Leaving the wannabe bandits behind, grumbling about bad loot, Tesilim and the party began moving through the forest. They still had some traveling to do before reaching their destination.
During their travel, they didn’t run into any particularly strong monsters that they couldn’t scare with their aura blasts.
Eventually, with the help of Lili, who could read maps better than any of them, the group found the general area indicated on their map. It was a spot slightly deeper in the dangerous part of the island than where Tesilim, Lili, and Alyx had previously been, but not by much. The map indicated about three to five miles or so of terrain that was about half a day’s travel from any nearby guard tower. A good spot for someone wanting to stalk around, causing trouble with very little chance of being caught by adventuring patrols or normal guard detachments.
From their previous outing, Tesilim had learned that the city didn’t patrol past a certain distance due to increased danger levels and a lack of realistic support. Of course, that was only the official city patrol or adventurers they hired, and High D Rank or above teams of adventurers did travel further out than this imaginary line. Again, it was about establishing a specific area of control around the city rather than actually achieving the feat of truly conquering the island. A feat that would require the worldwide expanding clergy of Amphis to come together. Something which was, of course, unneeded and unrealistic.
What this meant for the werewolf brother was that he was in a spot where he could unleash his curse with a very low chance of hurting actual people. He also escaped the risk of running into a strong enough creature in a truly wild enough environment where he faced real danger.
Finally, in the proper area and with hours of searching in their future, the party decided to camp. For one, it was getting late in the evening, and they wanted to find a good campsite; more importantly, and making the first point irrelevant, everyone wanted to check out Tesilim’s seed.
?? Crystal Notice ??
Name: Tesilim’s Tree House Seed.
Item Rank: S.
Rarity: Ancient.
Description: This magical seed has been bound to Tesilim Telsy. The seed can be planted, at which point it will grow into a magical tree house within an hour of its planting. During its growth period, Tesilim can direct the tree house to grow and accommodate his needs in a variety of ways.
Attention! Due to the item's intricacy and power, many of its capabilities and limitations are not fully listed here. However, you will still be imparted with knowledge of them.
??
The first thing Tesilim noticed was the change in the item's notification window. The last time he had checked, it had been much more linear, combining rarity and rank into a single ranking. However, now it had expanded into something Tesilim preferred and overall seemed more game-like. Also, Tesilim noticed the change in wording in the first two sentences, since he was now genuinely bound to the item. Finally, and to make sure it wasn’t something random, he checked another of his items.
?? Crystal Notice ??
Name: Elemental Boots.
Item Rank: D.
Item Rarity: Rare.
Description: A simple pair of leather boots enchanted with self-repair, sturdiness, and increased wearer speed. The boots have the following abilities: Elemental Kicks. Teleport.
Elemental Kicks: The wearer of the boots can envelop them in wind, earth, fire, or water. While enveloped, the boots drain mana to keep the effects active; additionally, the wearer can spend extra mana to increase the active effects.
Wind - The wearer can fly in short bursts.
Earth - Kicks deal more bludgeoning damage and can stick to stone surfaces.
Fire - The wearer gains resistance to fire and is able to deal fire damage with their kicks.
Water - Gives the wearer weak, passive healing.
Teleport: The wearer can spend mana to teleport ten feet in any direction while wearing the boots.
??
Tesilim was curious about the item's rank and rarity because he imagined the die itself would probably be divine. This meant that if true, the die was essentially unbreakable for anyone below Demi-God Rank, whereas the boots were not. Unless, somehow, the rarity of the die was divine, but its rank was low. He doubted it worked like that, but an item made by the gods probably broke the rules of magic or whatever. Either way, he still had an hour or two more with the boots before he could check. He could have checked the spell die, but there was a good chance the two items might not work the same. After all, they did two fundamentally different things.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
It wasn’t long before everyone decided they had found a “good” spot to camp and pressured Tesilim into planting the seed.
Planting the seed was a very simple affair. Tesilim dug a quick hole, shoved the seed inside, and covered it with dirt. The real magic began when, not even a minute later, and feeling like Jack and the Beanstalk, Tesilim watched as a tiny sprout rose from the patch of dirt. The sprout's growth was slow but barely visible as it reached upwards.
The team watched the small sprout grow into a seedling in a few minutes. During this process, it rose about two feet and sprouted a few larger leaves that, according to the team, matched those of an oak. From there, it took the tree around ten minutes to grow into a young oak, its trunk still not truly wide enough to hide a person.
