“Haaah, that was not pleasant. Maybe I should ask first?”
Scratching the fur ball between the ears I place my hand on the tree again and inject some qi.
“Yo, tree, let me do my thing for a bit. You’ll love it, I promise.”
I feel something like grateful anger?
“Yeah, I should have asked first, but have I ever done anything bad to you?”
I send some indignant vibes the tree’s way. In response, I get a deep sense of loneliness. Must be hard being the only slightly sentient tree in the entire forest.
“I know it’s hard to imagine, but would you like to see some other places?”
I get a feeling of confusion back. Never talk to trees about places other than its own spot in the forest. I have a fix for that though. I focus and send images to the tree. Images of wonders such as the glowing tower being lit up by the rising sun. Images of mountains, rivers, man-made wonders from another planet. I simply flood the poor perennial plant with a mind-boggling array of sights, from this world and the previous.
The tree goes completely silent. It seems to be thinking on a very deep level.
“Did I break you? Don’t think too hard about it, kay? Let me do this one thing and you will understand.”
More silence. I sense movement below me and see Lola nuzzling the tree. Her head is glowing faintly, sending some qi into the air and the tree. I sense some form of communication of a much more primal level going on. It seems like a week-old rabbit and a smart tree are at the same level of consciousness. Neat!
This conversation goes on for a few minutes. I can only vaguely sense intent being sent both ways. Then the tree opens up to me. I don’t know what Lola said but it was very effective. The tree reveals its all, laying itself bare under my hands.
“Thanks to both of you. This might feel uncomfortable but bear with it for a bit.”
I immediately get to work. The moment I have my emotions locked away I roar at the mana inside the tree.
‘MERGE YOU FUCKING INGRATES. GET TOGETHER. LIGHT AND DARK, THEN ALL TOGETHER YOU SHITTY EXCUSE FOR A MAGICAL SOURCE!’
Then the tree explodes in a haze of light. A massive wave of newly formed qi careens away from the glowing bark. My spiritual sense expands upwards, riding the cresting qi wave. I let it expand for a bit before exerting my control. I pull all of it back into the tree, letting it settle inside each branch and leaf. With relief, I free my emotions again while gritting my teeth.
“Hold onto your horse. This is going to be difficult!”
I take every speck of qi under my control, and I freeze it in place, keeping it stationary on a molecular level. Then I squeeze. The tree shudders and I get showered in leaves. A pressure starts building in my mind, and I pump a quarter of my liquid qi into my brain, spinning it around. With improved mental faculties I squeeze again. I force each bit of qi closer together, instead of pushing from the outside I force every particle to the middle of the tree at once while keeping their relative positions the same, only decreasing the distance between every particle.
The tree continues to shudder, but I start to feel the molecules giving way. Pain starts blooming in my mind but I keep on squeezing. I’m basically trying to make the tree smaller from the inside out. Locking the internal qi into a grid causes it to latch on to the nearest atomic particle. Bringing my qi closer together all at once drags these molecules along. I just formed this qi, so it’s mine to control. I believe this, and thus it is so. Firming my conviction, I push it all together at once while I funnel some more qi into my brain. The tree starts shuddering for real now, its molecules want to escape this suffocating grip, but I don’t let them. I feel something wet flow over my lips but ignore my bleeding nose the best I can.
Slowly but surely the tree starts giving way to my will and belief. The tree seems to dance in place, jumping around under the internal stresses. I have half of my qi swirling through my head by the time the tree has halved in size. It slowly shrinks under my iron-willed command. I trickle more qi into my head only when the pain starts distracting me from my work. I got it to a quarter of its original size now and have three-quarters of my qi pounding through my mind. All my other senses fade away as I focus solely on the tree. Something snaps and the tree’s physical form pushes back a little less.
The tree is hand-span-big half an hour later. It feels like I’ve been at this for years though. The physical density of the compressed tree is starting to reach a limit. Molecules are made up of loads of empty space, but compressing them like this is not natural and thus not easy. I will have to squeeze this tree enough to start nearing its Schwarzschild radius. I need to get this thing to black hole levels of compactness.
