"Only one-tenth of my soul, yet it's merely equal to one ten-thousandth of the Flower Spirit Mother Tree's?"
Enduring the pain of her soul being torn apart, Hel once again used her mental power to split off a portion of her soul. She only stopped after half of her soul had been separated. If she continued any further, recovery would become difficult.
After splitting her own soul, she immediately took the fragments she had extracted from the Flower Spirit Mother Tree and swallowed them. Back and forth like this, she barely managed to fill the gaps in her soul. However, to fully absorb and assimilate these fragments into her own soul would still take more than two days.
Counting the time spent on splitting her soul, she could only perform the process once every three days or so.
"This is taking far too long… At this rate, I'll need at least sixteen years to complete the full soul replacement."
Hel ran a hand through her hair, feeling the slow recovery of her soul, and couldn't help but feel a headache coming on. Although she would only be twenty-eight by then, sixteen years was still far too long.
"Master may not actually need to spend six years," Niv said calmly. "According to my analysis, during the process of soul-splitting and recovery, your soul will experience slight growth. The increase isn't large—only about one percent in soul strength each time.
"At present, your soul strength is at Tier Six, First Star, so each split can only replace one ten-thousandth of the Flower Spirit Mother Tree's soul. However, at your current rate of growth, in 141 days your soul strength should advance to Tier Seven.
"Once you reach Tier Seven, each soul split will be able to replace one thousandth of the Mother Tree's soul. And after 242 days, if your soul strength breaks through to the demigod tier, you will be able to replace one percent of its soul each time.
"Under optimal conditions, you could complete the full replacement in as little as 294 days. That said, Niv believes that once your soul reaches the saint tier, your overall strength may become a limiting factor, preventing further growth. Since it's unlikely you'll achieve a saint-tier breakthrough in the short term, the worst-case scenario is that your soul strength stabilizes at Tier Seven, First Star. In that case, you would need 692 days to complete the full soul replacement of the Flower Spirit Mother Tree."
After Niv's thorough and reasonable analysis, Hel no longer felt the same sense of urgency as before. Constructing the soul network was itself a massive undertaking, and with the Flower Spirit Mother Tree in hand, she had gained several new ideas regarding its design.
With a wave of her hand, the Flower Spirit Mother Tree appeared beside her.
She then spent a massive amount of trait energy to copy her Reincarnation Witch bloodline onto the Flower Spirit Mother Tree. This completely drained her trait energy reserves, but at least she gained ninety-nine bloodline fruits in return—some small psychological comfort.
After this bloodline replacement, the Mother Tree's appearance changed, much like the former Death Elf Mother Tree: one half turned black, the other green. Some of the withered buds began to rot, losing all vitality. The instant they died, a stream of pure deathly aura spread out from them.
At the same time, because of the withering of these buds, the remaining withered buds gradually regained a trace of vitality, looking noticeably healthier.
When Hel examined it again, she found that the Flower Spirit Mother Tree's name had changed—it was now called the Reincarnation Mother Tree, with the word "spirit" completely removed. It was no longer part of the elf race, but belonged solely to Hel. It had become her other half, a cradle meant to create more of her avatars.
At present, Hel's soul accounted for only five ten-thousandths of the Reincarnation Mother Tree's total soul. Even so, this did not affect her absolute control over it. However, that control was far from smooth—like attaching an old-fashioned CPU to a supercomputer. In theory, it could barely function, but performance was unreliable, and overheating could easily cause a crash.
That was precisely the situation between Hel and the Reincarnation Mother Tree. She could control it to perform basic actions, but any overly complex operation would place a lethal burden on the fragile portion of her soul she had just implanted.
Thus, to ensure her next actions proceeded smoothly, Hel not only invoked the power of her own authority but also applied the God-Slave Mark to control the Reincarnation Mother Tree.
Under triple-layered control, a small bud finally began to grow slowly from the Reincarnation Mother Tree.
The bud was half black and half white. Unlike the surrounding shriveled buds, it was plump and full, faintly glistening with crystalline dew.
At the instant this bud appeared, all the other withered buds on the Reincarnation Mother Tree visibly shrank further—whether they were ordinary buds representing the path of life, or black buds wreathed in deathly aura.
Streams of vivid green life energy, mixed with faint traces of death energy, flowed along the branches of the Reincarnation Mother Tree and gathered toward the newly born bud. At the same time, all kinds of elemental energy from the surroundings were rapidly absorbed by the Mother Tree and channeled through its trunk into the bud.
As these surging energies were refined into the purest nourishment, the bud gradually grew larger, then bloomed, revealing ten stamens glowing with soft radiance.
But this was not the end.
The massive energy that had gathered to nurture the bloom suddenly began to contract. The petals visibly withered and fell, followed by the sepals, receptacle, stalk, and even the filaments of the stamens.
Finally, ten seeds—each radiating emerald-green light and crystal-clear throughout—dropped from the tips of the stamens.
The instant the seeds fell, the newly born flower shattered with a soft pop, dissolving into countless translucent motes of light that were reabsorbed by the Reincarnation Mother Tree.
Guided by Hel's mental power, the ten seeds drifted gently into her palm.
These were flower seeds cultivated using one-tenth of her soul.
Each seed was about the size of a grain of rice, shaped like a peeled garlic clove. They were completely transparent, looking less like plants and more like pieces of plastic. Inside each seed, one black and one white stream of energy flowed endlessly, resembling two small fish swimming in circles.
And the moment the seeds landed in Hel's hand, a strange sensation rose within her soul.
These creations of the Reincarnation Mother Tree not only shared the same bloodline as Hel, but also shared the same soul.
In other words, these ten seeds were also a part of Hel herself.