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If this failed—it was all over.

The sound of his trunk cracking open seemed to draw the man\'s eyes.

However, he didn\'t shy away or shudder like Stella and Diana; rather, he appeared enthralled and drawn in by his {Demonic Eye}.

The Evergreen cultivator kept walking closer and lowered his sword—as if hypnotized, he took another step, and Stella groaned and coughed up more blood as the man\'s foot pressed on her stomach, likely on the same spot he had hit moments ago.

Ashlock naturally became enraged.

How dare he hurt and step on Stella like that?

The man took one more step closer, and to Ashlock\'s surprise, Stella had managed to raise her sword, balance it on the Evergreen cultivator\'s knee, and thrust it into his upper chest—where his heart should be.

The man\'s eyes went wide, and he broke eye contact with Ashlock\'s demonic eye and stared down at the sword impaling his chest. For a brief moment, Ashlock feared the man would kill Stella before he died, so Ashlock cast {Devour}.

The man\'s Qi had completely died down, letting the thorned vines fully mummify him. He tried to reach up to pull away the blade, but Stella just thrust it deeper, causing his arms to go limb.

Was he dead?

Ashlock feared the cultivator could survive, but then Diana came and sealed the deal.

She snuck up from behind, summoned a dagger to her hand, and thrust it between the coiling vines where the back of the man\'s neck should be.

The Evergreen cultivator fell backward, the dagger still lodged into his neck, and the blade went all the way through his neck when he hit the floor.

The man remained motionless.

Dead.

[Commencing upgrade to Star Core Realm: 95%]

It was over... the fight had been won.

Ashlock tore his sight away from the corpse being devoured by his vines and looked to the skies above. The Star Core that had been hundreds of meters across had condensed into a dense, glowing ball the size of Stella\'s head.

It looked so small, floating above his branches. Yet it let out enough light to illuminate the entire mountain range.

Suddenly, all the lightning ceased, and dark skies overhead parted. Through the cracks—rays of sunshine illuminated Ashlock\'s scarlet leaves with their warming glow.

[Heavenly Tribulation Survived]

A tendril of Qi emerged from his body like a lasso, grabbed onto the small floating Star Core that was burning white hot, and dragged it down toward his body. For a second, Ashlock thought the Star Core would burn a hole through his trunk, but it passed harmlessly through as if it were a ghost.

[Upgrade to Star Core Realm Complete]

[Damage calculated at 37%]

[Repair with credits? Yes/No]

Ashlock hesitated on the system prompt. He didn\'t care about repairing his branches nor the charred holes in his trunk, as he knew they would be regrown with time.

What did bother him was the 1% missing part of his soul.

He could feel it, a vacant fragment of himself.

Casting his spiritual sight back to the courtyard, he saw Diana furiously rummaging through his coiling vines, getting cut in the process. Finally, after a few seconds of wrestling with the vines, she managed to sneak a hand through and, with a tug, pulled a golden ring free.

The Evergreen cultivator\'s spatial ring, coated in a thin sheen of fresh blood, shone in the sun as she held it up. "Got it."

She then pocketed the ring in a safe place and quickly used her own ring to summon some pills.

"Stella! Are you alright?" She dashed over to Stella, who lay sprawled on Larry\'s abdomen.

Blood trailed from the corner of her mouth, and her eyes were closed. Her hand was still limply grasping the sword handle that had killed the cultivator, and a thin smile accompanied her shallow breaths.

Diana pushed Stella\'s lips apart and shoved the pill she was holding into Stella\'s mouth. "Chew this. Your internal injuries might even be fatal if left alone."

Stella\'s eyes snapped open, and she sat up while choking on the pill. "W-what ack—the hell—" She then stop blabbering as a blast of cold water hit her in the face.

"Less talking. More cultivating." Diana ordered, "Cultivators are on the way, I can feel their presence closing in on the base of the mountain, but they are loitering around for some reason."

Stella blinked as the frozen water seemed to snap her back to reality. He watched her look around the half-destroyed courtyard littered with corpses being devoured by him as she chewed on the pill.

