Path of Dragons 13 - Chapter 69 - The Rhythm of Life

Elijah rested his hand against Treebie’s trunk, the pulse of the tree’s spirit sending shockwaves through his soul.  He bore it with equanimity, having long since grown accustomed to the tree’s uniquely powerful presence. 

Over the course of the past year, Treebie’s roots had grown to encompass the entire continent and had even progressed beneath the ocean.  Elijah had inspected the areas where those roots had emerged, and he was both delighted and surprised to find that they were entirely unaffected by the submersion. 

That fact addressed an issue that had agonized Elijah ever since he’d begun to realize that Treebie’s roots would one day grow across the whole planet.  At the time, he’d worried that they would be incapable of surviving such an environment.  Most trees couldn’t.  But as always, Treebie had proven just how unique of an entity he was.

More, he’d shown Elijah that his worries were unfounded.  The tree seemed more than capable of thriving in just about any environment.

Otherwise, his roots had also made significant progress regarding depth, and after surrounding the core, they’d begun to grow to the opposite side of the planet.  Elijah was eager to discover if they would emerge from the surface or if they’d simply start to grow outward once they reached the other side.

During that time, Elijah had also completed the final ring system, though his efforts were assisted significantly by M’yakein’s population of builders.  They’d insisted on helping him map out the inner rings, though they had left the actual carving to him.  It seemed like such a small thing, but it had allowed him to jump right from the outer ring to the inner circles, saving him a significant amount of time.

Even so, he’d only completed it a few days ago. 

The results were better than he could have expected, with the ambient vitality skyrocketing as Treebie’s roots went to work terraforming the terrain.  Elijah still intended to treat the continent the same way he’d treated everything else, by spreading plant life into living rune circles, but at that moment, he was content with the progress.

In fact, he’d begun to wonder if the stone circles were even necessary anymore.  Treebie seemed entirely capable of terraforming the planet alone, though Elijah reasoned that any help he could provide would simply speed up the process.

To his surprise, Elijah had also managed to gain four more levels since gaining his demi-god class.  Most of that progress came from building the circles and maintaining Druhmor, which was a bit of a change from his previous classes.  He’d always gotten experience from growing things and healing, but the amounts had never compared to what he gained from combat. 

Combat was still much faster – as evidenced by the results of his various monster killing sprees – but he was still impressed by how much progress he’d gained just by playing gardener. 

Regardless, when he looked at his status, he couldn’t help but smile:

A couple of things had become obvious since his class evolution.  The first should have been apparent even before he’d reached the demi-god stage, but he’d mostly ignored his status since coming to Gorveth.  Now, simple math told him that he’d managed to gain quite a few attributes just from his labors on the excised planet.  As far as he could tell, the only category where he hadn’t gotten a few extra points was dexterity. 

The small handful of attributes didn’t seem like a big deal – not when compared to his gains for each level – but Elijah knew that even small bits of progress could add up.  And sometimes, one point, as inconsequential as it might seem, could make all the difference.  He’d discovered that much, and on multiple occasions when he’d narrowly won battles or escaped sure death.

The second lesson he’d learned was that attributes were odd.  In the beginning, before he’d made progress with his cultivation, Elijah had posited that each point represented a static increase in his capabilities.  For instance, back then, a point of strength roughly coincided with the ability to lift twenty additional pounds.  Of course, that was complicated by the first ten points featuring much larger increases, culminating in something akin to peak human strength.  But the general idea had remained true until cultivation had changed the formula.

And it was further affected with each tier, both in individual aspects as well as the overall cultivation stage.  In addition, abilities like Soul of the Wild served to skew it even further.  The same could be said for his dragon form. 

But none of them affected it quite as much as the leap from ascended to demi-god. 

Elijah had no idea how much, just that it had been immediately noticeable.  Now, he could lift stones weighing hundreds of tons without issue – and that was in his human form.  The only limiters came from the stones’ structural integrity and how awkward such a burden could be to lift, especially with a wingspan of only a few feet.  It was far easier in Shape of Spores or his dragon form. 

