Chapter 151 – Tree

Dream and Idona didn't need to walk through the forest for long before they began encountering life.

In fact, it was only a couple of minutes before they had walked up to the 'gates' of their city.

"Halt!"

Dream and Idona were yelled at as they walked up to a huge natural barrier. This barrier was a 50 meter high wall, and it was made entirely from living wood. The trees seemed to reach out between each other and connect, forming this wall of wood. 

"This cannot possibly be natural."

Dream came to this conclusion as he scanned the wall. It spanned for miles into the forest, and he was pretty sure it surrounded the city around the Tree. There was no way he would believe that this just happened to grow like it did.

"Elves have some powers that can control nature, almost manipulating it. These walls were built after the elves came and modified the trees for this very purpose. You will see lots of these kinds of constructions instead of the normal dead wood housing as in the human Empires."

"...Very interesting."

Dream went into thought. This was a very interesting power, and he honestly wanted it. He might be able to gain some magical insights or learn new ways to control magic. But the problem was getting it. Was he supposed to soul search an elf for it? That probably wouldn't fly here. Especially since he was trying to get their support.

"Who are you?"

At this time, a guard jumped down from a tree. Idona took something out of her inventory.

"I am Xyla. This is my partner, Dream. Here's my fragment."

Idona, or Xyla, handed the object to the guard. It was an oval shape piece of wood with an engraving of the Tree on it. The guard caught it and scanned it before nodding.

"I see. What is your purpose in bringing a human here?"

"That is none of your concern."

"..."

"Please open the gate. Otherwise we'll go around it."

Releasing a bit of her class 4 aura, Idona looked at the guard. He was quickly startled and ordered the gate to open.

Without another word, the two walked into the city. 

"Ooh. Very cool."

As they walked in, the trees became sparser and the buildings more numerous. Almost all of the buildings were indeed made out of living wood. There were some buildings inside trees, on top of them, on the sides, suspended in the air. It was literally a city of tree houses. 

Though despite the wild and natural vibe the place gave off, the elves seemed like very refined people. They wore nice clothes and walked and talked like regular people in a regular city. If not for the fact that he were in a forest, Dream would think he'd gone back to the Spire.

The children were also very lively. They all ran around every which way, swinging and jumping from tree to tree like monkeys.

Dream was only surprised by one thing though.

"Why is everyone so tall?"

Dream quickly noticed that he was never looking down at people. This was something he wasn't very used to. He was a bit over 6ft himself, and on Earth that was pretty tall. But here, he couldn't see hardly anyone shorter than him. His height seemed barely average while many stood an entire foot taller. 

Hearing his question, Idona answered.

"Elves are naturally taller than the other races."

"So what happened with you?"

"I-I got my mother's bloodline, so I'm naturally shorter. My dad is tall though. Taller than you."

Idona responded, a bit ashamed and irked. Dream tilted his head. While she wasn't short, she wasn't taller than Dream. Though she wasn't far off either. 

"Is it bad to be short?"

"No. But the taller you are the stronger you seem. It's a mental thing."

"Indeed it is."

He could agree with that. That's how it was on Earth too.

"Another thing, their ears are longer than yours."

"Same thing as with my height."

"And their hair. Why do so many have green and gold hair?"

"Elves are aligned with nature, giving many of them that colored hair."

"You're not? You have black hair."

"I'm still aligned with nature. My mana is green. Again, bloodline."

"...Did you get anything from your father?"

"My magic."

"Huh. I guess you are an archer..."

The two continued to walk and talk about all the new things Dream was seeing. At the same time, everyone was looking at these two people as they walked down the road like nobody cared. They even earned themselves a little tail of curious children.

Eventually though, they hit another wall. This wall was taller than the previous one by double, and it seemed much stronger too. Though it wasn't nearly as guarded, and people walked through the wide open gates as they wished. 

"Why is this wall here if people can just go through it?"

"Security. The city is frequently under attack from monsters. If there's ever an overflow, they can close the gates and contain it."

"Ah. I see."

