Life is Valued... His Won't Be lost...

[You have discovered a united use for both elements of life 𝐚𝐧𝐝 death, and with it, your race skill, <Fallen Treant>, is one step closer to growing.]

[And, with the results of the previous action, you have already started to approach the last thing required for growing the race skill.]

Once again, the <Status > appeared to show him the new changes.

| Name: Ixa | Species: Fallen Treant

| Stats

STR: 0

AGI: N/A

VIT: ?

INT: 7

| Skills & Abilities

<Fallen Treant>

{2.04 of 3 met for skill growth}

<Hands of Life and Death>

(Finalizing...)

"Now that all the dangerous stuff is out of the way and the situation is calm again...System, just what exactly happened earlier? What is this '2.04 out of 3 for skill growth'?"

[To explain it as best as possible, I'll explain it from my point of view, I was unsure how you were supposed to grow, as I couldn't find a thing on the 'how' to your progression as a species, however, when you managed to completely understand one of the uses of <Hands of Life and Death>, something in your Race Skill, <Fallen Treant>, made itself known, so I looked into it, and found that the skill itself controls your growth, which explains the "Infancy Stage" part, so the only way you can grow is to advance that Race Skill into the next stage, in which you have to discover the steps needed in order to do so, let me show you.]

<Fallen Treant>

- This is what you are, not a living piece of wood like a normal Treant, but an undead one, yet, you're not really undead either, you're a peculiar case, as the breathing life of a Treant and the reaping scythe of death have both failed in taking you as they fought each other off in dissonance, yet in that conflict, they have found completion; you are more than a simple 'living tree' now, as they now find peace & contentment in one another, in 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

(Infancy Stage) | - Versatile Intent, Natural sense for the dead and living as a spectrum, Thought-Communication(Direct Contract with flesh required), Necrotic Essence Core(Currently being looked into...)

| - Growth Requirements:

1. (Achieved) - Fully grasp one of the uses of <Hands of Life and Death>.

2. (Achieved) - Interact with <Necrotic Essence> and find a use for it.

3. - Collect enough <Necrotic Essence Material> for Advancement (4/100).

"So that 'dust' is necrotic essence? What is it exactly?"

>Necrotic Essence<

- What lies in-between the transition of life and death? 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬. Necrotic Essence is the amalgamation of life and death with the inclusion of a soul(or souls): something living that is dying, close to death yet clinging to life; The only difference with the word "Material" in the name is Necrotic Essence without the soul(s), this stuff is impossible to obtain and use...normally...

"..."

"I didn't expect you to have an actual answer..."

[Every description is my personal analysis of the given object, thing, skill... and I was taking note of everything that was taking place as you fought against the "loonies" as you called them.]

He remained silent for a moment; in order to move pass his 'infant' stage, he had to literally steal from the "recently" dead, like stealing from a grave wasn't bad enough.

'I'm guessing that brighter part of the necrotic essence material was the actual necrotic essence, huh? Will I at some point need to obtain that in order to grow?'

He ruminated on this for a bit before putting all this on a metaphorical shelf to think about later, as he still had to execute the other half of the plan, which was...

A series of coughs sounded out, and as Ixa turned his bunny body around, there Dua was, now sitting up and staring at him with a confused look, not really wary but not really trusting either, despite him saving his life both before in the fight, and in his recovery.

Dua didn't know how to act in front of- the bunny? The root?

Dua himself actually passed out right after the explosion, which was just after he managed to cut off the bleeding from his missing arm, he honestly thought he was done for from the injuries, despite Ixa managing to kill the rest of the guards.

However, he was surprised upon awaking to find his bare hand and arm, attached and well, along with most of the injuries being gone, while some felt... weird, but not painful...

Before he could check in on them after sitting up, he naturally closed his eyes as he had a coughing fit, but when Dua opened them again, he found the bunny... supposedly Ixa, staring at him.

Their third stare-down ensued, but before it could grow in whatever form of intensity it was, Ixa broke it, and hopped over to him.