During its next phase of growth, which lasted about 15 minutes, the young tree grew to what Tesilim assumed resembled a proper adult oak. The tree’s form was massive, and it fitted very well within the forest, almost like it had been there for decades on end. Of course, that wasn’t the case, and Tesilim began to feel the options the tree offered through their bond.
The bond wasn’t strong like the one between him and Drex, so he innately knew it wouldn’t be seen in his soul. However, it was there, and it currently asked him whether he would like to keep increasing the tree’s size or keep it as is. From this feeling, he knew he could make a rather large tree up to three stories tall, if not more. Naturally, Tesilim didn’t want to stand out, so he chose to keep the tree size as it was.
After the first choice, many more followed, and that was how Tesilim spent the last 30 minutes of the tree's growth. The item asked many things, like: How many rooms did he want? What types of rooms were they? What size did he want the rooms to be? What basic commodities did he want in the rooms?
There were plenty of things for him to decide upon, including imprinting his friends into the item so they could enter without issue. On that note, the item itself didn’t have many offensive or defensive capabilities. The thing that made the item strong was its rank and rarity, which still made it a rather powerful fortress in its own right.
While he made the many decisions he had to make, his friends grew increasingly impatient until, finally, he finished, and a simple door with a curved top formed from the tree's bark. Opening the door, the party was met with the inside of the tree’s trunk. The space matched exactly the size that the trunk represented outside, but was a light wood color. Still, not finding a proper room or house confused everyone since they expected something like Alyx’s door.
“Tesilim, I think you got scammed,” Rose commented while looking around, frowning at the walls as if trying to see past an illusion.
“No, it's just that-” Tesilim went to speak before he got interrupted.
“Are you sure you did it right? This doesn’t seem like a house, much less a tree house,” Lili added.
“Yes, I did it right, like I was going to say-”
“You did specify the item’s details in the contract, right? I never thought to point that out, but it is a weak point of contracts that people forget,” Alyx asked, clearly thinking he should have gotten involved in the whole thing.
“No! The item is working fine. All I have to do is-”
“I am sorry, Tesilim. Maybe you should try again? Should we get out so you can shrink it back down?” Jasmine finally said, giving him a sad and caring smile.
“Stop interrupting me!”
“Oh, he has reached the anger stage,” Rose said, smiling widely.
Tesilim, who had wanted to give everyone a nice introduction to the tree house, gave up and, with a command, the ceiling, which matched the rest of the walls perfectly, was absorbed into the wall. Then, a platform they had been standing on but weren’t aware of began floating up, and that’s when the real magic started.
The trunk of the tree was relatively thick and spacious, and from the inside, it was hard to tell where it matched the tree's outer height. Everyone figured that they were still at around the same height, and they were, at least, Tesilim knew they were. This meant their feet had been about half a foot from where the trunk met the ground proper, with approximately seven feet between the floor of the trunk and its apparent roof.
Once the platform passed the halfway point between the ground and floor, placing most people at least partially in the mid to upper reaches of the trunk, they all felt the space twist. It was an incredibly fine shift and one they quickly adapted to, but the fact that they felt it so vividly meant the spatial magic at work within the item was immense. This fact was further highlighted as the platform rose much higher than the actual tree trunk height would allow.
Tesilim had already been aware of what the inside of the tree was going to look like since he had chosen it, but he was still impressed by the sheer amazingness of it all. The platform came to a stop at the front of what was the living room in a typical house. Like in Jolly’s tree, he had placed the platform in a small and half-circular indentation, just like the teleporters. From there, the living room was a large but basic area.
He had modeled most of the rooms to Earth's standards, which meant the living room had sofas and plenty of comfy chairs with emerald cushions. Tesilim had also added a few coffee tables, but in the end, his favorite part was the TV table. It held a large wooden flat-screen TV that was one hundred inches wide. Sadly, the TV wouldn’t let him watch movies or shows, but it could show a constant feed of the outside of the tree from any angle its branches could reach. Basically, he had a built-in camera system. Plus, if he wanted entertainment, he could always recreate pieces from the many board games of Earth.
The walls of the room and house, in general, were made of wood but of different shades of brown. He currently had them in a nice soft brown color, which went well with the much darker color of the wooden floors. Not that it was all wooden walls and floors. Tesilim had added carpets that felt like the best type of lawn, which matched the rest of the house since everything was grown from the walls and floors. He also had paintings depicting various forests and other landscapes.
Upon entering the tree proper and taking in the living, the party promptly split. Alyx had gone to mess with the TV, while Jasmine went and crashed on the lawn carpet. Meanwhile, Lili, Rose, Drex, and Tesilim headed over to the left of the platform and towards the kitchen.
