[Tree] Chapter 333: Pride Before The Fall (Patreon)

Stella had really not wanted to reveal her true identity to Elder Vortexian. She had tried her absolute best to fix the origin stone with her current capabilities and knowledge of spatial dao, but it was nowhere near enough. Hours had passed, and as fatigue dug its gnarled claws into her mind, she had to accept the reality that she had made no clear progress.

Yet she pressed on. Call it pride, stubbornness, or whatever else, but she was determined to try and fix it herself with her own power. She loved a challenge and became fully absorbed in her work. However, right as she began making a hint of progress by correctly identifying a missing dao, Elder Vortexian just had to open his mouth.

He told her to give up, and she adamantly refused. Even if blood poured from her ears due to the headache of her bloodline, she would complete the task she set out to do.

Elder Vortexian looked down his nose at her determination, and after lecturing her about the downfall of others due to pride, he said something he shouldn't have. "Didn't your family ever teach you the dangers of being consumed by pride?"

Stella couldn't let such a claim go unanswered. While pride may lead to the downfall for others, it was a source of power for her. Her family didn't teach her about the dangers; they actively encouraged her to be as prideful as possible against any adversary. The greater the hurdle, the more help they would offer to overcome it. So long as the legacy of the Crestfallen bloodline was at stake, her ancestors would work to uplift her.

In a way, her bloodline was the sin of pride.

Stella removed Lyra's mask and swore on her name that she would fix this origin stone. She felt her ancient bloodline stir awake, and a rising pressure filled the small room and bore down on her shoulders.

Weirdly, upon learning her name, Elder Vortexian collapsed to his knees.

"You're from that family of tyrants?" He said in disbelief, his gaze growing distant as if horror had overtaken him. "There is one name that has reappeared in the annals of history since time immemorial, and it was always mentioned before the fall of the nine realms." Elder Vortexian met her eyes, "The Crestfallen family."

Stella wanted to know what he was talking about, but before she could ask, the ceiling vanished. In its place was the celestial library, built inside a hollowed-out golden tree with rows of bookshelves spiraling up into infinity. He was also there, gazing down at her with stars for eyes.

"Well, if it isn't our bloodlines rising star," the living cosmos thundered, making Stella almost spit blood. "Have you come to beg your ancestors for a quick solution again?"

Stella grimaced as she defiantly remained standing despite the intense pressure on her soul. "What do you mean?"

"This library is a part of you and is always watching over you," the cosmos replied. "As you put in the effort to learn new skills and develop yourself, knowledge will be slowly fed to you. It's how you learned the skills you were so eager to brag to me about last time, such as alchemy and swordsmanship, in such a short period."

Stella already knew this. What was the cosmos trying to tell her?

"However, while forcing your ancestors' hand by putting the legacy of the Crestfallen name at stake is a valid use of your bloodline as you are entitled to all the knowledge in this library, there are consequences to failure." The cosmos leaned in, and Stella felt her soul tremble, "Against the Lunarshade guards, you bet on the Crestfallen name you could defeat them with a single finger. We gave you the power you desired, yet you still failed—dragging your legacy through the mud."

Stella had thought her inability to recall the technique was her punishment for failure. Was there another punishment in store?

"What price must I pay?" Stella said through gritted teeth.

The cosmos laughed, "Luckily, you slaughtered everyone you challenged and lost to, so the price was simply the loss of the technique from the library forever. However, if you were to put the name of the Crestfallen family on the line, lose and let a foe escape with the knowledge of your shame..." The cosmos leaned in so close she felt like she could touch the stars, "Let's just say you would learn why they say pride comes before the fall. Power comes at a price, little girl. You best remember that."

Stella gulped. It looked like trying to manipulate her ancestors into giving her free powerups to overcome adversities had been fine so long as she won. But the moment she swore victory on the Crestfallen name and lost despite her ancestors' support, they would quickly let her know why they should be feared.

Though it made sense that they would be so harsh. Due to her failure, the Supreme Nirvana Finger technique had faded from the library for current and future Crestfallen bloodline holders. It was now gone forever unless someone found the lost technique and added it back to the library.

The cosmos pulled back and laughed again, "And it looks like you are going to fail once again while betting your family name before a foe you cannot defeat."

Stella's eyes flickered to Elder Vortexian. While Maple could likely devour one of his arms to make him vanish again or at least defend her. If the Elder wanted to escape with the knowledge of her true name and failure, she could not stop a Monarch Realm spatial cultivator on home ground. If such an outcome occurred, she would have violated the pride of her bloodline and would have to face the vague and terrible sounding repercussions.

Weirdly, in the face of such a seemingly dire situation, it only got Stella's blood pumping. This wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time she put everything on the line to overcome a seemingly impossible task. Cracking her knuckles and rolling her shoulders, she focused back on the orb. Now wasn't the time to feel discouraged.

