[Day 330, two days later…]

*Heavy breathing*… I’m not that far from the bright orange fruit now. (Ignore the numerous failed attempts to climb the world tree and generally terrible ideas that were used in those attempts).

God-hunter though has been an extraordinary boon in climbing the world tree. It’s can (with enough time and effort) damage the world tree enough to create handles and places to loop ropes around as I climb upward.

That’s actually a pretty incredible feat, I wasn’t expecting to be able to damage the tree at all. In this universe, world tree are renown for both their durability and adaptability.

I had forgotten about high altitude winds though, which (when I was relocating the climbing rope) caused me to nearly plunge into the ground.

Fortunately, in a panic, I had managed to trigger my <Boots of Comfortable Escaping> and teleport back within reaching distance of the tree and grab it for safety…

I did have to head back down to the ground... and spend some time remaking the harness and climbing rope. Also, I fed God-hunter and myself in the meantime, but… that’s irrelevant, I’m now within reaching distance of the fruit…

Now, I’ve got a different problem…  I'm here, hugging the underside of this gigantic branch that's at least thirty foot wide, where if I reached my hand out, I could acquire the fruit…

… but, how do I stay attached to the tree and grab the fruit at the same time?

I definitely didn’t crawl all the way up here, to be forced to go back without this damn fruit... and I've already had to give up my harness, due to inability to both climb the underside of the branch and make holes for the rope with God-hunter.

Meaning I’m now with reaching distance of the fruit, which is hanging in a pile of green leaves… but, can’t reach it…

I… Don’t think any of my artifacts would be useful in this situation. Well, unless I want to attempt teleporting to the fruit… then risk falling to my death…

Gazing slightly downward…

NOPE, BAD PLAN! Too far! Extraordinarily terrible plan! Not happening! That’s too far to survive.

Instinctively, digging my hands into the tree. Then for good measure posturing my feet into the small holes I found in the tree, I need to rest for a minute to calm down.

Come on, Tobias! You’re within reaching distance of the goal, use your genius intellect to discover a solution. Nobody wants to see you acting weak and pathetic…

After taking a second to calming down, I simply stared at my goal. How can I acquire it? What is the safest way? Is there any safe way?

What about simply eating it? I mean, as long as I don’t swallow the seed inside it should still be usable. I might not be able to grab it, but I think I should be able to safely take a few bites out of it.

Slowly shimmying closer to the fruit and quickly realized why I didn’t think of this plan initially…

... Because it’s a really… stupid… plan. The world tree's fruit is around the size of a watermelon, which is way too large to attempt to eat it whole (or even slowly without leverage).

I suppose in order to spot it from the ground, it would probably have to be at least this size... Can’t hurt to try though?

Attempting to bite the fruit. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

If I tried to explain it… well, it’s like trying to bite an apple in a water barrel, with both your arms tied behind your back. While taking a bite, I can’t make the fruit stay in place … and, even I did, it’s probably too big to effectively take a bite out of it…

Well, there goes that plan… If I didn’t particularly care about the fruit, I would simply knock it to the floor and collect the seed afterward.

Unfortunately, the fruit itself is also quite valuable and damaging it would be a waste.

The fruit contains a large amount of already purified mana from the world tree, meant to both nourish the seed and attract powerful beings who might potentially ingest the fruit.

The seed itself, if accidentally ingested, would simply sit instinctively in the stomach of the being... And would only leave when they had arrived at another world… and I’m on a mental tangent, again.

Fruit first, mental tangents later.

This is a bad plan… but alright, let just do it.

I letting go the trunk. Before I could fall a substantial distance, I managed to grab ahold of the fruit.

Then, I attempted to teleport toward the main tree using <Shoes of Comfortable Escaping>.

Hah… It worked! I’ve reached my climbing gear… Resting my head against the tree, I took a moment to catch my breath.

I wasn’t actually expecting that to work… but, boy, am I happy it did.

Keeping one hand on the fruit, I reconnect myself to the climbing rope attached to the tree…

Too scary… I never want to do that again.

I remember that Rin considered obtaining the fruit strangely easy? She'd consider this easy?

I’m not sure whether (or not) I should feel horrified at that thought… this could be considered easy?

Shaking the thought from my head, it doesn’t matter.

Right now, I need to eat this fruit before the purified mana inside leaks out.

While the fruit won’t help the growth of my ability, The Unnoticed, due to growing abilities requiring corrupted mana to improve (instead of the purified mana the fruit provides); It should improve the pace the Basilisk’s Inheritance levels.

I ate, carefully carving out the chunks of fruit with God-hunter.

The fruit tasted delicious, although slightly strange. It tasted like… like, a combination of an orange and watermelon.

Which… after thinking about it, really doesn’t sound particularly appetizing… But, it does taste good.

Alright, now that I’ve finished the fruit, I’m going to head downward toward solid ground…

Whilst I travel down, I’ll explain a bit about world trees.

There are several reasons, world tree’s were called world trees. They began being called ‘world trees’, when they were used by the early survivors of the intelligent races to colonize a new worlds.

