Meanwhile if Randidly spent time in his images he could refine their specificity with relative ease His image was growing so large that there were plenty of areas he could improve The more attention he gave to the details the more sharply defined the image became Every day seemed to see Randidly improving his images with specificity while familiarity didnÆt see even the slightest bit of improvement
In fact the more Randidly had tried to familiarize himself with the image the more he had a growing sense that what he pictured was unrealistic Which Randidly realized in horror likely was weakening his image
So Randidly had a decision should he abandon familiarity as a way to refine his image and focus on specificity
Two weeks ago it had been a long night as he considered how to proceed
Currently in the training hall the rumbling roar from below was so powerful that all of the plants in the training area were vibrating Randidly would be too had he not used the moss beneath him as a casual buffer that would absorb the vibrations In fact the moss was growing so well even without the light of the Ignition Essence Which made Randidly wonder if it had somehow evolved in a short period to feed off of the vibrations
Like that silly fellow Randidly thought casting his gaze down through the ground toward Sulfur who was in the thick of the thunderous rumbling Even from here Randidly could sense the pleasure it felt from absorbing so much ambient kinetic energy If nothing else both his armor and weapon were exceedingly predictable
Randidly closed his eyes again When he had been faced with the choice and because he had a year in a Dungeon to work on his basics Randidly had ultimately decided to not abandon familiarity Because him being inept at that method right now was not a good enough reason for him to abandon a Path that might make him stronger
Some things took more work than others That was just life
For a while it was really rough Randidly attempted to bring a tall tree down to the training area for him to examine as an aid Unfortunately it didnÆt go so well without Mana constantly keeping it healthy When that method failed he ordered the Riders to surround a particular tree with Ignition of the Emerald Essence torches and then hoped it would grow into something that looked like a World Tree
Afterward Randidly went to the surface to investigate and seek a concrete image from it
Of course this weakened his image even further The more Randidly focused on regular trees the more that Randidly hadnÆt been able to find out how the image of timelessness of that stone monolith could be injected into a tree
It was going so poorly that for the first time his World Tree image had shrunk
Faced with the fact that Randidly might have earlier made a mistake Randidly had ceased his other training and thought about this issue for an entire night A second night of absolute stillness while surrounded by darkness to assess his failure to improve He swam through the image pondering what he was doing wrong And then he had an epiphany
It isnÆt that I should make my image like these trees the image is already there and was already heading in the right direction No itÆs that these real concrete trees are trying to become something akin to the world tree They are not my aspirations they are aspiring to be the same thing I want my image to be
So Randidly watched trees He watched them grow He looked at their branches their leaves their bark He used his powerful senses to trace the routes their roots carved through the ground When that wasnÆt enough Randidly had a whole jungle that he submerged in Aether As part of his daily training he let his Perception spread and cover the whole of the jungle
Even the smallest vein on a falling leaf was carefully scrutinized With his high Intelligence Focus and Perception he practically buzzed with the flood of tree related data flowing into him
When one tree wasnÆt enough he looked at a hundred When a hundred wasnÆt enough Randidly looked at ten thousand
Slowly RandidlyÆs knowledge of vegetation as a whole grew Randidly could always use his Skills to control it but now Randidly simply observed the way trees grew when he didnÆt interfere at all By watching the independent instincts of ten thousand trees Randidly could sense the edge of what the trees were truly attempting to be
That was his World Tree The Platonic Ideal beyond the mortal world
As these general principles of the efficient distribution of roots the reasons for leaf size and shape the idea thickness of bark all filtered through Randidly his image no longer shrunk Now it only grew heavier
It grew more familiar
Randidly inhaled and then exhaled Beneath his seated form the moss and surrounding flowers shivered in pleasure As Randidly was continuing to throw off vast quantities of Aether his breath was like a blast of airborne fertilizer for them They wiggled in delight as though the sun had given them each a sweet lemon candy
Then he cracked his neck and stood The phantom image of a vast tree rising above an ancient forest that had filled the training area dispersed What was left was just the rumbling moss and flowers
Randidly released a breath Probably about time to work on spear moves
Below him Randidly ceased exercising his formidable Control Ten thousand roots holding one thousand forging hammers paused in their constant labor There was a few clangs and then silence Influence of the Molten Core which had been whirling constantly below to move the bits of partially smelted metal to all the right places paused and drifted toward the ground The superheated metal of the core slowly cooled still humming with reverberations from the deafening cacophony of a few seconds ago
After stacking up the hammers next to the anvils Randidly had made earlier the vines that had held them slithered back into the ground The rustling noise of roots faded to silence leaving not a single sound in the lower Level Currently there was only mass waiting there
Rising above the anvils were four piles
Two were rough and haphazard Thousands of corpses had their flesh burned away to leave only the bones and now stood like the dreadful warning within a lair of a dragon Next to that was a thick mound of ores of different varieties
The other two piles were gleaming and neat One was made of copper ingots while the other was steel These four piles took up almost one third of the area within the second level which was ten times the size of the first So about six of the football field sized training areas were filled with ingots neatly stacked to the height of three meters
Randidly scratched his head as he walked outside Gonna need to find another big ore vein to keep up this production and I feel like Influence of the Molten Core is close to changing somehow too just a bit more
Then Randidly patted his stomach Huh well I can practice spear Skills later Maybe spend a bit of time working on my Cooking Skill
Mumbling to himself Randidly yawned and wandered outside
Chapter 980
Only a week later Randidly had a new headache to deal with the mollusks that had taken up residence in his cold bathing area were on strike
It wasnÆt enough that they swiftly developed enough intelligence upon exposure to RandidlyÆs Aether that he didnÆt really have the heart to try and eat them So he had expanded the cold pool to give them more space and just watched with mild curiosity as they brought increasing numbers of shells from god knows where to make a crude village And besides Randidly hadnÆt really been very appetized by the thought of eating snails anyway it wasnÆt a big loss to let them do whatever they wanted
But now they had created small signs with driftwood and were demanding something Although they possessed intelligence and the System would translate their whistling speech the strange trails of ooze on their signs werenÆt enough for Randidly to intuit what they wanted But they had begun sending their old and weak to die in RandidlyÆs hot tub Which they very well knew Randidly did not like