Diana was taking a much-needed break on the bow of Willow after a few days of battling the beast tide. In her hand were a few beast cores from which she was siphoning demonic Qi. Not to refill her Qi reserves—her 9th-stage Star Core passively produced the Qi she needed to endlessly fight these weak monsters—but to progress her cultivation to the Nascent Soul Realm.
"I might reach the Nascent Soul Realm before the next Mystic Realm cycle at this rate," Diana said.
"Really?" Stella replied.
Diana turned to look at Stella. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed. Despite her peaceful appearance, if one looked below Willow, they would see a swarm of swords wreathed in aether Qi tearing cleanly through the rotting monsters.
"Yeah, I think so," Diana continued. "What about you?"
"Mhm, I feel closer than before. I overcame a mental hurdle I was facing and discovered a new application of aether Qi before we went hunting for Astralis. Now I just need to gather enough Qi," she tilted her head, looking at her with one eye open. "But unlike you, I can't absorb Qi from the beast cores, so I'm actually losing Qi right now, killing these monsters."
Diana raised her brow in surprise. "Your Star Core's regeneration can't keep up?"
Stella snorted. "Of course not. Do you see what I'm doing to these beasts? This isn't some low-effort application of aether Qi, you know? It takes some real concentration and way too much Qi to telekinetically control and teleport around a hundred swords."
"That's fair," Diana said, nodding. "But if that's the case, why don't you just control twenty swords, or ten? Why a hundred?"
Stella closed her eyes once more and tilted her head away. "You wouldn't get it."
"Oh, I think I do. Aren't you trying to prove yourself useful by gathering as many corpses as possible for Ashlock? I respect the effort, but this is a marathon, not a sprint," Diana said, looking at the dulling beast cores in her hand. "It's already been days, and there are still so many monsters coming."
"You're wrong. This is a good time to practice my control over my Qi and bloodline while also gathering lots of corpses for Ashlock... okay fine, you are kinda right," Stella said, huffing the hair out of her eyes. "I just want to be useful to the sect, you know? Be seen as part of the team."
"Relax, Stella, nobody looks down on you. Ashlock is just understandably protective of you, so unless you are stronger than the opponents, he will be more inclined to hold you back."
"Exactly," Stella said, pursing her lips. "That's why I need to get stronger. The Qi around here is too weak for cultivating, especially with Ashlock's desolation Qi everywhere. So I'll await the Mystic Realm to advance to the Nascent Soul Realm," she quickly shot a glance at her and stuck out her tongue, "I won't let you overshadow me, Diana."
"You're so childish sometimes," Diana chuckled.
Stella ignored her, focusing on controlling the swords below.
Diana spent an hour watching the purple-tinted horizon through Willow's spatial Qi shield. Occasionally, she would see corpses being telekinetically lifted and deposited through portals by Willow as the Bastion slowly inched further into the beast tide. Sometimes, desolation rifts would tear open on the battlefield below, and a few Ents made from the corpses that had been deposited moments earlier would fall out and join the slaughter.
It was a slow, methodical, but utterly unstoppable conquest of the beast tide. Diana wondered if such a feat would be possible by anyone other than Ashlock. "Probably not, he is one of a kind," Diana muttered. Having drained all of the beast cores she had collected, she stood up and spread her wings.
"I'm thinking of heading out."
Stella lazily raised her arm in response. "Have fun."
Diana scanned the land below. "How long do you think this will go on for?"
"Maybe a week or two more," Stella said, yawning. "If we had to kill all of the monsters, it would take months, but we just need to kill the ones in the middle so they get the message and divert around our lands."
Diana nodded and agreed with Stella's assessment. Two weeks more of this sounded like a lot, but without Ashlock covering the land in desolation Qi and weakening the monsters, even that would be optimistic. Thankfully, since the beasts were so weak, they had to expend far less effort wiping them out. While Ashlock's own horde of Ents was helping, he had requested that they focus more on gathering corpses than making more Ents, so their numbers slowly diminished each day.
Just thinking of how many monster corpses were being gathered hurt Diana's brain. The sheer scale of this massacre was unprecedented.
