Back in Ceperet, all inhabitants had been surprised once more. After all, the World Tree, which already looked like a heaven-supporting pillar, was once more growing at an accelerated pace. Her illusory body, which previously rested a little at the edge of the outer Golden Sap City, began expanding quickly, swallowing more and more of the city.

Her canopy, which could easily cover the sky, also grew out, stretching from horizon to horizon. If she were not an illusory figure, Liu Shu’s entire being would have already collapsed the entirety of the Golden Sap City with her growth.

Her 250,000-meter-tall body pushed upward, easily becoming large enough to start dwarfing her previous self.

Level after level, height-mark after height-mark. Even the Skill Merchants stepped out of their shop and flew to a distance to truly appreciate the World Tree’s growth.

Leafara sighed in awe. "I’ve never seen a World Tree grow so much this fast. Especially not a World Tree as young as Liu Shu."

Flamar agreed with her. "I can see that she is pushing toward Level 160, right? She should be preparing for the incoming war."

Leafara showed a touch of worry. "Ugh, I’ve come to like Liu Shu quite a lot. I really hope nothing happens to her."

Flamar was slightly surprised. While Leafara was someone who approached others easily, becoming someone she truly cared about was the hard part. For example, even if Liu Shu had died a few weeks after she arrived, Leafara would’ve just felt it was a bit of a pity, but she would’ve moved on right away.

However, seeing her struggling expression, Flamar knew that Liu Shu had actually managed to touch the heart of this powerful dryad. Perhaps not much, but enough for her to care for her well-being.

Meanwhile, Xakira and the other two insect Kings looked with some surprise as well. "Is this how Liu Shu grows? This speed is... it feels as if someone is fast-forwarding a video of a recording about plant growth. Like a time-lapse."

Sarish nodded. "She should’ve reached 300,000 meters, right?"

Chost shook his head. "You’ve shortchanged her this time. She is almost double her previous height."

"Double? Impressive."

While everyone was looking in awe at Liu Shu’s growth, the other World Trees connected with her looked toward her with a confused look. ’Are we even of the same species? Why is her growth so exaggerated?’

Finally, after a few months, the World Tree stopped growing so rapidly, settling at a new, astounding height of 411,000 meters.

With a canopy that doubled the distance from side to side of the Golden Sap City, Liu Shu’s trunk had almost become as thick as the city itself. It was an achievement that left everyone present in pure shock.

When Liu Shu opened her main eyes, she looked forward and suddenly felt... close to space. Looking down, the clouds didn’t even reach her knee area, having become a truly titanic creature.

(Author Note: For reference, Liu Shu’s treetop would be in the "flight" path of the International Space Station on Earth. The astronauts up there would quite literally smash into her high branches.)

A sigh escaped her, once more feeling ecstatic at her choice of transferring her body into her own <Realm>. ’Ceperet wouldn’t have suffered too much to support me, as I am still quite small in comparison with the world. However, Golden Sap City would’ve been spread so far apart that it would’ve stopped being a city and transformed into a sparse forest.’

Looking down, Liu Shu now could see her <Living Wall> at the edge of where her "toes" would’ve been if she were not a tree. "I’ve become quite big..."

She reorganized her long, green hair to properly cover her private parts, which had become a bit scattered as she grew. "Hm... Let’s see my base <System Page> for Level 160. Has anything changed?"

***

Level: 160 [0/9,338,430]

[Stars (Cores) (Shards)]

Aether Mana Stars: 15.8/15.8 (1,579,161) (157,916,043,622) (+56,850 Cores/Hour)

Phoer Body Stars: 15.88/15.88 (1,587,708) (158,770,790,967) (+57,158 Cores/Hour)

Anima Energy Stars: 15.75/15.75 (1,574,896) (157,489,505,390) (+56,697 Cores/Hour)

Attributes: Aether 2,485,732 (382,511+2,103,221) / Physique 2,492,694 (382,511+2,110,183) / Anima 2,482,251 (382,511+2,099,740) / Willpower 995,885 (381,484+291,708+322,693) / Destiny 16,000 (16,000)

Affinity Percentage: Aether Resonance (3,021) / Physique Refinement (3,031) / Anima Affinity (3,016) / Mental Palace (419)

Resistance Percentage: Aether Resistance (92), Physique Resistance (92), Spiritual Resistance (92), Mental Resistance (90)

Summoning Affinity: Summon Cost (-90%), Summon Enhancement (+52%), Summoning Invoking Time (-90%), Summon Upkeep (-90%)

***

Liu Shu sighed, and as she expected, the numbers were not too different. The biggest increase was her <Willpower>, which had been boosted by her bought skill, <Condensed Soul>.

"At least my three base <Affinity Percentages> have finally all surpassed 3000%, hehe. That’s quite nice."

Overall, aside from <Willpower>, the boost was around 10% in raw numbers. Was this a lot? Well, it was not little; it was an improvement, but it was not good enough to shorten the distance with <Second Ascension> powerhouses.

