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Ch166-Happily Ever

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What Sylver felt inside himself wasn’t what he would describe as pleasurable, but it stopped being “painful” a few minutes ago.

He was changing physically, but that was only a small part of it. Although it was barely noticeable, Sylver could feel that he’d gained at least a half-inch of height and that his hands had become slightly thinner and wider, even the muscles in his back were slowly shifting into where his soul dictated them to be.

Sylver could even feel his teeth shifting around to accommodate the slowly forming molars in the back, and while it didn’t “hurt” the feeling of your eyeballs gradually enlarging inside your skull was very uncomfortable.

Sylver had made a mistake when he first inhabited Ciege’s body.

He had thought that Ciege was a tall man, among normal-sized people.

In reality, relative to Sylver’s past life, Ciege was a short man, among even shorter people.

Although, having said that, it was hard to tell if it was due to people in general being short, or if it was a case of people on Sylver’s side of the Asberg being taller than the ones on Ciege’s side.

“Sylver” walked ahead of Sylver, by exactly 7 and a half steps. The silvery skeleton matched Sylver’s pace perfectly, he quite literally only took a step when Sylver took a step.

Grim and Eve had both disappeared a moment after “Sylver” had teleported them somewhere inside the Garden, and “Sylver” was instructed to escort Sylver to the Garden’s “tree of life.”

Apparently, Eve and company didn’t want to interfere with the Garden any more than they absolutely had to, save for kidnapping and killing men, women, and children that had trace amounts of dark energy in their system.

“Sylver” kept them hidden away in a bubble of darkness that made them completely imperceptible to anyone and anything within the Garden. There were areas within the Garden that the silvery skeleton couldn’t teleport into, so they had to teleport to the nearest area and then walked the rest of the way.

To his credit, the spell was exceptionally well cast, the silvery skeleton wasn’t just copying it directly from the pages on which Sylver had once written it, he had adapted it to suit his own formation of mana channels.

But the base was wrong. Even in his weakened form, Sylver could easily dismantle the spell. Albeit this was due to the fact that it was his own spell, that he knew inside out, but any mage with the proper know-how, and a bit of luck, could do the same.

A small part of Sylver felt an odd connection to the silvery skeleton. Under the right tutelage, he could be a very powerful ally. But trying to recruit him ran the risk of fucking up the deal they already made, not to mention Sylver didn’t like the idea of making an enemy out of Eve.

On top of that, what could he even offer the skeleton?

Better yet, what could he offer Eve and Grim?

Having all three of them as allies would be a tremendous help.

But that would go against Sylver’s rule of avoiding gods, and anything even mildly related to them. 

Extremely attractive priestesses being a very obvious exception to the rule.

And gods too weak to pose a threat to Sylver, like the one that’s keeping Bruno and Faust alive.

And Rose, Poppy, and Lily, although that sort of fell into the “too weak to pose a threat” category, in the sense that a god from a foreign world couldn’t do anything to him. 

Although Poppy did kill Sylver once…

And then gave him a large sum of money…

As compensation for killing him… Canceling out the harm she had caused him…

Sylver refrained from thinking about this any further, and instead focused on his status.

Total Level: 131
[Koschei-9]
[Necromancer-100]
[Swamp Lord-22]

CON: 165
DEX: 105
STR: 105
INT: 269
WIS: 230
AP: 15

Health: 1,603/1,650
Stamina: 804/825
MP: 10,550/10,760

Health Regen: 19.25/M
Stamina Regen: 14.85/M
MP Regen: 5568.30/M

There was also the matter of Sylver’s recently acquired trait.

[Trait: Abomination]
-By your actions, you have marred your very essence, and have created an abomination.
-This can never be undone.
-Whoever kills you will receive 1/10th of your total levels.
-Current amount of levels being offered: 13.
-Anyone that is successful at seeing your status will be informed of this.

Seems like I hit a nerve.

Why did it mention that “this can never be undone?”

Does it mean there’s a version of this trait that can be undone?

But as far as painting a target on my back, this is brilliant… The stronger I become, the more enticing a target I have. It will be 20 levels when I’m level 200. Meaning some idiot warrior with a total of 500 levels will see killing me as an easy way of getting to level 520.

And the number will only get more enticing, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone went out of their way to kill me if killing me gave them 30, 40, or 50 levels.

On the other hand, once I kill them, I’ll have high-level corpses to work with.

Plus, it will work fantastically as a threat/bluff.

Surely someone with such a fucked up trait must simultaneously be extremely powerful?

That should at least keep all the idiots away… Leaving only the people who won’t underestimate me, and will come prepared.

Oh well, doesn’t really matter. Not a whole lot I can do about it now.

The more worrying thing was the 3 perks Sylver had gained from his [Koschei] class leveling up, which simply showed up as [N/A]

[Perk: N/A]
-N/A

It was weird, more than anything else, even for the system.

