I breathe a sigh of relief. The Treant couldn’t absorb vitality from the forest faster than it was being lost, and now the forest is free from it. A path of destruction is clearly visible; large swaths of the forest have been shredded into mulch. Even the ground has been churned up, which will at least make regrowth easier. The wooden spears knocked down many trees, in pretty much all directions, in the attempts to kill my clones.

Now, what did Kayafe say about Treants being useful in making elixirs?

Of course, she also warned about side effects, but it might make for an interesting experiment one day. Regardless, there should be good materials available; I need to harvest its wood, what’s left anyway, and possibly sap as well… maybe the leaves are special? I examine the Treant’s corpse, studying the magic and mana within it.

Forest Emerald Eye: The eyes of a treant are the eyes of a forest; by holding onto them, one can gain its sight or use it to see in one’s stead. This material can allow the holder to sense anything around plants within a hundred meters or act as a proxy for a sensing skill.

Proxy, Eyes of the Forest.

I finally have a proxy! Two of them, even! I take out my Pack Fang Dagger and pry the gems out of the Treant’s head. Next, I look deeper into it, seeing an orb buried in its head like a brain.

Nature’s Wisdom: The nature orb of a Treant is the source of its power; with it, command of the forest is yours. Produces nature essence and empowers nature essence manipulation.

Nature essence production 1500, Empowers nature manipulation by 500%

With this, I can help regenerate the destroyed parts of the forest, but first I want to make a nature manipulation staff. Something like the space manipulation one I have, but maybe I can make this one a little stronger with my high level [Mana Manipulation].

Living Steel: The wood of an Iron Bark Treant is as tough as steel and can be healed should it be damaged.

Living.

This seems like it will be very good for a healing warrior like Tana.

I take the materials back with me, chopping the Treant into smaller parts. I can simply reconnect it back together if needed, since it has the ‘Living’ quality. I also scour the forest for the numerous splinters from the battle. I create several clones and order them to gather the splinters, the basic AI capable of such menial tasks, but I will have to leave a mind behind to act as foreman; they can’t know where the splinters are if I am not actively seeing them.

With five clones arriving back from the Dungeon, wearing backpacks with large storage gems in them for the materials, I have them bring the materials directly to my house. I will need Dad’s help to cut the emeralds, and maybe the orb, to make them into a good staff.

It’s currently the workday, and Mom is dealing with a customer – someone who wants to buy one of my dresses and a necklace Mom made – when my five clones walk in. It’s not every day this happens, so Mom raises an eyebrow, but she remains professional and doesn’t get distracted; the customer, however, does.

“What’s going on? Five?” she wonders out loud. She must be one of the newcomers and isn’t used to my clones. Mom explains that the clones aren’t quite real and that she should expect to see them around.

I unpack some of the materials, but I can’t fit a whole Treant in my room; maybe I should ask Mom and Dad to expand the house for my own workshop? Or maybe I should just buy my own workshop? I have the money for it. I don’t spend much money, so I have a lot saved up, about seven hundred light and dark coins. The coins are cut from pearls, so many people use ‘coins’ and ‘pearls’ interchangeably, but they are shaped like coins. Anyway, one light or dark coin is worth three hundred fifty of the smallest denomination of coin, fire and water.

Efula’s ice cream costs three fires – people don’t say ‘fire and water’; they just use one or the other – a domr will cost about ten fires or two ice/earth coins. My dresses cost around one light/dark coin, give or take. The reason why they are so expensive is that they are usually enchanted with long-lasting enchantments and made of mana silk, which doesn’t wear down. In other words, my dresses are luxury items fit for high society... if we had a high society.

I’ve sold about five hundred dresses over the years; the rest of my money came from my work for the village, and other things like the Dungeon expeditions and commissioned work.

I am going to Dad to ask about getting the Treant’s Emerald Eyes cut into a workable shape when I stop halfway down the stairs, gears turning in my head with the aid of [Inquisitive Perfection].

