Chapter 237: Winter Nostalgia
"Another day has passed already?" Ashlock stifled a yawn as his body slowly woke up.
Perhaps it was due to the long winter nights that he spent slumbering under the nine vertical moons, but he felt like time was flowing faster than usual. If not for his system notifying him of each passing day, he would blink, and a week would pass.
Idletree Daily Sign-In System
Day: 3587
Daily Credit: 24
Sacrifice Credit: 1095
[Sign in?]
As usual, with the rising sun over the distant mountain range, his sign-in system appeared with the addition of a daily credit. Over a week had passed since he created the ink bastion, and there hadn't been any bounty hunters that had tried their luck to help refill the thousand sacrificial credits he had spent on its creation.
"Wait, wasn't something happening soon? What was it..." Ashlock yawned loudly as he sleepily glazed over the annoying system notification that had awoken him. "Oh yeah... when did the Mystic Realm open again?" Ashlock wondered as he brought up his skill menu.
[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 9)]
[Star Core: 8th Stage]
[Soul Type: Amethyst (Spatial)]
[Mutations]
{Demonic Eye [B]}
{Blood Sap [C]}
[Summons...]
{Ashen King: Larry [A]}
{Midnight Ink Lindwyrm: Kaida [B]}
[Skills]
{Skyborne Bastion [SSS]}
{Necroflora Sovereign [SS]}
{Mystic Realm [S]} [Locked until day: 3589]
{Progeny Dominion [S]}
{Dimensional Overlap [S]}
{Nocturnal Genesis [S]}
{Eye of the Tree God [A]}
{Abyssal Whispers [A]}
{Deep Roots [A]}
{Magic Mushroom Production [A]}
{Lightning Qi Barrier [A]}
{Qi Fruit Production [A]}
{Consuming Abyss [B]}
{Blooming Root Flower Production [B]}
{Language of the World [B]}
{Fire Qi Protection [B]}
{Transpiration of Heaven and Chaos [B]}
{Superior Poison Resistance [C]}
Ashlock didn't check his skill menu too often, but looking down the long list of mutations, summons, and especially skills that appeared in his vision helped him quantify just how much he had grown in power in such a short time. Merely a year ago, he had been stuck writing out his thoughts with a stick on the ground, and now he could command a fleet of flying islands and speak into people's minds.
"Hold on, if I remember correctly, wasn't I in the early stages of the Soul Fire Realm at the start of this year? Yet many months later, I am now at the peak of the Star Core Realm?"
Ashlock could only wonder how strong he would become within the next decade if this was the speed of growth his system made him capable of in a single year. "I suppose trees really are suited to cultivation, though I am also cheating a little," Ashlock chuckled as he did the maths between his two system screens and quickly realized that the Mystic Realm would open again in two days.
"If not for the Mystic Realm, with its time dilation and dense Qi in addition to the insane cultivation resources I can grow, I fear those around me would fall behind in cultivation considering my speed. Though I suppose my rate of acquiring new skills will slow down as it becomes harder to find strong enough opponents to kill for sacrificial credits."
Speaking of his sect members, Ashlock glanced around while a cold winter breeze rustled his leaves. It was still early in the morning, so all he saw was the deathly silent mountain peak. Stella and Diana were quietly cultivating under their respective trees. Douglas was thousands of meters down in the Citadel with the Mudcloaks, busy directing them on construction. Meanwhile, Elaine was cultivating her illusion Qi in a grove on the mountain range.
"This is how it should be," Ashlock murmured as his mind finally escaped the clutches of slothfulness and kicked into gear. "Peace and quiet. No world-ending threats or armies at the base of the mountain. Just cultivators meditating and the world going by."
Of course, the threat of the bounty hunters was still looming over Stella's head, but that was being taken care of. One of the advantages of building up his sect and allies over the last year is he could sit back while his sect members did the dirty work.
He had the Redclaws scouring Darklight City for any suspicious people who may be bounty hunters, and if any of these bounty hunters somehow avoided the Redclaws and tried to scale the mountain to reach Stella, the weaker ones were killed before they knew what hit them by Khaos or one of his other Ents.
Yet despite the rare quiet period, Ashlock had not been lazy... or should he say Quill hadn't been lazy. He certainly had been due to the cold and new incentive to sleep as much as possible, but his new Star Core offspring had developed a thirst for knowledge that he appreciated.
"Before I check up on Quill's progress of learning those new techniques from the books Elaine got him, I suppose I should see if the forest to the east has developed much overnight," Ashlock's vision blurred as he went many miles out to the east where the battle with Nox had occurred three weeks ago.
A few days ago, his roots had reached this area. Back then, it looked like a wasteland with only a few small shoots and leaves sprouting from the scorched and cratered land. However, the forest was proliferating thanks to {Nocturnal Genesis} boosting the growth of everything within his root network.
