Ascension of the Sylvan Cosmos.

Chapter 22. Assimilating The Vault.

'Make it mine.'

With Tianlian Liu Shu's acceptance, an intense, draining sensation overcame her.

WHOOSH!

A wind of energies enveloped the place, making every Rose Fairy exclaim as they flew away to safety and looked on with curiosity and wonder at what their new Tree friend was doing.

Liu Shu's mind activity took a hit as her <World Tree Eye> became utterly unusable together with other ongoing functions. Then, her other skills stopped working, like <Nature's Gift>. Of course, this didn't mean that the berries she had started growing would wilt. Instead, it just meant that they would need to grow at a normal pace.

'W-Why am I so dizzy?'

Our Level 3 World Tree looked at her ternary essences and got a scare. 

They were decreasing at a rate of almost one every five seconds. While it didn't sound as much, that was 720 of her Aether Mana and Anima Energy per hour! Her current regeneration didn't even reach a tenth of that number.

Liu Shu exclaimed. 'W-Wait, system! Stop. Take energy slower! What are you doing!?'

However, as much as she asked for it, the system didn't reply.

'What to do!? What should I do!?'

After panicking for a few moments, Liu Shu endured the mind ache and tried to do something about it. 'My energy is leaking from my roots, so I need to cut off the energy flow toward those places. Quick!'

Using the energy control she had been learning during the past few days, Liu Shu's every cell became active as they tried to move things in a direction that didn't mean her death or something worse.

Meanwhile, outside, the Rose Fairies became mesmerized as the tree's roots began coiling around the vault they built. The beautiful neon-blue veined roots moved as if they had a mind of their own, enveloping the entire excavated area in a beautiful shade of browns and blues.

After 10 minutes, each of her energies had lowered by around 120 points without including Phoer. This has been the thing that had calmed Liu Shu quickly, that her <Phoer Body Shards> weren't being consumed. Still, if Aether Mana or Anima Energy reached 0, it would mean trouble, more so if the assimilation of the vault kept sucking after that. It would probably start affecting her Phoer Body Shards.

Flor looked at what was happening and then frowned. 'This… So much energy? How are her reserves doing?'

Looking over and using her system, she saw they had been considerably reduced. Moreover, as she looked on, she saw that the spending pace was absurdly quick.

Flor's face became severe. 'Is this a constant decrease or a one-time thing?'

The Rose Fairy Queen didn't take long to realize the problem. 'What's going on? Is she too young to control her energies? Or has she done something that she shouldn't have?'

After 30 minutes more, with incredible efforts, Liu Shu managed to close a few of her energy pathways by compressing her roots, decelerating the speed at which the energy left her body.

That added to her own energy control and reduced the 720/hour to around 220/hour.

Even then, it was too much. After all, Liu Shu's Aether Mana and Anima Energy regeneration were much lower than that.

One hour passed and then another. Slowly but surely, Liu Shu learned new ways to manipulate her internal energies and quickly reduced her energy expenditure.

Her Aether Mana hit 400/1013, and her energy consumption was still at 50/hour. Liu Shu's exact Aether Mana regeneration was 36.5, so she needed to slice that 50 per hour more before she could relax her nerves.

With her mind aching like crazy

One day passed, and her Aether Mana Shards hit 150/1013.

By now, all the Rose Fariies had noticed Liu Shu's strangeness. 

Looking at the vault, which was partially covered by Liu Shu's roots, they couldn't help but worry. By now, Liu Shu had only managed to surround the floor and one of the walls with her roots. At this pace, she would run out of mana before she could complete it.

"Queen, will she be alright?"

Flor answered flatly. "I don't know. We just need to wait and believe."

Inside, she was thinking that it should be impossible for a World Tree to die this way. However, her worries weren't alleviated.

Thankfully, she had a revelation by the time Liu Shu's Aether Mana, her lowest energy reserve, hit 112 units. 'I have been trying to control the energy pouring into the vault all this time. Still, after thinking about it, why didn't I just control the place where I stored this energy, the <World Tree Heart>?'

After thinking for a second, she let go of all the control she had gathered until now, instantly skyrocketing her use to the original 720/hour.

The Rose Fairies looked on, horrified, as the strong energy surge they had seen at first happened again.

Flor became nervous and flew to Liu Shu's side. "Little one, don't give up. You can do it! Come on, dear. Gain control again!"

Of course, Liu Shu was still unable to communicate and was too focused on herself to hear anything else. Hence, she didn't hear Flor's pleas.

Thankfully for Flor, this surge in energy wasn't because Liu Shu gave up.

With 110 Aether Mana Shards left, this meant she would last around 9 minutes more at most. However, unlike the first time, her proficiency at gaining control over the energy surge increased exponentially.

After one minute, it was reduced to 650, after another minute, 520. The number kept getting lower, and the time she had to work with increased as she lowered her consumption.

It didn't take five minutes to understand the way her <World Tree Heart> innately worked. 'I see… So this is where this is made… Hm… So, if I stop this, what happens?'

Her success was much better during the first five minutes than with her previous method. Although the consumption had been reduced to around 150/hour, it was still too much.

