The agreed-upon time arrived swiftly.
Early in the morning, Alex set out from his territory with fifteen fourth-tier units, leaving behind only the King of the Man-Eating Flowers.
Why fifteen, you ask?
Well, the Blazing Lotus had produced a considerable amount of Mana overnight, allowing him to recruit a few more units. Along with five third-tier Flower Sprites, he now had a total of twenty units marching through the forest—a near-total mobilization.
This was precisely why he felt confident enough to venture alone into the other party's territory.
After a little over two hours, Alex followed the coordinates provided by Luke, traversing the forest until he emerged onto a vast, desolate plain. At the edge of the plain stood a grim yet imposing territory, dotted with tombstones.
Luke had been waiting for some time, accompanied by a few skeleton soldiers. As soon as he spotted Alex emerging from the forest, he hurried forward to greet him.
"You must be Alex, right?" Luke asked, his eyes filled with surprise as he sized up Alex.
At that moment, Alex was accompanied only by River and four Treant Warriors. Such a small entourage daring to traverse the forest would astonish anyone who saw it.
Alex didn't offer any explanation. Instead, he glanced around and smiled. "That's me. I must say, your territory's location is quite impressive, right next to such a vast plain."
"You're too kind," Luke replied with a bitter smile. "Though the plain is large, many others have claimed territories here. It's not exactly safe. I'm sorry to have made you come all this way."
Luke's expression was tinged with embarrassment. If most of his units hadn't been lost in the monster-infested area, he wouldn't have had to reveal his territory's location or ask Alex to travel so far.
At the same time, he couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. He noticed that all five of Alex's units were fourth-tier, especially the small, flower-like creature hovering above Alex's head, which exuded a dangerous aura.
When had such a formidable figure emerged among the plant-based factions? He hadn't heard a thing about it!
While Luke was scrutinizing Alex, Alex was also assessing Luke. As he had suspected, Luke didn't have many units, and they were all third-tier Skeleton Centurions, with no fourth-tier units in sight.
It seemed that Luke had suffered significant losses during the monster extermination and hadn't had the resources to upgrade his territory or recruit new units. This put Alex at ease, and he smiled. "No worries, it wasn't too far—just a few hours' journey. By the way, did you bring the Unit Token?"
"I did. What about yours?" Luke pulled a token from his pocket and showed it to Alex.
Alex quickly glanced at the token's information.
[Unit Token: Ancient Tree of Knowledge]
[Effect: Unlocks a third-tier plant-based unit]
[Requirement: Third-tier plant-based territory, 25 Mana]
Seeing the attributes, Alex's face lit up with joy. He handed over his Zombie Token to Luke.
"Here's the third-tier Zombie Token. Take a look."
"Aren't you afraid I'll just take it and run?" Luke said, lowering his gaze to the token in front of him.
When he saw the token's information, his eyes widened. This was exactly the undead-based unit token he had been longing for!
"So, is it enough to trade for your token?" Alex asked with a smile.
He wasn't worried that Luke would snatch the token and flee back to his territory. He was confident he could intercept Luke before he made it back.
Luke, being an honest man, didn't resort to any tricks. He looked up excitedly and said, "It's more than enough. Pleasure doing business with you!"
With that, he handed the Ancient Tree of Knowledge Token to Alex.
"Pleasure doing business," Alex replied without hesitation, taking the token and taking a deep breath.
Now, he had another unit he could recruit, making the trip well worth it.
After stashing the token, he glanced around and said, "Since the trade is done, I'll head back now. Let's stay in touch."
Luke nodded. "Sure, thanks for making the trip."
Without another word, Alex waved and turned to leave with River and the others. Soon, they disappeared into the dense forest as if they had never been there.
Only then did a young man, who had been hiding behind a pile of rocks, emerge and rush over.
"So? Did you get it?"
This young man was the one who had helped Luke exterminate the monster-infested area. He had been hiding behind the rocks ever since Alex arrived, ready to provide backup at a moment's notice. Clearly, he was a cautious individual.
