Game of the World Tree

Chosen City, The Elven Forest.

Orderly and solemn praises echoed throughout the city as some of the elderly native elves exclaimed with wonder as they watched the Oak Trees spring into life.

“Oak Guardians! These are Nature’s very own Legion, which serves under the Divine Matriarch! Their revival definitely shows that the power of the Matriarch has further recovered!”

“Praise the Divine Matriarch! Praise the Goddess of Life!”

Their fervor was palpable, evident in the tears streaming down their faces, brimming with excitement.

Because nothing demonstrates the resurgence of the World Tree better than the reappearance of these illustrious Oak Guardians.

Although the total number of these newly revived Oak Guardians is less than a hundred, and their strength is only at the rank of lower Silver-ranker, nonetheless, their mere presence alone has already attested to the fact that their Patron Deity has become even more powerful!

Almost all of the native elves living within the Elven Forest celebrated and expressed excitement at the sudden changes happening all around them.

Meanwhile, just like the natives, a sense of astonishment spread among the players who stayed behind, as well as those who had died in the recent battle against mercenaries and were just resurrected but hadn’t yet rejoined the battlefield.

Their mouths hung open in disbelief as they found themselves swept up in a different kind of excitement.

“Whoa! Holy shit, the Oak Trees on the streetside came alive!”

“Oak Guardians? I think these are called Oak Guardians! I remember seeing them in an old cutscene before!”

“This… gotta be a sign of the Goddess getting stronger, right? Anyway, what happened? Did someone finish a hidden quest or something? Or maybe set off the main storyline?”

Many players who had watched “Elven Kingdom”-related videos online instantly recognized the identity of the Oak Guardians and had various speculations about their sudden reappearance.

Without a doubt, in their minds, the most likely scenario was that someone had completed the main quest and further advanced the entire game’s storyline!

As for those newbies who had never seen the Oak Guardians nor ever witnessed the NPC Berserker transform back into his true form, they curiously observed the kneeling natives, their expressions filled with eagerness.

“These Treants look awesome, don’t they? They seem super powerful too. Hey, maybe… we could try to make a deal with them to be our mounts?”

The kneeling natives: “…”

They quickly raised their heads, glaring angrily at the few chosen ones who had rudely set their sights on the Oak Guardians.

The Oak Guardians…They were the personal messengers of the Goddess!

Even the chosen ones must show respect for them!

Soon, the newbies who had been eyeing the Oak Guardians as if their mere mounts received a string of system prompts consisting of—

[ Favorability with the NPC…decreased by – 1]

[ Favorability with the NPC…decreased by – 1]

Seeing these prompts, the newbies’ excited smiles immediately froze upon their faces…

“What the? My favorability suddenly dropped?”

“Mine too…weird, what triggered it?”

Meanwhile, the seasoned players who had already figured out the game’s favorability mechanics cast a pitying glance at the newbies who hadn’t yet completely figured out how the favorability system works.

Ah…to be still so young and naive!

Without personally experiencing the game’s trials and tribulations, these newcomers wouldn’t understand the real value of favorability unless they experienced it themselves…

Same old story, different clothes.

With smirks on their faces, the veteran players adopted expressions of excitement and fervor as they knelt down one after another, before skillfully exclaiming:

“Praise be to nature! Praise life! Praise the great Elven Sovereign—Eve Yggdrasill!”

And as if on cue…within their field of visions, came a wave of system prompts:

[ Favorability with the NPC…increased by + 1]

[ Favorability with the NPC…increased by + 1]

By the way, whilst smirking, these shameless veterans also set their system status to public and proudly displayed the system prompts so that the clueless newbies could see it.

“Huh…so that’s how it’s done?”

The newcomers were left dumbfounded.

Then seconds later, without hesitation, they too knelt down before the World Tree, adjusted their expressions, mimicked the actions of their seniors, and also sincerely shouted:

“Praise be to nature! Praise life! Praise the great Elven Sovereign—Eve Yggdrasill!”

Waves of praises such as these echoed within the vicinity, one after another.

