The guest room was lavish to the tree spirit. An array of cloths adorned the bed, the table and across the walls. They seem to be covering the openings in the room. He hadn’t seen these weird items before, there was also a strange big box in the center filled with some sort of white plant fiber, coupled with smaller colourful pouches? What was that? So weird…

The people that he’d known slept in beds weaved from bamboo or trees, there were hardly any bedding and they would rest their heads on porcelain or wooden blocks.

He laid on the softbox in a daze. After the burly human went away, he was suddenly dragged by some other humans into this room and they had started to rub his body in water and then dry it with more cloth before making him wear a special robe that could be worn without removing the shackles. Some even touched him in weird places!!! Not that he wasn’t immune to humans touching wherever they wished… but that one human had a weird sickening grin!!!!!

He just laid on the bed, almost limp. He couldn’t move. Or rather he didn’t know how to. He had used spiritual energy to move his limbs like a puppet.

He used to play with puppets at one point, to see how the humans would react to them. He had so much fun teasing them. Sometimes they would get close and starts conversations, but the funniest is when they realised that the puppets weren’t human. They usually ran startled. Some even jumped shockingly high, it even startled the tree spirit at times, which made him drop the puppet.

His hard work…

He did get bored eventually… so the rumours of ghosts haunting the mountain dwindled as well…

If only he could have use spiritual energy to speak... it was hard like playing an unfamiliar instrument... Maybe then these disgusting humans wouldn't have caught him? 

Sighing, the tree spirit tried to make another effort.

Plop.

He fell off the bed.

… This was hard…

…

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! He hates these humans!!! Who did they think they were!!! How dare they catch me! How dare they try to make me mate with them!!!! And what’s with these shackles!! It prevented him from exerting any spiritual energy at all!!!! It must be some weird treasure!!! He wants to break them!!! He wants to kill them!!!

Okay, okay calm down. The old man from the sect did say that humans tend to hate non-humans that killed those from their species…

But!! These are ‘bad’ humans right! Yea, they are definitely ‘bad’ humans. So, it should be okay to kill them. Yea, he’ll kill them!!

Hmmpf! The tree spirit rolled around in anger. At least now, he knew how to roll…

Just wait! The tree spirit thought. When he masters how to move and speak, he’ll cuss them off and teach them a lesson!! He’ll cut them into tiny pieces and stuff the remains into their friends! And repeat!! Maybe he’ll even remove the top layer of flesh and stuff it down their own throats!! Oh, oh and he’ll destroy all their little red roots!!!

As he was complaining inside, the burly human came in.

“Stop fooling around!”

He kicked the little tree spirit.

Poor little tree spirit felt the wind smacked out of him as he rolled and slammed against the wall.

Arggg…. Stupid human. That hurts!!

“Listen, brat, you better start speaking before I cripple a couple limbs. Don’t worry, if you’re good, I will snap them cleanly instead.”

The tree spirit glared at him.

“Speak. Who sent you? What’s your purpose here?” The burly man ground his foot on the boy’s skull. He found it weird. The boy wasn’t originally a captive. The other captives didn’t recognise him either.

The tree spirit just kept glaring at him and said nothing.

“Trying to act tough? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The burly man nimbly lifted his foot and crushed one of the boy’s ankles.

“Argggg!!!!!!” He screamed involuntarily. The pain was intense and foreign. Sharp bolts of pain numbed his mind.

“Speak.”

“Argg!! Ah..ha..” The boy was gasping in pain. It hurts. It really hurts. Why does it hurt so much…?

Tears hanged by the wells in his reddened eyes.

“Speak.” The burly man rocked the soles of his feet on the boy’s crushed bones, sending waves after waves of pain. This time, the man gave out an earth-crushing spiritual force. It overwhelmed the boy, he felt crushed. Every sinew on his frame felt as if they were going to burst under the pressure. It was terrifying. He… he was going to die.

“Argg!!! AH!!! AHHHHHH!!!” The boy panicked. His frame spasmed in fear, trying to get away from that burly human. He kept trying to let out his spiritual force, but the shackles seemed to cut the flow in his meridians.

“I’ll say this once more.” The burly man growled out in a low threatening voice, but his eyes gave out a hint of amusement. He gentle sat his foot against the surface of the boy’s other ankle. Almost teasingly rubbing it.

The tree spirit unconsciously shudders in fear when the man’s lips seemed to curl slowly and spat out the words.

“Speak. Who. Sent. You?”

