World Tree

Soon—

The shipment of soil arrived, and the Logistics Pavilion Members buried it in the planting pit.

The next moment.

The cracks along the branches of the once-small apple tree grew wider and wider. Emerald light seeped through them until the fissures widened enough for great torrents of green light to gush out.

Pillars of light shot from the cracks in its branches, one after another.

Each was exceptionally thin and bright.

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

The old shell was pushed apart from within, its pieces curling up one by one to reveal fresh, tender bark covered in an extremely fine fuzz. It was unmistakably new growth.

It wasn't over yet.

Buds emerged along the branches.

Before long, they swelled.

A hairline crack split the dry skin covering a bud, and a new branch sprang out, followed by a second and a third. The new branches visibly extended segment by segment, and each time they grew another segment, the trunk shot up another stretch.

The tree was rapidly expanding.

Right there on the Back Mountain of Nameless Mountain.

It stopped growing when it reached roughly twenty or thirty meters tall.

Leaves burst open one after another at the joints of the new branches. At first, they were only the size of fingernails, curled tightly and so green they were nearly black. Within a few breaths, they unfurled to the size of a palm, fading from dark green to emerald, then from emerald to an exceptionally tender yellow-green.

That was a color found only in new leaves.

The whole process.

It looked like the birth of a human newborn: first flailing about, then stretching its limbs and opening its mouth to breathe as its cries rang out.