Ikenna didn't sleep that night.
After planting the crystal seed and sealing it with his blood, something within the earth began to stir—not violently, but with a deep and knowing rhythm. The ground no longer felt like soil beneath his feet. It felt like breathing flesh, like a living thing recognizing his presence… and waiting.
By midnight's deepest hour, the air grew thick and heavy. The stars above dimmed, as if some veil had fallen between him and the world.
And then the ground opened beneath him.
Not with a quake or collapse—but like a curtain being drawn aside. One blink, and Ikenna was no longer standing on his farm.
He was standing inside a vast, endless plain of golden grass, where the sky shimmered like spun silk and the earth throbbed with memory. It was not the real world.
It was the Spirit of the Land.
"Welcome, Planter," a voice called, low and resonant, as though thousands of voices echoed behind it.
Ikenna turned. A massive figure stood before him—neither man nor beast. It was shaped like a human farmer, with hands like root clusters and eyes glowing green like chlorophyll caught in sunlight. Leaves rustled from its shoulders, and vines coiled like veins across its body.
"The Land knows you now," it said. "But trust is not gifted. It is earned."
Ikenna nodded slowly. "Then test me."
The spirit raised its wooden hand. "Let us begin."
The plains warped around him. The golden grass withered, and darkness surged in like a tide. Now he stood in his old farm, the one from his first life. Barren. Cracked. Lifeless.
The wind was dry. Crops shriveled into dust.
And ahead of him stood his old self—thin, sunken-eyed, desperate. The version of Ikenna who had begged for grain under the drought sun, who had bargained with merchants for a single sack of rice.
"I failed here," Ikenna whispered.
The old version stepped forward. "You gave everything. And it still wasn't enough."
Ikenna clenched his fists. "That's why I swore to never farm with ignorance again. That's why I cherish what I've been given."
A sudden tremor rocked the vision. The sky above cracked open.
From it descended a shadow, crawling like rot through the air. It was shaped like a man, but had no face—only a gaping mouth and outstretched hands. Around its body hung withered crops and the broken tools of forgotten farmers.
"Do you know me?" the spirit asked.
"I do," Ikenna whispered. "You're the Fear of the Land. The Wasting Blight. The curse that comes when the balance breaks."
The figure shrieked and lunged at him.
Ikenna didn't run. He dropped to his knees, plunged his hand into the dead soil, and poured his qi into it.
The ground lit with green runes, spreading outward like the veins of a leaf.
The shadow hissed—but the light consumed it, swallowing the curse in a blast of emerald light.
The scene shifted again.
Now he stood beneath his current rice fields. He could see the roots of every crop—dense, healthy, and coiled like protective tendrils.
But deeper still… something pulsed.
A heart, buried beneath layers of stone, wrapped in thorned roots and sealed with ancient glyphs.
The voice returned. "The Core Root slumbers. But it has heard your truth."
Ikenna approached. He knelt before the heart and bowed low.
"I do not seek power," he said. "Only harmony. Let me be your steward."
A moment of silence.
Then the thorns receded.
The glyphs broke open.
And the heart—made of wood and crystal—began to beat.
Once… twice… then steady.
The land shook. Light burst upward.
He awoke on the surface, gasping.
The sun was rising.
And beside him, the spot where he had planted the seed now pulsed with green light. The air shimmered. The ground beneath it glowed with a network of luminous roots spreading outward in every direction.
The scroll beside him flashed.
[Core Root Bond Successful]
Domain Upgrade: Soulbound Field (Tier 1)
Defensive Traits: Living Barrier, Qi Drain Roots
Buff: +10% Crop Growth Rate, +15% Soil Retention
✅ Territory Recognizes You as Keeper
Ikenna stood slowly.
His farm… was now alive in a way no other was. It breathed with him. It would defend itself with him. The Core Root had accepted his pact.
And with it came something more.
He could feel emotions through the ground now. Every corner of the land whispered to him. The sadness of trampled grass. The joy of the new rice shoots. The warning of something moving far below.
"It worked," he said, turning to Amara, Jalun, and Professor who had rushed from the barn.
"What happened?" Amara asked, noticing the glowing root veins spiraling outward from the field's center.
"I passed," Ikenna said. "The land accepted me."
Jalun blinked. "What now?"
Ikenna looked southward—where the burrow lines had begun to shift again.
"Now," he said, "we prepare for war. Because the wyrm is waking up. And it's hungry."