Chapter 128: Chapter. 113: The Source

We weren’t close to anything. The Light Maker did map the area, and there were numerous other Blight Corrupted plants but nothing that would exactly point out a certain direction. Instead, two different directions were marked for exploration. Soon after, we returned to the base, which was still a strange thing to me. There were lots of things to think about for me, mostly just where the source of the Blight could really be?

My Prophecy was C grade now, and I could communicate with plants a bit better, or so I felt. It was due to the affinity being in the third tier. However, there was also something that made me annoyed, and it was something I had to ask.

“Do you people even know where Blight Corruption even comes from?”

He looked at me for a second before replying. “That is what I am trying to find out.”

“I mean it more like, who made it?”

This time, he averted his gaze and took a few seconds to think. He seemed to be deliberating on whether to say it or not, but I did pick up on the fact that: he did know who made it.

“I’ll tell you.” He sighed. “A Monarch, A grade being, calls himself the Blood Drinker or something like that.”

“Hence⁠—”

“Hence, it’s not particularly possible to force the information out of him. Think of this as disaster prevention. If someone grabs the blight and moves it elsewhere, then it might just be a catastrophe.” He looked at the ceiling. “Think of it as trying to save lives rather than something else.”

I nodded. “I’ll see if I can come up with something to find it.”

He shook his head. “There is nothing you can come up with, but you can try. In the end, there is only the brute force method, which is to slowly scan through the massive forest and find it.”

I paused. “Right, how big is the forest anyway? The inner forest isn’t particularly big from what I can tell, but what about the outside forest?”

“Hm, it's about ten times the size of the inner forest? I mean, the treant is in the middle of the inner forest, yeah? But if you were to look at a map, then the inner forest isn’t exactly in the middle of all the forest.” He explained. “In reality we haven’t covered much ground if at all. I theorize it’s going to be deeper into the forest, rather than outer. Hence there is only one direction to pick out of the two.”

“So one leads us further into the forest and the other out of it?” I asked with increasing curiosity.

“Exactly.” He stood up and walked to the table. “Here let me show you.”

With a few touches of the table I saw the lush forest, and I saw the patch of black that the inner forest was. As the map became bigger, I noticed that⁠— the inner forest was offset to the side, meanwhile the entire forest was like an oval splooch, with only one small side belonging to the inner forest. Then he zoomed and marked a place that was off to the side of the inner forest, it sort of faced the rest of the forest. Though I couldn’t help but notice that there were black spots throughout the forest.

“That’s where we are currently,” he said. “If you notice, most directions only lead to outside of the forest rather than something else.”

“They do.” I agreed as I studied the map. Taking note of important places such as the inner forest being up north, and north-east being the direction of the center of the normal forest.

“Well, that’s sort of the situation, Realm Breaker. Hopefully this makes you understand it better.”

“It does. Though, why are there things that look like the inner forest in other parts of the forest?”

“Well, the inner forest tries to spread and makes islands of death. They follow a line outside of the forest.” Oh, like that line. “Any other questions?”

“No.”

He gave me a small nod. “That’s good. I’ll go now. Ah, tomorrow we do the same thing. Once a day, remember that.” His voice echoed as the door closed.

Naturally, I remembered that, it was agreed on after all. Still, I was also curious about things, mostly how to find the Blight and at the same time the comment of The Light Maker regarding a C grade Dark plant affinity user being helpful. I had a C grade Prophecy, I was unsure if that would be enough but I had to at least try something. At the same time, the fact that another A grade being was involved bothered me a lot⁠—

Now there was: Lumina, Elasia The Illusionist, and the so-called Blood Drinker. That⁠— well, considering the circumstances of how I met Elasia, I understood that there was more despair than happiness to be had. One didn’t just become A Grade from being nice, and if that was the case then, unlike Lumina or Elasia who had a reason to give me mercy, this person did not.

The sooner I left the planet, the better.

I took a deep breath as I stared at the trial objectives.

[Trial Objective: M̸̩̓a̷͎͛k̴͍̔e̸̹͑ ̴̣̽a̵͝ͅn̷̦͒ ̷̛͖A̸͍̓r̵̭̚ṯ̴̒i̵͇͒f̶̣͊i̷̞͋ç̷̉ī̶̟a̸̳͝l̷̝̆ ̷̱̊H̵͎̑e̵͕̎a̸̝̔r̷̨̃t̷̠̋.]

[Sub-Objective: Secure material known as Blight. Hint: Plant based.]

[Emergency Objective: Protect the Great Encyclopedia of the Dark from the Blight Corrupted Asbes Treant.]

In the end, all I had to do was make the dumb Artificial Heart. I was unsure about how the Asbes Treant played into everything, but in my eyes it was nothing more than a guardian to protect the book. And a dumb one at that considering I still had the book on me.

I just have to finish the trial.

I took a deep breath and headed for the outside. I knew the locations of interest now.

◇ ◇ ◇

First thing I did was swing by the Blight Corrupted tree, but any attempt at touching it was met with aggressiveness. Showing it my mana just caused it to get worse. It was as if the tree didn’t want anything to do with dark plants. Which was something that I found strange, and took note of.

