All nine moons cracked perfectly down the middle and slowly split apart to reveal a hollowed space inside each one, except for the ninth moon that kissed the horizon, glowing with spatial Qi. The divine shard that Ashlock thought he had used to repair his damaged soul was floating between its two halves, held in place by crackling purple energy.

"So a divine shard gives the moon its affinity?" Ashlock mused as he gazed up at the sky and the other moons. The same energy crackled and fizzed along their surfaces as if trying to reach out for something that wasn't there. "If I slotted a divine shard into one of these moons, would I gain a new affinity?"

Ashlock was unsure if he would be able to outright choose the affinity he got or if it would be a gacha draw with sacrificial credits like his spatial affinity had been when he rejected the chance to get ice affinity after killing the Winterwrath idiot who wanted to kidnap Stella.

"Either way, if I can wield nine different affinities alongside many system abilities, I fail to see how I will not surpass the World Tree from my dreams and manage to avoid suffering a similar fate. Senior Lee told me there are nine shards, one on each layer of creation, and he gave me the one intended for the World Tree."

Ashlock was glad to finally learn the truth behind the moons. The next layer of creation was still far away as he would first need to ascend through Nascent Soul Realm and Monarch Realm, but knowing there would be an opportunity in the future to unlock another one of his moons made him look forward to the future.

"Wait... assuming I can pick which affinity to unlock, I wonder what I will choose?"

The first that came to mind was lunar or light affinity, as they played to his strength of being a tree and always being outside below one of the celestial objects. There were also options like void or cosmic, which were great for killing stronger opponents.

"Even something like blood affinity would be cool when combined with my cursed sap... the options are endless. I mean, I can pool more Qi with my offspring than a normal cultivator, so the high cost of certain affinities doesn't hold me back as much."

While Ashlock was lost in thought about how overpowered it would be if he became a time wizard, he realized he was standing on the surface of his Inner World. It looked far more primal down here on the surface than when observed through the distortion of his soul as it had floated overhead being struck by lightning. He thought it resembled a planet, but being on the surface proved it was still a work in progress. The existence of gravity was dubious at best as flames manifested in mid-air, chunks of rock floated by, and streams of water flowed upward and sideways.

Divine energy radiated strongly from the moons overhead which seemed to be quelling the chaos into something more habitable. Is this how the nine layers of creation came into existence? A random jumble of Qi types woven together into a habitable reality by the divine forces.

His bizarre surroundings aside, he could feel the shifting excuse for a ground beneath him, meaning he was inhabiting a body of some kind on the surface of his Inner World.

"It's not a human body, is it?" Ashlock wondered as he slowly looked down. He immensely enjoyed his life as a tree and had long forgotten what walking around as a human was like. Maybe having some legs for once could be fun too...

"Ah, why did I expect anything else?" Ashlock chuckled as he saw black bark instead of human flesh. He was still a demonic tree, identical to the one in the real world. He could even split open his trunk, much like the moons overhead, to reveal his Demonic Eye. The only difference between his true body and this soul-manifested one was that his roots were only a dozen or so meters long and fully exposed on the surface.

"Huh, strange," Ashlock muttered as he raised one of his roots up and inspected it with his Demonic Eye. It was far easier to move than expected, and the root had as much dexterity as a tentacle as he flexed it.

"Weird, even my ethereal roots aren't as easy to move as this." Ashlock raised all of his roots in unison and then slammed them down, throwing up clouds of rock and dust that floated off in nonsense directions. No matter how many he raised, he never toppled over. However, the rock he was perched on didn't survive his experiments, as it began to crumble and fall apart.

"Oh shit," Ashlock flicked out one of his roots like an octopus and latched onto a larger nearby rock that had floated close. He pulled it toward himself, and without really thinking, he crawled onto the new rock.

He watched the crumbled rock he had once stood on disperse into nothingness as it was swept away by the chaotic firestorms. Only once he settled on his new rock did he realize what he had just done.

"Did I just walk? As a tree?" Ashlock was baffled. Such a concept was impossible for his real body as he was firmly rooted to Red Vine Peak. The best he could do was turn Red Vine Peak into a Bastion and float around, not walk like this.

