Chương 7: Chapter 6 - Enchanter

[Better luck next time]"Fuck, even the system won't cut me a break." He said it mostly to have something to say—anything that wasn't the clearing, the rain, or the shape of a hand still reaching for nothing. He shook off his dejection.... A day passed. Dendron kept producing Soul Fruits, and beasts kept catching the scent of the dense spiritual essence rolling off them. Injured as he was, luck stayed mostly on his side. Nothing above Rank 1 Mid-Stage wandered his way.

He managed to take down four Mid-Stage beasts and six Early Stage ones. He held off on using Soul Parasitism on any of them, though. Their attributes were too common to bother with, and he only had two avatar slots to work with anyway. [Points: 50] [Draw a random skill (50% success chance): 50 points]"Draw." [Pocket Dimension (F): You are able to store items with a 50kg limit.]"Storage, huh. Guess my luck hasn't completely abandoned me." A flicker of real relief ran through him.

Finally, a way to grow fruit without painting a target on himself. He stored every Soul Fruit hanging from his branches into the Pocket Dimension right away. At last, he could grow fruit without inviting danger straight to his door. Curious, he checked what it would cost to upgrade the skill further. [Upgrade Pocket Dimension F > E?] [Consume 100 points]"Double the cost, huh. Seems like that's just how this system works." His curiosity satisfied, he let the thought go.

He wondered, briefly, whether he could store living beings inside it too, but dismissed the idea. The Pocket Dimension's size was fixed, and small. He tried manifesting a bigger one anyway. No luck. Probably just another limitation tied to his current rank. Then, out of nowhere, a young brown wolf with a bag appeared. It was Luan, called back because Dendron felt lonely, and too injured to do much else. At least having him around gave some sense of security, better than sitting alone with his thoughts.

Luan froze at the sight of the tree, heavily wrecked and yet somehow still standing.

"You should stay here for a few days. I'll give you fruit for cultivation," Dendron said.

"Yes, sir. May I ask what kind of beast you encounter to receive such injuries?" Luan asked, curious.

"It was a group of orcs. They coveted my fruit, and I had no choice but to fight back," Dendron replied with a sigh.

"Orcs, huh. You're really unlucky. They usually travel in large groups, and they're strong too, stronger than ours," Luan added, "As long as you manage to kill them all, revenge probably won't come knocking." He went on, emphasizing just how troublesome an opponent like that could be. Lucky, at least, that the numbers hadn't been worse.

"By the way, I encountered some horned beasts before you arrived. Usually alone, fierce as hell, but I couldn't see a shred of human-like intellect in them, not in how they fought, not in how they reacted."

"Aren't all beasts equal when it comes to intellect?" Dendron wanted to know.

"You likely ran into a monster." Luan's ears dropped a fraction, the way they did whenever a subject actually mattered to him.

"Monsters aren't born like beasts are. They're just—spiritual essence that decided to become something. No pack, no mother, no reason. They show up, and then they hunt."

"So that's how it is. Lucky for me, they're easier to deal with, then."

"Don't get comfortable." Luan's tone sharpened, the shyness from a moment ago gone.

"Individualistic or not, they've got something beasts don't. Their innate skill."

"Is there something special about it?" Dendron was curious, given his own innate skills weren't exactly weak.

"There is." Luan's nose wrinkled, like he was smelling the idea itself.

"Their innate skill is like swallowing a pill whole, except the pill's a corpse, and it never runs out. Worse—it can even chew through whatever progress the poor corpse already made. Eat a stronger monster, walk away a little bit of that monster." Dendron was astonished. It was the same principle as his own Soul Core Absorption, just aimed at flesh instead of souls. A ripple ran the length of his bark at the thought, unmistakable interest with nowhere else in his body to go.

He realized then just how fast monsters could outpace ordinary cultivators, fast enough to be considered a genuine threat.

"Was there ever a tribe or species that had an innate skill like a monster's?" he asked.

"There was one. The Corpse Devourer Tribe. Famous now, mostly because they don't exist anymore. They had the same trait as monsters, treating any corpse like a spiritual essence pill." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Destroyed out of fear of what they could become?"

"Exactly. Wiped out by the Great Beast Alliance, an alliance among beast tribes, though not every tribe is part of it." Unease settled over him like a held breath. If that alliance ever caught wind of how easily he grew stronger, they'd likely see him as exactly the kind of thing worth erasing. The thought dissolved a moment later. As long as he kept his head down, there was no reason they'd ever have cause to notice him at all. Once the conversation wound down, Luan settled in to cultivate.

Dendron wanted him stronger, strong enough to protect himself and pull his weight in whatever fight came next.

"Hooh." At least he was feeling a little better now. Being alone had kept dragging his mind back to the fight with the orcs.

"You're probably hungry from traveling. Why not eat the one I hunted earlier? I've got it hanging in my branches."

"Sure, I am hungry. Thank you, how thoughtful of you for this humble wolf." Luan beamed, then added, "Let me gather some wood."

"Why gather wood? I figured you'd just eat it raw." Dendron was momentarily confused.

"I mean, sure, I could. But cooking it tastes way better." Dendron was a little thrown, but it made sense once he considered it. They were intelligent creatures, after all. Luan gathered the wood and set it up, then dug into his bag and pulled out a small box. Inside sat a handful of thin sticks. He took one out, snapped it in half with a sharp crack, and fire bloomed at both broken tips. He used them to start the fire.

