Endless Desert of the Fhenzi Region, 1 Month Away from the Heavenly Spirit Forest.

With the assistance from the Rottenwoods, Jhin De Zhi and his little brothers were able to repel the Giant Black Pearl Scorpions for a while. Elder Rottenwoods was visibly tired and spent, the other Elders of the Rottenwoods family within their own carriages were also tired, even the small children were spent! They had to keep the black root domes they were because the sandstorm was still out there and various Giant Black Pearl Scorpions could be outside of their dens! They kept to themselves inside the carriages until the sandstorm was long gone. The sun was slowly going over the horizon, which filled their hearts with dread. The beasts pulled the carriages as quickly as they could, their speed being augmented by three of his little brothers- Da Hen, Di Hen, and Du Hen, the triplets who were all Earth Qi Cultivators in the Core Exaltation Realm -that pushed the beasts forward. One of them focused on making the road solid, one of them focused on speeding up the beasts and carriages, and the last one focused on helping both his brothers with their tasks.

And like that, they were able to cross the desert further and further, until they were far away from where the Giant Black Pearl Scorpion's territory was.

Jhin De Zhi rested, his head touching the solid wall of the carriage as it continued to move forward thanks to their Weight Carrier Beasts. These sturdy beasts could just keep going, they were able to function properly and move even without sleeping for a week! As the desert started to grow colder and colder, Jhin De Zhi felt his passengers come closer to warm themselves. The weaker ones had to be cuddled for warmth, but such things could not bother him, as a Cultivator of the Pale Star Core Realm. Hunger, cold, heat, and other natural phenomena mortals went through were nothing to him- he could sustain himself by his Qi alone!

“Little Golden Boy?” Tilting his head to look at the old lady who called him, Jhin De Zhi mentally sighed as he kept his face neutral and devoid of all expression: “Yes, Elder Rottenwoods?” He observed the old lady closely- She approached him and gave him a- …hug? “Thank you for protecting my family.” She said, her frail and thin arms wrapping around his body. ‘...huh?’ Gratitude was something Jhin De Zhi has never truly experienced before- To him, everything was a way to get more money. He was a Gold Qi Cultivator, he had to collect Gold if he wanted to become stronger and survive this cursed world. To him, “gratitude” came in the form of coins, nothing more and nothing else could compare to the sound they make whenever he shakes them.

Gratitude has the color of gold.

“...You're welcome?” Confused still by the random act of the old lady, Jhin De Zhi hugged her back reluctantly. Soon, she let go of him and sighed: “Now… I think that it'll take a long time for us to reach our destination.” She looked distantly towards the night sky, the endless stars and their twinkling lights: “From the feeling I get, it'll take us a whole month, never stopping.”

…fuck.

Heavenly Spirit Forest, Root's Territory

Year 11, Day 50

Root took advantage of the overflowing Nature Qi that enchanted his entire forest, and cultivated it. The Nature Qi was extremely abundant, he was able to quickly gather the Qi from everywhere his trees touched and his roots found purchase.

This is where his technique [Mycorrhizal Network] was able to truly shine.

Thanks to it, his roots connected to other trees and their roots, and those roots connected to other roots and more roots and roots and- You get it. With these connections, like a flowing river, Root was able to pull the bright green Nature Qi to himself from the underground through his endless roots. The further away from him, the slower the Qi moved, but he was nothing if not patient.

He's a literal tree, for heaven's sake!

It took four entire days for the Nature Qi from the end of his forest to reach him, and in these four days his 15,896,236 Lesser Nature Spirit children were working tirelessly to spread their own Nature Qi everywhere. Right, he created more and more Lesser Nature Spirit children because he wanted this forest to last even after the Boundless Bountiful, stabilizing this small region and making it an oasis amidst the endless desert. His trees had already spread over the old battlefield of where Fiero and Namis had fought the ants, their roots wrapped around the crystals of Fire and Water that had been made when they used their combined steam explosion attack (Chapter 22). Even the giant elephant sized crystals were spared! Roots snagged and wrapped around them, and under Root's influence, the trees that grew from these crystals became these beautiful rocky crystal trees.

It was fascinating, really, how they grew- One of the trees that had grown into the glass sculpture of the giant elephant sized ant had grown to an enormous size as well, becoming this black rocky tree with large branches that had these vermillion red crystals that hung from them. Each crystal had a relatively equal amount of Demonic Qi, Earth Qi, Water Qi, or Fire Qi. The crystal tree forest was, however, rich in Earth Qi! Each tree “inhaled” Nature Qi and “exhaled” Earth Qi alongside a thick scent of wet dirt after rain- It was surprisingly calming for someone who wants to cultivate pure Earth Qi! As his forest expanded beyond this section and wrapped around it, he decided to call this circular place the ‘Crystal Lattice Forest’.