"Every time Ashlock gets his roots on a load of corpses, he does something ridiculous or powers up," Diana muttered to herself. "I wonder what he will do this time?"
Spreading her wings further, she leaped off the side and glided over the ruined land in search of a group of monsters worthy of her attention. Stella's sword swarm had this area mostly under control, so she headed westward as pillars of fire from the Redclaw Grand Elder could be seen to the east.
In the distance, she saw a Bastion that seemed to be engaged in some serious aerial combat with a group of wyverns, so she decided to head over to offer her assistance.
***
Ashlock awoke with a start. Power pulsed through him, making the entire mountain tremble. He had felt this incredible sensation many times before, yet it felt like forever since the last time.
His cultivation had advanced to the next stage.
[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 10)]
[Nascent Soul Realm: 6th Stage]
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
[Soul Type: Nine Moons (Desolation)]
"Ahhh, finally the 6th stage. It was only a matter of time after all the Qi I absorbed from these corpses," Ashlock said, as he glanced around. It was morning, the early rays of sunshine casting their glow on the horrors of Red Vine Peak. All around him were ten-story-high piles of half-consumed rotting corpses. In fact, there were so many that he had started dumping them in the citadel, filling up the hole. A few portals spanning between his branches were permanently open, and corpses endlessly tumbled through them, rolling down the piles and into his waiting roots and thorn-covered vines.
At this point, he was almost buried in corpses, with the pile directly around his trunk nearly reaching his canopy.
It was grotesque, and the scent of death hung strongly in the air along with the buzz of flies. Vultures circled greedily overhead, with many daring to dive down and join the piles after failing to fly away under his soul pressure.
Ashlock felt like he should be disgusted by what surrounded him, but he wasn't. Instead, it all looked so delicious. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was living the life of a demonic tree he had dreamed of. For the last week, all he had done was spend his days eating, and come nightfall, he would peacefully slumber under the nine moons while ignoring Astralis's deranged rantings.
Sure, he had some things to deal with—a lot, actually. He was managing multiple Bastions, moving corpses around through portals and micromanaging his Ent army. But all of that was worth it for the reward.
"It took far longer than a day, like I thought, but I should be reaching the fabled ten thousand credits today," Ashlock mused as he looked around at the corpses. Although the quantity was impressive, the quality had fallen short of his expectations. His desolation Qi, while effective at weakening the monsters, also degraded the value of their corpses. So by the time they reached him, they were hardly worth a handful of credits.
But if there was one thing the beast tide had a lot of, it was monsters. Even if each of them gave him only a single credit, it was inevitable that he would save up enough. He had several skills he wanted to upgrade, so he decided to take a look.
"System, show me my credits."
Idletree Daily Sign-In System
Day: 3693
Daily Credit: 13
Sacrifice Credit: 10271
[Sign in?]
There it was, over ten thousand credits. It was around the limit of what Ashlock's sacrificial credit forest in his Inner World could handle, so he had to get to spending.
"This feels like Christmas," he chuckled, swiftly navigating his system menu and bringing up a skill that he had been intending to upgrade as soon as his life wasn't in immediate danger.
[Directly upgrading the skill {Mystic Realm [S]} will consume 8127 credits]
This was hopefully going to be the first of many skills he would upgrade from devouring the monsters from the beast tide. As the days went by, the efficiency of his army in harvesting corpses increased, and the monsters' cultivation levels also rose the deeper they went.
[Do you want to upgrade the skill {Mystic Realm [S]} now?]
"Yes, let's do it," Ashlock said, waiting in anticipation. While not a direct combat skill, the Mystic Realm skill was what allowed his sect members to keep up with his rapid jump in cultivation. It was an imperative part of the sect's strength, so he was eager to see how the system would upgrade it.
[Sign in successful, 8127 credits consumed…]
[Upgraded {Mystic Realm [S]} -> {Eternal Realm [SS]}]
Ashlock felt something shift in the beyond. He looked to the sky—it appeared normal like always, a blue expanse decorated by lazy clouds passing by. Yet he could sense something happening beyond that façade. It was hard to describe; it was an odd feeling, as if something greater had taken notice of him.
