Wraithwood Botanist

Then, three minutes before my meeting was set to begin, everything changed. A massive spear burst through the fog and hit the beast right in the spine, sending blood squirting out of its chest as it collapsed onto the ground with the sound of cracking thunder.

The beasts released confused yet victorious cries as its challengers swarmed it, trying to eat its flesh as some fought each other in a brutal display.

I watched in confused awe as they ripped it apart, an exhausted fairy flew in front of me.

"Hurry up," Kyro said, flicking his hand. I levitated into the air, boat and all, and then Kyro grabbed my hand. "They’ll be busy eating it for at least six hours. So we need to move."

Before I responded, he rocketed away as Kline growled and jumped off the cliff after us, only to plunge into the forest below. I glanced at Kyro; his face was pale, his hair drenched in sweat.

"Are you okay?"

"Just shut up and worry about yourself. Do this wrong and you’ll turn into that creature."

I broke out into cold sweats as we approached the fog. I suddenly didn’t want to go, but Kyro plunged right into the mist, taking me to the rocky island that I had sat on to develop my soul core. It was in the center of the lake, less than thirty yards from the beasts eating the titan in the fog.

"Snap out of it!" Kyro thrust my ward into my hand, then unzipped my backpack and pulled out the cores, handing me the sunrise core that Nethralis gave me to evolve and the elixir. "If you don’t maintain concentration, you’re fucked."

"Uh… yeah."

"Uh…? You serious?" He took all the third evolution cores and packed them into the ward and thrust it into the ground for me to activate. Then, he reinforced it with an earth spell. The ground glowed orange, and rocks wrapped around it like an anthill, locking it into place.

He turned to me. "Listen, Mira. When you evolve your mana core, your soul core expands, and if you don’t maintain the repellent spell, hundreds of souls will suck into your core like a vacuum and break your mind. And even if you manage to break free, it’ll break your evolution, and you’ll be toast. Gone. Broken. You’ll never use magic again. Do you understand?"

My blood pressure spiked, and my heart felt like a dagger stabbing me in the chest.

"We should do this somewhere else," I said.

"No. If you were someone else, maybe. But Nethralis’s convinced you can handle this. Emael is confident you can do this. Hell, I am, too. So accept it. Own it. And focus."

The beasts released roars and turned to us in unison. The sunlight caught one of their eyes in the fog, reflecting dark yellow and glassy like a reptile’s.

"Stop looking at them," Kyro said. "We’ll take care of them. Now where’re your soul cores?"

"Soul… uh. At the bottom."

"Bring ’em out. I’ll need ’em."

"For what?"

"Power. I don’t have enough umph so I needa borrow it."

"Is that how—"

Kyro clapped. "Focus."

I nodded and rummaged through the bag, handing him a few that he put in the tiny pocket sewn into his suit and also the pockets within his coat.

"We got this, Mira. So keep focused. Don’t ever stop that spell. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Now let me out."

I nodded and swam to the barrier, which extended into the lake and helped him melt through.

"I’ll take care of Kline. I’ll take care of the beasts. Okay?"

I took sharp breaths. "Okay."

"Good girl."

He flew away into the mist, and I returned to the island, where I saw all the beasts returning to their meal. Even with my pure core, I was unevolved. I meant nothing to third-evolution beasts. I hoped they would stay that way when I made my debut.

I sat down, dried off, opened my Guide, and froze. The time read: 8:17.

"Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck." I opened the tab and went into the lecture. "Please be there…" I hit the button, and Elana appeared beside me with a chilling expression. "Sorry…" I said. "I was trying to—"

"I have a meeting with you, and you didn’t think to summon me during the chaos?" Elana asked. "Do you think so little of me that you would confine my position and wisdom to simple spells? Unbelievable."

Elana walked to the ground and created a circle in the air with her finger. It illuminated with golden light, hovering there like a halo. Then, she scratched her finger within it, creating runes that melded together. It was the type of magic that Kyro was using.

