We got led into the big tree and got shown into a meeting room. Tyrone...Byron stood up and met up with us.

“Ahh, you have come! I had thought that it would take longer than a week for you to come here! Our scouts have returned earlier today and have notified us about Bizax’ movements. We didn’t know what it was about but Bellia clarified. You can take refuge here for as long as you like!”

And all for some fur…

You also pissed her off.

She did say that she wanted to breed you… I think it’s not just your fur but also the fur of your children…

Oh, hell no! I’d rather die!

Maybe that’s what she’s afraid of…

So now she doesn’t want me dead? Can she make up her mind?

But isn’t sending an army stupid? If she wants him alive then an army isn’t going to work right?

“I think Bizax’ wants to put social pressure on you. You can’t enter villages and cities casually for too long in the fear that you will be luring an army to it. But we will be fine! I have scouts all over the place. They will notify me in 2 hours to make sure our barrier works.”

Thanks, I thought elves were self-centered pricks but you seem to be quite alright. They only act like that towards humans Agnis…

“So… we have something to ask you Agnis.”

I will help you guys before you leave, don’t worry.

“Huh, now, we have an issue that came up during the last week that’s more urgent than our population issue. Our guardian spirit has stopped showing us signs.”

Just talk to it

“That’s the thing, we might be spirit mages bet we can’t communicate with spirits that we haven’t contracted with.”

Then form a contract with it

“The guardian spirit is our protector! We can’t have it move from its power spot to having to use us as an anchor! Also, it has to be consensual…”

Aha so I need to talk to the spirit?

“If you would, we would be very grateful.”

I don’t mind helping but it seems that my problems are my problems and other people’s problems are also my problems. I saw a strange snake entering the village. It wasn’t a spirit but it seemed it ate one. It was also giving off a familiar type of energy. I sighed.

Hey Byron, as a spirit mage you can see and interact with spirits, right? Besides that, only spirits can interact with spirits, right? Or is there another race that can do that?

“Uhm, Bellia told us that it is possible for seven tailed crystal wolves to interact with them, besides that only deities.”

Thought so. Greg Raishin, we have an intruder, it’s giving off divine energy.

I pointed at the 10 meter long snake that had entered the village. T

hat is not a Sarian deity, is it?

Probably someone who thinks he can get an easy kill in or suck up to that bitch.

It formed and a strange looking guy with snake eyes and leathery skin appeared.

“Hss who here is the silver fox?” I pointed at a random elf.

“Hss, you’re coming with me!” He sent snakes at the random elf.

I expected this guy to run away or be freaked out but he stared seriously fighting this snakegod.

Hey, is this guy blind? You have your tails out and shit.

It was mentioned that deities aren’t the smartest most of the time. I guess there is no need for intelligence if they can casually wipe out a country…

Now I feel sorry for that elfguy. I think I will treat him to some salmon.

I walked over to Snakegod. Hey, can you tell me why you’re after him so that I can help you?

“Hss, the Sarian goddess Biian has promised that whoever can bring the silver fox to her will get to lick her feet hsss. I love feet!”

Yeah, sorry I don’t help weirdos.

I torched the Snakeguy with a [Foxfire: Summer Heat].

“Hsss!! Aaagh!” He spat some poison at me.

Is this guy serious? This is just basic poison. I was immune to this poison so I didn’t bother dodging and threw another foxfire on him. It seemed quite effective.

Please tell me that you’re not this weak, you can’t be a god right…

Raishin zapped him and everyone attacked this deity that was still burning.

“Aaagh! It doesn’t go out!”

It seems your foxfire is quite effective against deities…

It seems so… who actually decides who gets to become a god?

“They get born this way but this indeed tarnishes the word ‘God’. We did know he was a deity but now that I think about it, he is quite weak” Byron also doubted that this was a god. I don’t blame him.

This is unmistakably a god.

Greg shot a [Telos] at the god and the snake god got one-shot.

Oh, you killed him. And for good. Congratulations, you’re the first of us to kill a god.

Why does it feel… so empty. [Telos] isn’t even supposed to do meaningful damage when the target hasn’t been hit before by any of my shadow or abyss attacks…

Maybe Agnis’ foxfire put him one step in the grave.

That must be it but… it feels anticlimactic.

Well, I guess that means that small fry deities should be no issue for us. I guess that is good for our morale, we’re not extremely weak, just super weak!

Yeah! We’re not on the bottom of the food chain anymore!

“Uuhm, I would argue that the tailed beasts are quite high in the food chain…”

What would an elf know! We had to deal with divine activity since we were 12! Technically 7! How did he find us by the way?

“That one actually lives nearby so he might just have spotted you before you entered the village. We had to occasionally fight him off because he was out to eat our children. I can’t say that he was a strong deity but he was one nonetheless...”

Well, if you guys can fight them off then he must be super weak!

Phrasing Raishin! He means that a deity normally wouldn’t be driven off this easily.

“We know…” The Super Noobgod had disappeared without trace. Maybe I should give the real Noobgod more credit.

