Chương 4: Chapter 3 - Merchant Tree

The first thing he noticed was the smell: antiseptic, sharp, chemical. It burned his nose. Everything looked sickly yellow-white under the harsh fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. His shoes squeaked with every step, the linoleum floor cracked beneath them. He was moving, heading toward a room. His legs felt like someone else's. The door was half open. He could see the edge of a bed. A thin, pale hand with IV tubes taped to the skin rested on the blanket. He paused. He couldn't go in.

He reached for the handle, but it stayed where it was. It just... lingered there, trembling. Someone was crying. A woman. She was trying to muffle the sound, but it slipped through anyway. His chest ached. His heart felt twisted, squeezed. He turned around. He walked away. The buzz of the fluorescent lights grew louder.... The memories ended. Abruptly, the wolf felt pressure building in his chest. He struggled to breathe. He wanted to help the woman while he stood there in that bright place, but he couldn't move.

He couldn't go inside. He just... left. Why would he leave? She had needed him.... A moment later, Dendron found himself looking through a second pair of eyes. [Soul Parasitism (1/2) (F)]... What? He looked down. His own tree body remained rooted firmly in place. And yet, another body. The brown wolf. Did I... just become two people? I didn't expect this at all. I figured I'd just get a subordinate, but I can actually see what they see and hear what they hear. The skill was bizarre, in the best way possible.

Two sets of eyes. Two sets of ears. Dendron turned the fact over like a coin, delighted to find it was solid all the way through. For someone who embodied laziness itself, it was the perfect skill. Even though there's two of us now, my main soul stays dominant. Meaning I decide their actions. As expected, I'm really meant to be lazy. I'll just apologize to the gods for wasting the opportunity. He nearly laughed out loud. If he'd had a mouth, he would've screamed it to the world.

"Oi, wolf. Why is your name Luan?" he asked, as if it were the most bizarre thing in the world.

"Some travelers passed through our tribe a long time ago. Said 'luan' meant something precious in their old tongue. My mother heard that and... well, she named me Luan because I was precious to her too." Precious, huh. Dendron let the word sit for a moment, then released it.

"I'm curious, since you're me, and I'm you, yet somehow you're different, because you kept your memories from before."

"Did you feel any sense of rejection toward me?" Dendron asked, curious. He knew the wolf was technically an extension of himself now, but he couldn't help wondering how an identity crisis like this might play out.

"No. What you want is what I want now. I was different before, but when you... when you did that thing to me... I'm not the same wolf anymore. I'm something new."

"Oh, so you've basically become another version of me. Interesting."

"Did you get a portion of my memories, or all of them?"

"Only a portion. I suddenly felt this pressure in my chest. I couldn't breathe. I was somewhere bright, and I could hear a woman crying. I wanted to help her, but I couldn't move. I couldn't go inside. I just... left." The memory settled into him like a stone dropped in still water. He didn't move. He couldn't. His rings felt older than they were. He recognized the smell. Antiseptic. Sharp. Chemical. He recognized the fluorescent lights, the buzzing, and the cracked linoleum. He recognized the crying woman.

He had been there. He had stood in the hallway. He'd reached for the doorknob and then paused. Why was Luan watching this? He reached within, looking for the memory in his own mind. It was there, but faded. Distant. It was as if he was watching through fogged glass. Dendron didn't respond right away, going quiet instead for a few seconds. When he finally spoke again, he skipped over the meaning behind the memories entirely.

"Oh, nice to meet you. I'm Dendron, a reincarnated human from another world—and apparently the protagonist of this one." He laughed at how strange it felt, introducing himself to his own other self. But even as he laughed, something in him twisted. This wolf had been something before. A hunter. A gatherer. A creature with a name his mother had given him. Now he was... this. A vessel. A tool. I didn't ask for this, Dendron thought. But neither did you.

He let the thought sink before it could surface fully, and moved on.

"Nice to meet you too, sir. As expected, you're special."

"In our tribe, there was also a man who called himself a being from another world. He visited our tribe thirty years ago. He was very strong, an Ascendant Mid-Stage." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Was there someone else reincarnated into this world within the wolf tribe before? So I'm not the only one, huh? Here I thought I was special.

