Tree of Aeons (an Isekai Story)

Word blocks and trenches

Year 214

Lumoof’s mana practice continued, while my other domainholders made regular trips to the parasite-world to set up the stage for an invasion. 

He had managed, over a period of two to three years, to increase his mana tolerance by about twice of what it was, but lately his progress has plateaued. It still wasn’t good enough, but Lumoof said he would just gain more levels, and hopefully those higher levels gave him extra stats and new skills that helped with his mana tolerance. 

I agreed, I did not want to subject him through pain, if there was not much progress. 

Since we had a roadblock in this particular direction, Lumoof went to the parasiteworld, to see what he could do there. 

My attempts to drain the pit of the demon king went quite successfully, and the amount of water was then redirected to make actual lakes and ponds in the areas we controlled. 

I’ve reached about 3/4th to the core of the parasiteworld, and now, the walls of the pit are filled with vines and crawler-type plants. Down here, there were few demons, but nothing much of a threat. 

The demons continued to attack us throughout the world, but so far, we managed to hold on. They mounted multiple assaults to flush us out and fully retake the area around the pit, with champions and all that, but with Edna, Roon or Johann around to provide additional support and offset my ‘distance-penalty’, it wasn’t hard. 

A champion was no king, and if they could not field kings, my domain holders had nothing to fear. Hytreerion, my converted walker, served as my ‘champion’ and fortified the area around the pit. 

Despite all this, there was no sign or signal that suggested this world was attempting to ‘grow’ another demon king. Not yet, anyway. 

The magical energy of this world was still low, despite all the recovery in the past few years. The path in the stars appeared to be faint. 

I wondered what kind of world it would invade, but for now we kept digging. It would be another year or two before we reached the core.

***

“Fancy seeing you here.” Kei said as she walked up one of Branchhold’s highest trees, where there was an observation tower that looked out. Stella nodded at the crystal-golem when she walked in.

I was told it’s a gorgeous view of the vast demonlands, still not reclaimed by the heroes. The two heroes, Adrian and Kelly did use their powers to retake some of the demon lands, but they didn’t seem particularly enthused. 

“I’d say the same for you.” Stella responded as she worked with her tools. Over the decades, she had made some tools and equipment to help her with her task of observing the skies, and the Mountainworld’s skies were filled with entirely new stars and worlds. “Did Aeon send you here to give me a hand?”

“Nothing like that. I just asked for permission to visit another world, and got it. I just have to be escorted outside Branchhold.” 

“Ah that does sound like something you would do. See anything you like, so far?” 

“Not yet. The rangers told me the food choices are quite interesting, but my taste buds aren’t exactly the best.”

Stella smirked at the golem. “Taste-buds.”

“Yeah. Eat. As if I needed that.” Kei shrugged, and then perched herself at the balcony. She took a moment to take in the view. “But this place does have a really good view. This city doesn’t sprawl, not like Freshka.” 

“Not yet.”

“Eh blasphemy!” Kei teased. “Aeon already has an anti-sprawl plan!”

Stella didn’t reply, and continued to work. She collected readings of various magical energy signatures, and she continued her work on her theory. She thought that each different world’s ‘magical key’ that identified that world, so, if she could figure out what the ‘alphabets’ were, she could then figure out how to match the alphabets to the rift gates, and then, use it to call places that we currently have no access to. 

Magic was a lot of hard work. 

“How many void mages did you bring with you?” Kei asked.

Stella paused. “Two of them are helping me with the research.”

“Do you find portals different here?”

“Not really. About the same. The only worlds where I felt my portals were nigh-unusable were that cometworld and the anti-magic world.”

“That was a waste. Aeon should’ve kept that world.” Kei said. “Now our supply of anti-magic sand is cut off.”

Stella just smiled.

“Wait. What’s that look?”

“We have the magical coordinates for that world. With a sufficiently high-powered amount of void mana, and if we can replicate a smaller version of that core-mana-void mana tunnel...”

“How far are we?”

“Honestly, the biggest roadblock we have right now is Aeon’s lack of core mana. Between what I’ve seen and what we’ve gathered from the demon king’s core replica, we’re halfway there with the tunnel.”

“Shit. We are just one mana-source away from being able to go wherever we want?” 

“Let’s not jinx it and make it sound so easy. Core mana isn’t the easiest thing to find, but if the parasite-world invasion goes well...” Stella smiled. “There are still mountains to climb after this one. And this is still a really, really tall mountain.” 

