Crossbreeding

“Mm-hm, looks like the Element Trees worked just fine.”

After a good night’s sleep, I spent the morning making a round of the village to check the results.

The reason I had said there was no problem lay in the Element Trees—that is, trees like the Fire Tree and the Wind Tree that carried attributes.

Aside from the House Tree, these newly acquired elemental trees had very simple traits.

They absorbed the surrounding mana and released it as magic.

Our village was a Sanctuary, overflowing with mana from the World Tree and Simurg-san.

Planted inside such a village, these Element Trees absorbed the ambient mana and maintained a constant state of spell activation.

That was why, once we surrounded the houses with vines, the bandits couldn’t escape.

“Though the power’s a bit too high. I’ll need to figure out a way to adjust it.”

“You can do that, Woody?”

Nadja, who had been on guard with me in case any bandits escaped, asked the question.

The answer, of course, was yes.

“This time I wrapped the vines all around the houses, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Didn’t you think it was strange that magic was coming from the vines too?”

“Now that you mention it… true. I thought only the trees released magic?”

“I didn’t know at first either, but apparently vines are considered a type of tree too.”

Yes—apparently vines were also a kind of tree.

But of course, simply planting through Tree Planting only produced normal trees.

So how did I make an Element Tree into vines? That was where the second ability I had acquired came in: Crossbreeding.

“Crossbreeding… that word sounds a bit indecent.”

Appearing out of nowhere with a suspicious remark, Aira poured me tea.

After wetting my lips lightly and pausing for a breath, I continued my explanation.

The power of Crossbreeding, simply put, allowed me to combine trees together.

Let’s try it in practice.

A red cursor appeared before me.

I selected a nearby Peach Tree.

This time, a blue cursor appeared.

I chose an Apple Tree a little farther away.

I selected Yes.

Then, red and blue light gathered together, forming in my palm.

What appeared was a purple seed, red and blue intertwined.

Yet strangely, it didn’t feel poisonous.

On the contrary, it radiated a strong sense of life.

After designating the location and selecting Yes, the seed flew from my hand into the spot.

It shone brightly—and when the light faded, a new tree stood there.

This was the new tree born of Crossbreeding—

“Yes, this is… the Peach-Apple Tree.”

“Peach-Apple? What the hell is that!?”

“Oh my, Nadja doesn’t know?”

“That tone… you know it, Aira?”

“Of course not, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Then why pretend like you did!?”

The “Peach-Apple Tree” was my own coinage.

But it wasn’t entirely wrong.

The reason would be clear in an hour.

“Th-this is…”

“This feels so wrong somehow…”

Aira and Nadja bit into the fruit with a shaku and frowned, even though it was sweet and delicious.

The reason lay in the fruits growing on the Peach-Apple Tree.

There were four types:

The Crossbreeding power I had gained, simply put, allowed me to combine two trees I had planted and produce a tree with both their traits.

So with the Peach-Apple Tree, combining peach and apple, I could produce not only normal fruit but also fruit that carried the taste of the other.

It was no wonder their expressions were conflicted.

When something looked exactly like an apple but tasted like a peach… yeah, that was unsettling.

But this power had uses beyond making odd fruit.

By crossbreeding the Grape Tree with another, I could produce vines with unique properties.

By now, you could guess.

Those magic-spewing vines had been created by crossbreeding the Element Tree with the Grape Tree.

Yes… let’s call them Element Muscat.

At any rate, this Crossbreeding ability clearly had more potential uses.

Once the meeting with Simurg-san and Shekuri-san was done, I’d experiment more.