Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

As the fruit was thrown, I felt like the entire tree was trying to catch it. Yet despite all the branches, the roots, even the tree itself leaning like a caring mother towards the fruit; it couldn't manage to stop it from reaching the ground far from the tree, rolling until it reached a few meters away from the front of my army.

"Go, bring it to me," I patted over my demon's shoulder and he complied. As he reached there, he grabbed the fruit to let it go the next moment falling on the ground. "I can't, it stings!" he muttered while I climbed down his body and reached the place of this fruit.

It was much larger than I thought it would be, almost on the size of my entire body!

Its surface had more wrinkles than I imagined, and when I closely watched it, I realized these weren't wrinkles, but writings.

"Let's see what's wrong with you, darling," I muttered before leaning and touched it.

The moment I did, I felt a burning sting over my hands, but I endured. I knew this wasn't the time for me to be careful. I needed to find the entrance to the hidden Golam city, and I was dead determined in doing so!

So I endured the pain before I finally had a new feeling, or a hunch.

"My pearls!" I shouted like blaming myself for not realizing this so far. The next moment I took out a pile of pearls and gave them towards the fruit.

As expected, the pearls once touched the surface of the fruit they started to melt and merge with the fruit. The change happened next was for these dense writings over its surface to be ignited in golden color, while the sting pain I felt started to recede slightly.

"More," I didn't keep my hand this time or count how much this glutinous large fruit consumed. After roughly an hour, the fruit was shining in gold color and there was no more pain at all.

"Ding Dong! Great, you found the right way to enter the city," the system said in such celebratory words in a much depressed tone.

"Thanks," I laughed while glancing over the tree. When the fruit became like a little star in my hand, the tree stopped buzzing all of sudden, returning to the docile silent state of it.

Then a hole appeared all of sudden in the middle of its trunk. I glanced at the hole then at my fruit. "They are similar," I muttered, knowing that this tree wanted me to put the fruit inside it, and perhaps I would get my own path towards the city of the Golam.

"Let's try this then," I shrugged before moving to the front while adding, "keep your distance, and don't come until I order you to."

I moved, alone, while even my skeletons retreated to the back. I reached the base of the tree to see its gigantic stature from this close. "Wow, you are really amazing," I muttered and the tree seemed to understand my praising words as it shook from left to right, and from right to left.

"How can I reach that height of yours?" I muttered while glancing over the distant up there hole out of my reach.

"Wow," the next response of it came in the form of one of its roots that moved towards me before pausing a couple of meters away. "You want me to jump here?" I said and the tree shook again.

"Alright," I smiled before jumping over the root and it instantly moved towards the hole. From its speed and swift actions I realized how much nervous this tree was for this fruit in my hand.

As I reached there I saw the place of the hole similar to the shape of the fruit in hand. I didn't hesitate and placed it in the hole when I heard a thunderous shout coming from far behind.

"Use your blood first!"

I turned to see my gigantic giant waving his hand while pointing to the nape of his neck. I recalled what happened before, and this time I decided to follow the logic in his words and use a drop of my blood first.

I cut my hand and let the blood drop over the fruit, yet nothing happened.

"The hole!"

My loyal pet kept helping me while my useless system kept his silence. I touched my hand over the hole to see the blood of mine being absorbed the next moment, leaving nothing behind.

"Is this enough?" I shouted back.

"Ding Dong! More than enough!"

"Not yet, keep dropping the blood until the tree can take no more."

I received two different answers, one from the system and one from my giant. Without hesitation I kept my hand bleeding on top of the hole while smirking:

"Trying to play me again? Hehehe," I knew he was lying, and his lie just confirmed the giant sincere words to me.

"Ding Dong! I don't want to see you die out of bleeding. Check the tree, see how gigantic it is? How can you satisfy the need of such monsters without dying?"

His words were like poison to my ear, and I didn't even consider thinking about what he just said. "Forget it, I won't stop," I laughed before taking one pearl out as I added, "forgot to tell you, these pearls are just magical."

I ate one and laughed while feeling much energetic again. I knew it was furious right now, but this wasn't something I needed to worry about.

After all I was pretty confident in this tree being just the basic hurdle on the way to the Golam city. I was sure he had more machination hidden yet to come, and he was still confident about his ability to stop my path here.

I kept pouring out my blood and refreshing my strength with pearls from time to time. It took me several hours for the tree to be finally satisfied, and I didn't know why but the moment my blood wasn't absorbed, I felt a strange connection with the tree.

It was like I could feel it, and it could feel me. I didn't know why but I felt a strange link with the fruit, and suddenly I had this realization.

"Wow, it's not a fruit, it's the heart of the tree!" I exclaimed in shock while I knew how important this to the tree. "You are still young! You needed my help to reach maturity, hoho," I laughed while I enjoyed this strange and unexplainable connection and conversation with the tree.

"Alright, take your heart back," I placed the fruit in the hole and the moment it went there, the bark grew fast and covered the hole, leaving no trace behind.

Yet I still have this link with the tree active nonetheless thanks to my blood.

"I want to enter with my army towards the Golam city," I said while patting on the tree which shook right and left.

"Oh, you cover the exit with your roots?" I muttered while rapidly glancing over the place where the roots were. There I saw the roots started to move, clearing a path that looked like a deep tunnel. "This is the entrance, good," I understood her message before patting again on her bark:

"Don't worry, I'm not that fragile to be killed down there."

I turned to my army in the distance before taking out my spear again and pointed it towards the tunnel down below: "Skeletons advance first as vanguard, followed by vampires to deliver the news. My army moves next then the rest of the armies. The necromancers are the last to move."

My words drew the general tactic of my army advancement towards the Golam city. According to what I received from the tree, the city was buried under the ground for ages, and there were many lurking dangers inside.

Especially her remarks about recent suspicious activities down below. I knew who was behind all these movements, and I intended to crush all his schemes and make him the only loser in the end.

"Advance!" I gave the order for the huge army of skeletons to pour into the tunnel. The tunnel seemed small for me from high above, yet strangely it was able to hold everything coming at it. "Weird," I muttered.

"Ding Dong! Won't you enter?"

The system seemed quite anxious about something, so I didn't answer as I shrugged and sat on the root of the tree. I took out a couple of bruberries and a couple of pearls, I ate one of each and threw the rest towards the tree.

The branches moved to take them and then they went with them somewhere I couldn't see. I heard a chewing sound somewhere, which made me laugh. "Great, we can be best friends now," I said and the tree shook right and left in agreement.

The armies of mine went inside the tunnel for hours. Darkness befell upon us and the next dawn appeared and my skeleton armies didn't show signs of ending.

"Such an army should be enough," I muttered before shouting, "send the vampires, relay the news from inside."

The next moments I spotted tens of vampires moving fast towards the tunnel. I waited, and after a couple of hours I felt somehow nervous.

"Do you know if they are alive or not?" I asked the tree and somehow I received my answer.

"Damn!" I cursed before adding, "this system… I wanna burn him alive!!"

What I understood from here was that the tunnel ended in the densest place with monsters and dark creatures. For skeletons, this was the most disadvantageous battle ever.

As for my vampires, I didn't put much hope for them to return alive.

Yet one did return with many wounds on his body.

"Hurry and amend him, hurry," I shouted before I gritted my spear as I added, "someone take the info from his mouth before he dies!"

I turned to the tree before adding, "thanks a lot for your kindness, but I need to go personally down there and deal with things."

The tree shook and I understood her worry. "Don't be worried, I won't be killed this easily," I tried to reassure myself before reassuring her.