Sora only wanted to find the dungeon for now since it would take a whole week to open. He left the area and started heading back towards the elven village in Sky Branch Forest. The forest had many more players that formed groups to hunt tigers. They were probably working on the reputation grind that Sora was able to surpass thanks to saving Desakors daughter. He was planning to just pass through but Desakor appeared in front of him, with a look of unease apparent. His daughter was sticking close by him, never straying too far away. Sora decided to see if there was anything that Desakor needed before leaving.

“Desakor, how have things been?”

“Rejoining The Eastern Legion has helped bring life back into our village, a lot of villagers are much happier now… The only problem is that the royal army seemed to have stirred something up within the ruins of our old village. We tried to stop it but it used the same corrupt energy that we have no means to fight against.”

“I’ll go take a look, which directions is your old village in?”

“Head North-West until you see a huge tree that has purple energy coursing through it.”

“Got it.”

[Quest Received]

[The Corrupted Village]

-The ruins of the elven village have been stirring with a corrupt energy. Find a way to destroy the corrupt energy and purge the ruins.

Sora started heading North-West towards the old elven village. The area he was heading to was his original destination so it worked in his favor. It didn’t take long for the beautiful natural terrain to turn into a dried up earth with black scorch marks everywhere. The towering trees were taken down, creating a maze of dead trees that didn’t look anything like how they did when alive.

Sora started making his way through the maze of branches, following random paths since even he couldn’t predict where he was going. He had heard of an epic boss that would spawn here and wanted to check things out before creating a group to come and fight it. He would occasionally see corrupt creatures running around within the branches, occasionally attacking Sora and forcing him to fight. If he tried to just outrun them then he could risk aggroing more so it was a better idea to clear the path just in case something goes wrong.

The corrupt white tiger would tear apart space itself with a swipe from its claws, leaving a trail of purple light that would deal damage. The corrupted apes were fairly slow in attacking but hit incredibly hard when they did connect. Sora only saw one corrupted bird through his journey, which was lucky since they would fly around, making the fight take a lot longer than usual. Sora defeated one more corrupted white tiger before stepping into an area where the trees opened up, revealing the remains of a village that looked to be ravaged by time. The houses were rotting away and a dried up creek could be seen running along the edge of the opened area. The entire place left a gloomy atmosphere that told a story of tragedy. Especially the large tree that once proudly stood within the center of the village, which was now unrecognizable as a tree and looked more like a pile of rot.

Sora started making his way through the ruins, carefully checking each building for anything that might help with the quest. He figured the key to the completion was the silver energy that Gzarna created but wasn’t positive so he made sure not to skip anything in his investigation. Each house was hard to search since it collapsed but Sora still managed to find ways in, sometimes having to fight creatures that were hidden within the rubble.

On one particular house that didn’t seem very important, a miasma-like substance was leaking out of the cracks. Sora squeezed his way through the rubble and eventually found a hole in the ground that started off fairly narrow and opened up into a cave. No enemies could be seen in the cave, only the thick miasma that made it hard to see past a certain point.

The cave opened up into a large cavern that had many roots winding through it. The roots must have been from the large tree in the middle of the village since the roots themselves were extremely large. Sora hopped over a few of the branches, sometimes having to climb to get over them, until he found an area where the branches coiled together, forming a sphere within the middle of the cavern. Sora peeked into one of the cracks, revealing a small black tree that looked to be moving slightly. Its branches had mushrooms sprouting from them, each one releasing the purple miasma that filled the cave.

Level 55 -Fungire, Sapper of the Lands-

[Quest Updated]

[The Corrupted Village]

-You have found the source of the corruption within the lands. You should talk to Gzarna about how to deal with it, she may have the key to purifying the lands.

Sora recognized the boss within the sphere made of branches. It was the epic boss that was usually here except it now looked much more evil than normal. Sora remembered it looking like a normal tree instead of the monstrosity that it is now. Sora decided to head back to Var since both of his targets were found. First, he messaged Blossom, LeeLee, Nobunaga, and Athenes; letting them all know that they should be prepared to fight a boss. None of them complained or asked any questions, they simply prepared themselves to fight.

Sora went back to Var and headed straight to the royal territory, being stopped by a few guards that watched the gate leading towards Gzarna’s laboratory. Before Sora said anything, Gzarna appeared behind them, quickly grabbing onto Sora and dragging him through the gate. The guards couldn’t even get a word in before he was dragged into the laboratory, teleporting into the room with a variety of magic instruments. Gzarna sat down in a chair and propped her head up with her arms, staring at Sora with curiosity.

“There is traces of corrupt energy on you.”

“You have a scary amount of sense for this stuff.”

“Hehehe, I’m not the head mage of the royal family for no reason you know. So, I’m guessing you found something strange and needed me?”

