RE: Life As A Tree

Rialyne didn't know why Cardisys was suddenly silent. But her question only lasted for a moment before he spoke again.

"Try placing the energy into the tree vacuoles."

"Place? How exactly am I supposed to place it into the vacuoles if I'm far away from the tree? You really don't know how this works, huh?" If Rialyne were human, she would be standing with her hands on her h.i.p.s, and her face would be turned to the side and donned with raised eyebrows.

"Uh, that is…" Cardisys trailed off and blanked out. 'What kind of system am I that I don't know?! Aren't I supposed to know everything about the tree and host system?!' He panicked for a moment as Rialyne contemplated the situation.

'That's surprising. He usually knows so much about the tree since he's the system, but I guess some things are unknown because he's only lived for less than a year? By the name of the energy, it's likely that it's something not come across very commonly. So it makes sense that Cardisys information is limited.'

After rationalizing with herself, she mentally nodded. "Okay! Let's try 'moving' this energy then!"

Centering her focus onto a unit of Fragmented God's Energy, Rialyne imagined the energy traveling to the tree. She expected the process to be tricky or involve multiple attempts and strategies before one worked. But instead, the energy flowed instantly to her vacuoles through the Cardinal System.

"EHH?!?!" Cardisys was in shock at the instantaneous process. His reaction made Rialyne laugh, but more than anything else, she felt great satisfaction.

"Now let's see how much I can store of this…. Cardisys!"

"Y-yes ma'am?!!"

"What the— Where the hell did that come from?! Ma'am? Are you okay there Cardi?"

"Er yes, storing. Let's see." The little cell seemingly bounced away in Rialyne's mind for a second before coming back to announce, "Infinite! It's infinite!" The place where depressions for his makeshift eyes glimmered in joy. "The energy took up basically no space at all! I almost couldn't detect it without tapping into the system!"

"Tapping into the system..? But you're the system Cardisys." A strange feeling arose in Rialyne. Since Cardisys had a personality and mind like a human, then was he merely a gatekeeper or manager of the inanimate system that allowed the functions of the tree?

'Perhaps that's why I get message announcements from leveling up or being hit by damage which don't seem to come from Cardisys… Huh…' She felt like she missing out on some puzzle piece here. But she didn't want to think too hard about it because her excitement overturned her d.e.s.i.r.e to do detective work.

"Okay! Here're we go, sending all the energy to the vacuoles!" She laughed in glee and mentally transported the Fragmented God's Energy to the tree.

With the last flower, she paused for a moment. 'Wait, I should check if I can bring it back too. What if the access doesn't work the other way around?!' Concerned, she immediately testing bringing back the energy from the vacuoles.

To her relief, there was no problem ferrying the energy back and forth. 'Ah right. I guess it's being treated like my usual energy stacks for Synthesis even though it doesn't have a limit bar like them.'

Pleased with how things turned out, she now understood how so many large monsters could survive in the valley with just this flower. They definitely didn't have vacuoles, but that didn't mean that creatures and monsters didn't have a way to store energy. If the storing process was half as easy for them as it was for her, then it was no wonder that they all grew to be so strong. The energy probably resided in their muscle and fat.

"So how did it go, Ria? Were you able to store them?" asked Kyferne, snapping Rialyne out of her thoughts.

"Oh sorry! I nearly forgot to continue communicating with you as well as Cardisys! I can store an unlimited amount!"

Kyferne angled his head to the side in a question. "Cardisys?"

Rialyne inwardly gasped at him picking up the unfamiliar name. 'Oh right! He can't speak to Cardisys! Ah, that's a shame. I feel like it would be pretty fun together. I wonder how they would interact…'

She mentally waved a 'hand' and replied, "That's just the name I gave to my tree…helper."

Kyferne blinked. "Er what? Tree helper? You have an assistant?"

"Well, sorta, I guess." She wasn't sure whether it would be good to let him know about her system interface. 'Even though we've been together for a while, and I probably can trust him, it's probably still not good enough. You never know what might happen. After all, it's still a mystery how I got here. And I'm pretty sure that other living beings don't have systems. At least none that I encountered…"

Resolving to keep Cardisys a secret for now, she lied that she just felt like naming the tree which acted according to her wishes in order to not be so lonely.

"So you're basically talking to yourself? Haha!" Kyferne chuckled heartily. Instead of being mad, Rialyne mentally breathed a sigh of relief. He totally bought her made up reason.

"Anyway, that's great you can store as much as you want. Can I try that some of that energy by the way? Is it even possible to split it? Since I don't need a whole unit that's equivalent to ten energy stacks. That might kill me!" he joked.

