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“Can worship actually create Divine Spark,” I thought with fascination. I was shocked, though I had to admit, it wasn’t supposed to be that shocking. After all, gods were obsessed with worship, and assuming that it was just about pure ego with absolutely no benefit had been prejudicial.

In my defense, I neither had a direct interaction with god. The closest had been the headmistress, and she had shown no inclination of organizing such a thing — admittedly, her problem never had been finding enough Divine Spark, but controlling what she had in possession.

And, that was assuming such a thing was possible with the System greedily devouring anything in the first place.

While I was lost in my thoughts, the spark continued to dance in the soul-equivalent presence of the tree, conflicting against the Divine Spark, even causing some damage — that I repaired without significant side effects — showing that, a worship ceremony was not exactly something simple.

I continued to observe them, and fifteen minutes later, another flicker of divine Spark joined the first. The amount of newly acquired Divine Spark was almost as much as the seed originally had — thought it was less about the great efficiency of the ritual, and more about how little Divine Spark the seed had contained in the first place.

I could have helped the tree to absorb the Divine Spark, which would have been much more easier than actually repairing the damage, but I waited, wanting to see if the elves had the ability to detect it. To this aim, I didn’t even let it crystallize into a safer state, but forced it to stay moving.

The elves continued their ritual-dance, unaware of the danger that was brewing at the target of their worship. Fifteen minutes later, another sliver joined the mixture, this time intense enough to fight against the tree.

The elves started to look exhausted, which was not just a physical failure or mana deficiency but something different, showing that the ritual was not a trivial affair.

I continued to observe them, but my attention was on Divine Spark, examining its nature. As the amount of Divine Spark grew, I started to realize that its structure was more chaotic than all other Spark I had touched.

Every other spark I had touched — which wasn’t a great list, but still included the headmistress, the princess, and most recently, the guardian tree — had been, for the lack of a better term, pure.

Sharp.

Even when I used my Tantric abilities to purify it to destroy their hardness, it only stripped that intent further, turning it into something soft and pure.

In comparison, the one that was provided by the elves was chaotic and without direction. It still had the same general essence of Nature, but there were differences to it, like two different artists, drawing a picture from some description. No matter how well they practiced before, they couldn’t just put their halves and create one flawless picture.

Only in this case, there were multiple artists with slightly differing visions, their creations conflicting despite the spell around them — which was affecting their mental state, allowing them to focus on the same thing.

Elves continued, unaware of the risk, which confirmed that they had no idea of the risk they were creating. Their ritual would have created no problem for the other guardian trees, which had enough Divine Spark to sublimate the little amount their worship had generated.

They had no idea my tree was cheating.

Luckily, my cheating was not limited to just transforming mana. I was experienced in helping others sublimate Divine Spark. I pulled the amount they generated, and after some processing, I let the tree absorb all of it.

Enhancing its godhood, not that the mana it could generate had the slightest significance against what I was providing at the moment.

Then, I turned my attention to the elves, trying to understand how they could generate Divine Spark. I spread my mana to the immediate surroundings, which would have been a very alarming affair if it wasn’t for two things. They were distracted by their ritual…

And that mana was coming from their guardian tree, therefore absolutely trustworthy.

Yet, even with such a thing, I had little progress with the source. I poked, pulled, and occasionally detonated my magic, but all was useless. I even checked the Aether Dimension, but with nothing out of ordinary.

Well, not technically useless, I corrected, as it gave me one very important conclusion. Whatever was going on, it was certainly not mana, pure or transformed.

Sometimes, eliminating the possibilities was as important as finding the clues of the correct path.

Still, I wasn’t discouraged. I enjoyed delving deep into the mysteries of magic and existence, and the importance of the topic only made me more interested. My mind was already filled with different experiments I could conduct…

Only to be distracted by a warning from one of the wards upstream.

The undead really had terrible timing.

Elves proved that they weren’t a slouch in detection, by discovering the undead barely a minute after, their sentry barking in alarm. The ritual stopped, which was unfortunate as I would never say no to more Divine Spark, especially, for all intents and purposes, it looked like it was being generated from the thin air.

