Tree of Aeons

Year 196

Lumoof in another world

Lumoof looked at the vastness of the grasslands, the strangeness of the green grass, same, but not the same. It was a different species of grass. The air had a faint taste of blood. 

This was another world. Lumoof had been here before, very, very briefly, but this time, he would be here a lot longer.

“I got the [Dimension Traveller] skill, and title.” Lumoof mentally said. This was his 2nd alien world, after the moon, and now in this strange new place. The portal took a lot out of Stella, and almost half of the crystals shattered during the trip. 

“There’s a skill like that too, eh.” I responded, the lag wasn’t as pronounced as it was before. I suspected it had to do with the domain. The higher level I was, the lower the interdimensional lag became. 

Lumoof nodded, and his shoulders sagged. He may be old in terms of spirit and mind, but physically he had the appearance of a mature, middle-aged man. The levels and domain had returned life, vitality and de-aged him. He took in the air, looked around, and started to walk. I could send the [seed of aeon] to him via my transportation ability, so as it is, he didn’t need to carry anything.

He walked, and there were some animals nearby. They took a look, and just left him alone.

“Stella and Kei told me these stories. Isekai.” 

“I’m living it right now.”

“Yep.”

“Then the first thing I should do is find a town, and register with an adventurers’ guild.” Lumoof said with a sly grin. 

“That’s par for the course.” 

“And I’ll rescue some beautiful ladies and build a small zoo of female beast-girls?”

“If that’s your thing, yes.”

Lumoof laughed. “It’s not. But I must really admire the creativity of the writers of Earth. It’s really something that they could come up with such ridiculous stories. It’s also uncannily accurate. But let us find this city of adventurers.” 

I knew from Stella that each world seemed to have the same language. Lumoof didn’t have to walk very far from the grassy fields when he saw a sign that pointed to a town. There was also a distance indicator, but we were not very sure what it was.

There were trees and smaller scrubs, they were similar to those of our world, but had small differences, like their flowers were different colors or different designs. “I don’t quite understand why there are such differences, if the system is the one that regulates the magical spawning of monsters, animals and life generally. There should be the same, if they were based on the same templates. Like, why does the system want each world’s fauna and flora to be different?”

“Variety?” Maybe each world has a unique ‘seed’ code that the system then runs through a creature-generator. I feel such a setup was more likely, as it gives each world’s fauna an internal coherence. 

Our senses detected a travelling group from far away. They looked like merchants, and they had guards. Four soldiers, and four merchants. We waited for them to approach. 

“Hey traveller.” Lumoof said as they approached. Lumoof was not armed, all his equipment and armor was kept in magical pocketspace. He wore a casual, long flowing thick robe.

“What is a priest doing here?” The soldiers were alert, they lifted their weapons. One had a spear, the other two had swords, and the last one had a bow. 

“I happen to be lost.” Lumoof gave his best priestly, friendly smile. “A strange manner of magic sent me here. Do you happen to know where I am, and what’s the nearest town?”

The soldiers were apprehensive. The merchants came out of their wagon. “I don’t recognise that robe, which temple are you with, priest?”

Lumoof smiled at the merchant. “Ah, very very few do. I’m with a tree spirit, we’re an obscure temple. Very few would know of us.”

The merchant stared at Lumoof, and we felt the prickling of a skill. [Domain blocked attempted inspection]. 

“And it’s not nice to use a skill when I didn’t.”

The merchant’s face paled, and he bowed. “My apologies, Great Priest.” Lumoof’s spirit stirred a little at the title, and I felt his subtle annoyance. Clearly the failed inspection was an answer of its own. The merchant explained that we were in one of the kingdoms, and the nearest town was along the road. I didn’t bother remembering the name since it’ll probably change in a few years. 

Lumoof feigned his best polite smile, and thanked the merchants. He declined the merchant’s offer to travel with them; there was something about the opportunistic words from the merchant that irritated Lumoof. “It seems it’s that way.” 

-

The town we visited was small, perhaps similar in size to the early days of Freeka. About 3,000 or so people lived in a wide area. The houses outside the town’s walls were simple, and ones within were made of stone. They’ve clearly prepared for the houses outside to be destroyed.  

