Reborn as a Demonic Tree

Stella rushed inside and gently placed Jasmine onto the hut's small bed. The morning sunlight illuminated half her face through the doorway, and Stella could see the confusion in Jasmine's eyes.

"Master, what's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that."

Stella crouched down beside her and frowned. Does she not know about her changes and condition?

Jasmine tilted her head, "Master?"

"What happened to you?" Stella ran her hand through Jasmine's hair—it looked and felt like lush grass she could find in Ash's Inner World. Tiny white jasmine flowers bloomed throughout her hair, which was quite pretty, but why had Jasmine's hair changed? Stella also noticed that Jasmine's skin had a slight green tint, which she found strange.

"What happened to me?" Jasmine asked with a hint of fear, "Master, I don't understand what you are asking."

Stella placed two fingers on Jasmine's wrist and closed her eyes. Lightly inserting some Qi, she checked to see what was happening in Jasmine's spirit roots. Let's see. I feel some nature Qi and also... poison?! Is that what is turning her skin slightly green? Stella's eyes widened, and she called for Sol.

This is bad. The poison has gotten so deep that it's in Jasmine's spirit roots. If I had some time, I could identify which poison it is and brew an antidote. Shit. At this rate, her organs will fail before I can do anything!

"D-Did I do something wrong?" Jasmine stammered as Stella's expression darkened and Sol lumbered into view in the doorway.

"Of course not. Don't worry, everything is going to be just fiiiine," Stella reassured Jasmine as she hurriedly gestured for Sol to heal her Disciple. A blindingly bright wisp was planted on her forehead, making Jasmine even more confused.

"Master, you know I can feel your emotions," Jasmine said as she inspected her arms and chest, enveloped in a healing glow. "Am I injured?"

"No, but your spirit roots are rife with poison," Stella said seriously, "I need to keep you alive while I brew an antidote—Sol, keep healing her. I'll be back in an hour." Stella turned to leave the hut.

"Master, wait." Jasmine reached out and grabbed Stella's arm with surprising strength. "Don't worry about the poison. I put it there."

"You... put it there?" Stella looked at her Disciple strangely.

Jasmine nodded, "Yes, so don't worry. The poison doesn't hurt me."

That doesn't make any sense. It wasn't poison Qi. It was straight-up poison infesting her spirit roots. Stella furrowed her brows. She should be dying, yet she seems fine.

"What happened?" Elaine asked, poking her head around the door, casting a shadow. "Is Jasmine alright."

"I have no idea." Stella stood up and moved deeper into the hut to make room. "Could you take a look?"

If anyone is likely to know what is up with Jasmine, it would be Elaine. She was a lecturer in Qi theory at Darklight City's Academy for a while and spent many years studying this stuff.

"Certainly," Elaine cautiously stepped into the hut and sat beside Jasmine on the bed. "Let me get a look at you first," Elaine said, tilting Jasmine forward to inspect her flower-filled hair. She ran a finger along her neck's green-tinted veins and tilted Jasmine's head to check her eyes.

Jasmine didn't seem uncomfortable and almost went limp in Elaine's embrace, letting the woman inspect what she needed to.

Elaine held her wrist and did a similar deep inspection of her spirit roots as Stella had done. "Mhm, a potent poison exists in her spirit roots and bloodstream. But it doesn't seem to be reacting to her body as if they are co-existing peacefully. How strange. Jasmine, do you mind telling us how this happened?"

Jasmine seemed to be fading in and out of sleep in Elaine's embrace.

She must be exhausted like me. Stella thought and confirmed through their mental link. Both of them were tired to the bone.

Rubbing her eyes and shaking her head, Jasmine began to explain. "After forging my nature Qi soul core, I explored what I thought was a ruin, but it was actually all a carefully laid trap by a poisonous plant monster lurking within. It used illusions to bait me in..." Jasmine yawned, "If not for Sol and your teachings, Grand Elder Elaine, I would have definitely been eaten."

