The next week was a blur of disciplined obsession. The Mid-Grade Mana-Gathering Crystal, placed on the worn table in my cottage, became the sun around which my new solar system revolved. It hummed with a low, constant frequency, pulling the sparse ambient mana of the territory into a gentle vortex that ended with me. My Mana (E+) pool, which usually took hours to refill after heavy use, now topped off in under thirty minutes. It was like breathing pure oxygen after a lifetime of thin mountain air.
This was the resource I had lacked. The fuel for my heresy.
Kaelan's journal, now my most prized possession, lay open beside it. I pored over his notes, cross-referencing them with my own painful experiments. His failures were my roadmap. The "fibrous growth" in the subject's palm—that happened when the cultivator tried to force the node with external mana pressure. The "cancerous mana growth"—that was the result of impatience, of trying to grow the root channels too fast without properly integrating them with the body's natural meridians.
The key, as he'd written, was symbiosis and gardening.
My previous attempts had been crude—shoving a mana seed into my solar plexus and hoping it sprouted. Now, I began properly.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the crystal's warmth against my sternum, I closed my eyes and activated Mana Eyes (E). My inner landscape bloomed before me: the familiar river of mana flowing through my core channels, bright and green. And there, scattered like faint, greenish constellations, were the damaged sites of my past attempts—tender, bruised spots in my spiritual flesh.
I focused on the strongest one, the first root I'd ever attempted down my right leg. Using Mana Control (D), I didn't push. I coaxed. I visualized not a root, but a mycorrhizal network—the symbiotic fungi that help tree roots absorb nutrients. A fine, hair-thin web of my own Plant mana, woven from my life force, gently stitching itself into the walls of my existing mana channel in the thigh.
It was agonizingly slow. A millimeter of growth per hour. But it was different. There was no tearing pain, only a deep, resonant ache, like a muscle being worked for the first time. The new structure wasn't foreign; it was an enhancement of what was already there.
When dawn broke after that first proper session, I was drenched in sweat, but exultant. I checked my Status.
[Skill: Mana Channel Cultivation (G) acquired.]
[Appraisal: Mana Channel Cultivation (G) - A foundational skill for the development of a Sylvan Circuit. Allows for the careful, symbiotic reinforcement and expansion of the body's natural mana channels. Growth Type. Progress: Node 1 (Right Leg - Femoral Channel): 0.1% Integration.]
A new skill. Not given by the world, but created by my actions, recognized by the System. It was proof I was on a valid, if unknown, path. The progress was minuscule, but it was progress.
For the next month, my routine transformed. Mornings were for swordsmanship—drilling Roy's Swordsmanship until the forms were instinct, and my body, nourished by the constant ambient mana, grew stronger. Afternoons were for Adventurer's Guild work. I stuck to safe, low-risk tasks: herb collection, pest extermination, more mapping. I saved every copper, my total climbing to a meager but meaningful 1 Gold, 45 Silver. I was no longer destitute.
Evenings and much of the night belonged to the garden within. With the crystal's support, I could sustain the delicate cultivation process for hours. I started work on a second node, in my left arm. The Mana Channel Cultivation skill slowly, painfully, leveled to (F). Integration of the first node reached 1%.
The effect was subtle but undeniable. My Mana Control didn't level, but its efficiency improved. Channeling mana to my right leg was 5% faster. My Vitality ticked from E to E+. The root was beginning to function, acting as a secondary stabilizer and reservoir.
This was the foundation. But Kaelan's journal spoke of the eventual need for a Core Node—not around the heart, but a self-created center that would act as the nexus for the entire Sylvan Circuit. That was the true end of the "Foundation Establishment" stage. To reach even that point, I would need resources far beyond this crystal. I needed the alchemical ingredients Kaelan listed: Sylphid Sap (from wind-attuned treants), Heartmoss (found only in caves touched by fey magic), Pure Earth Core Fragment (the remains of an earth elemental).
These weren't things money could easily buy. They were dungeon rewards, rare harvests from dangerous zones. They were the opportunities snatched by adventurers with skill and luck.
Or by those who know where to look, I thought, the ghost of my novel knowledge stirring.
I would not touch the destinies of the Five. Their growth was the world's imperative. But the world was vast. The novel followed protagonists, meaning 99.9% of it happened off-screen. There were countless hidden groves, fallen elementals, and sealed caves they would never visit because greater treasures called them.
I could target those. The forgotten opportunities. The leftovers of history.
My next goal crystallized, aligning with my two-year deadline. Before the Dragon Academy admissions, I needed to:
1. Achieve D-rank (break the human limit) via the Sylvan Circuit, not a Mana Circle.
2. Gather the resources for the Core Node.
3. Increase my combat proficiency to survive the higher-level dungeons where those resources lay.
The first step required more than cultivation; it required a catalyst. My C-rank Potential was a chain. Kaelan's journal had a grim, one-line entry on Potential: "The vessel's size is set by the heavens, but the material of the vessel can be reinforced. To expand a clay cup, one must first break it and add better clay."
I needed "better clay." A treasure that could reforged my foundation.
And I knew of one. Not a protagonist's treasure. A villain's leftover.
In the novel, a minor antagonist named Gorek the Rotting—a failed necromancer's apprentice turned bandit lord—had terrorized the borderlands between the Holy Empire and the Dwarven Kingdom. He was ultimately crushed by a passing caravan guard (a future side-character in the protagonist's party) two years before the Academy arc. Gorek was a nobody. But in his lair, he kept a stolen prize: the Bloom of the Gravewyrm.
It was a macabre, paradoxical thing. A flower that grew only in soil fertilized by a powerful dragon's decay. It was saturated with death-aspected mana, but at its heart held a seed of immense, paradoxical life force—the dragon's last spark of vitality, preserved and twisted. For a necromancer, it was a poison. For a druid or a life mage, it was an unstable, dangerous bomb.
But for me, with a Plant affinity and a body learning to integrate foreign mana structures? For someone trying to "add better clay" to his vessel? It could be the violent, perfect catalyst to shatter my C-rank Potential and allow me to rebuild it stronger.
It was a risk worthy of a heretic. I would not steal from the heroes. I would scavenge from the scrap heap of a defeated villain.
I looked at the calendar I'd scratched on the cottage wall. The Dragon Academy admissions were in 22 months. Gorek would be defeated in about 18 months, according to the novel's timeline.
I had time to get stronger. To prepare. To plan the heist of a dead man's flower.
A slow smile touched my lips. The path was no longer just about survival. It was about strategy. I would use every scrap of knowledge, every forgotten relic, every villain's discard, to build something the System never intended.
The garden in my soul had its first tender shoots. Now, I needed to find the darkest, richest fertilizer to make it grow.