However, now that she had fixed it at 150 with her <World Tree Heart>, she started combining her previous method, blocking and controlling energy from flowing through her roots.

Naturally, consciously stopping something similar to a heartbeat would usually be impossible. Still, World Trees and other creatures of their stature had natural control over their processes, allowing them to stop things at will.

Combining both methods, her consumption went from 150 down to 30 in a matter of ten more minutes.

When Liu Shu felt the strain disappear, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Right as she managed to deal with that, her young and undeveloped mind felt the tension leaving her body, and her consciousness was swallowed by darkness in what would be her first relatively long sleep.

Outside, the Rose Fairies finally let out a sigh of relief when they saw the Aether Mana Shards stop dropping after reaching 27/1013 and the Anima Energy Shards stop at around 68/1044.

This was a situation where they couldn't help even if they wanted to, so they were extremely worried during the ordeal.

Now, seeing that it had ended, many of them fell to the ground on their backs.

Clavel commented while looking at the sky with a tired expression, fear still lingering in her voice. "Queen, should we avoid building things by her side in the future?"

The rest of the Rose Fairies felt their lips twitch. 'Why are you asking about obvious things?'

Still, to their surprise, Flor shook her head. "We should've done so since the beginning. Our ignorance had placed her at risk. However, Liu Shu seems to have mastered an unknown method of controlling her energy use output. So, from now on, she shouldn't have any problems if we do something similar."

Clavel smiled wryly. "We almost messed up, huh."

Amapola looked at the now very slowly moving roots and asked. "How long will it take for her to wake up?"

As close as they were to nature, it wasn't hard to realize that all of Liu Shu's functions had stopped working as her aura focused on the vault. Many of the high-level fairies understood that Liu Shu had probably fallen unconscious.

Flor approached again and gently caressed Liu Shu's relatively smooth bark. "Who knows? The only thing we will be recklessly like before. Trees can fall asleep for a really long time, so let's focus on strengthening this place and planting a few other fruit trees around here to feed ourselves."

A few of the fairies blinked and looked at Flor. Flor smiled and nodded. "It's time we settle down or at least work for it. Liu Shu will become our forever home."

Many fairies shot to the sky and cheered. This was the first time Flor had spoken about it to everyone so clearly. The already affectionate eyes of the fairies when looking at Liu Shu became even more gentle, and then they all started diligently attending to her surroundings.

Flor never forgot to use her <Royal Pollination> on Liu Shu. Even if it gave a bit less experience than normal pollination for now, the royal one gave extra benefits that Flor believed were worth it.

Weeks passed, and her mind reawakened precisely two months after Liu Shu fell asleep. Each month had 30 days, while years had 360 days, with 12 months each year.

'Woah… that was a long and nice sleep~. Hehe.' Liu Shu was about to open her <World Tree Eye> when the system bombarded her with alerts.

[Congratulations! You've assimilated the first construct. You've unlocked the City Planning]

[Congratulations! You now have a <Inventory> where you can store, retrieve, and manipulate items by spending small amounts of Anima Energy.]

[You've managed to assimilate your first construct before Level 5 as a World Tree. You gain 150 Sylvanium Shards, Etherium Shards, Celestium Shards, Ascendium Shards, and Cognium Shards.]

[System Hint: You can mix 100 Shards to create one Ore. For example: 100 Sylvanium Shards can fuse and become 1 Sylvanium Ore.]

[You've assimilated <Basic Vault>. You can name all your constructs from now on. You can also choose to give them a basic tag. Would you like to choose one?]

Liu Shu looked at the several messages with a stunned expression. 'A tag? What's that for?'

[System Hint: A tag will name all your constructs by default. For example, if you choose Arboreal, the vault will be renamed to <Arboreal Vault>. Creatures that inspect it with the system will see the name.]

Liu Shu pondered as her reawakened mind spun what name to choose. 'But… I don't know many words. Can you give me a list, System?'

[…]

[System Hint: Here are ten from which you can choose.]

[1.- Arboreal

2.- Woody

3.- Sappy

4.- Branching

5.- Foliated

6.- Leafy

7.- Timbered

8.- Lignified

9.- Trunked

10.- Canopying]

Liu Shu pondered and considered her options. After around two hours of slow thinking, she came to a conclusion. 'Lignified! I like that the most.'

[Will you choose <Lignified> as a tag? You can change it later.]

'Yeah.'

[Congratulations! You've assimilated <Lignified Vault>! After assimilating it, you've gained 390,000 Proficiency points in <Woodcrafter>!]

[Woodcrafter has Leveled Up!]

[Woodcrafter has Leveled Up!]

[Woodcrafter has Leveled Up!]

[Woodcrafter has Leveled Up!]

<Woodcrafter (E- Rank Level 5 [1000/486,000])>

Liu Shu exclaimed. 'Wow!'

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Author Note: Hello, dear~. I have a Patreon page! I'm uploading the art of the novel, which has 45+ completed images, 110+ sketches, and 15+ chapters compared to the daily. Moreover, it is for both [Heaven, Earth, Me] and [Ascension of the Sylvan cosmos]! Also, there is ZERO AI art. All the art I've uploaded has been hand-drawn.

Much love and hugs,
Mortrexo.