Chapter Thirty

Arden narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on the approaching root. His head throbbed from the resistance.

Mana burned through him as a near deafening orchestra boomed in his mind. He kept pushing, knowing there was nowhere for him to run in the middle of a forest.

Suddenly, with a pop, all resistance vanished. Not only did the roots still, but he found he could control them with his mind.

Instead of celebrating, he expanded his senses outward, looking for any other threats but, as usual, never jumped out to him.

At least until he listened to the now quieter melody. His head snapped to the right, sending a group of roots in that direction just in time to block a branch aimed at his head.

The offending tree gave off a darker melody, drawing his attention. Flashbacks to his meeting with the moving tree played through his mind as the tree before him lifted itself out of the ground, using roots as legs.

His head tilted back, looking up at the towering tree, a slight tremble in his hands mirrored by the roots surrounding him. He probed the tree, but his senses rebounded off a barrier.

Without thinking twice about it, he directed his root collection between him and the tree as he took off in a sprint. A deafening crash sounded behind him as his connection to the roots snapped, causing him to stumble a step, but he recovered a moment later.

All his focus remained on the differing melodies around him, each one having a slightly different tune denoting different trees. At first, only a few had a darker melody allowing him to keep his distance, but a worrying trend manifested. The further he ran, the darker the melody became.

As he ran, he grasped control of attacking roots, putting them in between him and incoming branches, but it became harder and harder to defend in time. Not helped by the fact his headache grew by the second.

One mercy was his Ortus bracelets didn’t go on cooldown despite how much mana he ran through them. If his mind held up, he could survive a while longer.

Shouldn’t the first stage finish by now? He proved he could defend himself from the roots and even wrestle control of them. If this was like the other trials, he would be in the second stage by now.

Any further thoughts on the trial vanished as he dove to the dirt ground, unable to use roots to block the incoming branch strike in time.

In a flash, he was on his feet once more dashing through the forest trying his best to take the less hostile routes, but it was proving near impossible to avoid attacks.

Suddenly, just as it became too much, the forest opened into a clearing. The attacks ceased immediately. He collapsed to the ground gasping for breath, unable to continue any further. Both body and mind pushed to its limits.

As if carried by the wind, a familiar ancient voice spoke into his ear, causing him to jerk, but his wrung-out body refused to move. “Adequate. However, you must show more to prove worthy to be my successor. Have the Fae fallen so far that their best can’t survive my domain? Well, it can’t be helped. You barely count as one of Nature’s Rulers. With how diluted your ancestry is, it is a miracle you hear the melody of life at all. Maybe I should give my blessings to that little snake instead.”

At the mention of the snake, something deep within him rebelled, giving him a second wind.

Still, it took him several seconds to force himself into an upright seated position. When he did, he froze. At the center of the clearing was a massive crystal-like white tree spearing so high he couldn’t see the top.

Any idea of resisting the tree vanished the moment he opened his senses. It radiated with power far eclipsing anything he ever felt.

The tree could smash his parents without effort. Resistance was futile before such an overwhelming force.

Something deep within him spiked against the pressure, but it was futile.

Not to be ignored, it spiked once more, this time much stronger enough to cause him to jerk back.

When he recovered, the futile feeling vanished as if it had never existed. His eyes narrowed at the tree suspicion building. That feeling wasn’t natural. It did something to him. No way would he give up so easily.

Fueled by his refusal to give in, he stumbled to his feet and glared at the tree, daring it to try its manipulation again.

One thing was for sure, this wasn’t like the other trials. The presence never took such an active role. Just the fact it did meant it saw something in him. Its words meant nothing if its actions proved the opposite. He was worthy of whatever it held.

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If he survived the other trials, he would survive this one, too. He refused to settle for anything less than the best this trial had to offer. Deep down, he knew the wood attunement called to him.

Suddenly, the ambient mana shifted. It still had a strong wood attunement, but another attunement mixed in. He instantly recognized it as the unknown attunement the faeries pumped him full of.

Was wood and this unknown attunement linked? Of course, it was they were both nature affinity, but was there something deeper?

“Yes, I see it now. It’s faint, but it’s there. It needs nurturing, but the faeries can take care of that. Maybe you are worth it after all. It has been far too long since the last one wielded it. If only they didn’t turn blind to the outside, they may still wield it today, but we lack the ability to change the past, nor should we change it.”

In no mood to deal with the presence’s vague words, Arden clenched his hands and glared up at the tree. Not a trace of fear to be found. “What is this attunement? Is it connected to the melody I hear?”