"What’s that?" I asked.

"This is a sigil," Elana explained. "It’s a temporary array activated with an enchantment. You don’t need to know how it works. I just need to burn this pattern into your memory so when I give you an enhancement, you can activate it easier."

"What’s it for?"

"It’s a soul barrier. If that imp truly believes you can handle using a soul spell with a god’s evolution technique, he’s sorely ignorant to the vast difference between us. And that’s precisely why you should neither trust a Guide that only gives you what you ask for or a backwaters guide over a god. Now come. I have an important meeting on schedule and I cannot afford to delight your curiosities."

I nodded rapidly and then looked at the sigil, burning the runes and lines into my memory. Then I traced it with my finger, closing my eyes and asking if I was tracing it correctly. Suddenly, my finger glowed, and I was able to draw it out myself.

"I’m not sure why I was expecting more," Elana said. "But it will do. Now sit. Close your eyes and imagine that image and chant."

Her words stung my confidence, but I sat down and chanted with that image in mind. Soon, it had engrossed all my attention and I forgot about Elana. The ground beneath me warmed, and when I opened my eyes ten minutes later, the soul fog around me had repelled ten feet around me on all sides.

Elana studied it thoughtfully. "Passable," she said. She looked at a golden watch on her wrist and huffed and turned to watch savage beasts eat the colossus. "That imp’s a cocky little thing. I can’t believe he’s brought you here to evolve."

"Should I wait?"

Elana paused, "No. That… thing isn’t natural. He has history. And as much as I don’t trust him, I’ll trust his judgment on this. Now drink that elixir and pray I haven’t misjudged him."

I tried to ignore the implications of her words as I unsealed and drank the sensitivity elixir that Nethralis gave me—then I couldn’t even think of them at all. I dropped to the ground, coughing, and wheezing as I spilled a third of the bottle onto the rocks. My mana channels pumped boiling water—my core turned into a forge. The mana in the atmosphere became palpable, physical—raw—and the entry points for mana around my body prickled like I was being stabbed by needles.

It fucking sucked.

Elana looked at the elixir dripping down the rocks. "Good enough."

"No…" I wheezed. I used Separation to collect the elixir, hovering it in front of my eyes. I pushed myself up and ate it like a grazing dinosaur.

"You’re hideous," Elana said as I cried on the ground from the intense sensations stabbing at my mind. "But it’ll do. Now sit. I only have the time to go through the chant. So let’s begin."

I gritted my teeth and sat. "Okay… I’m ready."

"Now begin threading and repeat after me."

Elana began chanting and I did as well. It was pleasant at first. Threading decreased the pressure and heat from my mana channels, and as I chanted her spell, my core started to expand like a balloon, allowing more mana to well inside. But it soon started to get out of control. My core was ballooning faster than my intake and it was making it feel empty and brittle as hollow ice. I was afraid it would break.

"Now bring out your core," Elana ordered.

I pulled the sunrise core from my pocket and put it into my mouth like a Jolly Rancher. I knew that it hadn’t activated, but it still surprised me that it felt like a marble, a simple marble with no known effects.

Then I started threading it—and promptly lost my mind.

The energy within hit me like a bullet to my head. Colors exploded in all directions as if the world had been put into a blender and my core and veins felt like pipes that were bursting at the seams.

"Thread you fool!" Elana screamed. "Gods, whose idea was it to give her a peak—"

I slowed my world with Moxle Dilation, activated Mental Shielding, and cranked my threading to the max. It felt like a risk to mix so many spells but when I did, a new world opened up. My perception allowed me to feel every last detail about my body and when I cycled, I could finally understand how it worked.

I churned my core as fast as I could and the mana sucked into my core like a rolled chain unraveling as the anchor it was tied to dropped into the water.

All the emptiness in the core filled like an overflowing cup.

"Now chant!" Elana screamed in my mind.

