The wind carried no scent as dawn approached—only the metallic stillness of a storm that had not yet formed. Ikenna stood at the center of the Loom Circle that Nwachi had traced in powdered emerald salt and crow's-thread. Eight torches burned blue at its edges, their flames slanted inward like watchful eyes.
Jalun stood by with a jug of fermented soil-water. Amara held a woven pouch containing ancestor ash, gathered from the small altar behind the granary. Even Nwachi, ever composed, had dipped her sleeves in black sap—the traditional mark of a guide through the Descent.
"You must drink," Nwachi said quietly. "Then kneel. Once the earth accepts you, your body will go still. Your mind will sink into the Root."
Ikenna nodded, took the jug from Jalun, and drank. The liquid was thick, gritty, and bitter as copper, yet it pulsed with energy. Qi from dozens of decomposed roots and ancient seeds flushed through his system.
He knelt.
The moment his knees touched the cold soil, the Loom Circle surged with green light, the salt trails igniting like lines of spirit-fire. A hum rose in the ground. Not heard—felt. The same frequency as a seed waking underground.
Nwachi stepped forward, chanting in a dialect older than any known sect. "Let this farmer of blood and earth… descend into the Memory Below. Let the soil know him, as he knows its pain."
Then the world fell inward.
Darkness.
Then—
Roots.
Not metaphorical ones. Real ones. Tangled like veins. Writhing. Stretching forever. Ikenna was bodiless, a consciousness slipping between fibers, pushing through miles of living memory.
Sounds echoed—plows against stone, babies crying in huts, laughter of harvests long past.
And then—
Fire.
He was yanked into a vision, sharp as lightning.
A field burned. Smoke blackened the horizon. Cultivators in silver masks tore through villagers with scythe-like blades. A younger Ikenna—his past self—fought with nothing but a wooden staff, shielding a child with a broken leg. He remembered this night. The night his old life ended.
A masked figure turned, eyes glowing with firelight. He raised his hand, and the world exploded.
Pain, then—
Silence.
Ikenna floated once more in the soil's soul, the vision dissolving.
But someone else was there now.
A shape formed from seed-husks, bones, and wind. A man with skin of bark and eyes of dark soil. He wore robes made of leaves and carried a staff shaped like a plow.
"Ikenna," the figure said. His voice was deep—earthquake deep. "You are the third to reach me since the Blight."
Ikenna, still bodiless, asked, "Who are you?"
"I am Mwalimu Ochu, the First Tiller. The Saint of Root and Rain."
"Why show me my death?"
"To see if you had let it fester. You have not. You carry it like compost—pain feeding strength. That is the mark of a true farmer."
Ikenna's essence swelled with the urge to speak, but Ochu raised a hand.
"You seek to defend this land. But Evergrowth will not stop at claim-runes. They will drain the field's essence and leave it hollow. If you want the land to fight back—to remember you—then you must take its name into your own."
"Name?" Ikenna echoed.
Ochu opened his staff. From within bloomed a glowing Seed Sigil, intricate and pulsing with green light.
"Bury this in your soul. But be warned—once done, you will never be just a cultivator again. You will become a Living Farm. The land's pulse will be yours. Its hunger. Its grief. And in war… its wrath."
Ikenna did not hesitate. "I accept."
The Seed Sigil surged forward, embedding into his essence like a sun burrowing into clay.
Pain. Ecstasy. Soil. Blood.
The world shattered.
When he awoke, his body was drenched in sweat. Amara rushed to him, wrapping a cloth around his shoulders.
"You were gone for nearly a day," she said.
Ikenna sat up slowly. Something was different. The ground breathed with him now. As he inhaled, the roots beneath stirred. As he exhaled, the leaves on the surrounding trees shivered.
"I can feel… everything," he murmured. "Even the worms under the field."
Nwachi's eyes narrowed with awe. "You took the Sigil."
He nodded.
"Then you're not just this farm's guardian anymore. You are the farm."
A distant crack split the air.
They turned toward the eastern hills, where the Evergrowth tents still stood.
But something was wrong.
A deep groaning sound echoed—like a creature awakening.
Then a tree in the border forest moved. Not swayed—walked. Its roots rose, revealing legs of woven bark and stones. Others followed.
Amara gasped. "The soil spirits… they're waking."
Jalun stumbled backward. "That's not normal. Not unless—"
"I called them," Ikenna said quietly. "They heard me now. They know me now."
And in the far horizon, where Evergrowth cultivators once stood confidently, now shadows moved among their tents, silent and watching.
Ikenna turned to Nwachi. "We begin counter-measures tomorrow. If Evergrowth wants a war of roots… they'll get one."