“How long have you known?” Kei asked once Stella took a break. 

“Know what?”

“That we’re going to be able to essentially connect all the worlds we’ve been to.”

“Oh. It was always there. Each world has a signature, a ‘phone number’. Each rift gate Aeon steals comes with it’s own coordinates, mostly intact. I’ve known how to ‘lock’ a rift gate to a past world, especially if we’ve stolen the gate from that world. It’s just, we lack the power to make that connection. Void mana doesn’t survive very well in the void forest. It gets swept away and disrupted by the smallest eddies.”

“Is Aeon planning to do that with this world too?” Kei looked up at the sky. The mountainworld would have their own demon king too, but their cycle was a little longer, ranging from 15 years to 20 years. 

“Yes. I’ve discussed it before. We have to grab as many rift gates, from as many worlds, as far as possible. It’s one of the easier ways to collect all the astral ‘alphabets’ or ‘numbers’. Next was to map that number to our observations of their location in space, and see whether we could make some sense of the numbers. I believe there is a logic or pattern inbuilt in the language of the rift gates, which brings me to my next task-”

“Which is?”

“I need to get my domain. Within the demon king’s core-replica, Aeon spoke of star-paths, and a massive map, but he said there is a ‘guardian’ within that map. He’d only let me use it once I have a domain. I’ve seen images, though, through the [dream academy], but I’d really like to see it for myself, and feel what that thing is.”

“Do you think that’s a creature of the void? Do you think there are things living in the void forest?” Kei asked randomly. “Like... you know, hunters within the void forest that look for certain things?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. But I’ve not seen any.” My void archmage relaxed and took a sip of water. 

A Valthorn dropped in to just check in, and then left once they noticed both Kei and Stella were in there. Branchhold’s security condition wasn’t as robust as Freshka, but with my artificial minds constantly monitoring everything, I had the ability to react almost instantly. 

Still, I had the Valthorns patrol all the key installations. I didn’t trust my detection abilities to get everything. 

Stella’s levels were mostly through research, but in her earlier days she did some powerlevelling with the domain holders. As she reached her level 140s, her levels had slowed, and so she would also need to get some combat experience in, even if it’s indirect. 

It was really quite irritating that the path to a domain seemed to require combat experience. Was this world so battle crazy? 

Stella’s time had to be split between her astral-alphabet and riftgate research, crafting and combat, and also her teaching duties at her void academy. Thankfully, these days she wasn’t the only void archmage. 

We had a few promoted to [void archmage] over the years, and for risk-mitigation, we rotated them to other roles. One moved on to crafting and creation of void-mana sensitive artefacts that Stella used, and also taught the next generation of crafter-void mages. 

Sadly, the process of getting acclimatised to void mana was still horrible, and it was something I worked on.

One of which was my breeding program. I had the ability to inject an inheritable skill, and I intend to stack the inheritable skills to create a naturally attuned [void mage]. The very first young treefolks just enrolled to the void academy last year since the breeding program started. 

Patreeck went a bit further and suggested that I acclimatise young lizardpeople eggs and treefolk seedlings to void mana, but the potential of killing these babies made me squirm.

I wasn’t willing to go that far. Maybe... not yet. 

***

< How is the search underwater? > I spoke to Reefy after a while. I spoke to him, or ‘it’, every few months, but our conversation was usually brief. Usually nothing of particular interests, though Reefy often brought trinkets and showed all the strange fishes that are found in the depths.  

Then, this time, he brought something else to my attention. > Dead giant found. Know? < 

Reefy shared, through our root-link, an image of a giant creature, submerged in the depths, it looked like it had died many, many years ago. From the depths, all I could see was a shadow-like image, but it was something similar. 

The shell was filled with scars, but I could tell what it was. A dead zaratan. 

< Yes. A zaratan Can you bring it up to the shore? >

> Too big. Need help. Minions too small. Can send help? < Reefy’s mental image shared a location of the dead giant, and I immediately  had the Valthorns deploy ships and mages to the location.

I also pinged Lilies, my old friend, to get in touch with Vallasira, the zaratan, once more. If there was a dead zaratan, I thought I should let them know. 

Stella, Lumoof both returned from the other worlds, and they were joined by Edna, Alka, and a large contingent of mages. They boarded the largest vessels we have. 

The location was right in the middle of the ocean between the central continent and the Western isles, between two oceanic valleys. Over the years, some layers of ocean sand had covered most of it. 

