Chapter 171: Dark Humor

Ashlock stirred awake as the sun crested the distant mountain range and bathed his bark in warm sunlight. As his spiritual sight lazily expanded to encompass the courtyard, there was an all too familiar system notification.

Idletree Daily Sign-In System

Day: 3533Upstodatee from n(0)/ve/lbIn/.(co/m

Daily Credit: 6

Sacrifice Credit: 339

[Sign in?]

"Over three hundred credits?" Ashlock murmured as he finally woke, "Oh yeah, I ate Kassandra yesterday. That makes sense."

Dismissing the notification as he had no plans to sign in with only enough for a guaranteed B grade draw, he checked on his Star Core. After yesterday's events, he waited a whole night to recharge some Qi and allow everyone to recover.

"Half full should be good enough to raise Roderick as an Ent," Ashlock swore this would be his last significant Qi expenditure for a while. After this, his only costs should be growing some plants for alchemy and expanding his roots toward Slymere in anticipation of the war.

Glancing around the mountain peak, Ashlock caught sight of everyone except for Stella.

"Where is she?" Ashlock's vision blurred as he checked on the cavern below and found Stella standing over the cauldron fruit with a line of freshly made Mind Fortress pills on the earthen bowls rim.

"Thank you, Stella, these will help a lot," Ashlock said within her mind once he noticed she had finished her work. The girl was briefly spooked by the sudden voice in her head but soon calmed down.

"Don't scare me like that!" Stella grumbled but then smiled, "I made these for everyone. I think they should all have the pleasure of hearing your heavenly voice."

"The sarcasm is practically dripping from every word," Ashlock noted.

Stella shrugged and withdrew her soul fire from the cauldron. Her silver spatial ring then flashed and absorbed the many Mind Fortress pills.

"Since when did you have so many silver spatial rings?" Ashlock asked as he noticed that many of Stella's fingers were adorning silver rings.

"Oh, these? I looted them from the corpses," Stella replied, "I broke the seal on them overnight after much effort. Kassandra and Theron had a lot of money we could use, Lilian had almost nothing but some void crystal things I am planning to give Elaine, and Roderick's ring was just sad with how dirt poor its contents were."

Ashlock had totally forgotten about the rings these cultivators wore, so he was glad Stella had the foresight to loot them off their fingers before he devoured them.

"Make sure to share some of that money with the others," Ashlock pointed out, "Everyone helped that day and deserves to be rewarded for their efforts."

Stella nodded, "I planned to. I will also stop by the White Stone Palace and give some to Redclaws, as I am sure they will need the Spirit Stones and Crowns to hire all those people you asked for."

"Good idea," Ashlock was proud that Stella was starting to think more about those around her.

Stella snapped her finger, and a portal manifested. Stepping though, she appeared thousands of meters away on the mountain peak. Walking around, she woke up the sleeping or cultivating sect members and gave them a lump of money alongside a few freshly made Mind Fortress pills.

Diana eyed the pills with unease and didn't seem to care much for the money. Elaine was ecstatic to learn she would be able to hear my voice and also seemed happy with the weird void crystals. Douglas was naturally the most excited for the cash and eyed the pill suspiciously.

"You aren't trying to poison me, are you?" Douglas asked Stella with narrowed eyes.

Stella just snorted, "I could slap you out of existence. Why would I bother poisoning you? Just eat it and go speak to Ash."

"Fair," Douglas sighed as he swallowed the pill and walked over to stand before Ashlock. His face was terribly serious—which made sense. He was about to receive the words of a supposed immortal and even needed a specially crafted pill so his mind didn't break from hearing the words.

"Hello, Douglas," Ashlock said calmly as his presence slammed into the man's mind.

"Holy fuck," Douglas stumbled back and glanced around as if something was going to jump out and eat him, "What is with this weird white fog all of a sudden, and why do you sound like a hundred people at once?"

Douglas then controlled himself and replied mentally, "I apologize for my careless words, immortal. Please ignore me."