Why cut it into the shape I need when I can mold it into a more beautiful shape with my Bond?

My Bond can restore objects, right? It can bring pieces back together; why can’t it reshape things? [Beauty Blessing], one of the Bond skills I gained before, can reshape people to be more beautiful; why can’t it work on objects too? I’ve never sold the skill as a service, and the Runalymo never need cosmetic surgery anyway, so I never gave the skill much thought.

I go back upstairs and begin the process to swap out a Bond skill; ever since I hit level five hundred in my Bond, the time it takes has been reduced from around ten minutes to eight, still unusable in combat but much more convenient for everyday usage.

With the skill acquired, I use it on the Emerald Eyes and watch in amazement as their rough shape molds like clay to the shape I desire— no, not what I desire; I need to listen to my Bond and shape it to what it desires.

With the Eyes done, I start creating a thin staff of metallic nature essence. I then take the Treant’s orb, Nature’s Wisdom, and shape it too, but only on the inside. I make it denser and make a magic circle in the center that I saw the Treant use. I really hope it was the Treant’s [Nature Manipulation] skill; otherwise, this might not work. I fit the orb at the head of the staff and, with [Beauty Blessing], shape the living wood around the staff to protect it. The staff now looks like a gnarled branch with twists and splits that allow slivers of the inner staff to be seen.

I take a step back and let [Inquisitive Perfection] take a look at it. The orb at its head is too basic, so I shape the staff’s core and the wood around it to form a crescent moon and then fit the emerald eye on the inner part of the moon, so it’s looking at the orb, which represents the sun.

I then start enchanting the staff: a levitation enchantment so the orb will float in its spot, another enchantment to reinforce the manipulation abilities of the staff, then one to connect with plants around it. I use a telepathy spell for this, hoping the connection the Eye already has will be reinforced.

Inspiration strikes me, and I etch another magic circle into the surface of the orb, in the direction of the Eye, so the Eye is looking directly at the center of it. This magic circle I took from the Treant when it controlled the plants. I make a third inscription, this time it’s from my own Class skill, [Fairy Heart], onto the orb opposite the second inscription.

I make two Bond crystals, one of [Create Familiar] and the other of [Sanctuary of Wholeness], enchanting them to float, so they look like stars among the moon and sun. Considering the celestial symbolism, I form and sprinkle dust of beauty mana, the type of beauty that instills awareness of cosmic scale when looking at the vast expanse of the night sky, onto the staff.

I finalize the staff with one last inscription, [Summoner’s Beacon], and an enchantment to empower Nature spells. With that, I take a step back and look over the staff for one last time, seeing if [Inquisitive Perfection] approves of it.

With the celestial symbolism combined with the woody nature of the staff, it’s almost like its a staff of a world tree-

Before I can finish the thought, the staff starts soaking up mana, and the magic in the staff fuses as experience grows around it. The experience and magic blend together as mana is sucked in. A torrent of mana flows through my room as the staff transforms; leafy growths sprout from it, but not so much to hinder its use. Flowers bud and bloom, and a sweet smell fills the air. Yet more mana is drawn in as a single seed grows at the head of the staff, like a glowing ball of nature essence.

Then the transformation is complete, and it stops drawing in mana. The staff has changed; the orb now blazes with nature essence. It lost its physicality and the inscriptions etched into it, but it is a ball of liquified nature mana. The two Bond crystals have broken apart into thousands of tiny sparkling stars made of beauty mana. Leaves and flower petals fall from the staff only to dissipate on the floor and be replaced with new growths.

Suddenly dizziness strikes me as a soul-chilling coldness washes over me. I stumble a little, and then it is over as quickly as it came.

What was that?

I look myself over, examining my mana and magic to see if there is anything strange, then I look at the magic item; it happened just as it transformed, so maybe it’s an effect of it.

