Chapter 41: Second encounter with a Mutant Tree
I looked at the beautiful tree in front of me and wondered who would create such a perfect being.
It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. The golden leaves that fluttered in the wind seemed so enchanting that I found it hard to move my eyes off of them.
The gentle and soft branches that seemed to curve at all the right places.
And the trunk. Just one look at it and I knew that nothing else could compare in the whole would. It gave me the feeling that just embracing it would make everything right in my life.
As if just touching it, would make me complete.
I walked toward it and all of it's roots, branches and leaves seemed to move toward me in an effort to embrace me.
It didn't need to. It just needed to stay there. And I would embrace it on my own.
I smiled at the beautiful tree as it's branches reached toward me with a warm smile when I suddenly felt a strong sense of deja vu. It was as if I had come across something like this before.
And that sense of Deja vu filled me with a profound sense of danger.
As if I was in a great amount of danger.
As if death was just around the corner.
Suddenly, I felt something, or someone calling out my name from a long distance away.
'What was that?' I perked my ears to focus on the voice and it became clearer with each passing moment before I heard the voice screaming in my mind.
'ASHOK DODGE!' and everything fell apart.
The Dream Broke.
The beautiful, perfect tree changed into a slender mutant tree whose whole trunk was secreting a large amount of yellow pus whose stench was worse than the stench coming from the carcass of a old dog that had been dead for a week.
The words Lily had said registered in my mind as I looked at the branches that were about to envelop me with wide eyes.
I tried to dodge but the branches were too close and I had moved too slowly.
Four branches captured my right hand and pulled me toward it self with a strength that was vastly overwhelmed that of mine and I knew that I would not win against it in a tug of war.
I threw the sword from my captured hand in the air as the mutant tree pulled me toward itself and caught the sword with my left hand as the disgusting trunk came closer to me.
In the last moment, I stopped all resistance and changed direction. Instead of trying to stay away from it, I charged at to the best of capabilities.
Before the mutant tree could react, I was already on top of it's trunk.
I felt a tug on my right hand as it's branches tried to pull me away. It had sensed the danger, but it was too late.
This mutant tree was young and too inexperienced. And I was already too close.
I swung my sword in a flash and felt it cut across something before the branches finally pulled me away from the slender trunk and threw me in the air with as much force as it could muster.
The tree had realized that the prey it had caught was a rather deadly one. But it had realized it a moment too late.
I fell to the ground twenty meters away from the mutant tree and rolled a few times before I finally came to a stop just in time to see it falling into two pieces.
'That was close.' I thought and shivered a bit as the adrenaline rush stopped working it's magic.
I laid down on the floor and let the moment of weakness consume me for a few dozen seconds before I finally gathered myself and stood up to face the world once again.
'Yes. That was close.' Lily said, her words barely above a whisper 'I was so worried about you when you suddenly stopped responding. I thought that you were going to die. I'm glad you're alright.' She said with such intensity that I had the feeling that if she were a real person then she would be hugging me already.
'So am I dear. So am I.' I smiled despite myself.
I used the sword as a walking stick since my legs were still shivering a bit.
Getting so close to death while I'm alone in the wilderness was a far worse experience then I had thought it would be.
When I was with Big bro, I had a bit of reassurance that he would be able to save me but he was not here anymore.
I took a deep breath as I tried to control the shivering in my legs. It took me a few long moments before I was finally able to get over the fear and was able to control my emotions properly.
I went to the mutant tree and looked the trunk that was filled with the yellow pus which had somehow hardened by this point and brought my left hand forward.
A few seconds later the trunk shook slightly and a small green nucleus came flying out from within it.
I looked at the perfectly fine nucleus and smiled for a moment.
'Well, this is only good that thing came out of this encounter.' I said with a forced smile.
'Probably. But you were very lucky this time.'
I looked at the mutant tree and grimaced a bit.
Indeed. One look at the tree and you could tell that it was just a very young tree when it was converted into a mutant tree.
If I had met the large mutant tree instead of this one then I would have died a thousand times over already. This one was way too inexperienced. And I was lucky cause I had already met a stronger mutant tree before so I was able to overcome it's influence.
'You are taking this situation way too lightly.' Lily chided in my mind 'You could have died here and your family would have never even known what happened to you.'
I sighed and didn't say anything this time. Indeed, running around in this apocalyptic world where danger could lie at any turn was rather reckless of me. I was too agitated to complete the deal and became careless. I should have known better.
'I'll be careful from the next time.' I said, a bit ashamed at my actions.
'You better be. Unless you don't want to see your family anymore.'
'Yeah. I'm sorry.' I said and brought the nucleus closer to the Black watch.
With just a thought, the nucleus turned into white light particles which then proceeded to enter the Black Watch.
'What's it worth Lily?' I asked in anticipation.
'350 White coins.' She said and my smile got a bit wider.
'That's more then I expected.' I said with a smile. 'You ahead and sell it.'
'Very wel… No wait. Selling it would be foolish.'
'What. Why?' I asked incredulously. 'What else would I do with it? It's not like I can use it to increase my stats.'
'No you can't. And you do need to sell it. But just not at the base price.' She said.
'What do you mean?' I asked and then it suddenly hit me. 'You want me to sell it in the 'B&S Worldwide don't you?'
'Yes. That Chen Li guy is selling his stuff at five times the price in that place. Who knows. Maybe you can try to sell it at a higher price as well.' She suggested.
'Very well.' I said and climbed a tree for protection before I started working on the item description and all that stuff.
After two minutes, I clicked the 'Done' button and a new page opened in front of me in which my Nucleus was shown alongside other similar things.
I smiled a bit at this and wondered if I'll really gain some White coins in this site.
Then my smile faltered a bit as I looked at the Nucleus in the other side of the screen.
It was worth 2000 white coins but for some reason, it looked smaller than the one that I had on display.
Before I could think of anything else, I saw a 'SOLD' icon being display on top of my nucleus and saw my White coins rise from 14 to 1514.
I felt lost for a long moment before I finally gathered myself and said 'I think I made a mistake.'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone