Bloom

History books speak of the mistakes of the past, to prevent tragedies of the future.

History teaches us to avoid the calamities that our forefathers invoked, and take advantage of the windfalls of opportunity that arise.

I love history.

Particularly when it provides me incredible insight into the enemies that I may have in the future.

Nif the great High Human that ascended to Divine status?

The estimable Forge Lord, the dwarf revered to create armor and weapons of incredible power?

The supreme High Elf who managed to rise up from the ashes of a forest to create the Green Nightmare?

Elemental Lords, those that manipulate the elements as easy as breathing?

All this and more can be found within history books, as long as you steal them from the right people, aka nobles!

After all, a normal library would definitely not map the path to ultimate power for mere commoners.

Reading these history books had shown me there was a major problem with my chosen plan.

Notably, the massive amount of deaths that would occur. Being a Tree, I wasn’t completely enamored with the concept of ‘bad’ karma. The amount of negative karma I might accumulate from killing an entire planet would likely be immense. I could take the chance that it’s just mumbo jumbo hocus pocus, however I have a feeling it is much, much, bigger than that. So in order to not become a cosmic grease stain on the napkin of infinity, I need to take steps, I need a better plan.

One more…user friendly…and less cataclysmic.

How to remedy this?

Simple.

I have decided to take my concept of space pockets for my leaves and expand it one step further.

Within a single leaf, a world, within a world, a thousand others.

Theoretically with enough power, I could create an unlimited amount of worlds within my leaves. It wasn’t precisely like a World Tree, but it would be my version of it instead!

Yes, let’s call it, Chaos Worlds!

Creating a Chaos World would of course need a massive amount of energy to create. According to my basic calculations I would need the World Heart of this planet, and all surrounding satellites, as well as the sun. Other planets in the solar system would be extra delicious parts to an extravagant meal.

Thankfully, since I practice the Dao of Fire, consuming a sun should be possible.

Imagine if I practiced the Dao of Water instead? Hah, ha that would go…very badly.

Combining the Dao of Fire, with the Dao of Nix, I should be able to reasonably expect the formation of several worlds given proper management.

Thousands of leaves, yet only enough power to create a bare few worlds.

These won’t be lush worlds filled with life either, at least, not at first.

Well, whatever. It would be enough to place the creatures of this world on, and allow them to live.

Except the elves.

They owe me a debt, and I’m willing to take a hit on karma to make sure it’s paid in full.

So recapping, Chaos Alchemist in the works, check.

Servant with management skills. Check.

Theory of eating a solar system. Check.

Oh! I wonder if eating Divinities can help offset the cost of my plan…

Let’s put that in the Test column here.

Calculated time to succeed with plan?

Rounding up and carrying the one…about two thousand years give or take.

I mean this world, Vespar isn’t big, but it isn’t small either.

First Empire of the Sun Elves is a continent, the Metal Mountains are a continent, the Green Plains are a continent, and so forth. Then there is also the random locations like Fire Sea, Endless Ocean, Skyfall, Mt. Eternal and so forth. Those places are home to the more vicious minions of the Elemental Lords.

Even worse danger areas like the Void, Darkness, Nightmare and so forth also connect to this world through cracks in the World Heart. With that in mind, aimlessly wandering around with only a Master level alchemist is a bad idea.

I need to ensure my people are at least the bare minimum level of power in order to prevent instant death scenarios.

I refuse to have the people I invest into turn into human shaped meat patties of blood and muscle.

With that in mind, I am currently in the process of napping while I make an exploration plan for Vespar.

First we need to clean out the Sun Elf Empire of everything we possibly can.

I’m not going to use force…

No, I’ll use something more despicable!

That’s right, I’ll use the power of people’s own greed against them.

With my own alchemist pushing towards the Expert tier, it shouldn’t be long before I can introduce a simple Elixir into the mix. Elixirs have many uses, but the one I plan on teaching is more than a mere restorative. It is the cumulation of many sleepless nights upon which I watched Dryad as she used Regeneration.

The problem, which elves cheat on by the way, of aging is quite simple.

At the end of that long string of information known as a DNA strand, is a tiny cap. This cap has the sole purpose of essentially ‘correcting’ or better to say ‘maintaining’ the completeness of the DNA strand’s information.

In essence, it is like an autocorrect that makes sure the new information matches with the old. That’s what prevents mutations, aging, and even worse effects.

Without this incredible thing, called a telomere, a human would mutate randomly every second of every day. Eventually turning into a sludge of organic material, akin to a Slime monster. However, no information relay system is without decay over time. As such, ‘aging’ is the process of decay in action, the telomere, over time, becomes 99.9% then 99.98% and so forth.

When the decay reaches a bad enough state, things start being made wrong. Liver cells that don’t filter well, lungs that can’t take full breaths, spines that send pain signals more often, muscles that aren’t built right, and so on.

This is the terrible fact of aging.

Humans, are machines, built with organic processor chips and bad information relays. Like any machine, they have a warranty, and once that is up, bam!

Regeneration spells, are like corrective anti-viruses that fix the telomere as they speed growth and healing.

Now, what if you could perfect a regeneration spell, and place it in a bottle?

Elixir of Youth, that’s what.

Want to shave off a century? Half a century? Twenty years? Ten?

I can make that happen.

Of course, there is a price for such actions.

Elixir doesn’t last forever.

Like any drug, taking it builds up resistance in the body.

At the maximum, my patented formula could give a human around 1500 years of life. That of course is with the best case scenario.

Elixir can’t heal beheading, or poisoning, it is an Elixir of Youth, not Godhood.

Even with that there are people, rich, rich, and crazy people that will pay through the nose for such a thing.

A young guy, might not understand the terror of a ninty-one year old grandfather as his life slowly dims.

The flame of his once great mind flickering, weaker than a candle in open air.

I have seen it.

The desperation of one on the verge of death.

The knowledge that all their greatness, all their power, money, and fame are worthless in that final moment.

And, I have seen the Flame deep in their eyes as it ignites when they realize there is a way out.

It isn’t a question of money at that point.

It is simply a question of how much?

Once she reaches the Grandmaster tier, S’neli will be able to fund anything she wants.

Flying ships, exploration, colonies, expeditions, caravans, whatever, wherever.

And…

I’m sure she’ll bring her lucky Tree along for the ride!