Stella glanced at Sol, who was waiting in the doorway. She needed such a strong Ent to survive in a Soul Fire pocket realm? Maybe I let her enter too early and should have spent more time teaching her the basics and how to fight monsters.

"I can see that you formed a nature Soul Core and even reached the second stage," Elaine said while she had her palm on Jasmine's chest, "But that doesn't explain how you are surviving this poison. You don't have poison affinity. Otherwise, there would be poison Qi, not straight-up poison in your spirit roots." Elaine pulled her hand away and pushed up her glasses, "Even if you understand poison dao, this would be too lethal."

"The poison is from the plant monster in the ruin. I noticed my soul was absorbing the poison, so long as it was a little bit at a time..." Jasmine paused, looked down, and began fidgeting with her hands. "So I had the monster poison me over and over again while Sol healed me." Her voice dropped to a whisper as if she knew what she had done was a bad idea. "Eventually, my body seemed used to the poison, and it didn't hurt anymore. My soul even started producing it.."

What a genius way to build up poison immunity! Stella thought, proud of her Disciple.

Elaine lightly flicked Jasmine on the forehead. "How could you do something so dangerous?! You're lucky Sol's light Qi is so potent and cleansing. Otherwise, no amount of healing would have saved you."

"Sorry..." Jasmine said but smiled slightly when she saw Stella grinning and giving her a thumbs up from behind Elaine. Stella also conveyed how proud she was through their Master-Disciple link.

Elaine gave Stella a side eye, "Stop that. As her Master, you shouldn't encourage her to do such dangerous things. As cultivators, we can live for a long time, but those that chase power and fight in such a manner have shorter lifespans than mortals."

"Hey, I never taught her to do something like this. She thought that up on her own." Stella retorted. "Besides, it worked out, though, right?"

"Yes... somehow." Elaine turned back to Jasmine. "If I could take her to my study, run some tests, and compare this condition to some records, I might be able to discern the cause of her strange poison immunity."

"No need." Ash's voice echoed in their minds. "Have her eat this, and then I'll take a look."

A bright blue fruit Stella had never seen before floated over their heads into the hut and dropped in Jasmine's lap.

"What's this?" Stella asked. She'd spent many hours hanging out in Ashlock's canopy and munching on random fruits as they tasted delicious, so she knew every fruit and its effect by heart.

"While you were gone, I developed some new and improved fruits. This is a superior version to the Mind Fortress fruit." Ash explained, "This bright blue fruit is theSoul Protectionfruit. I need Jasmine to eat this so my gaze doesn't turn her insane."

"Your gaze didn't turn me insane..." Stella muttered under her breath. In fact, she found the unfiltered outpouring of bloodlust and anguish oddly comforting.

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"How can I say this nicely... you and Diana are special cases. I understand why neither of you feels repulsed by my gaze, but Jasmine undoubtedly will."

Stella glanced out of the hut and smirked at Diana. They were special! Diana just shook her head in frustration.

Jasmine scarfed down the fruit, and the juices dyed her lips and tongue blue.

"Good, now have her brought to the doorway, and let me get a good look."

Stella shepherded Jasmine toward the hut's doorway and supported her back as they both looked at Ash's eye, which was like a blood-red miniature sun suspended inside his trunk. Only the middle third of the giant eye was visible through the slit as it swiveled to look at them. Almost visible waves of bloodlust and anguish radiated off the eye, which Stella shrugged off.

Meanwhile, Jasmine had gone pale, and despite the Soul Protection fruit, she was shivering against Stella. Her hands trembled loosely at her sides, and she stared down at the ground, not daring to look up.

"Sorry, Jasmine. This will only take a moment."

Stella gently played with Jasmine's hair and tried to reassure her through the mental link that there was nothing to fear. No matter how scary the eye was, it was Ash's. He wouldn't do anything to hurt them.

"Now, this is interesting," Ash said after a while. "Are there such things as body constitutions?"

Stella glanced at Elaine as she had never heard of body constitutions.

