World Tree

The area at the centre of the Eastern Forest was the most resplendent scenery that you would ever see in your life. Tall and magnificent trees with luscious shimmering leaves that had different colours, some trees with silver leaves, some with blue, some were pink.

Between some trees, long vines that seemed to be dripping with vitality were hanging with exotic fruits attached to them.

All kinds of animals hung around. Monkeys picked fruits, birds chirped and deers pranced around. Even predators like Tigers and Wolves lazily sat around in harmony. The usually arrogant snakes that could be spotted were peacefully hanging around trees.

At the centre of all this was a lake. There didn't seem to be anything special about this lake, but it was very clean and very pure. There were even animals that drank and splashed around in it.

There was no hostility at all. Only harmony and mother nature at its most beautiful. A truly glorious scene.

But the peace was broken in a single moment

CRRRRRRRRR!

Deep under the lake, the ground started to rumble and crack, undulating as if something big was moving around underneath.

CAW! CAW! Flu flu flu!

REEEEEK!

The animals didn't even hesitate, fleeing the place immediately as if they could sense something dangerous.

It was quite comedic, seeing the dense amount of birds rising above the trees, escaping in every direction, not to mention the monkeys that pranced all over the place like it was their lives on the line.

The more adept animals like tigers and snakes vanished like ghosts. And any moment now, all animals would be-

'Hmm?'

Oooooerr!

A Deer, or to be more precise an Elk, had fallen, and from the looks of its repetitive failure to stand up again, it was crippled. Probably a result of the stampede.

'Well, whatever, it doesn't need to run anyway'

Eridel turned his attention to more pressing things. The reason for this grand turn of events.

At the centre of the lake…

A Tree was growing…

Rapidly…

And noisily!

CRRrRrrRRrRrRrRRrrR!!!

An ear piercing sound like cracking wood resounded through the forest. Alerting all residents, predator and prey alike. Even Jörma narrowed her eyes at the direction of the lake.

SPLOOSH!

The tree had finally broken the surface of the lake, causing a massive wave to rise.

Looking at this peculiar tree, it seems that not only did it get taller at a stupendous rate, but it also got thicker as well, it was already 2 metres thick and still growing.

But just a growing tree wouldn't be enough to set all those dumb animals running as if there was an apocalypse. It was actually the extremely dense amount of essence that arose with it.

Although… If these animals were any smarter, they wouldn't be so foolish as to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Be that as it may, there appeared to be one animal that would be witnessing the scene. A scene it would never forget for the rest of its life.

The tree's growth didn't seem to stop and neither did the rise in essence, which was a vibrant green in colour and could actually be identified as… the Laws of LIFE!

A TREE RADIATING THE LAWS OF LIFE!

Something that only occurs when a tree becomes a world tree was actually happening in a tree that was just born!!!

To understand the gravity of the situation. You have to look at the evolutionary paths of a tree.

In the beginning, a tree could either grow for 100 years without suffering any injuries or loss of vitality to become a spirit tree, or they could be lucky enough to absorb something that elevated them to the same status. Whatever the case, the first stage of evolution for a tree is the [ Magic Tree ].

This was a stage that enabled them to have their own mana. But it could only enhance the fruits, leaves and other such things that might have grown from the tree. Only 1 in a 1000 trees actually reached this status.

After the [ Magic Tree ] came the [ Spirit Tree ]. At this stage, a tree starts to develop a consciousness, enabling the Tree to actually do things of its own choice. But no matter how much it grew and how strong it got, it would always be a primitive soul.

Trees had no emotions after all. Time, death, life, all of those things meant nothing to them. So they didn't care about anything and they didn't bother to cultivate even if they could.

Apart from that. All functions of the Tree were dramatically improved, they also greatly increased in size too. At this point, fruits born from them were great treasures that could cause kingdoms to fight over the rights to monopolize them.

The [ Spirit Tree ] required 1000 years of life to evolve, though, it was more lenient on the damage it could sustain. Of course, if the tree decided to cultivate or absorb other treasures, it could become a [ Spirit Tree ] much faster.

After that came the [ Fate Tree ]. At this stage, anything could happen, hence its name. All functions evolve once more and fruits born from these trees become 'divine'. No one dared to monopolize these trees unless they wanted to fight to the death with the rest of the continent. It wasn't rare for other continents to get involved.

The benefits of a [ Fate Tree ] were just that great, capable of helping someone directly become an immortal. Of course, they would have to withstand the energy contained inside first.

If a country were able to monopolise this tree, they would be able to produce immortals after immortals. A force that no one wanted to fight against.

A [ Fate Tree ] usually took up to 50 thousand years of life.

After that came the extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY rare [ World Tree ]. Something that barely happened, and even if it did, you would never see another in the same World. Effectively becoming a worthy figurehead of that World, hence its name.

These trees were able to embody the Laws of Life, being capable of instilling the essence of life into its fruits naturally making them many times greater.

And despite the fact that these terrifying trees took a whopping 1 millions years to grow, they were so powerful that people thought it was only right and that was because they had the capability of helping someone… surpass the immortal stage!

BOOM!

And that's what it looks like this tree in front of us is becoming.

'SIKE!'

While it was indeed becoming a [ World Tree ]. At the same time, it would never bear anything… edible. So there would be nothing to do here but admire the tree.

Is what should have been the case.

However, a reaction occurred.

The Water that this Tree was born in began to change.