Chapter 594: Material Gathering [V]
Adelaide and Arthur thought that they were only facing a single Corrupted Treant there, but it turns out that there are multiple of them in the area, and they are all disguised as dead trees. They are so well hidden among the real dead trees that the one that Adelaide checked before was actually a Corrupted Treant that didn’t even move while being inspected.
"These monsters are clever. They have capabilities of doing ambush tactics. And to think I was interacting on one so closely, I didn’t even notice," Adelaide clicks her tongue.
"Can’t blame yourself for that. These guys are quite capable at blending themselves into the background. These Monsters looked genuinely like trees despite being regular monsters."
Multiple shriveled vines sprout over the ground where they are standing. The twins quickly evaded the attack by jumping out of the way but the vines followed them like they are homing in.
"Ignis Blast!" Adelaide used one of her area skills to instantly clear off the shriveled vines.
"Ha! At the very least, they are quite flammable! Careful not to burn the actual monsters themselves, Sis! We still need to get the branches themselves!" Arthur reminded Adelaide.
"No worries, I got this."
Even though she is only seeing things with her remaining eye, she is still doing well so far. In fact, she has become more precise in her attacks with only her single eye. Is this the power of having a single eye? Maybe, but it is still a bit troubling, as she can’t see a wide view, but it does have its perks.
"Ade, back me up here. I have a plan. We isolate one of these guys and quickly dispose of the isolated Treant. Considering they seemed to walk around just fine, albeit slowly, we can isolate one of them by blocking the others with your Earth Dome."
"Heh, good idea, Arthy. Go and distract the other two, I will try to lure the other one! I will signal you out once I am ready."
"Okay!"
The twins separate for a bit as Adelaide casts multiple Mana Bullets at the Corrupted Treant. The Corrupted Treant seemed to be hurt by Adelaide’s magic, causing it to focus on Adelaide and ignore Arthur completely.
Like what Arthur said earlier, it does move slow enough that isolating them isn’t that hard.
"Arthy!"
Hearing Adelaide’s call, Arthur parried one of the attacking Corrupted Treants and backflipped his way to Adelaide’s position. As soon as he was about to land, Adelaide immediately cast her spell.
"Earth Dome."
Soil rose up into the air, covering the area around Adelaide, Arthur, and the separated Corrupted Treant. Not only did it block the advance of the other Corrupted Treant, but it also blocked the escape of the separated Corrupted Treant, leaving it to the jurisdiction of the two.
With the dome in place, Arthur quickly took action against the enemy before the duration of the dome was over. Disappearing from where he stood, he started to zip around the Corrupted Treant’s branches, cutting them off one by one as he zipped through rapidly. Due to his speed, the Treant could only groan in pain and couldn’t even attack reliably.
As soon as Arthur fully cut off the branches, Adelaide, who was already in the middle of casting her spell, opened her eyes and released one of her flame magic.
"Incinerate!"
BOOM!
An explosion of flame spread to the body of the Corrupted Treant. The moment the flame landed, the Corrupted Treant wriggled its body, trying to shake off the flames that were slowly burning its whole body.
Perhaps because its body is also a "dead" tree, the Corrupted Treant was easily burned in flames in just a matter of minutes. By the time the Earth Dome’s duration is over, the Corrupted Treant is fully turned to ash with only the remaining branches left behind on the ground.
"Do we repeat the process against these Corrupted Treants, or should we bail out with what we got right now?" Arthur asked.
"It’s too late to back out now. Better get rid of all of them," Adelaide grinned, ready to unleash more hellfire.
"Heh, typical. But the more the better."
And so, the twins repeated the process, reducing the three Corrupted Treants to ashes with their tactics, with the materials they needed overflowing.
....
....
....
While the twins were gathering the branches after the aftermath of the battle, Arthur noticed something in the ashes. The ashes were no longer in embers, so Arthur reached out to the thing he noticed poking out of the ashes.
Picking it up, he frowned as the Almanac also appeared and flipped its pages straight to the seeds section. There, a new entry appeared that was something that their Mother has yet to record there.
"A seed? Ade, look, I found a seed from the Corrupted Treant’s ashes. The Almanac reacted to it."
Adelaide stopped what she was doing and approached her brother, who showed her the seed he was talking about.
"That’s a big seed. You said the Almanac reacted to it?" Adelaide summoned her own almanac as well.
"Yup. It appeared on the seed pages. It seems that it is a new discovery, as Mother has not even recorded the seed."
Realizing this, Adelaide read through the seed’s description.
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[Seed of the Treant]
Description: Dropped by the Treant upon death. It can withstand drought, flames, and many other circumstances that might cause it to die. Even if thrown in the lava, this seed will not burn. The only possible way to get rid of it is by submerging it under the sea. If planted in an area by a person, the Treant that grows from it will become a loyal follower and servant of the one who planted it. The cleaner and purer the soil, the faster and healthier the Treant that will grow.
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"Wait, a treant seed?! Isn’t this dangerous?" Arthur was ready to throw it away but Adelaide stopped him from doing it.
"What are you doing?"
"I mean it will grow into a treant."
"Did you skip reading the entry at all? It said that if anyone decided to plant the seed, it would turn into a treant, and a being would grow and become a loyal follower to you. It isn’t dangerous at all!" Adelaide said before confiscating the seed from Arthur before he throws them away.
"Don’t tell me you plan to grow that on our farm?" Arthur scratched his cheeks.
"Yep. My gut tells me I will regret it if I don’t. And besides, I have an idea now why the Corrupted Treant continued to reign around here. It seems that every time a Corrupted Treant or a regular Treant dies in this particular area, the seed gets dropped and a new Treant appears. Considering that it thrives in a healthy and pure land, if the seed remained here and grew on its own, it would become a corrupted Treant again. Therefore, if we want it not to become the monster we defeat, we have to have this seed planted on our farm and grow it there."
Arthur looked unconvinced, but Adelaide is very confident.
"Trust me on this one, Arthy. If the seed grows another Corrupted Treant, then we can just burn it like always. Anyways, the other three piles of ashes should also have the seeds dropped... let’s go and check!"
Although reluctant, Arthur decided to agree on this and checked the other piles of ashes. Oddly enough, the other one didn’t have a seed, while the other was buried under the pile of ashes.
"Looks like one of them did not drop the seed, and only two are currently available. That’s a bit disappointing," Adelaide shook her head, disappointed by the outcome.
"I would have said that the seed might have been burned and would no longer work, but then I remembered the entry of the seed, and it turned out not to be the case. Still, is it really a good idea, Ade?" Arthur remained skeptical, though Adelaide was quite positive about it.
"You are really not easily convinced, huh? Well, not that it matters. As long as we can grow them properly and ensure they aren’t absorbing the bad corruption, then these Treants that will potentially grow from these seeds will not become what you fear," Adelaide shrugged as she put the two seeds on her pocket.
"If you say so. Well, let’s wrap this up; otherwise, we might get caught up by the forest reset. We might get pushed deeper into the forest, and I don’t like that," Arthur hurriedly put the branches they collected to the Dimensional Bag that their mother always carried and put them inside.
"So you decided to borrow the bag from Mother?"
"Well, aside from the dimensional bag that the others are using, this is the other dimensional bag we have. What choice do I have? I don’t want to drag a huge sack of branches from here back to the farm, you know."
After the two finished putting all of the branches, the two hurriedly returned home. Although the ginseng has yet to grow, in just a few more days, they will be able to start the first task and complete it. And they are excited as they can finally proceed forward with the treatment. Another step towards Elaina’s awakening.