12 Plans and Escape

"Hey, what's that?" Cidre asked walking up behind Sydra and looking at the map in his hands.

"This is a map that shows where all the ruins with the most important artifacts are located within the Emerald Sea Forest, using it we can skip the hassle of trying to work our way through the dangers of the forest and head straight for these nine other temples. Although we may miss some of the secrets this forest has gained in the last fifty thousand years." Sydra said excitedly pointing out the nine other temples located on the map, that formed a circle if you included the one they were in now.

"We? You mean you're allowing me to join you on this journey?" Cidre asked, disbelief written all over his face.

"Well yeah, you helped me get here, might as well continue this journey with you. I mean, if you want." Sydra said, glancing up at Cidre who was trying not to smile like a crazy person.

"Heck yeah, I do!" Cidre erupted with vigor. "Adventure!!!" He yelled running out of the room.

"Wait we still need to collect the rest of this stuff..." Sydra called Cidre back.

"Oh right..." Cidre said, embarrassedly walking back into the room. "So how will we carry all this stuff, after all your inter-spatial storage is already full with the abdomen of the spider?" Cidre asked.

"Who said it was full?" Sydra asked walking up to several sets of high-quality plasma armor and placing his hands on them. As he touched each set of armor it disappeared into his Arbor Sanctum.

"...Damn, how big is your inter-spatial storage?" Cidre asked, thinking about just how much gold was needed to store so much stuff.

"Do you want to go in and see for yourself?" Sydra said, placing his hand on Cidre's shoulder.

"Haha, what do you mean? You know living things can't be placed in an inter-spatial store..." Cidre started to say before disappearing. Sitting down and entering his Arbor Sanctum Sydra saw Cidre standing on the floating island in disbelief. Floating his astral form down Sydra landed on the ground next to Cidre.

"Just what kind of nature spirit are you?" Cidre said turning to look at Sydra. Seeing that Sydra was slightly transparent Cidre passed his arm through his body. "Woah..." He whispered.

'Slap' Sydra lightly slapped Cidre across the face.

"Stop that, it feels weird," Sydra said, floating away from Cidre. "Anyway, I am the nature spirit of the Floating Cloud Tree, also a cousin of the World Tree, and one of the Mythical Trees that exist on this world. Just like how there can only be one World Tree to a world, there can also only be one Floating Cloud Tree. Being that I have yet to meet other world's Floating Cloud Trees, I only know what I do about my abilities from what I have personally experienced. What I do know is that my tree form can still evolve, and I gain the abilities of the enemies I kill," Sydra explained floating up to the tree, with Cidre following closely behind.

Placing his hand on the tree, Sydra called forth two of the tree's roots from the ground. "As you can see, so far two of my roots have evolved. This one was from a Bonetree Golem," he said pointing towards a root that was glowing green and white. "And this one has absorbed the power of the spider we just killed," Sydra said pointing at another white root, with a blue and gold ring around it at its end.

"So you can absorb the aura of those you kill, which in turn makes you stronger and also gives you their power... Doesn't that mean if you kill everyone you can become unstoppable, isn't that kind of overpowered?" Cidre asked.

"Well yes, and no, I have to kill multiple living things that use that same aura to be able to get my aura level up to the same level as theirs." Thinking back to the Bonetree Golem, if it hadn't been for him freezing its tail, then there was no way Sydra's dagger could have pierced through its head. Since the Bonetree Golem had to move its body mass down to create a new tail, it also lowered the defensiveness of its bones to a level that Sydra could pierce. "Also, I can not absorb the aura of creatures at the legendary or mythical rank, and currently I can only hold five abilities. I will have to rank up my level before being able to gain more, but I'm not entirely sure how it works yet."

"Hmm, but still, being able to take the power of a creature at the monarch rank would be pretty badass," Cidre said, looking forward to the day he could hunt such creatures.

"Yeah, I guess your right, but I don't plan on going on a killing spree just to get power. That would be boring. Anyway stay here and organize the treasure I send in. If you see something you like, set it off on the side." Sydra said as he left back to his body. Once back in his body, Sydrs started going around and touching all sorts of items.

There were mostly swords, armors, and shields in the room, but Sydra did manage did find other weapons, such as a plasma bow. The bow was light red, and it had a black arrow notched in it. At the end of the arrow were two prongs and when you pulled the string back the prongs lit up and created a sphere of plasma. When releasing the arrow it wouldn't fly out of the bow, instead, it would stop at the handle while still firing the plasma shot. This allowed a bow user to have unlimited ammo as long as the bow had enough plasma charge.