For a second, his branches seemed to sag a fraction under the news, before he remembered he had a system of his own to be smug about instead. Maybe they had one too. Probably. I'll probably run into them eventually. He let the thought go and reached for something easier instead.

"I'm curious about something else," Dendron said.

"Do wolves have parents?" Luan blinked.

"... Of course we do."

"I woke up as a tree six hours ago. I'm allowed to ask stupid questions."

"That's fair."

"What was your mother like?"

"Strict." Luan said it like the word settled something.

"She taught me to track before I was old enough to hunt. Taught me when to run, too—said a wolf who knows when to run lives long enough to become an old wolf."

"That's actually good advice."

"She was smart. Just... strict about it." A silence passed between them that wasn't uncomfortable. Somewhere above, a breeze moved through his upper branches, leaves stirring faintly against each other, the only motion he had to spare while he decided what to ask next. Dendron wasn't entirely sure why he'd asked. Maybe because he'd been thinking about his own mother a lot today, for reasons he wasn't ready to examine.

Maybe because touching Luan's memories earlier had made something obvious he hadn't quite let himself think through yet: taking someone's soul didn't erase who they used to be.

"So what do you actually do, when you're not out here nearly getting caught by a tree?"

"Hunt. Eat. Sleep."

"You're living my dream."

"... That's not a very ambitious dream, sir."

"Exactly." For the first time since Dendron had taken hold of him, Luan actually laughed—unguarded, like the sound had snuck out before he could stop it. Dendron felt something in his own trunk ease along with it, a small give in the sap he hadn't noticed tightening.

"Anyways, I heard you said Ascendant, what is it?" He leaned into the word, curiosity pulling him forward.

"It's a cultivator rank. First is Mortal, then Seeker, then Ascendant. As for what comes after, I've heard rumors it's called Archon." Probably equates to Ranks 1 through 4, Dendron figured. The system here just used a different set of names for the same thing.

"Alright, then teach me the language of this world." He lit up at the thought of finally speaking the native tongue.

"Why? You're already speaking it just fine." Luan tilted his head, genuinely thrown by the request. Dendron worked out the logic behind it a beat later. Since they were connected, they communicated through the link between their souls, intent translated into something both of them understood.

"Never mind. Anyway, why are you out here sniffing around?" he asked, since the wolf had clearly been searching for something.

"I was sent to find spiritual herbs, since I'm good at slipping away unnoticed. But I caught the smell of thick blood and dense, fluctuating spiritual essence, so I went to check it out." Dendron froze for a second. Fluctuating? Was that me, ascending earlier? I figured it wouldn't be noticeable, since it was just a minor realm ascension. Then he remembered the ape looking back. So that's what that was about. Still don't get why it didn't hunt me down, though.

There's no way a mere fluctuation could scare off a Rank 3 Early Stage.

"That was probably me. I ascended from Mortal Early Stage to Peak Stage in quick succession, which must be why the spiritual essence was so dense," he admitted.

"In one go? That's incredible! There's probably no one alive who can pull that off. Cultivating's a slow process, even a genius would take months just to climb from Mortal Mid-Stage to Peak Stage."

"You really are something, haha." Luan laughed proudly. Dendron should have felt pleased. Instead, a strange discomfort settled in. This wolf, this extension of himself, actually thought he was amazing. You don't know me, he thought.

"That's a given," he said instead, pushing the feeling back down.

"Before you head off, let's hunt some wild beasts together. But first, eat this fruit. It'll restore your spiritual essence." With a low, resonant hum, his bark rippled as golden sap surged through his trunk, gathering at the tip of a bare branch. A translucent blossom burst into bloom, only to wither moments later as its ovary swelled, weaving ambient light and spiritual essence into a pulsating, ethereal Soul Fruit that hung ripe with restorative power.

"Oh, what a dense spiritual essence!" Luan actually froze mid-step, nose twitching toward it.

"This alone could make five Peak Stage pills. Five. Do you have any idea what a pill maker would trade for just one of these?" He turned it over like he still didn't quite trust his own nose.

"A pill's rank is based on density, that's the rule. Half a Peak Stage cultivator's reserves in one dose, that's what makes it Peak Stage. And you—" he shook his head.

"You just make it. Whenever you feel like it."

