Tree see, Tree do

Hezala stood upon hearing the doors to her throne room open. She knew who was coming, bringing urgent news from the front.

"Pozeiza, the Mirthful God, has arrived.", the attendant announced. A god with deep black hair to his shoulders, wearing gallant black armour and a flowing red cape strode into the throne room with purpose and gusto.

"Pozeiza, thank you for your contributions." Hezala began with niceties, but she sincerely meant these words as well.

Pozeiza smiled broadly at the kind greetings. "Hezala, it has been a difficult journey. I am glad to make it back in one piece! Come, look at what I have brought." With a flick of his hand, a bright light shone from his palm. As the light dimmed, a dark purple crystal appeared. It gave off a strange light and sensation.

"Is this what the demons extract from a plane?" Hezala asked. "What did you have to do in order to obtain this?"

Pozeiza laughed heartily, "This is indeed what they seek! It condensed from some sort of demon ritual. I think it is what is needed to create those Arch Demon creatures. I had to fight through 5 or 6 of them at once, while dealing with a pesky demon horde as well! It seems they value this quite highly, though I doubt they expected to defend against a god. They definitely have the resources to protect it more tightly. I suspect this ritual actually happens quite often."

Hezala's eyes were intently examining the crystal. as far as she could tell, it wasn't of any use to her or other gods, so she wasn't sure if she should send a squad to collect some more.

"How did you happen upon this item?"

Pozeiza's mirth was dying down, and he was becoming more somber and serious as the conversation continued. It was difficult to remain cheery while Hezala was so focused.

"Pure luck. I got separated from my squad in a skirmish, but made it past their frontline. Considering the opportunity this presented, I rushed in to look around. Eventually I noticed a congregation of demons that wasn't just chasing after me, so instead I went towards it. After noticing the ritual, I snatched this shard and returned to the front. They're still terribly slow compared to us, and we have the advantage anywhere they haven't set traps."

Hezala considered Pozeiza's words carefully. Normally it would take 5 Arch demons to match a god evenly, but she estimated they had 100 Arch demons to every god at least. If this was truly important, they would have defended it more heavily, wouldn't they? Then again, if it was trivial, they wouldn't have had 5-6 Arch Demons present for this ritual... Perhaps the demons still didn't take the gods seriously, which she hoped would continue.

"What is it that makes you think they use these to make other Arch Demons?"

Pozeiza stroked his chin as he remembered the fight.

"There was a lot happening, so it is difficult to be certain, but I saw a normal demon within the ritual space, surrounded by the other Arch Demons. When I snatched it, he made a suicidal charge at me. As I killed him, he seemed to have a madness in his eyes..."

Hezala looked at Pozeiza skeptically. "Aren't they all mad? None of them will talk to us, though they clearly can speak and are organized. They just act like crazy dogs whenever they see us. Absolutely insane."

"Yes, but this was different. His eyes were on the crystal the whole time. As though he cared more about getting the crystal than hurting me. THAT I haven't seen before." Pozeiza recalled the situation seriously. There was no playfulness around him at all now, so as to better impress the certainty of his statement.

Hezala contemplated this information. There was so much intelligence she needed. In fact, it was ridiculous how little they knew about the demons, despite warring for centuries now at this point.

"Do you know what conditions are needed for this ritual? Was there anything nearby?" Hezala asked.

"The ritual was in the middle of a recently destroyed celestial body. Perhaps it was a solar system, or a collection of stars. All I know it was completely unrecognizable, just a giant pile of unformed mass."

"We have seen them destroy solar systems before. It's possible they actually have a purpose to such a task. Even we would have to expend some effort to actually achieve that..." Hezala mumbled to herself.

Pozeiza stood around awkwardly as Hezala sank deep into thought. Finally, he coughed lightly.

Hezala became aware of Pozeiza and quickly realized it was time to dismiss him. "Thank you Pozeiza. This intelligence is crucial to the war. Your efforts will not be forgotten."

Pozeiza gave Hezala a nod, and left the throne room. Hezala looked at the crystal shard again, wondering if this would be a great turning point in the history of the Gods.

-----------------------

Azura cawed loudly at the other birds. He was starting to get cranky that there were so many visitors to his tree! Did they think he was blind? As the largest bird in the tree, he proudly strutted from branch to branch, chasing away other birds. Until he saw a small hawk that was still quite a bit larger than he was.

He squawked, and quickly hopped back over to the other side of the tree. The hawk, tired after a long flight, luckily ignored Azura, as Azura cowered on the other side.

Konja chortled internally at the interaction. His days were peaceful, and watching the precocious Azura was one of the few entertainments available to him. It was either that, or continue to focus on mastering mana. He had been tried to experiment with his leaves, trying to hold in mana, but he had only limited success with that.

He could do it with a couple of small leaves, but if he tried to hold in mana with even one more, he'd end up letting go of all of it in a matter of seconds. Even if he held the mana in, he wasn't able to do anything with it. But the small amount of mana he was able to hold back wasn't enough to do anything with!

At this point, he had become a little stuck, and was happy for the small distraction. He looked out further, peering at the magic trees on the outskirts of the magic forest. They didn't seem to emit much mana, but there was a collection of mana within those trees. He had been trying to emulate that with little success at this point.

As Konja looked at those trees again, he began to realize his mana sensitivity had improved once again. There was a more definite shape to the mana in the tree. It was like mana flowed along the network of tubes that carried sap and water to different parts of the tree. Similar to how mana flowed through the veins of the birds that came to visit Konja.

More interesting was that there seemed to be a larger concentration of mana in the trunk of the tree. He realized this was what was meant by the expression 'the tree heart'.

Konja wondered if he needed to condense a tree heart like the other magic trees. How should he start?

Figuring there was nothing to lose by trying, he tried to move the mana created in his leaves, and pull it toward his tree trunk. Slowly, carefully, small amounts of mana were moving through his branches. Once it reached his centre, he let go of it.

He was surprised to find that the mana wasn't pulled back to the leaf! Did he just need to gather a bunch of mana? Was it that simple?

He continued pulling small amounts of mana through out the day. As it gathered together, it began to take a more solid form, pushing on his internal tree tissue to make a space for itself. It was small, but it naturally continued to condense as more mana was fed to it. Konja was still a novice at handling mana, so the growth of the heart was small... But he thought it was already starting to be comparable to some of the trees he had examined before. Since he was a conscious, thinking tree, he was likely able to achieve a lot more than a tree that hadn't gained any intelligence yet. It was a great advantage that Konja had, and he realized it was why he could change himself so easily.

Konja was still manipulating laughably small amounts of mana though. He realized that even if he had found a better way to hold onto mana, he'd still need to learn to handle more of it. And so, he returned to his diligent practice.

A few days passed, and Konja was happy to find he had made some progress. Now he could pull mana through an entire branch that had 60 or so leaves on it. He was starting to make some real progress.

One day, as his tree heart continued to grow, Azura started hopping toward the tree trunk. In a very uncharacteristic move, it started to slide down the tree trunk, gripping Konja's bark until he was near the tree heart.

Konja speculated that Azura was curious and able to sense this mass of mana. Seeing this behaviour, Konja began to chuckle again as Azura tilted his head, staring directly into the wood.

And then, Azura began to peck at Konja, and hard!

"DAMN BIRD!!"