“Huh, alongside the Firelight Grove, I have other flora life that has adapted and drastically changed thanks to the type of Qi it has been exposed to…” Thinking for a moment about it, Root charged his attention to the underground, to be specific, he sent his awareness to where Bones rested. His rot tree son was happily moving his many finger-like branches, each branch was carrying a thin and black thread made with Death Qi. They all moved like needles, sinking into their target and leaving the target repeatedly in such quick attacks that you would only see their blurring movements. Lying, with its back on the white bone table, was a recently deceased human.

Bones needed practice, so Root took the corpses of one of the mortals that was buried- He has been thinking of way to put their these corpses to good use, and he had the idea of creating a burial ritual where a mortal is buried with a tree or within a tree, so he can use their bodies as nutrients and their bones for other things -in a backyard of a home. He didn't ask, seeing as there were no people who cared about this corpse- How does he know? Well, because the guy didn't even have a gravestone, contrary to most other mortals that have died. He was also buried like he had been thrown in the hole, so Roots assigned his most curious detective daughter Zylph to find out how the mortal had died (Mostly because Zylph always wanted to play the detective) while he pulled the corpse to Bones. In fact, she was floating right beside the corpse while the thousand of black branches moved with hesitant precision and clumsy movements, sewing the members back together after they were previously removed.

In fact, Bones had completely removed every single internal organ from the corpse before he started to mess around with the target's skin and bones, which was slightly amusing to watch his child learn how the human body worked- a little macabre to see a body being played with like it was a puppet. Sharp but unnatural movements, broken limbs moving like they had strings attached to them when in fact they were moving because of Bones’ control over their, well, bones.

“Have you seen enough, Zylph?” She looked up and smiled, on her delicate pale hands was this notebook. The paper was easily made by Root's control over nature and natural resources, while the pencil in her hand was more of a piece of wood with solid coal inside. “Dad!” she greeted: “No, I'm still analyzing the wounds- But after this autopsy with Bones, I was able to discover that the victim died of blood loss, being stabbed on the stomach and bleeding out. Other superficial injuries were found as well, but his brain had also swollen, which was caused by a heavy impact…”

“Well, you could ask for help from your sister Lily.” Root softly proposed: “She has practiced a lot with skeletons and the dead, thus she can help you figure out more things about your case.” Zylph smiled and nodded, looking excited to finally have a mystery to solve! “I'll ask for help, Lily will definitely join me and become my Watson!” Root smiled, amused, but he warned; “Now, not so fast, Sherlock. You need to remember that we don't involve ourselves with mortal issues that much for a reason- No matter which world, which universe, or which planet they come from: humans always cause trouble.” He used to be human, which is another reason he knows not to trust them at all. There is also that little voice on the back of his head that always whispers to be careful with humans- He came to recognize it as a voice that didn't come from him, but came from deep… He does not know exactly where that voice comes from, but it always sounds so desperate and sad. “And trouble is what I do not want.”

“But dad, don't you think these mortals are too weak to do anything to us?” Zylph looked back down at the boneless, organ-less, and useless sack of skin that flayed around as Bones started to separate the skin from the muscles of the corpse, the branches moving with intense curiosity: “...they are so frail!”

“I know they are weak, dear, but they also are dangerous… Remember what I told you about the scorpion and the frog?” Root wasn't sure where his excessive fear or negative vision of humans came from, but just thinking about it, they were very justified. I mean, look at the horrors! Humanity is very fucked up, no matter where or when.

“Oh, right.” Zylph sighed: “It's only in their nature.”

Humans are social creatures, and as social creatures, they take their environment and reflect it within themselves in their own psyche. The upbringing of someone can determine their reaction to the world around them, but no amount of education can or will ever stop the instinct of a being, any being. You can always train a dog not to bark, but it will always bark whenever it can. You can always trim trees and make their foliage look perfectly square or round, but the branches will always grow again, wilder than before.

And you can always teach a human not to harm someone or something, but when push comes to shove? Instincts take over.

That's one of the reasons Root fears and dislikes humans- Instinct. He no longer was human, he was a tree. And what do humans do to trees? They kill them, take their wood, and turn it into furniture.

Because of his instinctual fear and dislike of humans, Root was very confused when his child, Chrysalis, turned out to love them. Well, Chrysalis was a rather unique child- When it comes to their dream, Chrysalis told him that they wanted to create new species! A biologist through and through that wanted to become a mad scientist, twist things around, and see what fucked up shit they can make.

Their words.

I mean, having Chrysalis around really helped the mortals and the forest, because Lesser Life spirits were really helpful! With Chrysalis around, they could take care of their lesser siblings and use them to do their little experiments. One of them has already given results!

Have you ever thought about what would happen if you mixed a tree and an animal together?

Well…

“...is that a bird made of flowers?”