[165] Ominous Situation
Chapter 165: Ominous Situation
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The Sunlight Tree Eve’s pulses were not rhythmic. At least not anymore. It sounded odd as if it was trying to form words.
However, even after many hours of trying to intercept any meaning, Hashirama saw no result. It was failure after failure.
“Hey, uh,” he sat on the floor and spoke to it, unsure if it even had the capability of understanding him. “If you're trying to talk to me, you have no need to change the rhythm of your heart.”
Trees were not sentient beings, but they were alive. Therefore, they had some level of intelligence, even if they were far lower than humans. As a tree human, Hashirama could understand trees. But for that, he had to scan those said trees with his chakra— a prospect impossible at the moment, due to the lack of chakra and consequently the size of this thing.
However, he was sure of one thing now.
The tree understood him.
The odd pulses of the tree faded, and it returned to its usual rhythm. It waited for his next words, he could feel it.
It had called upon him when he took the properties of Adam Tree, he recalled, so he should have known this thing wasn't dumb.
“I’m not sure how clearly you can even hear me, so I'll give you a pair of ears and vocal cord,” Hashirama raised his left hand toward the sky and detailed human ears, including the interior that resided inside the skull, formed on his hand. Next, he formed a pair of lips, as well as a throat and other vocal parts formed.
He gently put them on the floor, “I'm not sure how much control you have over your flesh, but, try to absorb-” was all he got out before the floor trembled and the green things he made submerged into it.
A moment later, ears and lips emerged out of the wall in front of him. It was creepy to look at a wall that had lips and ears poking out, but Hashirama stood in his place.
After a long minute of waiting, where the lips had opened many times and failed to make any real sound, proper words came out.
“Would…” that was the first word it said, in a sweet melodic voice. “You… feed… me… a bit of… that energy…”
Hashirama frowned. Was this a waste of time? Did this thing only want more of his chakra, and that's why it reached out to him? Here he thought it was trying to help him, but it only wanted to satiate its weird hunger.
He didn't even have much chakra left.
With a sigh, Hashirama decided to take a gamble. Not only a waste, but it could become dangerous, the tree might get greedy and devour him full of more chakra. But what other choice did he have?
Maybe feeding the tree will make it take a liking to him and help him survive.
Hashirama hesitated before he placed a hand between the two ears. He gently began to pour chakra into it, and to his surprise, this time his chakra wasn't sucked dry immediately. He could feel the tree holding back its thirst, and only taking the hit Hashirama provided.
Along with that, more features began to appear between the ears. Chakra was like DNA on a spiritual level, so perhaps it was learning about humans from it. And from that, it was making a face for itself. No, not just a face, an entire body began to slowly carve out of the wall.
Hashirama watched, pouring his chakra, as a beautiful woman of green skin and red hair began to carve out of the wall. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be sleeping. Hashirama was mesmerized.
He continued pouring chakra until the tree stopped taking it. It was thirsty for more, but it had received enough to work with. Hashirama felt that and withdrew his hand.
He stepped back from the woman, who began to slowly open her eyes. Green eyes looked at Hashirama's own, and a silence filled the chamber. She looked like a babe, with a proud chest covered by leaves, and beautiful red hair that cascaded over it.
A short moment later, the woman took a step. It was her first step. Then another. She walked over to Hashirama and placed a kiss on his forehead, her hand ruffling his hair with the gentleness of a mother.
“Child,” she spoke, this time much clearer than the wall, her voice mature and caring like a mother's. Hashirama wondered if she was mother nature incarnate, as her ethereal voice echoed across not only the tree but the surrounding sea too. “You’ve been doing it wrong earlier. Would you like me to teach you how to wield the power of the sun?”
“....”
Hashirama was stunned speechless.
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Shocked or not, it wasn't surprising that this woman knew what to do to absorb the sunlight properly. She was the Eve Tree's will incarnated into a body, she had been doing this for a thousand years.
It was easy to absorb sunlight, but it was another to sustain it. To absorb it at a rate that it wouldn't decompose his own body. He had to learn to take the sunlight into his body at a very moderate pace, which took him months to get it right.
How he did it wasn't that complicated, it just took time. Instead of turning his entire forearm into Eve Tree's properties, rather he transformed a few of his nails into it. Not all, but a few. Starting with one, he grew it over time.
Even so, the solar energy concentrating on his nails wasn't small. He had to be fast and careful in circulating the energy over his body and pushing it into his Chakra Pool. It was slow, but it worked.
It was very similar to Cultivation. But it was extremely slow in gaining chakra as he had to release most of the energy out of his other fingernails since he was too slow in absorbing it, but it was working. He was gaining chakra, little by little.
It was how he managed to remain here for months, after all.
He wasn't anywhere near mastering this process, if so this would have been very fast, even immediate, but it was enough to keep him living.
After months, he had regained 100% of the original chakra that the Main body had made him with. He couldn't go beyond that since his body was made to only have this much chakra. With that logic, the main body could have done this faster and better due to his larger reserve.
There was also another thing. While he was training this, all his focus was on absorbing chakra, he was receiving small packets of chakra from a distance.
Clone-rama assumed that the Main Body must be sending chakra to him knowing that he mustn't have enough chakra to live more than a month, so he didn't reject it.
He used up 80% of the chakra to properly scan the Eve Tree's properties this time, and since he had the tree spirit by his side, who didn't want to absorb all of his chakra and ruin all his plan, he managed to pull it off with just 80% chakra.
With that, his understanding of the entire process increased many folds. He assumed he'd be able to do it better and faster.
“I should send the Main Body memories of these, Eva,” Clone-rama said to ‘Eva’, who sat on a branch of her larger body and ate an apple. Was that cannibalism?
“Mhm,” she nodded, uninterested, which made Clone-rama shrug as he focused on making a clone.
He uses 5% of his chakra to make a clone. It stood in front of him, a copy of himself before he dispersed it. A small percentage of chakra rushed back to him since it was he who made it, and another percentage rushed out of the sea.
It was pure energy, invisible to the eye, so it moved through walls and everything and moved at the speed of light.
It should find the main body and return to him with all the memories of the last couple of months in seconds.
A few seconds later, Clone-rama was sure that's exactly what happened. Sadly, that did not work both ways, the Main Body will not be able to send memories back to him by dispersing a clone. The chakra will only return to him, and not to Clone-rama.
But that's alright. Clone-rama wanted to let the Main know about the world outside, he hadn't gotten that chance for the last couple of months due to his low chakra, he didn't want to take a risk by wasting chakra, but now he completed that task.
He was sure the Main would be motivated enough to return as soon as possible now.
….
Later that day, when Clone-rama sat down to cultivate the solar energy again, a packet of chakra came from afar to enter him. It was from the Main Body, and while usual packets didn't carry memories, this one did — it carried the memories that Clone-rama had sent just earlier.
“Huh…?” He stopped his meditation and scowled at the situation.
What's going on?
Why did the Main Body send him this bit of chakra back? No, no, he mustn't even have unpacked it since the memories were still there.
‘That's… ominous.’ the clone frowned.
What kind of state was the Main Body in that he was unable to even properly accept the chakra sent his way?
“Not good,” he stood up. If the situation was this bad, could he really hope for the main to return with the crew in years?
Or ever?
This wasn't looking good at all.
What was the solution to this situation?
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