Ashlock wanted to ask Stella or Diana's opinion regarding Kaida's evolution, but one was deep in meditation, and the other was missing from the mountain peak.

"Larry, do you know anything about these options..." Ashlock then read out all of the evolution options through their black Qi tether.

There was a long pause before Larry quietly replied, "Master, my apologies, but the realm I came from was a place of eternal darkness, fire, and ash. So I lack the insight into many of these affinities, but I would advise against shadow."

"Oh? What's wrong with shadow?" Ashlock asked, interested in the spider's knowledge.

"Shadow is one of the weaker affinities, and I never struggled against any monsters with such an affinity back in my realm. They relied too heavily on stealth and deception, so when it came to actually fighting, they often lost." Larry snorted, "They were easy food."

Ashlock agreed with Larry's reasoning. Out of the options, the Infant Shadow Scale Serpent seemed the weakest alongside the Obsidian Terra Constrictor simply because it lacked the infant tag, suggesting it was an adult at D grade.

In the wild, where seeing the sunrise was no guarantee, it would make sense for Kaida to subconsciously choose an evolution path that let him be strong now but stunt his future potential.

But Ashlock could power-level Kaida with the help of Larry or the girls, so he wanted to pick the evolution choice that would let him scale the best.

So with those two options off the table, Ashlock was left to pick between spirit, moonlight, and ink affinity.

"With how much death occurs around here, I'm sure there would be plenty of spirits for Kaida to command." Ashlock mused as he looked at the [Infant Spirit Whisperer Adder]. Oddly the part of the description regarding this evolution that turned him off from picking it was that spirit magic was supposedly versatile enough to be useful for both offense and defense.

In Ashlock's opinion, this world was too brutal and unforgiving for someone to consider themselves an all-rounder. "It's far better to specialize in one area, especially because Kaida is part of a sect that can complement his strengths and weaknesses."

Next was moonlight affinity, which Ashlock could also ignore because picking an affinity that was strongest during the night seemed counter-intuitive. He had seen how important it was to have access to an affinity's Qi at all times, so to limit Kaida to only being useful at night was a bad idea.

That left a single, unknown, and possibly foolish option.

Ink affinity.

[Infant Ink Serpent]

Kaida evolves into a snake with a body as dark and fluid as ink. His speed increases significantly, and he gains the ability to camouflage in dark environments.

Its description left a lot to be desired, seemingly giving him the same useless abilities that shadow affinity would provide. But Ashlock could see the future potential. Kaida was only D grade right now, but in the distant future, he could imagine an S-rank Kaida with some evolved form of ink affinity.

"Worst case, I can use him to transcribe my words to paper." Ashlock chuckled at the idea of the little noodle using his head to write out his profound words.

Ashlock reviewed the options one last time, but the Infant Ink Serpent felt like the best option.

[Evolution path {Infant Ink Serpent} chosen, evolution initiating....]

Kaida's skin became coated in a dark sheen of Qi that matched his obsidian scales. Larry left the snake to rest on one of Ashlock's branches and then crawled backward.

"Master, what should I do now?" Larry asked, and Ashlock contemplated his options.

If he sent Larry away to hunt, he would regret not keeping him close by if another problem like the Voidmind Elder arose. Larry was supposed to be his guardian, so sending him off was potentially foolish, but if he kept the spider around at all times, that would stall his growth.

"Either stay here or hunt nearby if you are still hungry," Ashlock replied after a while. "Once Kaida has finished his evolution, I might send you two out hunting again. I want Kaida to become strong quickly."

"As you wish, my Master." Larry decided to crawl up his trunk and perch himself among his branches. "I will rest up here then until my servitude is required."

With some peace and quiet, Ashlock decided to delve back into his inventory and examine his new items some more. "Once Stella wakes up, maybe I should test the void form of my new {Consuming Abyss} skill." Ashlock decided and busied himself as time passed.

***

Stella's eyes snapped open, and she let out a Qi-filled breath. Her mind buzzed with enlightenment, and she felt only a half step away from forming her Star Core.

She would try to form it immediately as the surroundings were dense in spatial Qi, but she yearned for the rich spatial Qi environment of the pocket realm Ash had sent her to in the past.

Looking around, Stella felt unnerved. "No way it's still midday..."

Even though she had been in the trance of meditation, the stiffness in her legs and lower back suggested at least a few hours had passed, yet once again, reality lied to her due to Ash's new spatial illusion.

That was part of the heaven-gifted enlightenment she had just experienced. Closing her eyes in accordance with the teachings, she smiled as her surroundings turned into an absolute reality that told no lies.

In this spatial plane of augmented reality, she could see past Ash's spatial illusion that seemed to freeze time. By the sun's now correct position in the sky, it was late in the afternoon.

