That’s until the great forest burned down, Flame consumed his mother, her wood cracked as fire blazed through her life. In one desperate gamble, she pushed her mana outside, forming him and forcing him out of his home.
Ruvick still remembers it, inside the peaceful void, a translucent white hand grasped him, pulling him toward a huge open eye with iridescent green scales surrounding its amber-gold pupil.
He looked down upon the blackened earth, heat prickling against his wooden body, A sense to move born inside him. Ruvick turned toward the blistering heat. Red smoldering flame coils around his mother, it extends toward the dark sky, not even her leaves spared.
“Mother?” He croaked, his voice sounded like a cracked wood. Ruvick stepped closer, and the heat threatened to consume him into ashes. A flicker of tiny flame landed on his arm. Pain seared as the red pinprick gorge a black wisp against his wooden skin.
Ruvick stumbled backward, his foot caught a rock, and he fell, landing on the ash-filled land. Their heat sends a great melting discomfort lurch into him.
“Mother! Let me return,” Ruvick wailed. He tried to approach his burning mother again, but the heat alone made him almost tumble down.
All senses within his new body scream inside of him; they scream for him to run, to get away from this heat, from this flame. To seek a lush green place where he can bathe in the sun. But his heart.. a single rebel inside of him. He dropped to his knees, eyes transfixed on his dying mother.
A great crack boomed through the dark forest, his mother fell sideways, her trunk wailed as it creaked. Ruvick raised his arm, as if about to hold a great tree that almost reached the moon. The forest cried as his mother crashed, ash swirling as the impact sent them flying up. The wind blows Ruvick backward.
Ruvick ran, rushing through the tornado of ashes, and grasped his mother's wood. Her wood turns black, it disintegrates as flame slowly consumes her. Then, her wood extends toward him, forming a wooden spear point. Slowly, it detaches itself from her body. A wooden Spear with a greenish glow upon it.
Picking the spear up to examine it. Ruvick was horrified. His mother has put all her remaining life into this. That would mean…
(S Relic, Spear Of Nil)
The flame roared, and it blazed through the skin of his mother. An explosion of fire pushed him back.
“No!”
‘go’
A weak, faint voice thrummed inside him; this was the first time he heard it, but of course, he recognized it. The voice of his mother.
‘Please go. Take my power and live’
Ruvick stood, cradling the spear. His scream was a visceral thing, a creaking of wood that burns, at least that's what he thought his voice was like.
RUVICK LVL 1
RACE: TREANT
CLASS: Sapling
HP: 470/500
MP: 200/200
STR: 50
DEX: 35
INT: 20
Pure Essence: 10
Essence (1/2): [Life Essence] (RUMONAUS)
Skill: Root Extension. (Grade E)
He turned away from his mother, and her creaking wood against the fire can still be heard. Every step he took felt like betrayal. Ruvick ran; he decided not to stop until he left the fiery forest. He needs to warn other surviving trees, there must be something to do.
An invisible force seeped inside him, a warm, loving one embraced him in a translucent ghostly hug. He knew it then, the great trees of Nil, his mother had passed on. Ruvick turned; he could see her life as an ambient green light dancing as they climbed toward heaven through the dark, smoke-filled sky.
He had thought the light would transcend to the moon, but it stopped. They coalesced into a green luminant arrow, slowly grew bigger as the little light joined, shining brighter than the moon. Forming a great astral wonder, as if the great forest beneath it were just a mere decoration.
The arrow moved, its arrowhead pointed right toward him. Ruvick stood, not wanting to move. He will receive his mother's final gift. The last light joins the green astral arrow. With a great crack of the air, it sped through the sky, piercing straight to Ruvick.