Eventually, the native elves finally withdrew their angry gazes…

And seeing that their favorability are starting to rise back again, the newcomers breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, with curious glances, they scrutinized the appearance of the Oak Guardians, while thinking:

So… is there a chance to get them as mounts after all?

These comical events unfolding within the chosen city amounted to a mere blip, unworthy of catching Eve’s attention.

In fact, right now, she were facing quite a bit of a problem…

With Eve’s divine power surpassing the standard value of ‘weak divine power,’ her Divine Kingdom likewise, also experienced a sudden, rapid expansion.

More specifically, the projection of the World Tree at its center continued to soar to a greater heights…

At the same time, Evé felt her body begin to instinctively “absorb” more energy from the cosmic void, resulting in the power within her rapidly strengthening in a much more accelerated manner.

T-This rate of absorption is extremely too fast!

Evé thought with a slight panic as she tried to contain the absorption, but to no avail.

Although the same thing happened when she finally recovered from her near-death state she was in beforehand, this time around, her absorption ability was further strengthened, making it a lot more harder to control.

As a direct result, the entire realm of Seigües also began to exert a strong attraction, guiding the cosmic void energy surrounding Seigües to continuously surge towards the entire realm in an instant…

In fact, if one were to look at Seigües from the outer space, they would instantly see the whole realm seemingly turning into a huge vortex that’s constantly devouring the cosmic void energy around it.

This sudden change that occurred along with her promotion startled Eve, and she quickly tried to stop this instinctive absorption that seemed like it had no way of stopping…

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!

With such a blatant display of absorption, even a fool would know that something weird is happening right now inside Seigües!

Evé thought incredulously, yet even despite her already commanding her [Absorption] ability to stop, the rate at which the cosmic energy from the void continued to pour in did not immediately weaken at all…

It was as if the moment of her promotion had formed some kind of inertia and triggered a domino effect wherein Seigües itself had also begun absorbing the cosmic energy from the void surrounding it.

Sort of like how a hungry man was finally given the go signal to madly devour the energy surrounding it after abstaining for so long.

Moreover, Evé herself also felt the immense void energy coming from the outside instantly being sent into the Provenance of Seigües and, after being absorbed by it, a very small fraction of this energy also flowed into her body through the roots of the World Tree.

Within her, pain and joy intertwined as her divine power, almost visibly, began to skyrocket at a staggering speed once more…

In less than a moment, Eve’s divine power had increased by a hundredfold…and it was still showing signs of continuing to grow.

Even the plants and monsters around the World Tree benefited from this change, with the former becoming even more lush, and the latter’s aura further soaring, with many even breaking through their ranks on the spot…

The native elves, similarly, were no exception.

Being a race with a silver lineage, the natives too enjoyed this sudden change that affected the entire core area of the Elven Forest, with their respective strengths increasing significantly.

On the other hand, the players having already experienced a similar case in the past, had their experience bars completely locked by Evé via the game system, so her sudden promotion didn’t affect them at all.

At the same time, Evé also clearly felt that the level of mana within the entire realm of Seigües had almost instantly increased by ten percent in just this short amount of time.

It’s just a mere ten percent, but this amount was already adequate enough to reach a certain critical point, and the whole realm trembled slightly as a result.

Finally, the crazy rate of energy absorption gradually stopped.

At this time, Eve’s divine power had soared a lot, rising by a thousand points, and the size of her Divine Kingdom had expanded to nearly three times its original size…

Of course, her true body also grew further during this time, reaching nearly three thousand meters high. It was to the extent that the World Tree would still be visible from Florence, even though the city was already tens of kilometers away from where the World Tree stood.

However, at this moment, Eve wasn’t very excited at all.

On the contrary, she felt apprehensive instead, since her recent promotion seemed to have caused quite a huge commotion, stirring up unexpected consequences as a result.

I’m probably in…huge trouble right now.

Evé thought with a grimace, and as if sensing her thoughts, a subtle tremor coursed through the entire realm, as if the world itself responded to her troubled thoughts.

Vaguely, Evé felt a sinking sensation.

— 327 —

【 HUGE TROUBLE 】

— —