Physical laws are funny things. On earth, these things are like absolutes. No matter how hard you try, things will fall down just short of ten metres per second per second until terminal velocity is reached near sea level. No amounts of wishful thinking, yelling or technology is going to change that. It all changes when you bring magic into the mix. Physical laws become suggestions when you have the power to flatten mountain ranges and change a planetoid’s orbit using qi. The thing I’m currently suggesting to the laws of this universe is that this tree doesn’t fit. There is too much tree in too small a space.
With a pop, the tree shrinks down to a few centimetres. Its roots have long since been pulled from the ground and a complete miniature tree is floating in front of my face. I can’t sense any power emanating from it, it seems like a delicately made model. Sending my spiritual sense into the wood tells me a different story. The entire tree is still there, but also not there. The universe gave way to my idea and transported the majority of said tree to its own little space. Peeking inside shows me a white glowing tree hanging in a dark void. I take the small thing in my hands.
“I’ll send you some earth.”
I scoop up a hand of loose dirt, letting it fall inside the tree. Similar to my spatial ring and taming necklace, inside the small model exists a little spatial pocket that I can send stuff into. The dirt splatters all over its glowing branches. The clods of earth fall down hesitatingly, clinging to the tree’s roots. With a tired smile on my face, I start scooping up big loads of earth, sending it inside the pocket dimension. Looking inside I see the tree starting to acclimatize to its new surroundings. The mana gathering circle is now being used as a qi making factory. I tiredly feel some emotions and see colourful swirls of mana rushing into the necklace. This will slow down once the entire space inside is saturated.
I look around and see Lola staring wide-eyed at me from a couple of metres back. I grin and continue scooping dirt on the miniature. I feel exhausted by the time the tree has enough dirt to cover up its roots. I look at the hole the tree left behind, now getting deeper by my hands. Five metres down I send qi into the surrounding earth. I manipulate it to form a little cave, leaving a little entrance for Lola and compressing the walls to prevent it from collapsing. I put the tree on the ground and form a slab on the opposite side of the little room. With a satisfied smile, I lay myself down and sleep.
Chapter seventeen
Ground
Aglowing red mist hangs around me. My heart is twisting in relief and guilt as I watch two faces fade away into the red haze.
With a jolt, I wake up and sit upright. I feel something launch off my chest, followed by a high-pitched yell. It’s pitch black around me. What is happening? My confusion fades as I take stock of my surroundings after shoving some qi in my eyes. I’m underground.
Yeah, I made a small cave underground before taking a nap, how did I get transported to a massive gaping cavern? Looking upwards, I see a small pinprick of light. Looking downwards, I see a little tree standing in the middle of the bowl-shaped floor and a sulking rabbit. The rabbit I understand; she must have been sleeping on my chest. The tree is the problem here. Walking towards the middle of the cavern I see the tree in the middle of a slow-motion dirt spiral.
Taking another look around and a few calcu
lations tell me that this tree must have absorbed five hundred thousand cubic metres of dirt by now. My compressed earth bed is still intact, how did this tree dig the ground from under me without me noticing? Forcing the tree into a usable artefact must have taken a bigger toll on me than I thought. I must have been deeply asleep for a while.
I pick up the tree with a stand of qi. Floating it over to me it seems no different from yesterday. That ends as soon as I shove some spiritual sense into it. Pushing myself in further, I see the glowing tree, a blue sky, and a massive plane of dirt. I need to put some controls on this thing, if I leave it alone who knows, it might even swallow up the entire planet after a few thousand millennia.
Tutting at the over-ambitious tree, I pull my necklace over my head. The flat black sphere reflects the single point of light while the finely wrought chain glitters softly. Plucking the tree from the air, I talk to it.
“Good job, not killing me overnight…”
An awkward silence lingers for a while.
