Ugly Bastard

The first thing Noah did as he returned to the Dryad Core forest with Zinnia was visiting the Dryad Queen to take back the rented…asset. 

As Ugy explained, as long as he feeds the parasite in portions, leaving himself enough to function normally, he would not have any permanent problems. However, if he’d start to be drained entirely he would have a shortage of vitality. Once or twice it would not leave any permanent problem. But if that shortage of vitality were to be repeated many times or would be present for a long period, the damage to his health may become permanent and turn him erectile. 

Noah decided that he wasn’t going to risk it and avoid the shortages in his vitality entirely. For that he’d have to make sure to drain vitality from monsters and feed the parasite in daily portions, so that the amount of vitality left over and time spent on draining it would be maximum balanced. After all, he had to finish his training as soon as possible to minimize the risks he was facing and spending whole days only on draining vitality was counterproductive.

Thus, the process of “recharging” the branch and parasite possessing it, had to be followed systematically. Draining vitality and feeding it to the branch in equal daily portions. However, he already lost several days and now would have to gain on the lost time to not shift the schedule because he had an agreement with the Queen.

Thanks to the help of his mist cat friends that brought him plenty of monsters to leech from, Noah had a surplus of vitality that would be enough to fill two days worth of that vitality that he missed already. But he could not make their whole clan constantly work only for him. After all they also had a task in the Labyrinth they had to attend to, otherwise they would be replaced by another clan.

Luckily from now on he would have several teams of adventurers working for him, who would be secretly sending him captured monsters to drain from.

When he walked into the Palace tree, Noah noticed that the surrounding atmosphere was a lot different. Where previously many Dryads still looked at him with suspicion and wariness, now he noticed only interest and happiness. The whole time he walked through the forest, he had seen, not a spec of worry on any single Dryad’s face. A drastic change for just a few days, where for the last several weeks he was often met with suspicion and contempt after Dahlia started publicly calling him “Master”.

He had a guess as to why he was met now so differently. Just as Dahlia said before, this forest was too small to hide anything. Rumors among Dryads spread as wildfire.

Well at least he was sure that Ugy’s degenerate plan bore fruit and the branch indeed had the desired effect on the Dryad Queen and the Dryads race as a whole.

However once he was led into the throne hall, Noah found the atmosphere there was a lot more solemn than the one he saw outside.

As he entered the hall, five pairs of eyes peered at him with incredible weight, literally pressing on him with a kind of force that made it hard to breath.

High-Dryads. Until now, he only saw them in passing when he visited the most sacred place within the Core forest - The Gardens, that the High-Dryads guarded. They usually only silently regarded him for a few seconds before losing any interest as he was let through. He did feel the intensity of their gazes back then, as if gazing at the fury of nature, a storm compressed into a solid form, calamity with sentience. Back then it was a minute feeling and passed quickly, but now he felt it clearly and unobstructed. As if he walked into the most dangerous place in the world with all the powers of destruction pointed straight at him. As if plunged into the deepest part of an ocean he could not take a single breath, at the same time feeling incredible pressure squeezing the life out of him.

“Girls. Leave us.” Said the voice coming from the center of the room and the pressure immediately left Noah, allowing him to take a breath just before he was about to lose consciousness and topple.

Noah looked around, seeing the five very beautiful tall women moving out of the room while gazing away from him as if avoiding looking at him. 

“Noah! So nice to see you.” Said Dryad Queen as the five women sank into the wood of the door disappearing from the room. 

“It seems not all your daughters share your feelings toward me…” Muttered Noah with a creaking voice and rubbed his neck, feeling his throat completely dry.

“Please accept my apology for what you were forced to experience. But I assure you none of them bore any ill intent. On the contrary, they were too overexcited to see you. What you felt is their failure to suppress their power in their eagerness to meet you. They are indeed at fault for failing to control themselves, but please believe me, it is no indication of their objection or enmity toward you. I assure you that they feel even worse right now, as they realized how poor of an introduction they have made.”

Noah looked aside at Zinnia who nodded at him, confirming her mother's words. 

