World Tree

Very soon—

This batch of soil was delivered and buried in the tree pit by members of the Logistics Pavilion.

The next moment.

The cracks on the surface of this originally small apple tree's branches grew wider and wider. Emerald light seeped from the gaps until the cracks expanded further, and vast amounts of emerald radiance erupted forth.

Pillars of light burst out from the cracks in the branches, one after another.

Every pillar of light was exceedingly thin and bright.

The bark peeled away layer by layer amid the beams, like a summer cicada shedding its shell.

The old shell was pushed open from within, lifting piece by piece to reveal fresh, tender bark beneath, covered in an extremely faint layer of fuzz. It was clearly newly born bark.

It was not over yet.

New shoots emerged.

They quickly grew buds.

The dried skin covering the buds split open in an extremely fine crack. Then a new branch sprang out from the bud, followed by a second and a third. The new branches visibly stretched outward node by node, and with every new node, the tree shot upward another length.

This tree's size was expanding rapidly.

Right here, on the back mountain of Nameless Mountain.

When it had grown to roughly twenty or thirty meters tall, it stopped growing.

Leaves burst out one after another from the nodes of the new branches. When they first emerged, they were only the size of fingernails, curled into tight balls and so green they looked black. Then, within a few breaths, they unfurled and grew to the size of palms, their color fading from dark green to emerald, then from emerald to an exceedingly tender yellow-green.

That was the color unique to new leaves.

The entire process.

Looked like the birth of