Chapter 951 - Barrels (Patreon)

Setting up an array that hungrily devours mana from like half the continent is surprisingly simple. What is even more shocking is that it remains surprisingly stable. I'm very flabbergasted that it didn't blow up while I went to the Beyond a few times, always buying a tutorial stay token to return after a few hours.

Of course, I had to wrestle to take control over the black mana halo, as well as the array. And it hurt, but not physically or mentally. Emotionally.

The black mana halo was made by me. It is my favorite toy, my baby, and my beloved creation. I love it more than I love partying, socializing, or dealing with my guild master responsibilities.

Thankfully, my fragment of the Nameless Tree, no, I mean, Mana Tree, is always here for me. Quiet, shy, listening, reliable, and hungry as always.

I bet it's because I feed it. If I stopped, it would probably betray me too. It is tough to be an attendee nowadays, I would wager noble ladies and their pets used to have it simpler.

So two weeks pass. The black mana halo continues to grow, and I don't know if I should even call it a halo. It's a black forbidden loop with a circumference of half a mile. And right below it, in the center, my Mana Tree grows.

That tree isn't even that tall, only like ten or so stories. Up until now, it was guided by me to grow how I want it to and fairly successfully. So I have decided to reward it.

I have taken multiple barrels of spicy Demigod teabag water, the purest ones from the deepest parts, to the Doc. This time, neither my greedy Handler nor my favorite house pest stopped me. It's like they don't mind me bringing this contraband to the Beyond, unlike the white sand from so long ago.

It saddens me a little because it either means the spicy water isn't as dangerous, or that they think I can responsibly handle it.

But that sadness of mine is quickly replaced by the excitement of the catboy, an excitement that mirrors my own as I explained my plan to him.

That plan is very simple, as is my thought process. The Demigod's water is filled with his essence, power, and nature, call it however you want. And that essence doesn't like mana. Then there is my manasol, created by using [Jüdrajil]. On its own, manasol isn't that useful currently, though I still miss the sacred engine I experimented on and might try to locate it to see if I can do something about it.

The main thought is, what if I use the water full of the Demigod's essence to break down the manasol? Manasol that is currently akin to mercury, and not that useful, as it is mostly a byproduct of my skill. It just floats and refuses to be absorbed or behave as proper water.

If I play with the correct purity of both and find the golden ratio, wouldn't the Demigod's essence break down the not-too-purified manasol? Just enough so the resulting liquid is literally liquid mana, even if it is far from being as pure as manasol.And so that's what we did. I brought the barrels to the Doc, and I gave him various purity solutions of manasol. I also gave him some of my blood to add to the mix.

Then I had to promise him I would give him the Demigod's reproductive organs, if there are any. I haven't looked yet, and I haven't even teleported the Demigod to the surface yet, as I'm fairly confident that something will go wrong when I do so.

Maybe the world will begin to break down, or maybe the kaiju will start rushing here. So I'm postponing that a little bit.

My intention is to create mana water that I will use to water my Mana Tree, as well as putting the flesh of the Demigod at its roots for the tree to devour. It is a process akin to brute-forcing my trait evolution by making my traits crash. Perhaps the tree will grow stronger, as it's forced to fight against the flesh of the Demigod, or perhaps it will just use that flesh as nutrients. It must be hungry, after all, I have been only feeding it kinetic energy most of the time.

I previously spent some shards to gain more information about Fragments of the Nameless Tree and heard of similar methods, though most of them were less drastic and took much longer. People with the fragment usually just plant it in the middle of their territory, and while using it as an extremely stable node, they make it grow with them.

These people are extremely boring for sure. My tree will like my method more, I'm confident. Still, the question remains how different the mana water will be compared to feeding it my own mana, though even here I suspect the water might affect it on a deeper level. It is a tree after all, trees like water, so why complicate things too much?

All that remains now is to wait a few days longer for the catboy to finish with his dark experiments and prepare the right amount of solution for me. There is way too much science, measuring, and madness for me to do it on my own, and the Doc seemed excited.

I could probably sell some body parts of the Demigod, and I believe it would get me a lot of shards, but I think they are much too valuable for that. If they make my Mana Tree stronger, the payoff far outweighs mere tens of millions of shards.

Though, I have to agree that I can probably use some parts to trade in for low pristine items with the top guilds, and possibly try to add a bit extra to get my hands on mid pristine gear. Talon is already asking around, and I pre-commissioned Crimson Forge to make me a mantle out of a part of the fur. Even without the mora trio, they have some very capable crafters there.

Then, there is the heart. The Demigod's heart. At first, I wanted to do some of my own experiments with it, possibly try to use some talnium or attempt to minimize it through some other fuckery and chuck it into my own chest. Damn, I could also probably permanently manifest one of my subminds through a vessel and chuck the heart in there. There are options.

Yet, Lily asked me for it, and I agreed.

Perhaps it was a moment of weakness she had sensed from me. Perhaps it was even a shrewd calculation on her part. Or maybe I just think it is a worthy trade. That petite lunatic seems to have something on her mind, and whatever she cooks up, I will likely be her first test subject. That makes me think that, in the end, it will be more valuable than whatever I could plan out on my own.