The meat, already prepared, went up on skewers made from Dendron's own branches, sturdy enough that fire wouldn't touch them. Dendron watched the whole process, fascinated by the fire-sticks. He couldn't lean in for a closer look, so he did the only thing available to him instead, pulling every last detail through Soul Eye until it felt almost like proximity. They reminded him of matches from his previous life.

"How does that work? The stick, I mean, how does it make fire?" he asked, excited. Luan explained while the meat cooked.

"It's made by an enchanter. They've got the enchant attribute, so by using their spiritual essence, they can take something ordinary and give it a use. It's an unusual attribute, since it can produce effects that cross into other attributes entirely."

"That sounds powerful." Dendron turned the fire-stick idea over, watching the flame gutter in the night air. Something that ordinary, doing something that useful—it nagged at him more than raw strength ever would.

"Are they rare?"

"Rare in the wild. Common enough in the cities, from what I've heard." Luan shrugged, tossing another stick on the fire without much ceremony—to him it was just a household item, nothing worth marveling at.

"Most people just buy what they need and don't think about who made it." That was the part that stuck with Dendron. Not that enchanting was powerful. That it was boring to the people who had it—background noise, the way electricity was background noise back home. Which meant somewhere out there, someone was doing to this world what factories had done to his. If I kidnapped someone with that attribute right now and made them an avatar... he thought, half-seriously. He would absolutely do it.

Benefits like that were hard to pass up—and it was easier to think about it that way, like a shopping list, than to think about what 'made them an avatar' had actually looked like the first time. He pictured it—a blade wreathed in lightning, a weapon that burned on contact, tools that made everyday life effortless. Then he stopped mid-thought. If enchanting exists... This world could go industrial. An entire industrial era, hoh.

It hit him then that this world might be able to develop technology far faster than his own ever had. A reincarnator with even scraps of knowledge from Earth could be the shortcut this world never had. Even without the means to actually build what he remembered, the idea alone could be a map worth following.

"Are they expensive? Can they only enchant things that get used up, or can they do weapons too? Can they enchant people, or is it just objects?" He fired off the questions all at once, curiosity running ahead of him.

"Depends what you want. Ordinary stuff is cheap—they churn it out by the cartload." Luan waved a paw dismissively.

"Anything meant to actually hurt someone, though? That's where they start charging like it's blood money. Higher the rank, faster it drains them, so you're paying for their exhaustion as much as the enchantment."

"As for people," he added, "they can enchant people too. I don't know much about the effects, but I've heard of charm, hypnosis, confusion. Scary stuff, honestly. Most skilled enchanters lean that way. It's considered the most versatile attribute out there." Dendron sat in stunned silence at how overpowered the whole thing sounded. Unpredictable, hard to prepare for, and with enough setup, brutal to fight against.

There had to be a catch somewhere, probably weaker at raw output than a dedicated attribute of the same rank, but the sheer flexibility of it was the real threat. What stuck with him most, though, was the industrial angle. How advanced were human settlements in this world, really?

"Impressive knowledge you've got," he praised Luan for the detailed rundown.

"Our elder taught me all that. Being on the resource side means I've got to know the ins and outs of the trade business." Luan looked a little shy at the praise.

"Luan."

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you have a family?" Luan's chewing slowed.

"... Yes."

"Parents?"

"My mother. My father died when I was young."

"Brothers? Sisters?"

"Two brothers. One sister." Luan said it carefully, like he wasn't sure why he was being asked, or where this was headed. Dendron went quiet for a moment.

"Do they know where you are?"

"I told them I was gathering herbs." Luan's ears dipped slightly.

"That part wasn't a lie, exactly."

"Do they know about me?"

"No."

"Would they be angry if they knew?" Luan considered it, longer than the question probably deserved.

"... Probably." Something settled low in his roots, heavy in a way he wasn't ready to name. Dendron didn't have anything to say to that. He let it sit instead of reaching for a joke, which felt, in its own small way, like the harder thing to do. Dendron went quiet after that, and Luan quieted down too, eating with quiet focus. After a while, Luan drifted off to sleep, murmuring, "Goodnight, sir," before he did. Luan's breathing settled into the steady rhythm of sleep.

Dendron paused for a moment, admiring the way his fur rose and fell with each breath, and the way his nose twitched occasionally, chasing some dream scent. He wondered if Luan had a dream about his old life. If he had had a family before Dendron had... taken him. Guilt pricked him, quietly and unwelcome.

"I didn't ask to be like this," he said while looking up the stars.

"I didn't ask to be a tree, or to have avatars." The stars remained silent. They never answered. But Luan shifted in his sleep, murmuring something unintelligible, and Dendron allowed himself to imagine the wolf was dreaming of something peaceful.

"You're not just a tool," he said quietly enough that he could barely hear it.

"I don't know if I can promise you anything more than that. But you're not just a tool." Luan's tail twitched. Dendron gazed at the stars and waited for the morning. He glanced over at Luan, snoring quietly.

"I guess it does feel nice to have someone on your side." He thought of his old life, of the planet he'd left behind—not so different, really. Just another world tucked somewhere in the same boundless universe. Then the sun rose. Morning arrived, and Luan ate the leftovers stored in the Pocket Dimension before starting his morning cultivation. A few hours later, Dendron spotted someone approaching from a distance.