After seeing Karo off, Taral returned to the laboratory as if he knew the way by heart.
After Richard confirmed that his identity had been exposed, he dissolved the Fate Contract between himself and Taral. Yet with the contract gone, their relationship had instead grown closer.
Tree Spirits were a most wondrous race.
In theory, the Taral before Richard was merely one part of a Tree Spirit. A complete Tree Spirit should have been Taral and the World Tree he now inhabited.
As their name suggested, the Tree Spirit Race consisted of World Trees that had gained sentience.
Such a marvelous life-form filled Richard with curiosity. Taral, meanwhile, was a steadfast fellow. He and Richard had struck a deal: Taral would serve as Richard's research material and allow himself to be studied.
Richard's payment to him was evolution, time and again.
The Path of Evolution for Tree Spirits differed from both the ordinary evolution of World Trees and conventional bodily evolution.
A Tree Spirit's Path of Evolution followed the path of its bloodline, yet it required almost no involvement from laws.
For Tree Spirits to evolve, they only needed to continuously develop their bloodline and advance in the direction of their progenitor—the Great World Tree.
Of course, all of this rested on one prerequisite: a Tree Spirit had to possess a world.
Without a world, a Tree Spirit would be permanently stuck as a Third-level creature, unable to advance an inch.
But the Astral Realm lacked nothing more than worlds. If all else failed, a large Mystic Realm could make do.
There were only so many Tree Spirits who could reach the step of becoming a World Lord, so worlds were hardly a scarce resource.
Upon entering the laboratory, Taral voiced a question he had wanted to ask earlier.
"My