Year 19—39th Day of the 8th Moon!
At the end of the tunnel passing underneath the wall between Hexagons 33 and 34 was a metal door, like the ones used in a bank’s safe. It had a latch that was welded shut, similar to the office.
The leader of the group of six Humans was at Level 2, and hence, he could melt through the welding and open the door. There seemed to be another latch on the other side, which the leader welded shut.
It was a route meant for their exclusive use. 'At their destination must be all the Healing Potions they have accumulated. Maybe they also have the World Tree Fruits stored there...'
Pinaka observed their route from afar, watching the door close shut. 'The route seems like it goes towards the World Tree...'
He didn’t have the capability to break the door without causing a commotion. After observing the door futilely for a few more minutes, he arrived at Hexagon 4, climbed its walls, and stood at its top.
Stretching before him was a flat piece of mortar floor, built at the same height as the walls. It was empty and in full view of the watchtowers. 'This is our prison’s ceiling...'
'A pity!' he grumbled, having hoped the structure was built in any manner that allowed him some blind spot to train away from prying eyes. 'Nothing’s easy...'
He then returned to the pillar, leaned on it, and focused on the container in his stomach. It held a tenth of a World Tree Fruit piece. Without hesitation, he began to digest it. 'I need more stats. With better stats, I can train faster and quickly gain experience...'
He could break through a lot of limitations just with brute power. And he’d endured torture as a potion factory precisely to gain stats as fast as possible in the current situation.
[Name: Pinaka]
[Race: High Elf]
[Authority: Lifeform]
[Control Factor: 2]
[Weight Factor: 22]
[Volume Factor: 1]
[Range Factor: 8]
[Speed Factor: 2]
[Creation Factor: 1]
[Spell: Status Epidermis, Root Glove]
These were his current stats, right before the World Tree Fruit piece was digested. As the digestion began, a surge shot through him, and for a moment, Pinaka felt invincible. His exhaustion disappeared—he no longer needed sleep.
Physically, he felt like he could take on an Ogre. Mentally, he felt like he could walk through a sea of flames... with poise. The first piece he’d consumed was just one-twentieth of a World Tree Fruit, and that alone had given him 29 stats in total.
Of course, not all the Factors were equal. Pinaka couldn’t say for sure, but it was clear that the requirements and effort needed to raise each stat varied. So, he couldn’t just lump them all together with a simple estimate.
After all, there was no qualitative change if the Weight Factor kept increasing—it just made things heavier. But if the Speed Factor reached 343 units, that’s when things changed. A piece of wood he controlled at that speed could break the sound barrier.
Since a qualitative threshold existed there, the effort needed to raise the Speed Factor would skyrocket as it approached the 300s.
'At first glance, the power system seems simple. But the way all the Factors interact makes it incredibly complex...'
He took a deep breath and focused. Through his Authority, as his body absorbed the World Tree Fruit piece, flashes of information and ideas surfaced in his mind.
It helped Pinaka better grasp how the power system worked. And using his Authority, he could guide where the energy from the World Tree Fruit would be focused. 'If I’m going to escape in the middle of a fight, I’ll need to create things fast enough...'
'So, Creation Factor is a necessity. Next would be Range. If I can push that to twenty, scaling walls becomes way easier...'
As he went over his options, Pinaka finalized the distribution. The World Tree Fruit piece was completely consumed, converted into stats. When it was done, he muttered, “Status.”
[Name: Pinaka]
[Race: High Elf]
[Authority: Lifeform]
[Control Factor: 2]
[Weight Factor: 34]
[Volume Factor: 2]
[Range Factor: 20]
[Speed Factor: 4]
[Creation Factor: 2]
[Spell: Status Epidermis, Root Glove]
'Increasing the Creation Factor by one unit consumed more of the fruit’s power than I expected...'
He was still satisfied with his overall growth. If things stayed on track, he could achieve the same progress every day.
And since he was consuming a piece of the World Tree Fruit daily, Pinaka could use it to deal with his exhaustion. That way, he didn’t have to waste time sleeping and could spend every hour training instead.
As dawn approached, he returned to his spot at the potion factory. He watched the Elves file out after their morning checkup, heading off to start farm work.
Once the prison was empty, Pinaka slipped free, made his way to the topmost floor, and began training there. No one would come up until the Elves returned in the evening. Even the patrolling soldiers only passed by on the ground floor.
'Now that I understand their routine better, I can choose my training spots more wisely...'
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He created a clone of his head and was surprised by the noticeable improvement in quality. In just one second, he managed to form the full head, neck, and circulation system.
Doing it in one smooth motion kept the errors to a minimum. But more importantly—'The ideas and experiences I’m gaining from the World Tree Fruit are helping me...'
That was why the Elf chosen to be a Potion Factory was always the one considered the least talented. And once they were used up, they were disposed of—without exception. Because even with minimal talent, consuming the World Tree Fruits daily would eventually lead to massive breakthroughs.
The World Tree Fruit granted knowledge and experience—like training for months, even years—just through consumption.
It was a relic, and within it were troves of knowledge unlike anything else. When an Elf consumed it, their Authority digested the fruit and gave them access to a fragment of that trove.
The higher the Elf’s Level, the more they could gain, since they were better at absorbing and processing the fruit. 'Just how badly did the native Elves of Gangnea slack off, that even with all these benefits, they still lost the war?'