The difference did prompt a question in his mind, though.  He couldn’t help but wonder if the rarity of his class affected the unlisted differences.  For instance, would he feel even stronger if he’d taken the eldritch-rarity Caretaker class?  Would he feel weaker if he’d chosen one of the lower-rarity classes he’d never really considered?

There were no answers available, though.  Zek and the couple of other demi-gods among the refugees were just as clueless as him.  They were also significantly weaker than him, but that was no surprise.  Even before Elijah’s evolution, he’d felt confident in victory if it came to a fight with the old hunter, much less any of the others.

The only one who felt different was Benedict, but he was hamstrung by his own level, which remained in the upper two-forties.  He’d gone on a couple of expeditions to respond to monster attacks on the outer rings, but his progress was minimal.

His lack of forward momentum was further evidence that Elijah was different than most.  He was more than capable of fighting alone.  And in fact, he tended to prefer it, if only because it meant he didn’t need to worry about protecting vulnerable allies.  That, combined with his ability to survive just about anything Gorveth could throw at him, was enough to smooth out the often-steep leveling curve.

However, he’d begun to see some degree of diminishing returns when killing monsters, which forced him to delve deeper into the ocean if he wanted to really progress.  And that was incredibly dangerous, even for him.  There were things down there that showed the power of true deities, and Elijah was a long way from fighting creatures like that.

Even surviving such an encounter required a good deal of luck and unwavering focus.

For now.

One day, Elijah would challenge even those monsters on even footing.  He just needed to keep at it.  Now that he’d broken through the bottleneck represented by his temporary inability to progress past level two-fifty, the dam had been broken.  And he didn’t intend to stem the flow.  Not unless he was forced to do so.

With that in mind, he pulled away from Treebie and took a look around the surrounding meadow.  He’d not worked on his statues for a while, though someone had cleared them of creeping vines. 

His previous restrictions had been significantly relaxed of late, largely because it was clear that the people of M’yakein held no ill intentions toward Treebie.  In fact, they looked at him with worshipful eyes, like he’d quickly become their god. 

Elijah hadn’t put a stop to it, either.

Part of that was because it fostered a protective spirit among the people, but it was also because he wasn’t certain it was inaccurate.  Treebie was more than just a tree.  That had been obvious from the very beginning, and every passing day cemented his unique nature in Elijah’s mind. 

Was he a god?

There really was no way to tell for certain, but Elijah didn’t think there was any harm in letting the populace believe as much.  It definitely gave him some peace of mind.

He pulled away, saying, “Lookin’ good, Treebie.  Keep on growing.”

The tree did not answer, though Elijah thought his leaves rustled a bit more, which elicited a smile.

Once he’d finished communing with the tree, Elijah set off for M’yakein.  He didn’t rush, preferring to remain on foot.  Of late, he’d been spending a lot more time in his human form, and it wasn’t difficult to determine the reason.  After all, everyone in M’yakein was human, and they were far more likely to accept him if he looked like them.

Of course, they’d seen his other forms.  And after a little time, they’d even stopped fleeing in terror.  But the nerves remained.

Either way, he took his time trekking toward the city in the distance.  Druhmor was slightly more than a hundred miles across, so he needed to travel close to seventy miles to reach the city limits.  He covered that ground at a trot, mostly so he could enjoy the atmosphere.  Sometimes – if he closed his eyes and let his senses wander – traversing Druhmor felt like he’d returned to his grove. 

The pleasant smell of blooming flowers and moist earth drifted into his nostrils as the sound of buzzing insects filled his ears.  There were even a few bird calls, which he found continuously shocking.  How the creatures had come to live in Druhmor, he had no idea.  The same could be said of the tiny rodents or the reptiles.  From a biological perspective, none of them should have existed.

And yet, they did.