“Argg!! Ha... Nrow..Nrow owne!! Nwrow ownee!!” The boy struggled to make out the words. Fear enveloped him tightly, a strange yet terrifying coldness attacked his lungs, crushing him from within. His hands shook, his head felt a crushing well of emotions running rampant. He was unfamiliar with this. He’d never felt this much uncertainty for ages and never at this intensity. He was afraid. What’s happening. He was scared.

“Who? Speak clearly.” The man crushed his other ankle, and snapped his leg. The white bone jittered out in an unsightly manner. Bright red liquid sputtered out.

“Nrow owneee… Nwro oone…nro one” The boy was practically sobbing. He felt unsightly, but the fear he felt was overwhelming. He kept forcing out the words. He didn’t like this. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to feel pain.

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“Nro One?...” The burly man pondered.

“No one? Was that what you said?”

Hearing the man ask for confirmation, the tree spirit nodded his head hastily. Feeling that the man had removed his foot. He curled his body inwards into a bloody ball.

“Don’t lie to me.” The burly man stomped on his wrist this time, gradually putting some weight on it.

“Nwrot !!! Nwort Liee ying!!! “ The boy's voice was hoarse from screaming, his speech was hardly recognisable.

“Not lying? Then why did you come here? And make a mess? Where did you get your guts from?” The burly man spat. The security outside the parameters wasn’t just for show. To get in, there were multitudes of arrays outside of the ground. No one could easily get in, nor out.

“Why don’t I kill off the people that arrived today? And feed and bath you in their mangled flesh?”

Instead of intense fear or anger, the burly man noticed an expression of confused disgust instead laced with the fear the boy already had of him. He didn’t care for those captured people. Strange.

“ Respond. Why did you come here?” The burly man kicked his abdomen.

“Twoor..troww grett owwt..grwett houtt..” The boy shirks inwards in fear.

“Get out? From where?” The burly man was getting the hang of his speech.

“Grrrwed..grownnee..gronnnee.. Drownnn “ He kept repeating and changing the way he spoke in fear that the burly man couldn’t understand him.

“Ground? From the ground?” The burly man thought in confusion. Did the boy just imply that he dug his way in from the ground?

“Hah. Do you take me a fool?” The burly man half-laughed in contempt. The boy still has some guts!

“Nwort liieee gying!!!! Nwort Lye eying!!!! Norrtt Lyrrring!!!!” The boy screamed in fear, pulling his limbs closer to himself. Strangled sobs gushed out every so often.

From his actions, the boy did seem like he was being honest… He’ll get someone to investigate this further.

“And this?” He nudged the small jade pendant tied to the boy’s wrist.

“Frrr…Frrrowned eet… frroown eet” Despite the pain, he shakily tried to cover the pendant from the man’s view. It was important to him. It was the only thing left from that group of humans. Tears trickled down his reddened cheeks, why did he still care anyways. They left. They all left. And never came back.

Why was he so unlucky? He should’ve just left, the moment he got out from the ground. Why did he try to talk to these humans? Why did they treat him like this? Humans are terrible… even to their own kind.

“Huh. From the ground too?” The burly man joked out loud, his thunderous laughter was piercing. He casually confiscated the pendant. It must be precious if the boy is so guarded.

Surprisingly, the boy didn’t give a response. He had fainted from blood loss.

The burly human glanced coldly at the boy and pocketed the pendant.

“Get a doctor for the boy. I want his limbs repaired.” The burly man said as he left the room.

...

...

...

When the tree spirit had woken up from his muddled state, he was back on the bed.

Looking around, he realised he hadn’t died. He tried to move his limbs, but couldn’t.  They were wrapped tightly in white cloth. The smell of herbs penetrated his senses, they were nauseating.

He felt bad.  

In a while, a human dressed in dark blue came by and fed him round pills and occasionally smeared some ointment on his wounds. They quickly healed. They seemed miraculous. In less than a day, he could move his feet again.

The tree spirit should’ve been happy, but whenever he saw humans, humans with spiritual power he would shudder. He was weak, too weak. He could be killed easily by them. He hated this. He hated them. The humans he met now were ruthless, disgusting, and took a liking to torture. Nothing like the humans he had known, who were hardworking and gentle.

 What he hated the most was his weak body. He’d admired the strong, and now that he was weak, he was disgusted with himself. Embarrassed that he’d screamed and cried like a child. He felt uncomfortable, he had a strange body, and couldn’t speak properly, couldn’t move freely. Without his spiritual force, he felt strangely handicapped. Even more so than when he was a tree.

He was happy when he had a physical mobile form. It meant that he could go out and go on those adventures that the old man spoke of. See the world. Ascend into an immortal. Maybe… even meet them again… and they may welcome him with open arms…

Now, he was trapped. Bounded. Useless.

