Lord Shadow - Chapter 1998 1998: A Tree

This time she is not communicating with anyone trying to see the future or anything like that.

This time she is simply trying to remember the recipe.

She has seen so many things and some memories need to be stored in different places and only when it is necessary will it be brough up.

Though mostly Erika uses this kind of method to hide her thoughts.

People like Hirate like to probe into people’s minds.

And powerful beings like Azief even though their specialties are not reading minds, they could if they wanted to.

It might not be as proficient or as elegant as people who studied it, but they could if they wanted to.

Erika method of separating her memories and compartmentalizing it is also a method that Loki always uses

All of these are methods to hide their thoughts. It is a way to hide secrets.

In the future, there is even people adept at hacking minds

For now, the term of hacking minds only appears around psychic-based powers, and they are still grasping in the dark

But in the future, even those who use other paths could learn this method of hacking minds.

Erika is an exception. To try to hack her mind now, it would be like trying to see the entirety of the scenery behind the Veil

All of it.

No one could see all of it and come out of it unscathed.

But if a Mind Hacker only seeks to seek a few information in her mind, if she did not prepare, if she did not hide the thoughts in other thoughts, there is a high chance that some information would leak out.

Now that she had to remember it back, it took some time

Then she opens her eyes and she smiles

“I got it”

“You have to grind the fruit and then eat it. You have to ground the leaf with the fruit, only then you eat it. Use some bonding runes to bond the magical properties of those two. Then you can mix it water, eat it raw, or even fried it. It does not matter”

“It’s not normal ingredient. The nutrients and the magic would not dissipate if you stirred fried it or eat it raw. Depends on your preference, really” Azief finishes Erika words.

And Erika smiles

“You remember?”

“Bits and pieces” Erika only nods.

Azief then looked at the tree again. There are many leaves and there are also a few small fruits hanging from the branches.

But none of them have runes. The blessed runic fruit. That is the ingredients

However, it is not there

“Where’s the fruit?”

“Not there yet”

Erika mutters and Azief frowned

“What do you mean?”

“Everything has a price. For a runic fruit to be born in a short time, you need to pay the price”

Azief eyes narrow and Katarina hearing this also did not feel good. Anything that involves a price is something that is not good.

Azief was only silent for a second before he asked

“What is the price then?”

“One rune. Out of the many runes you know, you must sacrifice it. Once you sacrifice it, you could not use that rune until the fruit is fully digested by you. In a way, this is a delayed action. It did not entirely strip you of the power of the runes. It just forbids you from using that rune”

Azief hearing this could not help but narrow his eyes.

Things could not be that simple. He knows all about the price. Nothing is ever that simple.

Azief looked at Erika and asked

“How will I decide which rune to sacrifice?”

“You would know when you touch the tree and communicate your intention. It might not speak human language, but it does speak. And for those who bother to listen, they would understand it”

Azief closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded

If he keeps delaying things, all the plans he had put on Pandemonium might spiral out of control.

There are many things that he did not expect to happen, happen.

And he wonders if there is something else, he has forgotten.

That is the most terrifying part of this affliction.

Before he left Earth, there were many countermeasures that he had left behind on Earth.

The thing is, he did not know if he remembered all of it.

And doing things when he has already made some plans may make things worse

Since that is the case, the priority is to expel this affliction from his body

Azief no longer hesitates.

He walks to the tree.

And then he experiences it.

To anyone else watching, it would look like Azief is just walking to the tree

And there is nothing wrong with it.

But Azief felt differently.

Each step he takes, he is transformed from inside out

The energy that is gathered in the tree seems to rush towards him from the ground.

There is no obstruction.

The energy in the tree seems to correspond with something in him

There is only one thing in his energy that could roil up and agitate the energy of this tree. It is that one leaf in his Inner World.

The energy surges toward him without stopping and he felt the vitality of life that seems to stave off the foggy feeling he had felt since he escaped from the Time and Space continuum tunnel

As he walks closer to the tree and breathes the air around the tree, he could not help but feel like his entire body is being cleansed and his mind becoming even more clear.

And he arrived in front of the tree.

There is only one inch between him and the tree trunks.

Around the trees, there are glowing elementals flying around the trees like some kind of forest nymphs.

Not many people could see these elementals flying around, hovering, floating around this tree.

Unless you have open up your eyes and could see the circulation of energy and the energy of heaven and earth, you would not be able to see these elementals swimming and flying around the tree.

Azief only smiles at this and then he puts his palm onto the trunk.

The moment he did that, he seemed to be transported into a Mindscape.

All he could see was white landscape

In that Mindscape, the tree spoke to him, he nodded and he understood.

The moment he enters this Mindscape, the thought of the tree appears inside his mind, and he knows which runes he needs to give

Until the day the affliction is truly over, only then will the rune he had sacrificed is restored.

There is a price to be paid.

And this price is steep.

The tree did not appear in front of him.

He had half expected that he would see a tree.

This is based on some of his experience and some of the stories he had heard when people meet such entity

In some worlds, trees are a powerful medium.

And sometimes they are more than just a medium, they themselves are magical creatures. After all, they are living beings

In some worlds, there is even a treant like race who is basically walking trees. Walking and talking trees

And in some other worlds, a tree could shelter a world and even hold up the sky for the beings living there

And some of the story he had heard sometimes, if someone met a tree that has magical energy and they drag you into their Mindscape, they usually appear in their preferred forms.

Of course, just like how humans could not understand the aesthetic of a tree, a tree does not understand the aesthetic of a person and so their true form is usually just an image of the tree

That is what he had expected to see

He clearly did not expect to see only white landscape and for a moment Azief only looked around him

He did not say anything and instead tries to summon any outside energy.

But he could not feel anything.

He is not panicked.

Because his premonition told him this is not something danger

Instead, he looks around

He is standing right now. But it did not feel like he is standing on solid ground even though he is standing without any problem

Though one must not think too much in a Mindscape. After all, it is in the mind. This is like a telepathic mind space.

Logic like physics did not make sense here. It depends on your imagination.

If Azief is allowed control he could create anything he wants in this Mindscape.

After a while, his eyes adjusted to the area.

For as far as his eyes could see, all he sees is white background.

Some people once described themselves as being swallowed by darkness when one enters a room so dark that you could even see yourself.

Azief right now felt like he was being swallowed by this white landscape

There are no trees, no leaf, no wind, no grass, only a scene of eternal whiteness all around him.

If being surrounded and enclosed in darkness is a terrifying prospect, then being enclosed and surrounded by eternal and almost pure whiteness is also terrifying

Though, this is not the time to think about this kind of thing.

..