"Hmm, Cidre would like this," Sydra said sending the bow into the Arbor Sanctum. Since all the big items had been sent over, Sydra walked over to a desk that had been hidden beneath a few piles of armor. On the desk was a large, sturdy-looking hammer, that was laid on top of some parchment. The hammer was a dark-bronze color, while the face of the hammer was radiating with plasma aura. The handle itself was a soft membrane grip that purple.

Unable to lift the hammer, Sydra simply sent it to the Arbor Sanctum, and then picked up the parchment. It was a manuscript explaining how to use the hammer to forge plasma weapons, armor, and other useful things. As Sydrs flipped through each page, he saw a different item that needed to be forged in a certain way to achieve the desired result. Although most of the armors and weapons in the manuscript were of lower quality than what people could forge today, the ideas behind the forging technique were sure to bring Phisloke into a new era.

"Oh? There is even a diagram for this?" Sydra said stopping at the last page. "Haha, Robert will love this." He said as he sent the manuscript into the Arbor Sanctum, after that was done he walked over to a large pile of metal and other ore ingots. If a blacksmith saw this pile, they would lose their minds. Placing his hand on the pile, Sydra began sending the ingots over one by one. As he neared the bottom of the pile he noticed a box made out of Ruberic Iron and covered in Titanium Amber chains.

"Now this looks interesting, I wonder what's inside..." Sydra said as he picked up the box and turned it around. "It seems the lock is already broken, there is no harm in looking inside is there?" Sydra said as he opened the box. Inside was a crown made from Ashgold with a black gem neatly inlaid in the center. Peering Inside the black gem, Sydra thought it looked like a thunderstorm was brewing. Flashes of purple and red lightning could be seen deep within the Void Obsidian. Sydra felt a deep desire to put the crown on his head, almost like the crown was calling out to him. However, as his hand was reaching for the crown, he noticed a ring beside it. The ring was also made out of Ashgold, but laying on the top of it was an emerald hourglass with red sand swirling in the top. Hovering his hand over the box, Sydra was unsure of which to pick up first. Finally deciding on the ring, Sydra reached down and barely grazed it with his fingers. As his middle finger ran over the ring, it seemed to come alive and slid up his finger.

'Rumble' Sydra felt the ground vibrate beneath his feet. Shutting the box quickly and sending it to his Arbor Sanctum, Sydra quickly called Cidre out.

"Hey! I was almost..." Cidre started to say something but was quickly shocked to feel the ground vibrating beneath his feet.

"We need to get out of here quick!" Sydra said as he started running back down the hallway.

"What did you do?!" Cidre called out, chasing after Sydra.

"I'm not sure, all I did was find a box with a crown and ring inside it. When my hand grazed over the ring it jumped onto my finger." Sydra said, showing Cidre his hand with the ring still on it.

"Well then take it off!" Cidre called back.

"I tried that already, the ring is stuck on my finger. I didn't have time for anything else so I just ran." Sydra said

"Then why did you call me out of your Arbor Sanctum? At least if I was there I would be safe." Cidre asked, wondering if Sydrs just didn't want to die alone.

"If I die, then who will come to get you from my Arbor Sanctum? Also, I am not even sure if my Arbor Sanctum would still be there if I died." Sydra responded, looking behind him to see the hallway start to fall apart.

"Oh... That makes sense." Cidre said as they were about to reach the end of the cave. "Wow, seems coming back took a lot shorter time than going down there," Cidre said as they came to a halt at the end of the hallway. Looking around, Sydra saw that the way they had entered the cave was already blocked so he had to find a new way out. Glancing around, he noticed a small bit of light coming from the top of the cave.

"We need to climb up there, it's the only way out," Sydra said, pointing to the top of the cave. "I believe it is where the spider got its food so it has to lead to the outside." Cidre nodded in agreement, and the two of them hopped into the web. The higher up they climbed the more web there was which made their escape much easier.

Finally reaching the hole in the top of the cave, the two men fell out of the web covered in so many spider webs they looked like they were wrapped in eternal sleeping bags.

"Now, what do we have here?" Said a deep voice. Sydra gulped at the sword pointed at his face.