“I got this neat necklace with a ton of fancy functions. You want in?”
A white trickle of qi flows from the tree, gingerly exploring the necklace. I grab Lola and shove her inside.
“See how it works? Can you integrate these functions?”
The tree understands because I’m talking while keeping in contact with some qi, ideas and concepts are more important like this than the words I choose to say. I pull Lola out of the necklace; I don’t want her turning into minced meat while the artefact is changing. I feel her nibbling on my calves as she shows her irritation. I ignore her and after a minute the tree starts shaking. Taking that as consent, I lay the tree on top of the oblate spheroid. I am blinded by a flash of light.
A millisecond later my eyes adjust again, and I see a thing of beauty. An incredibly detailed tree seems to be merging with, or coming out of the hanger. Parts black relief and parts natural miniature bark, the entire crown has flattened to follow the spheroid shape. Minuscule leaves adorn the branches, too small for a mortal’s eye to see. I push my entire being into the necklace and the cave around me disappears with a rushing feeling.
I pop back into existence a few metres away from the big tree. I gambled that I could enter the necklace but wasn’t completely sure. It was a partial leap of faith. If I had pushed myself into the necklace previously, it would have ended pretty badly. Try shoving a human into a box less than a metre wide. I would have broken various bones at the very least and more than likely lost some limbs on the way there. The tree obviously used the necklace to steady the foundations of its own pocket dimension, so it was a pretty safe gamble. Sending some qi out around me I notice that the earth layer is just a few metres thick. I can’t see the edge but I feel it a few hundred metres away from me.
All in all, this is pretty neat. I didn’t want to make any high-level artefact, they just create dependency, but this end result is even better than the plan I had in mind. And I’ll get to do gardening, all the time. I will repeat that for you. I can do gardening all the time. I might not look like it, but growing magical herbs, fruits and various plants is a big hobby of mine. After a thousand years of wandering the Cultivation World, I had started little gardens everywhere. Any special spot with a special type of Dao or qi I could find has been turned into small gardens by me.
I will have to fix the lighting issue first though. The tree gives off a white glow, but plants can’t live of spiritual light alone. I sink into my mind and call up everything I know about how stars function. I drag up every little scrap of knowledge I still retain about thermonuclear fusion, the spectrum of radiation that stars usually put out and the filtering mechanics of an atmosphere. Helium and hydrogen fusing together giving off various types of radiation. With all this knowledge in mind, I create a small sphere of qi and shove all I recall into it.
I analyse the yellow light given off by the small sphere. I tweak it a bit, reducing some ultraviolet and non-visible radiation, while boosting every other but green. I know that light useful for photosynthesis should be in the four hundred and seven hundred nanometre wavelength range, but I am not powerful enough to interact with physics on such a nanoscopic scale yet. I will simply have to wing it and adjust as time goes by.
I let the Tree have a good look at the construct and I feel a sense of approval radiating from it. The tree seems to like it so other plants will probably enjoy it too. I make a copy and send it high in the sky, fixing it in place. I give the original one to the tree and release my control. The tree absorbs it and takes control of the light source overhead. A few seconds later the sky is filled with miniature suns. The tree has started glowing a very faint shade of gold. It’s pretty neat that it’s learning at this quick of a pace.
Grinning I rub my spatial ring. There are a ton of seeds in there. At first, I thought they would be useless in this world as they need qi to grow, but the air inside the necklace is dense with power. Sensing the energies around me I notice that the tree has started leaving its fingerprints on the qi in this space. It’s starting to get a nature and plant life type of vibe, ideal for growing magical plants. I will have to find extreme examples of elements and place them in the ground in order to grow special type flora.
I giggle a bit and do a little dance as I take out a variety of seeds. I divide the growing circle of earth into quarters. I make a small connection with the tree, letting it know what I am doing. It absentmindedly agrees, its limited conscious still too caught up in its sudden change of being. I compress some earth to form circling footpaths, connecting them with paths like a wheel’s spokes. Crouching down and rubbing the earth between my fingers dampens my enthusiasm a bit. The earth is nothing special yet, slightly nutrient deprived and wholly mundane. It will need to soak in this qi atmosphere for a bit longer in order to become good growing ground.