His unsettled thoughts were interrupted by his system informing him of the changes to his Mystic Realm skill.
[{Eternal Realm [SS]} Gone are the time limits—the Mystic Realm can now remain eternally open. Time dilation is now directly proportional to the number of people present in the Eternal Realm. If a single person is inside, time flows thirty times faster, meaning for every day that passes outside, a month passes inside. This time dilation is divided by the number of people inside, capping out at a 1:1 time dilation for thirty people. Permission to enter the Eternal Realm has to be granted by you, and you can forcefully pull people out. Furthermore, upon exiting, a portion of the Qi cultivated and any dao insights users of the Eternal Realm gained will be mirrored to you]
That was a lot of text. Ashlock read over it a few more times and decided he was pleased with the changes. The removal of the time limit meant his life wasn't bound to an eternal monthly cycle where he had to say goodbye to most of his sect members for a week.
"It's a change for sure. If I'm reading this right, then if I were to send in a single person for a month, they would experience 900 days inside—almost three years. However, if I send in three people for a month, the time dilation is reduced to only 300 days, or almost a year. While that eclipses what the old Mystic Realm was capable of, as it only sped up time by four times, the penalty for sending in many people at once is something to note," Ashlock paused. "However, since it's open all the time, I could cycle people in and out almost daily if I needed to train many people at once. After all, a single day in there is a month if I only send in one person."
That aside, there was more. Ashlock could now pick and choose who went in, pull people out on a whim, and best of all, a portion of the Qi they cultivated and any dao insights they gained would be mirrored to him. That implied that he would benefit greatly without having to ever enter the Eternal Realm himself.
"I've been wondering how I could improve my dao insights to further the strength of my desolation Qi against multiple Qi types, and here comes the system offering me a lazy but greatly appreciated solution."
As a tree, if there was one thing he didn't like doing, it was studying. Hell, he also disliked the act of cultivating. Instead, he preferred to absorb Qi from monster corpses and siphon Qi from the World Tree. He then spent his nights sleeping under the nine moons. It was a slothful and oddly effective existence. If not for him having to use so much Qi to taint the land with desolation, he might have risen many stages and be touching on the Monarch Realm by now.
"No use complaining. If not for the beast tide, I wouldn't have this many corpses to snack on for credits. Actually, speaking of credits, I have around two thousand left. Mhm, all the skills I want to focus on upgrading are S grade or higher, so I'll keep them in the divine stock market for now."
It was actually insane how much value he was getting from it. Apparently, fending off the beast tide warranted him enough respect and awe from the monsters and cultivators alike, and it was only growing with time.
"Now, about this Eternal Realm, where should I put it?" Ashlock glanced around. There was literally nowhere on Red Vine Peak where he could place it, as the area was covered in rotting flesh wrapped up in his vines and roots. In fact, he didn't even want any of his sect members returning and seeing this gluttonous side of himself. While he didn't find it grotesque, he doubted his more sane human cultivators would agree.
"Putting it in my Inner World is probably safer anyway, even though I can pick and choose who enters."
Retreating into his soul, he looked at his Inner World from afar. It had notably grown bigger with his advancement to the sixth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.
"Now, where would be good?" Ashlock mulled over the options. Unfortunately, around half of his Inner World was corrupted with desolation, making it hard to build anything on and deeply uncomfortable for anyone visiting. "This place could work," he said after finding a large cave deep in the mountain range that bordered the desolate half of his Inner World.
"System, place the entrance to the Eternal Realm here," Ashlock said.
[Opening gateway to the Eternal Realm...]
The air shuddered and twisted as the space slowly filled with the celestial fog he was used to from the Mystic Realm. That same odd feeling from before of something connecting to the beyond crept into the deepest part of his soul, making him feel uncomfortable.
[Eternal Realm established]
[Current occupants: 0]
The feeling thankfully subsided, leaving Ashlock with a choice to make as he stared at the zero current occupants.
"Who should I put in first?"
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