Chapter 35: Thirty-Three: A Story About a Tree

I sat in anticipation as I watched Master fidget with something in her hands.

She requested silence, so I obviously complied. We were in a library anyways.

After a couple of minutes of intense focus, she let out a breath.

“Okay, I’m done.”

She extended her hands toward me.

“Check it out.”

‘Wow,” I said unconsciously, quickly covering my mouth as I realized.

In her hands was what looked to be a hologram made of smoke and gold. There were clear images being formed and moving upon its surface.

“Haha,” Master laughed at my actions. “You can talk now. It’s fine."

"This is my prop to help me tell the story, " She said as she waved the hologram. “ But it takes a lot of concentration to talk and manipulate this at the same time, so just listen and hold on to your questions till the end, okay?”

“Okay.”

—⁕????⁕—

 

Long ago, at a time before time itself, there was nothing. Everything was darkness and void. And then came something. It's unknown how it got there, where it came from, what it was, or why it was there. Some suspect that a higher being placed it there, while others think it itself was a higher being, bored and wanting to have some excitement. Others think it might be the manifestation of the void’s will itself. Whatever the case may be, it was there. 

An entity without form or reason.

The first being on a plane of absolute nothingness. The being wasn’t satisfied with it staying this way. So it made everything. The stars, the planets, the asteroids. It made it all. It even created the very souls that it would allow to inhabit its creation, scattering them across it.

For some reason or another, the being wasn’t still wasn’t content. It traveled to a far corner of the universe, a place where its creation had not yet reached.

It followed the same motions that it had done countless times before; grabbing some of the nothingness and forming it into a ball. Instead of funneling its energy into the ball of nothing like it had done numerous times before, the being took a different approach. It allowed the world to come to be, but only as a blank slate.

It pulled itself into a form, forgoing most of its power and sentience, it made itself similar to a creation that it made; a tree.  The being, now the tree, set upon making this new world, personally.

It quickly made its way to the newly formed world and got to work.

It dug its roots into the soil, invigorating the ground, causing exotic flora to blossom. Its roots shifted the land, giving way to mountains, hills, and valleys. The bristling of its leaves made the winds. The tree released its pheromones, making the clouds in the sky.  The tree’s sap birthed the seas. It shed some of its bark, becoming the creatures of the land, sea, and sky. It spread out its branches, grabbing lost souls whose lives had ended on other planets. The souls had began to wander the cosmos endlessly, with no destination in sight. 

Those souls, accepting the tree’s invitation, came to the world like heavy rain. They splashed everywhere, and with the tree’s influence, the souls gained bodies that matched their true selves. This gave rise to a multitude of sentient races. These races ranged from ordinary humans and stout dwarves to things like fairies and lizardfolk. 

Another effect of the tree’s reincarnation was Soulia. There were a total of six primordial elements that encaptured Soulia as a whole. These elements were fire, earth, air, water, light, and dark. Souls gained the ability to control and conjure these elements to varying degrees. Some souls even gain access to unique elements through the combination of the primordials. 

Most souls that were reborn gained access to at least one of the elements that resonated with their soul and be able to manifest the Soulia through different means later called concepts. 

For the first several thousands of years, the people lived together in harmony, all glad for the second chance of life given to them by the tree. With the use of Soulia and the diversity of the sentient species, great civilizations quickly formed throughout the world. There were vast cities built on the land of the continents. Towns began to populate the ocean floor. Some even created kingdoms in the sky.

You are reading story A Blooming Soul at novel35.com

But this peace was only temporary. The physical differences between the people began to create rifts. The differences in soul powers made those rifts even wider. Ideologies began to form. Tension began to rise. 

Eventually, there were four main factions.

 There were the Followers of the Tree, the Flamua, who worshiped the tree as the ultimate being. The species of their members varied, as only the faith of the tree, held any sway over them.

 The Imerza sought to rule the world and immerse themselves while pushing everyone below them. Their members were generally standard humanoids, like humans, some elves, and orcs.

 There was the Beasuha Conglomerate, who sought equality for all. They consisted of mostly beastkin. 

Finally, were the Nuedons, who consisted of anyone who wished to remain away from the squabbles of the rest.

The Imerza, consumed by their greed, set their eyes on the Beasuha. They began to rally against the Beastfolk, seeking to overtake their impressive empires and claim them for their own. They caused mass destruction but were unable to truly gain anything substantial. 

The Beasuha, who were enraged by the sudden attacks, responded in kind. They tried raiding some Imerza settlements but also obtained little success. Eventually, both sides figured out that they were at a stalemate.

In an effort to turn the tides, the Imerza royal family poured all their efforts into obtaining it. It is what they called the Elements of the Tree. These ‘Elements of the Tree’ are what they theorized allowed the tree to make the world and gave it life. 

They theorized that in order to access this power, one must have ample amounts of Soulia and the elements available only to the tree.

It was thought that the Elements of the Tree were life, death, and time. To gain these elements, one would simply eat one of the fruits hanging from the tree itself.

With their plan decided, the Imerza quickly set it into motion. They sent out several groups to preoccupy the Besuha forces while a small hit squad including the royal family marched towards the tree.

The tree had rooted itself in the center of one of the landmasses of the world during the creation process. The area surrounding it was teeming with life and thriving off of the abundance of Soulia.

The region was known as the Garden of Eden. The area was strictly guarded by the Flamua.

Not that this meant much to the Imerza hit squad, who ripped through the Flamua in their path, and eventually, they made it to the tree.

The royal family, consisting of the Emperor, the Empress, as well as their three children stepped up to the tree. They each plucked a fruit from the branches of the tree and eagerly bit into them.

The tree’s power quickly made its way into their bodies, boosting their Soulia exponentially. But the power was too much, and the royals’ bodies couldn’t handle it. The excess Soulia cause their bodies to explode, decimating the landscape.

The tree disappeared in the explosion, never to be seen again.

Some think that the explosion caused it to be flung out to the ocean, where it sunk to the bottom. They believe that the tree formed Hell around itself and hid at the lowest layer in order to recoup. 

With the tree gone, the levels of Soulia dropped dramatically, and the addition of new souls to the world slowed. Some were even lost, wandering the cosmos yet again without the guidance of the tree.

 The Flamua were all but wipe out. The Imerza royal family's failure, which would later be called the Beginning of the End, would lead to a cease-fire between the two warring factions.

The world fell into a depression. Everything was bleak.

That is until about two hundred years ago when a faint resonance could be felt within one’s soul. A feeling that grew stronger each and every day. A feeling that it was back. The tree had appeared once again.