaves, illuminated by the twinkling stars and soft moonlight, was her throne. The wooden bench she had laid on while telling Ash her woes and where he had gifted her the earrings she still wore to this day. It was also where a servant had almost murdered her.
Perhaps throne was the wrong word. To Stella, the bench under Ash's inviting canopy was a sanctuary. It was the one place she felt safe and wanted to protect at all costs.
Stella began walking toward the bench as if it were calling out to her, but with every step, memories flashed through her mind. The first was surprisingly Larry, the oversized spider saying in his gruff voice, "Mistress, your bloodline may still be dormant for a good reason. The blood of a ruler takes longer to bloom."
As if a gong went off in her mind, Stella reexperienced her life as an observer. It all went by so fast. She saw herself as a little girl being told by the family's head maid that her father had passed away. One day the maid vanished, and the peak became infested by these grey-robed servants from the Ravenborne family.
Feelings of loneliness and despair led Stella to take refuge under the demonic tree. She felt like the whole world was out to get her, but then the earrings appeared. They were gifted to her by Ash, and upon putting them on, they gave her true power for the first time.
Stella saw a tiny ghostly version of herself appear on the bench, gazing up at the tree's canopy while swinging her legs, "Tree, I did it! I didn't lose a single round, and by the end, they were calling me Demoness Stella Crestfallen!"
The ghostly form of a servant then walked into view, "Miss, would you like some tea?"
"Sure. Bring some for my friend here as well."The ghost of Stella said while patting Ashlock's bark.
I was so sweet and innocent, Stella thought as she saw the pure happiness in her former self. Where did that version of me go?
The scene then shifted to her past self standing over the cold corpse of the servant with a vacant look in her eyes and a bloodied dagger.
Her first betrayal—Stella now remembered this moment well. From here on, she'd closed her heart to others and avoided society.
However, the scene shifted again, and Stella saw her ghost training with Diana—the first person who had entered her life since that day.
"Is that the best you can do?" Diana's ghost asked while casually lowering her sword.
Stella remembered this moment... it was the first time she had felt an emotion that still followed her to this day: Jealousy.
And it was this jealousy that drove her to improve constantly.
She tried to become the best in every way. At first, she had thought this drive was to please Ash, but it went deeper than that. As memories passed, Stella saw her ghost going through a constant cycle of feeling inadequate and then striving to improve.
Stella watched as her past self comprehended the ancient runic language so she could speak to Tree while Diana slacked off. She then trained day and night after having her life threatened by Tristian Evergreen. She learned runic formations after the arrival of Douglas, and, more recently, she learned alchemy because she felt inadequate within the sect.
Before she knew it, she was standing right before the bench. The ghostly form of her past self vanished, and she was left alone in this weird dream.
"Is this my bloodline?" Stella clenched her hands, "The uncanny ability to always improve? Or is this just the start?"
She didn't feel any different—no demonic transformation or sudden power-up. Was Larry truly right in saying it would take a long time for her bloodline to manifest?
Actually, looking back, it has been alongside me my entire life, and my rate of improvement has only grown.
Stella clenched her fist as she looked at the bench—her throne. She went to sit on it, but it vanished, leaving her to tumble forward headfirst into Ash.
She reached out to catch herself, but rather than the rough wooden surface of Ash, her hands landed on a flat wooden workbench. Stella blinked as the crowd's roar hit her ears, and she felt the scorching sun on her neck.
A small smile appeared on her lips.
I am not yet worthy to sit on my throne as I have not yet finished defending it.
"Stella, I have bad news—"Ashlock said.
"I already know." Stella grinned behind her mask, "Kassandra managed to make the Profound tier pill?"
"Yes... how did you know? Wait, that doesn't matter. We only have a few minutes left." Ashlock quickly explained. "What do you want to do?"
Stella felt the zen-like trance slowly overtaking her mind, filling her with confidence.
"Just give me the recipe and ingredients for a Profound tier pill, and I will make a better one," Stella said in her mind as she straightened her back and looked to the sky.
"Stella, you only learned how to make a spirit tier pill this morning after nine attempts. What makes you think you can make a Profound tier pill in a single go?"
"Call it a newfound confidence." Stella smiled, "If there's a chance to learn, who's to say I cannot succeed?"
"That's fair," Ashlock said, and then there was a long pause, "I am growing the necessary flowers right now. How many times do I need to repeat the recipe for you to memorize it?"
"Just the once is fine," Stella said as she entered her trance-like state, and the world became white noise.
"As expected of my daughter!" Ashlock laughed in her mind, "You never were one to back down from a challenge."
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