Chapter 1018: World Tree

The next morning, Strax found Scathach occupying practically the entire table in the mansion’s small private library. When he entered, sheets of paper were spread from one side to the other, several ink bottles were open, and at least three different quills had been left near her hand.

Scathach was bent over a thicker piece of paper, drawing a sequence of lines with a slowness completely at odds with how effortlessly she normally did anything. Every stroke was placed with absolute attention, and Strax realized immediately that this was not some simple exercise.

She was genuinely writing down everything she could remember.

He did not interrupt her.

He pulled out a chair on the other side of the table and watched as Scathach finished a rune made of five lines crossing at different angles. Beside it, she wrote a few words in common language, then added a smaller note underneath.

Only then did she move on to the next symbol.

Some runes were relatively simple, made of only a few strokes, while others looked like tiny diagrams compressed into a surprisingly small space.

"How long have you been doing this?" Strax asked after a while.

"Since before sunrise."

"You could’ve called me."

"And you could’ve learned this when you were younger."

Strax stared at her for several seconds.

"I was busy not knowing you were alive."

Scathach stopped writing.

Slowly turned her face toward him.

"Fair."

He let out a quiet laugh and went back to watching her work.

As the pages accumulated, Strax began to realize Scathach was not simply drawing symbols and writing translations beside them.

Every rune came with explanations about direction, mana flow, stroke order, and, in some cases, very specific warnings about combinations that should never be attempted without preparation.

When she finished another page, Scathach pushed it aside and pointed to one of the first runes.

"This means permanence."

Strax studied the drawing.

"Simple."

"It isn’t."

"It has four lines."

"And you can destroy your own arm with three of them if you put the fourth at the wrong angle."

"I understand."

"You don’t look like you do."

Scathach pointed to another.

"This one is associated with resistance. Not physical resistance directly. It’s closer to the idea of remaining whole when faced with an external force."

"That sounds useful."

"Because it is."

She moved her finger to the next one.

"This is bond."

Strax frowned.

"Bond with what?"

"With whatever is defined in the complementary structure. A person, a weapon, a bloodline, an authority. On its own, it does almost nothing."

"So runes work like words."

"I already told you they do."

"But some need context."

Scathach finally looked satisfied.

"Now you’re starting to understand. A single rune can carry a concept, but it rarely expresses a complete intention. That’s why larger inscriptions work like sentences. Some are practically contracts written in a language mana can understand."

Strax began looking at the pages with a different kind of interest.

Before, he had imagined individual symbols distributed across his body, each one strengthening a specific characteristic.

That could still work, but now he realized the real usefulness might be in combining concepts until they formed complete instructions.

Scathach saw exactly when that idea appeared.

"No."

Strax looked up.

"I didn’t even say anything."

"Your face did."

"That’s irritating."

"You’re thinking about creating sequences."

"Maybe."

"Learn each symbol individually first."

Strax rested his chin on one hand.

"How many do you know?"

Scathach looked at the pages.

"From memory? A little over a hundred."

"A little?"

"There used to be thousands."

Strax went quiet.

She kept writing.

"Many were lost along with ancient bloodlines. Others belonged to specific Dragons and could not be reproduced by just anyone. Some didn’t even have complete written representations; they were transmitted through racial memory."

"So these are all general?"

"Most of them."

"Most?"

Scathach smiled without looking up.

"Some are mine."

Strax immediately pulled one of the sheets closer.

"Which ones?"

She tapped his fingers with the quill.

"Don’t be greedy."

"You just said some are yours."

"And that doesn’t mean they’ll work on you."

"But I want to see them."

"Later."

Strax returned the sheet reluctantly.

The work continued for most of the morning.

At one point, a servant entered to bring coffee and found the two of them surrounded by so many pages that she decided not to ask any questions.

Scathach drank while writing, occasionally stopping to remember some variation or correct a line that had not come out precisely enough.

Strax, meanwhile, began organizing the sheets into groups according to meaning: body, energy, element, identity, bond, perception, protection, stability, and more abstract concepts.