It was a reverse problem. I instantly started chanting the spell, and like a yo-yo, my chest began expanding with violent force, outpacing my threading. It was like trying to drive a clutch. I needed to increase one and decrease the other at the same time, and it was difficult. But I continued working on it for another minute before my Moxle Dilation hit the breaking point, and I was forced to drop it—

—and suffer the temporary backlash.

It took another four minutes to get back on track after that, but I made it through.

Elana muttered something, half-panicked, half-exasperated once I stabilized, and said, "It will do. Now continue the chant with me." She continued chanting, and so did I, and when I did, everything smoothed out, and the core expanded in with my threading. Then it contracted, and all the threading I was doing sped up. Once I was in the rhythm, I fell into a deep trance where the expansion and unraveling became second nature. I could feel it, and when my channels felt like they were fraying at the seams, an invisible force within me healed them.

Medicine. Aid. Teaching.

I wouldn’t let everyone down. So I kept focused, moving in and out of consciousness as I followed Elana’s chant. The last thing I heard her say was, "I shouldn’t’ve let her use that core. This impatience is asinine." Then she disappeared into the blackness and my body disappeared, leaving me with nothing but the sensation of mana and my core.

It was dark and black and terrifying in that space, and I nearly panicked, believing that I had lost my sense of sight, smell, and hearing, but I kept focused, paying attention to my core as it expanded and then filled with the raging torrents of energy coming from the core. I could feel my world trembling and shaking. I could hear my heart and see the energy flowing around me in intricate streams. I experienced my channels breaking down and healing and my nervous system flaring. Most of all, I felt immense distortion every time my soul core expanded, pulsing neara through my brain and nervous system.

I fought on.

I’m not sure how long I was in that state. All I knew was it was a blessing—and like all blessings, you only realize them once they’re gone.

A loud boom rattled my mind, threatening to break my concentration. If the spell hadn’t glued my eyes shut, I probably would have opened my eyes. And thank God I didn’t because my mana core started wobbling like a broken tire and my channels ground against the mana like broken brakes.

I activated Moxle Dilation and got it back on track.

Next came a sharp wizz and the sound of something smashing against the barrier. A second attack. A third. Water splashed around me. And with each sound came a tremor in my mana core and channels.

Kyro’s words entered my mind. Listen, Mira. When you evolve your mana core, your soul core expands and if you don’t maintain the repellent spell, hundreds of souls will suck into your core like a vacuum and break your mind. And even if you manage to break free, it’ll break your evolution and you’ll be toast. Gone. Broken. You’ll never use magic again.

But I was lost. My concentration was broken and my body was on fire, spiraling out of control. Imagine trying to study math in a vat of boiling water. It was impossible—and that spiked my fear that I would break and die alone. Doubt twisted inside me, each wave of pain feeding my fear. I clenched my fists, unsure if I could break through

Then I heard a voice of salvation.

Lithco.

He was right beside me, chanting the same chant that Elana gave me. I didn’t know if that was allowed, and I wasn’t sure it was necessary. But his voice—just the reminder that I wasn’t alone… that I wouldn’t die alone. That I would make it through.

Thank you…

I activated Mental Shielding to block out the sounds of the fighting raging outside and chanted with Lithco. It wasn’t much but it was enough. My wobbling core stabilized, and the elixir got a chance to heal the damage. And soon, I was back in a trance.

I had one hour left to go.

2.

Kyro lifted a soul core to the sky. It drained in a thick fog of aura that became an overwhelming sphere of sharpened soul force. Then he flew between three beasts on the ground, dodging their attacks before reaching the fifty foot spider that Kline was fighting.

Suddenly, ten wind blades shot from all sides from various beasts and the spider shot acid at his face. Kyro lifted a hand and created a sigil barrier that siphoned the rest of the soul force in the core into a barrier that blocked all spells.

The core turned gray and crumbled as he reached the spider.

It screeched and Kyro threw the spear into its eye. It entered with a small opening, but its entire body grew massive tumors that exploded like geysers as they hit the ground.

