The colors attracted him. Blazing like a second sun, the vibrant green of the plane attracted his hands despite himself. This was not wise. The seeds had remained for centuries, perhaps millennia, and they had been kept hidden for good reason. But it was difficult.

The lost art of alchemy. Magic that predated the Grandmaster Council itself. The secrets of a thousand lost species. What was hidden here, in this oh-so-ancient trove of Druids, blinded him with greed. There was the little issue of not knowing how to retrieve things from in here, but still.

Nathan's hands rubbed against the bright green strings, stopping on one. An image appeared, just as he expected. The image of a tulip-like flower in the middle of a red lake, under a green moon-wait, green moon? Red lake? There was something wrong with the colors.

Hesitating as his instinct warred with his greed, he sent a tendril of mana into the vision. Mind magic, even Fae magic, should work. As long as the defenses did not kill him. The defenses remained silent as a tendril of mana, the most he could use with any hope of controlling what it did, approached the lake.

The lake's surface began to ripple, and the flower moved slightly. Nathan pulled back the mana tendril in surprise. The lake returned to its previous state, as if he had imagined the change. But he hadn't. There weren't many things he could say he was good at, mind magic definitely wasn't on that list. But he still hadn't imagined the flower move.

Nathan pulled back his tendril, slowly, as before. There was too much he did not know about this. Mana began to change as he did so.

Nathan paused, observing. The situation reeked of a trap. There had been no defenses that he could detect since entering the seed bank. That could be because the Druids were overconfident. Or because the 'seeds' did not need protection.

Acting as quickly as he could, Nathan withdrew his mana. The flower was faster. The beautiful tulip, a dazzling purple that had attracted his greed just a few minutes ago, sprang towards him. A massive red flower headed straight for the tendril of mana he was attempting to withdraw.

A single second.

That was how long it took for him to withdraw the tendril. That was how long it took for the tulip to complete its transformation and swallow his tendril, despite his protests. But, of course, that was not the end. The tulip clutched the tendril and pulled.

With growing trepidation, Nathan felt a pulling at him from what he had thought was a vision. A pulling motion that he could not defy at all. The master stage cultivation, his oh-so-powerful powers, were rendered helpless before the simple tugging of the flower as he felt himself being pulled into the air towards the plane of light.

The world transformed before him as his surroundings faded, and the string grew larger. Oh, he resisted, floundered in the air, trying to stop the flower from pulling him in. But for all he pulled at his mana or tried to sever it, the tendril remained strong, defying everything he knew about how mana worked.

And then, the flower lifted its 'head' back, making him go flying towards the string. Nathan's hands touched the string as he struggled to process what was happening. A full minute hadn't passed since the flower moved for the first time, and he was about to die.

The string glowed as he felt himself drawn into it. Space enveloped him as he passed through what could only be a spacial barrier. Nathan's breath stopped as he saw the flower's petals stretch across the purple haze, preparing for one final tug that would land him in its mouth. A mouth that had far too many teeth.

The flower tugged.

Nathan found himself flying towards the barrier.

The barrier let out a purple flare of light.

Nathan found himself lying on his back on the floor, back in the seed bank that was suddenly far too bright.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he looked at the planes of light with renewed fear. For one, he knew more about them. The strings did not lead to seeds, the visions were no visions. The strings were portals, actual, physical portals. Hundreds on every plane of light, across hundreds of planes of light, each leading to a spacial configuration. A reserve of plants to last for ages.

The scale defied his senses. Oh, he knew that the Druids were great thousands of years ago. But knowing it was one thing, and seeing tens of thousands of portals leading to tens of thousands of artificial spaces was another thing entirely. How many Grandmasters had to work on it? For how long?

The seed bank must have taken centuries to build, and required dozens of Grandmasters working together to build. Nathan had seen a portal once. In the capital city of the Sel Empire. A huge arch that stretched for hundreds of feet and took more mana to activate than they could spare. That portal was the highlight of Sel propaganda, a beacon of the Empire's heritage.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The Sel Empire's heritage suddenly seemed minor. Then again, the Rahn clan only had a hundred Grandmasters at its peak. The Diery family had thousands.

Nathan stepped through the planes, no longer daring to touch any planes. The planes grew brighter, causing shadows in his vision as he walked. Magic flowed here, old, powerful magic, the kind that was lost long ago. The kind the caravan would have sacrificed entire Empires for.

A single white string sat in the center of the room. Nathan wasn't sure how he was even seeing it, but it seemed to burn with the light of a thousand suns. So bright that he had to close his eyes to even approach it. And even then, it was visible.