Seeing him, Luke smiled with relief. "Yes, I got it. Thankfully, the guy was easy to talk to."
"That's good," the young man sighed, relieved. "I took a look earlier—all of his units were fourth-tier. If it had come to a fight, the two of us wouldn't have stood a chance."
"True," Luke agreed, still shaken. "I never expected such a powerful plant-based faction to be in our area, and so close to us. They've been hiding well."
"I heard that Sebastian, the angel-based faction leader, only reached fourth-tier this morning. When did the plant-based factions become so strong?"
"Who knows? Either way, it's best to stay on good terms with someone like that. It'll benefit us in the long run."
"Agreed."
With that, the two fell silent, gazing thoughtfully in the direction Alex had left.
Meanwhile, after leaving Luke's territory, Alex quickly returned to his own. Along the way, he took out a few monsters, earning himself over a hundred Mana.
Once he crossed the fence into his territory, he hurried to the base of the Tree of Life and pulled out the Unit Token he had just acquired.
[Would you like to spend 25 Mana to use the third-tier Unit Token: Ancient Tree of Knowledge?]
"Use it."
Whoosh—
The token transformed into a streak of light and merged into the trunk of the Tree of Life.
Immediately, a notification sounded in Alex's mind.
[Congratulations! You have successfully unlocked the third-tier unit: Ancient Tree of Knowledge]
Hearing this, Alex promptly spent 10 Mana to recruit an Ancient Tree of Knowledge.
In an instant, light gathered, and a towering ancient tree sprouted from the ground, quickly growing to a height of seven or eight meters. Its lush canopy shifted and transformed, gradually forming a weathered, ancient face that exuded wisdom and gravitas.
[Name: Ancient Tree of Knowledge]
[Race: Plant]
[Tier: Third (Cannot be upgraded)]
[Strength: 25]
[Constitution: 25]
[Agility: 25]
[Spirit: 120]
[Skills: Profound Knowledge (Increases the experience of nearby plants by 1 point per hour. Effective for all levels. Does not stack.) Ancient (Unique to this unit. Only one can exist at a time.)]
[Description: The most knowledgeable entity among the Treants. Though weak in combat, it possesses powerful support abilities.]
After reading the information, Alex was momentarily stunned.
A pure support unit? And it can increase the experience of other units? This is incredible!
It's practically tailor-made for plant-based units! Alex hadn't expected that a random token exchange would yield such a rare unit.
Though it only provided one experience point per hour, over time, that would add up to a significant amount. And it clearly stated that it worked for all levels! Just this alone told Alex that he had struck gold.
The only downside was the Ancient Tree of Knowledge's many restrictions. The experience boost only applied to units nearby, so units out on missions wouldn't benefit. This was likely why it wasn't classified as a rare unit.
"Well, let's try mutating it and see what happens."
Though the experience boost couldn't stack, Alex still wanted to see if he could use Mutation to remove the Ancient skill. That way, he could keep one in the territory and take another out, leveling up and fighting monsters simultaneously.
Without delay, Alex approached the Ancient Tree of Knowledge and began the Mutation process.
However, to his surprise, after dozens of attempts, all the mutated units retained the "cannot be upgraded" and "unique unit" traits, and the experience-boosting skill disappeared entirely.
Was the Profound Knowledge skill incompatible with other units, making it impossible to inherit?
Unwilling to give up, Alex recruited and mutated the unit over a dozen more times, but the result was always the same.
Given the 50% skill inheritance probability, even the worst luck shouldn't have produced this outcome.
This meant his guess was correct—other plants simply couldn't inherit the Profound Knowledge skill.
Well… he had hoped for too much.
Still, he wasn't too disappointed. After all, gaining one experience point per hour was already incredibly powerful. As long as he wasn't out on missions, all his units could benefit from the boost.
With that in mind, he dismissed the mutated units and recruited another Ancient Tree of Knowledge to serve as a pure support plant within his territory.