When the bunny closed the distance between them, Dua felt that intrusion into his head again, once more, it was telling him to poke his hand on the root.

"I think I had enough injuries for one day, don't-cha think?"

Another intrusion.

"Not all the way? So it only has to be minimal?"

Some semblance of a yes appeared in his mind.

He sighed for a second, before slowly and steadily getting up, grabbing & sheathing his weapon, and walking over to the root, but this time, instead of brutishly stabbing his right index finger, he gently nicked the lowest point of his thumb, keeping it there.

"Hello again."

"Hello... Ixa."

"You remembered my name, thanks for that, was starting to think you forgot it in the heat of the fight."

"Hard to forget a root telling you its name, considering the situation."

'That was blunt, but not rude.'

"Okay, now that we actually have the time of... day? Night?"

"Late evening."

"Ah, thanks, well, now that we have the time of evening, you can ask away."

Dua stared at him dubiously, weirded out already.

"No catch? What do you gain out of my questions?

"Your trust.", Ixa stated plainly.

He remained silent for a moment, before resuming.

"Why do you want it?"

"I have a favor to ask of you, a relatively small one."

"It's nothing... bad, is it?"

'What is this man thinking? I just saved his life, I get I'm an enigma to him, but still!'

"No, I simply don't want you to mention me to your 'guild' when you return back to it."

A small reaction of insight appeared on his face before he answered.

"You want to be kept in the dark as your... fragile?"

"More like if people learn of me, I won't exactly be able to escape whatever is coming, I'm a root, remember?"

Dua finally understood the crux of what Ixa was getting at.

"So in exchange of answering my questions and for helping me get out of that mess, you simply don't want to be revealed, is that right?"

"Well, the questions were more-so a bid in gaining your trust, as I didn't expect you to not be opposed to the concept... so, do you accept?"

Ixa figuratively sweated a bullet, as this all depended on Dua's response, and so far, he seemed very reasonable.

He remained quiet once more, before instead of answering his question, Dua asked, "Why are you trusting me?"

"Pardon?"

"You're telling me how willing you are to tell me anything, and even outright stated you're doing it to earn my trust, I'd think you were trying to trick me like a demon if it weren't for the sole fact that you saved my life, on both occasions..."

Ixa nervously laughed to himself, 'Note: don't act so subservient to the point it backfires on trying to earn trust.'

"Thank you for your understanding."

"No problem, and to answer your question, yes, I agree; considering all that happened, I find it rather easy to simply leave you out of the report I have to make from this incident, and the fact that you can't even leave this spot is in itself, another evident point that you're speaking the truth, in fact... with all that happened, my goal can finally be achieved."

"Your goal?"

"To cut it short: The town's mayor is corrupt with power, and he had those murderers spared from execution, and contracted them to be his 'guards', humph, more like his own personal kill squad... I help lead a resistance against him, my official job in the city is to regularly scout this forest for any foreign changes, be it animals, the other villages, or anything else that may find its way into this dark forest."

"So he sent those people to off an important person of the resistance while he was alone without any help?"

"Yep, and now that his contract-ees are gone, I get the feeling he won't have anyone to protect himself anymore... but enough about my background, I still have my own questions for you."

"Well, shoot."

"What are you?"

"Getting straight into it I see, a Treant."

"I heard of Treants before, but I thought they look more..."

"Do you think we're made ready to go?"

"Fair enough, what happened to the rest of the bodies?".

"Let's just say I used them to a certain extent to heal you."

"I don't like the sound of that... but if that is what it took to heal me and save my life, then it doesn't matter, last question, how long have you been here?"

"I thought you would ask more, but, less than a day, maybe around an hour or two now..."

"So you essentially just woke up here before I found you and that whole scenario came up?"

"Yep."

"...heck of a way to wake up to the world, in any case, welcome to the world, mate."

"Are you not going to ask any other questions, like how I possess a bunny or how I healed you?"

"Why bother, I feel like it would be too confusing, and it's not really important to know, right?"

"...Yeah, you're right."

"Oh! I do have one more question."

"Yes?"

"What is this?"

