As the mountain was enveloped in the darkness of dusk, Ashlock observed Stella drawing lines on the ground with a paintbrush in one hand and a pot of black ink in her other.
Ancient runic symbols painted by Stella surrounded him, which his {Language of the World} skill seemed to automatically translate in his mind.
As Stella went about her work of writing the ancient runic language onto the ground with the paintbrush, Douglas was watching from the sidelines and offering advice when Stella asked for it.
However, his guidance proved disappointing. His initial lecture on runic formations had been helpful to Stella, but his knowledge beyond the basics was limited. It became clear that Douglas's expertise in runic formations was superficial at best, as though he had acquired the skill merely to pad his resume and secure higher-paying jobs without actually being proficient.
"So you really know nothing about the ancient runic language?" Stella inquired as she continued painting. Considering the size of the formation she wanted to create, Douglas had advised using his techniques to create the grooves rather than the handheld artifact he had given her.
Douglas shook his head, "As I said, those old fogies obsessed with runic formations learn it, but I've never been one to hole up in the library and study dusty books. All my runic knowledge was picked up here and there while working the trade."
Stella grumbled to herself, and Ashlock could tell the little bit of respect she had built up for Douglas this afternoon had vanished. Although Stella was uneducated due to her circumstances, she was a curious and bright girl who picked up things quickly. Because of her intellect, she did have the natural snobbish attitude studious people have toward muscle heads, which he could relate to.
Back on Earth, he was the type of guy to spend most of his time glued to a chair playing games or studying. Perhaps that's why he reincarnated as a tree? It suited him, to be honest.
Setting down the ink pot and brush, Stella stepped back and scrutinized her work. "Are you sure there isn't a way to specialize this Qi gathering formation for a tree?" She asked her unhelpful assistant, and as expected, Douglas shrugged. Ashlock had concluded Douglas wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
Diana, who had remained on the bench the entire time, gave her two cents, "Spirit trees cultivate with both their leaves and roots, right?"
Ashlock decided to confirm that with a flash of Qi.
Stella hummed to herself in thought, and then her eyes widened, "I think I got it! So this runic formation just gathers Qi and traps it within the area above the formation, right?"
"Right..." Douglas replied, clearly unsure of where Stella was going with this.
"So, is there any way to send the gathered Qi into the stone below so Ash can absorb the Qi with his roots too?" Stella asked excitedly.
Douglas rubbed his chin. "It could work—defensive formations make use of transfer arrays to channel the gathered Qi to a storage array. In this case, you could just treat the tree's roots as the storage array and make use of several transfer arrays..."
Stella beamed. "So, how should I do it?"
"I will make the engravings super deep to reach the tree's roots and ensure the engraving is wide enough so there's room to add more engravings on the inside wall, which can be the transfer runes. You could also inlay it on top of the surface Qi gathering runes, but it can muddle the meaning of the runic words and make them less efficient."
Douglas then added gravely, "But this formation will be extremely expensive. At least a hundred, if not a thousand times more spirit stones will be needed than what you used for your personal Qi gathering formation. The sheer size of this endeavor is hard to fathom."
Stella waved him off as she walked back to pick up the paintbrush. "The Patriarch's cultivation is priceless. He is the pillar of the Ashfallen sect. If he had abundant Qi to work with, the entire sect would prosper, and a few mere spirit stones are laughable in comparison."
Amusingly, the first person to agree with Stella's assertion of Ashlock's importance was Larry, who had been quietly waiting off to the side of the mountain peak. The giant spider would have been crawling around his branches, but since he was ten times his original size, Ashlock doubted his branches could even support the colossal creature's weight.
"Master's recovery comes before anything else!" Larry stated gruffly, and Stella nodded to the giant spider. "See, Larry gets it."
Diana and Douglas, both clueless about the ancient runic language, exchanged a puzzled glance.
Douglas shrugged and walked closer to Stella. "Are you done with the first layer of Qi gathering runes? It's getting late, and I want to head to Darklight City to pay off my debts tonight."
"Oh?" Stella turned her head, paintbrush still in hand. "Are they even open this late? I thought most stores closed at dusk."