RUVICK LVL 1
RACE: TREANT
CLASS: Verdant Sapling
HP: 470/500
MP: 200/200
STR: 50
DEX: 35
INT: 20
Pure Essence: 300000
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Essence (8/100):
- [Life Essence.] (RUMONAUS)
- [Death Essence.] (DECROPHOS)
- [Fire Essence.] (ROH)
- [Earth Essence.] (GAV)
- [Water Essence.] (LIM)
- [Plant Essence.] (LUPIH)
- [Light Essence.] (RENDESCE)
- [Wood Essence.] (DELIH)
- [Moon Essence.] (LUNIYAH)
Skill = Root Extension. (Grade E)
Rubick stumbled back, the green arrow pierced right through his chest, it dissipated as he sensed the newfound essence within him., He was greeted instantly by smoke that was about to choke his life out. He looked around, fire spread around him. Sounds of screaming wood ripple through the burning forest.
Silent fear crept inside him. The sound of sizzling fire against wood is a constant reminder of what death sounds like.
He ran, stomping through the ash-blanketed earth, avoiding any sign of flame. The heat was still overbearing even with his Fire Essence. His eyes scan around, the flame still blares no matter where his eyes land. Where is he even supposed to go?
Ruvick crouches down, both hands dig through ashes, he feels the earth, with a heave, he extends part of himself down. (Root Extension). Ruvick's consciousness split into two, one is his main body, the other is an extended root from his hand.
He focuses on the root part of him, slowly, he seeps through the earth, trying to find another root to speak. “Come on,” Ruvick pleaded to no one. He pierced through the earth, suddenly ramming toward a wooden texture. He perked up.
‘Are you awake?’ He sent a jolt of energy through. ‘I need help, tell me where I should go’
‘Go? How do you plan to go anywhere?’ A replied Come.
‘I was pushed out, reborn out of my mother’
‘Pushed out? A rebirth? The grand skill of Life Essence.. I see Nil has passed on then?’ The tree asked.
Not wanting to answer, Ruvick sent a jolt of grief through his root.
‘I see, the communication has been hectic, I didn’t even notice. Hold on, I shall ask through the Grand Root, some trees ought to know.’ Ruvick could sense the thrum of grief through his root.
Ruvick sends his gratitude, he tried to access the grand root also. But, unable to do so. It's frustrating, he's seen how useful it was inside his mother. How they detected humans who were trying to build a village, how they found out about a monster species who been destroying trees. The Grand Root is a lifeline of any forest. Being unable to feel it is like missing a part of him he never knew.
‘There are two directions you can take, the southwest and east. I recommend east. Be reminded there's a human settlement over there, southwest is an option.. But a band of marauding dark elves is there. They're the cause of this fire.’
‘Dark elves? Where are the wood elves? Aren’t they supposed to fight them?’
‘No one knows, child, the last we heard, they marched into battle in some faraway land. I suppose the dark elves win and come for us, we were the ones who granted the wood elves' village here after all.’
‘Southwest did not sound like a preferable option.’
‘It is, most of them have already left by now, their number is not huge, how they managed to set such a fire is a question we did not have an answer to. Although indeed there’s no guarantee they won't come back.’
‘East it is then’
‘Good luck, child, you might want to leave this forest, too. Without the Wood Elves, we will be too weak to resist the Dark Elves. Our sentinel is not going to be enough. The human we have given land to will have limited days along with the remnant of the wood elves.’
He sent one last thrum of gratitude. Ruvick has no way of knowing which tree he is. He rushed toward the east. The gnawing shame of running beat inside him. He could sense his essence ripple with wrath and grief, those wraths... most of it aimed toward him. For escaping.
A fresh jolt of pain flared inside of him. Sending him sprawling toward the ground. His skin sizzles as cold heat snares him. “What is happening?” Ruvick groaned. It's like a huge fire blazing inside a calm ocean, Something that is not supposed to exist within him, they protest each other's existence. “My essence,” Ruvick jolted in realization. It's not a problem of limit; some of his essence counteract each other, now they’re trying to overpower one another.
LETTER OVERLAP..
HP: 410/500
The word blare in his vision, Rubick stood, using Nil to prop him up. He slipped upon a hot, sizzling rock, sending him falling again, and fire approached him.
