City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Foundational Laws

While the clone was advancing, Richard remained in the Forest Plane as well. The pure essence of a tree of life was far too powerful for someone like Coco to absorb, so he had to turn that essence into a set of potions that wouldn’t turn her into one big, hideous tumour. Here, he could also add the natural life force of the plane to temper the potions further.

Spending nearly three weeks in his laboratory, he successfully created thirty potions that could enhance one’s lifespan by three years. The process of extracting the life force of the plane and combining that from the essence had been a learning experience for him as well, strengthening his control of the laws here and giving him some hints to work on for the last sixteen.

With the broodmother about to level up soon as well, Richard decided to stay for a few more days to see what would happen. There was still quite a bit of time before Coco’s situation grew serious, and he had something to do anyway.

Covering a huge section of his laboratory in soul-locking arrays, he took out the Judge and examined the light flowing on the edge of its blade. The weapon had been able to digest the soul of the tree of life that it killed, but even this strand from the World Tree was proving beyond its ability and just danced around within. The divine weapon would have succeeded eventually, but Richard had thought of another use for this fragment and stopped it.

As things stood, this strand of consciousness was his only shortcut to speed up his analysis of the laws of life; he had expected to have to hold off until he actually defeated the World Tree itself, but this was a good start. Placing the Judge in the middle of the array, he slowly had it release its hold on the conscient.

A small orb of green light drifted out of the Judge’s blade, immediately screeching and trying to fly away. However, a barrier of light immediately stopped it and bounced it back, keeping it from escaping. Richard stared in from outside, “Don’t waste your energy, I wouldn’t be who I am if I let you escape.”

Scared and angry, the conscient of the World Tree constantly sent threats to Richard’s mind. However, he ignored them all and started setting up four alchemical machines. These machines shot out beams of light that converged on the orb; it tried a few times to escape, but they eventually caught it and fixed it in place. The green light started screeching in pain, starting to dim.

Richard smiled at the sight. A conscient that the Judge couldn’t digest was being dissipated by some lab equipment? He chuckled as his preparations were completed, eyes starting to glow as he focused on the orb.

Illuminated by the glow, the conscient that was playing dead suddenly noticed its soul barriers were dissolving one by one. This time, it truly started keening in pain, but there was no way to stop the process.

……

Ten days later, Richard finally walked out from his lab. The Judge was now darker and the conscient was nowhere to be seen; he had needed to decompose it entirely to make significant progress. Of the sixteen foundational laws of the plane, he had finished his analysis of the first one. Although this seemed like minor progress, just starting would allow him to work on the others in his free time.

This process was quite significant in another way as well. Although the Forest Plane wasn’t a primary plane, this was the first time he completely understood a foundational law and how it related to all the rest. This was more important than even some fragments of the laws of Norland.

However, the price for this analysis was great as well. The conscient from the World Tree was effectively a soul as well, and the strand was strong enough to form the core of a powerful grade 5 rune. He could still use his understanding to work on saint runes, but without a natural-born magic soul they would be amateur at best.

Thankfully, the bitter pill was sweetened by another evolution of his truename. Schloanruven had now become Schloanruvendaer, the new section representing life itself. Ruvendaer in specific now meant life and soul, giving him some rudimentary control over both major sections of any living being. He had also gained the ability to stabilise a soul and stop it from dissipating, allowing even someone who was dying to live on for a while. Even more importantly, it could stop spells like the Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee, or Death’s Decree. As always, the power he could harness with Devout Prayer was increased as well, now comparable to the healing spells of a grand priest.

Once he examined all of his boosts, Richard decided that it was time to leave. After the typical post-evolution information overload that left his mind numb, he was informed by the clone that she had created twenty level 15 night elves and two level 16 elites. In the testing process, they had managed to kill more than a thousand level 5 drones before they were taken down.

A level 5 army was still a significant force even in Norland. Knowing that these night elves could destroy one of a considerable size, Richard was quite satisfied with the result. This satisfaction turned to joy when he was informed that she could now create true druids, capable of using nature and life spells. The only difference was that they couldn’t morph into animals, but that wasn’t his goal in the first place. He could get magical beasts created, but spellcasters were more difficult. This was similar in principle to how he sacrificed some stealth with the night elves to gain strength and defence. He didn’t need scouts or assassins, he needed warriors.

Pleasantly surprised by the quick appearance of the druids, Richard immediately commanded the clone to focus all of her efforts on them. He didn’t have any urgent need for the night elves, and it took more resources to create a druid in the first place. Compared to ten level 15s or three elites in a day for night elves, she could only create eight level 15s or two elites. She would create eight normal druids and two elites on alternating days for a month, after which they would assess things further.

As he went through the other data about the evolution, Richard suddenly discovered a strange special unit in the list. Just Like Phaser, Zangru, the unicorn, or the astral chrysalis, she would be using her excess energy from the level-up to create what she called the hive of life. This was an enormous tree that could absorb nutrition and energy from the plane it was in, converting that to pure life force. It could provide some protection from the will of the forest in its radius of influence, and once it had enough life force it could even form a fruit of life that granted ten years of life to a human.

The hive of life was named for the hexagonal pods within its trunk, containing a large amount of nutrients and life force. A night elf could recover even from heavy injuries if placed within.