But as with the trait that made Sylver a walking level up, there was very little he could do about it.

On account of the fact that Sylver’s body was going to need all the help it could get to heal during his metamorphosis, he placed all 15 points into constitution.

CON: 180
DEX: 105
STR: 105
INT: 269
WIS: 230
AP: 0

Health: 1,654/1,800
Stamina: 819/900
MP: 10,550/10,760

Health Regen: 21.00/M
Stamina Regen: 16.20/M
MP Regen: 5568.30/M

Some nobleman is probably going to hear about me at some point, and will try to have me captured as a birthday gift for their son or daughter…

But that would mean whoever they sent after me would be under orders to capture me alive, which will likely be a big enough handicap for me to win…

If I kill myself, would the system grant me the 13 levels?

What about if I let Spring kill me?

What if I let someone kill me, absorb enough life force to become “alive” and let someone kill me again?

Sylver’s thought process was thankfully interrupted by “Sylver” speaking up.

“How are you channeling your mana through it?” the silvery skeleton asked, as Sylver placed his old hand into his other hand.

“By minding my own business. It takes a while to develop, but the skill comes in handy more than you think,” Sylver responded and got a lifeless nod from the silver-boned creature.

Sylver tried to get back to the idea of repeatedly killing himself, but his eyes wandered over to a trait that suggested it wouldn’t work the way he thought it would.

[Perk: Deathless]
-Unless the needle is destroyed, you will not die.

And while Sylver might be comfortable with getting decapitated, experimenting on his needle wasn’t on the table. Because he knew something about it that he didn’t want to put into words, or even think about.

After he had gained [Primal Override] Sylver had attempted to inspect the needle inside himself, check to see what its primal energy looked like, and he found out that…

It wasn’t there.

According to Sylver’s highly acute primal energy-sensing abilities, he didn’t have a needle inside his body. It was just flesh and blood trapped inside of a spiral.

Except when he heated his insides up, a very specific and needle-shaped chunk of flesh trapped inside of a metal spiral transferred heat much much faster than any other kind of meat within him.

The needle was there, and it wasn’t there.

Sylver would need to undo the [Rune Of Indestructibility] when he came back to Eira, on account of the fact that his current rib cage was going to be far too small for him. It wasn’t going to double in size or anything, but it would both look, and feel, extremely uncomfortable if he kept it as is. 

Sylver had control over the rate at which his body changed, but he couldn’t grow his mana channels without the physical part changing as well.

“Sylver” was completely unceremonious as he expanded the bubble of darkness to encompass the giant tree Sylver had been two steps away from. He craned his head to get a full view of the thing, and thankfully no longer had a stomach inside himself to empty out.

Sylver had seen dead Eldar trees before.

He’d seen Eldar trees that were hanging on by a thread.

He’d seen extremely poor attempts at undead Eldar trees.

But he’d never seen this.

The tree had a very pale and slimy white body, with equally pale silver veins traveling up the trunk, just barely shiny enough for Sylver to differentiate between one and the other. At the top, the tree had a dense bush of leaves that were so thin and red that it almost looked like Sylver was looking at a splatter of blood.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

There was…

Sylver brought his hand up to his mouth, and accidentally held the hand full of mana, and spent a few seconds dry heaving into it, before he wiped the drool away with his robe, and returned his attention to this “tree.”

Small clear tubes came out from below the white sand the tree’s roots were in, and a pale grey liquid that looked like mercury traveled through the tubes, away from the tree, into the edges of the giant dark sphere keeping Sylver hidden away from view.

They were milking it. Tapping it for sap.

Sylver tried to take a step toward the tree but felt something unnaturally soft under his foot. He readied himself, as he looked down, and watched as the liquid burned clean through the edges of his robe, and tickled his skin as the smoke rose and nearly burned its way through his pants.

Very carefully, Sylver lifted his foot and stepped back.

On the floor was a deflated flesh balloon that looked like a deformed kidney.

It was, as Sylver had found, called a “cut gland.”

The gland where the “elves” kept all their positive energy, which seemed to be stored in some sort of semi-liquid form. The one all the “elves” removed to become “high-elves.”

Sylver crouched down and summoned his ax into his hand. Very gently he poked the deflated sack and turned it over. As he did so, he watched as the liquid sloshed out of it, and disappeared immediately into the sand, as if the bone dry sand wasn’t even there.

Sylver felt, more than heard, as the “tree of life” sucked up the liquid with its roots, and the leaves near the ceiling began to shimmer and shake. Sylver heard a thud, followed by another, and simply followed it with his eyes, as a red orange-colored object fell down from the top of the tree, and landed in the soft sand below.

Stepping over the gland on the sand, Sylver got a closer look at the red-orange object.

