1/3
*
Stepping through the portal, Priam set foot in Oasis and blinked against the sudden brightness.For five months, the Necromoon had shrouded the world in perpetual night, yet today, dawn was breaking. To his left, beyond the mountains encircling the valley that housed Log-a-rhythm, the horizon blazed orange. Then the ground trembled, and Priam immediately understood that no sun had come to challenge the Necromoon’s dominion over the heavens.
“Priam!” Osiris shouted, sprinting toward the Champions. “I—I screwed up.”
“What’s going on?” the young man asked as a final portal finished disgorging Jasmine and Esmée.
“M—My brother asked me to return a seed he’d entrusted to me.”
Staring at the ground, the teenager chewed nervously at his fingernails. Priam grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Seth was there?”
“Uh—huh.”
Priam narrowed his eyes.
“And he didn’t tell you to come back with him?”
“No. He told me to stay here. Said it’d be safer for me.”
“He said that, huh?”
Releasing the boy before he accidentally hurt him, Priam cast a complicated glance toward the distant battlefield.
A second earthquake shook the valley. Far away, part of a mountain collapsed in a roaring avalanche of stone.
“What seed?” Esmée asked.
“The seed of a Tier 5 necro tree our favorite bone guy’s trying to grow,” Priam answered absently while assessing the situation. Seeing Osiris stare at him in shock, he added, “Dishnu told me.”
“Oh. Well, yes. That seed.”
Half of the sky turned stark white. Following the flash came a shockwave that blew away the clouds and shook the dome protecting Oasis.
[Aetheric, thermal, and electromagnetic frequencies matching Arnold’s [Nova]]
“...You should head inside,” Priam said, nudging Osiris toward Log-a-rhythm.
“I can help!”
“Help who?” Priam shook his head. “They’re too far away. We’re not in danger.” Yet. Another tremor rocked the entire valley. “Go check on Rose, okay?”
The teenager squinted suspiciously. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”
“Yep. But I honestly think Rose wouldn’t mind a hug right now. Calamities bring people together.”
Osiris bit his lower lip, then took off toward Log-a-rhythm at a run.
“Ah, hormones,” Jasmine mocked.
Kazuki pointed toward the barrier.
“The undead are migrating.”
Along Oasis's perimeter, skeletons and half-rotted corpses marched in endless lines, following the dome without attacking it. For the first time in months, the maddened creatures ignored the living, drawn instead toward the epicenter of the battle.
“Seth knows we’re leaving for our second Reunions,” Esmée analyzed. “This is his opportunity to expand his influence. If he succeeds in growing a Tier 5 tree, he will become unassailable.”
“Arnold doesn’t seem inclined to let that happen—”
A loud crack echoed. In the distance, a piece of the sky split like a shattered mirror. A fragment of reality broke away, revealing a window that exposed a green moon. A wave of aether pulsed, and the forest surrounding Oasis woke up. Buds appeared on the trees, and sap began to flow once more. In a sudden surge of vitality, nature roared. A second later, branches and roots lashed through the air, impaling and lacerating the necro-horde.
“Neither does Dishnu.”
Planting his spear into the ground to steady himself, one-legged Kazuki asked the inevitable question. “What do we do?”
The ground shook a fourth time, so violently that fissures tore open. Struck by the seismic wave, the mountainous ramparts of the valley groaned. A landslide swallowed thousands of dead marchers, and a blast of scorching wind crashed against Oasis. The shield trembled. Outside, trees and corrupted beings were swept away, blown into the heavens.
“They’re really going at it,” Priam muttered. “Esmée, where exactly is the battle?”
The princess opened her grimoire. “Sixteen kilometers from here,” she replied before frowning. “And half the floating island has already collapsed into the ocean beneath us.”
Kazuki grunted.
Jasmine whistled.
“By the Juggernaut's balls.”
Priam raised an eyebrow, then shook his head.
“You know what? This isn’t our war,” he decided, heading toward Log-a-rhythm.
He still had preparations to make before calling down his High Tribulations, and throwing himself into an all-out melee involving the Tyrant, the Guardian, and the Necromoon's avatar seemed like an excellent way to get himself killed.
*
Lvl up: [Ideal Aether Perception] lvl 55META (Affinity) +3META (Perception) +6
Pulled from his dream by the notification, Priam smiled as he reflected on the oneiric evolution of his meta affinity. What could be better than progressing while taking a nap? Dragons truly had life on easy mode.
His add-on indicated that he had slept for five hours, and the young man decided to get up. Before the Tutorial, he considered that a good night’s sleep had to last at least nine hours. With his current vitality, four hours already felt like sleeping in.
