Waking up early in the morning, Shiro looked around for a stream where she could quickly clean herself.

  After a quick wash, she dressed herself back up and called out for the dryad as she had some questions for her in regards to divinities and the like. Since she was a spirit and had her own divinity, Shiro figured that she was probably a source of answers.

  "Yes? You wanted to talk to me?" The dryad smiled as she appeared from a nearby tree.

  "I’m just asking but what exactly are divinities?" Shiro asked while sitting on a tree root.

  "Well divinities are blessings given to you by the gods after you complete the trials." The dryad replied with a smile.

  "So are the gods still in this world?"

  "Nope. Some have left a small avatar while others haven’t left anything. The gods have left this world and the only signs of them ever being here are the towers that represent their trials along with writings on murals that can be found around the world. One of the biggest murals is the Mural of Beginnings and that explains to you the name of this world along with some of the legends revolving around the twelve main Olympians. There are also some notes on Titans but not many." The dryad explained.

  "Ah right, Dimos did tell me about the Mural of Beginnings. Are there other large scale murals like that one?" Shiro asked.

  "Unfortunately no. The Mural of Beginnings is unique and it’s the only one of its size." The dryad shook her head.

  "So what fuels the divinities? There should be an energy source no? Are we able to harness that energy source and use it at will?" Shiro asked as that was her main question. If she could make use of the energy source, she could make herself helpful even without the use of divinities. Hopefully.

  "Yes but I don’t think you realise how important divinities are. Divinities allow you to harness this power along with protecting you from it. It’s a god’s protective charm so that the one who passes their trial doesn’t explode on contact with this source of energy. Trying to use the energy source without the protective is a guaranteed death so if you’re thinking of trying it, don’t." The dryad shook her head.

  Furrowing her brows, Shiro had a frown on her face.

  "Since I’m a spirit, is there anything I can do in my current state then?"

  "Hmm…… kind of? You only get access to them once you get your first divinity. You can’t make something out of nothing after all, you need to tap into the energy source with the divinity then you can use some of your latent abilities." The dryad explained.

  "Which is very strange since I definitely noticed the faint trace of a sigil on your body but it’s dormant?" She tilted her head.

  "What do you mean by that?" Shiro asked while glancing down at her arms.

  "Well sigils are the form of the divinities granted to us. For example, mine is a Sigil that’s located on my back." The dryad said while turning around. Moving her hair out of the way, a green Sigil slowly materialised itself.

  Remembering that she had received quite a few sigils from the gods back on Mount Olympus, Shiro’s smile couldn’t help but twitch. Should they all appear at the same time, wouldn’t her entire body look like it’s been tattooed? That was something she wasn’t too keen about.

  "However, while I did say that you can only access them once you get your first divinity, you do still have one thing that you can do. Every time you enter a place filled with nature, your body feels stronger doesn’t it?" The dryad asked.

  "It does."

  "Depending on what you do, you can ’store’ some of this and use it in small bursts I suppose. This will increase your physical body only slightly to allow you to fight against monsters. It’s not a big boost so don’t get your hopes up. As for the method, it’s hard to explain and it’s easier if you figure it out yourself. There’s nothing I can do for you either so you can only rely on yourself." The dryad smiled before disappearing.

  Hearing this, Shiro raised her eyebrow but smiled.

  While the dryad said that it was only a small boost, it was better than nothing since even a small boost can help when it matters.

  Shaking her head, she started to make her way back to the edge of the forest since Dimos should be arriving with some breakfast. And as she had expected, by the time she reached the edge of the forest, Dimos was waiting with some food in his bag.

  "It’s not much since the town is rationing their supplies but it’s better than nothing." Dimos smiled while handing her some pieces of bread.

  "Thank you." Shiro smiled and ate the bread.

  "Mn, I’ll be going to research the sapling today. Hopefully, it’s still in the early stage of stage 2. If not, the reinforcements will take more time. Also for your ideas, tell me the divinities that you need and I’ll also look for some people that have them." Dimos asked.

  "Hmm…… well for the acid route I’ll need someone with the divinity of harvest and some gr.a.p.es. For the explosion route, I’ll need someone with the wind divinity and the fire divinity. Hopefully, the wind divinity can shred the wood into fine dust but I don’t know." Shiro replied with a shrug.

  "I see…… I’ll send a notice out to offensive based wind divinity users then. As for the dust, how much do you need?"

  "Depends on how big the sapling is. From your description of stage three, can I assume that it would spread its roots across the entire crater?" Shiro asked.

  "Mn. During stage two, it’s spreading its roots to drain the land hence why when stage three arrives, black roots will explode out of the ground. If it’s in the early stages of stage two, then the size of the roots will be small. But from what I can tell at this moment, it’s at least in the mid stages. The roots would have covered around 60% of the crater by now." Dimos shook his head.

  "Then the dust we need will increase since the explosion needs to be bigger. However, that may change depending on the nature of the sapling. Can the roots survive without the sapling?" Shiro asked.

  "No. Once the core is destroyed, the roots die as well and leave behind withered husks underground." Dimos replied as Shiro smiled.

  "Then that’s perfect. I was thinking that the roots could act on their own but if it’s like this, it’s much easier. All we need is to destroy the core so the amount of dust we need isn’t that much. We just need to make sure it’s concentrated around the sapling so that we can focus the explosion. That way, we can limit the damage caused to the surroundings." Shiro said while taking a bite of the bread.

  After the dryad’s reminder last night, Shiro figured that she should be a little more responsible with how she uses her power. If she could focus and contain the explosion then not only would it do more damage to the sapling, it will also reduce the damage around them.

  Even if she doesn’t have the threat of having a god wanting to kill her on Earth, she still had to be careful since she could do more damage than any of her enemies. In this scenario, it may be a world ending sapling and that the destruction of a town is a worthy trade off, but if she had the power to prevent the town from being destroyed while completing the task, she should.

  It’s only right after all.

  Plus, it’s not like it’s extremely hard to accomplish. However, she wouldn’t choose to save a town if it meant a decreased success rate since there’s no reason to shoot themselves in the foot if she could avoid it.

  "Ah right, how are you going to figure out the person who planted this?" Shiro asked as this was another concern.

  "I’m not sure. There are plenty of people who know about the dread sapling but very few actually venture out into the null area to retrieve one. I’m afraid it’s going to be difficult if not impossible to find the culprit." Dimos shook his head.

  "What about someone with the divinity of hunting? You track prey when hunting don’t you? Just get them to hunt the person down." Shiro suggested but Dimos shook his head.

  "That’s a good idea but the problem is that there’s nothing to use as a catalyst for the tracking. The surrounding area of the sapling has already been tread on by multiple people during their last investigation. The culprits prints have already been masked up. Plus, since we don’t know who we’re looking for, it’s hard to pick out a specific set of tracks. We can only give up on looking for the culprit this time."

  Hearing this, Shiro sighed but she understood that they had no choice.

  "Regardless, let’s just deal with this sapling then." Shiro shrugged and finished her bread.