It was a mango.

Except Sylver could sense something that didn’t belong in a fruit.

Not quite a heartbeat, but that was the closest thing he could think to describe it as.

When his curiosity finally got the better of him, Sylver reached out with his hand and tapped the “fruit” with the tip of his finger.

“Oh fuck off!” Sylver said, as he quickly stood up, and backed away from the “fruit.”

“What?” Ria asked as Sylver turned to look at the silvery skeleton, but it didn’t appear to have moved an inch since the moment it had increased the size of the shadow sphere.

How many have I had since I came here?

The wine, the bread, the tea, milk, fucking juice, at least 100, probably way more!

“What is it?” Ria asked as Sylver felt as if bile was rising up his throat, but he simply dry heaved into his hands again.

“Why is the answer always either cannibalism or incest? Why can’t it, just once, be something I can get behind? Why is it never a society with extremely promiscuous women? Or maybe some sort of, I don’t know, worshiping men with pitch-black eyes or something?” Sylver moaned the questions towards the silvery skeleton staring at him with no reaction.

“Cannibalism? Wait, wait, you don’t mean-”

“I think “mangoes” are the unfertilized egg equivalent of this and don’t you fucking dare tell me otherwise!” Sylver warned, with a pointed finger towards the mute skeleton.

“But wouldn’t you want to know if-”

“No, I would not. I fucking hate this place, I didn’t even get to-” Sylver stopped himself from explaining what he had at one point hoped to do, and was now glad that he could barely taste anything while he lived inside the Garden.

He didn’t even need to ask why Eve had done this, because he knew the answer. The “mangoes” were the perfect method to flood a breastfeeding woman’s body with positive energy, and then maintain the heightened level of positive energy in the growing child.

Obviously, the fruit Sylver had just touched was the kind the “high-elves” ate, because if he had tried to eat this, it would have burned a hole through his throat. The “mangoes” he ate were all likely some sort of low-quality variant of this, a knock-off “mango” if you will.

Sylver gave himself a moment or two to recover and then proceeded to walk over to the “tree of life” and touched it.

Thankfully, Sylver’s stomach was fresh out of imaginary vomit, and he was able to keep his disgust at this atrocity contained within his head.

He could feel the outline of the framework now, cut gland goes in, immortality comes out.

But there was… something else inside the tree…

The intense density of positive energy made everything extremely fuzzy and vague, but Sylver was sure he could feel dead matter inside the tree. He turned towards the silvery skeleton, who just stared at him.

“I want to see the corpse inside,” Sylver said. 

The silvery skeleton just stared at him.

“Look, I’m seeing that corpse, one way or another. It’s your choice whether I look at it after I tear my way inside, or if you simply make a cut and pull out a piece of it for me,” Sylver offered.

“I can answer any question you may have,” the silvery skeleton offered, but made no move to provide Sylver with a sample of the corpse.

“Why is there a corpse inside the tree?” Ria asked before Sylver had a chance to choose a good threat, probably something involving fire.

“After the planet stopped spinning, the ice melted. Trapped within was a disease that had a near-perfect fatality. Among those that survived was a druid, who would later be called “The Gardener.” He, and several other men, performed a ritual of some sort, that in exchange for the Gardener’s life, provided the remaining groups with immunity,” the silvery skeleton explained.

“Why do some of the elves have pointy ears, while the others have flat ears?” Ria asked, and Sylver started to answer before “Sylver” could.

“Because the Gardener had flat ears, therefore everyone influenced by his “immunity,” gained the genes necessary to become a flat eared elf. The tree uses the glands that contain the sum total “elf” genes, as a fuel source to provide the “flat eared elves” with immortality. Because the flat ear gene is dominant, they are now at the point where most of the elves living in the Roots, Trunk, and so on, have the potential to become a flat eared elf, in exchange for their cut gland. Tell me I’m wrong,” Sylver answered, with his arms crossed over his chest, while he stared the silver skeleton down.

“You are not wrong,” the silvery skeleton answered, while Ria switched from staring at Sylver to staring at the silver skeleton.

“It’s in the framework. This whole tree is under a “spell,” if we’re being generous. Although to myself and the dark elves it’s more like a curse. I wouldn’t be surprised if this tree is the reason for the dark elf children getting so fucked up whenever they leave their dome,” Sylver offered with a shrug of the shoulders.

Nyx’s grimoire filled in some of the gaps.

This wasn’t what she was going for, or what she would have permitted to exist, but Sylver could almost see the spots where Nyx’s framework had been bastardized.

“The method through which the immunity is spread is light-based, so it is very likely you are correct,” the silver skeleton explained.

Sylver summoned his ax into his hand and gestured with it towards the tree.

“I sure hope I don’t get too messed up from chopping my way inside. If that were to happen, I probably won’t be able to replace this,” Sylver thought out loud, as he held his cut-off hand by the wrist, and made the fingers curl and grasp the handle of the ax.