"Let's begin." She told the cosmos.

"You have to be joking," The cosmos sneered, "Repairing an origin stone is no simple affair. That thing was birthed from the Qi of a dead origin far above you. You really messed up this time—"

"I don't care," Stella retorted, "I said I would do it, so I will. Now, give me the knowledge to do so."

The cosmos stared down at her for a moment in thought. "It might be possible as the Crestfallen bloodline shares similarities to the origins. But reforming an origin stone after daos have been ripped from it would require a comprehension level far beyond what someone at your level is capable of."

"When have I ever adhered to the standards of cultivators at my level? Or do you think so lowly of a Crestfallen that such a simple task as repairing an origin stone is beyond me?"

The cosmos grinned, revealing a sea of twinkling lights. "Oh, you're a Crestfallen, all right. Very well, I will grant you the knowledge you need. Whether you succeed will be up to your own tenacity and capabilities as this will be a lengthy and torturous process."

"I'm sure I've suffered worse," Stella said as the cosmos split into many arms and began pulling books from the shelves. The library overhead lit up as streams of information descended toward her. Knowing how much she had suffered having the Supreme Nirvana Finger technique forced into her mind, she panicked. Wouldn't this overwhelm her mind and reduce her to a drooling vegetable?

Stella's spatial ring flashed, and she greedily devoured every fruit she could stuff her face with. As the cooling effect of the Mind Fortress fruit caressed her mind, it was effortlessly pulverized by an assault of knowledge. Her mind buzzed louder and louder as if there was a swarm of insects breeding inside her skull and desperately trying to find a way out.

Stella screamed out in pain as she clenched the table for support. She tried shaking her head to free her mind from the terrible pain as the knowledge seeped into every nook and cranny of her brain, heating it up and making it pulse against the confines of her skull.

"Your mental resilience is far higher than I expected," the cosmos mused. "If you manage to endure this level of input for a few more days, you might know enough to get started."

Stella spat blood at his words. She had to endure this for days?

"After that, the repair should take a few weeks..."

I don't have a few weeks! If I account for the time to repair and meditate. I might be pulled out of the Mystic Realm before I even get a chance to use the origin stone to learn the mysteries of Aether Qi. Stella dropped to one knee while still clutching the table to stabilize herself. There had to be a way.

Straining her neck, she glared up at the cosmos. "More," she muttered through bloodstained teeth.

"Mhm?" The cosmos glanced down at her, "What did you say?"

"Give me more knowledge and faster. I don't have days to waste." Stella said resolutely.

She refused to entertain the idea that she would endure all of this, only to fix the origin stone and get pulled away before acquiring a higher affinity. Diana had become much more powerful after cultivating demonic mist Qi. If she left this realm without advancing a single stage, there was the terrifying possibility that others from the sect that were previously below her would now be of an equal level.

That was simply unacceptable.

If Tree needed something done or someone killed. She wanted to be the one he relied on. If she fell too far behind the others, her position in the sect would naturally fall. Perhaps even to the point of her becoming a burden for Tree.

Compared to becoming a burden, what was a little pain?

"You're crazy, girl," The cosmos's grin widened, "But perhaps the right type of crazy to pull this off."

Stella felt another wave of knowledge burrow its way into her mind, and she instantly fell to both knees. The world was spinning, and her arms were violently trembling. Never in all her life had she felt this terrible, and she started to wonder through the pain that even if she survived this ordeal, wouldn't she come out the other end insane?

Insane but stronger than ever. Stella's body gave out, and she collapsed to the floor. In her spinning, blurring vision, she reached out an arm and made a fist. "Tree, I'll fix this origin stone for the both of us."

"Stand up, girl." the cosmos bellowed, his voice shaking the world, "No matter your state of mind or body, you cannot show weakness before others."

Stella felt a wave of energy pass through her body from above and despite the immense suffering, she found herself able to stand.

***

Jasmine wanted to go home.

Spitting the vile muck out of her mouth, she tried to haul her body from the sinking mud she had fallen into that covered her from head to toe as she had fallen face first off a small ridge. She wouldn't usually have made such a blunder, but a tree root had been hidden under the flora in the darkness, and she had been checking the treeline for the floating flowers that would spew a poisonous gas if she got too close.

"A little—agh," Jasmine spat again in a vain attempt to remove the disgusting taste. This mud was undoubtedly made from beast waste if the stench was anything to go by. "A little help, please," she begged the towering light Ent that emerged through the foliage at the top of the ridge she had tumbled down and illuminated the area like a miniature sun. Life here in this jungle filled with poisonous plant monsters was made much more bearable by this Ent's presence, and Jasmine swore she would thank Stella and Ashlock immensely for letting her use it.

Sol lumbered down the slope and crouched beside the swamp's edge.