I can start planting the simplest herbs though, so I create concentric plant beds, dividing them up with small walkways. I poke a hole in the soil with my finger and drop the seeds in, one by one. First I plant some Sunrise Misty Dew, or healing flower as I like to call it. Make a paste of its leaves and even a top-tier cultivator heals a little bit faster after applying the stuff. Next is the Harbinger grass, aka good-smelling grass, ideal for making fragrant soaps, or good smelling clothes. Deep Flame Weed, aka pepper, goes next, followed by the Mystical Heavenly Fragrance Grass. I like to call that one basil. Delicious with tomatoes and fresh cheese.
Seeing a pattern yet? I’m sure that all those impressive sounding names have a ton of symbolism and deep meaning behind them, but they are such irritating names to say. The rest of my seeds are all higher tier and need specialized or just denser qi. A flash of light halfway through the planting process tells me that Lola managed to find the trick to entering this pocket dimension. She looks at what I’m doing. Seeing me playing around in the dirt with a smile on my face must have scared her away, and she is nuzzling the tree now. The tree forms a little alcove in its bark, allowing Lola a small place to relax. By the time I’m done with planting I hear a slow rhythmic breathing coming from her, the small rabbit deeply asleep.
“All right tree, you should think of a name for yourself soon. I’ll only give you one if you can’t come up with something good. Names have power you know.”
I look around for a bit. The grass I had stored inside the necklace somehow got transported here. Small tufts of grass cover the large stretch of naked dirt here and there. A small golden thread of qi flows from the tree to one such patch. The power plucks some from the earth and carefully transplants it in a barren area of soil. I nod in approval at the tree’s gardening efforts.
Spreading my spiritual sense, I feel for the exit. The tree itself is a nexus point for entering and exiting the dimensional space. This way it can expand outwards endlessly, the additional space supported by the growing amount of qi the tree has under its control.
“I’m going back to the city now. I’ll send over some grass and various plant life. Just plant them where you t
hink is best. I’ll also send you water if I can find a water source. You know about islands?”
The tree sends a form of “no” to my mind. In response, I send it the meaning of the word island and some images. I also send general information about buildings. I do want a nice place to sleep and chill somewhere.
“Could you plant about half the surface with grass? You are a spirit of nature, so I trust your landscaping skills. Just leave enough empty room for some buildings.”
I feel the tree’s mind churning over this new information.
“It’s a big world out there, and you’ve got lots to learn. Lola can show you how to sense the outside world from here when she wakes up. Later!”
With another flash, I push myself through the tree and appear upside down in the cave. Smacking my head on the ground I curse inwardly while clambering to my feet. Always check your local fucking orientation. The necklace fell upside down in the dirt when I entered it, and thus I exited it upside down. I pat the loose dirt from my clothes and look up.
The ceiling seems a few hundred metres high, maybe a little over half a kilometre? Packing the earth beneath my feet down tight I sink through my knees and pour qi into my legs. I aim for the pinprick of light and jump. Squinting my eyes at the rush of air I see the light becoming bigger. I form a dense circle of qi around me and shout at it to grab the air. Mind cultivators can fly the earliest, but the most I can do at the moment is shove air around to adjust my trajectory a bit. I’m not flying, I’m falling with style!
The ceiling is getting closer awfully fast now, so I shape the qi ball around me into a pointed spear as I shove more air behind me. A second later, I burst majestically from the ground, loose clods of dirt and ripped roots flying all around me. The hollow cave underneath me is massive, so I use up a bit of energy to launch myself away from my exit point. The entire area is filled with a thin film of qi and I decide that it’s a dumb idea to leave it behind. It has a slight nature scent to it, and I flood it with my own qi and rip it away from the cavern.
The DAO of Magic Page 14