“Indeed, it went like this…”

Sora told the story of the forest that was ravaged by the corrupt energy. Normal people would be saddened by the story since it conveyed the amount of destruction that was caused but Gzarna was smiling brightly as she heard about it. The tree that was releasing the miasma piqued her interest even further, causing her to pack up many magical devices before Sora was even done with his story.

“...So I came back here, thinking you might be interested in it.”

“Ah, you really spoil me you know that. If I was a couple hundred years younger, then you would definitely be my type. Haha, just kidding, you’re still a bit too weak to catch my attention.”

Sora rolled his eyes before once again being dragged away by Gzarna. They left her laboratory and went towards the back of the building where a pedestal made from finely carved marble stone was placed. The center had a circular platform with many runes and the outside had even more runes. Each rune glowed a slightly different color, giving off the glow of every color of the spectrum. When the two were on the platform, Gzarna let out a large amount of energy, making silver strands appear in her hair that blew around wildly. The runes all slowly changed into the same purple color before flashing brightly, teleporting Gzarna and Sora to The Sky Branch Forest.

Sora was a little disoriented but wasn’t spared from being dragged around by Gzarna, heading in the direction of the old elf village. Sora didn’t expect for everything to move so quickly and messaged his team, telling them to meet him at the old village. Gzarna blasted past every enemy, releasing a small strand of energy that dealt thousands of damage per hit, instantly killing any enemy that crossed her path. She suddenly stopped and turned towards Sora, giving him a bad feeling.

“Do you have a mount? It would be a lot faster than walking.”

“Ya but-”

“Summon it! Anything could happen by the time we get there so we need to hurry!”

Sora couldn’t get any words in and decided to just go ahead and summon it. Luna appeared in a flash of silver light, a beautiful shine on her fur from where the light touched. Gzarna looked to have fallen in love as she looked at the silver wolf, walking around it and examining it. After a while, she let out an excited laugh as she started shaking Sora.

“How much?!”

“How much what?”

“How much to buy this wolf from you?! One hundred thousand gold? No, how about two hundred thousand?”

Sora blanked for a bit, his shock apparent on his face. He thought he misheard her the first time but managed to hear her clearly the second time. Sora didn’t think that a wolf obtained from grinding reputation would be that expensive. He knew that Luna was special but didn’t know it was to that extent. He decided to try and get some more information from Gzarna while he can, she seemed to be incredibly interested in her so it must be something important.

“What makes you want to spend that much on my mount?”

“Mount?! You think this beautiful beast is simply a mount?!”

“What else would she be?”

“THIS IS A SPIRIT GODDESS YOU IDIOT.”

“A… Spirit Goddess?”

“Well, she’s more of a Spirit Goddess in the making. You should know that every element has a goddess associated with it. Fire goddess, the water goddess, the earth goddess, the air goddess, and of course the other goddesses like the goddess of luck, chaos, and balance.”

“Ya, of course, I knew that, what element does Luna represent then?”

“She is the elemental goddess of the purging element! It was a newfound element so she is still developing but she will eventually be as powerful, maybe even more powerful, than every other elemental goddess! You really should sell her to me if you can’t understand the gravity of what is happening. YOU HAVE BEEN USING A SPIRIT GODDESS AS A MOUNT YOU IMBECILE.”

Sora had no idea what was going on, he had never heard of the elemental goddess of purging in his last life. The wolf looked at Sora and cocked her head sideways, seeming to be just as confused. Sora was a little doubtful but didn’t dare voice his complaint since Gzarna was acting erratically right now. She seemed to have read his thoughts though and pulled out an orb of silver energy. The orb touched against Luna, making the silver energy within be absorbed into her fur. The silver energy swirled around on her coat of fur for a while before traveling to the moon shape on her forehead and being completely absorbed into her body.

[Silver Wolf Mount Evolved]

[Purging Wolf Battle Mount obtained]

Sora couldn’t break away from his shock. He had unknowingly had a battle mount all along, something that he didn’t expect to get for a long time. From what Gzarna said, it seemed the wolf was even more amazing than that though, maybe even able to evolve into a Divine level battle mount in the future. Gzarna watched as Luna went to Sora’s side, looking extremely loyal. Gzarna could only let out a sigh as she realized that Sora must have been chosen for a reason, giving up her hopes of obtaining the spirit goddess.

“Nevermind, even if I can buy her there is no way of knowing if she will be willing to follow me. I just hope you can understand just how important she is though.”

“I will…”

Sora looked at Luna beside him, loyally guarding his side without any orders to do so. He smiled and realized he would have taken good care of her even without being told to do so. Sora stroked her fur before jumping onto her back. Gzarna was a little hesitant to do so since she still saw her as a goddess but Luna lowered herself down as a signal to go ahead and climb on. Luna ran towards the ruins of the elf village, with Sora and Gzarna on her back.