Xen cautiously watched the two approaching wolves as he cast Devour on the wolf's cracked head he held in his mouth. Purple tendrils surged down his throat like a dozen tongues and dug into the fresh...
2024-02-21 12:29:04 +0000 UTC View Post"Stella, withdraw your blade," Ashlock instructed.
His adopted daughter huffed the hair out of her eyes in annoyance but thankfully listened to him. She wiped the fresh blood off the black metal with a cloth before depositing the sword in her spatial ring in a flash of silver light.
Sebastian hesitantly raised his head now that the instant threat of death had passed...
2024-02-20 19:08:36 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock was curious about what the Silverspires could want. They had been quiet since their last meeting under his canopy, where Sebastian had helped pick out the mirror artifact for Stella and contacted a Sage Advisor of the Eternal Pursuit Pavilion to get Diana registered.
It had been one of the first meetings where Stella and the others showed their faces and welcomed the Silverspires ...
2024-02-19 12:29:10 +0000 UTC View PostWhat followed were a lot of questions from Jasmine that Stella realized she didn't have good answers to. She may have a library of information in her head, but she could not access that latent knowledge if she didn't take the time to research something in depth.
I never had anyone to teach me how to cultivate correctly, and I never went to the academy or had tutors to learn about the ...
2024-02-16 20:54:25 +0000 UTC View PostStella felt an oddly warm connection to Jasmine, and it was not because she called her cool—though that did make her happier than it probably should have. Stella looked away from Jasmine, and the warm buzz turned cold; then, looking back at the little girl, the warmth returned.
"Well, that's strange..." Stella muttered as she stepped away and felt colder. It was a very subtle tingling, ...
2024-02-15 20:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe trail of blood that hung in the air like a lingering haze led Xen to a bend in the dungeon. Up ahead, he could hear the shouts of humans and the pained howls of fellow wolves. Slowing to a cautious trot, Xen sniffed the air.
... 2024-02-14 13:55:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, it is I, the dumbass behind the keyboard that writes about a tree for a living.
I come to humble myself before you to ask for some support in the form of ratings/reviews and maybe even a download or purchase of book 2...
Jokes aside, I really couldn't keep writing this web serial without all your amazing support. Money obviously pays the bills, but it's the comments, reviews,...
2024-02-13 18:46:45 +0000 UTC View PostThis early chapter is in celebration of book 2's release!
Stella approached the swirling wall of mist that obscured Red Vine Peak from the outside world.
From afar, all that was visible apart from the mist wall was Ashlock, who towered over the entire mountain peak. However, to most, his appearance was shrouded in mystery by a constant crackling of spatial Qi that w...
2024-02-13 12:09:40 +0000 UTC View PostStella took her hand off of Nox's bark. She could tell Ash and Nox were talking to one another by the indescribable flow within the tree but could not comprehend their words. Maybe one day, she would figure out how to speak tree, but until then, she would have to rely on Ash projecting his presence into her consciousness and speaking to her there.
More importantly, Stella could feel no il...
2024-02-12 20:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe first five chapters were rewritten from the feedback given by Patreons last month. You can read the updated chapters on Patreon here or on Roya...
2024-02-10 16:02:19 +0000 UTC View PostFrom the feedback provided in the last post, I rewrote the first few chapters of Shapeshifter, which can be seen below. There will be more chapters posted slowly over the coming months before it hits RoyalRoad.
Can also be read here. 2024-02-10 16:00:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Ashlock surged his power through the mountain to create a portal before Stella.
She had been focusing on axing the shadowy humanoid floating before Nox's tree, so the sudden portal's appearance caught her off guard, and she let out a yelp as she tumbled through face first and ate the dirt nearby.
"Ugh," Stella groaned as the axe she had got from god knows where went flying....
2024-02-09 21:04:45 +0000 UTC View PostNox had never liked the sun. She had kept to the shadows for centuries, drawing on the darkness to fuel her power and expand her Soul Core. She had felt exposed in the sunlight, like a fish out of water. Not only because her powers were heavily restricted and weakened under the intense light Qi, but also because people had sought her out. She may have put that 30,000 Yinxi Coins bounty to the b...
2024-02-08 21:25:06 +0000 UTC View PostStella's Mother was the World Tree? How the fuck was that even possible?
Ashlock had... questions. Many questions. Even with his system's vast powers, he wasn't yet capable of making a human-looking child and doubted he ever would.
The image of Stella's Father turned to a treehugger in his mind, and he felt his bark shudder at the thought—what horrible, unspeakable acts h...
2024-02-06 20:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock had seen Stella distraught, scared, and angry in recent years, but she had almost only ever cried when she feared his demise. She was usually quite a strong girl when it came to her own problems, so something drastic must have occurred for her to go from battle maniac to crying within seconds.
"I wonder what happened?" Ashlock used the tip of his ethereal root to wipe away the tea...
2024-02-05 20:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostDespite Ashlock's protests in her mind, Stella refused to let the duel end.
She knew it had deviated from its original purpose—Diana had become consumed by her bloodline and entered a berserk state where all she saw was red—but Stella felt like she was on the cusp of something. Now wasn't the time to pull back but rather push against her limits.
