Pain became my currency. Progress, my only reward. The Rootbound Meditation was not something that could be done daily. The trauma to my mana channels and physical tissues required three, sometimes four days of careful recovery between sessions, using basic Healing magic and cheap regenerative salves bought from the guild alchemist. My savings, which had seen a hopeful uptick, began a steady decline.
The effects, however, were undeniable. In the month following my first session, my Mana Channel Cultivation skill rose to (E). The integration of the node in my right palm reached 7%, and I successfully initiated a third node in my left foot. My Mana Control edged closer to D-rank, its precision honed by the brutal necessity of directing catastrophic internal mana floods.
My physical body began to show subtle changes. The veins on the backs of my hands and along my forearms carried a faint, verdant tracery when I channeled mana—not the bright glow of pure energy, but the darker green of living plant tissue. My Vitality stat solidified at E+ and my Stamina crept to E. I was hardening from the inside out.
But the cost was more than silver and pain. It was attention.
"You're pushing yourself into an early grave, kid."
Sir Kane stood at the edge of my training yard, arms crossed, watching me complete the final, trembling forms of my morning swordsmanship drill. My grip was unsteady, a deep fatigue etched into my movements that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
"Merely diligent practice, Master Kane," I replied, sheathing my sword. The motion was smooth, a testament to drilled-in muscle memory, but he wasn't fooled.
He stepped closer, his sharp eyes missing nothing. "Diligence is steady. This..." he gestured at me, "...is desperation. Your foundation is improving, yes. Your swordsmanship is sharper. But your eyes look like you're fighting a war in your sleep. And your mana..." He frowned, his own senses as a C+-rank aura user picking up on the strange, dense, slightly wild quality of my energy. "It doesn't ripple like a mage's anymore. It... hums. Like a beehive buried in the ground."
It was an astute observation. The Sylvan Circuit, even in its infancy, didn't concentrate power in a single core to be emitted. It distributed it, creating a low, constant resonance throughout my body.
"I am exploring... alternative mana exercises," I admitted, knowing a partial truth was safer than a lie with him. "To compensate for my class limitations."
Kane grunted, not satisfied but unwilling to pry into a mage's business. "Just don't burn your channels out. A dead student is a poor reflection on his teacher. And you still owe me a demonstration of the Imperial Forms before I teach you the final principles of my style. You have ten months left on our wager."
"I will be ready," I said, with more confidence than I felt. The wager was the least of my deadlines.
The more dangerous attention came from the guild. My need for coin forced me to take jobs with higher risk and higher reward. I joined a party clearing Rockjaw Lizards from a quarry. My role was support, but when the Vanguard was pinned, I didn't just heal. I used a fraction of a second of Rootbound-fortified channel stability to unleash a Mana Bullet (F) with speed and force that belied my E- rank. It struck the lizard's eye, not killing it, but creating the opening needed.
The party leader, a D-rank ranger named Elara, looked at me strangely after. "That was a clean shot for a support. Almost like you've done it before."
"I practice," I said simply.
The rumors began, small and quiet. The mapper kid is tougher than he looks. His healing is weirdly effective. Did you see how that slime just... tripped when he was near?
It was manageable. Until Borin, the unstable fire mage from my first party, sought me out.
"Roy! There you are!" He found me studying a guild herbology ledger in the reference nook. His voice was a tense whisper. "I need your help. My mana... it's been better since that day in the spider cave. But last night, trying a new glyph, it... it felt like it was going to explode again. But then it didn't. It felt like... like there was a wall in my channels, keeping it stable. A green, woody kind of wall."
My blood ran cold. During the spider fight, I had stabilized his chaotic mana with a thread of my own. I hadn't considered the possibility of a residual effect. My Plant-attuned mana, designed to integrate and grow, might have left a microscopic imprint in his channels.
"Meditation and basic control drills are what you need," I said, my tone flat and dismissive. "I got lucky that day. I'm not a tutor."
"But it felt like you," he insisted, leaning in. "It felt like that calm, growing feeling you have around you. What are you doing, Roy? What kind of support magic is that?"
This was a disaster. If a mage as unobservant as Borin could sense the unique signature of my Sylvan Circuit, what would a real scholar or a Church examiner notice?
"I am a Plant-affinity Support Mage," I stated, each word precise and cold. "My magic has a stabilizing effect on living things. That is all. Do not read into it. And do not speak of 'woody walls' in your channels to anyone. They will think you're delving into forbidden life-force manipulation, and the Church will take an interest in us both."
The fear of the Church's puritanical Light-aligned enforcers was universal. Borin paled and took a step back. "I... I didn't mean... Forget I said anything." He scurried away.
I let out a slow breath. The incident was a firebell in the night. My power was seeping out, leaving traces. I was becoming a phenomenon, not just a person. And phenomena get studied, dissected, or destroyed.
I needed a cover. A reason for my strange capabilities.
The solution came from the last place I expected: the journal. In a margin, Kaelan had scribbled a note about masking the unique resonance of the Sylvan Circuit. "To hide a forest, plant a familiar tree in front of it. Emulate a known, benign archetype."
A known archetype. For a young mage with unusual resilience and a Plant affinity...
The next day, I went to the guild's request board and pinned up a small, self-written notice on a scrap of parchment:
"Wanted: Information or leads on the lost herbalist techniques of the Greenwarden tradition. Willing to trade minor alchemical services or silver for verified lore. Inquire with WF-0097."
The Greenwardens were a semi-mythical, disbanded order of druidic healers and herbalists from centuries past. They were known for deep attunement to plants and natural magic, and were viewed as harmless, eccentric healers—the perfect camouflage. By publicly searching for their "lost techniques," I could explain any unusual plant-based magic as personal rediscoveries. It was a thin veil, but better than none.
The notice attracted little attention at first. But it planted a seed.
My life fell into a brutal tripartite rhythm:
1. The Grind: Rootbound Meditation sessions, followed by days of recovery filled with physical sword training and studying Kaelan's alchemical notes.
2. The Cover: Taking guild jobs, always playing the part of a slightly-too-skilled but dedicated support mage, and gently spreading word of my "interest in Greenwarden lore."
3. The Preparation: Using Silas's map, I began crafting specialized gear. I brewed basic anti-necrosis poultices from Kaelan's recipes. I started a small, hidden garden behind the cottage using Plant Creation to grow Silverthread and Grave-Moss—components for more advanced protections against death magic. Every silver coin not spent on healing salves went into this.
One evening, exhausted after a meditation session that left my left leg numb, I checked my Status. The numbers were moving, but too slowly.
[Rank: E- (Peak)]
[Mana Channel Cultivation: E (12%)]
[Node Integration: Right Palm - 9%, Left Foot - 3%, Solar Plexus - 0.5%]
I was approaching the threshold of E-rank proper, but D-rank felt like a mountain on the horizon. The "clay cup" of my C-rank Potential was the bottleneck. The Rootbound Meditation was strengthening the cup's material, but not expanding its size. For that, I needed the Bloom.
Seventeen months was an eternity and the blink of an eye.
I looked at my right hand, the skin over the cultivating node slightly tougher, like bark. I was no longer just building a foundation. I was becoming something else. Something the System had a name for, but the world had forgotten.
A Greenwarden? No.
A gardener of the self.
And my most crucial harvest still lay in a dead man's lair, seventeen months and a hundred nightmares away.