“Stop, visitor. Identify yourself.”

Lumoof nodded. “Lumoof. Priest of Aeon.”

“Never heard of it.” The city guard barked some orders and another guard came by. “State your business.

Lumoof once again flashed his best business smile, and explained that he was a lost priest, flung to this place by magic. 

The guard didn’t know how to process him. “No documentation at all? No one who could vouch for you?” 

“It’s magic, you can’t always carry documentation with you.”

So, they talked a little more, as Lumoof waited in bureaucratic limbo. A senior guardsperson came and the guards discussed. 

“It seems we are only seeing humans here.” Lumoof mentally spoke, and I didn’t notice it until Lumoof mentioned. “I wonder whether there are non-humans.” The guards left and then a bit more bureaucracy later, a man that looked like one of the political leaders came. 

“Priest Lumoof, thanks for waiting. I’ll be frank, we’ve never heard of the temples of Aeon.” I chuckled mentally. This was entirely our chance to play the hidden master or expert. 

Lumoof flashed his best friendly smile. “It’s no surprise, we are a hidden temple. Most of the time. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever left my temple. I actually just want to return to my temple, but I do need food and shelter while I find my way back.”

“I see.” The man seemed somewhat affected by Lumoof’s friendly smile. He nodded. “In that case, please wait a moment.”

“Not a problem, I’ve already waited for so long anyway, what’s a little more?” 

The man and the guards huddled and discussed, and in the end, the man returned with an iron plate. “This is a temporary identification for you, Priest Lumoof. Please return it when you leave.”

Lumoof smiled, “Thank you.” 

The town was small, and all human. Lumoof wasn’t going to ask anything. He knew people enough, that things about the lack of ‘others’ to be best breached when they start the conversation. Life seemed rather slow here, though there were a lot of blacksmiths repairing weapons.

“You need a weapon, priest?” Lumoof shook his head. 

“I’m just new here.” 

The blacksmiths didn’t pay him any attention after that. The inn was basic, and it was more like one of the resident’s homes that had extra rooms and certain segments converted to a makeshift eatery. Inns were fantastic places for gathering information.

Lumoof discovered a problem immediately.  

“I don’t have money.” Lumoof frowned, but he walked back to that same man who gave him his plaque. “Can I sell this so that I can have some money to spend?” He took out a small iron dagger, it was very fine, but not enchanted. He had a lot more things like that in his own pocketspace.

The man seemed to stare at the dagger in amazement. “This is very good quality stuff. The steel was quite finely made.” Lumoof wanted to roll his eyes. Of course it was. A level 80 blacksmith made it. 

Lumoof faked the most sympathetic look on his face. “Indeed, it’s a gift from a friend, but sadly I’m in need of money so I do need to sell it.” It was one of Lumoof’s skills, to help persuade and convince others to like him.

The man nodded. “I understand. Come with me.” The man returned to one of the larger buildings in the town, and came out with a small pouch of coins. “Here, some official coins for you.”

Lumoof checked it briefly and smiled. “Thank you.”

The inn was rowdy, and the beer was bad. But Lumoof could hold his drink, and he listened to the townsfolk chatter. We picked up a few things quickly. 

This world had gone to shit, in a way. There were three large alliances. The humans, the centaurs, and the sandpeople. Each was at war with the other two, but none ever attempted to fully conquer the world. 

The demons came less frequently to this world, only once every fifteen years. The heroes were summoned in groups, and each of the three alliances would usually have the same number of heroes. 

In a strange twist of fate, we had come full circle. I was the alien yeeted to a strange new world, and now I sent Lumoof to discover a strange new world. 

“Strange.” I said, and so at night, we walked out to one open field, and through Lumoof, I activated my avatar, and created my special tree type, the [astreeal monitor]. The astreeal monitor immediately looked up, we saw.

There were fewer strands of light in the sky, these little trickles that linked the world to the demons. They were all fainter, a bit further away. 

Lumoof looked, and he sighed. “Perhaps there is a secret here, why there’s less of them. Our goal here is to learn of the other world’s magic, and make friends with potential allies.” 

We removed the tree, and returned to the town. 

“You there.” A knight in magical armor approached us on our way back. “Identification.” 