It was close to noon when Scathach finally put the quill down.

She flexed her fingers a few times and looked at the amount of paper piled in front of them.

"Done."

Strax looked up.

"Everything?"

"Everything I’m willing to put on paper without starting to write things that will probably kill you just from trying to experiment with them."

"So not everything."

"Everything you need."

She began gathering the pages and arranged them in a specific order.

Then she took a larger sheet on which she had created something like an index, linking each symbol to its name and approximate meaning in common language.

Scathach pushed the entire set toward him.

"Here."

Strax accepted the pages with considerably more care than he normally showed with documents.

The first page contained some of the simplest runes.

Flow. Permanence. Resistance. Bond. Conduction. Containment. Amplification. Identity. Flesh. Blood. Bone. Spirit.

Farther on came elemental concepts, but not in the way humans normally represented fire or ice.

Scathach’s notes described states and behaviors:

Consume.

Freeze.

Preserve.

Break.

Expand.

Condense.

There was a lot to study.

Strax slowly flipped through the pages.

"You really wrote all of them."

"All the ones I consider useful for what you’re trying to do."

He found a rune that looked much more complex.

"And this one?"

Scathach looked.

"Authority."

Strax stopped.

"That looks important."

"It’s also one of the ones I recommend you don’t touch yet."

"Naturally."

"I’m serious."

"So am I."

She stared at him for several seconds before shaking her head.

"That’s the most I can do for you on this part. I can correct your inscriptions, teach you conceptual pronunciation, and stop you from writing something completely stupid. But the ink..."

Scathach pointed at him.

"...is your problem."

Strax nodded.

"Fair."

"You’ll need to figure out how your demonic draconic energy reacts to your own scales after they’re separated from your body. Depending on the result, you may need some kind of alchemical stabilizer."

"Frieren."

Scathach grimaced.

"Maybe."

"She’ll like it."

"That is exactly why I’m concerned."

Strax laughed and carefully organized the pages before storing them inside a small spatial bag.

As simple as they looked, that information was probably worth more than many artifacts scattered across the continent.

Not only because of the knowledge itself, but because Scathach had spent hours reconstructing from memory a fragment of the draconic language that could otherwise have vanished along with other bloodlines.

He stood.

"Thanks, Mom."

Scathach, who had started closing the ink bottles, paused for a moment.

"You’re welcome."

Strax looked at her and then remembered their earlier conversation.

"Want anything in return?"

Scathach raised her eyes.

"In return?"

"You spent the whole morning doing this for me. Some kind of reward."

She opened her mouth immediately, as though she intended to say she did not need anything, but then stopped.

Her gaze shifted briefly toward the side of the room and, to Strax’s surprise, a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.

He frowned.

"Why are you turning red?"

"I’m not."

"You are."

Scathach became redder.

Strax started getting suspicious.

"Mom."

She slowly exhaled and idly played with one of the quills on the table.

"It’s something simple."

"Then say it."

Scathach hesitated for a few more seconds before finally looking at him.

"Can we take a bath together?"

...

The small manifestation of the tree remained exactly where it had first appeared, at the edge of Asgard’s western experimental farmlands.

At first glance, there was nothing about it that justified all of Monica’s concern.

The trunk was only slightly wider than an arm, the crown reached only a few meters in height, and green leaves grew from thin branches that swayed gently in the wind.

If someone passed by without knowing what existed beneath the ground, they would probably assume it was just a young tree that had somehow managed to grow in soil where almost no other plant could thrive.

The problem was everything around it.

The earth across a considerable radius remained dark, moist, and fertile.

Small sprouts that had barely managed to survive only days earlier had grown at an abnormal speed, while the mana in the region circulated far more steadily than in the rest of the farmlands.

Farther away, several stakes marked points where Beatrice and her team had detected roots close to the surface.

That was only a fraction of what actually existed.

The surveys indicated that the underground structure spread beneath practically all of Asgard, from one end to the other, with branches passing beneath neighborhoods, roads, railways, and military facilities.