Jasmine could feel the warmth from its head radiating on her face. Due to the dense canopy overhead, this place got freezing at night and was incredibly dark. There was no moonlight to help navigate the treacherous paths through the foliage lined with monsters disguised as plant life, which was more obvious during the day but difficult to differentiate in the darkness.

One of Sol's many arms that looked like they were praising its floating head bent down. Jasmine grabbed hold of the offered hand and felt her arms strain as the Ent effortlessly hauled her out of the waist-deep mud.

"Disgusting," Jasmine muttered as she was placed on the edge of the sinking mud by Sol. Grumbling curses to herself, she patted the ground to find a dry patch, and once she found a bit that wasn't too bad, she sat down and crossed her legs. It had poured with rain yesterday, and the lingering smell of dampness still hung in the air.

Under Sol's reassuring light, she retrieved a fruit from her spatial ring and, after eating it, began to meditate. It had been a few days since she arrived in this floral hell, and she had long run out of usable clothes. The brutal heat and humidity during the day alone would have been enough to eat through her clothing supply in weeks, but add on the treacherous environment, and she was down to her last. The others had been torn to shreds, lost in bogs, or melted by these living miasmas that would hunt her at night.

Out of desperation, she had been forced to try and rely on her cultivation to solve her issues as Sol hadn't proven much help apart from becoming a walking drying rack the few times she had found a clear enough lake to wash her clothes. She had seen her Master sometimes use her spatial Qi to dry herself when she was too lazy to use a towel, so Jasmine had concluded that surely she could do the same.

As it turned out, she could use her untamed Qi to somewhat rescue her from this muddy situation, but it was terribly slow compared to her Master, who could do it instantly at the snap of a finger.

"Hopefully, it will be somewhat cleaned by morning," Jasmine muttered under her breath. For the next hour, she cycled her Qi and breathed in the intoxicatingly dense nature Qi all around her. Progress had been rapid. She had spent every waking moment since arriving here that wasn't spent walking toward the temple in the distance cultivating and was already knocking on the door of the 9th stage of the Qi Realm. A little more, and she would have to forge a soul core of a specific affinity.

Naturally, it would be of the nature affinity. But she still desired to take on a second affinity if she could.

Desires aside, she still had a ways to go, so to the buzzing of insects and distant cries of birds, she cultivated in a bubble of light surrounded by an encroaching chilly darkness.

Unfortunately, the calm never lasted long. It was still an hour from sunrise when Jasmine's eyes snapped open. She planted a hand on the ground beside her in a hurry and intently watched the grass swaying.

There are distant tremors. Jasmine looked at how the grass swayed and glanced at the ridge behind her. It's approaching us from behind.

Jasmine had felt these tremors before and knew the monster they belonged to. Since she didn't know the name of anything, she had given it the name Icky Tree.

"We have to go," Jasmine said, getting to her feet and wincing as she tried to get blood flowing through her numb legs. The cold from the mud and wet ground, combined with sitting cross-legged while meditating, had sent them to sleep.

Icky Trees were slow-moving masses of rotting flora capable of smashing through trees and strangling monsters with venomous vines. If she tried to avoid them, there was no way they could catch up to her. She doubted they were even intelligent and simply attacked anything that got in their way.

Shifting along the grass by practically dragging herself around the edge of the mud, she felt her blood run cold as she noticed the grass at the edge of Sol's light swaying in a different direction.

There have to be two of them, and they are approaching from both angles. Jasmine heard her heart pounding in her ears. She had almost died to an Icky Tree earlier in the week, but she had never encountered two at once. Which way should I go—

A loud crack was followed by shards of wood flying at her. Jasmine raised her fists, wreathed them with Qi, and punched at one heading straight for her, shattering it into splinters.

Ow ow ow. Jasmine hissed as she cradled her hand. That punch had definitely broken most of the bones, and she could feel the warmth of blood trickling down her fingers. Gritting her teeth, she looked at the direction the monster was coming from, and her eyes widened as she saw the silhouette of a titanic mass move into view. Here it comes.

First came the stench of decomposing plants, then the squelching as the mass moved over the mud toward her. Withering vines appeared at the edge of Sol's light, followed by the rest of the lumbering mass of rot.

Jasmine used a half-torn shirt from her spatial ring to quickly bandage her broken hand and then prepared to fight while suffering through the pain. Despite having an Ent at her side, she would face this monster alone.

Never once had Sol stepped in to help her with a fight, and the Ent remained perfectly stationary like a tree as usual. Only if her life was endangered would it assist.

Master really didn't want to make my life easy, did she?

Sol suddenly turned.

Huh?

One of his many arms retrieved a whisp of light from his head between its fingertips. Aiming at something behind her, Jasmine's world went white as the Ent obliterated something behind her.