Keeping her eyes closed and glancing around the spatial plane, Stella realized just how massive Ash truly was. The spatial plane was divided up into layers in all directions. She took up a single layer. Meanwhile, Ash's canopy extended many layers upwards into the sky, and his roots burrowed through the mountain for even more.

Actually, everywhere she looked, Ash's overwhelming presence was there. His canopy lording overhead, and his roots went through the mountain, under the demonic trees, and even extending out into the wilderness.

With her eyes closed while standing on the edge of the mountain peak, she watched Ash's roots sprawling out for many miles in all directions in awe when she saw a sudden pulse of spatial Qi travel down one of the larger roots leading out into the wilderness.

"Did Ash find something?" Stella murmured to herself. But she soon found her answer when she detected another pulse of spatial Qi behind her, right in front of Ash.

In reality, the spatial Qi formed a typical spatial rift. But in the spatial plane, Stella gasped as she saw just how much power Ash wielded. He bent and compressed thousands of layers of reality to make that long-range portal possible.

Then all of the compressed layers of reality sprung back to their previous fixed locations as the rift behind her snapped closed, accompanied by a pop of air and a bestial roar.

As the buzz of enlightenment faded and fear overtook her mind, the spatial plane collapsed, and Stella was returned to reality.

Spinning round, she watched as a demonic beast she estimated to be around the middle of the Soul Fire Realm reared its ugly mutated head. Stella had never seen this specific type of beast before, but with its hulking form and black fur, it was reminiscent of a bear.

The beast didn't even look her way. Instead, it focused entirely on a floating ball of Qi surrounding a leaf. It furiously tried to swat the leaf and get its maw around it.

Whatever Ash had done to make the beast so angry to bait it through the rift, Stella hoped he had the plan to deal with it.

"What the..." Stella mumbled while stumbling back. Her eyes widened as a lake of pure darkness that Stella suspected was void Qi spread out from Ash toward the beast.

Then before the beast could even react, tendrils of void shot out from the spreading void and went straight through the bear. It looked down in confusion at the holes that riddled its body. It then opened its mouth to cry, but there were no lungs to create anything but a pathetic wheeze. It glanced around in desperation, but moments later, its eyes rolled into the back of its head, and it tumbled over.

Stella's hands felt clammy, and her heart pounded in her chest. Since when could Tree use void Qi? Had the Voidmind Elder's soul somehow corrupted or overtaken Tree from within?

She bit her lip as she tiptoed closer to the tree surrounded by a lake of void Qi. She knew that if the Voidmind Elder had overtaken Ash's soul, then her chance of survival was low, even with her speed.

She could run fast and far, but Ash's roots spread out in all directions and could attack her through portals. Her eyes darted to Larry, who seemed to be watching from this side calmly. Was he also being mind controlled by the Voidmind Elder, or was Ash still in control?

While the corpse lay in a pool of black blood, a portal formed overhead, and the void tendrils attempted to shoot through the newly formed rift, but the rift shattered on contact in an explosion of spatial Qi, as if the void Qi had punched through to the other side.

The void tendrils fizzled out of existence, and the void lake faded away. Then, through cracks in the stone at the sides of the runic formation that Stella had meticulously constructed, many thick black vines coated in spikes shot up and lunged toward the hole-riddled corpsed.

Bones cracking filled the courtyard, and Stella marveled at how quickly the vines devoured the large beast. Within a few breaths, they retreated into the ground, leaving blood stains and tuffs of black fur littering the ground.

Stella's eyes wandered to Ash, and she saw lilac flames begin to take the form of words.

***

'Good evening Stella, how was your meditation?' Ashlock wrote out. He had waited until she'd finished her cultivation to quickly test his new void skill as he didn't want to accidentally ruin her enlightenment again. Luckily, it had been worth the wait, as the results pleasantly surprised him.

The void tendrils had moved at speeds incomparable to his black vines and completely ignored the beast's Qi-coated fur and punched through it like a steel lance to a sheet of paper.

However, if he were to coat his black vines with spatial Qi, he was sure he could achieve a similar result, especially with the spike the vines now had on the end, which was perfect for impaling things.

"The only bad part is that the void tendrils can't go through portals as the void Qi seems to delete spatial Qi, but I had been suspecting that from the beginning." Ashlock sighed. Thankfully, his new and improved black vines could still go through portals, but his void tendrils would remain as a trump card he could unleash when enemies were near his trunk.

"My meditation? It was fine..." Stella replied awkwardly as she seemed unwilling to approach. Had his void Qi scared her for some reason?

'Good to hear.' Ashlock wrote, following it up with, 'I waited until you finished meditating before testing my new void Qi technique I stole from the Voidmind Elder.'

