This blew Renny's mind.
But Tela leaned forward, his tone dropping lower. "Oy, but there is more. Causes are everywhere, but nuh every type of cause can be in every place. Why demons use seeds, to force a cause to something."
Renny nodded quickly, he understood this much.
"If ya wan create a cause outside ya nature," Tela continued, "Ya royal power allows it. With a royal seed, ya can make any cause."
Renny's breath caught. The thought alone sent a thrill through his body. A seed that could become anything. He wouldn't need to beg for scraps, or strike trades for seeds. He could fulfill his contract and rise through every grade on his own without much difficulty.
But before the grin could spread across his face, Tela's sharp voice cut his thoughts.
"Oy! Nuh lose yaself to fantasy," Tela snapped. "Ya seed nuh eternal. It is tied to the tree, and the tree itself grows in stages, five in all. Right now, the tree at the branch stage, so ya power is branch-level. As ya grow stronger, both in demon skills and in ya royal birthright, the tree will rise with ya. Each stage, the tree will bear new fruit with greater power. But until then, ya only have the branch level power."
Renny tapped his head, muttering at his own foolishness. He had wanted to bite off more than he was fed. Of course it would be chained to his growth. "How powerful is branch-level power then?" he asked after a moment, half-dreading the answer.
Tela only shrugged, a sly grin tugging at his lips. "Nuh idea. Power nuh measured in words, only in use. Ya will find out as ya wield it, same way the tree will show it strength as it grows." His gaze held steady. "Climb higher, and the tree will climb with ya. That's the path for ya, Ezraphor."
Renny nodded, then asked the question that had been clawing at his mind since Tela first mentioned his true inheritance.
"Then tell me… how do I get a Dominion spell? Or a royal seed?"
***
When the dead King, Ezraphor, first shaped the creatures of Hell, he forged them in levels of power. Each act of creation was etched into the Ezra Tree, stored as what the royals called the Memory of Creation.
Tela explained this as he finally answered Renny's question. "If ya wish for Dominion spells… or royal seed… ya must claim them from the memory itself."
Renny leaned forward, fascinated by the idea that the trees could store memories. Since the King and the other royals were tied to them, it made sense to some extent, yet it was still a truly hellish thing.
"The Memory of Creation ya can reach now," Tela went on, "only has the branch-level records, small portion of what the King made with little power. Ya must enter this memory, face the creatures born of it, and defeat it. Only then will the memory acknowledge ya as King, and grant either a Dominion spell or a royal seed."
Renny's eyes widened. "And what if I am unable to defeat the creatures?"
Tela's tone darkened. "Ya can never leave. Nuh one but the King can pass through the memory freely. To be seen as King, ya must conquer the memory. Fail… and ya remain bound inside as a memory."
The weight of it pressed on Renny, but so did the thrill. It reminded him of when he first stepped into the Pit of Hell, an ordeal that had ended in failure, costing him his contract. Only this time, the stakes were worse. If he faltered here, he would be consumed by the memory itself, trapped forever in the Ezra Tree.
Tela began training him in earnest. The strain of using his royal eye was too much for now, so they set it aside and focused on sharpening his demon eyes, teaching him to see the causes of loss and destruction within things. Tela showed him how demonic weapons could substitute for spells, striking directly at the causes embedded in matter.
For his first step, Renny was given the chance to choose an Ezraphor weapon. The gardeners themselves brought them forth, for all such weapons were born from the Ezra Garden. After long deliberation, he chose the Fracture Dagger for 300cp, leaving a balance of 20cp in his account which was all that remained from his previous contract budget.
The dagger was a curved black blade, thin red lines running across it like cracks. Its ability was to force a fracture effect on a destruction cause energy, anything with the potential to break would be made to shatter.
Days bled into nights as Renny drilled without pause. Training his demon eyes to spot fractures opened his vision to just how many things were capable of breaking. It reassured him that he had chosen well, the Fracture Dagger was perfect, because anyone he faced would be made of bones, and bones could break. The more he practiced, the more clearly he began to notice other forms of destruction energy around him, though he lacked the weapons or spells to affect them yet. For now, fracture was his focus. The real challenge was teaching himself to ignore the surges of other destruction causes and narrow his vision like a blade, fixed only on fractures.
Finally, Tela judged him ready.
Renny laid his hand upon the trunk of the Ezra Tree and made a declaration Tela had trained him to say. At once, the garden dimmed, the air grew heavy, and the world seemed to fold in on itself. The bark shivered under his palm, then split into dark tendrils that slithered out and coiled around his body. They tightened like living wraps, binding his arms, chest, and legs in a crushing embrace. His breath hitched as the tendrils dragged him closer, sinking him inch by inch into the trunk as though the tree itself was swallowing him whole.
He had entered the Memory of Creation.