'Maybe living for thousands of years made them unbelievably lazy—physically and mentally...'
He glanced at the clone as it slowly opened its mouth and whispered, “…hi…”
'It’s… working!' Pinaka’s lips curled into a wide grin, stretching nearly to his ears. He looked wild with excitement. “Can you use my Authority?”
“Let me… try,” the head replied.
“Urgh!” Pinaka grunted, suddenly feeling his strength drain. A second later, he muttered, “Status.”
[Name: Pinaka]
[Race: High Elf]
[Authority: Lifeform]
[Control Factor: 2 (1)]
[Weight Factor: 34 (33)]
[Volume Factor: 2 (1)]
[Range Factor: 20 (19)]
[Speed Factor: 4 (3)]
[Creation Factor: 2 (1)]
[Spell: Status Epidermis, Root Glove]
The numbers in brackets showed his current stats. The rest had been lent to the clone. ‘I understand...’
Pinaka could create clones without any real difficulty or limit. But if he wanted a clone to use an Authority, he had to share his stats with it.
‘Looks like I have full control over how the stats are distributed…’ He experimented a bit, adjusting the stats allocated to the clone. It was still just a clone—even if, someday, it became an exact replica of him.
“Let’s see if this can work,” he muttered, then severed the arteries and veins connecting his body to the clone. Up until that moment, he’d been supplying it with blood. But now that he could lend stats directly, he watched closely as the clone began to form the rest of its body—starting from beneath the neck.
Soon, a full-bodied replica of himself stood there. It wheezed, clearly in pain, struggling to breathe—the body hadn’t formed perfectly. Still, it could wield his Authority, even without being physically connected to him.
Remote Authority!
He had done it. And that opened up a whole new range of possibilities. ‘The number of clones that can wield my Authority must be directly tied to my Control Factor…’
He currently had a Control Factor of 2. Leaving one point for himself, he could allocate one to his clone. If he raised his Control Factor to 4, he could maintain three active clones, each capable of using his Authority.
“I am strong,” both Pinaka and his clone said at the same time, voices steady with confidence.
‘All I lack now is experience in battle...’ And for that, he had to start training seriously. The biggest strength of his cloning ability was that it worked by borrowing his Authority.
So, if a clone gained a stat through training, that stat would be transferred to Pinaka once he reclaimed the Authority from it.
Which meant—he could assign a clone to be the potion factory while he moved around the prison, planning his escape. ‘That sounds like a perfect—’
He paused, calming himself down as the flaws became clear. The clones only borrowed his Authority. They carried his memories from the moment they were created and then developed their own, based on what they experienced afterward.
Those later memories wouldn’t return to him. Only the Authority came back.
So if he let a clone act as the potion factory, the stats it gained from consuming the World Tree Fruit would come back to him—but the knowledge, experience, and inspiration the clone gained from that fruit would be lost.
‘I can only communicate with my clone verbally...’ There was no mental link. No direct control. The only thing tying them together was the shared Authority.
‘I think I’m getting greedy…’ Pinaka thought, then burst into laughter. ‘But I finally have the power to be greedy now.’
With that, he dove into nonstop training. His first goal was to create a perfect clone. From there, he’d try to form the smallest possible nervous system inside it—just enough for the clone to use Authority and build the rest of the body from there.
Once he reached that point, he’d be ready to escape. ‘But before that, there’s still something I need to try…’
If he extracted a Human’s nervous system and used his Lifeform Authority to stimulate it, could he tap into the Human’s Authority over Fire?
‘It doesn’t seem impossible. No… it feels like it’s guaranteed to work.’ Pinaka groaned. ‘But I’d need to train and experiment a lot to figure out how to stimulate their nervous system properly.’
“Thankfully,” he said, looking at the new clone he had just made, “I can share the burden with my clone.”
“I will tell you… my insights… as I experiment,” the clone replied, speaking much more clearly now.
By lunchtime, Pinaka was back in the office, going through whatever he could find to understand the Human soldiers’ operations—how their shifts rotated, how strong each group was, what patterns they followed. He squeezed out as much intel as he could in the short time he had.
Toward evening, he made his move—sneaking into whichever farmland he could access when no one was looking. There, he buried his used-up clones, turning them into fertilizer for the fields. For this to work, both the Elf tending the field and the soldier guarding it had to be distracted. When their eyes were away from the entrance, that’s when Pinaka slipped in, did what he had to, and slipped back out.
During dinner time for the Elves, Pinaka got another chance to check the office. After that, he spent time scouting the area outside the prison.
Then, in the dead of night, the moment he both dreaded and anticipated arrived—the group of six robed Humans came to feed him a World Tree Fruit. Just like on his first day as a potion factory, Pinaka kept a tenth of the fruit for himself, using it to boost his stats.
Along with the stat increase, he gained fresh inspiration to further develop his clone-making ability. During the day, he trained relentlessly, falling into a steady rhythm.
There were 42 days in a month. Before long, the ninth moon rose in the sky, marking the start of a new month.
Year 19 — 1st Day of the 9th Moon!
A sudden commotion broke out in the Elven Prison as the night sky lit up—bright as day.
The Warden had revealed himself!
…
Gangnea Daily Article #31
The race with the easiest path to reaching Level 3 is the Elven Race. That’s why, despite their limited numbers, they remained the heart of Gangnea’s power from the very beginning.
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