The distant chimes of camel bells carried the scent of scorched sand and mysterious silk. Ryan stood on a hill overlooking the village of "Eldervin," his eyes tracing the caravan slithering like a golden serpent under the blistering sun. In the village, children's laughter echoed as women wove colorful fabrics on rooftops. The pungent aroma of spices mingled with camel sweat, while the wind's whistle cut through vendors' cries in strange, hymn-like tongues.
Ryan approached a merchant cloaked in blue robes embroidered with silver stars, as if he'd stepped from a myth. He placed a basket of "blood fruit" he'd cultivated before him, glimmering like frozen midnight droplets. A metallic odor resembling dried blood wafted from them. The merchant, his ringed fingers trembling, cautiously touched the fruits, their surfaces clinking like polished stones.
The merchant hissed like a serpent:
"These are no ordinary fruits... Where did you get them?" He withdrew a pouch of gold from tattooed beast-hide, coins inside clinking like demonic laughter. "Take this... and enter an auction reserved for secret-bearers."
In a shadowy corner of the shop, Ryan spotted two peculiar seeds: one black with pulsating red veins, the other translucent, glowing with a blue hum like insect wings. When his fingers brushed them, a searing warmth burrowed beneath his skin. The old shopkeeper wrapped them in crackling silk paper and warned:
"Beware... What hides within seeds isn't always trees."
Ryan carried the seeds to his wooden hut, where mold mingled with smoke. He lit the stone hearth and arranged the seeds on a crumbling shelf. The cold gold felt like snakeskin under candlelight. He muttered, "The trees I grew with accelerated magic are unusual... I must hide these seeds' secrets."
As he carved venison with a rusted knife, his elderly neighbor's song seeped through the walls:
"O forest without birds... O nameless memories!" Silence swallowed the room as he ate alone, his chewing echoing like an endless hourglass.
Before sleep took him, a dark purple system screen flickered:
[New Quest: Plant 1,000 Trees (Progress: 50/1,000)].
He didn't respond, but a deep crack echoed from the ancient tree outside... as if its roots were prying open a gate to his heart.