"There are," Elaine nodded, "though the chance of being born with one is perhaps even rarer than a bloodline." Elaine paused and tapped her chin. "Now that I think about it, cults have been known to perform rituals to alter their body constitutions, but most consider them a waste, as once they reach Nascent Soul Realm, such changes to their vessel won't pass over."

"What do you mean by body constitutions?" Stella asked, not entirely understanding what they were talking about.

"Most cultivators like you and I focus on soul cultivation, but a few use various methods to alter their bodies to become more resistant to certain things," Elaine opened her palm, and an illusion appeared in the white soul flame she summoned. It depicted the face of a man with a beard turned to ice. His skin was bright red from the cold, and he seemed to be standing bare-chested on a mountain surrounded by a frozen wasteland. "This random man I thought up could have been a water cultivator, but he wanted more resistance to ice, so he tortured himself in a freezing environment to force his body to adapt."

Stella furrowed her brows in confusion, "But why would he do that? Wouldn't sitting down on that mountain and focusing on comprehending ice dao result in the same thing without the self-torture?"

"Yup," Elaine dismissed the illusion, "And dao comprehension follows you between vessels. This is why nobody really talks much about body constitutions except cults that need people's bodies to be resistant to demonic Qi to survive a ritual or something. However, Jasmine here seems to be a special case. I'm still not quite sure what is going on with her." Elaine looked toward Ash's eye as if seeking the last piece of the puzzle.

"Not sure how to say this, but Jasmine's soul seems to have absorbed and merged with a small part of the poisonous plant's soul. I guess the addition of the poisonous plant to Jasmine's soul caused her body to alter, resulting in her hair changing and the appearance of the plant's poison being produced in Jasmine's body."

Stella relayed what Ash said to Jasmine, but her Disciple didn't seem surprised.

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"Jasmine, you said you encountered this plant monster right after forging your soul core, right?" Elaine asked.

The little girl nodded.

"It's starting to make sense. Cultivators' souls are always unstable after a breakthrough and need time to adjust." Elaine mused, "Maybe the plant tried to take advantage of that by poisoning your soul, but between Sol's healing, your slight affinity to poison Qi, and perhaps being born with a poisonous body constitution, you have managed to do something unique. You are basically part poisonous plant now."

"Eh?" Jasmine looked at her hands in confusion, "I'm a plant now?"

"You are still very much human," Elaine reassured her. "But eating vegetables now may be considered cannibalism."

Jasmine giggled at Elaine's joke. "My mother isn't going to like that excuse for me avoiding my greens."

"Jokes aside, doesn't that mean she has poison affinity?" Stella asked, slightly worried. Raising Jasmine's cultivation stage to a level where she could compete with Amber and help her win the bet with Tree was already looking hard enough while needing to gather the Qi for a single affinity. If poison Qi was also thrown into the mix, it would complicate things.

"No, she only has nature affinity." Ash answered, "But being resistant and able to produce poisons within her body and becoming part plant is bound to greatly boost her capabilities with nature Qi. She will likely be able to infuse her attacks with poison, similar to what I do with my cursed sap."

"I see," Stella nodded in understanding and felt relief wash over her. When she first saw her dear Disciple emerge from the Mystic Realm looking so strange, she jumped over in worry and panicked when she noticed the poison invading her body. Finding out it was instead a massive advantage for her Disciple made her head spin with ideas to assist her training while also making her slightly jealous.

I want to be a plant, too... I'd rather be a plant than a human. My mother is likely a tree, and so is my stepfather. I hardly feel much connection to humans except those closest to me, like Diana.

"Well, it's a relief to know I overreacted, my dear Disciple," Stella dismissed her thoughts, stretched her back, and barely held back a yawn. "We should head down to my alchemy cave to see what we can make out of your poison—"

"Not so fast," Diana said as she strode from the bench with Douglas in tow, "Aren't you supposed to be hiding away from Vincent Nightrose in Ashlock's Inner World—forget about the alchemy cave. You shouldn't even be up here."