My first real discovery about the source.

The elf mage replicated his attempt to cast the spell again, and once again, I used that to create another protective layer around the tree. It surprised him more than his first attempt, showing that he expected their ritual to work.

Maybe it worked like taming an animal, feeding them to make it calmer. If that was, it was a pity that it wouldn’t work.

He attempted it twice more, but the warriors around him started to act restless. One of them said something sharply, and the mage responded with anger. It didn’t take long for it to turn into a heated argument, showing the apparent control of the mage wasn’t as strong as it had implied.

Elves might be a mystical race, a part of the stories, but their reaction to danger had been refreshingly ordinary. A pointless battle for power among a few, while the rest watched ineffectively, risking their lives with inaction, yet unable to intervene directly.

I examined the archer that started to battle, and noticed a few differences. For once, his bow was different. Not just more intricate, but also in a different style, giving me the impression that it was created by a different expert.

And he had a dagger, wooden just like the others, but with a large, intricate emerald on its hilt — with no hint of magical energy, suggesting more of a status symbol.

If it wasn’t for the fact elves had just given me the key to continuing growing stronger, I wouldn’t have cared much about anything other than aggravating the undead. After all, after I had destroyed more and more undead while disguising my actions, the higher-up of elves would inevitably join.

Yet, after their performance of generating Divine Spark, I changed my mind about keeping them as incidental participants. I needed to impress them more.

“Sorry, old man,” I murmured as I stretched a tantric-filled mana string to the mage, and invaded his crystallized Divine Spark, taking half of it before he could realize it, and transferring it to myself. With the mage distracted, and without the System constantly trying to devour every free particle, it was very easy to succeed.

I had to admit, I felt slightly guilty at doing so, but under the circumstances, a lot more than a slight guilt was necessary to keep me from acting.

I created another fake soul space to prevent interaction between two fake Chosen Nodes. I had no idea how they would react, but remember the first time I tried to mix different-natured mana, I had no intention to test it casually.

The amount of Divine Spark I had taken was not significant for me, but it was still significantly more than what the tree had. And, more importantly, converting the mana directly was much easier than letting the tree do it — not because I was more efficient while using the same mana, but because it helped me to control the results.

And, I used the resulting mana to feed the tree directly. Just like that, its growth, which had been stunted due to the instinctive priorities of the tree, picked up speed once more.

Thirty feet turned fifty, which, in seconds reached sixty, then seventy…

I expected the elves to watch in shock, their argument was forgotten, but, against my expectation, it got more intense the faster the tree grew. And, even more surprisingly, it was the mage that was getting more subdued, while the archer started to act brazen, a smug smile on his face.

I was prepared to intervene when the mage admitted defeat and started walking, only to be surprised when he moved in the opposite direction I expected, followed by most of the archers. Rather than retreating, they started establishing a defensive perimeter, while the archer stood in the middle, smug.

Then, he gestured to two archers, and talked with them quickly, his attitude implying a certain amount of authority — though not a welcome one, if the stiff attitude of the other two told.

Their stiff attitude didn’t prevent them from listening to his orders, and one of them took running, following the river, directly toward the encampment I had just seen. Yet, the other was more interesting. He took the dagger with the emerald the other presented, and took running.

Toward a different direction, confirming that I had misunderstood the nature of their argument.

“A happy misunderstanding,” I thought with a smirk, continuing to feed the tree with forcibly converted mana — with a speed that was getting exhausting — while the mage and the remaining others worked hard to create a defensive position.

The mage spread some seeds and cast a spell, which immediately turned into a thick wall of vegetation. He didn’t show any hint of noticing his loss of ability, which was to be expected considering he was using the generous amount of nature-life mana that was filling the opening rather than trying to do it on his own.

They worked hard to establish the position, with archers taking position all along the new wall, the tree continuing to grow behind them.

When the undead finally appeared over the horizon, the tree had already broken the height of a hundred feet, radiating an aura of security…

[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]