Alex activated Dark Shadow and his presence immediately disappeared. If the tree had eyes it would have been able to see it, but the tree actually sensed enemies by the presence and their energy.

Alex disappeared from its sensory perception. Confused, the tree continued attacking Nia.

Alex quietly walked towards the tree's trunks, carefully side stepping any roots on the way. When he arrived at the trunk, he perceived the flow of energy inside the trunk, and was surprised. He sensed that the tree's exterior was extremely hard and had very little flow of energy through it, while the center of the the trunk was made of a very jelly like material with all of the immense life energy surging within.

Alex smiled. "Isn't this quite similar to the bell? Only, there's some jelly inside." He thought to himself.

He immediately primed himself and threw his most powerful punch with an incredulous amount of vibratory force. The trunk of the tree immediately began to rapidly expand and contract visibly in the radial direction and thousands of leaves fell down. The tree was terribly injured from the inside. A gentle chime sounded out from the tree as if it was trying to sing.

The tree's consciousness was shocked. Where did the impact come from, it could not sense anything near its trunk. In desperation, all its roots and branches spiked the spot in front of where its trunk was impacted. However, Alex had long before, moved away from the location to the opposite side.

Nia, who saw Alex comfortably go near the trunk amd then smash a powerful fist that almost killed the tree, was shocked. However, she took the opportunity to try to attack the tree. The roles of Nia and Alex reversed immediately, with Alex attacking and Nia irritating the tree.

Alex shook his head. He was able to make the tree's trunk chime once, but his force wasn't enough. After thinking for a bit, he coated his fist with Light Aura like a boxing glove. But when seen closely, one would notice that the aura was vibrating at an extremely high frequency and waves were appearing on its surface.

Alex once again plugged his legs into the ground and propelled himself to punch am extremely powerful vibratory punch, this time coated with life aura.

As soon as the punch hit the tree, Alex jumped backwards and made distance from the tree. The tree vibrated terribly and then a chime sounded. The entire trunk cracked from inside. After a second, a second chime sounded. The leaves all shed and the tree felt like it had aged a hundred years.

Finally a third chime sounded. The exterior of the trunk, the thick bark exploded into shrapnel and propelled in all directions. Alex appeared in front of Nia and his Light Aura formed a large s.h.i.+eld in front of him, cus.h.i.+oning the blows of the projectiles completely.

The tree died. All the roots withered away as did the branches. Only the jelly like heart wood which was yellow amber in color fell by the wayside. Alex panted in tiredness, but saw that Nia was injured in many places.

Nia looked at Alex and thanked him. Alex shook his head. "You're injured. Take some healing medicines."

Nia sighed. "The injury is a little deep, the medicines won't work."

Alex ignored her. "Don't worry about that, take the pills, I'll help you heal." Then he put his hand on her shoulder where the branch had whipped her and the aura formed in his hand gently covering the wound. Along with the healing medicines, Nia's Life energy was stimulated and then the wound began to slowly heal.

After some time, the wound closed and the scar disappeared. Alex then sat down, tired. Using the Light Aura to heal was very taxing. He took out high level nutrition bars and began chomping on them.

Nia went to the base of the tree and took the amber colored heartwood. As she stood, the concentrated life energy within the heartwood was absorbed desperately into her body, forming a huge change within one of her rank 2 cards.

Finally, she breathed out in relief. "Thank you, Alex. I finally upgraded a Rank 2 card to the Grade A."

Meanwhile, Alex was looking at something else. An announcement had sounded out in the world.

[You killed 1 Superior Lifeline Tree. You obtained x1 single use Rank 2 - Life Replenish Card.]

A card formed in his hand. "It is a B grade card, but still quite good." He thought.

He looked at Nia. "Congratulations."

Alex then got up. "What next?"

Nia pondered. "Let's return to the shelter for now."

Alex shrugged. The two of them returned to the shelter.

Nia asked. "Are you planning to take some more missions?"

Alex shook his head. "I'll go back to Earth as I got what I wanted for now. I'll return to practice a martial art."

Nia understood. "Where do you live?" She asked.

"Pond City, Smiling Dojo." Alex smiled. "Why, will you come to visit me?"

Nia nodded. "Yes."

Alex was stunned, but then smiled again. "Okay, I'll be waiting then. Bye for now."

After this, Alex parted ways and returned to the inn he had booked to check out. This time he hadn't gotten to explore as he wished, but he had two major battles amd wanted to digest the benefits from the combat as well as practice the Painful Vibrations back at the dojo.