Is this really a Game?!

"So, you gonna tell me what I need, or do I need to cut you apart for that?" Reign crouched down and asked the tree. Of course, there was no reply from the huge tree as it was, after all, just a damn tree.

"Tch, I thought things like this were supposed to get conscious with mana and shit, guess not everything is like in those cultivation novels." Reign yawned a bit before jumping down and standing in front of the tree. The x-shaped mark that his attack had left on the tree was still there and he slowly ran his fingers along it.

"Well, let's start cutting, shall we?" Reign smiled as he asked the tree before plunging his swords deep inside the tree. Even though his skill from the sword has expired, the saw-like mana that covered his swords was still powerful enough to cut through the tree. Reign slowly but surely started carving away at the tree, slowly but methodically he was cutting off parts of the tree while the tree shook weakly.

The tree had expended almost all of its mana in an attempt to fight Reign off, right now there was nothing it could do. It even tried to use the leftover mana in order to summon the monsters of the forest to come and help it, but that was useless as no monster was brave, or foolish enough to come close after sensing the incredible waves of mana that had come from here.

"Something like you should have like a core or an essence inside of you right?" Reign continued talking as he used his swords to cut through the tree.

"At least that's what always happens in the novels, let's see if they were right ay?" Reign smiled viciously as he continued cutting away. He first decided to cut a hole that was deep enough for him to get inside, if the essence of the tree was deep inside, then perhaps he just needed to make a tunnel and get inside the giant tree.

The new skill he managed to create was incredibly helpful for this, Reign didn't know how much of a help the saw-like mana would be when fighting against monsters and other people, but for wood-type monsters, it was definitely a powerful tool.

[ Mana Coating – Saws ]

Description – The user can now use his mana, lightning or both of them to coat his weapons and give them the property of a saw. The mana moves with high frequency and the cutting power of the weapon will be largely increased, even if the weapon in question doesn't have a blade, it will cut with the help of the mana.

Even though Reign could cut through the tree and make his way inside, it wasn't easy. His previous battle made him expend a fair amount of mana and he needed to drink a mana potion when he was halfway inside the tree. After a grueling 15 minutes, Reign suddenly stopped briefly as he plunged his sword inside the tree.

"This one went in quite easily." Reign said before he plunged the katana inside as well, that he was now sure that there was a hollow area inside the tree as both of the swords managed to pierce through the tree much easier compared to before. With renewed vigor, he slowly cut away the wood before finally being able to see what was inside the tree.

The whole tree was enormous and its diameter was a full 20 meters. Inside the tree was an area that was about 4 meters in diameter, it was like a small room in the center of which was a ball of green light. Multiple small vines extended from the ball and went inside the tree, even though the vines were small and looked fragile, they were actually incredibly tough and filled with vitality.

"Bingo." Reign said as he came closer to the ball that suddenly started shining brightly. The inside of the tree was suddenly filled with vines that were as sharp as spears. Suddenly all of the vines went straight toward Reign while he looked at the ball with a smirk.

[ Discharge ]

Reign's powerful lightning immediately filled the inside of the room, all of the vines were shocked and couldn't move an inch while the ball and the small green vines were safe, even though they looked fragile, they were much harder to damage compared to any other part of the tree.

"Nice, I wouldn't want to destroy you by accident anyway." Reign said as he looked at the ball in front of him.

"System, any tips on how I can take this ball?"

[ The essence of the branch of Yggdrasil can be taken and stored safely in a couple of different ways, for the player, however, the only way to do it right now is to cut off the main vines and store it in the inventory. ]
[ The inventory will ensure that the essence is safely kept and that its power won't wither, with that the player can easily go back to his own contracted branch and let it consume this one. ]

"Simple and easy, I like it." Reign said before he went to work. Even though the small green vines were very tough and durable, when they met Reign's sword which was coated by the mana saws, they were destroyed with relative ease. The essence of the tree, the green ball started shaking violently as it tried to force the vines in the room to move, but it was all for naught, Reign would simply shock them if he saw that they were close to overcoming the lightning before continuing to slice apart the green vines.

After a couple of seconds, only 1 more green vine was left. Reign smiled before cutting it off and immediately storing the essence in his inventory. After doing that he quickly left the tree as it immediately started to wither. The essence that Reign took was the main part of the tree; it was the tree's heart and soul; without it, the tree was as good as dead.

From now on, the situation in the black forest would slowly change, the wood folk would no longer be able to replenish their numbers by getting resurrected by the tree and they would slowly start to lose their dominant position in the forest.

Till now the wood folk had the largest numbers and no matter what enemy came across them, they would be able to take care of them simply by drowning them with their numbers. Of course, it wasn't as if they didn't have powerful individuals amongst them, but there was rarely any time when those individuals needed to act simply because of their tactic.

From now on, the wood folk would need to act more carefully when fighting others, and thanks to what Reign had done it was certain that their numbers would fall and they would need to give up some areas of the forest they used to control.

That was not a bad thing for the players, however. The black forest was one of the places where players needed to be very careful. Thanks to the wood folk and their population most people actually went to other places to fight and level up since they could easily die if hundreds of wood folk came after them. From now on, players could more easily come here and hunt monsters to level up.

As Reign came up to Greenie he simply smiled at him before both of them made their way back to the castle. They were going there for two reasons, one was of course because of the teleport gate and the other reason was that Reign wanted to visit Adrian and fix the broken sword.

As they came to the castle the huge gate was slowly opened and they entered. Reign wanted to make his way to Adrian right away, but he was stopped by Jack who looked quite happy to see him.

"I guess you managed to get the essence huh?" Jack asked him with a smile as Reign scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, I guess it might have been better if I asked you and Eldar about it."

"Well it doesn't matter now, so, I guess you're going back to let your branch consume the essence?"

"Well actually, I'm going over to Adrian, I, I managed to get something during my evolution challenge." Reign suddenly took out the two broken pieces of the sword as Jack's eyes widened in shock.

"You actually found the other half." Jack examined the two halves of the sword with a gentle expression on his face before returning it back to Reign.

"If Adrian needs some materials that you don't have, feel free to search for me and Eldar, even though we can't help out too much, I'm willing to bend the rules a bit in order to see the sword return to its previous glory, perhaps it might become even more powerful."

"I will, thank you." Reign thanked Jack seriously as he knew that the system had restrictions placed on both him and Eldar, for Jack to tell him something like this made Reign aware of how important the sword was to him.

Reign glanced one more time at Jack who was walking back to his office before turning around and making his way over to Adrian.