Kyro looked down and found his hand suffering from aura burn. It was white and trembling, developing a white crust from where he was holding the soul core. Damn it…

Suddenly there was a boom, and Kyro turned. A four-legged beast with hand-like feet was heaving boulders and hurling them at Mira’s barrier. The attacks bounced off the barrier harmlessly, but the sound was deafening.

Son of a fucking bitch! Kyro flew forward, but three beasts barred his way. Mira…

Kline blasted past the group, teleporting three times in a zig-zag before pouncing on the beast’s spine fearlessly, sinking in his teeth and tugging in vain.

Kline couldn’t kill third-generation beasts without his trump card. He was only meant to run interference as Kyro kept them busy or killed them. But the little bastard was doing more than that. He had a habit of jarring cores, disorienting them so that Kyro could kill them.

You get ’em, kid, he thought. But as if the world meant to spite him, the beast flailed around and rushed right into the water—

—where both could suffer soul corruption and attack Mira’s barrier.

"Kline!" Kyro tried to fly forward, but third evolution beasts blocked his path with a torrent of wind and lightning and fire, striking at him from all four angles.

"Get out of my way!" Kyro lifted his hands and created the "Tears of the Heavens" sigil in the sky, letting the intense mana output from the mana vein fuel the spell. When he released it, a crushing force bore down on five beasts simultaneously, keeping them in place as he pulled out a new core and created dozens of spheres in the skies, like a chandelier of death. None could move as he thrust his hand down with the force of a hammer, bringing death to his enemies below.

The attack was devastating—but so was the backlash. Kyro lost all feeling and function in his hand from the aura burn. He glanced at the injury, then back at the pond, where Mira was struggling to evolve, and Kline was fighting for his life.

It hurt him to watch because they should have never been there. They were sent on a series of suicide missions that they confidently prescribed her because Kyro was notoriously difficult to kill. It was his presence that put her in danger.

That’s what he lied to her.

No way, Mira said when she heard his plan. Thorvel’s gonna be pissed if we keep killing beasts.

It won’t affect the Harvest, he said. Because none of these beasts are migrating. They’re pushing north to the Fifth Ring. The Harvest’s child’s play for them.

Oh...

Yes. Now stop worrying about Thorvel and start worrying about yourself. Shoot the alpha, have him chase off the thirds, and kill the rest. Then we’ll kill it and let the stragglers feed on ’em. That should distract ’em long enough for you to evolve.

Mira believed it, but it was only partially true. It was true they weren’t migrating, but it was also true that every beast in the forest is a guardian against top walkers. Still, fuck Thorvel. Fuck Nethralis and Serenflora and everyone else. Mira should’ve been under Serenflora’s protection, getting trained for the next year. But she wasn’t. She was getting persecuted and sent off to die. So fuck their rules, their forest, and their intentions. He was going to do what was best for Mira. If they wanted anything else, they should’ve just let her be.

Kyro flew forward to help Kline and Mira, preparing to sacrifice his hands and feet and eyes and tongue if necessary. That’s because Kyro had a debt to pay back Brindle—

—and Kyro always paid his debts.

3.

The sounds outside the barrier increased in intensity. I could hear howling and screaming and explosions. It was nerve-wracking, and Lithco’s calming voice could only do so much. It was a war zone outside, and when I heard the water splash, I knew that hell was going to break loose.

"You’re almost there," Lithco said. "Keep focused." Then he kept chanting.

I increased my Mental Shielding and calmed my mind and chanted with him, forcing down all my fear. And right then, in the chaos, something changed.

My core blocked off.

It was like a clogged drain, denying all mana into it. I cried out in pain as the mana in my channels hit the brick wall, increasing the pressure.

"Thread!" Lithco screamed. "Thread harder than you ever have. Thread until it breaks!"

I screamed and complied, throwing caution to the wind and summoning all the raw force I could to break past the wall that built up around my core—

—then it broke.

Oh, yes, it broke. And when it did, everything changed.