Douglas blinked in confusion, then laughed. It began as a chuckle, but soon he was wiping tears from his eyes. Stella just stood there, pouting.
"What's so funny?" She kept asking as Douglas tried to recover.
"Your innocence..." Douglas started, but burst out laughing again.
"Sorry, sorry. Forgive me." He said between gasps, wiping his tears. Eventually, he caught his breath after much effort and tried to calmly explain, "These debt collectors are people of the night. They don't run a store where I can just walk in. So it's more of a back-alley situation. That's why I found it so funny... imagining those thugs running a store was hilarious."
"Back-alley?" Stella frowned. "Doesn't sound like a great place to conduct business."
"You haven't run into debt before, have you?" Douglas said bluntly, and Stella shook her head.
Weirdly, Douglas suddenly had a warm smile on his face. He didn't say anything else, which seemed to irritate Stella even more, but they eventually returned to the matter at hand.
"Yes, I'm done with the outline." Stella placed the brush and inkpot into her spatial ring. "You can do your part now."
"Sure thing." Douglas got on his knees, and within seconds of the man's hands touching the stone, Ashlock began to panic. It was as if he had been standing on solid concrete, and it suddenly transformed into mud underfoot. The solid stone ground he had felt so comfortable in liquefied and turned into viscous sludge.
If not for his roots delving so deep into the mountain, Ashlock feared he would sink. In fact, his body did begin to sink slightly, and he felt his trunk being engulfed by the stone.
Thankfully, the quicksand-like technique was finished within a minute, and Ashlock found himself surrounded by meter-wide and five-meter-deep engravings in the courtyard that followed Stella's paint. Through his spiritual sight via his roots, he could look up and see the sky through the gaps.
Ashlock had never felt so exposed, as if he were naked, as ridiculous as that sounded.
He then yelped as he felt Stella drop down into one of the gaps, which were barely wide enough for her to fit in. She then brought out the artifact that Douglas had given her, and after inserting a spirit stone into the top, she began carving the ancient runic word for transfer into every available inch of rock.
"Make sure to use high-quality spirit stones for the transfer runes," Douglas shouted down into the hole. "The spirit stone quality doesn't matter so much for the gathering runes, but for the transfer, quality is of utmost importance; otherwise, you will lose a lot of Qi to the surrounding stone."
"Okay," Stella nonchalantly replied as she carefully carved out the runes. Before, she had just been painting with a paintbrush, so mistakes were more tolerable. However, it was clear from her determined face that carving into the rock was a more permanent affair requiring much more concentration.
While Ashlock tried to get over the squirming feeling of someone walking on top of his roots, he watched Douglas walk off the mountain peak and begin to descend the mountainside. Although he had sworn loyalty to the Ashfallen sect, Ashlock decided to keep tabs on the man to see what he would do.
"Larry," Ashlock said through the tether, "Tell Diana to tail Douglas. I want her to keep him safe."
The spider huffed in acknowledgment and crawled over to where Stella was working.
Ashlock wasn't only worried about betrayal; he also feared that Douglas would be taken advantage of. Stella was clueless about money, and Diana didn't seem to realize the implications of a man going to pay back a mountain of debt suddenly in full with a spatial ring full of wealth.
The ignorance of rich kids.
Debt collectors do want their money back eventually, but they prefer to keep their victims in eternal debt to keep the interest rate mounting up. Suddenly turning up one day and paying off all his debts would raise suspicion about where he got the money, and they might even rob him on the spot.
Diana was in the 8th stage of the Soul Fire realm, making her far stronger than almost everyone else in the area, and Ashlock had witnessed her superior fighting abilities firsthand many times. Especially with her corruption-filled attacks, he was confident she could triumph even when outnumbered.
Ashlock still didn't like the guy that much, but Douglas had shown some promise and seemed to be fitting in, so it would be annoying to lose him already to some thugs.
Larry looked down into the hole and conveyed his message in the ancient tongue to Stella, who half-listened to what the spider had to say as she concentrated on her craft.
"Diana, the Patriarch wants you to tail Douglas," Stella spoke quietly over the sound of the artifact in her hand—using her spatial Qi to cut a deep groove into the rock—as Douglas hadn't made it that far down the mountain yet. "Keep a distance and only help if he gets into trouble."
