From Three to Tree

From Three to Tree

Year 230

In many ways, many Centaur habits or traditions are persistent even though they are of different worlds. It certainly made it easy for centaurs to adapt to their new life in Hoofhall, and they were quite to slowly form their own sub-clan within the Centaurs.

The news of the land transfer to the Temple of Aeon, however, spread quickly and reached the Centaurs. It spurred a surge of magic, as they attempted to find out who and what this particular Temple of Aeon did.

The human-faction didnt outright declare war, but within weeks there were spies in the new area.

All they found was nothing but an empty barren land. A ruse, they called it.

My clone was hidden behind huge layers of illusions and spells that its almost impossible for any lesser person to find. They did try.

Yet they didnt ask the Grand Pyramid directly. Communication between the factions was scarce in the best of times.

Zhaanpu also wouldnt say too much. The three factions didnt trust each other, even if they worked together under a pact. They have a status quo that none of them liked, but didnt and couldnt break free of it either.

Arjan and Eudoxus, thus, came with a fascinating proposal.

As the Sandpeople are now aware of our presence, we would like to propose that we open up and declare our affiliation to Treehome. The centaurs deserve to know of the other worlds, and open communication would permit us to do so.

Wouldnt we be seen as lying to them all these years? Our papers were forged. If anything, it should be another centaur that leads the conversation, and we remain as the hidden hand behind the scenes.

Declaring our presence after being hidden was a scumbag move, so, I believe that wasnt a good idea. Our goal was to find a nice place to plant my tree, and now that weve achieved it through Zhaanpu and the Sandpeople, I no longer needed a spot in the Centaur Lands.

So, after some consideration, I decided that they should remain hidden, and changed the scope of engagement.

I wanted Eudoxus and the centaurs to just keep tabs on them, and make sure they didnt engage in overtly harmful activities.

Arjan, however, requested to return to Treehome. Unlike Eudoxus, he wasnt a spy, so maintaining this double-life was more taxing, than to the spymaster who flipped through personas as easily as changing profile pictures.

My [spear saint] just couldnt take it anymore.

Im torn from keeping lies and hiding our origins. Arjan admitted to me as he made the journey back. Of the original six centaurs sent to infiltrate the Centaurlands, Arjan and one other decided to return. Id rather fight ten years in the dungeons than this, Ive no idea how Eudoxus does it, but I cant. These centaurs that I know, that I meet and befriended, they are nice people, good folks. Friendly, but I have to be on guard, and I cant tell them stuff that reveals our own exceptional upbringing.

They didnt manage to prevent all of it. Eudoxus did say that the non-spy centaurs did leak a few words or statements that pretty much indicated their foreign origins, but so far their new friends have not picked up.

Arjan thought he was ready for it, before he started this mission. But this long campaign in the Centaur-ruled lands proved him wrong. It wasnt easy to lead a double life at all.

That was expected, and it was entirely why [spies] and [spymasters] were needed. They had the ability, the instinct to know what to do, and could manage the double lives easily without feeling their own minds tearing apart. It required amounts of mental strength, and intellectual prowess that not everyone had.

In fact, once he returned to Treehome, the two went back to their real family and I witnessed both of them have a small emotional breakdown. It wasnt that bad, as Freshka is pretty much saturated with my [tree of prayers], which generally improves their moods. [Tree of prayers] become less effective on those of higher levels, however, simply because of the mental protections of a stronger soul.

Eudoxus understood. He had seen this too many times, and as the main handler, he was familiar with the emotional turmoil. He assured me that it can be managed.

***

Ularans adapted well on Treehome, and Snek was pleased. Stella had withdrawn the portals, but because we already raided a few of the rift gates and obtained their rift coordinates, we were able to access their world.

The young Ularans joined the Valtrian Orders academies, and they leveled. Meanwhile, Snek was able to share his new blood magic.

The heroes, and Ken specifically, watched with great interest. Ken still wondered about my intentions for Sneks blood magic, and so wanted to see what Snek collected.

Most of them were benign, but the Ularans used [blood magic] extensively prior to the era of the demons to [augment] their souls, and gain spiritual powers.

How do you insert a [hero] class? I asked, wondering whether the Ularans have a mechanism different from how I insert a [class] seed into a fruit, and the Valthorns then eat the fruit. Maybe it worked out the same way, maybe it doesnt.

I know for a fact not all classes are created equal, and it is possible for the body to reject a class. A [Hero] class is probably the most powerful class Ive ever seen, so, I wanted to know what Sneks plan for it.

In truth, its likely well need more blood magic to tie the [hero] class with a new soul. Snek admitted, much to Kens horror.

What?! More sacrifice? Ken said, but as far as I recall, removing Kens hero class didnt require living sacrifices beyond snakes. The others just fainted.

Great power requires great sacrifice, but if it goes well, no one has to die. Snek said. Theyll just lose their blood. Its called blood magic, not sacrifice magic, even if it does get used interchangeably.

As we reviewed the old blood magic tomes collected from the various old buried sites in Ulara, it occurred to me most of them are spying, buff, transformation, and summon type spells. They summoned various serpents and snakes to do their bidding.