“Alright.” Said Noah. “But what was that anyway? Felt like they were tearing me apart with their gazes. You said they failed to control this power? Failed to control what? Their gazes?”

“Their inner world. A kind of private space you may create within your soul if you have enough spirituality. When you fill that world with power, it starts to manifest as part of your very being.”

“You may have noticed the force of nature that distinguishes the High-Dryads from my younger daughters. That power of element that could be seen within their true bodies. It is because they have started to manifest their force of nature that they feel they have the strongest connection with, but they still can’t harness that power entirely. Can’t lock it in their minds. Once they do, they’ll reach Queen-hood and be my equals. But they are still far from that as you can see. Although the ones you just met are the closest ones to that step among my daughters.” Said Dryad Queen.

“Force of element? I thought Dryads are spiritual beings of….” Noah wanted to say “nature” but realized that many other elements are also called as the forces of nature.

“Vegetation?” Said Dryad Queen finishing the sentence for him. 

“Umm. Yeah. Something like that.” Muttered Noah.

“Well. We are that. But as you may know we command all natural plant life including the spiritual.” Said Dryad Queen.

“Spiritual plants?” Asked Noah a bit confused.

“You do know of the border world, don’t you?” Said Dryad Queen. “It is not barren, you know? Many plants that people never met in the material world, populate the entirety of the Border world. But unlike the material world, vegetation living in the depths of the Border world is a lot more…varied, both in its properties and growth conditions.”

“Some may be proliferating among rare metals, imbuing in metallic properties and becoming harder than the best steel you humans make. Some dwell in places such as volcanoes. Others grow the best at the freezing temperatures. Growing in places rich in spirit power and imbued with different elements, plants have evolved in a myriad of such strange ways that you, humans, may not even imagine. All strange properties of plants in the material world are a distant echo of what their ancestor, the original spiritual plant, have.”

“Spiritual plants are ancestors to plants of the material world?” Asked Noah.

“Indeed. How do you think some plants have gained a property to absorb only one kind of nutrients? Sweet fruit and a bitter vegetable may grow from the same patch of mud, yet one, like for example hot pepper, that you humans use for spicy food, would only absorb bitterness and other, like strawberry, only sweetness? Why would a plant evolve in such a way that it would absorb only one nutrient that makes it spicy, but leave out all that would make it sweet, while having both of them right under its roots?”

“The answer is, because its ancestor plant has been struggling to survive in a place that was saturated with hellish hot spirit powers. To survive there it either had to gain power to freeze the surroundings or become hotter than the place it grew in, so that heat around it would not bother it anymore. This information then was passed on to its offspring, thus its offspring grew only striving to become hotter like Chilly pepper or more freezing like Mint grass. Although the spirit power is thin in the material world, the offsprings of those plants still seek that very property that they have been taught to have.

“Commanding weak in spirit power plants is a basic skill of any Dryad. However, commanding and growing those initial ancestor plants that may proliferate in most hellish conditions takes…a much different quality of spiritual power. Dahlia has told me how they helped you clean your Mansions garden from a vicious vine-like plant. Have you ever wondered why they could not simply command it as all other vegetation?”

“Spirit plants are a lot more different from normal and hard to control. If you lack power to command them, they will not listen to you. It is similar to the status of your human society. Spiritual plants would represent the nobles among the natural world. The more spiritual the plant, the higher level of Dryad you need to command it. Which is why I bear the title of a Queen. That is no mere sign of status like you humans use it. That is a statement, a fact, a proof of a power that I wield. Being a Queen of Dryads does not mean that all plants will listen to me. It means no plant, no matter how powerful it is beyond my control.”

“But unlike you humans that pass such a title on to your offspring easily. The power my title represents cannot be passed on. It must be gained. Every Dryad has to gain this power from scratch with her own strength. All I can do is help with resources.”

“So how do they become the rulers of this spirit plants?” Asked Noah with interest.

“For that, Dryads need to understand and repeat all those spiritual conditions, that spirit plants proliferate in, within their inner world. Once they do, they manifest that power and use it to command that plant.” Said Dryad Queen.

“And that is hard to do?” Asked Noah gazing at Zinnia for a moment with interest.

