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"...again with this..."

Rei groaned. The feeling of instant travel---must he call it teleportation?---made his senses go awry.

He shook his head, clearing the strange feeling of his ethereal body gas turned into mush-

And saw a spark of light. A warm, white glow, encompasses him and then, wisp-like begins to separate from his body, floating away. It is encouraging him, as if telling to walk forward.

"Where's...this?"

Everything seems to take an almost surreal, enchanted air. Thin mist covers the ground, but gentle mist, unlike the unforgiving fog of Destruction. He can hear music, humming, singing, somewhere in the background. More and more wisps begin to appear around him, simply floating white orbs that guide his way forward, leading in a path. "These aren't plasma...right?"

Eventually trees begin to appear in all directions around him. Long, silver trees, bare and empty. They are all thin, the same size and form.

"Hmm. A forest-no, this would not be a forest. A woods then?" He continued walking until he reached a particularly large silver tree.

Its branches, however, are also barren. It is quiet, but he feels something, almost like a warm heartbeat from within, sleeping.

"..."
It seems sickly.

"At last," it echoes, a feminine voice.

"Eh? Did someone called me?" He looked around...no one there.

Could it be...the tree?

"At last, someone has arrived to hear my tale. It has been so long, I have been silence too long, taken and hidden, my power feared but not respected, cultivated until I am barren and empty." The voice-no, the tree said.

"This is all that remains of my Legacy, but I am not finished, not yet. As long as my powers remain, my children will prosper after me. They will take up my mantle, to protect, to serve, to remember, and to grieve. Men like the Great King will rise again, and fall just as easily, but I only wish to serve. Come now. Help me fulfill my last desire."

"Of course I will. Tell me, how could I help you?"
Rei's resolve is to protect everyone. Not limited to humans.

"Follow the wisps. They will show you the way to the Mother Lake." Said the tree again. "The lake it is." Rei answered quickly, eyeing a cluster of orb-like lights that has gathered in one particular direction. "I'll be back quickly, so please hold on!" He said as he darted away.

At the end of his long run, the forest clears and he reached a lake.

Light and a thousand glowing orbs dance over the surface, giving it the illusion of being made of pure white. In the distance, trees, all silver, peer out from the thin mist. He is somehow drawn by the lake, to the lake. All else seems insignificant to him.

He heard a strange noise, a soft singing...a lamentful song coming from the lake itself.

"Hmm." After judging carefully, Rei decided to place his headphones' jack into the water.

He can hear it. A voice calling inside the lake. It sounds remorseful.

"Heal my children," it chimes, "And when you do I will give you a gift of immeasurable value. That is my only wish and my only desire."

"I would not need the gift, really. To help your children---the Great Silver Tree is already my task."

The floating orbs guided him back to the lake again.

Once again, the lake is humming. "Oh great. What now?" Rei asked, again lowering his headphones' plug into the water.

"My children need time to grow, to move on from my Grief. Help them create their own Legacy and feed them each unique memories."

In the water, shadowy forms begin to form, and then create large, dark blue bubbles.

He somewhat know. Each bubble is a memory.

'His' memory.

But not just any memory. He can see his face...him inside those bubbles. In some of them he is doing something, strange, unusual and foreign to his own memory. In some bubble, 'he' even doesn't seem anything like the present 'him'

Does this mean...there's also fabricated memories in here? He muttered to himself, reaching to the nearest one-

POP.

It popped. And with it, deep purple smoke engulfed him.

Blink.
Return.
Blink. Blink.
"Order of return. Come on, #2359, The Queen will be passing her order shortly! Or did you want to be...experimented on again?"

Me?
No.

I raised my tentacle-styled appendage. It was 'given' to me because I often took too long to finish a job.

I flexed my reverse-jointed leg. It was a kangaroo's...so I can 'hop' on the task more quickly.

I fixated my multiple crystalline eyes on objects beside me. Trash. Trash. trashtrashtrashtrashtrash.

An endless mountain of trash.

Something shimmered in the distance. A glass? No. A gem? no. A mirror?
Yes.

The Queen will be pleased if I bring this home. Maybe she'll restore one of my body part back to the original...

...how did I looked like again?
I looked into the small, partly cracked hand mirror...

---

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!!!"

Again, Rei found himself standing on the edge of the lake. In his hand was a dirty, grimy, partly-broken hand mirror.

He knows that 'memory' from before was just a false one-a fabricated one. An imagination at best...

But somewhere deep inside himself, he shivered in fear. In this world there is limitless possibilities and choices: his world before, and possibly this world are made as result of those choices.

But that also means...the world from that hallucination COULD exist somewhere, sometime else as a parallel from this one.

He again shuddered.

...

He buried the small hand mirror beside the sapling. It grows slightly, and the item was gone.

It was good that he can get rid of that nightmare remains, but...will the tree be alright?

He decided to get back to the Lake. He needed a better memory to give the Sapling...

"So...west?" I asked Luo Yang. [Indeed. There's an imbalance of Chí in the land far west. My friend and priest; it was your duty as Shénzhōu Lóng to provide relief to the Earth.]

