Lu Li tried to 'loot' this giant tree, but failed his attempt.
To be fair, even if he could loot the item, there was no way it would fit into his tiny little bag.
"This tree is probably the most valuable thing in this little world," he thought to himself. It was a shame that he couldn't take it away.
Lu Li drew out a single sword - a single sword for Thieves.
He wanted to take a few twigs with him because apparently, the branches of the World Tree were an excellent material for Staffs.
He went around in a few circles and finally found some lower branches. Lu Li then raised his sinful weapon and began to hack away at this old World Tree.
From what he expected, he thought he wouldn't be able to damage the tree, and didn't have much hope to begin with.
Everything that unfolded before his eyes turned his world upside down.
When Lu Li's sword landed on the tree, the branch fell right off. Before Lu Li caught it, it began to break into ashes.
It wasn't just this branch of the tree - the entire structure began to erode away.
It was hard for anyone to imagine a scene like this.
From a distance, Lu Li saw that the end of this little world had begun to break away like glass. The cracks formed, then it broke and fell apart...
Lu Li held onto his sword as he stood his ground, dumbfoundedly watching the giant tree growing smaller and smaller.
Then, he heard the cracking of glass from behind him. The torches from the previous battle were still lit up and allowed him to see what had happened.
A lucky Hell Hound whimpered as it was dragged into a broken swirl and ripped into pieces within a second.
"Time to leave?" Danger approached, and Lu Li subconsciously wanted to retreat.
He had already gained too much from this trip. If he died here, even the Darkmoon Card wouldn't do much for him - you need to have a corpse to be revived.
However, the scene before his eyes stopped him.
The process was becoming slower and slower. It was as if something was fighting against the world falling apart; the tree that protected this world wasn't willing to give up yet.
This was a scene that an average player would probably never see in his gaming life.
Lu Li decided that he was staying; he would just pretend like he was watching a scene from a movie. Even if he died, it was only ten percent of his experience anyway. He had already given all his valuables to Azure Sea Breeze.
The entire process was truly remarkable.
It was just as Lu Li had guessed - the closer to the tree, the more stable the area was.
However, the process didn't stop. The dead tree had already died countless years ago, so it honestly didn't have anything left to protect this world.
Lu Li was touched, but there was nothing he could do.
He didn't regret exploring this secret zone either. Secret zones existed to be explored. The destruction of this small world wasn't something that could be avoided. Even if Lu Li didn't come today, it would probably disappear on its own sooner or later.
Wasn't it a form of respect to die with it?
Lu Li sighed; he knew that it was too late already for him to leave. Returning to the city would take some time as well.
Just as Lu Li was about to sit down and wait for his death, he found something surprising and jumped up without any hesitation.
At the same moment, the transformation had become even more obvious.
Originally, he thought that the tree would slowly become tiny ashes, as if it was never there to begin with.
However, that wasn't the case -the giant tree was doing something strange.
The ashes that had eroded away began to gather into one central spot. It had started out as just a single black dot, but since the world was dark, Lu Li didn't notice anything.
Right now, the dark spot was growing and it glowed green.
What was this?
Or rather, what was the tree of this small world doing?
Lu Li didn't dare approach carelessly. He decided to wait a patiently, only choosing to act when his life was threatened.
A gut feeling told him that if he was to pounce on the green thing right now, the World Tree might see him as an enemy.
Everyone was teleported outside, but they didn't find Lu Li amongst them.
They were more confident in Lu Li, so they all scattered to do their own things.
Remnant Dream went off to hunt for her pets, while Hachi Chan continued questing. Sesame Rice Ball followed Lu Li's request and was doing his last bit of work to upgrade his alchemy skills.
"Lu Li died…" March Rain gasped, her sudden cry drawing the attention of a few others. They hadn't disbanded their team yet and healer classes always paid attention to their team members' statuses. As such, she instantly noticed when Lu Li's health bar emptied.
"Lu Li, Lu Li, what happened?"
"Nothing. I've left all my good items with Breezy. I only lost some experience," Lu Li said as he returned from the revival point and was immediately questioned by the group of 23.
"Wait up. I'll go back and give you your equipment."
Azure Sea Breeze didn't wait for Lu Li to decline him and immediately returned to the city.
He was worried about Lu Li, but he was more interested in how he had died. He didn't believe that Lu Li would give away ten percent of his experience for nothing.
Lu Li stood outside the revival point and rubbed the green seed in his hands.
That's right, what the World Tree had left behind was a seed. In its very last moment, Lu Li pounced over and caught the seed in his hands. He was promptly torn into pieces as soon as he shoved the seed into his bag.
This seed was the size of a fist, and was green and shiny. It made quite a contrast with the dead tree.
Lu Li could feel the heartbeat of the seed by simply holding it. It was a strong heartbeat, as if limitless life was ready to sprout from within.
A seed...
It seemed like he had received one of these before.
Lu Li brought the seed to his personal storage.
Inside the storage was his personal collection, which mostly consisted of rare materials that he couldn't use yet. His previous gear had already been tossed into the guild storage.
The storage wasn't too far away from the revival point. Because he had taken so many First Clears and had a good reputation, the NPC in charge of the place was very respectful to him and opened up his storage for him straight away.