He motioned his free hand to where the previous injuries had gotten through his armor, specifically, his elbow, and only then, did Ixa notice what part of the healing resulted in.

'What the &3#$?!'

One of the remaining injuries were filled with that dust, the necrotic essence; unlike his arm, which was completely normal, his injuries seemed incompletely healed.

Dua had noticed where he pricked his hand before was filled with this grey substance, and when he moved his finger, it moved like a liquid that was trying to keep itself as rigid as possible; it shocked him, and sure enough, when he subtly checked out his other bodily wounds, the ones that felt weird, they were filled in with the same substance...

'Okay, System, why the HECK did the healing not completely do its job?'

[The corpses, or more specifically, the necrotic essence wasn't enough to completely heal Dua, so what ended up happening was that you fully healed his arm, but used most of what was left to stabilize the rest of his wounds.]

'And just HOW am I supposed to fully heal him? There are no more corpses around to use. What will end up happening to his injuries if left like this?'

[I am unsure, however, considering how the healing process left him like this instead of just giving you the rest of the <Necrotic Essence>, I find reason to believe his condition will completely stabilize with time; think of it as the wounds being 'bandaged', it will recover on its own given time, so just give it the time to heal, and I'm sure it will all end up fine.]

'And just how sure are yo-'

Before he could even finish, there was a sound of air being released...

~𝐒𝐡𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐡𝐡𝐡𝐡~

Both Ixa's and Dua's attention were caught on the wide arced gash across the center of his chest; air was being forced out of the rims of the injury...

It sounded like water being turned into vapor, but the sound was reversed and flipped on its head.

They both watched in amazement as the center of the arc turned into the light brown color of his skin, before the rest of it followed slowly in an outward fashion; the wound was closing on its own.

They stared at the normal patch of skin for a few moments before Dua commented in a funny manner, "Huh... so that's what it does."

"Y-yep, think of them as a fancy, magic bandage, get some rest and I'm sure all of your cuts and remaining bruises will solve themselves just like that, heh, heh-heh...aeh."

"What are you, a doctor?"

[Deserved that, you non-believer.]

'Oh shush.'

"Okay then, welp, it was nice talking to you, but I believe you should be going on your way now."

"Yes, I believe I should..."

There was silence between the two for a moment; Dua wasn't making any intention of leaving.

"What is it?"

Dua was thinking and finally decided on something internally, "Can 𝐈 ask a favor?"

Ixa was silent this time.

'We didn't talk much, but it feels comfortable to talk to him, I wouldn't call us friends... but I wouldn't call us acquaintances either after working together to save each other, be it from harm or discovery...'

"Speak it."

"If I fall into another similar situation like before..., can I rely on you to help if I'm nearby?"

For the first time sense waking up here, he didn't know what to think, should he?

'That'll only put me in a higher chance of being discovered, and if someone realizes that he keeps trying to fight in the forest, away from prying eyes, they'll think he has something to hide... me...however...

| - Growth Requirements:

3. - Collect enough "Necrotic Essence Material" for Advancement (4/100).

"Yes, if you are, ever, in any danger, Dua, I agree to help you if you are nearby, I swear on it."

Dua gave a smile, instead of facing Ixa as in his root body, he turned to face the bunny.

The warm moment only lasted that long, a moment, before Dua took his thumb off of Ixa's body; he turned to the exit of this small dirt field, and walked to it, taking note on how even the dirt stayed dry, not stained by the large amount of blood that was here before...

Once he crossed the small gap between the corpses of the trees, he turned to face Ixa one last time; that metallic root body, twisted into 4 sharp points, with that ominous red bead floating in the middle, and for a second, he thought he saw a reflective shine of grey at the center, but he shook his head.

He turned to see the small bunny sitting beside it, he did one more warm smile with his eyes close, and with a wave of his hand and a single step...Dua was out of Ixa's eyesight... but not senses.

"Dua... I'm not doing this for you, this is for my survival, you shouldn't be that nice..."

'...'

'...your life won't be lost... not as long as I'm near... I 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞.'