Climbing out of his hammock, Priam spat out the wad of chewed jonstiame leaf, now devoid of flavor and active compounds. The Empyrean psychotropic placed the mind in a state especially receptive to aether, at the risk of inducing mental conditions ranging from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder. Esmée’s gift was therefore quite literally poisonous. Fortunately, Priam was immune to the side effects.
Lvl up: [Poison Physique] lvl 23CONST +6VIT +3
Hopefully Lamnas figures out how to cultivate it soon. Supplies are running low.
Looking through the window, Priam realized the war was over. At first glance, the greener forest and the disappearance of the undead suggested Seth’s defeat. No more corrupted stragglers lingered around Oasis.However, the Necromancer was backed by a Tier 9. It was hard to believe he could have vanished completely.
Vaulting over the railing, Priam took flight to examine the aftermath of the battle. He stopped a kilometer above his home to avoid drawing the attention of flying predators, and squinted toward the epicenter of yesterday’s fight. His high perception spotted a few thousand undead—the remnants of a horde of millions—gathered under the bare branches of a tree that was charging toward the heavens. A twin to Log-a-rhythm with a blackened trunk and as tall as the Eiffel Tower, the vegetative monster was contesting Seth’s defeat.
Priam felt his stomach knot with stress before realizing that the tree was burning. Recognizing the atomic fire as Arnold's signature, he concluded that no one had truly won.
“Maybe that’s for the best,” he mused. “As long as they’re busy tearing each other apart, they leave me alone.”
Deactivating his kinetic skill, Priam let himself drop down to the canopy of his tree, where he ordered a bowl of sap. Then, taking advantage of the morning silence to get some work done, he tuned his spiritual frequency to that of his home and accessed his interface.
Log-a-rhythm:
Path: Yggdrasil
Features:Yggdrasil IAbundance - Life IVAbundance - Aether IIIProtection VTribulation Resistance IVSecret Passage ILand Owner IIProtective Barrier VIIICamouflage IIGuardian of the Forest VIIIMighty roots INecro Purification VIIINatural Growth VIIINecro Resistance VRot Resistance IIUnderground IIValaryth Adaptation IFire ResistanceFungal ResistanceTreant I
MeasurementsHeight of the tree crown: 39 meters (+4)Depth reached by the roots: 20 metersInterior Area: 108 m² (90 m² +20%) (Ceiling Height: 3 meters) (+12)
StatusCurrent POT: 64 980Passive gain: 150 (+450) (+80) POT/day.(+450 POT/day: bonus - Guardian of the Forest VIII)(+80 POT/day: bonus - Natural Growth VIII)(+5125 POT bonus from Natural Growth VIII)
Available Themes
Primo (1 000 000)
Yggdrasil II (25 000)
Nature (1 000)
Cocoa (500)
Sequoia (1 000)
Tea (500)
Abundance - Life V (10 000)
Abundance - Aether IV (5 000)
Protection VI (25 000)
Tribulation Resistance V (10 000)
Secret Passage II (500) (-500)
Camouflage III (2 000) (-500)
Attraction I (500)
Underground III (2 300) (-200)
Comfort I (500)
Volume III (2 500)
Water Control I (500)
Land Owner III (2 000) (-500)
Protective Barrier IX (250 000)
Guardian of the Forest IX (249 500) (-300)(-200)
Mighty Roots II (1 000)
Root network - Plant Intelligence II (300) (-500)(-200)
Root network - Plant Control II (300) (-500)(-200)
Necro Purification IX (250 000)
Natural Growth IX (250 000)
Necro Resistance VI (25 000)
Rot Resistance III (2 500)
Valaryth Adaptation II (1 000)
Fire Resistance II (900) (-100)
Fungal Resistance II (900) (-100)
Tréant II (25 000)
Age: 209 days
Priam was sitting atop a mountain of Potential. Or rather, Log-a-rhythm was. Of course, he could wait until the end of his second Reunion or even longer to make a massive purchase, but after seeing Seth plant his own tree, Priam was reluctant to let a resource sit idle. Like money, Potential had to be invested to yield interest; otherwise, inflation would catch up with it. Not economic inflation, but the growth of his rivals.
“To stagnate is to perish,” Arnold had said, and Priam agreed.
Browsing through the options, the young man pondered their scope. This was a task he had to do alone. At the end of the day, Log-a-rhythm was his symbiote, a tool as deeply personal as a skill or a bloodline. Despite his friendship with Kazuki and his respect for Esmée, Priam had no intention of keeping them informed of such intimate decisions. Only Jasmine had earned that right through her loyalty, but the Shadow had little appetite for theorycrafting. A shame.