Then, with water still dripping from her face and hair, she sluggishly pushed herself off Larry, sat cross-legged, and began cultivating. Ashlock could tell since she became the central point of a small vortex of Qi that had flooded back into the area after his ascension finished.

With Stella and Diana sitting crossed-legged and busy cultivating, he focused inwards on himself. Floating in his trunk was the new Star Core. It was captivating, and its immense Qi generation flooded every inch of his body nearly instantly.

If his previous marble Soul Core had been a filter that took in the untamed Qi from the outside world and forcefully converted it into spatial Qi, this Star Core was a spatial Qi generator. However, it didn\'t rely on Qi from the outside. Instead, it produced it all by itself but could be refueled from outside Qi if needed.

He basically had a power station inside himself now.

Spatial Qi rushed down his roots and seemed to endlessly flow into Bob, the slime in the mine, who had almost fully reverted to its previous state as the spatial Qi had been extracted.

[+50 SC]

[+62 SC]

[+49 SC]

[+54 SC]

[+71 SC]

[+40 SC]

[+84 SC]

All of a sudden, a string of system notifications appeared. Looking back at the central courtyard, Ashlock saw his vines retreating into the ground. Seven of the thirteen corpses had been consumed.

That left two more—three, including the Star Core cultivator. Three other corpses were in the courtyard, but Ashlock saved them for the {Root Puppet} skill, as they would be worth almost zero credits due to their low cultivation realm.

It felt weird for Ashlock to see 1st stage Soul Fire realm cultivators as ants and deem them worthless, but it was true. To him, blowing up their corpses to get a leg up in the upcoming fight was far more valuable than the few credits they would provide.

[+63 SC]

[+59 SC]

The final two Soul Fire cultivators were devoured.

Now only the Star Core cultivator remained. But, to Ashlock\'s surprise, the {Devour} skill consumed the Evergreen corpse much faster, despite the meat\'s higher Qi content.

Was this one of the many advantages of his new cultivation realm?

Around ten minutes passed, and then the notification came in.

[+540 SC]

The one Star Core cultivator had netted him slightly more credits than all of the other corpses combined, yet only a single realm separated them.

Was the gap between the Star Core realm and Soul Fire realm that great? Would he get zero credits from something in the Qi Realm now? It was a sad realization, but it made sense. The Qi he could absorb from a Qi Realm bird would be like a drop of water onto the sun.

But perhaps most worrying of all—his soul was still missing a small chunk, even after absorbing the Evergreen cultivator that had siphoned his soul.

Would he never be able to get it back?

Ashlock summoned his sign-in system for the first time in what felt like ages to see if it held any answers to his dilemma.

Idletree Daily Sign-In System

Day: 3472

Daily Credit: 0

Sacrifice Credit: 1072

[Sign in?]

"Huh? Zero daily credits..." It was only now that Ashlock realized how busy today had been. Only this morning, he unlocked his {Demonic Eye}, which led to him investigating the mines, and then Senior Lee visited for an hour or so, and his gift caused this battle by forcing him to ascend to the Star Core realm.

And the day was far from over if what Diana said about the cultivators was true—it would be a long night of fighting.

Casting {Eye of the Tree God}, Ashlock confirmed that more cultivators were gathered around the mountain base, but they seemed to be waiting for someone by how they impatiently tapped their feet and looked down the dirt path that led to the old Ravenborne mountain.

"Well, whoever they are waiting for, I hope they take their darn time," Ashlock grumbled. Stella and Diana were depleted of Qi, Larry was half dead, and Maple was missing.

Even Ashlock had issues. A third of his branches had been blasted off, and his trunk was covered in charred holes. Moreover, his Qi was still somewhat chaotic as he got used to controlling his new Star Core.

"I should sign in. A thousand points should get me an A grade draw, at the very least."

With the prompt still floating in his mind, Ashlock said yes.

