𝗈𝗏𝐞xt.𝗇t
“Alright then.” Rui stroked his chin. “Time to summarize everything I’ve learned thus far.”
He quickly parsed through all the facts in his Mind Palace, arranging them neatly.
The core of the Serevian Plateau was an elevated landmass that had been displaced due to the vast number of roots that began consuming more space under the ground due to their expansion, in all likelihood. This caused the landmass to elevate above ground level. It was also the source of the abnormal seismic radiation and certainly the source of other anomalies like migration patterns and other environmental parameters.
The elevated landmass had a high population density upon its surface and inside the vast underground tunnel network beneath the ground. Rui suspected the shift of a large number of animals into the elevated landmass was likely what caused the changes in the migration patterns. He was sure there was a logical explanation and mechanism demonstrating how the elevated landmass affected the Serevian Plateau in different ways.
The flora atop the elevated landmass was all part of a single organism, a single tree that somehow had countless trunks all connected by different branches that all embedded roots so deep into the land that even Seismic Mapping lost track of them beneath the ground.
The tree gave off glowing fruits of different colors, each of which made his Primordial Instinct feel quite uneasy.
The tree also had a defense-mechanism system seemingly. It would attack creatures with a sense of danger in the Squire Realm with branches relentlessly and even self-destructively. Its range was quite high, most likely due to shifting off wood to facilitate its extension.
Rui nodded after organizing all the facts in his head, opening his eyes. He immediately began traveling towards the elevated landmass. He wasn’t done with his reconnaissance just yet. Admittedly, he was more curious than he was motivated for completing the mission. How could he not be? Earth simply lacked such fascinating phenomena.
He got back onto the elevated landmass without the Squire-level Mind Mask. As expected, there was no reaction. He navigated back to where was last time.
“Hm?” Rui’s eyes narrowed in surprise.
The monkey he had seen then was dead, on the ground. A bitten fruit lay a few steps away from its corpse.
What was even more shocking was that roots had risen from the ground, pulling the corpse deeper into the ground bit by bit.
Rui’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening before him.
“The fruit is poisonous!” He exclaimed with shock. The monkey likely had died after consuming a single bite of the fruit.
Furthermore, the roots were clearly going to consume the ground beneath the ground. The tree was a carnivore after all.
“It doesn’t fail to surprise,” Rui murmured as he updated his Mind Palace with the new facts regarding the tree.
“Now I need to record all these facts and send them back to the Martial Union and the Ministry of Environment and Ecology without any further delay.” Rui nodded.
He quickly returned, jumping off the elevated landmass. He ran some distance away before climbing tall trees and rock structures that allowed him to capture images of the elevated landmass with the bio-recon device that he had been provided by the Martial union and the Ministry of Environment and Ecology.
Still, he wasn’t able to get a good image encompassing the entire landmass. Mostly because it was as wide as a small city and he couldn’t fit it all within the frame. Regardless, he took images of the landmass from various angles around it.
He also documented images that demonstrated that all the flora atop the elevated landmass was all part of a single organism. He couldn’t really demonstrate that the roots were causing the elevation in the landmass because he couldn’t share his Seismic Mapping with others, but he was sure that just reporting his findings that he had gotten through the technique would be enough.
He also documented the effect the squire-level Mind Mask had on the tree. Showing its reaction to the activation and deactivation of the Mind Mask technique, demonstrating causality between the two events. He also demonstrated the astounding range of the branches of the tree.
He finally ended the report by demonstrating the poisonous nature of the fruit and the corpse of the monkey that was already almost entirely dragged underground by the roots at that point.
“Alright, that’s done.” He hit the send button, sending all the data he had collected to the Martial Union and the Ministry of Environment and Ecology.
“Now time to wait for the orders.” Rui shrugged. He had mostly completed his job, which was to gather information on the environmental and ecological anomalies in the Serevian Plateau. Now he just had to sit tight.
“Well, I can explore the elevated landmass a bit more.” Rui shrugged. It wasn’t like he had anything to do, and it wasn’t like it would hurt the mission.
He leaped up back to the top of the elevated landmass before traveling deeper into it. On his way there, he ran into many creatures that had consumed a portion of the fruits and had died, resulting in roots emerging from the ground and dragging the corpses down slowly.
(‘Woah, there’s another one.’) Rui watched a monkey bite into the fruit.
In just a moment, it collapsed to the ground, spasming as it tried to crawl away, yet it was paralyzed. Slowly, its breathing and heartbeat slowed down until it finally passed away. Not even a second later, roots slowly emerged from the ground as they latched onto the corpse.
“The roots didn’t emerge until the very moment the monkey had died,” Rui noted keenly. “Either that’s coincidence or the tree is able to sense the difference between a living and a dead creature, and only goes after the former with its roots. Could it be that all of this is so that it can poison animals and consume their corpses?” Rui wondered curiously.