Ethan nodded.
“Where did you get it?”
“The World Tree gave it to me.”
The Energy-Eating Insect's compound eyes locked onto Ethan's face for several seconds.
Its six legs tightly hugged the heartwood, its mouthparts slightly opening, closing, and then opening again.
“It gave it to you? Why would the World Tree give you its heartwood?”
“I did it a small favor.”
The Energy-Eating Insect remained silent for a long moment before letting out a sharp, piercing laugh.
“Hehehe! Excellent, excellent! The heartwood of the World Tree! I've lived for seven hundred years, and this is the first time I've ever seen this stuff!”
The phantom of the Tower Spirit floated over, her pale green fingers lightly brushing across the surface of the heartwood. “The quality is exceptional; the origin power contained within is perfectly preserved. It is more than sufficient to serve as the primary material for a Wizardry Tool. If that old guy performs up to his usual standard, crafting a Second-Tier Wizardry Tool will be a breeze.”
Hearing this, the Energy-Eating Insect froze midair.
A Second-Tier Wizardry Tool.
It suddenly remembered something.
Back when it had approached Ethan and thumped its chest, promising to cover all the auxiliary materials, what had been going through its mind?
It had assumed a Third-Tier Apprentice couldn't possibly produce anything of real value.
At most, whatever he brought back would only be worth a few magic stones.
Its expectation was to spend a few thousand magic stones—ten thousand at the absolute most—to settle the auxiliary materials in exchange for a gourd of the water beneath the World Tree.
No matter how it looked at it, it was an incredibly lucrative deal.
But now?
What this Third-Tier Apprentice had produced was not the heartwood of some century-old tree, but the heartwood of the World Tree.
The World Tree!
Although the World Tree of Amons World wasn't particularly high in tier—at most reaching the level of a Third-Tier lifeform—it was still a World Tree.
The heartwood of any World Tree was an exceedingly rare material that could only be found by sheer luck.
To craft a Wizardry Tool using a primary material of this caliber, the grade of the auxiliary materials had to match.
What did matching it entail?
At the very least, they had to be materials of the same grade as the World Tree's heartwood.
Any single one of those materials would easily cost several magic crystals.
As this realization dawned upon the Energy-Eating Insect, the light in its compound eyes began to flicker erratically.
It slowly turned its head, looking at the Tower Spirit with a pitiful expression.
“Dear sister...”
Before it could finish, the Tower Spirit's voice shut it down.
“In your dreams.”
Two words, clean and decisive.
The vibration frequency of the Energy-Eating Insect's six wings suddenly accelerated. It flew in front of the Tower Spirit, its six legs flailing wildly in the air.
“Dear sister, look at me, where would I have anything good? You know exactly what my savings look like after all these years. The only reason I sneaked a drink of your nectar yesterday was because my own stash ran out long ago. I'm just a Second-Tier enslaved beast; the meager allowance Master gives me isn't even enough to get by, let alone buy auxiliary materials.”
Its voice grew more pitiful as it spoke, the light in its compound eyes dimming a bit.
“Dear sister, please help me out. You manage Master's warehouse; just leaking a few scraps would be more than enough. I promise I will never steal your nectar again, really, I swear.”
The Tower Spirit's phantom floated in midair, her voice as cold as ever.
“Heh, it's not like I was the one who assigned the mission.”
The Energy-Eating Insect's six legs froze simultaneously.
It hovered in midair, maintaining its pitiful posture, completely motionless.
After several seconds, it whipped around, its compound eyes locking onto Ethan.
“Kid! Why didn't you tell me earlier that you had the heartwood of the World Tree!”
Ethan stood there and looked at it. “My Lord, I only just obtained this heartwood.”
“...”
The Energy-Eating Insect's six wings drooped listlessly. It slowly flew back to the top of Ethan's head, its six legs scratching around in his hair for a few moments before finding a spot to settle down.
“Uh, well, kid, wait for me to figure something out.”
Its voice was muffled, completely lacking the smug tone it had earlier.
A faint vibration came from the top of Ethan's head—the Energy-Eating Insect's wings vibrating anxiously.
The phantom of the Tower Spirit floated over to the Energy-Eating Insect.
“You dead bug, where are you going to get auxiliary materials now?”
The Energy-Eating Insect poked half its body out from the top of his head.
“I don't know.”
The Tower Spirit's phantom flickered slightly.
“What about your savings from over seven hundred years?”
“What savings?” The Energy-Eating Insect's voice sounded even more muffled. “All the magic crystals I had went toward buying nectar. The remaining few hundred magic crystals aren't even enough for a fraction of the auxiliary materials.”
The Tower Spirit fell silent for a moment.
“Master's warehouse has a batch of surplus auxiliary materials of quite high grade. I can make the decision to lend them to you, but you must pay them back.”
The Energy-Eating Insect's wings vibrated violently. It flew up from his head, the light in its compound eyes reigniting.
“Really?”
“Really,” the Tower Spirit's voice remained cold. “Calculated at market price, with ten percent interest, and a twenty-year term.”
The Energy-Eating Insect stiffened in midair.
“Ten percent? Twenty years?” Its voice rose half an octave. “Sister, you're taking advantage of my misfortune!”
“Take it or leave it.”
The vibration frequency of the Energy-Eating Insect's wings suddenly sped up. It flew two laps in midair, then another two, before abruptly coming to a halt.
“I'll take it! I'll take it!”
The Tower Spirit's phantom nodded slightly, turning to float toward the depths of the corridor.
“Follow me.”
The Energy-Eating Insect landed back on Ethan's head, its six legs scratching around in his hair.
“Kid, let's go, follow her.”
Ethan lifted his feet to follow the Tower Spirit's phantom.
After walking dozens of paces, a double wooden door appeared at the end of the corridor.
Dense runic patterns flowed across the surface of the wooden door. The Tower Spirit floated to the front of the door and lightly tapped the door panel with her pale green finger.
The door slid open silently.
Behind the door was a warehouse.
The warehouse wasn't large, about thirty to forty square meters.
Wooden shelves reaching up to the ceiling stood against three of the walls, with all kinds of materials neatly arranged on them.
Metal ingots, ores, wood, leather, crystals, and jars of powders and liquids—every item was sealed in a transparent crystal box, with labels affixed to the boxes indicating their names and grades.
The Tower Spirit floated to the innermost wall and raised her finger to point at the third shelf.
“The grade of this batch of materials is sufficient. Choose for yourself.”
The Energy-Eating Insect flew down from Ethan's head and landed in front of the shelves. Its six legs moved quickly across the wooden frame, its compound eyes scanning back and forth over the crystal boxes.
“Not this one, this is too expensive, this isn't suitable either...”
It muttered as it searched, its voice growing quieter and quieter.
After a long while, it finally flew back carrying five or six crystal boxes and landed in front of Ethan.
Ethan could not recognize most of the items inside the crystal boxes.
There was a fist-sized, dark green metal ingot with fine patterns flowing across its surface.
There was an arm-thick piece of gray, withered branch, its surface covered in cracks, with faint gold light faintly visible flowing deep within the cracks.
There was a small vial of transparent liquid that swirled on its own inside the bottle, sending a very faint ripple across the surface with each rotation.
There were also several thumb-sized, dark purple crystals, with fine points of light slowly pulsing inside them.
The Tower Spirit glanced at the materials.
“Good eye. This batch of auxiliary materials is just enough to match the heartwood of the World Tree.”
Rate on N.U.