An image of the Demigod's body flashes in my mind. Still looking so glorious and holy as it floated in the water down there. Mindless, having died not that long ago, and here we are, planning to cut it apart, feed it to the tree, and trade it for items.

The most messed-up part about it is how casually I take all of this. For the most part, I haven't even thought about the morals of it.

Maybe it is just the human in me. Ultimately, the other races of the universe are right to call us locusts. We were a weak, endless swarm until we found our perfect match in the system.

It is three days later when I go to the Beyond and return, this time with a barrel of the solution the Doc has made. For now it is a small one, probably only twenty percent the size of the barrels I filled with the water down there. Even now, there are currently close to a thousand of them all over this place.

Yes, I have been busy. I haven't moved the body of the Demigod outside yet, as it still requires some preparations, but I went down there for more of that water. I did it because I saw the greed in Doc's eyes.

After what could be tens of thousands of years sleeping dormant in that water, the Demigod changed its properties. It gave even someone like me trouble when trying to control my mana. I think just throwing a vial of this water at an average Beyonder would do some nasty stuff to them. That effect is a bit like disruption, but not fully.

If I had to describe it, I would say it is like Victoria's stigma, just with the difference that the Demigod wasn't able to suppress everything, nor did it have other effects like freezing, confusion, or teleportation disruption that Starless Sky was able to do.

Instead, that power of "rejection" seems to be tailored to mana only. The barrier part of the Demigod's powers aren't present in it, though, but that somewhat makes sense. The water wouldn't just so easily absorb all of its powers.

The Doc said he hasn't slept for days, and he certainly looked like it, but the result is this barrel. He explained it to me in a long rant, but simply, he did exactly what I had thought of. He used the right purity of manasol to clash with the right amount of water, in addition to my blood, some archscorpion poison, and the help of a powerful Handler or two.

The result is blue water, and I watched the Doc chug down a bottle of it right in front of me to wash down some suspicious neon green pill.

Honestly, I am not sure I even want to know what that pill was for, or what the mana water will do to him.

Still, apparently the water is very valuable, but I have trouble finding out why. Yes, it is cool that I cannot take mana from it, and that I also cannot manipulate it. I can sense that mana, but it escapes my control. That by itself is a bit crazy, but that is mostly it.

When I asked about it out loud, the catboy almost attacked me. He was about to jump at my throat while calling me an ignorant fool and shouting some other words in a weird language that I think caused a bit of mental damage to me.

But now, I stand in front of the Mana Tree. It towers over me. It looks like a mix of a bristlecone pine and a Greek juniper tree, and I highly suspect this appearance is thanks to my subconscious. It resembles something I remember reading about in one of the few books we used to have at home. These two trees that I always found very fascinating, each because of a different reason.

The trunk is mostly white and stripped of bark, shaped almost like a white wave frozen in time, stretching towards one side and then straight up. The leaves at the crown are currently transparent and glass-like, colored in a vibrant green.

It is a beautiful tree. My tree, which I now touch with my hand to feel its warmth.

Then I open the barrel and start pouring all of the solution inside right in front of it. For a while, I observe the tree to see if there is any reaction. However, unlike my constantly switching thoughts and wandering attention, the tree feels slow and perfectly stable.

"There will be more of it, much more, so make sure to grow properly," I whisper to it and let go of the trunk.

With a single use of Wraith Dance, I reach Lily, who is currently holding the hand of Kindness's clone with her eyes closed.

Not wanting to interrupt, I sit nearby and observe her curiously from a distance. Her black hair is falling into her face, and there is a slight frown on her features. I watch the way she quietly mutters something to herself, as she always does when she is frustrated.

It takes an hour for her to stop, and probably a few seconds for her to realize I am nearby. Lissandra would absolutely destroy her for such a lack of awareness.

"Oh, sorry, have you been waiting for long?" she asks.

"Not at all," I answer. "Did you speak with Tess while I was in the Beyond?"

"Yes! The closest kaijukakalulu should take eighty-seven days to get to where we are, with the second closest taking one hundred and twenty-nine days, and the rest even further out! That is assuming, and I quote you, nothing completely fucks up and kaijukakalulu don't suddenly get to sprinting across the planet or, because corgi overlords forbid something actually goes according to the plan in this miserable tutorial, they don't just pull some space-magic bullshit to skip the entire trip and rip a hole through reality to teleport straight onto our completely unprepared, sorry asses.”

"The guy who, according to you, said that couldn't possibly be me, because he sounds like an ass," I answer. I glance up just as the crown of my Mana Tree shakes, and after a brief battle of will, the black mana halo stops spinning.

With a sound that seems like something straight out of a sci-fi ship launching into hyperspace, it shrinks and then floats down, hovering straight over my head.

"Keeping that thing hovering over your head is kind of creepy, you know. It is like always putting a nuke or two right next to your brain," Lily notes.

That thought is quite surprising to me, but as I muse over it, I come to the conclusion that she is entirely correct.

It gets a brief chuckle from me as I ask, "Ready?"

"Ready!"

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