Reborn as a Demonic Tree-Novel

Ashlock mentally frowned at the idea. Although Bob had a body of almost pure spatial Qi, he was a glorified jelly with an unsurprising lack of limbs, which hampered his plans—big time.

Without hands, the human technique scroll was annoyingly useless—but he absolutely refused to believe creating literal wormholes through space was only possible through some stupid hand gestures.

Once again, he was stumped.

But there was good news, which was hard to ignore. He had done it. No longer was he a mere bystander, unable to wield magic and bend the natural laws like other cultivators. He was now an actual cultivator.

To some in this world, a botched spatial tunnel may be so-so, but to him? A human mind from Earth stuck in a tree? It was fucking fantastic. He had quite literally cast magic, almost without the help of the system.

He was a space-manipulating tree!

Now, if only he could figure out the secret behind hand gestures, all of his problems would be solved. Right?

Alas, that was far from the truth. It was becoming more apparent with every passing day that he needed to increase his Qi intake somehow. If casting just a single portal or controlling a slime took so much of his Qi, how could he face the beast tide? Or fight toe to root with another cultivator?

Naturally, he needed a solution. Upping his cultivation stage increased his maximum Qi pool but had less effect on his Qi regeneration. One major bottleneck was his cultivation technique {Transpiration of Heaven and Earth}, which was C-grade. If he could pray to the gacha gods and have this upgraded, then his Qi generation should increase.

Another reason to curse the system. But blaming others was a poor man's excuse. He had a golden finger in this world, and despite its faults, the system did give him a wide range of valuable tools. He just needed to use them.

How did he currently generate Qi? Through his roots and leaves.

As his roots burrowed deeper, he linked up with more spirit stone ore, which he could siphon for more Qi.

A finite resource—the spirit stone ore was sparse as most were already mined. So he needed a more scalable and reliable solution.

The leyline? If he dug deep enough, he should reach the planets Qi highway... but that was risky. It sounded like trying to touch a powerline and expecting not to be fried alive.

His mind drifted as he browsed his skills for a solution. Other than his roots, his next source of Qi was his leaves. He had already grown so large, but he could always grow bigger—all he had to do was invest more Qi into growth.

More leaves... and a bigger trunk. A limiting solution, he could only grow so big before he risked standing out. If the heavenly lightning had taught him anything, standing too tall was asking to be struck.

There had to be something he was forgetting. He needed more leaves, like one of those solar farms. "Wait! Aren't there solar farms with a tower in the center holding up a tank of water, and then there are hundreds of mirrors in a circle directing the sunlight at the water tank to heat the water..."

Ashlock didn't have mirrors or a water tank. But he did have hundreds of trees surrounding his mountain, and some were even his offspring! Could he link up to them and use their leaves to gather Qi? Was that even possible...

There was only one way to find out.

Ashlock identified the closest baby demonic tree and began to send a root toward it. However, since the birds didn't die instantly to his poison, the demonic tree was a few hundred meters away from the base of the mountain, so it would take around a day to reach, especially with his Qi spread so thin between keeping the slime under control and his {Deep Roots} burrowing into the mine.

All the more reason for him to increase his Qi intake. It might even help him cultivate faster and reach the next realm!

Ashlock peered through the dust cloud swirling through the courtyard. He saw the black-haired girl hacking up her lungs and staggering through a hole in the wall she had been thrown through.

Considering the structural quality of these inner courtyard walls—which had survived the Grand Elder's supernova, the fact Diana had literally gone through the white brick like a wrecking ball was a testament to the explosive power of a spatial portal collapsing.

While Diana was coughing up her lungs, Stella lay on the ground near the doorway that connected the central courtyard to the training one. Her hair was disheveled, and she was blinking away a headache or concussion—she was clearly disorientated and confused.

Ashlock took a moment to rethink his actions. Cultivators were strong, but they could still get hurt. Even though Stella's Qi waves were the only way he could set up an anchor, to open the portal so close to their heads was a terrible idea in hindsight.

Diana's words also interested him. So there were no high realm spatial Soul Core masters out there? Or just a lot less compared to other Soul Core types? Ashlock looked around at the destruction he had caused from such a small experiment.

The puppet was nothing but a melted puddle on fire, an arm burning in lilac flames poked out the sludge as if gesturing to the sky, and it was missing a single finger... which was over near Stella.

What if it had been an arrogant cultivator instead of a puppet? Or, to go a step further—instead of a finger... a person's head? What if a spatial Qi cultivator made a portal and stepped through, but then it collapsed? Would they be sliced in half?

Ashlock couldn't help but think of Stella. She had a spatial Qi Soul Core and had tried to learn this technique only moments ago. What if she had successfully created the spatial tunnel and poked her head through it?

Spatial Qi... was dangerous. The applications were hard to ignore. They could achieve things the other elements could only dream of. But it naturally came with significant downsides.

Luckily, they were ones he could avoid, so long as he took the proper precautions. For example, puppets. They were perfect for experiments, but from now on, he would conduct them away from the girls.

Ashlock had to agree. After seeing the destruction, he stopped associating spatial Qi with just portals to move around... hell, even with only portals, could he create them around people's necks?

He thought back to when he used the technique. The presence of spatial Qi around Stella was vital as an anchor. "So I can only decapitate other spatial types? That doesn't sound right."

Nothing made sense. Ashlock needed more techniques to work from. For his entire life in this world as a tree, he had lacked options to be proactive, but now he had a Soul Core and actual techniques to look at.

Ashlock desperately hoped this old-looking book from the Azure clan would answer his confusion about hand gestures and their significance to casting techniques.

Had he been focusing on the wrong things all along?

Stella's voice became background noise as his mind focused. He felt Qi flow through his body. Between heaven and earth, he was the connection. His Soul Core hummed, converting the untamed and wrathful will of the heavens into spatial Qi.

Had the heavens acknowledged his chosen path? Didn't the system randomly decide his path for him after he spent his credits for a random draw?

Maybe the system's rewards weren't so random after all.

Ashlock then heard a loud sigh, followed by Stella turning the page.