Parents weren't supposed to have favorite children, just as children should love their parents equally. But that was never the case. Most children loved the caregiver the most, the person that spent most of their days with them. The parent that guided and taught them the ways of the world.

There were exceptions. The momma's boy, the daddy's girl, I was one of those. I loved my mother, but she had the soul of a scientist. She was practical, organized, and knowledgeable. We shared moments of joy and times we were encouraged to be carefree, but it was hard for her to stretch the bounds of logic to engage in frivolous activities.

My father was just as stringent in his own ways, but he had a more artistic approach to life. He was more the glass is half full and wanted to share the wonders of our world. The happiest childhood moments were spent with him foraging in the woods, looking for herbs and spirit plants.

The moments he spent teaching me woodcraft, how to track, even how to shoot my first bow and arrow and field dress my first kill. His world was not so lost to artistry that he ignored the realities we lived in. He refused to allow fear to control his life. He taught me to be respectful and cautious and not to ignore the wonders we discovered because of the dangers. Dangers that were both obvious and hidden.

Mother taught me to look beneath the surface, to discover the truth for myself. Father taught me to appreciate the surface and to marvel at the beauty and majesty of the world around us.

"Your people have been easy to work with," my father said as we left the store and headed toward the backyard.

A backyard might have been a misnomer. Acres of land had come with this plot, expansive fields set aside for my father's use. I'd had a few parcels of ground divided and seeded with arrays that would allow attuned spirit plants to be cultivated. Nothing as intricate as what had been done at the Dojo, but I'd gifted father with the start of something that he could build on.

"How did you get so many spirit plants gathered and planted already?" I asked as we began to stroll between garden beds.

The Qi wasn't as dense as it was within the Dojo, but that had been built with formations in place, making use of the position of buildings and arrays to create a harmony that mirrored the Four Element Sect.

This garden wasn't so organized. It had a mishmash of disparate elements, but somehow, dad had managed to create a pinwheel of energy convergence. A spiral of aligned and discordant energy bled into channels that flowed into a focal point at the center.

A place of power that was planted with a Yggdrasil offshoot. This world's version of a world tree. It was newly sprouted, the beginnings of a small bonsai—a work of art set on a column of jade. What made the tree unique was that it was the only tree capable of gathering and storing every elemental aspect.

How my father got a living cutting from a world tree was hard to fathom. These trees were revered, partially because only the wild, untamed versions could drop seeds. The ones cultivated by Elves were pruned and shaped into bonsai before that could happen, never allowed to reproduce.

Occasionally, a cutting could be purchased, but the funds for something that rare would put a dent in even my money. I would think some enterprising Clan or House would have allowed a specimen to flower and go to seed. But there was a history of culture behind not allowing that to happen.

Any Clan, House, or Sect so lost to reason as to allow a Yggdrasil tree to go to seed would find themselves ostracized by their peers. I still think someone might have taken the risk if it didn't take a century for a single seed to grow.

"A chance discovery on one of my outings in the forest by our old home," my father bragged. "A seed that must have been dropped by a bird or wind. A moment of fortuitous serendipity that allowed me to stumble upon the find with the good fortune to realize what it was I was looking at."

Dad had always put a lot of stock into fate. Perhaps, because that sentiment resonated with the soul of an artist. It often frustrated mom when he shrugged his shoulders when confronted with setbacks, confident that what was, was, and there was no sense railing against what couldn't be changed.

World trees gained their name not only because of their ability to collect and refine every type of elemental Qi but because of their ability to connect with other trees. I'm not sure if anyone understood the metaphysics behind the network that formed between each world tree, but a connection developed the moment the tree sprouted and only deepened the older the tree was.

No matter how far away Yggdrasil was from each other, somehow, they managed to join a network that allowed each tree to share elemental Qi. Trees growing in areas rich in fire Qi would be lacking a source of Water Qi. The tree would need to rely on the network between Yggdrasil to gain the water Qi it lacked, sharing its excess fire Qi in the process.

I would have to see about getting the House Herbalist to keep an eye on the plant. A world tree tended by an arboriculturist would ensure my territories growth. They were the closest thing this world had to portal technology.

You couldn't transport living materials using the world tree, but even with that restriction, it opened a world of possibilities for trade. The amount of material able to be transported was limited to the number of rings each tree formed. As a new plant, the world tree father nurtured could move a ton of cargo at once.

Spatial storage did not work when transporting items, but there was no limit to the number of times you could use a tree. The only limitation was the time it took to clear and load an area the tree would be encouraged to set as a waypoint.

Four Element Sect did not have their own world tree. That might change in time, but the Empire was stringent in how cuttings could be traded. I would have to rely on Clement to negotiate and determine a fair price. The tree was my father's; after all, even if I would have to recruit a Cultivator trained in the workings of the Yggdrasil, it was ultimately his decision to sell transportation opportunities.

I'd thought that philosophy was ill-considered. It made more sense to expand the network, to nourish and grow a bonsai world tree in every Sect, Clan, House, and town. Safety was the most often used excuse for why the plants weren't more widespread.

There was no way to screen what was transferred between world trees. In past instances, poisons and explosions were transported through the Yggdrasil network to attack people and kill world trees. The Empire considered an attack on a world tree the same as a declaration of war or an assassination attempt. It was an act of terrorism.

The Empire had regulated world trees after a poison had been released that wiped out an entire town. This tree would have to be reported, but because it had been a chance discovery, the restrictions that would have kept my territory from receiving a cutting had been circumvented.

The plant could not be moved now that it had rooted, not without killing it. And no one was foolish enough to try. The world tree was one of only a few protected plants the Empire acknowledged.

"Was it hard to get it to take?" I asked.

"It was until I got the idea to inject a bit of my blood," dad replied.

"I think feeding the plant Qi is the normal method to get it to sprout, but well… You know your dad doesn't have that kind of juice," he said, laughing at himself.

"What made you think of blood?"

"Something your mother said. She was working on one of her new potions, one that increases blood recovery, when she lamented that there was no way to store blood and feed it back inside a non-cultivator that was injured or needed surgical healing.

"I wondered why a person's blood couldn't be saved and used to replace lost blood. She explained that an individual's blood was more than just a type. It was unique to a person, the same as a Qi signature.

"I figured if a Qi signature could energize a world tree and kick-start new growth, then why not blood?

"It worked, and it was only once the tree sprouted that the Cultivators sworn to you noticed what I had done. They hurried to create the spiral formation to funnel the different affinities each plot of spirit herbs produces toward the world tree. They advised molding it into a bonsai shape to allow growth while maintaining its integrity."

A sequence of random occurrences. More luck than any one person should encounter. I was beginning to believe my father's views on fate might be more substantive than he imagined.

I wondered if there was a [Dao of Fate]. Or maybe dad had just stumbled across a Heavenly opportunity and had been graced with luck to recognize what it was and grasp it.