Sylver stood there for about 5 seconds before the silvery skeleton gestured at the tree, and a perfect square about the size of Sylve’rs hand formed on the trunk. The square began to come out, and became longer and longer, with silvery and foul-smelling liquid spilling out of the many holes inside the moving elongated square.

The square stopped and Sylver saw an extremely deformed cross-section of a skull, the left cheek, and a couple of teeth. He didn’t think about it, didn’t let himself hesitate, and simply poked the bone with his bare finger.

Sylver sighed with relief, as he gestured for the silvery skeleton to push the square back. It wasn’t someone from the Ibis, even dead for possibly thousands of years, Sylver would know one of his people.

More interesting was the fact that he could feel a soul when he touched the bone. Whether the Gardener was alive or not, or if his soul had been absorbed and altered by the tree, Sylver didn’t know, and more honestly, didn’t care.

Sylver looked up at the treetop and tried to figure out a way to carry a sapling out of here.

Aside from how fucked up this Eldar tree was, there was also the issue of Sylver not being certain how much mana it would require to safely transport a sapling. As he stared at the shivering bright red leaves, Sylver remembered something.

“If I show you how to channel your mana through this, could you do me a favor?” Sylver asked “Sylver.”

*

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The metal door slid out of the way without making any sound. Sylver counted 24 men and women huddled together in the corner, starving and shivering, and all nude save for a small strip of cloth that just barely covered their lower half. They were beaten, bruised, and all seemed to be missing an eye, an ear, teeth, or a finger or two.

Sylver entered inside, and the dark blue-skinned creatures all stared at him, confused, as much as they were terrified.

“Hello. My name is Tod. I’m here to rescue you, but I need you to not ask any questions, and just do as I say, until I get you home. Any objections?” Sylver asked as he stepped out of the way as various bits and pieces of armor, weapons, packs, and boxes that Sylver assumed contained the dark elves' belongings, floated inside.

There weren’t any Serpents here, the armor wasn’t something just any dark elf could wear. These were their foot soldier equivalents.

They all just stared at him, and it was only after a small woman, that under different circumstances Sylver would refer to as a girl, reached out and started putting on her armor, did the others break from their trance. No one said a word as they all donned their armor, helped each other find their gun, sword, and shield.

“How many people do you need to get a sapling from the “tree of life?” And how are you going to transport it,” Sylver asked.

There was an odd silence, during which just about everyone exchanged glances, before the small woman who Sylver almost felt like he recognized walked over to him, along with 2 men that also looked vaguely familiar.

The small woman reached into the bag hanging over her chest and stomach and pulled out a wooden cylinder, covered with symbols Sylver didn’t recognize. It was dark red, on account of being soaked in blood.

“Alright, please get the others to the nearest underwater boat near their home,” Sylver said towards the open doors, and by the time he turned around to look at the three dark elves that were left, the other 20 had been teleported to safety.

“Are you related to Dasha, by any chance?” Sylver asked the small woman, who now seemed to be holding back tears, but didn’t show it in her voice.

“She’s my mother, sir,” the small woman said.

Sylver didn’t get a good look at Dasha’s face, given that most of the time he was staring at her back, or wearing a blindfold, but he could feel the familial similarity in her soul. She only stopped disguising as Lady Demor in the bedroom, where it was dark, and everyone was too preoccupied to see the other person’s face.

“I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear you’re alive. Anyway, you’re all going to see some weird shit from this point on, so I’m going to have to ask the three of you to never tell anybody, ever, what you’re about to see,” Sylver asked, and was quite proud by the fact that all three simply nodded in acknowledgment.

Sylver kept “Sylver” out of sight for as much as possible, but even though he could feel that the small woman and one of the men were beyond terrified, neither said anything. The third man was either too stupid to be afraid of the silver skeleton following them or assumed he was under Sylver’s control, or something to that extent.

They climbed the “tree of life” cut off a sapling, and got ready to burn it down, but luckily Sylver stopped them before they finished opening the caps on the incendiary explosives. Even then, they didn’t ask any questions, and simply did as they were told, and put the explosives away. 

The small woman, Lara, carried the sapling during their walk to an area where the silver skeleton could teleport them directly inside of one of the underwater boats near the dome.

Sylver told “Sylver” and Eve that he would contact them when he was done preparing the gate. Before he even started to explain how he would contact them, Eve informed him that she had access to all the various pieces of technology the dark elves possessed and that she will know when he’s ready.

When Sylver opened his eyes from bilking, he was already standing in the middle of one of the underwater ship’s hallways, right next to Lara.

Alright, all that’s left is to prepare for Rose, make an instant death wand for Eve, destroy the book, open the gate, and…

Go home.