I gave the random elf some salmon to apologize for sending a random god after him but he seemed to be a vegetarian. I suppose that makes sense. I offered him some fruits which he appreciated. He introduced himself as Jyno Wifran. He didn’t seem to have minded that I sent a god after him. What a cool dude.

Did you just make friends over food?

Not really! I had to send a god after him before that.

Jyno and I hit it off and we were eating and talking about different fruits.

Byron approached me and he looked a bit uncomfortable. “I’m sorry for interrupting your meal but is it possible if you can speak with our guardian spirit?”

I got up. Sure. Bring me to your leader!

“You want to meet my father, Bynerofax Seorwynn?”

Why does this line never work? Just bring me to your spirit guardian…

We got led back into the big tree. It took a while before we reached an area. I could see a lot of spirit energy here.

This place feels… different, as if it’s a place of worship.

“We don’t worship our guardian spirit but we do revere it. I’m sorry but only the Seorwynn family is allowed to get past this point.”

So how am I supposed to get in there then?

“You are a spirit so you are free to go.”

How convenient, well then, I will talk to your guardian spirit.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

I went deeper into the tree and the light started to dim. I did see light green motes floating around. It went from looking like a building to being inside a tree. The floor was covered by a layer of water. This place seemed to be a maze but I could feel something calling me. Is it the guardian spirit?

I kept following the call which seemed to get stronger as I got closer. I entered a small room. It had some type of altar in it. The altar was under several branches which had some fruits growing off them. The fruits seemed like they were tarnished by disease. It also seemed that it looks like the branches were wilting. I saw brown petals on the floor.

Judging from the petals still on the tree they’re supposed to be light blue. The whole room was blue, green and blue green themed. The water on the floor gave off a soft blue light while the tree gave off green light. This place felt very comfortable. Too bad that it looked as if this tree was slowly dying.

I walked over to the branch and touched it.

“These elves… They shouldn’t have done this. I hope they didn’t cause you trouble.”

Oh, they kind of did but I’m fond of spirits. My name is Agnis Hourai, how do I address you?

“I do not have a name; you can call me however you deem fitting. I get addressed as ‘Guardian Spirit’, ‘Guardian Tree’, ‘Great One’ and many more.”

Hmm, I had heard that names are a big deal to spirits. Don’t tell me you’re dying because you don’t have a name?

“Having a name or not is unrelated to this. I’m not dying, spirits don’t die so your concern is misplaced.”

I looked at the branches. 2 more petals fell off the branch. Ok how about you stop acting tough and tell me what the problem is, this whole village here relies on you and cares about you.

“I am fine, this is no concern of yours.”

In that case you don’t mind if I eat one of these fruits then. I was about to pick one of the sickly fruits when the tree stopped me.

“You can’t! It is meant for a ritual that is important to the elves!”

Yeah, but I don’t care about that, tell me why you think I shouldn’t eat this fruit.

“It isn’t ripe yet.”

It seems like it’s about to rot in a day or 2, try again.

“I’m sorry, there is nothing I can help you with. Please leave…”

You are wrong, I’m here to help you, so tell me what’s wrong.

“There is nothing to worry about. You must have better things to do as a spirit fox. I will be fine.”

Right, you’re pissing me off, should have answered me while I was asking nicely.

I created a foxfire.

“Hey! Wait! What are you doing!”

I have no idea what you’re talking about. I started to throw weak foxfires around and setting parts of the chamber on fire.

“Ok! I apologize! I will tell you!”

I doused the flames. That’s more like it.

“But it’s no use, even if you know the problem, there isn’t anything you can do to help…”

Let me hear the problem first and I will decide later on if I can help.

“I have watched over this village for millennia. I love the elves as they love me. I see them as my own children and will do anything to protect them. They have shown me nothing more than appreciation. There is one problem though…”

Yes, go on.

“I can’t continue watching over them…”

And why is that? It doesn’t sound like that’s by choice.

“I might be a spirit but I’m similar to you. This tree is my vessel and while it wasn’t a big problem when it started 212 years ago, it is now… My vessel is starting to reject my spirit…” I sat down. This talking tree is right. How am I supposed to help it counter that.

Are there any techniques spirits know to counteract this?

“Spirits with vessels are rare, if your spirit suddenly got rejected by your body, would you know how to fix it?” I thought about these words. Is this a possibility? If that happens, I would have no idea how to counter this.

How do you know that your vessel is rejecting your spirit? Do you get a warning screen pop up or what?

“As you know I’m a tree but even so I get what the elves described as a ‘Dizzy spell’. It has progressed to the point where I momentarily lose connection to my vessel.” I sat on the ground. Dizzy spells? Doesn’t this sound familiar?

Are you capable of sight?

“I am yes, I didn’t know silver spirit foxes were still around.”

Does this get accompanied by seeing double, or worse?

“Ohh! Yes! So, you know about it?”

Unfortunately, I do… I’ve been plagued with this too recently…

“This is ba…” Silence fell. The glow of the tree disappeared. Did the spirit fall asleep? It didn’t return to the spirit world. It’s presence seemed… far… is this my future? I waited for the guardian spirit to ‘wake up’ while thinking of possible causes or solutions. I know absolutely nothing about spirit magic. It does seem to be important for 9t apparently. Can I just live a quiet life without problems popping up left, and right?