Her eyes moved toward the bottom part of her <System Page>.

Accumulated Experience Points: 47,249,096

Then, she looked a bit up.

Level: 160 [0/10,765,760]

"Not enough... Not nearly enough."

If she reached Level 175, a new, large jump in strength would occur. But she knew that the Experience Points needed to reach that milestone were at least 200 million. Her current 47 million was not remotely enough.

"My skills... they don’t look like they will advance soon. At least I managed to push my four new skills to A Rank not long ago. The changes were as follows:

***

<Gentle Touch (C Rank)> → <Healing World Touch (A Rank)>

<Root Spike (C Rank)> → <Mountain Soul Root Lance (A Rank)>

<Condensed Soul (C Rank)> → <Solidified Soul (A Rank)>

<Elemental Boost (C Rank)> → <Elemental Sea (A Rank)>

<Healing World Touch (A Rank)>: You can channel torrential Life Aether through your roots and use it to heal yourself or transfer it to those in the vicinity of your roots. It creates a healing aura on the targets based on your <Aether> and <Anima> strength.

<Mountain Soul Root Lance (A Rank)>: You can channel your Aether Mana or Anima Energy to manifest a giant root lance to throw at your enemies, creating massive physical and soul damage in its path.

<Solidified Soul (A Rank)>: Your <Willpower> will gain 13% of your <Anima> stat.

<Elemental Sea (A Rank)>: Your elemental attacks do 30% more <Damage>.

***

All these skills were at Level 1 of the A Rank, so they would not be able to upgrade again before the final battle. This was as close to their final forms as they would be.

If the Skill Merchants knew that Liu Shu had managed to raise a C Rank skill in less than two decades to A Rank, they might truly need to overdose on Eternal Tea to calm down.

Thankfully, Liu Shu had not yet informed them, nor did she intend to do so.

’It took quite a bit of effort to upgrade them, though.’ Liu Shu mumbled, a bit tired mentally. She had been casting the talents in Solkara like a deranged World Tree that had gone out of control. She even used her own roots as a target so that she could then heal them.

What she learned was that she could maintain the healing buff using <Eternity Strands>. This would make the roots in the frontline much more resilient than they previously were. As long as they were not destroyed, her roots could now basically fight indefinitely and regenerate at ridiculous rates.

Meanwhile, the <Passive Skill> was also very harsh to upgrade. For the <Elemental Boost> skill, she just needed to spam elemental attacks left and right. Then, the skill’s proficiency surged like crazy.

For <Condensed Soul>, Liu Shu brute-forced it by following the name of the skill. She took her own soul, and then she used <Anima> to try and condense it and see what happened. Thanks to the skill, she felt her Anima Energy gently and constantly seeping into her soul, which, in turn, increased the proficiency of the skill by leaps and bounds.

With these methods, Liu Shu forcefully dragged the C Rank skills to their current A Rank form.

"Alright, the strengthening is finished." Liu Shu smiled, satisfied. Then, a thought popped in her head. She searched around, and soon she found Leafara.

"Leafara!"

The dryad, who had been looking up to the sky as she observed the giant World Tree, blinked and smiled gently. "Liu Shu, are you done?"

"Yes~. I wanted to ask you something."

"What’s wrong?"

Liu Shu pondered for a few moments and asked. "So, if I sell you back the improved <Gentle Touch>, would I be able to cash it in for shards and then buy it again?"

Leafara smiled. "You can’t. What you are selling is the skill’s essence, so to speak. So, when that essence is lost, you can’t learn it again." She pondered for a moment. "How can I explain it more simply? It’s as if... you are selling the energy source of a computer. Without it, even if all the other pieces are super advanced, the computer just won’t run."

"What a bummer."

Leafara smiled wryly. "If our trade were that exploitable, do you think we would only be in a passive, neutral position? We would’ve become the strongest group a long time ago! Any loophole you can think of, we’ve most likely tried it in the past without results. The <System> won’t be so gentle as to make <Talent> and <Passive Skill> learning so easy."

Liu Shu found those words quite reasonable, but she still pouted. "Hmph. Whatever then."

Leafara laughed, and she also did not ask what rank Liu Shu’s skills had become. That was a very private matter to ask about, and she was in no position to poke around her secrets like that.

After that, Liu Shu decided to focus on another thing. Instead of continuing to follow her "sweeping" tactic on the Solar System, Liu Shu chose to stretch a few roots further out to act like "hairs." They would notify her if they found anything suspicious, far before they arrived at her domain.

This was an idea Liu Shu had when the Skill Merchants first arrived. It was better to at least know someone was coming and not get taken by surprise like back then.

While Liu Shu and the entire Golden Sap Empire made their preparations, many forces that had been silent began moving. This time, the activation of the Covenant and Nexus involved dozens of Solar Systems, which were all calling on their "allies" to come help, triggering a chain reaction of pre-war activity.

It was clear that this time, the war could very well snowball until one side finally lost.