The normal dark plants of the forest were unreactive to my presence ⁠— to anyone’s presence really ⁠— and giving them my mana did not allow me to communicate or ask absolutely anything. I thought for a few moments before deciding that I had to go to the inner forest, even though walking in the direction of the treant was something that I found a bit unsettling. I no longer had the security of being able to win a fight against whatever monster of the forest.

It was a bit annoying to not be able to use a treant, or try to make a treant due to the fact that The Light Maker could very well search for me and stumble upon something that was best not seen. Even if the death of the treant was incredibly painful, it was a useful companion and a great tool that I was now unable to use. It sucked.

◇ ◇ ◇

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I stood before the inner forest, the wretched plants remained the same, but my presence seemed different to them. In the past, they would sort of avoid me, and now they would pretend I didn’t exist ⁠— it was certainly a change, even if I was unsure of what type of change. But I hadn’t really come to the inner forest to admire it.

With a small head shake, I stepped into the inner forest, my boots squelched on the wet ground and the visibility was poor. The moonlight that filtered through the greenery was strong and piercing. Thinking about it, it always seemed to be night, which bothered me to some extent. My eyes moved around looking at the different plants before landing on a very dangerous tree. The ones with jagged thorns and venom coating on its bark.

I approached it without care and with simple relaxation, none of the plants reacted. When I stood at an arm’s length distance, I finally decided to stretch my hand and touch upon its bark with mana. The tree did not recoil or try to resist as I felt my mana enter its insides, it was softly guided to its core, where it connected.

“You’ve been here before.” The tree spoke. “Yes, you were rejected by everyone for being too weak, but more importantly because you lacked the qualities of a ruler. You still kind of do, even if it's to a lesser extent…”

It was a nice revelation to know that basically every single tree could speak in the inner forest ⁠— at least I assumed ⁠— however, it was also annoying that in my experiences I had been looked down on every single time. I wasn’t strong so I supposed that it just made sense.

Then, why accept my touch this time around?

“I’m sure you have noticed as well, the first seed has moved. And now, there is a foreign entity in the middle of the forest. We are all on guard.”

I paused. The treant was⁠— no, it was corrupted, of course the forest would turn on it.

So, the forest also wants it gone.

“That is correct, and based on your feelings just now it can be deduced that we are not the only ones that want it gone.”

I nodded. I am trying to get rid of the source of the corruption, but I require some information.

“Hm, if you promise us that the thing will be gone, then we shall comply. You have the marks of a ruler after all.”

It shall be gone. I want to know where the most monsters are, as in where they generally come from. The strongest and most aggressive ones. The corrupted ones.

“Ah… I understand. Yes, the ones that feel just as foreign as the one in the middle of the forest. Yes, the forest shall show you the way. And protect you too…”

Before I could ask anything, my mana was ejected and I heard the plants shift with a rattle behind me. I turned only to be met with a much clear path that traveled along the inner forest. I was unsure if it was right to promise that the treant would be gone, but at the same time if I was going to revive Lumina then I had to cross the hurdle that was the treant.

What am I even doing?

I shook my head as I headed down the clear marked path. All the plants beckoned me forward with small waves, and hisses, though they were soft and gentle. I guess, I was now on their side to some extent.

◇ ◇ ◇

Hours passed as I traversed. There were no monsters. And I couldn’t help but look at the time.

[Trial Period: 26 days 23 hours 42 minutes]

About three hours had passed since I left the base. I wondered for a bit if it wasn’t too much time, but I couldn’t exactly just head back and not see the end of the path. The plants had become much more scarce and I had long left the inner forest, instead I found myself following a trail of dark plants, or well the dark grass.

I would see vines peek every now and then just to show me that they were still there. I found it confusing, but after another hour or so I reached a small forest of dark plants. Much like the ones the maps had shown me. The plants moved ever so slightly to give way, only to show me a tree. It was similar to the last one I had touched and I had a weird inner feeling.

Does it want to be touched?

The plants beckoned once more, and this time I listened and connected myself with the tree.

“You’re here, good. Ahead, in the very same direction, the end of the forest is. That is the source of the monsters.”

Outside of the forest⁠— so the monsters do not come from the forest?

“They do not. Good luck, Royal Seedling.”

My mana was ejected once more. And the plants guided once more only to point at the normal dark plant forest, but it wasn’t particularly lush and a lot of plants looked dead. With some hesitation I moved myself forward, and walked for what felt like just a few seconds before I saw the end of the forest.

And that’s when I noticed that the plants surrounding me, the ones at the end of it were all black and dead, corrupted by blight. At the end, past the edge there was only a long desert with black markings, and just as I sidestepped around a bush, I finally saw something.

It was like a long pillar, with relatively small branches. But I also felt a weird familiarity to it, a familiarity of dark plants. Was that? My mind paused. At that moment I saw the sand of the desert explode forth and dozens of monsters ran towards me.

[Blight Corrupted Lycan. Lvl. 142]

[Blight Corrupted Wolfe. Lvl. 115]

[Blight Corrupted Lycan. Lvl. 131]

My eyes wandered to the towering plant.

The source of the Corruption. A sapling.

[U̷̮̽ǹ̶̤͜k̴̩͙̽̓n̷̳̊̇ô̷͔̰ẃ̸̙ń̶̗̽ Corrupted Sapling.]