The tree started to glow again. “…d Oh that didn’t feel good. How long was I out for?”

10 minutes. Your branches look worse now…

“The state of my vessel deteriorates every time this happens. I don’t know how much longer before it completely rejects me.”

Do you know why it rejects you?

“I don’t know the immediate cause but at a certain point a vessel will reject a spirit when the state of the vessel can become a danger to the spirit. I don’t know if I’m getting hit by the primary cause which is unknown, or that the secondary cause is responsible.”

These blackouts, how often do they occur?

“The first one started 27 years ago, it was infrequent, once per year until 5 years ago where it happened at least once a month and since 4 months it has been occurring at least twice every week.”

Did anything happen around that time?

“Not that I know of, I apologize but I have no information on this cause. And my communication with the elves is quite limited, I’m glad that a spirit fox came along.” My 9th tail came up with an idea.

How about moving to another vessel?

“I am not going to possess another species, nor am I interested in possessing corpses. If this problem can’t be solved…. I will apologize to the elves and return to the spirit world.”

My 9th tail reminded me of Isi Medri, the spirit we met under Boshi Town.

Oh, I had met a spirit with an artificial vessel! It had some flaws but it worked great. She was hard to distinguish from a real human. If we can get one of those then you won’t have to inhabit a living being!

“That sounds like a wonderful idea! But I can’t imagine that that will be easy.”

Yeah… nobody is researching or making those. Luckily Isi had handed some of the research to me! But its incomplete… How about I try and continued this research? I’m not too unfamiliar with research. This is completely outside my expertise though…

“I appreciate that but why would you go out of the way to do that? There is nothing in it for you.”

Firstly, that’s not true, if my body starts rejecting my spirit too, I will also need a vessel, secondly… all the spirits I’ve met have been extremely helpful to me. I’m greatly indebted to them since I could never help them to the extent, they helped me. I’m very fond of spirits so I’m not going to ignore this.

I took out what ever Isi had given me. It wasn’t much. It was 2 letters and a small book. The book had schematics on the anatomy and gave hints to the most important ingredients of certain parts but that was it. Nothing about how to synthesize them or any specifics. The 2 other papers was a letter Vo sent to Rignef briefly explaining some issues he had with connecting the ‘Body’, aspect, the ‘Mind’ aspect and to make it receptive to the ‘Spirit’. These terms sound familiar. The other piece of paper was Rignef’s response. They had eventually decided to abandon the ‘Mind’ aspect of the vessel which would cause the resulting vessel to be unable to use magic besides the spirit magic belonging to the spirit.

It had some useful information but I will basically be starting from scratch with this. I don’t know how to make all these components and connect them.

The elves here are spirit mages, right?

“That is correct.”

You must have literature or special skills relating to them. Is it possible for you to communicate to them to give me access to all of them? Even the secret and possibly forbidden ones? I don’t know what information I would need to make this. Also, I might be a resident in this village for a long time.

“That can be arranged, are you certain that you want to do this?”

I did have a goal set besides becoming stronger but I had nothing concrete, This could categorize as getting stronger because the key to using spirit magic is understanding it first. I can’t believe that I’m going to study again… I might have to raid the Misha library…

“Thank you Agnis, I would do anything if it will allow me to walk around and talk with the elves I love so dearly. This might be a better solution than to reverse this rejection.”

Don’t rejoice yet. I literally have no clue what I’m doing. I don’t know how long this will take or if I will succeed after all. I will need assistance of elvish scholars and my buddy Greg.

“Thank you. I will send the signal for the Seorwynn family to assemble so I can convey this to them. I wish you luck and if there is anything you need, regard this place as your home.”

I will do my best…

I navigated through the overgrown maze and got back to Byron, Raishin and Greg.

Yeah guys, we have a problem, Byron the guardian will have your family ass…

The whole tree started glowing. I assume this is the sign that the Seorwynn family should assemble.

“I assume this is what you wanted to tell me. I will make preparations; I will ask you later on for more details.” Byron left.

My buddies and I navigated through the many chambers of the big tree and managed to get outside.

Good news and bad news?

Only bad news I’m afraid, the guardian has a special case. It’s spirit is getting rejected by the vessel. It has no idea how to fix this issue so I suggested an alternative. I suggested….

I got hit by another dizzy spell. This was way worse than the others. It took over 200 years for that tree, why is it happening so frequently to me. I was laying on the ground before I realized.

Agnis! Are you alright?

Did that tree do something to you?

I tried to sit up but I had to throw up. I guess the tree has the advantage that it can’t vomit.

I’m fine thank you…

Greg handed me an anti-nausea potion which I drank.

So, I suggested to make a spirit vessel similar to the one Isi had. Which brings me to the second problem.

I looked at my hands. I know that I only have 2 hands but I saw 10 of them. The dizziness had disappeared but my vision was still impaired. Greg and Raishin looked worried. Elves had gathered and also seemed concerned.

I think what’s happening to the tree is also happening to me.