Frieren stood in front of the tree for a long time.

Monica remained a few steps behind her, holding Beatrice’s report folder under one arm.

Since leaving the laboratory, she had explained everything she knew: how Strax had discovered the subterranean presence by accident, how a root had emerged after he touched that energy through the authority inherited from Hades, and how the surrounding soil had changed almost immediately.

She also told her about the later measurements and the discovery that what had first seemed to be a single root was actually part of a network so vast that no one had yet found its limits.

Frieren had barely said anything during the walk.

That was beginning to bother Monica.

"So?" she finally asked. "You said you knew about trees."

"I do."

"And?"

Frieren did not answer immediately.

She crouched near the trunk and ran her fingers through the soil.

She picked some up, brought it closer to her face, studied the texture, then let the earth fall again.

After that, she touched one of the small plants growing around the tree.

Her eyes narrowed as she felt mana moving through the leaves.

"It isn’t just fertility," she murmured.

Monica approached.

"Beatrice reached the same conclusion."

Frieren held the leaf between two fingers.

"The plant is receiving what it needs."

"What does that mean?"

"It means exactly that. There’s no excess mana. No excessive nutrients. It isn’t being forced to grow."

Frieren released the leaf and looked around.

"Something is identifying the organism’s condition and delivering an appropriate amount of energy and nutrients."

Monica made an uncomfortable expression.

"As though it’s taking care of the plants."

"Maybe."

"I’d prefer a less concerning answer."

"So would I."

Frieren stood.

She slowly walked around the tree, studying every visible part.

There was something different in her posture now.

The academic curiosity was still there, but it was not the same excitement she showed around homunculi or some new magical structure.

She looked like she was trying to confirm a possibility she did not want confirmed.

Monica noticed.

"You recognized something."

"I’m not sure."

"Frieren."

"If I say something before I’m certain, you’ll start making twenty contingency plans."

"I already have twenty."

Frieren looked at her.

Monica kept a serious expression.

"I’ll probably make another twenty anyway."

"Fair."

Frieren approached the trunk again.

This time, she did not study the bark with her eyes.

She placed her palm against it.

At first, nothing happened.

Monica waited.

Frieren closed her eyes and let a minimal amount of demonic mana escape through her hand.

Since her transformation, she no longer possessed the same natural affinity she had once had as an elf, but that did not mean she had forgotten how to perceive plant structures.

For much of her former life, sensing trees, roots, and natural mana networks had been as ordinary as breathing.

The energy touched the trunk.

And disappeared.

Frieren opened her eyes.

"Absorbed it?" Monica asked.

"No."

She frowned and tried again.

This time she sent a little more.

The sensation that returned made her entire body stiffen.

The mana had not been absorbed.

It had been accepted.

Then returned.

Not as pure energy, but accompanied by something Frieren could not immediately understand.

An impression.

An amount of information so absurd that her mind caught only fragments before instinctively breaking contact.

Roots.

Not a few dozen.

Not thousands.

A network that seemed to have no end.

Underground layers crossed by living structures far older than the buildings above them.

Mana entering through roots, being filtered, reorganized, and returned to the soil.

Water conducted across impossible distances.

Nutrients redistributed.

Small forms of life appearing and disappearing around a central structure that remained deeply asleep.

And beneath all of it...

Something enormous.

Frieren went completely still.

Monica noticed immediately.

"Frieren?"

No answer.

Her fingers remained against the trunk, but all color had drained from her face.

She tried to follow the network for one more instant and found something that should not have existed there.

A signature far too ancient to belong to any ordinary tree.

A natural mana structure that elves knew only through stories, incomplete records, and fragments preserved across generations.

Frieren tore her hand away from the trunk.

Took one step back.

Monica immediately moved closer.

"What happened?"

Frieren did not answer.

Her eyes remained fixed on the small tree.

She looked at the thin trunk, the few branches, those completely ordinary leaves.

Then she looked at the green expanse of recovered farmland around them.

It made no sense.