After an hour of deliberation, Priam found three possible paths of improvement. The first was to invest in Treant, Camouflage, and Protection to relocate his base far from here. His duel with Arnold had confirmed what he already suspected: he lacked the means to confront the elite among the Champions head-on. With the absorption of the rift leading to Valaryth, there was nothing keeping the members of Oasis here anymore.
On the other hand, there was no indication that the grass was greener elsewhere. The Wandering Islands were Elysium’s noob zone, and leaving them meant exposing oneself to calamities. Numerous Tier 9s inhabited Elysium, and after the episode with She Who Weaves Fate, Priam had absolutely no desire to die just because a powerhouse sneezed in his direction.
Dismissing that option, Priam pondered Yggdrasil. Formerly known as Tal Quercus, the feature was expensive but would almost certainly set Log-a-rhythm upon an extraordinary Path—that of a World Tree straight from Norse mythology.
Lowering his gaze, he looked through the canopy until he found the rift to Valaryth anchored at the top of the trunk. Nothing would please him more than seeing his tree become a crossroads between realms. A living nexus capable of plunging its roots into distant worlds and drawing nourishment from them as though they were pockets of fertile soil.
Or perhaps even merging them? When I was a kid, I wanted to own an island. I could settle for a world. He squinted. Wait. Tier 5s possess a would-be universe, right? If I transplant Log-a-rhythm into the Concepts Archipelago, I could end up with a matryoshka world. Worlds within worlds...
The odds of it being that simple were slim, but the mage smiled. Ideas had never been in shortage. Resources and power were.
A third option existed, perhaps capable of changing that: Land Owner. Not merely a feature, but also a Title he had yet to fully exploit.
Land Owner Bonus:
Baron: POT cost -10%
Viscount: Aether regeneration x2
Earl: Knowledge about your land
Marquess: LOCKED
Duke: LOCKED
Prince: LOCKED
Within his territory, Priam enjoyed significant advantages. Upgrading the feature would unlock additional bonuses, but did he really need them when he was preparing to leave for his second Reunion?
After a minute of hesitation, Priam chose the only investment that would bear fruit in his absence.
Features:Yggdrasil II NEWPOT -25 000
Yggdrasil III (100 000) NEW
Current POT: 39 980
Infused with Potential, the sap of the Tal Quercus flushed with every imaginable color. A rainbow coursed from its deepest roots to its highest leaves as Log-a-rhythm shuddered beneath the force of its transformation. A metamorphosis that should have taken years or required the catalyst of treasures played out in fast-forward.
With both hands resting against a branch, Priam felt the portal to Valaryth sink deeper into the trunk. From a mere tear in reality, the opening became a window, then a reflection within the emerald bark. In old legends, a pond could sometimes serve as a gateway to another land. Here, the trunk itself had become the bridge between Elysium and the world fragment.
Priam smiled. Now assimilated by Log-a-rhythm, the rift had no chance of slipping beyond his control.
StatusPassive gain: 150 (+450) (+80) (+100) POT/day.
A scent tickled his nose. The smell of a wild ocean. The fragrance of natural evolution. Something that reminded him of Valaryth. Yet according to Micro, his olfactory receptors detected no new molecules. The scent arose from the synesthesia induced by [Ideal Aether Perception]; the Tal Quercus’s aether had changed.
The young Yggdrasil hadn’t simply assimilated the rift; it had been touched by Valaryth.
Closing his eyes, Priam felt Valaryth Adaptation—the feature earned by gifting his tree an alien Concept fragment obtained as a quest reward—resonate with the transformation and ease the evolution. The tree was acclimating to the realm.
The reverse was also true.
StatusPassive gain: 150 (+450) (+80) (+1 000) POT/day.
Leaping down from his branch, Priam plunged through the foliage before stopping in front of the passage. No breeze flowed through the bark, yet the world fragment’s aether poured steadily into Elysium, an energy colored by the young Yggdrasil.
Priam crossed the rift and immediately sensed a shift in the ambient power. Turning toward the miniature Log-a-rhythm growing in Valaryth, he watched its roots burrow deeper and deeper. Not into the soil, but into the very fabric of reality. Into the aether. Into the world itself.
StatusPassive gain: 150 (+450) (+80) (+5 000) POT/day.
Driven by Yggdrasil II, Log-a-rhythm was altering the environment to synchronize its own aether with Valaryth's. Likely their Potential as well. This early on, it was hard to say what this would change, but it was clear the world-tree did not intend to be a mere bridge between two places. It was assimilating the realm—
Space suddenly contracted, petrifying the roots and preventing the tree from continuing its digestion.
StatusPassive gain: 150 (+450) (+80) ( ̶+̶5̶ ̶0̶0̶0̶) POT/day.
A voice echoed inside Priam’s mind.
“Remember our agreement,” Vertex said. “You shall not have this realm until you have defeated the First Terror.”
*