"It's also a kind of separator for the higher class area. What you've seen is only the lower class area."

"I can see that."

Dream nodded as they walked through the gate. The difference became immediately clear. The streets were no longer dirt, the houses were nicer and more refined, the trees were bigger, and everyone wore nicer clothes. 

Dream looked around with more boyish curiosity as they stepped onto the living wooden street. 

This place truly looked like a developed civilization. Although the wood and trees would give a sense of primitivity, upon looking at how refined the place and people were, one would get a more noble aura from them. 

After walking for a bit though, Dream and Idona took to the air and weaved through the tree houses, wanting to speed themselves up. 

After a bit of flying, they passed yet another wall that was nearly 300 meters tall. And past that wall was the high class area. This was also where the trees began to reach past 400 meters.

Naturally as the trees got bigger, so did the buildings. Dream saw buildings as tall as the trees themselves and entire complexes of buildings between them hovering in the air. Although the trees were more spread out due to them being so big, this didn't stop them from creating wooden pathways in between the gaps. Plus, the wood was much stronger, allowing them to construct crazy things.

Soon, they could see skyscraper trees and small castles. The auras of class 2's and 3's could be felt as well, though only lightly dispersed in the population. Dream wondered where all the powerful people were, until he looked up.

"...Damn that's tall."

Seeing it from afar is one thing, but when Dream was standing at the base of the Home Tree, he couldn't help but be speechless. 

Like its height, its base was also massive. According to Sophia's calculations, the base of the tree was over 1000 meters around. And while the Tree got skinnier as it rose, it was never skinnier than 300 meters around. It was absolutely colossal. Dream had never seen anything so large and up close.

"The Ljosfar are up high in the tree. Though since we can't just go waving our aura around, we'll need to ask for them. Wait here."

Saying that, Idona left Dream at the base of the massive tree as she flew up along its body. Dream stood there, staring at the monumental sight.

"..."

[...So we're totally gonna scan this tree right?]

"Do cows shit? Of course we are. Make the globe network. We'll insert our mana at the base of the Tree."

Smiling, Dream went over to the massive Tree and climbed on top of the sloping bottom. He soon found a nice place to sit, and the globe network appeared around him not even a second later. 

This network had undergone more refining by Sophia as they learned the different mechanics of Dream's Arcana skill. Right now, this globe network was like a constellation of stars that floated all around him, and just its presence increased the mana density around him. On top of that, the Tree also increased the mana density of the city around it. Except this mana wasn't ambient mana, but nature type mana.

Luckily, Dream could use any kind of mana with ease as long as it wasn't anything like Riddick's. Using the constellation, he could just change the mana type and make it his own. Either way, he had massive amounts of mana at his disposal.

After sitting down, Dream pressed his hand against the Tree below him. The constellation connected to his hand through strings, and Dream guided these strings into the Tree.

He quickly found mana channels under the surface of the wood, so Dream created a mana wire and let it flow along with the mana channel while maintaining its connection. As it flowed, it encountered more channels and split, sending more strings into the channels.

It only took 30 seconds before Dream's strings had split thousands of times, filling up a large portion of the tree. And after inserting enough mana, he began to send the mana up and down.

"Holy crap..."

Dream was amazed as he processed the mana channels he infiltrated. 

'The mana flowing through this thing is liquid! All of it! And all these channels are connected to each other, exchanging information. It's a massive network of enchantments. I've never seen an enchantment of such a scale. And...wait, what's this?'

As Dream's mana spread further into the Tree, he began encountering a weird substance. 

'It's like a crystal, but it's not solid. At least, it's not in the third dimension. Sophia?'

Dream poked around a weird rock inside the Tree. It was near the center, and around it he could see many rocks just like it. 

[It's some kind of energy. Obviously nature type. And it blocks out your mana extremely well. Definitely not material. Try taking some of the liquid mana from the tree and seeping it into the crystal.]

'Alright.'

Nodding, Dream began to grab some of the liquid mana flowing through the tree and converted it to his own. He then sent the dense mana towards this energy crystal, trying to either scan it or break into it.