“It’s down there, right at the bottom.” Alka said. His magical abilities and past experience as an occasional archeologist meant he had some skills for this kind of event. “We could use a portal and teleport it up, but we’ll need to encase it in a bubble of magic to preserve it from further harm.”

Bones. I could learn of its last memories from its bones, but I would do so after I got the zaratan’s views, if they allowed me to do so.

“But let’s wait, and let me see what else I can learn through magic.”

I recalled these zaratans loved water, and I wasn’t sure if digging up zaratan bones from the ocean was potentially an offensive thing. If they loved water so much, an oceanic burial could be  what they’ve always wanted. 

Stella shrugged. “I’m sadly unaware of their funeral rites or customs, despite being their apprentice. As far as I know, they don’t have such customs, even though they do feel the loss of their fellow zaratans very, very strongly.” 

“In that case, let us just do magical research for now, and wait for the zaratans to emerge.”

As it turned out, we didn’t need to wait long, as a thick mist soon emerged in the area, and two massive zaratans emerged, and one younger one that I’ve met before. Their presence was thick and rippled outwards, their presence was comparable to any domainholder. 

> The tree’s compatriots have gained much strength. < The largest of the zaratans spoke. 

Everyone just looked at Lumoof, and he entered avatar mode. I spoke through him then. < Greetings. We meet again, Vallasira. >

The younger zaratan’s still-massive turtle head nodded. > Indeed, Aeon. Your actions have rippled through the worlds. We thank you, for the safety you’ve provided us. < 

< It is what I must do. Let us get to the point, Reefy, my reef-friend, has found the bones of a large Zaratan in the depths. > 

> Indeed. < The largest one spoke. > Vallasira, as you have met them, you can host them in your shell. <

At that moment, one of Vallasira’s shell-hexagons opened up to reveal a small box. > Hop on. We will dive to the depths together, and see our departed brother. < 

Stella was the first to go, a portal opened between her and the box in Vallasira’s shell. The rest of us followed, and all in, about twenty of us dived into the depths of the ocean.

I had to admit, as a tree, I felt really, really uncomfortable being so deep underwater, and it took a lot of my willpower not to scream or shake. It was so bad that Lumoof had to use his calming powers on me. 

Yet, the depths of the ocean was wonderful, as Vallasira’s shell was incredibly magical. It was like a flexible screen that could turn transparent, and allowed us to see the ocean outside. It was like we were in a glass box in the depths of the ocean. 

The dive into the depths took just a moment, as all three zaratan landed around the giant bones. 

> Our fallen brother. < The giant zaratan opened its mouth, and a jet of pressure blew all the sand away, revealing the rest of the shell and the bones. Massive scars along the side of the creature. > Another one for the demons. < 

The other giant zaratan touched the scars in the shell with its nose, and seemed to sniff. > It’s been five centuries. <

> Long it has been, but no longer. < The giant zaratan blew all the sand again, and this time, it swirled around the shell. The giant zaratan then bit at the skull of the dead zaratan, and at that moment, the giant zaratan seemed to glow. 

The other giant zaratan and Vallasira also bit the bones of the zaratan, and I felt a sudden surge in magic around us. And then just as quickly, it was gone. 

> Do as you please with the bones. We have done what must be done. For providing this information, Vallasira shall provide the reward < The giant said, and then, just as quickly, the two giant zaratans swam away, and then... vanished. 

> You may take the bones. < Vallasira said. 

The small box we were in was then separated into two compartments, one with only Lumoof, and another with everyone else. Stella then opened a portal in front of Lumoof, and water immediately rushed in through the portal. 

But he was encased in an armor of wood, and he breathed through a vine. My roots surged outwards and through the portal, and then my roots wrapped around the bones of the ancient zaratan.

Then, I moved everything to another part of my [secret hideout], where my preservation abilities would keep it safe for our later studies.  

> It is safer for our bones to be in your hands, than anyone else. < 

< Thanks for the vote of confidence. > 

> All of us could see and feel your energies rippling through the multiverse. We hope our bones can push you a bit closer to your goal. But beware, they can sense it too. They’ve begun to suspect something’s gone wrong in this part of the world, and they would not react well to a nascent god. A new ‘puppeteer’ will only earn their ire. < 

< Do I seem like a puppeteer? >

> They can’t tell the difference. < Vallasira said. 

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