"Ah..." Stella had been so caught up in losing the aether origin stone, talking with Diana and now her Disciple, that it had totally slipped her mind. "I totally forgot about that. Ash, what should we do?"

A portal that seemed to lead to the living room of her house in the Inner World appeared. "Everyone, head in here for a moment; let me think and dismiss everyone else still on Red Vine Peak."

Stella, Diana, Elaine, Douglas, and Jasmine all made their way through the portal into a rather messy living room. Random pieces of training equipment were strewn across the floor, a pile of Jasmine's unfolded laundry dominated one of the chairs, and a few books Stella had been reading were left open on the table.

"Pardon the mess," Stella said, using telekinesis to raise everything into the air. What in the nine realms? Why does everything feel so easy to move? Is this the difference between aether and spatial Qi? Stella wondered as she waved her hand. Then, with a flash of silver light, everything vanished into one of her spatial rings. Picking her favorite couch, she lay across it and put her feet up on the backrest while letting her head roll off the side. It hadn't really set in until now, but her body and mind felt thoroughly... broken.

Everyone else took seats in the morning-lit room while she stared at the wooden ceiling and contemplated these changes. It wasn't until a while later that Stella felt Ash's presence loom over the room, followed by his voice in her mind.

"Alright, everyone has left the peak. Sorry for taking so long, Elder Margret reported casualties from the Mystic Realm. Around a dozen are unaccounted for. There are one or two cases where she believes infighting over treasures or inheritances caused the deaths, and those who killed their fellow family members will be punished accordingly—I just thought I would fill you all in on that. Now to business. I was dealing with something unforeseen this morning, so I didn't have time to pull Stella out of the Mystic Realm, leading to this oversight."

Stella bit her lip. They had gone through a lot of effort to fake her death, and she had been quarantined in Ash's Inner World for this very reason.

"This certainly isn't ideal, but it's not the end of the world. It was only a week ago that Valandor left, so there's a possibility he hasn't even given Vincent Nightrose the report of Stella's death during the war yet, considering he should still be in closed-door cultivation. And even if he had given the report, Morrigan has recently stepped in and wiped out the Skyrend family's upper echelon, so ultimately, our schemes may have been for nothing. Vincent will need to intervene one way or another with so many of his top cultivators dying."

Stella physically recoiled at that news. Just what had Morrigan been thinking? Killing the whole Skyrend family would draw far too much attention than if she had left it alone to stall out for months.

"Anyway, the plan to fake Stella's death was made a while ago when Vincent was still a significant threat to Ashfallen."

"He's not anymore?" Diana raised a brow.

"I have since stepped into the 4th stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and upped my defenses. I can almost guarantee I have the techniques and forces to deal with him if a battle was fought here on Red Vine Peak. So no, he is no longer a significant threat to me."

Stella fell off the couch in shock and banged her head on the floor. FOURTH STAGE?! Did he capture and eat a god or something?! As she groaned on the floor and tried to sit up, the rest of the room seemed to have an equally shocked reaction. Everyone knew it got harder to ascend with every stage, so to jump to the 4th stage of the Nascent Soul Realm was simply unthinkable.

A portal opened, and Stella could see the tip of it over the backrest of the couch she was lying on the floor in front of. The spatial Qi rippled as something stepped through, and an oppressive darkness crept into the room.

"This is Anubis, one of my newest Ents," Ashlock explained as a tall skeleton made of white bamboo wreathed in a cape of darkness looked around the room with eyes of flickering black soul flames. "He is also at the 5th stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, and I have another called Hades at the 7th stage. Both Ents are technically stronger than me, so we also have a strike force potentially equal to Vincent Nightrose."

"We can speak more about this later. For now, I have a few suggestions. First, we hold the upcoming tournament inside my Inner World, and second, we work on creating an artifact that can block Stella's bloodline from leaking. There is also a third option..."

Stella smirked as she followed Tree's line of thinking. If there was a pest, it was best to kill it.

"We could go on the offensive and kill Vincent Nightrose."