This was what he wanted. This must be where the Diery family saved their most valuable plants. A more intelligent strategy would be to hide the valuable plants in random strings, making an intruder search through tens of thousands of spaces to find them.

But the Diery family had been proud to a fault, that much he knew. There was no way they did not put their stuff in the brightest, most glaring string around.

Nathan's fingers touched the string, and he found himself transported into another room. The spacial barrier fell away around him, surrounding him, but strangely allowing him to walk through.

That was not how spacial barriers worked.

A spacial barrier was a hardened part of space that would reject anything that it's owner did permit, at least anything it could detect. This one apparently moved through him, checked him out, and then hovered around him as he moved. A mobile spacial barrier. Vanessa would probably love to know how that worked.

Nathan looked around. There were seeds here. Not plants, just seeds. A few were Silverbirch, that he could see. Glowing with mana beyond anything he could see, they were practically screaming that they were what he wanted.

But they were also the least important things here, arrayed in the front. Nathan moved beyond them, towards the back rows. The seeds here were different. On the surface, they had less mana than the Silverbirch, but even a fool like him could tell they were far more valuable.

The seeds radiated meaning, magic beyond his comprehension. A multicolored seed called to him. Nathan's wings appeared unbidden, black mana churning through him as he hovered at the edge of losing himself. Taking a shaky step back, he tried to calm his heavy breathing, or at least his shaking hands.

A Fae tree. Nathan didn't even know what they were. But the word appeared in his mind, accompanied by a temptation to take it. To take it and run away. To hide it and secure it. And that was why he took more steps backwards. Whatever this tree was, it wasn't something he wanted to mess with. The flower was dangerous enough for it.

This seed...it was something.

Nathan could not put it into words what it was. The seed changed every other second, not letting him get a good feel of it. The constant he could detect was his unnatural preoccupation with taking it.

And so he took a step back. And then another. Then turned his back to it and continued walking until he was nearly out of the spacial barrier. Nathan nearly forgot to take the Silverbirch seed as he hurried away. The memory came to him as he was about to step through the barrier. Nathan paused, turning back towards the room, decidedly not looking at the seed.

The seed with glowing lights. The seed full of possibility, that would lift him and his race higher-he shook his head, stopping his legs that had begun to carry him to the seed. Then he turned around and walked towards the Silverbirch seed.

The seed continued to tempt him. Nathan found himself walking towards the seed several times, his thoughts slipping into tangents. But he was able to hold on. The seed kept reminding him how it would uplift his race, something that wasn't part of his ambitions. The thought felt so odd in his mind that he was able to step out without any problem, the seed in hand.

A sigh of relief shook itself out of him as he sagged onto the ground, a headache building at the edge of his vision. The world spun around him. Nathan's heart seemed determined to thunder his brain to mush. A vibration took to his wings, stretching them behind him.

The shiver that ran through him seemed determined to end his life. Nathan whimpered, curling into a ball on the floor, his mind in tatters. Mana ran through him, golden light twirling with black around him, engulfing him in a cocoon.

But that did not stop the thoughts. The thoughts that ran through his head even as he tried to silence it. The image of the seed was determined to occupy his head. To tempt him to the end of the world. A shudder ran through his body once more. The shivering strengthened, sweat dripping out of his pores as his human side attempted to compensate.

The image of the seed remained fixed. A silent promise. A bright light that refused to fade into his memory.

Magic spun around him, calling for aid even as he didn't. Black and gold threads separated from the cocoon, spinning around him. The image remained. The beat of his heart continued to thunder, his breaths growing ragged as he felt his mind tire.

Nathan looked at his hands, and found them unraveling. Gold and Black specks emerged from his arms as they began to disintegrate. But-the thought vanished into his brain, replaced by the image of the seed.

The bright, pink light once again filled his vision. The pink and orange threads of the seed, seeming familiar.

Nathan pulled at his thoughts, pulling the thought back. Black light flashed, flickering out and returning as the pink light attempted to destroy it.

The pink light failed.

The black endured, shifting around in the edges of his mind, but refusing to die out. The thought returned to his head.

But arms did not disintegrate.

Nathan's eyes shot open, looking at his surroundings. The overly bright room. The white room that certainly wasn't the outside of the white thread.

Shivering as he stood, he took a step forward. The ground gave away below his feet, letting him fall into a hole. Nathan narrowed his eyes, collected his mana into his fist.

And then punched.

Black and gold lines ran across his fist and up his arms. Pink light flared before it, filling his surroundings. The light seemed too great, too powerful for him to face. But he punched it anyway.

Even if he died. Even if the seed took him over and made him a puppet.

Nathan would at least punch it in the face.