Chapter 485: Act 233 – The City of Trees (Part 4)
This is indeed a portal-type nest, seemingly connected to a passage to a lower plane. Such nests typically summon creatures through equivalent exchange to serve the summoner. Brendel glanced at the glowing portal and skillfully tossed two lower moon crystals into the dimensional hole. Sure enough, not long after, the whirlpool of light brightened, and a small head poked out from inside.
It looked like a tiny person only three inches tall, or rather, a proportionally scaled-down maiden with curly long hair, wearing clothing as thin as a cicada’s wing, glowing all over, and without wings, yet gracefully hovering in midair.
She examined the surroundings from within the whirlpool, then suddenly flew in front of Brendel and the others, respectfully saying, “Hello, Lord.” Her voice was delicate, with a somewhat strange accent, like a foreigner speaking Cruz perfectly.
As she spoke, the maiden curiously observed everyone, not showing any signs of fear.
“The lord she refers to is similar to the lord of your human realms, but different. To magical beings, only those who wield power are the true lords. They do not recognize honorary titles,” Medisa explained to Xi and Romaine nearby.
“Oh,” Romaine responded, not sure if he understood.
Brendel, however, nodded. Unlike Xi and the others, his past experiences in games made him familiar with these magical beings, so he directly asked, “What is your name, what kind of creature are you, and what abilities do you have?”
“My name is Monica.” The maiden placed her hand on her chest and chirped, “We are Light Spirits, entrusted to protect this sacred land as children of light. Our ability is to nurture this World Tree fortress.”
“World Tree fortress?” Brendel frowned. For some reason, he felt very familiar with this term, as if he had heard it somewhere before. However, upon further reflection, he couldn’t recall whether this fragmented memory came from past games or stories of myths and legends in this world.
“The World Tree fortress, or as you lords might say, it could also be called Valhalla. However, Valhalla is actually the name of the second World Tree fortress; this is the third and final one,” Monica replied.
“What do you mean second and third? What is the World Tree fortress exactly?” Brendel couldn’t help but ask.
“That’s something I don’t know, Lord. Our knowledge comes from the inheritance of magical powers; it is said in our memories that this tree is the most primitive form of the World Tree fortress. I only know this much.”
Brendel nodded again. Monica’s explanation was not surprising; many pieces of knowledge passed down through bloodlines were only fragments. However, he asked this question casually; he was more concerned about the potential for growth of Valhalla.
“Your ability is to nurture this tree. How do you do that?”
“Once the World Tree sprouts, it will grow slowly. You can think of us as gardeners trimming the branches of this tree, Lord,” Monica replied.
Brendel understood, “So, you’re the workers this town comes equipped with. Is that correct?”
Monica nodded, “You could say that. We can help you, Lord, to build this city according to your wishes.”
“What can you build now?”
“By myself, I cannot do much, Lord; Light Spirits aren’t omnipotent! I need more of my kin to assist me. If there is one, two, or three Light Spirits, I can help build the Nest of Trees,” Monica replied.
“The Nest of Trees?” Brendel was puzzled. He was quite familiar with the construction order of the Erluin Kingdom, such as aristocratic barracks and blacksmith shops. He had seen some high-end buildings, but he had never heard of such a term: “What is that?”
“The Nest of Trees can cultivate the roots of ancient trees. They are the basic defensive force of the World Tree, approximately at the silver peak level. However, they cannot leave the World Tree. You may see them as moving fortifications or the city’s guards, Lord.”
“Moreover, the Tree People and the World Tree are actually one, a part of the World Tree, so they do not require a mana pool to provide power. The Nest of Trees can be built in this square or on the upper canopy, without occupying the mana pool’s location,” Monica added.
“A part of the World Tree?” Brendel thought this sounded like a withered beast of the Golden Magic Tree, but he was still very interested in a biological nest that didn’t require a mana pool. Although they couldn’t leave the World Tree, they could certainly serve defensive purposes, given that they were silver peak guards: “How many of these guards can the Nest of Trees produce?”
“Given the current space of the World Tree, at most, it can accommodate one, two, three, or four Nests of Trees, and each Nest of Trees can generate one, two, three…up to ten roots, Lord,” Monica calculated seriously.
Forty of them, that was indeed few. Brendel felt a bit disappointed; if there were hundreds, he could rely entirely on Valhalla and rest easy. But thinking further, the current Valhalla was only a small area, and just placing that city hall felt a bit cramped. Even if there were hundreds or thousands of guards, there wouldn’t be space to hold them all.
Realizing this, he asked again, “Valhalla… I mean this World Tree, how can it continue to grow?”
Monica answered, “That’s the task of us Light Spirits. Our job is to foster it using magical power to help it grow, but if it’s just Monica alone, it would take… one, two, three…”
“Wait, don’t count; just tell me how many years it’ll take,” Brendel finally couldn’t help himself as Monica kept counting with her fingers, fearing she might count until dark.
“If I don’t count, how will I know the number of years?” Monica widened her eyes at Brendel, seriously contemplating whether her lord was a fool to ask such a silly question.
Brendel immediately regretted it. They haggled for quite some time before finally understanding that it would take her alone two hundred years to nurture the World Tree.
“Two hundred years!” Upon hearing this number, Xi was shocked. As a standard mortal, she had a hard time accepting the idea of two hundred years — that was almost a normal human’s lifetime.
“So, as long as you have two hundred kin, Monica, you can reduce this time to one year, right?” Brendel had his own way of calculating, as four hundred lower moon crystals didn’t seem too unacceptable of a cost for him.