Of them all, I found the buff and summon type spells to be particularly fascinating. The buff-type blood magics temporarily enhance the soul, and unlock a higher level of power by temporarily stitching itself to the soul. We immediately wondered whether it was possible to forge this into something more permanent, in the same way that the [ginseng] was crucial to breaking the level limits.

As I reviewed the blood magics summons, I also had a council of mages pull together some information on summon magic in our worlds.

The concept of a summon is particularly important to identify, because, are we borrowing power from another world, or from the system or from somewhere else altogether? Where are these summons when they are not summoned?

Eventually, I concluded that summons pulled power from the system itself. That these summons are functionally creations of the system, and not really another realm. The blood magic, and some of the faux-demonic magic, worked the same way.

The concept of hell was a system-creation, a part of this system presets.

Still, the soul-augmentation through blood magic, essentially taking pieces of souls and adding them to existing souls to strengthen them was worth exploring further.

You need it to move on. Come, well be there with you. Like it or not, the seven of us are unique in this multiverse.

***

Kei was very, very interested in Alkas supercomputer-crystals. As a bio-crystalline golem, she was a natural fit to using the crystals, though we were a bit leery of directly experimenting on people.

But over the past two-three years Alka had gotten more comfortable with the inner workings of the supercomputer-crystals, and began testing out versions with Kei.

Simply put, Kei wanted to know whether its possible to augment her body by replacing it, or converting her entire body into a supercomputer, essentially transforming her into a living supercomputer.

We are all intrigued by the idea.

Kei, as she is today, was fairly weak. At level 120 or so, even with the extensive powerleveling in the dungeons, she was still really far away from even getting back her previous strength as a hero.

In a way, she was stagnant. Many Valthorns plateau at this stage, the level 120s to 149 is where each level feels like it takes forever to climb. Roon and Johann vividly remember the long struggle of this particular stage.

In hindsight, I really, really lucked out with all the fragments I hoarded.

The first small scale experiment started with converting a bit of her shoulder into the supercomputer, and then somehow wiring it to connect to her mind.

At first, she didnt feel any different.

But within a month, she claimed it was nothing short of exception.

This is what sci-fi wants to show us, but always fails. Its like certain regimented thoughts, like calculations can be made instantly, instead of manually going through the numbers in our head. Its just amazing. Memory also seems far more fresh, more vivid, and I just store way more detail. I know exactly whats the fastest way to go from here to there. I know the time it takes to do certain things, what and who said stuff.

So youve become better at crunching numbers, storing information and retrieving them. Alka repeated. Sounds like an artificial mind-assistant.

Yes, and Im not selling it short here. Even with the [hero]-classs intelligence augmentation I dont feel like this. The [hero] classs effects feel more like a really strong gut feeling of what to do. This is... I know exactly the calculation that was made. Its like seeing the options available, instead of having a gut feeling of what is the right path.

Keis newfound computational power did improve her ability to make computations, but its still all about asking the right questions, and the crystals themselves dont understand complex or vague questions.

Garbage in, garbage out.

It would take some time for standardized process and computations to form. We have some ideas of what would be useful in battle against the demons, but Id like to see them tested.

***

On Threeworlds, I expanded my trees as quickly as I could. Though most of it was barren, I could still, via roots, spawn other types of trees that fit the terrain. Cactuses, certain types of shrubs were naturally adapted to such lands.

I spread them quickly, and eventually, the trees also reached the city of Pyramid, home of Zhaanpu and the Great Pyramid.

Your presence is interesting. Zhaanpu said. He spoke to a palm tree in his citys courtyard. No wonder the Crystal King claims you are an invader.

I see you can sense me.

We are inanimate objects. I am a corpse bound to the pyramid, my life sustained through this connection. This connection extends throughout the city, and into the land beyond. I know when trees appear out of nowhere. Still, it is nice to finally speak without the presence of children.

It isnt so bad.

There must be some things you want to ask.

The pact with the gods. Does that allow you to communicate with them?

Rarely. When the stars align, and the wobbles of the sun happen to be in the right place, we could.

How?

We pray, and sacrifice two of my priests. Their blood and my magic unlocks a key, which allows us to speak to that faraway God once more.

I chuckled. It seems that the gods have a poor reputation.

Well deserved, for a distant god, what could we say except he is not here when we need him? Zhaanpu sighed.

You could get there, gain the levels. You do gain levels, right?

Me? In the last hundred years I gained four levels. Four. Strangely, at that moment, Zhaanpu didnt look like the powerful pharaoh of the Sandpeople, instead, was just a sagging, tired corpse.

The system benefits combat.

And I failed as a ruler, if I had to take the field, and the battle reached my city. Failed. How contradictory, dont you think?

Couldnt you nominate those to fight on your behalf?

I did. They die too quickly.

There was nothing much to say beyond that.

Spaizzer

AUTHOR NOTE : Thanks for reading. I'm on break for the week of January 24/25, 2023. Will be away.