"Oh, really? Good to know." Dendron had only spent a tenth of his spiritual essence on that fruit, yet it produced five times that value in return. Pleased didn't begin to cover it. This meant profit.

"Hahaha!" He laughed as a business plan started forming in his head.

"Sir, why did you suddenly laugh?" The wolf looked confused, and a little terrified, like he was staring at a madman.

"Luan, go back to your tribe and tell them someone's proposing a business deal. If they can bring me four Seeker Early Stage corpses, I'll trade them for fifty fruits of the same spiritual essence density." Sap surged through his trunk so fast that he felt lightheaded. The business plan unfolded in his mind like a vine finding a trellis—corpses to points, points to ranks, ranks to survival. For the first time since waking as a tree, the future didn't feel like a closing wall. It felt like an open field.

This time, I won't lose everything. The thought surprised him—it didn't sound like something a day-old tree should be able to lose. He didn't know where it had come from. Only that it had teeth. He didn't examine it. Not yet. There'd be time for that later, maybe, when he wasn't in the middle of building something. He grew another Soul Fruit and handed it to Luan as proof to show the higher-ups. Most people only believed what they could see with their own eyes.

He could already see the shape of it: corpses turning into points, points turning into ranks, ranks turning into whatever came after Rank 1 entirely. For the first time since he'd woken up as a tree, growing stronger didn't feel like scrambling to survive. It felt like a plan.

"Meet me in ten days, at the same place you were caught. Mark the spot or something so you don't forget."

"Bring people to help carry the corpses, but keep my real identity hidden from them, including the higher-ups." Dendron was finally taking a real step forward.

"Yes, sir. Until we meet again." The wolf understood the assignment, just as excited as Dendron was. Luan stood by the rim of the clearing and did not walk away right away, his gaze lingering on the tree that had taken much from him but in its own peculiar way gave him something back as well.

"Sir?" Dendron came out of his trance.

"What?"

"I am not sure how I should feel about all this." Dendron paused.

"Nor am I." Luan nodded slowly.

"Then it seems that we share one thing at least." Luan walked away into the woods. Dendron watched him go, remembering his mother calling him precious—and the tree that had taken that from him. Guess I'll hunt solo for now. Slower than having help, sure, but doable. The forest settled back into its usual quiet once Luan's footsteps faded, the kind of silence that used to feel unbearable and now just felt like nothing at all. Whatever happened next, it wouldn't be happening in this clearing....

Black Ape Tribe, same evening. Four gargantuan apes sat around a wooden, rounded table. Saro sat closest to the door, motionless except for his eyes—a long-healed scar ran the length of one forearm, the kind of scar a warrior only kept if he'd chosen not to have it treated properly, a reminder left on purpose. Saro the ape spoke first.

"When I was hunting in the wild, I saw a spiritual tree, a Mortal Early Stage. But..."

"An outpost, then." Elder Pear cut him off before he could finish, already leaning forward, excitement plain on his broad face.

"We should build one near it. It would be a great boon to our tribe." Elder Seri tilted his head.

"What do you mean by 'but,' Elder Saro?"

"The spiritual tree was strange," Saro continued.

"It bore no fruit, and the strangest part, it ascended from Mortal Early Stage to Peak Stage in one breath, almost as if it were provoking me." He let that sit for a moment before adding, "We all know ascending twice in succession is impossible. I suspect it hid its true aura." The elders' expressions shifted at once.

"Are you saying a spiritual tree is at the Conqueror rank?"

"I'm only speaking about possibilities," Saro clarified.

"Hiding one's aura is impossible unless you've already reached that level, same as ascending twice in a row."

"My theory is this: the spiritual tree is merely a shell. I just don't know why yet." Saro sounded certain. There was no other explanation that made sense to him. The elders nodded in agreement. Ascending twice in a row was unprecedented.

"We should send a scout daily, for safety and confirmation," Elder Seri suggested.

"But do not provoke it." He went on, "A Conqueror possesses the power to subjugate an entire village, even a city."

"Rumors claim some have conquered villages while still at Archon Peak Stage," another elder chimed in, "despite those settlements being defended by opponents of equal rank. Many believe it's some kind of ritual to become a Conqueror." The room fell silent.