Deciding to try to walk again, he threw all his roots in one direction and pulled his trunk along. He did it again and again. It was slow, but he was moving. The spatial Qi blazing down from the moon seemed to be the source of his stability.

This was incredibly impressive until he remembered it wasn't the real world. He was inside his own soul. "If that's true, shouldn't nearly anything be possible? This Inner World is mine—I am its god."

Raising a root and glaring at the tip, he uttered, "Fireball." A small reddish flame burst into life and then quickly died out. It was hardly as impressive as the fireball he had been picturing, but he had just summoned fire at will... an affinity he didn't have. "Mhm, fire is all around me. That could have been luck. What about ice?"

No matter how hard he tried, no ice coated his root. Nothing happened even when he plunged his root into a nearby stream and begged it to turn to ice. "What about water—" a small dribble of water flowed down his root.

"Darn it," Ashlock flicked his root tip to remove the water—the wave of water droplets flew upwards into the sky. "It looks like I can only manipulate the affinities already present here in my Inner World. Is that because I have dao comprehension over them or something?"

He certainly felt like he understood the present affinities to a deeper level than before absorbing the bounty hunter cores to fulfill his systems requirements.

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Deciding to continue his exploration, he pulled on the moon to wreath himself with telekinesis and float around his forming world. "This place is far too chaotic for anything to thrive... I can see things slowly slotting into place, but I assume it will take the full week to complete."

He traveled for some time through the swirling chaos of fire storms, raging rivers, and howling winds filled with metal shards. Getting sick of the total disorder, he grabbed random rocks with his roots and smashed them together to fuse them into a larger landmass. To his surprise, it kinda worked.

Humming an upbeat tune, he got lost in his work, and before he knew it, he was smoothing out and shaping the island to resemble Red Vine Peak—just on a tiny scale in comparison.

"Tree! What is all this?"

Ashlock was shocked out of his humming and turned his trunk to see Stella stepping through a portal with Larry curiously trailing her. "How did you get in here?!" Ashlock pointed an accusing root at Stella.

"Am I not supposed to?" Stella tilted her head, "I was sitting in your branches and absorbing stray lightning bolts when I entered the Spatial Plane to check on things and noticed a massive tear appear. So, to sate my curiosity, I decided to step through it."

"Questionable line of reasoning aside," Ashlock lowered his root and scratched his canopy in confusion, "I wonder what caused that."

Stella pointed to the spatial moon in the sky, "I think that's the source of the tear."

"The moon?" Ashlock wondered why, but all he could think of was how the moon had split. "Whatever," he muttered as he returned to looking down at Stella and his beloved pet spider waiting at the base of his trunk, "I guess welcome to the chaos of my soul. I know it ain't much, but feel free to make yourselves at home."

Under their confused gazes, he shifted past them with his roots.

"Tree, how are you moving around?" Stella asked as she jumped to avoid one of his moving roots from taking her out. His spatial awareness while moving still wasn't the best yet.

"I'm inside my own soul. I can do whatever the hell I want—okay, that's not actually true, or at least not until I acquire dao comprehension in all affinities."

"Right..." Stella scrunched her nose, thinking, "Um, is it normal to have a world inside your soul?" She asked Larry beside her, and the spider shook his head.

"No, usually Inner Worlds are the privilege of those in the Monarch Realm and above." Larry gruffly replied, "Though I am not that familiar with the human cultivation system as beasts don't have distinctive realms. We just get progressively stronger."

"Then why does Ash have one?"

"Hey, who are you calling a human?" Ashlock grumbled as he summoned water at the tip of his root to fill up a little lake he had been making. "I am a spirit tree. We have a different path of cultivation... I think."

Honestly, he wasn't sure what was going on. He just let his system do its thing as he fed it corpses and Star Cores. Either way, he could already see the immense benefits of this Inner World and deem it worth the 10,000 SC and Star Cores he spent. He'd gained a level of dao comprehension with any affinity in his Inner World and could infuse his techniques with these daos, such as Abyssal Whispers with wind Qi.