Ruvick dragged himself up, resting his back toward a huge sprawling tree, half of whose trunk was on fire. He is not going to make it, neither him nor this tree.
HP: 350/500
“I'm sorry,” Ruvick said to the moon, where she had gone. He planted his feet upon the earth. (Root Extension) His root lurches into the ground; it's weak and fledgling. Ruvick found another root, he entangled himself within it. Satisfied not to die alone. Ruvick closed his eyes, and as his vision closed, he made out wood stretching from the tree trunk. Slowly, coil around his body.
This is a familiar sense of home, of rightness that settles deep inside his core. As the wood blanketed him wholly, He closed his eyes.
‘Nil asks us to take care of him’
‘Always unreasonable, isn't she?’
‘Nonsense! What can the rest of us do anyway? In these situations’
‘He might be able to save the remnant of the wood elves..’
‘Don’t forget the human’
‘Of course, of course’
‘Child, can you hear us? We will pour our life essence into you, it will overwhelm your other essence, forcing them to coexist.’
‘At the cost of our life that is’
‘He did not need to know that, I highly doubt it will take all of us.’
‘He knocked out.. Old Wres, do not let him die.’
‘I won't! I'm forming a cocoon around him.’
‘It decided then, Wres does not need to join in, he will have to tell the child to take care of the human and wood elves. As repayment for our life’
‘Connect your essence through the Grand Root, let your life flow toward this child’
He opened his eyes to a slumbering darkness, and a peek of sunlight made the wood surrounding him clearer. Nil slumped across his shoulder. Ruvick reached out, but the wall of wood resisted him.
His root... wasn’t he connected to a tree? He looks down, but there’s no earth beneath him; it’s a wood. “Where am I?”
‘Ah, you’re awake then? Hold on.. Let me release you’
Slowly, the wooden wall opened up, the peek of sunlight cracked, and it blared, revealing a blackened forest void of life. Trees seemingly puckered out of life, their wood coloured lifeless gray. They’re without a doubt dead standing, eaten alive by fire.
Ruvick looks up, toward the tree that protected him, his trunk is ashen gray, the colour of wood is nowhere to be seen.
‘I can finally pass on, It's not easy, you know. And some of them dare to call me lucky.’
He clenches his fist, wood cracks, snapping against each other. He survives, but for what?
RUVICK LVL 1
RACE: TREANT
CLASS: Verdant Sapling
HP: 500/500
MP: 200/200
STR: 50
DEX: 35
INT: 20
Pure Essence: 1000000.
Divine Blessing: Nature Symphony – The will of nature has unified your Essences. You may draw Skills from any Essences combination you possess, bypassing any overlapping Old Tongue.
Essence (8/100):
- [Death Essence.] (DECROPHOS)
- [Fire Essence.] (ROH)
- [Earth Essence.] (GAV)
- [Water Essence.] (LIM)
- [Plant Essence.] (LUPIH)
- [Light Essence.] (RENDESCE)
- [Wood Essence.] (DELIH)
- [Moon Essence.] (LUNIYAH)
Skill = Root Extension. (Grade E)
“Nature Symphony?” Ruvick said aloud. What does this mean?
He noticed the war inside him had settled down, his Essences thrummed under one bright star. A blessing worthy of wonder itself. He can draw any skill, without any restriction. Such things are unheard of.
‘Child, your name?’
“Ruvick, I’m Ruvick.”
‘You’re alive because life essence poured inside of you. By half of the trees in this forest.”
“Half? They’re dead to save me?” Is their lifeless-gray look caused by them pouring their life essence out into him?
‘Most of them would have been dead anyway. We had a dying wish. For you to protect the humans and the remnant of the wooden elves. Will you do it, child?’
“I will, of course, I will.”
‘Good, good. It's time for me to pass on then’ The great tree cracked, his trunk split like thunder had just struck him.
“Thank you,” Ruvick breathed.
‘Don’t forget to live for your own, you have two legs now. Don’t waste it.’ The great tree sent its last ripple of life with that message.