Chương 11: Chapter 9 - Door

Dendron followed the flow of the fluctuation until he found it, a towering translucent door, intricate patterns curling across its surface like living veins, shimmering faintly beneath the glassy exterior. It stood in complete silence, radiating an ancient majesty that made the surrounding air feel unnaturally still.

Dendron had experienced many wondrous things ever since he came into this world: animals harnessing spiritual energy, orcs closing themselves off with earth, teleportation gates tearing rifts through space-time. But none of that was anything like what he was seeing now. The door didn't just exist in the woods; it made the woods seem as though they shouldn't even be there. The grass surrounding it ceased moving, and leaves hovered in midair even with the wind blowing. Even bugs avoided the area around it.

Dendron extended his awareness towards the door. Just as his senses touched it, he recoiled—not from pain, but from something that felt uncomfortably like recognizing his own reflection. His roots gripped the ground tighter than before. For a long moment, Dendron forgot to think. He just... looked. As he watched, the patterns on the door's surface shifted slowly and deliberately, much like sap flowing through a tree. They pulsed with a rhythm that seemed almost familiar.

"Is this what I'm supposed to become?" he wondered.

"Something ancient? Something that doesn't move?" The door did not answer. It did not need to. Only then did he realize why every tribe in the wilderness had flocked to his location. It wasn't him. It was the door, respawning right in his backyard. Its fluctuation had been strong from the start, but the chaos of the fight, combined with the fluctuation from his own ascension, had muddied the signal. Something in his sap eased, a slow unclenching he hadn't noticed tightening until it let go.

He still didn't know what the door actually was, but its fluctuation was strong enough to explain why so many different tribes had converged on him at once.

"Probably something valuable. A door to a treasury, maybe." That was the most reasonable guess, going by how the beasts had behaved. One thing still nagged at him, though—the timing. He didn't believe for a second that the door appearing the moment he ascended was a coincidence.

"Was that the system? Or is this just how ascension works?" He didn't have enough knowledge of this world to say for sure. Then he steadied himself.

"Still, so what? This was exactly the kind of opportunity a protagonist found." He smiled to himself.... In the north, a horned, muscular ogre ran alone toward the same location, grinning like he'd found a treasure horde.

"Hahaha, whether it's high-ranking herbs or a door to the spiritual realm, doesn't matter. Anyone in my way gets ripped to shreds." His laugh was low and sinister as he kept striding forward, each thunderous step leaving a deep print in the earth and sending faint tremors through the ground.... In the west, a group of goblins debated how to move forward carefully.

"Two of you head back and report to the elders. Request backup; this is very likely a door to the spiritual realm," the goblin leader ordered. Two goblins peeled off and started back the way they'd come.

"We can't miss a chance like this. There's probably an Ascendant inside. We'll scout the area and watch the other forces for now." He stayed cautious despite his own resolve, well aware he was only a Seeker Early Stage himself.

"Let's move! Sooner we're in position, the better." The rest of the group pressed forward.... In the east, the Black Ape elders gathered to discuss the danger surrounding the door's location.

"The fluctuation traces back to that forest, the one with the spiritual tree," Pear said, his hand already drifting to the axe at his back, like the answer required nothing more from him. Saro muttered to himself. Did it really just ascend faster than expected? Not a Conqueror after all? The question gnawed at him. He wanted to believe that the tree was a Conqueror in hiding. It would explain everything—the sudden ascension, the strange behavior, and the absence of fear.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. But something seemed off. Something he couldn't identify.

"If it is a Conqueror," he wondered, "why hasn't it destroyed us already? Why just watch?" Pear snorted. He was already leaning forward in his seat, the way he always sat—like sitting still cost him something.

"It may not consider us worth the trouble of killing." Saro turned his attention back on him.

"That isn't very reassuring."

"It wasn't supposed to be." Pear rolled his shoulder, working out a stiffness that wasn't there.

"Good," he said, mostly to himself.

"I'm tired of things not worth killing." Nobody asked him to clarify. Nobody needed to. Seri folded his arms, thinner and stiller than either of them, his eyes doing the quiet work of counting the room even now.

"Or it could be that the tree is still undecided."

"Trees aren't undecided on anything." Saro frowned at him.

"Not this one." The answer that surfaced unsettled him more than any threat. Because it didn't need to. His earlier guesses didn't line up with what was happening now, and he didn't want to believe it outright. Instead, he turned to the others.

"Can a Conqueror-rank open a door to the spiritual realm?" The elders exchanged glances before one finally spoke.

"We don't know. Our tribe doesn't have records on Conquerors, and what little exists about that rank tends to stay locked away in whichever tribe or kingdom holds it." Seri offered another angle.

"Maybe it's not the spirit tree at all. Maybe someone just happened to ascend near it." It was a reasonable point, more reasonable than most of the guesses flying around the room. Then a voice cut through all of it at once, heavy enough that every head turned toward its source. The room fell silent so fast it felt like the air itself had stopped moving. No one had heard him enter. No one ever did. The chief stood there, motionless, carrying himself like a statue that demanded silence.

