A gardener plants a series of 8 trees in a straight line such that the distances between consecutive trees form an arithmetic sequence. The distance between the first and third trees is 12 meters. If the gardener decides to add one more tree to the end of the row, maintaining the same common difference, what will be the total distance from the first tree to the last (ninth) tree? Let's think step by step and output the final answer within \boxed{}.
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