Lumoof handed the plate as commanded. He wasn’t planning to resist. The knight stared at the plate for a while, and then returned it. 

The bed was bad, but it’s too bad we couldn’t go back freely, at least, not with Stella’s ability. I could teleport him back but then we’ll have to wait until Stella’s ready to send him to another world. A waste of time. 

“We should go to a capital city and see what we can learn.” Lumoof suggested and I agreed. 

It wasn’t hard to get a wagon or a caravan to the capitol. Most traders were headed there anyway.

-

Back home, my seed grew well. The moon-dirt was really unpleasant, but my magic over the last year helped to transform bits of it into something a bit more usable. My clone body was now the size of a small shrub, and it contrasted with the lifelessness of the moon. It’s greenery stood out like a sore thumb.

It’ll get faster as time goes on. I also noticed it took longer for me to create a tree, any type of tree, in this environment. 

That was strange, because I remembered it wasn’t that long back on the demon worlds, when my vines and roots snuck through the rifts.

This posited a few possibilities.

My tree creation abilities through [Subsidiary Tree] or [Giant Attendant Tree] or other similar classes, had a check whether the terrain was suitable for trees. If the answer was yes, then the tree could be created almost immediately. But if not, then it’ll have to magically ‘terraform’ the dirt, then only the tree was created.

The second possibility was my ability actually tapped into some magical energy in the planet. If the planet, or in this case, the moon, was devoid of mana, then creating a new tree took longer.

There were a few other possibilities, but I thought these two were most likely.

-

The capitol of this kingdom was honestly not impressive. For someone like Lumoof who's seen the best of the Central Continent and a few others, it’s actually underwhelming. In many ways, it was comparable to just a large city. 

There were scars of war, still seen. Lumoof learnt there was a large battle a few years ago. Even though the demon king’s invasion was less frequent, the demons were still described as extremely powerful beings.

“We’re here, priest.” The convoy leader said, and Lumoof gladly made the last payments. The city had a smell, and strangely, there were no identification checks. The guards just waved everyone through. 

He headed to the adventurers’ guild. There was one, even here in this different world, and noticed it was mostly humans. There were few mixed ones, but they clearly hid their mixed heritage with hoodies, hats or other bodily coverings. Lumoof, through a skill, managed to roughly sense the strength of those in the guild itself. They were mostly low level, in their level 30s and 40s. The stronger few were in the 50s and 60s. 

Lumoof smiled, and approached the receptionist. “I’d like to hire an escort to the biggest city of mages on the continent. Do you know where I should go, and how do I get there?”

The receptionist thought for a moment and gave a name of a city that I didn’t bother to remember. Lumoof sold two knives, and then took another wagon to this magic city. It took a month, but it was actually impressive. 

The magic city was carved out of a large crystal mountain, and Lumoof immediately sensed very strong magical energies. It was extremely raw power, it’s as if a part of the core itself was on the surface. Lumoof sensed strong magical defenses, comparable with the best of theirs. 

“Welcome to the Magic City of Man.” Those who greeted Lumoof said. “Here, we research the heights of magic and cast spells that the Centaurs and Sandpeople could not hope to match.”

An adventurer that travelled with Lumoof immediately whispered. “...that’s not exactly true but let’s not talk about it publicly.” 

More importantly, Lumoof sensed a presence that was within the crystal mountain itself. Was it a spirit? But he didn’t sense the presence of a domain, or were our senses mistaken? Here, in the magic city of man, we learned more of the three great forces.

As it turned out, the Sandpeople had a great pyramid of Rock that survived the assault of countless demon kings. It is their ancient relic, apparently inherited and created by their god. It was a fortress and a bunker, and it was said the demon kings assaulted it for decades and failed. 

The Centaurs possessed the Great Vanishing Country, which the great Centaurions controlled. The entire country itself could vanish, and the power to activate the great relic was passed down the Centaurions. 

With such strong relics and artefacts, its no surprise each of the three great forces managed to thrive, even with the assault of the demons. 

The peoples of man worshipped Maelas, the Centaurs and the nonhumans worshipped Gayaar, and the Sandpeople and Scorpios worshipped Nair. One god for each group. We immediately wondered whether Gayaar and Gaya were the same, but it’s hard to say, without actually tracing the lines of heavenly power. 

