The World Tree

Azure Garden trembled.

Every strand of mycelium was contracting, every leaf was curling.

"Seraphina."

"Here."

"Take 'it' out."

The bright-eyed Wizard's steps did not hesitate, but her pupils abruptly shrank for an instant.

Of course she knew what "it" was.

In the deepest part of Azure Garden, there was a secret chamber.

The chamber had no door. Its entrance was sealed shut by three layers of living vines and a Void Shell barrier.

In five thousand years, only Aish herself had ever entered it, and she had entered only three times.

The first time was to place the thing inside, the second was to check its condition, and the third... was now.

Seraphina stood before the entrance to the secret chamber, and the vines slowly retreated after sensing Aish's will.

Undoing the Void Shell barrier was even more complicated. Aish had to personally input, from afar, an unlocking sequence that only her soul frequency could match.

After the barrier dispersed, a suffocating aura surged out of the secret chamber.

That aura was not decay. Quite the opposite—it was so fresh it was almost stinging.

It was like compressing an entire spring valley into a stone room three feet square, life force concentrated to the point of nausea.

On the stone platform at the center of the chamber lay a seed.

The World Tree Seed.

Aish had spent a full twelve hundred years cultivating this seed.

From the initial conception, to repeated revisions of the genetic template, to countless failed germination experiments in the cultivation environment.

Every failure meant hundreds of years gone up in smoke, and every fresh start required nutrients and leyline energy to be accumulated again from scratch.

Twelve hundred years.

To mortals, that was a long stretch of time in which several dynasties could rise and fall.