The dragon...Earth Dragon before me spoke.

We're currently in the middle of a canyon, looking for places in where the Chí needed to be stabilized.

In this world, people can summon their own Xīnlíngshòu- Spirit Animal- to aid them in their life. Some can only call forth a lesser being from their zodiac---a Lion may call out a cat, for example. Some can invite the normal ones---and some, like me...

[Do you require anything, my priest?]

-can bring Greater Zodiac Spirit like him unto this Earth.

Sigh. While I did rejoiced when my first summon called forth a complete dragon, not a snake-sized one which can only float in the air without having any power at all, entrusted with the task of mending the Chí flow is something that I didn't expect.

"Luo...give me a favor and lend your back for me this once. Pleeaaasee? It's not like you'll lose something if I sat on there for a little while, right? And maybe you can give me a little ride while we're on it---"

[What nonsense, my priest! Did you forget the proverb 'in every step you take, an experience earned'? While giving you a ride would make this journey faster, you will not able to mature in body and spirit by neglecting the simple act of walking!] protested the dragon. He's even more annoying than my mother...

Crack.

There's a slight disturbance in air. "-Yang-" [I am already doing it, my priest.] Answered the dragon, his figure floating above me.

The earth below me shook. At first it was a mere soft vibrations-but with time it escalated into a localized quake! From behind the tall rocks, several figures jumped out-

"They looks horrible." I commented, twisting my hips, raising my right fist so it was positioned beside my body, lowering my left hand so it was positioned horizontally on front of my body-

Ba Shan Fan.

The target for this fighting art was...
Beasts all around me.

I felt a little pity for them. You almost can't see WHAT animal they're converted from.

Chí. The flow of life power. The place where they flowed is considered as Earth's very vein. Disruption to these places could result in anomalies and disasters, such as the ones I'm now facing.

[Can you do this, my priest?] "Yes I do. Now, your Orb please?"

The dragon sighed, reluctantly opening his claws and dropped the large gem he has been grabbing all times (except for times like this.)

A dragon's gem is their life. It stores all of their power, and will bestow immortality to whoever swallowed it, tale of olden era said.

But can you really force this watermelon-sized object inside someone's mouth? I don't think you can.

Yet, I'm currently using this for a different purpose.
A person can summon their own Xīnlíngshòu after reaching adulthood.
But not many people know that they can borrow their Xīnlíngshòu's power.

The orb dissolved with Yang's sigh: Although it will instantly rematerialized once I'm finished, he feels...incomplete without his Orb.

And this is a secret, but...he can be killed when he didn't have it, so...just by lending this to me, he's practically giving his 'life' for me to be handled.

Enough backstory.
A pair of bracers adored with brown glistening scales materialized from my wrist down to elbow, and in my legs similar anklets also appeared.

The Dragon's Scales.
"Now let me send you back to Earth's embrace!!!"

---

"...hoh."

Rei again founds himself nodding off at the Lake's edge. In his hand was a strange, earth-colored disc-shaped object. "A...plate? No, a scale?"
It was very dense and heavy, as it were cut from a piece of bedrock.

But it was beautiful.
Somehow, he feels that he can do some fancy moves... sweatdrop
...

Rei again buried the object beside the sapling, and it again grows. Now it has reached the height of his chest.

"Just one more, and you will become a proud tree."

He again walked to the Lake. This didn't take as long as he imagined it will be...

At last, with your hard work, the tree has almost fully grown. It sways a bit, delicate, but with a life of its own.

"Not quite," whispers a voice, and you are obliged to return back to the lake, back to where you started. However, instead of a lake, you are faced with a strange sight.

"Err...did we took a wrong turn somewhere?" He asked to the wisps.

There is a beautiful castle in the distance, but it seems far, far in the distance. The colours are strange and still, and waters pour from multifaceted rocks in tiers and layers.

"Take some of this water, and my blessing. This is my last request. Show my children your world so they will grow each unique and different."

"My world?" Rei asked back. The voice was the Lake's...

He glanced to the small pools. From which one should he take the water from?

A dark pool with black water. A sun-dappled pool, its water glistening. An empty pool---no, it's just the water was so transparent that it appears to be empty. A cold pool that's raises his curiosity why the water haven't froze yet...

And the last was a small pool with a warm, clear water.

He decided this would be the best for that tree.

Carefully taking the water with his hand, the warmth somehow remained until he poured it on the tree's roots.

It grew.


On its branches was not trees; instead, orbs of light---wisps, like those that has guided him throughout this task appeared, and continued to be produced endlessly from those branches.

The tree asked him: "Are you satisfied with what I have become?"
And he answered with another question. "Are you happy with what you have become?"

The tree remained silent for a minute, but finally answered: "The memories...they are interesting. And I feel...all warm and happy!."

Have I lifted this tree's--no, child's grief? Have I raised it well?

[Rei's awakened for protecting and raising the Silver Tree! Along with it, a Memory returned...]

"I...remember. I have done this before."