“Your first mistake is assuming it is an attunement. Ortus has no sway over it, nor would it ever try, for the prime elements stand above all others.”

As if shocked by lightning, Arden jerked back, eye wide. Even he knew what that meant. The only magic beyond the reach of Ortus, but so rare, he only saw mentions of it in books on mythology, as if it had vanished long ago. Was that the legacy of this place? A prime element?

“Yes, this place can unlock such magic, but only in those worthy. Long has it been since the young came to pay respect to their ancestors to earn our blessings. Even when hundreds of the young potentials undertook the trials yearly, only two proved worthy. Every one of those hopefuls had purer bloodlines than you. Some even had direct links to one of us, but they still failed.”

The presence fell silent, then grew distant for several seconds, long enough for Arden to turn his attention away to inspect the rest of the clearing. A brief scan was all he needed to see all the clearing offered. It had nothing besides grass and the crystal tree resided within.

When the presence returned, a hint of curiosity tinged it. “Maybe the snake could help with that little problem. It may be the only route to its goal. Our full legacy may be too heavy for one of you, after all.”

Arden opened his mouth to ask more questions, but the presence cut him off. “Enough recovery time. All you proved is you can run away. I wonder what would happen if you can’t run.”

The clearing disappeared in the next moment and a moment after that, hundreds of roots pulled themselves from the ground and lashed out at him.

Like before, he dominated the roots, or at least tried. There were simply too many to control at once. He only had time to establish control of a dozen before the other’s descended on him.

The roots under his control lashed out at the roots, but it was futile. They soon broke apart after taking down less than half of the remaining roots.

A blink later, dozens of roots coiled around his body. However, instead of crushing him, they lifted him into the air and pulled him taut.

Once he recovered from the backlash of the destroyed roots, he dug his senses into the roots entrapping him, but something rebuffed him.

Refusing to give in, he tried again, but with a different approach. Instead of manually grabbing control, he followed the dark melody, which was more like an orchestra. His mind blanked from the sheer scale of it. It was like the entire forest turned malicious toward him.

After the shock wore off, his mind steeled. If that spirit, or whatever it was, wanted to send an entire forest at him, he would conquer it.

He dove headfirst into the countless dark melodies. The roots holding him shuddered but held as he dove deeper and deeper, following the melodies.

Soon, determination proved to insufficient. One mind wouldn’t dominate so many entities. His mind ground to a halt in the black of the dark melodies.

Still, he kept fighting as the melodies closed in on him, trapping his mind like they trapped his body.

A spark of something deep within him broke his mind free from the shackles, but it was only a momentary escape. They closed in once again, only for another spark to repel the attack.

In desperation Arden latched onto the spark, instinctively fueling it with mana, but even then, it was only a dim light. Even dim, it was enough to light a path forward.

On instinct, he followed the path. As he passed, the dark abyss warmed with more and more dark melodies turned lukewarm.

Not hostile, but they didn’t help him either. Well, they did help, as they gave no resistance as he delved deeper.

Unfortunately, his even his newfound power proved not enough. Even though the surrounding melodies warmed, the sheer amount of them slowed his progress.

However, when he slowed to a halt, those same melodies warmed even further as the spark within him touched them instead of just grazing as he moved along.

Time marched on as the once neutral melodies warmed to the point they fell under his control and, with control, they spearheaded his journey.

Each melody they touched, they spread the warmth, growing the army as they delved deeper and deeper. Even those he only grazed on his journey joined the march.

Soon, the once dark abyss was a bright rousing symphony with him at the center.

Somewhere distant, he felt his body fall to the ground, but he kept going despite his mind growing fuzzy. That fuzziness grew just as fast as his army, if not faster.

Growth stalled, then the outer flanks splintered as he reached his limit, but he kept pushing. Something told him whatever laid at the end of his journey was something he needed.

More and more melodies turned dark at the edges of his marching ranks, but he kept pushing. Any thoughts fell away as he pushed and pushed. Distant pain radiated through him, but he ignored it.

That soon turned out to be a mistake as a sudden spear of agony hit him moments later.

His march stalled in an instant, then rewound as something pulled his mind back toward his body. That something made its presence known by speaking into his dimming mind.

“An admirable display, but there are limits to what the current you is capable of. If I let you push any further, you will burn yourself out and I can’t have my soon to be successor do that. You have a spark of life within you, but it is just that, a spark. We must nurture it for it to reach its full potential.”

Soon, he knew no more as his mind snapped back into his body.