“Filling the inner world with such powers is quite easy once we reach a certain level of spiritual control. It only needs time, practice and resources. With this any Dryad will eventually reach that level. Reaching that step is what distinguishes High-Dryads from others. However, it does not take any special epiphany from any of my daughters to gain this power.”

“The hardest step is what comes next. It is stopping this power from manifesting outward all the time that Dryad may truly struggle with. In some cases their very own power may kill themselves if they fail to control it. So many of my daughters do not cross that boundary as they feel not ready to make that step yet, like Zinnia, Aster and Dahlia. They could have crossed the boundary. But they are not confident in being able to deal with consequences.” Said Dryad Queen gazing at Zinnia that looked down avoiding her mother's gaze as if in embarrassment.

“What you just felt, is what may happen when my daughters still struggle to hide these powers from manifesting. Even their gazes imbued with that spirit power may feel too hard for those whose spirit power is lacking. They become dangerous, not only for everyone in their proximity, but also for themselves. Thankfully the trees surrounding the Gardens are quite helpful to control their power. Which is why they live there. Not only because they are the strongest guardians, but also because that is the safest place for them to stay without accidentally harming anyone. So they did not mean to be rude just now. They merely pointed their interest at you, although it was slightly overwhelming for you.” Said Dryad Queen.

“I see. I am sorry for assuming things, Your Highness. Still, I am afraid that I still don’t understand it well, even with your explanation. But I at least believe that they indeed had no ill intent toward me.” Said Noah.

“Don’t worry about it. There will come a time that you will. After all you bear the power of that man…” Said Dryad Queen, muttering the last sentence barely audibly.

“Anyway.” She said, clapping her palms. “I assume you are here to receive this magnificent thing back.” She said, changing topic with a happy smile as she pointed at the wooden pedestal with a velvety pad that stood at the side of her throne. A new addition to the hall, as Noah noticed. In the center of the velvet pad lay a big shiny wooden dildo. For a minute Noah thought that it looked a lot more polished than the last time he saw it. Was it so shiny in the light rays this much before? But shook his head not allowing himself to dwell on the thought of why it could become so polished. 

“You are quite late to return for it, Noah. You said that it will take about a month to recharge it, but you did not show up for two days. Will it shift the date of its next available time?” Asked the Dryad Queen with a look of impatience on her face

“No. Your Majesty, I’ll make sure to make it in time.”

“I see.” Said Dryad Queen sighing in relief.

As their discussion continued Noah’s thoughts whirred away to the previous topic.

What he did understand from Dryad Queen's explanation, is that if Dryads recreated hellish conditions within their so-called inner world to command the plants, then it meant the Queen could recreate any possible condition inside hers. If previously he felt suffocating from mere interest of High-Dryads pointed at him, whose powers were merely manifesting the few elements that they felt more proficient in, Noah could only imagine the consequence of Dryad Queen’s gaze if she were to point her unfiltered, unsuppressed gaze at him. The weight of that gaze may very well squish him like a bug within a moment. 

Only now Noah gained a true realization to the depth of power that the being in front of him truly wielded. And she said that her Godmother, the Queen of Fairy, was even more powerful? 

If he was like a bug in front of Dryad Queens power. How would he compare to the Saintess that sits on the throne of a true ruler over all the Kings and Queens.

Saintess was said to be superior in power to any Labyrinth Lord, including the Dryad Queen. 

Noah thought he had some inkling to the degree of power that the heavy-lifters of this world were wielding, before. He even swore to reach the summit of the power and become the strongest of them all. But somehow the picture he had in his mind turned out to be childishly naive. Although he has become a lot stronger in the last few months, the gap in power that he now saw has only widened.

He thought he looked at the summit of the mount of power from ground back when he just gained his system, but now it felt as if he gazed at it from a bottomless trench from where he could not see even half of the mountain, not to mention its peak. And even now he has not reached the level ground to see the peak of the power that the top people of this world were wielding. As if the mountain suddenly grew higher right in front of his eyes.

But even then, he did not wish to back down. He was now more eager to climb that peak than before.