It was hard to describe, but down...
2024-02-02 18:33:44 +0000 UTC View PostDiana crept through the dense demonic mist, flexing her wings and fingers in anticipation. Having taken on her demonic form and surrendered to her bloodline, she had a primal urge to charge at Stella, who stood on the other side of the mountain peak with an annoyingly unfazed look despite the encroaching demonic mist.
But then she would lose without a doubt. Stella, despite her flaws and ...
2024-02-01 11:13:32 +0000 UTC View PostMainly wanted to see if any of my Amazon readers have found this patreon or not!
So which site did you first read tree on which led you to sign up to this patreon?
2024-01-31 14:00:29 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock inspected Kaida and discovered the reason for his explosive growth in size.
"My summons and monsters generally don't follow the same cultivation system as humans, but if I had to guess, Kaida has gone up around three stages in the Star Core Realm," Ashlock muttered with a hint of surprise. Just how much ink Qi had this greedy snake absorbed, "If he experiences this much growth in ...
2024-01-30 17:28:44 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock looked down the short list of options, and as with Kaida's evolution, there was a very obvious one at the top that glowed with a sense of grandeur and divinity.
But he skipped it to check out the others to satisfy his curiosity, as this was the first ever S-grade evolution that would put Larry firmly into the Nascent Soul Realm power level. So what would the system have offered La...
2024-01-29 17:27:20 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock had never been a morning person. Even when he had been a human back on Earth, the morning sunlight filled him with more dread and sleepiness. Rather than waking up to the constant chirping of birds, he would roll over, bury his head deeper in his pillow, and pray for a few more minutes of rest.
Ever since becoming a demonic tree, his slothful nature had only worsened. It was parti...
2024-01-26 19:25:54 +0000 UTC View PostThrough all the chaos of the fight, Ashlock had kept one thing in the back of his mind: To make sure that Nox's infant soul didn't manage to escape. He wasn't sure how it worked with Nascent Souls and what this infant soul would look like, so he kept his demonic eye peeled, which he had re-opened when Diana came in and took Nox to the skies.
While everyone else was hurt and angry, he igno...
2024-01-22 22:53:48 +0000 UTC View PostNox looked into Stella's tranquil eyes and had more questions than answers.
The curse had been an enigma from the start. Its immunity to the void aside, it was unrecorded in the Eternal Pursuit Pavilion's archives. Therefore, her only lead to a cure had been Stella. The one who had cursed her in the first place. Yet the girl who went by different names had seemingly vanished a week ago fr...
2024-01-20 22:38:45 +0000 UTC View Post"Did Stella go anywhere else?" Dante asked Nox as the wind rushed past them.
"No idea," Nox said as the flying sword shot toward the mountain peak, "My technique can only track the lingering shadow Qi left behind for a week. After that, it becomes too weak to accurately track."
"Still a handy skill."
"Indeed," Nox agreed, "Though it only works at night, so we are lucky the sun...
2024-01-18 18:06:57 +0000 UTC View PostDante tasted iron as blood splashed on his face and clothes from across the room.
It seems Father finally lost it after a week of no answers.
"They didn't have to die, Dante."
And you didn't have to kill them. Dante rolled his head to the side and took in the scene. His Father loomed over a headless body with a stoic expression. Blood dripped from his hand an...
2024-01-16 21:14:15 +0000 UTC View PostAs the dust settled and the world stopped shaking, Ashlock found himself facing sideways and at the bottom of a crater.
"Ugh," he groaned, and he shared Willow's pain. Cracks leaking soul fire were running down Willow's trunk from the impact, and despite the spatial shield Ashlock had summoned at the last second, preventing the Bastion from being smashed into smithereens, the damage was s...
2024-01-15 18:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock watched the chaos descend upon Ashfallen City.
People rushed and pushed to get what they felt would be prime real estate, and he could hardly blame them. For those who had lived in the slums of Slymere at the base of the mountain, this was a chance at a new life. If they just ran a little faster and pushed enough people out of the way, they could secure a house near the center of ...
2024-01-12 16:54:38 +0000 UTC View Post"I am surprised that worked," Ashlock mused as he felt heaven establish a connection between himself and Julian. It felt similar to when the Redclaws swore an oath to the Ashfallen Sect. "Since anything to do with Ashfallen is linked to me, they will be oath-bound to me even if they didn't know of my existence through these divine ink contracts."
Ashlock watched Julian spend the next minu...
2024-01-11 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock saw no reason to deny Douglas's request. If the Mudcloaks advanced their cultivation in the Mystic Realm, future construction projects would be completed even faster.
"I have no issues with that, but can I ask why?" Ashlock was curious why Douglas wanted to care for a thousand Mudcloaks as he couldn't imagine their presence would make cultivation easy. It was on p...
2024-01-09 20:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAshlock wrestled off the sluggishness far faster than usual as he woke up. "Huh, weird, the shorter I sleep, the easier it is to wake up?" That was almost the opposite experience of when he was a human.
Staying up until 3 A.M to wake up the next day for work as a software developer had felt like a momentous task on par with climbing Mount Olympus when, in reality, all he did was roll out ...
2024-01-08 20:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post