“Let me calculate…”
“Don’t calculate; just tell me yes or no.” Brendel was sweating; from their previous discussions, he had already discovered that Light Spirits didn’t seem to enjoy cutting corners.
“Alright, but if we want to finish within a year, we won’t be able to spare time to help you build other buildings, Lord,” Monica thought for a moment and responded.
But that wasn’t a problem for Brendel; he could always pay extra Light Spirits to help him construct his territory. However, just as this thought began to form, Monica saw through it and immediately shattered Brendel’s fantasy:
“Lord, there is a limit to the number of summons through the portal within a certain period; you aren’t thinking about summoning thousands of Light Spirits to help Monica, right?”
“A limit?” Brendel’s daydream shattered like a mirror crashing to the ground; he never expected such a setting to exist: “What is the limit?”
“The whirlpool of light can only undergo one, two, three… up to twenty energy transitions per month.”
“So that means twenty, right?”
Monica nodded.
Twenty a month. Summoning two hundred Light Spirits would take a total of ten months. Calculating like this, the World Tree would take at least a year and a half to grow to the next stage. Brendel immediately felt a sense of disillusionment; he had no such long time. He had initially thought that the Valhalla fortress could quickly become a main force in his hands.
Fortunately, Monica’s next words gave him a glimmer of hope: she said the portal could be expanded, but the premise was to build a Moon Tower in Valhalla.
Brendel knew about the Moon Tower; it was an auxiliary building of a mage tower, designed to train astrologers. In the game, astrologers were indeed a type of specialized wizard whose abilities included prophecy and expertise in channeling magical power.
Astrologers could transfer the position of mana aggregation points or use the Moon Tower to guide the mana within the mana pool into nests, increasing the output of the creatures in the nests or the efficiency of alchemy laboratories.
This was their function in the game. Monica now wanted to employ the Moon Tower for its first function. Although Brendel didn’t know if the attributes from the game applied here, since the local resident Monica said it was possible, and Medisa didn’t object, it surely wouldn’t be a problem.
One Moon Tower could enhance three other buildings. Although the Moon Tower itself also required the space of a mana pool, its function was equivalent to splitting the mana pool into three. In past games, this wasn’t considered an unusual or obscure building. However, constructing a Moon Tower in a junior territory, Brendel thought he must be the very first to do so.
Generally, lord-type players either built mage towers or crystal pools, and even fewer built nests. It was unthinkable to construct a Moon Tower. Although Brendel had never been a lord, he thought this was indeed too strange.
However, with the Moon Tower, the production of the whirlpool of light could increase to forty, and Brendel was very optimistic about the growth prospects of Valhalla. After all, the legendary territory of the Amber Sword wasn’t a title he granted; he regarded Valhalla as his greatest potential support for the future. As long as this fortress could revive faster, he didn’t mind investing whatever it took.
Thus, Brendel summoned the remaining nineteen Light Spirits using the remaining lower moon crystals. Perhaps due to some malicious design of the creator, the race of Light Spirits seemed to have no males; all those summoned were proportionally scaled-down cute girls. Just like real fairies, they chattered incessantly, and soon, the hall of the World Tree became as lively as the busiest market in Erluin.
Brendel and the others couldn’t help but feel a bit of a headache as they watched the light orbs fluttering and chirping. He could easily imagine how ‘noisy’ it would be when this tree city had thousands or even tens of thousands of such residents in the future. In fact, he seriously doubted if the other residents of this city would be able to sleep.
At the same time, he inquired about other abilities of the Light Spirits from Monica, learning that it would take them about a week to build a Moon Tower with twenty sisters. That was not particularly slow, as constructing a Moon Tower required the magical power of wizards. If Brendel were to rely solely on Charles and the apprentices under him, even the half-baked sorcerers, it would likely take at least two to three months — this was also the estimated construction period Charles had projected for his wizard tower.
Additionally, besides the Nest of Trees, the Light Spirits would also construct two special buildings belonging to Valhalla: the Hall of Valurian Warriors and the Camp of Wind Archers.
Brendel had never heard of these two buildings, but according to Monica, both belonged to the core capabilities of Valhalla — namely, the ability to preserve heroic spirits. Therefore, Brendel guessed they might be buildings for training these two special troops. Since Monica mentioned that both buildings did not require a mana pool, he surely needed to elevate them on the construction agenda.
After all, this was the fundamental purpose for which he needed Valhalla.
Building the Hall of Valurian Warriors required ten Light Spirits working for a month, while the Camp of Wind Archers required a bit less time, but still three weeks. Brendel planned to place the Hall of Warriors in the square, directly opposite the city hall, while the Wind Archers could make use of the second layer of Valhalla, with the Nest of Trees being constructed in the upper canopy, perfectly utilizing all the space Valhalla currently had.
Just as he finished calculating, he raised his head and saw Flour entering with a few others from outside. Behind her were Sir Minate’s second son, Kargris, who was then the captain of his guards, along with two other tall tree spirit maidens carrying long bows.
As Kargris walked through the hall of the World Tree, he curiously looked around, behaving like a little monkey, completely lacking the demeanor of a noble. However, the two spirit maidens were not much different; they both looked surprised as they stared at this hall built in the tree.
For the tree spirits, they had never seen such a building style resembling their homeland outside the Green Tower.
But Brendel, seeing Kargris with the tree spirits, first thought whether there had been progress with Berun and Tam over there.
(PS: The promised two chapters, one chapter 4000 words, overflowing morals, oh dear. How about a double update this month? Or let’s hold a poll? Options are: A One update, B One update, C One update, D One update?) (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please vote for recommendations and monthly tickets on Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation.)