What a joke.

He was a joke.  

“Boy.” The door slid open and the burly man went in. 

The boy shrunk back into the corner.  

“We’re not done, yet are we?”

Over the last few days, he’d return to interrogate him. Whenever he found an unsatisfactory answer, he’d use crueler and crueler methods on him. He’d switched from physical to mental and internal tortures. Penetrating his consciousness, blocking his meridians, intensifying sensory pain… The tree spirit now had post-traumatic reflexes against the burly man.

“Look. Do you know what this is?” The burly man twirled a small box with his fingers, and opened the lid, within it was a disfigured lump of flesh. It wriggled around disgustingly and even made tiny gnawing sounds.

“This is nicknamed the devil’s friend. It spreads itself out in the host's body, and allows the user to control the host at will, pain, actions even the truth would be quickly spat out…” He trailed off watching the boy tremble. Each word was laced with malice.

The burly man walked closer to the child-like human, each step seemed to echo loudly in the tree spirit’s ears. He shrunk backward.

“Swallow.” He threw the box toward the child.

“Swallow it or we could continue...”  He watched the small child coldly.

What choice did he have? He didn’t want to be that human’s slave, but he didn’t want to go through that mind-numbing pain.

The tree spirit held the box with trembling hands. Neither opening it nor moving it away.

“Stubborn.” The burly man began abruptly. “But a coward through and through.”

When the tree spirit heard that he’d immediately glared at the human. He didn’t like to be a coward. As if in an epiphany, he threw the box at the human and sprinted.  He didn’t know what he was doing. Neither did he think things through. He just couldn’t bear that insult. The old man did say that the worst sort of cultivators were cowards. If he was one…

Of course, he was quickly recaptured.

And beaten.

But, this time no matter how harsh the torture was. He suppressed his screams. He wanted to be strong, he was not a coward.

He will not be humiliated again.

He was a proud tree spirit.

The mangled flesh was forced down his throat.  

It lived in his stomach for a few days, growing at an unprecedented rate. Spreading its tiny limbs throughout the tree spirit’s sinews. Penetrating and invading.

But, by the third day, something strange happened.

The child retched and vomited a strange marble-like crystal. It was unusually clear and gave out a soft pink glow.

The burly man was there when it happened. Calmly observing at the side. As if he had known that this would happen.

He gave a cruel smile.

“Heh. You really are a tree spirit.” He stated, amused. 

He’d lucked out. A living panacea and distillery, the gains aren’t to be trifled with. The burly man had his doubts from what he’d seen in the boy’s memories with his special skill, and tested him repeatedly. The time needed for a full physical recovery even with poisonous herbs, his origins, the effects of the boy’s flesh and blood on cultivation… were extraordinary.

This was a strange tree spirit, it didn’t consume other cultivators, nor did it use vines to capture prey. This meant that it must’ve been a sort of docile healing tree spirit. Those were practically unheard of. The potential was endless. It could even remove the poison from the ‘Devil’s Friend’… and refined its core. That move was reckless, it might’ve killed the boy instead, but it had confirmed the burly man’s suspicion.

This was a priceless treasure indeed. However, this was the world of the strong. Unique treasures and skills in the open would garner unwanted attention.

Now, all he needed was to hide the boy’s true worth. 

“Congratz, boy. You’ve passed. A gift.” The burly man took out a weird black collar made of some sort of spirit stones and strange engravings.

“You’re worthy to be kept as a pet.” He placed the collar onto the child’s neck and it snapped in place, and slowly seared itself into the tree spirit’s flesh.  

The child mouthed in a silent scream, he clawed at his neck to no avail.

When the sizzling ended, the marks on the collar flashed brightly across his skin once, before fading into nothingness.

The burly human unlocked the shackles that the boy had worn for the past month.

“Good boy. Stand.”

As if guided by some unknown force. The tree spirit stood at the man’s command.

The burly man smiled. It was difficult getting the grade 12 slave collar. He had his ways, but they paid off. Even the most treacherous of beasts wouldn’t be able to escape its bindings.

He wasn’t a top-tier demonic sect master for show. Human trafficking was just a small side business of his.

When the tree spirit noticed what was going on, he’d exerted the full extent of his spiritual force and attacked the burly man. But his attack was quickly dispelled when it got close to the burly human, and rebounded, causing a wave of internal injuries.

“PAH!” The boy spat from the rebound. He felt like some of his meridians had burst. He shivered and curled on the floor, holding his abdomen.

“Naughty child. Attacking your master has dreary consequences.” The burly human gave a sly smile.