[Sign in successful, 1072 credits consumed…]

[Upgraded {Qi Fruit Production [B]} -> {Qi Fruit Production [A]}]

To see that one of his most valuable and versatile spells had upgraded to A grade filled Ashlock with anticipation. Last time he had gained the ability to add seeds, a power he hadn\'t fully tapped into, but his roots would soon reach the baby demonic trees, and he would find out the fruits of his labor.

As the information flooded his mind on the potential of his upgraded skill, he opened the production menu. Sure enough, a new option had been added.

He could now perform alchemy, meaning he could create pills, but with his fruit. Unlike his other fruit, which grew from his branches, these cauldron fruits grew from the ground via his roots.

Despite the situation, Ashlock decided to try growing one. His Star Core pulsed with power, and in real-time, Ashlock watched as a round black fruit that seemed to have a hard shell emerged from the ground, drawing both the girl\'s attention.

They both got up from their cultivation and wandered over.

The large black fruit came to their waists and had an open top like a cauldron filled with lilac fire.

"Tree, what is this?" Stella asked, looking toward Ashlock with a confused expression.

"Maybe it helps us cultivate?" Diana tapped her chin, "Or does it shoot fireballs at intruders? That would be very useful right now..."

Sadly, that was far from the case. The system always gave him useful skills, just rarely perfect for the present situation. But he could see the vast potential of his now upgraded fruit production skill.

He could picture it now... the courtyard filled with expert alchemists gathered around his cauldron fruit, throwing in ingredients and letting him merge them into the perfect pills.

Did he mention that this skill produced the highest-grade pills from the provided ingredients due to his soul flame\'s purity? What if he threw his own truffles and fruit filled with his skills into the cauldron?

Maybe Ashfallen was destined to become an alchemist sect? It would be an excellent way to bring in some profits since all the spirit ore had been mined.

He needed to tell the girls about it as they were still standing near the cauldron fruit, looking baffled, and they were wasting time. As enemies awaited at their doorstep, now was not a good time to dawdle on alchemy.

It was regrettable, but Ashlock used one of the corpses through {Root Puppet} to write with blood on the wall. Stella stood for a while, glaring at the words as if struggling to piece them together. But after consulting her notes, she finally understood.

"Alchemy furnace?" Stella twirled around on her foot and looked at the lone fruit, "That thing is for alchemy?"

She turned to Diana, "Do you know anything about alchemy?"

Diana shrugged, "Not a whole lot. It was never really my thing."

"You don\'t even know the most novice information about it?" Stella seemed skeptical. "I literally know nothing about alchemy, so anything you know would be useful."

"Oh, of course, you know nothing about a super common topic." Diana rolled her eyes, "Simple answer is a cultivator uses their flames and carefully combines ingredients in the heat of their soul flame."

"That is indeed a simple answer." Stella narrowed her eyes.

Diana sighed, returned to the cauldron fruit, and looked down at the lilac flames within, "Usually, alchemy is done within a furnace of some kind. So I guess this is the furnace? But why are there already flames?"

"Well... maybe Tree will perform the alchemy for us?" Stella frowned, "Is that even possible."

Diana shrugged, "Who knows?"

"You don\'t seem very enthusiastic about this." Stella pouted, "Wouldn\'t alchemy be great for us? Why aren\'t you more excited?"

"Maybe because we are in the middle of a war with one of our clanmates half-dead and the other missing?" Diana retorted and gestured to Larry, "Without that spider and the squirrel off somewhere, it\'s just the two of us without much Qi left and the tree verses, possibly the entire Evergreen and Winterwrath families."

"Oh." Stella looked toward the ajar door to the pavilion, "That does make sense..."

Diana immediately sat back down and got into a crosslegged position, "If you don\'t want to die, stop worrying about alchemy and get to cultivating."

Stella glared at Diana briefly before sitting down with a huff, "Fine."

Ashlock was glad Diana refocused Stella. She always got far too distracted by anything concerning him and was quickly drawn to new shiny things. In contrast, Diana was more goal-orientated and focused on the task at hand.

With the girls cultivating again, Ashlock also focused back on himself. The missing fragment of his soul needed more investigating, and he also needed to test something.

Could he use Qi outside his body now that he had become a Star Core cultivator?