Unfrtunately, when he tried pushing his liquid into this crystal, it didn't budge. It was like banging water into a rock. But Dream didn't give up. Since he couldn't scan it soflty, he would have to drill through it.

So with his ultra fine mana control, he took the liquid and began bombarding a small point on the crystal. This quickly yielded results, and the crystal cracked into pieces. Dream then sent his mana around the pieces, seeing what was inside.

'There's... nothing. The hell?'

Dream's forehead creased as breaking it open didn't show him anything. 

[The crystal is the energy. It doesn't contain anything.]

'...So I need to get inside without breaking it. Can I just take the thing out? This isn't something I can figure out right now.'

[Yup. Just let me isolate the fragments.]

When she said that, the liquid mana began to envelop the broken energy crystal. Unfortunately, this energy was bound to the wood, so they had to cut out a chunk of the wood in order to move the crystal.

Gradually, the wood chunk began to slide through the Tree like a fish in water. Soon, it slipped through the surface and out into the world. Dream grabbed it.

"Amazing... This chunk of wood is even harder than my strongest metal. This crystal... Could this crystal be the solid form of mana?"

[Hard to say. We've never encountered anything denser than liquid mana. Though considering its properties, something like that wouldn't be anything crazy.]

"The crazy thing is the fact that this Tree had tons of those crystals. Its entire center is made up of it. No wonder class 4's would have a hard time cutting this thing down..."

As Dream had searched around, he had indeed found massive amounts of these crystal formations. They were very organized, and they formed the internal structure of the Tree. Considering its weight and height though, it would take something as strong as this to hold it up. But he was still baffled behind the power contained within the Tree.

Dream put the wood chunk into his inventory before going and bringing out a few more crystals from random locations throughout the Tree. He really wanted to study this. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that he would become the elves' number one enemy, he would try and enchant this tree, making it his own ultra-powerful mana battery and fortress.

He couldn't scour the tree for long though. Eventually, Idona came flying back down. And when she spotted Dream, she came over.

"Dream, I was able to get a hold of... What are you doing?!"

As she got closer, Idona could sense the massive amount of mana Dream was controlling and sending through the Tree. Whatever he was doing, it was to the Tree. And that wasn't good. 

"Get your mana out!"

"What? I was taking a look at the structure. This tree is a very impressive natural oddity."

"I know that. And so does every other elf. But should the Ljosfar catch you, you would be in big trouble!"

"How would they catch me? Aren't they up in the tree?"

"They're connected to it! They can sense you through your mana!"

"...So that's what those weird streams were."

Dream suddenly realized. As he had been sending his mana through, he had come across streams of powerful mana that pulsed in a weird way. He had held off on observing it, waiting until he finished grabbing some crystals. But turns out they were the connection these elf leaders had to the Tree. 

"I thought they acted odd. Guess it's a good thing I didn't interact with them."

"You encountered them?!"

"Well, I did, but they didn't encounter me. My mana is too subtle for them to detect. Huhu."

"...Just get out already! Before they do sense you."

"Alright, alright."

Smiling sheepishly, Dream began cut the connection to his mana strings that had spread throughout 40% of the Tree. He then attached them to an enchantment, allowing him easy access into the Tree's channels later. Like a backdoor.

When he stood up, Idona let out a tired breath.

"*sigh* I leave for barely 20 minutes... Anyway, I was able to set up a meeting with them. When we're there, you mention nothing about this."

"What, you think I'm stupid? Of course I won't. Let's go."

"Fine. Follow me."

Dream smiled as they both flew up the Tree. If the elves knew that he didn't only scan the tree, they may not let him leave alive.

'I only took some crystals. Besides, compared to how many are in the tree, this much is a drop in the ocean.'

[I'm surprised those elves don't do anything with the Tree. That thing could be turned into a fortress of unimaginable power with the right enchantments and control. Instead they just live around it and use it for housing. A major waste.]

'At least I get to gain something from it. Those energy crystals are intriguing. I'm looking forward to studying them.'