Dryad’s Grace (Heroic):

Made from a lesser Treant by a master craftsman, the true potential has been drawn out of the materials. Connected to the celestial cosmos above and the beauty of the realm, this staff can produce a star-like seed to plant a Star Tree to which this staff is connected. All plants within the domain of the Star Tree can feed it the power needed to destroy its foes, but, should the tree die, this staff will cease to function until a new seed is grown and planted. All plants within the domain of the Star Tree grow faster and are healed if damaged. In addition, the wielder and all who the wielder acknowledges as allies are healed when within the Star Tree’s sanctuary. The wielder of this staff becomes the lord of the Star Tree’s forest and can see everything that happens in their forest; furthermore, they can use the power of the forest to act as a proxy for their sensing abilities.

Dryad Connection, Forest Sanctuary, Empowers Nature Manipulation by 1500%, Forest Lord, Forest Proxy, Nature essence production 3000, Empowers nature and beauty spells by 1200%.

The magic framework of this item is complex, with more layers than I have ever seen before. Unlike all other magic items I’ve seen— heck, even when comparing against my Class’s magic framework, this item seems to be using every last drop of its magic; I don’t think it can get any stronger than it currently is without its tier being increased.

It is clear to me now that the tier of an item isn’t always equal to its potential. The First Inscription, although being Exalted-tier, cannot compare to this. I wonder if it’s because of the inscriptions and enchantments reinforcing the natural abilities of the materials and the use of symbolism. Then there’s the fact that it can plant a familiar tree which is completely unheard of; I’ll have to ask Kayafe if she knows anything similar.

As for the episode of dizziness, I have no idea. It has to have come from this staff, but I don’t know what it means. Looking at the seed, it appears to be just made of mana, but it also has a lot of ectoplasm and raw soul. It must have been that, although I don’t see any of my own ectoplasm missing.

Ting! Sense Magic has obtained levels 658-667!

I gained a lot of levels by directly observing this transformation into a magic item. Observing the interactions with experience helped me really understand the initial formation of magic frameworks.

Well, I was planning on using the staff to prove to Guklaro that the Treant is dead… but maybe I shouldn’t show this off? It’s kind of... I don’t know, condescending? Arrogant? Like, ‘Hey, I defeated the Treant and also made this made, aren’t I amazing?’

I’ll just show her the other Treant Eye I have.

I walk over to the Village Hall and wait outside of Guklaro’s office; she is currently in a meeting with someone else. They are just finishing up, which is why I came over; otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered.

However, as I wait longer and longer; the two are now just talking about random things, like adults tend to do. Sometimes, they’ll just keep on talking until something comes up. I step into the office, hoping that my presence will speed things along. I don’t say anything, though, on the off chance they were actually talking about something important.

“Oh! I’ll talk to you later, Veralo,” Guklaro says, then addresses me. “What brings you here, Alysara?” she says politely.

I wait for the other woman to leave before showing Guklaro the Treant’s Eye. “It’s dead” is all I say.

It takes Guklaro a few moments for it to click.

“You defeated it? I thought it was supposed to be dangerous; you shouldn’t take such risks, Alysara!”

“I never left the village,” I say with a smile. “I found a way to operate my clones inside the Dungeon from the safety of my home. Besides, Esofy and the others wouldn’t have lived against the Treant; it was far more dangerous than we thought.”

Guklaro sighs. “Alysara, you underestimate how important you are. You’ve helped us so much; you’ve introduced technology that we never thought possible. We need to grow independent of your abilities… and for that, we need you to let us do that. It’s not that we don’t want you; it’s that we shouldn’t have to rely on you for things like this, and you need to learn to trust in our abilities. If the Treant was really so strong, do you think that Esofy wouldn’t have had a method to find that out? They were in little danger of actually dying.”

Instead of getting a ‘thank you,’ I get chastised instead?! Even if the others wouldn’t have died, they still had no way of defeating it. Not only that, but I defeated it earlier, so Guklaro can move ahead with her plans!

I don’t say anything else; I just turn around and walk out.

“Aly— Wait!” Guklaro calls after me, but I don’t stop, conjuring wings on myself and flying home once outside.