“Our world lacked such great artefacts. Perhaps, only the great elf spirit could vanish and hide their city temporarily. But if these nations could hide an entire country, they could preserve their strength even with the demon kings.” Lumoof said.

I thought about the dwarves of Margmar, and realised that may not be true. The Margmarian dwarves had great powers and powerful relics too, but even they died in the end. The Ley Line Lense remained an unusual relic, even if I didn’t find much use for it. No, even the dragons with their incredible might. Dragons that managed to even somehow land on the moon.

This world just did not encounter a demon king of the right power. All of this could be lost just as easily. Within centuries, if not decades. Such power was no guarantee, even if it did help. 

At least, Lumoof noted, that the rulers were prepared. He noted multiple magical defensive towers, and mages on the lookout at all times. All of them seemed quite relaxed, though. “Are you here to learn magic?” One of the city’s receptionists approached him and  quickly asked. “Though, given your age, it might be a little too late to learn advanced stuff, but you can still learn a few tricks to impress your kids.”

Lumoof smiled. “Ah, what kind of magic can I learn? Where do I go to know more?”

The Magic City of Man, Maelga, was segregated into rings that went closer to the peak of the massive crystalline mountain. The city itself was carved out of the crystal, and most of the academies here actually grew the crystal itself. The mountain was growing, literally. 

It was so damned obvious in hindsight, in fact, I should’ve known it was possible when I considered that it was a relatively common activity for children in the more wealthy parts of our world. Children sometimes grew crystals out of sugar or salt. 

This entire city had large groups that focused on cultivation of these crystals, and parts of it were harvested. The towers were made out of a combination of magic, skill and materials harvested from far away. We saw large caravans that hauled smaller crystals and other materials here. 

“Growing magic crystals is a sacred art available only to the high mage-priests of Maelas.” Of course, that was the first thing we asked. If it’s possible to grow magic crystals, which I’ve not seen anyone in my main world do, then I could totally grow different types of crystals. 

No, It may even be possible to grow powerful variants of crystals.

Wait, was Aria and Aispeng essentially growing ice crystals all this while and I didn’t notice to ask them for more details?

Lumoof looked a bit sad, and then we approached another group of assistants and administrators. The rest of the magics were mostly normal, like spellcasting, forging and so forth. Then we saw a part of crystal manipulation and crystal forging. 

I bet Alka could find really interesting ways to use this new knowledge. 

“Maybe it would be better if he was here.” Lumoof noted. 

“Yes, but we need to make sure that this is a safe place for someone like him. He’s too valuable to just leave him here where others could hurt him.” Alka was not a combatant. As a [Field Scientist], he got a lot of skills that supported his research, but he remained vulnerable to combat. 

Back in Freshka, Alka’s always protected by an invisible army of spiders and beetles. Not only that, there’s always eyes to protect him. Here, I’m not comfortable with that. Maybe once he obtained his domain and gained the ability to reincarnate. 

Lumoof took on the role of the mature man who came to the big city for the first time, and feigned ignorance at every turn. To do so, of course, he dressed like a villager. We explored the city molded out of crystal mostly unimpeded, most of the mages just sighed when they saw us approach. 

We eventually arrived at a large crystal building that resembled a massive nest. “This is the Hall of Maelas.” A guard said. “No entry unless invited.”

“We should send spies here.” Lumoof said as we rested at an inn. It’s nice.

“They lack the background, they’ll get detected. If anything, Stella or Alka fits this place best.”

Lumoof paused. “What about Kei? This place is a mountain of living crystal. As a bio-crystalline golem she would be of huge interest to the locals.” But Lumoof realised the problem. “And of course, it’ll be a huge mark on her, as many will ask where she had been all this while?”

Later that night we joined the inn’s bar, and gathered a bit more info. It’s still about 8 years to the next demon king, and there are still two living heroes, one of the sandpeople, and one of the humans. The human hero had apparently started a small kingdom of his own, while the sand-hero just turned into a hermit.

My senses still suspected there was something deep in these mountains, even if I wasn’t quite sure what it was. It may be possible that a spirit lived in these mountains, and my gut feel that there must be.

-

Spaizzer

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