"Saro, Seri, Pear. The three of you will compete for the door to the spiritual realm. Conqueror or not, as long as we don't provoke it, we're fine." Pear was already on his feet before the chief finished the sentence—not out of disrespect, just impatience wearing the shape of readiness. Whatever waited past that door, he intended to be the first thing it met.

"Our real advantage is the information we already have on this person," the chief continued.

"Play our cards right, and we walk away with the most gain." His voice carried total confidence, backed by the tribe's luck and strength. The Black Ape Tribe wasn't as large or powerful as a city-based territory, but it held its own among the strongest tribes in the wilderness. Most tribes counted themselves lucky to have a single Ascendant holding things together, usually the chief himself. The Black Ape Tribe had four Ascendant Early Stage elders, and warriors reaching Seeker Peak Stage besides.

Their numbers kept growing, and they were producing the kind of talent that would carry the tribe forward for generations.

"Prepare for departure. The sooner we're positioned, the better our odds." With that, the chief closed the meeting. Saro stayed behind after the others left. He stood alone in the center of the meeting hall, staring at the spot where the chief had been.

"A Conqueror," he said quietly.

"Or a shell. Or something else entirely." He didn't know which answer frightened him more. If the tree was a Conqueror, they were walking into something far beyond their strength. If it was a shell, something was using it. And if it was something else entirely... He shook his head.

"There's no point worrying about something you can't control. There's only the next step." He walked out, but the unease stayed.... In the south-west, a young brown wolf listened as the tribe's elders debated the same situation.

"So how do we handle this? I may be jumping ahead, but this is almost certainly a door to the spiritual realm," Elder Brolf said, looking for input.

"We should observe first before deciding whether the risk is worth taking," Elder Hark replied.

"Every strong force in the wilderness is going to flock here, especially the Black Ape Tribe. Their territory borders this one."

"You're right. We can't afford to get greedy. Just landing a trading partner this good was already more than we could've asked for," Brolf said, practically buzzing at the thought of the pills he'd brew. Another elder spoke up, and Brolf's expression brightened further.

"Brolf, you should head back to the village and report this. You're the tribe's pill maker, it makes the most sense for you to go home," Elder Fang said.

"The rest of us will scout and stay on the sidelines. No unnecessary losses." Brolf left shortly after, one subordinate in tow, carrying the sack of fruits. Miles away, roots motionless in the dark, Dendron had been listening the entire time. Then a voice echoed in Luan's mind.

"Luan, do you know anything about the door, or the spiritual realm?" Luan's ears flattened slightly—a gesture Dendron had learned to recognize as unease.

"Unfortunately, no," Luan replied.

"But I can ask the elders." He turned to them.

"Elders, forgive my ignorance, but could you explain what the door and the spiritual realm are?"

"Understandable that you wouldn't know," Elder Hark said.

"You're not a warrior who's seen this firsthand, and you're still young."

"As we said, it's a door to the spiritual realm. A place separate from ours, rich in spiritual essence and resources." Elder Fang cut in, his voice carrying something heavier.

"Considered a blessed land among cultivators. Also considered a graveyard." The word landed wrong in the quiet that followed. Luan watched Fang's expression go somewhere private—not the careful diplomacy he'd used with the merchant, but something older, something that had cost him personally. Luan gulped.

"Why?" Fang stared at Luan for a while before answering.

"Because they focus on the first and ignore the second."

"Blessed land?"

"Yes." Fang gazed at the distant forest." They learn that there is a spiritual world where resources we will never find exist—rare herbs, spiritual artifacts, ancient inheritances that can elevate people from Rank 1 to Rank 2 or make Rank 2 stronger. He paused.

"But they forget everyone else learns that too." Luan's ears drooped.

"So everyone fights for it."

"Everyone fights for it."

"Every time someone in our history ascended to Rank 2, we buried someone within the month," Fang said, flat now, like he'd said it too many times to dress it up.

"Greed doesn't wait politely for a door to open. It runs toward one." But how could anyone truly let go of those wants? They were half of what made life worth living in the first place, especially in a world that rewarded cruelty. Dendron listened to all of it, one line sticking in his mind afterward. People's greed has no end. He sighed. Elder Hark picked the explanation back up. Every time a cultivator ascended to a major rank, a door to the spiritual realm appeared, the size varying wildly from one to the next.

The doors were temporary, shrinking bit by bit until they vanished entirely, sometimes over weeks, sometimes months, sometimes longer than a year.

"Why call it the spiritual realm? And why does it appear on ascension?" Luan asked, since Dendron had told him to. Dendron himself had no idea, knowledge of this world was still thin in places like this. Hark went quiet for a moment before answering, and that alone was strange enough to notice. Hark always had an answer.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"Most people don't. It's common knowledge that nobody actually knows the origin—or whether the story we all repeat is even true." He shrugged, but it didn't reach the rest of him.

"Kingdoms, old tribes, ancient cities, they might know. But knowledge like that never comes free."

"Thank you for enlightening this young wolf, Elders."