"There should be a fully grown demonic forest here by the end of the year," Ashlock mused as his view flew over the landscape, and he caught sight of a few monsters trampling his babies and munching on their freshly grown leaves. Bastards.
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Since his root network had now reached this area, he could open portals in the sky and rain hell from above, but due to the vast distance between here and his Star Core, it would cost far more Qi than it was worth to kill a few critters. After all, he was trying to conserve his Qi to reach the Nascent Soul Realm as soon as possible.
Returning to Red Vine Peak, he knew just the man... tree for the job.
"Willow, are you awake?" Ashlock asked his spatial tree offspring, who commanded his attack-orientated Bastion. A wave of agreement followed, reminding Ashlock that Willow wasn't quite as capable as Quill at communication.
"Could you deal with these monsters for me? However, be careful not to harm your baby siblings in the process. Okay?" After a wave of agreement, Ashlock mentally transferred the general area he wanted Willow to go to and opened a large portal, so Willow wouldn't take a whole day to travel there. Someone shouted as Willow became a beacon of power, and the Bastion began to float away from the mountain peak.
"Are you going to hunt monsters?" Diana glided across the mountain peak with a single flap of her majestic raven wings and landed before Ashlock in a hurry. "Mind if I tag along? Just cultivating water Qi puts my body out of balance, so hunting some monsters for demonic Qi would be helpful."
"Didn't you gain a new demonic mist affinity?" Ashlock asked through {Abyssal Whispers}.
Diana nodded, "Yeah, but there is no demonic mist here. Cultivating the untamed Qi and converting it into demonic mist Qi within my Star Core is far slower than if I focus on cultivating water and demonic Qi and then combining them."
That was a problem. Ideally, Aslock wanted all his core sect members to have a place to cultivate their chosen Qi type.
"I suppose I should make a Bastion for you next so you have a place to cultivate this demonic mist Qi."
"No, no," Diana shook her head, "I wouldn't wish to trouble the Patriarch. You have already been too generous and helped my cultivation soar by leaps and bounds..."
"Diana, don't misunderstand; your strength is my strength. I would be more troubled if you fell behind the others and became a liability rather than a pillar of strength for the Ashfallen Sect. Besides, you aren't some random sect member. I consider you more a dear friend or even family. You have fought to the death for me and others despite no obligation to do so. No oath or technique forces your loyalty. You have wanted to help me and Stella since the beginning, so let me do the same."
"I..." Diana seemed lost for words, "Sorry. It must have come across as if I was denying your good graces."
Recomposing herself, Diana gave a fang-filled smile, "But if you are offering, I would love anything that would help me cultivate demonic Qi." Diana glanced at Stella, who was peacefully cultivating under a spatial affinity tree, "Otherwise, how else will I catch up to that prodigy."
"I bet she would disagree with that assessment." Ashlock chuckled, "You have no idea how much she has whined about how much cooler your bloodline is than hers."
Diana shook her head in defeat, "The young don't understand that comparison is the thief of joy. My demonic form caused me to be stuck in the Soul Fire Realm for years due to my body being wracked with corruption, and I had stunted development until recently." She raised her hand, and demonic mist came pouring out, "Now that I have finally found the root of the issue, my Qi was replaced with one that doesn't appear naturally in this realm, and I have become a half-demon. Without your help, I would have died in the Soul Fire Realm. To be jealous of me feels ridiculous."
"Indeed, it's easy to look at one's achievements and become jealous of them without knowing what it took to get there," Ashlock agreed as the cold breeze picked up and made some of his weaker branches creak in the gale. "Though that's not to say Stella had an easier time growing up. I can understand why she finds it hard not to compare herself to others without looking at the big picture. Hell, I am sure the Grand Elder would cough up blood if he knew Stella thought her cultivation speed was too slow and she was falling behind."
Diana covered her mouth as she laughed.
"Anyway, you better get going; the longer I hold open this portal, the more Qi I waste," Ashlock said as Willow slowly passed through the portal.
"Thank you, and I appreciate you wanting to help me. I really do." Diana flexed her wings, and with a single flap, she rocketed over the mist wall enshrouding the peak and landed beside Willow on the Bastion's surface.
"I will look into making a Bastion for you," Ashlock said. However, with only a thousand credits to his name, that would have to wait. "Perhaps the next time you go to a place with that demonic mist Qi, try to pick some flowers for me. I can make a grove for you that way until you have your own Bastion."
"Will do!" Diana waved to him as she was swallowed by the portal along with the rest of the Bastion. The large portal snapped closed a second later, sending a gust of wind that briefly dispersed the mist wall and ruffled Stella's hair. Luckily, that didn't seem enough to pull her out of deep meditation.
