After being tired from digging, it took him about an hour to reach near the peak, but even before reaching the peak there were more surprises awaiting him.
He found the source of the red light that illuminates the surroundings.
It was a red mountain that was on fire, lava was flowing out of different pockets of the mountain.
The weird thing was that the mountain appeared to be burning as a whole but at the same time the mountain itself was not being consumed by the fire, it seemed like this mountain had been burning for thousands of years.
The mountain was the source of light in the surroundings.
He started climbing again after getting awestruck for a while, by now he has started becoming numb to more surprises..
But as he reached the peak, he was dumbstruck again by what he saw, as there was the burning mountain to his right.
There was another to the left, but he could only make out a vague shape of the mountain because it was inside a humongous tornado... And the speed of the tornado was making him have shivers all over the body, thankfully it was not moving around, but only covered the mountain.
There was something even more terrifying than the tornado mountain, it was the pitch black mountain that was in front of him and his instincts were screaming that this black mountain was a thousand times more dangerous than the other two mountains.
The black mountain was twice the size of the other three, and the other three were circling the black mountain.
The peculiar thing about the black mountain was that it was distorting, sometimes it appeared to be real and sometimes it seemed like an illusion.
He also found something interesting on the peak.
There was a single tree growing on the peak of the mountain, the whole tree had a golden brown luster to it.
Even the leaves were golden brown and there was one single dark brown fruit hanging at the center.
As soon as Sam saw this fruit he had this uncontrollable craving to take that fruit and eat it, but he forcefully held himself down.
" This tree is really special, it's as if it's calling me and my body is also reacting to this call and is trying to go forward on instinct and eat that fruit... What should I do.. Will it be a trap, like the man eating plants or something, like the evil sword pretending to be a holy sword.....
I can also figure out the vague shapes of trees on the other mountains .... I will observe for some time"
After observing for a while using his spiritual sense, he saw the root of the tree extended deep into the mountain, beyond his spiritual sense could reach.
A familiar energy was coursing through the roots and being fed into the tree and finally into the fruit.
While observing with spiritual sense he felt like the tree and the mountain were all one entity and the brown fruit appeared to be a bright energy source which was birthed by this entity.
Even though this bright energy source was blinding, unlike the golden sphere, the fruit gave a more warm energy feeling.
After probing for some more time, he decided to approach the tree…
" Hmm... After going through a near death experience, suffering unimaginable pain and being controlled like a puppet .... What am I afraid of and my instincts are not giving me any warning of danger, so it must be much safer than the evil sword...
Even if it's not, I will retreat at the first sign of danger.."
Slowly he reached the tree, and as he reached to a close proximity, the call from the tree became much pleasant.
He also had the feeling that the tree was hugging him as if greeting a long lost kin.
Then he saw the tree lowering its branch so that he could climb on it.
He too, as if it was the natural thing to do, climbed on the branch.
As he climbed on the branch it lifted him up and brought him towards the dark brown fruit, as if it wanted to give the fruit to him.
Sam reached for the fruit and plucked it, he felt the fruit was emitting a calm energy which stilled everything as if time had stopped.
But all of a sudden he found that from the point where he plucked the fruit, the tree started withering and turning into energy particles which were drifting away, like dust particles in the wind.
He jumped down from the tree and watched this wonderful scene of the tree disappearing as if merging into the world itself.
For some reason he felt a little heavy in the heart, It was because after digging for more than a month in loneliness.
This tree was the first living thing that he met and was affectionate to him…
As the tree completely disappeared, he gave a long sigh and started looking at the fruit.