Diana stood up from the bench, her black modern-style clothes blending into the darkness of dusk. A thin smile appeared on her face. "A stealth mission from the Patriarch? My favorite."
She then scratched Kai's head. "You should stay here, little guy. Where should I put you?"
The black snake curiously looked around, and its little pink tongue flickered out toward Larry.
Kai's actions confirmed that all of Ashlock's pets inherited his language capabilities, and there was a strong chance that Kai would be able to hiss in the ancient tongue soon.
Obeying the snake's choice of resting place, Diana deposited the tiny snake onto Larry's back, giving Kai a smile. "I'll be back before dawn. See you soon."
Diana then slowly walked toward the mountain edge, and before Ashlock knew it, she had vanished into the darkness.
Ashlock would have tailed Douglas himself from the sky with the {Eye of the Tree God}, but he had discovered a problem he had outgrown in the past: fatigue when the sun set. A terrible sleepiness gnawed at his mind, and he struggled to stay conscious as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. Only moonlight kept him somewhat awake, but it wasn't enough to keep him awake much longer.
He had awoken in the late afternoon, so it had only been a few hours since he experienced rebirth and became fully a tree. His roots now felt like his toes, and he could manipulate them freely without much thought or direction. His branches felt like fingers, and while they were still too sturdy to wave around like a hand, he believed he could direct their growth.
And finally, his leaves, which he hadn't been able to chop off in the past—with nothing but a thought, the stem released its hold, and a leaf fell to the stone below.
He now had total control over his body, which came with the downsides of being a tree. He felt a natural urge to grow fruit to spread his seed and expand in all directions in search of nutrients and Qi. He also felt terribly tired without sunlight and already dreaded the upcoming winter months.
"Maybe Stella can build me a greenhouse formation?" Ashlock wondered. It was a good idea, as it would allow him to stay active during the winter months and maybe even stave off exhaustion during the cold, dark nights.
"Hey, Larry, ask Stella if she can make a heat-trapping formation."
The spider relayed his words, and Stella paused her engraving, looking up at the spider, clearly annoyed. "Tree, stop being so demanding. Can't you see how much is already needed? And you want me to add even more features? And a heat-trapping formation? Do I look like a runic master to you? I have no idea what I am doing here, and that Douglas bastard is useless at teaching!"
That was fair, but Ashlock had half expected Stella to blindly agree. Since when did she say no to him? Was she in her rebellious teenage stage? She was sixteen years old, so it was maybe a bit overdue.
Whatever the reason, it was fine; winter wasn't for a few months anyway, so there was plenty of time to turn the entire mountain range into a greenhouse. Obviously, he didn't forget about his children; they needed to be warm during winter too!
"Mhm, it might be good for the Redclaws as well." Ashlock wasn't sure how a heating array would work, but he assumed it would have something to do with fire Qi.
"Ugh, I'll think about this tomorrow." If Ashlock could let off a minute-long yawn right now, he would. Was there anything else that needed his immediate attention before he slept?
"Oh, yeah. Larry, do you need to eat?" Ashlock spoke through the black Qi tether, and the spider perked up.
"Yes, Master," Larry spoke gruffly as he rotated to face him. "I can sleep without food for centuries, but I used up a lot of energy during the Dao Storm, so my hunger festers."
That made sense. Much like human cultivators who could put off eating for a long time due to their cultivation, eventually, they too needed sustenance. "While I sleep tonight, go out hunting. Take little Kai with you and feed him some scraps. I need him to get stronger and evolve like you."
Larry gave an awkward bow and then crawled off with his usual eerie silence that didn't match his colossal size.
With only Stella left, working diligently to build the most monstrous runic formation he had ever seen, Ashlock couldn't help but wonder how they planned to fill these massive grooves with spirit stones. Even all the spirit stone deposits he had encountered in this mountain wouldn't be enough.
Alas, that was a question for tomorrow when the sun shone on his leaves and warmed him.
With nothing else of note for him to worry about, Ashlock allowed exhaustion to consume him. Being a tree could be quite challenging at times.
All he could hope was that Douglas would be fine and Diana wouldn't cause too much carnage in Darklight City while he slept.
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