"I guess I should check on Quill now," Ashlock mused as his vision blurred as he traveled through his roots and appeared near the ink lake. He could use {Progeny Dominion} on the tree, but even with his ability to heal his soul, overuse of the ability was a bad idea.
Quill had grown considerably in such a short time, with his trunk already two meters through the hole in the ceiling, meaning his canopy was now fully exposed above the Bastion. Which came with some positives and negatives.
Positives were that the ink tree got more sunlight, furthering his development, and perhaps more importantly, Quill could now survey the whole mountain peak and fire off techniques without destroying the Bastion in the process. The disadvantage was, of course, being exposed. If a stray attack shot from afar managed to take him out, that would be less than ideal.
Ashlock briefly glanced at Quill's bark and could see that he had concentrated most of his new techniques near his canopy, and Ashlock knew they were a mixture of fire, nature, ice, and spatial techniques. He had hoped for a wider variety, but Elaine could only borrow books from the library that weren't in demand by any cultivators.
Despite technically being under the Redclaw's rule, the Academy was an entity that spread across the whole of the Blood Lotus Sect and was required to have facilities for the cultivators of all the noble families.
So, Elaine had returned a week ago with books for nature and ice affinities as the two families that specialized in those had mysteriously vanished in the last few years. She had also got a stack of fire technique manuals from the Redclaws, who had apparently been more than happy to help.
Weirdly, the Academy claimed there was still a demand for water affinity books by a few students, so Elaine could not get her hands on those donated to the Academy by the Ravenborne family.
"Though having access to four different affinities isn't too bad, and Elaine told me she had purchased an earth affinity technique manual with spirit stones since Douglas had sold his years ago, so that will help both Quill and Douglas." Ashlock mused. He could likely get his hands on more techniques through the Eternal Pursuit Pavilion, but this many technique manuals were already enough.
Quill was just like Ashlock. He couldn't read and comprehend technique manuals within hours through heavenly insight; he had to do it the old-fashioned way. Dreaded studying. So unless Kaida gained heavenly insight first and then transcribed the technique onto Quill's bark, he would be unable to learn it quickly.
"Considering after weeks, I could only grasp a mere part of the Spatial Lock technique, I believe it would take Quill, who is an intelligent tree, but ultimately just a tree and not one with a human mind like me, years to learn a single technique to the point where he could inscribe it into ink."
Luckily, they had Kaida to help speed up that process, which also created a bottleneck. Kaida could only handle reading and transcribing so many techniques, and it also set back his own cultivation, so he was less than thrilled to do so.
However, through some begging, Ashlock managed to get Kaida to teach him through Quill the Spatial Lock techniques and another called Spatial Repulsion: a technique that forcefully distorted space around him in a pulse, which was ideal for pushing away enemies to gain more time.
Ashlock had picked these two techniques because they were defensive and would be ideal for him and Quill to learn.
"So now, on top of my system-unlocked skills, I have mastered Portal Creation, Spatial Lock, Warp Strike, and Spatial Repulsion. It is not a bad list, though there are so many more I want to learn, such as Spatial Blades and Time Dilation, Spatial Compression, Anchor Seal, and Spatial Perception."
Sadly, he had to give Kaida some breathing room to recover and some time for Quill to learn techniques from other affinities to diversify their defensive strategies. Luckily, since Ashlock was an immortal being unfazed by the passing of time, he had all the time in the world to learn these techniques and many more in the future.
"Now let me see what techniques Quill has inscribed so far..." Ashlock studied Quill's bark. It had only been a little over a week, so despite transcribing these techniques at maximum speed, there were only a few so far.
"For ice affinity, there is just one I can see called Chill Aura. Then, for nature affinity, there are Regenerative Bark and Vine Entanglement. Oh, here is a fire affinity one called Flame Ward." Ashlock searched the rest of Quill's bark but could only find a single shard of bark inscribed with Spatial Lock and Spatial Repulsion."
"Not too shabby for only a week of progress." Ashlock withdrew his presence from the Bastion and wondered what else he should do today. Sleep and a bit of cultivation were tempting, but there was one other place he liked to check on occasionally.
His roots had reached Slymere, the nearest city. He had already infiltrated the streets of the lower city and was soon going to begin climbing up the mountain with the goal of sneaking a root into the Voidmind family's residence at the top.
Blurring his vision as he used {Eye of the Tree God} to zoom over the land and arrive at Slymere, he noticed something was strange. It had been nothing but blue skies over Red Vine Peak, yet Slymere suffered under a violent storm that blanketed the sky and unleashed lightning strikes on the whole mountain.
Were they under attack by the Skyrend family, or was something else causing such an abnormally fierce storm?
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