"Relax, I just wanted to ask what type of Ent you want," Ashlock chuckled, "Do you want a large one like Titus? Or one on the smaller side, like Khaos? Would a certain shape work better, or is a humanoid fine?"

Straining his neck to glance up, he saw Stella smirking at him through the wobbling portal. He could punch the portal and survive the fall, but he knew escape from this woman was hopeless. She was a spatial cultivator able to cross thousands of meters with a snap of her fingers.

What made the whole situation even worse was the person currently messing with him—Stella. She was so unhinged that it was hard to tell when she was just messing around or genuinely trying to kill him.

"Stella, I'm sorry for asking Geb to nibble your hair!" He shouted for the tenth time. He wasn't actually sorry, but anything to make her stop dangling him mid-air through a portal was a win in his book.

Douglas knew Stella couldn't hear him through the portal and that his shouting was useless, but maybe the immortal would pity him and save his condemned soul from this psycho.

Am I to spend eternity here? When will Stella's vendetta fade?

Douglas frowned. He wasn't sure if it would ever fade. He saw how she slit Roderick's throat despite already being half dead—that girl has no idea how to let a grudge go.

I really fucked up, didn't I?

When all hope seemed lost, he brightened up when Elaine came into view through the portal. She spoke with Stella as she looked at him, and he could see them conversing about something.

"Save me, Elaine!" Douglas begged with his eyes, "She's crazy! Why are you laughing with her?"

He then saw Stella poke her head through the portal and grin at him, "Elaine says I should drop you. What do you think?"

"Eh?" Douglas wasn't sure how to feel. On the one hand, that would save him from Stella's clutches, but it was also a rather far drop and wasn't likely to be painless.

Stella swung his body side to side, "What if I just killed you right now? Do you think Elaine would be mad at me?"

Douglas felt his heart turn cold as he looked into Stella's crazed eyes.

Unsure what to say, he opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no words came out. She wasn't wrong, she could kill him, but didn't they have a deeper connection than that?

Suddenly he felt Stella pull hard on his ankle, his ears popped as the pressure changed, and he found himself back on Red Vine Peak.

"Only joking~" Stella giggled as she patted him on the shoulder to stabilize him from stumbling face first and then walked away toward the bench under Ashlock's shade with a carefree stride.

Douglas just stood there for a moment, stunned. What the hell had just happened?

***

"Stella, that wasn't very nice," Ashlock scolded the blonde girl as she lay slothfully on his bench, "Not everyone understands your dark humor."

"What do you mean? I was just messing with the guy," Stella replied mentally with her eyes and mouth shut.

In moments like these, Ashlock was reminded that Stella had a slightly different worldview than the others. To her, threatening death was a funny joke.

"Stella, don't retaliate that harshly again. It was just a joke," Ashlock explained.

"Fine," Stella replied, "I won't dangle Douglas through portals again."

All Ashlock could do was sigh.

A while passed, and with the mountain peak calming down, Ashlock decided to give Douglas and Geb a job as the new rogue alchemists, and Kane Azurecrest had nowhere to work within the White Stone Palace.

Neither the Ravenborne, Winterwrath, or Evergreen families had been into alchemy, so the White Stone Palace lacked a proper alchemy lab.

"Douglas, take Geb over to the other mountain peak and create a cavern within the mountain just below the White Stone Palace for a new alchemy lab," Ashlock explained, "I need a place for the new alchemists to work that won't get in the way of us."

The last thing he wanted was for Red Vine Peak to become overpopulated with people he didn't know. Best to keep them all sectioned off over on the other peak and let the Redclaws handle annoying matters.

"Alright, I can do that," Douglas motioned for Geb to follow him, and the weird wood turtle tottered over.

Ashlock created a portal that led to the other mountain's base to shorten their travel time, and Doulgas left with a short appreciative bow. With him gone, it was time for Ashlock to expand his roots westward toward Slymere.