Later on though, they were kept the name ‘world trees’ because they produce a symbiotic relationship with the world.

World Trees strengthen and fortify themselves, and the world they are planted on through time… and from testing, the races discovered that only one could be linked to each world.

Now that I have the seed of a world tree, there are a couple of methods I could choose on how to use it.

The first, and simplest, method is to plant the world tree seed when we reach the third zone. If it grows, it should provide some food in the form of edible fruits (without seeds… until it matures).

I won’t be using this method. It’s too time consuming, and I would be forced to stick around the specific area it grew... or I wouldn’t be able to continue obtaining food.

Additional, I have no idea if the third zone already has a world tree… and this method would only work if the third zone doesn’t already have one.

The second method, is to simply crush the seed and eat it. This allow the special nutrients from the seed to modifies your body to allow the passive absorption of mana from the surroundings…

This is probably the most powerful and commonly used method of using the seed, but… this wouldn’t solve my food problem. Mana isn’t food. I can’t turn mana into food.

Leading to the final method, the method Rin had used in the story, implanting the seed into your own body. Yea… That’s… That’s probably going to be even more painful than it sounded.

Someone, at some point in their lives, came up with the brilliant idea of cutting open a seed-sized gash in the right side of their chest… and implanted the seed precisely behind their lung…

And, somehow, it worked. The seeds of a world tree are extremely adaptive to any environment… even the body of a person.

The seed, if inserted correctly, will absorb mana and blood from the surroundings… then, convert it to nutrients.

After growing enough, it will establish a symbiotic relationship with the body, which will provide it with mana from the surroundings and portions of blood… and the seed will return nutrients and strengthen the internal organs.

Meaning that, afterward implanting the seed, I could theoretically survive almost entirely on mana and water… I’m not exactly sure whether my increased appetite from regeneration would affect that hypothetical though.

Well, I’ve reached the ground… Guess, I shouldn’t really delay too much longer…

*Sigh* Right, let’s get this over and done with… before I change my mind.

Bringing God-hunter over the right side of my chest, I slowly insert it into my chest…

OwwWWWW… NOPE! Nope... Nope, that... that was a terrible idea… and won’t be happening.

How the hell could Rin do that? I thought I would be fine, considering I can handle a lot more pain than in the past… but, that… I don’t think I can do that.

If I don’t use it, I’d have wasted this entire past month. That’s… so much time. Damn it, I thought this would be the best option to increase my chances of survival.

Maybe if I crushed it up and ate it… No, that would be wasteful. Those two methods are mutually exclusive… You cannot merge with a world tree seed and modify your body to absorb mana from the surrounds.

Wiping off my blood from God-hunter, I considering other options.

Damn, unless I can find another way to obtain food in the fire zone…

Tossing the seed upward then catching it again, maybe… I'll work up the courage to attempt it again later?

For now, let’s just hold onto it. I’ll just have to carry it with me for the time being.

Stuffing the seed into a zipper pocket in my bag, I head westward. Toward the starting village.

The beacon to the teleportation sigil should be appearing in the vicinity of the village after around a year passes.

POV Swap – Rin

[Far to the south of the village, inside a dark cave.]

A pure black panther was panting wild, half-dead… Rin hovered over the beast, reminiscing about the trouble it used to cause her when she had ran into its kind.

This particularly species of panther has rather useful and dangerous power to distort space around it, and can use that power with frightening efficiency to both land and avoid blows.

Unsurprisingly, when Rin had first fought this particular species, it had taken… awhile, to learn to efficiently kill it.

This time, though, Rin had simply thrown her own homemade poisonous concoction toward the beast and it had quickly disabled the beast... and rendered into this half-dead state.

Traveling around this zone… feels strange.

Especially if she ran into something that had caused her countless troubles in the past, it now felt… easy.

She still remembered those various suffering she had gone through to complete this zone… but, was it really always this easy?

The monsters here only have one power, and those don’t even include mental or spiritual attacks.

They aren’t resistant to all the poisons in the zone, despite it being all around them.

Most of them aren’t particularly good at combat, nor are they particularly alert to their surroundings.

Overall, extremely pathetic…

She hadn’t even needed to utilize her power. At least, not since successfully saving Tobias.

Even with the delay from training Tobias, Rin had still managed to slay and consume enough monsters that her body is even stronger than before. At least, stronger when compared to when she had previously left this zone.

Now… Rin had already completed everything she had planned to do.

At this point, there isn’t really anything else to do. The monsters Rin knows about wouldn’t have enough of an effect on her strength to bother killing.

Nor would any other known artifacts in the area have enough of an effect on her strength to plan to bother obtaining.

This hasn’t really happened in awhile… and there are still around thirty days before the teleportation beacon is available for use.

Should she go check up on Tobias? Maybe…

It didn't take Rin long to decide. Before leaving the zone, it was probably for the best to personally confirm that Tobias hadn't died randomly. She hadn't seen him in awhile anyway.