Getting to a big ol' tree

The tree wasn't very hard to find, it was just in the absolute centre of the forest, towering over it like a helicopter mom.

The problem was that to get to it, we needed to climb on a cliff and I don't know if you know this but, both me and Allaster aren't really made for climbing. Now, this was easily solved by the fact that there were stairs leading to the tree, probably for Aurelions faithfull.

Now, this was nice of Aurelion and all, but he was also the cause for the second problem. Because the cores of light were the most important treasure this forest had to offer, he had put strong monsters on the stairs, each guarding a gate.

How did I know this? Well, the inventory of course, I had been checking the strongest monsters thinking that I might soulbind them and found that they all had a certain description.

{Beastly Blessed Bearcat

Rarity: Very Rare

A rare evolved form of the Blessed Bearcat. It has embraced it's beastly side, making it hard to tame but when it is, it is one of the most loyal creatures in existence.

Hint: Guardian of the first gate to the Holy Tree.}

The second guardian was a creature was something called the Eclipsing Light Wolf, apparently, it is an evolution that can only be accessed when a Light wolf has both Light and Darkness Affinity.

The third guardian was called The Koifather, an evolved form of the Holy Koi that commanded other Kois, allowing them to access Darkness Affinity and attack in the first place.

The fourth and last guardian was called Ratatosk. It was an evolution of the Light Squirrel that was unique, cause by the squirrel creating a special kind of magic that caused discord between two specific targets.

I had heard the racial name of the squirrel before but couldn't quite remember where.

Back to the topic at hand, we started scaling the stairs. When we got to the first gate, We got ready for battle only to see the Bearcat bow to us.

"New Mistress, welcome, welcome. My name Bearry. Happy."

He didn't sound very intelligent but felt some kind of subservience to me. I thought about it for a few seconds and realized something, we had passed a few Light wolves, those of a different pack and the few left of the pack I massacared, both seemed to avoid me.

That meant that anything belonging to this forest's inventory was my subordinate in some way, neat.

I immediately cast soulbond on the Bearcat, feeling a connection to it form. My head felt strangely full for a moment. I knew a few things I didn't know before, what plants were bad for him, what he liked, stuff like that.

It seems that I got what Bearry deemed his most important knowledge. Makes sense that he would deem food his most important knowledge since he needed it to survive.

We started scaling the stairs again, moving onto the second gate. The same thing happened with the wolf. I bound it to me, gaining knowledge of the Tennets of Aurelions faith.

They were incredibly sexist, the first Tennet was the fact that women existed to serve men.

I told the wolf that he should forget those Tennets, I would not tolerate the worship of Aurelion in this place.

He started howling, signalling this message to all the wolves in the forest. It seems that this wolf commanded the three, well two now that I had killed one of them, Alfas in the forest.

It said it name was Lupo.

At the third gate, we got to see the weirdest thing I had ever seen. Sitting in a pond, a humanoid figure with fish scales was sitting calmly. It had the head of a fish and the place where a human had arms, this fish had, well, fins.

It had some kind of combination of both legs and a tail. His tail could split up into two feet allowing it to walk around with ease.

The weird thing about this fish though, was the fact that the scales covering his body were colored in such a way that it looked like he was wearing a tux. The normal white scales of a Blessed Koi had been replaced with greyish colored ones. The fish still had white scales, but those where for the shirt of his suit.

"Oh, you must be the new big boss. I am Don Koi, but you can just call me Don. I bet you didn't expect this when you read my racial name and description did ya? I was just as baffled myself and then Aurelion picked me up, gave me my name and put me in charge of this here gate."

I finally got why it's race was called The Koifather, this system was referencing my world, that's something unexpected.

Binding him to me, I found that what he saw as his most important knowledge was how to deal Crystal Joy, some kind of drug. How the hell they got their hands on it was a mystery to me but I could accept drugs in this world.

Finally, we moved onto the fourth gate, and that wasn't a pleasant experience.

We saw the squirrel from quite a big distance, it was really big. It was also completely wild and aggressive, attacking everything that moved. It was going into a frenzy, filled with fear for some reason.

Moving closer I understood why, this creature had created it's special magic on accident, it had a low intelligence and even though it had been boosted by it's evolution, it relied on it's bond with Aurelion to stay sane.

When the bond was cut, it panicked, not understanding what was going on. I wanted to try to bind it to me but it was to erratic, I couldn't find a solid spot on it's soul to bind it to so the first thing we would need to do was calm it down or knock it out and since it didn't seem like it would calm down anytime soon, we were going to knock it out.