Roots of the World Tree
Do-yun had easily cleared the trial thanks to the spirit-affinity enchantment on his sword, but under ordinary circumstances, contacting the spirits required bringing items that would catch their interest.
The sea conch resting at the bottom of this pond was one of them.
A sea conch that once held pure natural energy.
Now only faint traces of it remain.
A clear blue sea conch. From the item description alone, it was impossible to tell what effect it possessed. That was only natural—this was the sort of object that revealed its true worth only when specific conditions were met. In that sense it was a material item, much like the ice crystal he had obtained on the seventh floor.
“To make this usable, I’ll need to visit a place overflowing with natural energy.”
Material items were not a popular category of loot. They offered no immediate boost to combat power, and turning them into finished products demanded a tremendous amount of effort. This sea conch was no exception. Outside of a tiny handful of returnees, it was hardly a favored hidden piece.
Completing this would eat up an entire day.
The sea conch was, in essence, a vessel for natural energy. Filling it required traveling across the whole of the eighth floor—spending precious hours simply wandering. And after all that grueling work, the only reward was the spirits’ goodwill. For ordinary people, it made far more sense to spend the same time securing other hidden pieces on the floor. The same logic applied to Do-yun. He was already busy enough hunting Mana Stones; he had no leisure to tour the entire forest.
“Then why did you pick that sea conch up in the first place?”
Listening to his explanation, Ciel voiced a perfectly reasonable question. An incomplete sea conch was nothing more than trash with no abilities at all. Do-yun merely flashed a crooked grin.
“You’ll see.”
“Doyun-nim! You know that expression is seriously annoying, right?”
Ignoring Ciel’s side jab, he set the sea conch on the ground. In the end it was only a vessel for natural energy—and right now that vessel was empty. The usual method would have been to seek out fresh energy and refill it. Do-yun intended something different.
The system notification even said so. This conch used to hold natural energy once.
To most people an item’s background lore was something they could take or leave; performance was what mattered. For Do-yun the story was different. He possessed the authority that rewound an object’s time—Reverse.
Cooldown still has about half a day left, huh.
He glanced up at the gradually brightening sky. It had been midnight when he crossed paths with Robin, so he still needed time before Reverse became available again. He had no intention of sitting idle until then.
Ssshk.
Do-yun slipped a hand into his coat and drew out a single orb—another hidden piece he had secured on the eighth floor.
Upon use, activates one of your held skills while ignoring its cooldown.
He stared at the transparent sphere for a moment, then shifted his gaze. There sat the notification window that had appeared the instant he entered the eighth floor.
Points — 1024
The points he had gathered had already climbed into four digits—a small triumph earned by hunting Mana Stones through the night. Even so, Do-yun could not relax. There was no way to know how wide the gap had grown between him and the others.
“A ranking window would have been convenient.”
Without any means of knowing his current standing, even brief rests left impatience and anxiety lodged in a corner of his mind. How bitter would it feel if, when the eighth floor closed, the rankings flipped by a handful of points?
“So it’s better to use this now as well.”
He muttered while looking down at the transparent orb in his hand. Consumables that could copy a skill were extremely rare—joker cards that, used well, could save a life once. Spending one simply to access Reverse half a day early felt a little wasteful.
Crack.
Yet Do-yun clenched his fist and shattered the orb. Half a day inside the Tower was more than enough time for countless shifts to occur. Better to spend it now than to hoard it and miss the right moment.
Using Moonlight-Filled Dew (F).
Which skill would you like to copy?
“Reverse. Target is the Old Sea Conch.”
He spoke the words even while half-doubting them. He could not be certain an F-rank consumable would successfully trigger an SSS-rank skill. Possessing skills or items that broke a stratum’s rank ceiling was supposed to be impossible, so even Do-yun had no idea whether this would work.
Reverse (SSS) used on ‘Old Sea Conch (F)’.
36 years of time are rewound.
Those worries proved groundless. The Moonlight-Filled Dew copied Reverse without the slightest hitch. Moments later the sea conch lying before him gleamed smooth and flawless, free of every water stain.