It was as if they’d all spontaneously manifested, conjured by magic in the same way he used Eternal Plague to summon swarms of venomous insects.  However, the difference was clear – these animals were all real, while his conjured creatures were no more than temporary ethereal constructs that would fade the second he let his spells lapse.

The existence of such creatures filled him with hope and more than a little frustration.  The first, for obvious reasons.  It proved that so long as he set the stage properly, it was possible for Gorveth to completely recover.  But his frustrations came from a lack of understanding. 

He’d caught a few of the animals and examined them, but they were entirely indistinguishable from natural creatures.  That only deepened the mystery.

Despite that, the trip through Druhmor was a relaxing one, so when he finally reached the city, he felt ready to face the challenges it represented. 

And then they came.

Dozens of people, each one approaching him with the same worshipful gaze they’d bestowed upon Treebie.  Elijah wasn’t sure if they considered him a god, too.  Or maybe something akin to a priest.  Like the Pope or something.  But the fact was that they definitely didn’t treat him like a normal person.

“Reclaimer!” they shouted. 

That was the title they’d given him, and even Elijah had to admit that it was appropriate.  After all, they didn’t know that Treebie was the real engine behind the continent’s transformation.  All Elijah had done was prepare the environment and keep the tree alive.  Treebie had done the rest. 

Not that it mattered to them.  For all Elijah knew, they didn’t make a distinction between him and Treebie.

Whatever the case, his progress slowed as the residents crowded around him.  Some only wanted to lay their hands upon him.  Others expressed their gratitude through kind words or gifts.  But one and all, they made Elijah uncomfortable.

In truth, he found the other side of the proverbial coin far easier to bear.  Not everyone in M’yakein worshipped him.  There were plenty that didn’t even like him, and for a variety of reasons.  Some, because he’d usurped some of their power.  Even if it was unintentional and Elijah had no interest in taking over, they saw him as a threat. 

In other cases, the disdain came for a more personal place.  Parents of teenagers he’d failed to cleanse still blamed him for that failure.  He’d apologized.  He had vowed to find a way forward.  But none of that mattered to them.  They were in pain.  They felt slighted on behalf of their children.  And nothing Elijah could do would ever change that.

He endured it all – from worship to hatred – as he made his way to Benedict’s home.  So, when he reached the building, he’d begun to regret coming to town at all. 

Still, that faded slightly when Benedict opened the door and the smell of their upcoming meal wafted into the hall. 

“You look exhausted,” Benedict said.

“Thanks.  That’s what I was going for.”

With a roll of his eyes, Benedict welcomed him into his home.  Jasai’i, Zek, and a couple of others were there, and they all greeted Elijah with far more respect. 

After a little polite conversation, the meal began, and it was just as high quality as the smell had led Elijah to expect.  It was a long way from raw monster meat, that was for certain.  The company helped as well, and in a way that wasn’t always obvious.

However, it was toward the end of the second hour when Elijah felt something. 

A pulse of alarm came from Treebie, sweeping through his roots and telling Elijah that something was wrong. 

He sprang to his feet.

“What is it?” asked Benedict.

Zek had already found his feet as well.

“I don’t know.  I need to go,” Elijah said.  “Thanks for the meal.  I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as I figure it out.”

With that, he left the apartment and climbed to the roof.  In seconds, he was flying across Druhmor at more than four hundred miles an hour.  He landed next to Treebie in minutes, then laid his hand on the tree’s trunk.

He cast his awareness through Treebie’s spirit, following it along his roots until he found the reason for the alarm.

Elijah’s body tensed as he felt them.  Thousands of men and women, marching across the continent.  Someone had rested upon one of Treebie’s exposed roots, or the tree never would have sensed them.  But now that he was aware of their existence, he could expand his awareness a little outside his form.

And what he felt, Elijah did as well.

The army’s presence was alarming, but there were eight individuals that truly worried him. 

The Synod had arrived, and judging by the army, theirs was not a mission of peace.