Stella nodded, "Oh, I see. So can you use void Qi all the time now?"

'No. I only know this one technique, and I need to consume monsters or people to fuel its use.' Ashlock replied through writing.

Stella translated it, and the awkwardness seemed to fade away. "Well, that's great! Void Qi abilities are a nightmare to deal with, so they are good to learn if you have the capabilities." She then stepped a little closer, "Say, Tree, when will you be able to send me to that pocket realm again?"

That was a good question. Luckily, his system had a timer that he could use to answer such a question.

At the top of his skill list that he summoned with a simple thought was:

[Skills]

{Mystic Realm [S]} [Locked until day: 3515]

"Now let me check my sign-in system," Another system screen appeared.

Idletree Daily Sign-In System

Day: 3510

Daily Credit: 9

Sacrifice Credit: 5

[Sign in?]

Doing the quick maths, Ashlock deduced that it would become available in five days. Relaying that information to Stella, she nodded.

"I see... will there be any more truffles available by then? I feel at the edge of ascending to the Star Core Realm, and so long as someone protects me in the pocket realm, I believe that I can ascend."

Ashlock realized he had been slacking on the truffle production with all the crazy stuff happening over the last week. So quickly opening the production menu, he set a few more to grow and gawked at the three-day production time. "So fast? And the Qi requirements seem negligible now."

Flashing his Qi once to answer Stella's question regarding the truffles, she grinned, "Perfect. With the truffles that purified my spiritual root and undid all the awful cultivation practices I had done throughout my life, I now feel fully confident about forming my Star Core since my foundation is far better now."

This was fantastic news. A new Star Core Realm person within his sect would significantly increase their fighting potential and give Ashlock more peace of mind sending Stella out on missions or meetings outside of his sphere of influence.

'Sounds great. You must be excited.' Ashlock wrote, and Stella grinned. "It's every cultivator's dream to form their own Star Core, so of course I am ecstatic!" She then mumbled under her breath, "And I will be more useful for you..."

Ashlock pretended he hadn't heard that last part as he was half-focused on the presence he felt coming up the mountain.

***

Douglas rolled his shoulders as he trudged up the side of the mountain.

He could try and swim through the rock by using an earth affinity movement technique to reach the peak faster, but a quick glance around at the thousands of demonic trees taking root into the mountain turned him off that idea. He didn't want to try and weave through the dense network of tree roots prevalent throughout the mountain, nor did he feel in the mood to use Qi.

His Soul Core was nearly empty due to finally finishing his work. However, there was a slight anger tugging at the edge of his mind, as his work had been made ten times harder when the Patriarch of the Ashfallen sect had suddenly stopped helping to move the demonic trees around and left it all to him and the other earth cultivators.

He had been unsure what to do but was still hounded by the city folk to remove the trees blocking the streets. So they had uprooted them and piled up all the trees within the academy's training grounds.

Now, with all those trees dealt with, he had decided to return to the Ashfallen sect to see what had happened. Reaching the peak, he furrowed his brows at what he saw. From afar, it had looked a little off, but up close, he could see Stella sitting on the bench, frozen in an odd position as if she was in the middle of getting up from her seat.

The giant tree was also motionless, the leaves mid sway in a midday breeze that was long gone. Only the cool air of evening was still present.

With a deep frown, he slowly reached out with a Qi-coated finger. Soon enough, he felt it pass through a dense wall of Qi, and he couldn't see the end of his finger anymore, as if it had disappeared.

Distraught, he reeled his hand back and breathed a sigh of relief to see his finger still there. "How bizarre," Douglas muttered as he reached out againthis time putting his whole hand through and then his arm. Eventually, he shrugged and pushed his entire body through the wall of Qi.

It almost made him shriek how everything had changed from what he had seen seconds ago. Stella suddenly stood only a few steps away, looking at him with her arms crossed under her chest.

The giant spider had also seemingly teleported and now nestled between the tree's branches. Whenever Douglas saw that monster, he felt a shiver down his spine.

"Welcome back," Stella said with a fake smile, "You came back just in time. We have some urgent work for you."

Douglas felt exhaustion consume his body, so he replied with the least enthusiasm possible, "And what would that be?"

"To turn the mine down below into an alchemist workshop." Stella replied nonchalantly as she wandered off, "Feel free to get some rest first if you need it, but I suspect the Silverspires will be taking Diana's offer any day now, so it's best we get that sorted out first."

"Funny you say that." Douglas chuckled while trudging over to the personal runic formation, "A Redclaw approached me and requested that I inform someone from the Ashfallen sect that they wish to meet with you tomorrow."

Douglas hid his grin as he collapsed on the runic formation and tried to ignore Stella's cursing while he meditated.