◈ A sea conch in which natural energy has condensed.
A soft green light seeped from the conch in Do-yun’s hand.
Saaah.
Simply holding it filled him with a refreshing sensation. The fatigue piled up from a night of constant movement washed away in an instant. For a moment the sheer performance left him speechless.
“Wait a second.”
The original sea conch had never possessed any natural recovery function. If it had, returnees would have made it a mandatory stop on the eighth floor. At best it was a support tool that slightly amplified spirit energy. As he searched for the source of the change, the answer struck him at once.
Because I used Reverse.
Returnees could remain on the eighth floor for only about two days. In that brief window the natural energy a conch could store was limited. This one, however, was different. It was a “past” conch that had accumulated energy for decades—at least—until Mana Stone contamination stripped it of power.
“Whoa.”
An unexpected windfall. Do-yun murmured in admiration while checking his body. Merely possessing the conch had deepened the glow of the spirit tattoos etched into his skin.
Almost more than twice as dense.
Since the tattoos’ color was directly tied to the output the spirits could produce, the change was highly encouraging.
Woooong.
As if the spirits themselves were delighted, they expressed their power in their own ways and cheered. A gentle breeze ruffled Do-yun’s hair, lightning sparkled before his eyes, and the earth gave a light tremor. He was still smiling at their vivid reactions when his expression suddenly hardened. Something unsettling had registered at the edge of his vision.
Ssshk.
In the spot where the earth spirit had playfully scraped aside a little soil, something of a texture utterly unlike dirt was revealed.
A monster?
Do-yun reflexively drew his sword and narrowed his eyes. Some monsters dug underground and traveled that way. Yet too many details failed to fit. The spirits had shown no reaction at all. Anything born from Mana Stone corruption would have drawn a warning from them first. Only after he approached carefully, wariness still high, did he grasp its true nature.
A root?
It was too massive to recognize at a glance, yet a closer look left no doubt. This was a tree root—and a living one that was even now slowly writhing, burrowing deeper into the earth.
“Could you turn the ground over a bit?”
When Do-yun whispered quietly to the earth spirit, the tattoo flashed and the nearby soil gently rose.
Paaat.
As the dirt fell away he could not suppress a low sound of dismay. What he had glimpsed earlier was only the tiniest fragment. The unknown roots stretched in every direction—enough to wrap the entire area where he stood and more.
“How long has it been like this?”
A chill slid down his spine. The roots displayed no intent to attack him; they were simply expanding their domain. Still, the survivor’s instinct he had honed on Earth was ringing every alarm.
“M-Maybe we should put some distance between us and think about it?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
Do-yun accepted Ciel’s advice and started moving. He had not taken more than a few steps before the earth began to shake, and he knew at once that escape was already too late.
Kugugung.
Nearby roots writhed, sending tremors through the ground. From the roots’ perspective it might have been nothing more than a casual stretch, but for Do-yun caught in the gaps it was pure disaster.
Can I push them back with Bash?
He set his stance to cut down the root rushing straight at him—only for a wind to arrive first, gently wrapping his entire body.
Whoosh.
Empowered by the Pure Sea Conch, the wind spirit’s strength was more than enough to lift a full-grown man into the air. Before he realized it, Do-yun was floating high above the reach of the roots.
“Thanks.”
The short word of gratitude had barely left his lips when speech failed him. From this height he could see a sight that had been hidden below—an overwhelming, impossible vista.
Ddududuk.
Far beyond the forest where the roots converged, a single colossal tree was growing at an unnatural speed, as though someone had slammed the fast-forward button on a video. Its trunk shot skyward without pause. Massive branches spread in every direction, blanketing the heavens and casting a vast shadow. Leaves unfurled atop them in dense, light-devouring abundance.
Faced with that towering majesty, Do-yun let out a hollow laugh. He had seen a form like this once before.
“World Tree.”
The guardian deity of the eighth floor that had appeared in his illusion to exact the price for violating Heavenly Punishment was, at this very moment, descending into reality.