Daos were far inferior to actually possessing the affinity as he couldn't learn wind-based techniques or passively generate wind Qi. Any time he used wind Qi, he had to drain it from his Inner World, just like how Stella couldn't produce lightning, but she was able to absorb it for later use.

"Wow, there's basically a sea of untamed Qi down there," Stella whistled as she leaned over the edge of the floating island to stare into the shifting abyss.

"You can thank your mother for paying child support," Ashlock chuckled. He was still drawing untamed Qi from the World Tree and would repay her by saving her in the future.

"Child support? What's that?" Stella muttered as she wandered around the floating island more, but there was little to see. "So, when will you stop messing around making lakes and return to focusing on the real world?"

"I'm not messing around. I am making important discoveries here!" Ashlock snapped back at his adopted daughter. "You act like I have been in here for hours—"

Stella crossed her arms, "It's been four days."

"—Huh... no way." Ashlock brought up his system to check.

Idletree Daily Sign-In System

Day: 3613

Daily Credit: 50

Sacrifice Credit: 1174

[Sign in?]

Ashlock did some mental maths and realized four days had indeed passed. To be fair, as a tree, months could go by, and it wouldn't bother him too much. He found it easy to lose track of time, especially in here where there's no sun—only the moons that never move from their spot in the sky.

If a whole four days had passed, he was drawing closer to completing his ascension.

"System? What's the progress?"

[Ascension to Nascent Soul Realm at 67%]

Ashlock assumed he would receive the upgrade to his cultivation technique and system once it reached 100%.

"If you're going to stay holed up here, could you at least open the spatial rings?" Stella had a slight sparkle in her eye, "I am in dire need of some new clothes, and setting up a meeting with Merchants or going to the pavilion to purchase new artifact gear is such a hassle. Oh! Also, some spending money would be nice. I was thinking of buying Jasmine some things next time I am in Darklight City..."

Ashlock pulled on his connection to his spatial storage and dragged the many spatial rings into his Inner World. If there was a place he could easily break their seals, it was where he had the most power. Honestly, he had forgotten about the loot as items didn't interest him as much as new cultivation techniques or Dao revelations. What use were clothes or trinkets to a tree anyway? At least his sect members could use them or have Sebastian Silverspire sell them off.

"While I do this, care to tell me about the situation outside?" Ashlock asked as he floated the many rings in the air. With the pressure of his Inner World, he broke their seals in seconds. Items began to pour from them to the ground below, creating large piles of clothes, weapons, spirit stones, pill bottles, and random other junk.

While that was happening, Stella grinned as she brought her two palms before her chest. Lightning suddenly arced between her fingertips, illuminating her face and causing thunder to roar into the chaos. Clapping her palms together to snuff out the dazzling display, she said, "Not much. Just a lot of lightning and constant thunder. There have also been no signs of anyone from the Blood Lotus Sect or pavilion yet. Though the Redclaws have been receiving complaints from Ashfallen and Darklight City from the mortals as they have been unable to really sleep in days."

"Valid complaints, but at least I shield them." Ashlock had blanketed everything in his Qi to try and reduce the number of deaths before he retreated to explore his Inner World.

"Wait, if you're here, Stella, doesn't that mean anyone can come and stay?" Ashlock asked. He knew the mortals wouldn't survive the ambient pressure in here, but what if he used this as a place to raise monsters like those Midnight Inkwing eggs.

"If I can make a portal into here, I don't see why you couldn't." Stella shrugged, "Do you want me to invite more people inside?"

"Yeah, if there's not much going on outside, then now would be a good time to sort through this loot," Ashlock replied.

"Okay." Stella absentmindedly replied as she strolled back through the portal, leaving Larry behind to engage in a staring contest.

A loud noise drew Ashlock's attention to the shardless moons overhead. "Huh, what now?" They seemed unstable and began to drift back together—the intense moonlight that had been bathing his Inner World subsided back to the levels he was used to when sleeping under them.

The portal Stella had left through vanished.

[Inner World entering final stages...]