Chapter 1824: Life Field, Pruning and Maintenance

Very quickly, through the repeated experience of the process of perceiving "sounds" from the outside world, Xia Duo successfully unlocked the sense of touch of Xilin's body, as well as "Natural Perception."

The former allowed Xia Duo to feel the existence of Xilin's body, rather than it being void-like as before; in addition, there was also the perception of the outside world's breeze, soil nutrients, and so on, collectively referred to as "Touch."

As for "Natural Perception," it was also a special type of perception that Xia Duo named himself.

With the help of Xilin's special treant body, Xia Duo could perceive the surrounding life and even the Flow of Natural Force; this was somewhat similar to the Drow's radiation perception, or perhaps a low-light perception more sensitive than that of humans.

Xilin's Natural Perception could not see the specific appearance of creatures, but it could perceive the Life Force within them; as for "Natural Force," it was more like a special Life Field constructed between lives.

As a human, it was difficult for Xia Duo to fully immerse himself in the perspective of this non-human race, and the various novel experiences that exceeded his previous cognition made him feel it was very interesting.

Even if not a single planned task was completed on this trip, Xia Duo felt it was worth the journey.

The treant's perspective greatly expanded Xia Duo's field of vision; now, countless sparks of inspiration had emerged in his mind, and at the same time, he had a brand-new understanding of Elven Magic.

In the past, he had always been unable to understand why Elves would develop a magic system that was so close to the classical thought of Heaven and Man Unity; logically speaking, a theory that leaned more towards technology like magic should prioritize practicality.

Just like Netheril Magic; Netherese Mages very easily abandoned Elven Magic, not just because learning Elven Magic took longer, but more because of the practical principles of Netheril Magic itself.

Isn't it more convenient to directly Control the Magic Net than to rack one's brains to fit the Magic Net and make the Magic Net cooperate?

In the past, that was what Xia Duo thought, and of course, he still did now, but after experiencing the treant's perspective, he suddenly felt that the Elves' approach might not be without its merits.

More importantly, he guessed the origin of Elven Magic; it was not like the Netherese, who suddenly came into contact with a mature magic system and then created the current Netheril Magic System (Arcane Fire System).

Xia Duo guessed that Elven Magic might have been born from treants who naturally awakened in the forest, or perhaps it was that Elves and treants, through long periods of living together, slowly explored the most primitive methods of manipulating Life Force and Natural Force.

After a long period of development and perfection, it became the Elven Magic System that Xia Duo is familiar with today.

……

Just like that, while exploring himself and trying his best to perceive the outside world, without realizing it, the time for the "pruning and maintenance" mentioned by the previous Elf had arrived.

"Elder Xilin, Alwen has offended you."

A respectful male Elven voice awakened Xia Duo from his deep perception, making him notice that more than a dozen special Life Fields overflowing with Life Force had appeared around him out of nowhere.

The Life Field of the Elf who spoke was somewhat declining, as if he were old; the other five were in a most perfect and vigorous state, while the remaining three or four revealed a sense of robustness like the rising sun.

If there were no surprises, the "gardening team" mentioned by the previous Elf should be led by the middle-aged Elf Alwen, with the five young Elves as the core, and as for those three or four who were clearly children, they were likely just here to play.

Relying on the characteristics of a treant, Xia Duo did not give any response at all, but just like the previous Elf, Alwen's team seemed accustomed to this; after a greeting, they immediately called for the team members to begin their professional work.

It was those Elven children who were jumping up and down, plucking quite a few leaves that still had perception from Xia Duo's body, and this scene also allowed Xia Duo to unlock a portion of Xilin's memories once again.

It was about Alwen.

Countless years ago, when Alwen was still a child, he had also done this kind of thing and was even dragged by his parents in front of Xilin to have his bottom spanked.

Later, it was Xilin who helped plead for him, and he was spared a beating; as for why these children wanted to pluck Xilin's leaves, it was entirely because Xilin's main body was a Yan Tree, which was very rare even in the Elf Kingdom.

And the leaves of the Yan Tree could be used as Spellcasting materials, as long-term storage carriers for text, and even as materials for Magic Scrolls.

Under normal circumstances, without Xilin's permission, ordinary Elves could not approach Xilin's main body; if leaves were needed, they would be collected by Xilin's gardening team from naturally fallen leaves.

But the Elven children did not care about this; they would come to pluck a few whenever they got the chance, and the best opportunity was undoubtedly the annual pruning and maintenance time.

Xilin's main body was very tall with many branches, and at the same time, there were only six members in the gardening team, which meant that the annual pruning and maintenance would last for about ten days.

Thus, there were children who took advantage of the lax management during this period to follow them in and pluck a few leaves to take back to subsidize their families; this matter was actually tacitly approved by Xilin, otherwise, it would not have become a tradition lasting for hundreds of years.

Of course, in the eyes of the children, perhaps they were also helping Xilin with maintenance.

From time to time, Xia Duo could even hear these children say in their childish voices: "Grandpa Xilin, I'm here to help you knead your arms."

Now that Xilin's inner self had changed, Xia Duo did not want to quibble with those children; it was just a few leaves, there was not even complex perception, and it would not hurt, and most importantly, compared to the huge volume of the main body, these were completely negligible.

In fact, even with the pruning and maintenance by Alwen's team, some normal branches would be cut; Xia Duo did not know much about gardening, but through the changes in the Life Field before and after, it was known that this kind of pruning and maintenance was beneficial to Xilin's main body.

Actually, Xia Duo himself quite liked these children crawling all over him; besides reminding him of the happy memories of running wild when he was a child, these Elven children who almost never stopped chattering also helped him unlock more of Xilin's memories.

Compared to these boisterous children, the adult Elves of Alwen's team were undoubtedly much quieter; although they were doing the most professional work, they were conversely difficult to please Xia Duo.

Now, placed before Xia Duo, perception and cognition were basically no longer a problem; what remained was to obtain Spellcasting ability.

If he could not obtain Spellcasting ability, even with the novel and interesting experience of incarnating as a treant, he would have to return early.

As for how to cast spells, since the Elven children were right there, he prepared to try his Bloodline Ability first.

During the previous few times entering the Projection Plane, Xia Duo had already discovered that as the degree of Bloodline Awakening became higher, even in the Projection Plane, and even if it was not his own body, he could still retain a certain amount of Bloodline Ability.

This was actually very easy to understand; Xia Duo's Bloodline Awakening was triggered by his Soul receiving the stimulation of Faith Power, and his bloodline was not limited to his body, but even more so to his Soul.

And the Astral Projection brought a bit of the essence of the soul; under normal circumstances, it should also retain a certain amount of Bloodline Ability, but before the bloodline awakened to a certain degree, the Bloodline Ability of the projected body was more like a recessive talent, difficult to manifest externally.