"Sure thing if I'm able!" piped Rialyne cheerfully. "I'll make sure not to accidentally give you too much in case your body can't handle it," she teased.

"Pft. Real funny. Good one," he responded sarcastically as a corner of his mouth briefly quirked up.

Smiling to herself, Rialyne took out one unit of Fragmented God's Energy, and it automatically filled up her energy stack capacity by ten. Making sure that she was choosing the God's Energy, she split it and sent a thread of the energy toward Ky. A rich sensation soon filled his core and entire body. Thrilled and mystified, he could feel himself bursting with vitality. Indeed, this must be the food of the gods!

Kyferne's heart thudded quicker in anticipation of all the opportunities the herzoldinne had possibly brought to them. Currently, one of Rialyne's energy stacks could replenish his health bar a few times over, and the potency of the stack increased as Rialyne grew.

Since it could be converted to energy stacks, it was likely that the Fragmented God's Energy would grow as she did. As long as the conversation rate remained constant, this pile of herzoldinne could last them both a lifetime!

Additionally, this was just the most inferior type of God's Energy, making them wonder what complete, pure God's Energy would be like instead. Rialyne didn't think too deeply upon this though. She was more than enough satisfied with what she had received today.

After seeing the wondrous expression on Kyferne's face, Rialyne carefully chewed upon the delicious energy in earnest. It was by far the most delectable taste she had ever encountered. She gobbled up more of the energy to refill her health bar from the fighting competition.

Unlike energy stacks that could only be used on herself through the Synthesis skill which restored 10% of her HP and MP, Fragmented God's Energy could directly be consumed without a skill, resulting in more precise rejuvenation.

But in her delight, like eating one's favorite sweet or dish, she over-consumed the energy. Once she realized this, she immediately halted in horror, thinking that she had wasted the precious Fragmented God's Energy.

Usually she would be able to tell if her HP bar was full, and her Synthesis skill wouldn't activate if she had full HP and MP. But because this energy wasn't connected to skill, nothing had stopped her.

When Rialyne looked at her HP bar, she was disappointed. As expected, her HP bar was full and didn't account for the extra vitality by displaying more than her base capacity. For a moment, she had been hopeful that the energy of a legendary ranked would provide a bit of a cheat. But she supposed it was enough of a cheat purely as it was.

Regardless of the numerical reality, she still felt strange about the whole matter. Never before had she felt bursting with energy as she was now. Inspecting herself—or to be more precise, Kyferne, since her cell body was still in the Eldarine Tree—to her shock, Rialyne discovered that she was faintly glowing.

"Ky! Are you seeing what I'm seeing?!"

The boy nodded dumbly while peering down at his open palms facing upwards. "Is this an effect of eating the energy?"

"Oh! Maybe it's because you ate it! I thought that it might have to do with me overeating it just now…"

"It could be both. I wonder what this means, though. Is it a buff of some sorts? I don't see any status indicating that however." Kyferne wrinkled his brows in puzzlement. A buff or debuff would show up on the status panel. But both his and Rialyne's was normal.

Stumped, they pored over possible explanations. As Kyferne plopped himself on the ground to think, a fleeting flash of flaxen light sprung up from under his palm as soon as he touched the earth.

Startled, he withdrew his hand. Underneath, a bead-sized, chartreuse oval no larger than his pinky nail laid delicately on the dirt. It was at this point that both realized that the pale glow around them had disappeared.

"Is that a seed..?" asked Rialyne. She didn't have to direct Kyferne to pick it up as he did it of his own will. He encircled the seed with his fingers, feeling the glossy surface that had a faint oiliness to it like an un-popped corn kernel.

"Did the extra Fragmented God's Energy somehow make you produce a seed?" Kyferne questioned incredulously.

"It seems like I did..??" Rialyne knew that plants often grew from seeds, but this felt foreign to her now that she was a tree. This strange event had never occurred before. She had just presumed that she didn't grow the natural way because of the Cardinal System and her soul situation. Outwardly she was a tree, but technically she was still 'human.'

The System had prevented her from ever exceeding her HP and MP bars, even when an energy stack refreshed less than 10% missing. In eating extra Fragmented God's Energy, Rialyne had fortuitously stumbled upon a new ability! She could now produce seeds like any other plant!

'Perhaps this is the necessary way to "store" energy for creating seeds? Energy stacks are used in Synthesis, a form of daily consumption rather than stockpiling strength to to produce seeds.' This deduction made sense to Rialyne.

'I wonder… what happens if I bury this seed?' Intense anticipation suddenly flooded her senses.