Not at that scale.

Not with that appearance.

Monica noticed Frieren was breathing more slowly, as though still organizing what she had just felt.

"You went pale."

"I know."

"Is that bad?"

Frieren remained silent.

Monica felt irritation starting to mix with concern.

"Frieren."

The former elf finally turned toward her.

"Are you sure Strax didn’t plant this?"

"He found it kilometers underground."

"It wasn’t a seed he brought?"

"No."

"Not some artifact?"

"No."

"He didn’t spill draconic blood here, bury some relic, or do any of the absurd things he usually does and forget to mention it?"

"As far as I know, no."

Frieren looked back at the tree.

Monica tightened her grip on the folder.

"You know what it is."

This time, it was not a question.

Frieren approached again but did not touch the trunk.

Her eyes traveled across every visible detail as though she were now looking at something completely different from what she had seen a few minutes earlier.

"When I was an elf, I heard stories about them," she finally said. "Most were treated as myths even among us. Ancient records exist, but they’re few and contradictory. Some cultures called them Living Pillars. Others called them Primordial Roots. The oldest elves had another name."

Monica felt a bad sensation growing in her stomach.

"What name?"

Frieren took a few seconds.

"World Tree."

Monica went still.

The wind crossed the farmland, making the small crown sway in front of them.

"You’re saying this thing..."

"No."

Frieren cut her off before she could finish.

"I’m saying I still need to confirm it."

Monica slowly exhaled.

"Great."

"But there’s a problem."

"Naturally."

Frieren looked at the hand that had touched the trunk.

Even after breaking contact, she could still feel a kind of echo running through her fingers.

"Ordinary trees distribute mana through their roots. Spiritual trees can interact with the environment. Some ancient trees can even develop limited perception."

She raised her eyes toward Monica.

"This one is doing all of those things at the same time, on a scale I’ve never seen."

Monica thought about Beatrice’s map.

"From one end of Asgard to the other."

"Probably farther."

"Farther?"

"Beatrice only mapped the territory she was able to measure."

That did not help.

Monica ran a hand over her face.

"I knew that tree was too convenient."

Frieren ignored the complaint.

She moved her hand toward the trunk again, but stopped before touching it.

For the first time since Monica had known her, there was genuine hesitation in the researcher when faced with something unknown.

That was far more concerning than excitement.

"When I touched it," Frieren explained, "I could only feel part of the network. It lasted less than an instant, but it felt as though my consciousness was being pulled through the roots. There was no hostility. It simply... responded."

"Responded how?"

"I don’t know."

"You just said it responded."

"Not with words."

Frieren slowly closed her fingers.

"It was like touching something asleep and realizing it knows you’re there."

Monica became completely quiet.

That sentence immediately joined the list of things she wished she had never heard.

"Is it conscious?"

"I didn’t say that."

"But it could be."

"It could."

Monica looked at the small tree.

For several seconds, that manifestation lost every trace of harmlessness it had possessed before.

Not because it changed, but because it was now impossible to ignore what might be hidden kilometers beneath their feet.

"The most important question," Monica said, "is whether this poses a danger to Asgard."

Frieren took time to answer.

"I don’t know."

At least it was honest.

Monica pressed her lips together.

"That goes into the report as the worst possible answer."

"Would you prefer me to invent one?"

"No."

Frieren finally worked up the nerve to touch the tree again.

This time, she did not send mana.

She simply rested her palm against the bark, almost in an ancient gesture her body remembered better than her current demonic nature did.

Nothing happened.

She stayed that way for several seconds.

Then she felt a pulse.

Very faint.

So deep it could have been mistaken for a distant tremor.

Frieren froze.

The tree in front of her did not move.

Even so, something traveled through the ground beneath her feet.

The plants around it tilted their leaves slightly in the same direction for a single instant before returning to normal.

Monica saw it.

"What was that?"

Frieren slowly pulled her hand away.

This time, she made no attempt to hide her expression.

Her face went white.

She looked at Monica.

"This is a World Tree."