Chương 108: Chapter 94 – Shaping a New Legacy

Cade stood quietly at the center of the dying storm. The roar of the Ashen Vortex no longer sounded violent. Now he found solace in the wind and ash whipping around him. Thunder rolled somewhere high overhead. The storm still possessed immense power, but the cataclysmic fury from before had faded into something quieter. More peaceful. Transformative. Cade inhaled slowly. Pure essence flooded toward him, pressing uselessly against channels that already brimmed to capacity, yet something within them felt different.

He directed his awareness inward. As he focused on his channels and slowly circulated his essence, the difference quickly became noticeable. The flow felt smoother than before. His channels carried the essence with less resistance now despite the absurd quantity moving through them. He continued circulating the essence through his internal pathways while studying the sensation carefully. Had his channels expanded? They no longer felt close to rupturing, yet the tight stabbing sensation throughout his body remained.

Maybe he had inadvertently strengthened his channels from continuously absorbing and cycling the massive amounts of essence during the destruction of the Great Tree. As his awareness moved inward, he leaned into the strange points of pain scattered throughout his body. The rhizome continued drawing in trickles of an unfamiliar current from every point. There were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

Each aligned somewhere within his flesh and connected to his channels, yet the points themselves felt fundamentally different from the surrounding structures. They had widened and deepened beneath the strain of maintaining the vortex. The closest comparison his mind could produce was that these points had a different dimensionality to them. His channels felt like flowing structures extending throughout his body in three-dimensional space.

That much made intuitive sense considering essence circulated through them like fluid through pipes. But these strange points— They felt like they possessed depth beyond the channels themselves. It was as though each point pierced through the existing structure and extended somewhere farther. But the analogy immediately broke down. His channels were obviously already three-dimensional structures, so what exactly were these points connecting to? Whatever was happening to his channels would have to wait.

More immediate problems demanded his attention. Cade slowly exhaled. The strange points, the rhizome, the unfamiliar current trickling in—those were mysteries he could investigate later. Right now, the Great Tree needed to be restored. Cade redirected his awareness fully toward the rhizome itself. He could feel it threaded throughout his body, aligned with his exhausted channels. He knew that it didn't just connect to his physical channels.

The rhizome extended through his metaphysical channels as well, weaving itself throughout both structures simultaneously. The System, or the Record, had already confirmed that much after he gained [Prismatic Conduit]. He still didn't fully understand the difference between the two, but he assumed that stamina flowed through the physical while mana flowed through the metaphysical. But he wasn't entirely sure where essence fit.

Considering he could feel essence moving through his body and channels, he leaned toward it being tied more closely to the physical, though he doubted the answer was that simple. Cade was about to force his will into the rhizome once more, but he hesitated. Part of him worried that trying to force the rhizome to grow might interrupt whatever it was currently doing around his eyes. But after several seconds, Cade slowly shook his head.

Whatever strange process the rhizome had begun continued on its own the entire time he maintained the Ashen Vortex. There was no reason it couldn't continue working around his eyes while also responding to his will elsewhere. Especially if he focused entirely on forcing the rhizome to grow from his feet, far away from the damaged tissue around his face. And if the lightning suddenly stopped, then Cade would simply stop growing the new tree and wait. Simple as that.

Another distant rumble of thunder rolled overhead as Cade settled deeper into himself and prepared to begin. He took a slow breath and settled his awareness deeper into the rhizome, but he did not immediately force essence into it. First, he needed to be clear about his intent. Vorduun's teachings resurfaced in Cade's mind. Essence manipulation was not merely about circulating essence through one's channels. Intent mattered just as much as the structures themselves, if not more. Clear direction mattered.

A cultivator needed to understand what they were trying to accomplish before shaping essence toward that purpose. So Cade carefully focused on what he actually wanted. He didn't want just any old tree to grow or an imitation of the old Great Tree. He wanted something better. Something that truly belonged to this realm. That thought settled as he organized the tangled ideas in his mind one by one. The frogs needed a place where life could flourish again.

A sanctuary where growth and vitality could spread naturally through Cynthia's Legacy without corruption twisting everything beneath the surface. Somewhere their trials could take place once more. But in his mind, the tortoises needed to be represented as well. Whatever he created needed to accept desolation as part of the Cycle of this realm. Destruction and endings held just as much purpose as new growth and beginnings. The new Great Tree needed to survive both. No, survival alone wasn't enough.

It needed to benefit both groups equally while the tree itself also gained something from the Cycle of growth and desolation. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Cade frowned as the complexity of the problem expanded in his mind. Two fundamentally opposing forces somehow had to exist within the same structure without one consuming the other. Then there was Aquelion.

According to his Dungeon Quest, Cynthia's Legacy had existed to guide the Viscount. Cade still did not fully understand what that meant, but he knew the giant gator should not simply be shoved toward the same destiny Sildraxa had tried forcing onto him. Aquelion deserved a choice, just like everyone else. The realization sharpened Cade's thoughts. The new Great Tree could not simply reinforce the old Paths. It also needed to help creatures discover their own. And not just Aquelion.

What if a tortoise no longer wished to walk the path of Desolation? What if a frog sought something beyond endless life and growth? What if either side wanted something entirely different from what Sildraxa had designed for them to become? Cade's thoughts raced as the implications unfolded. How was he supposed to create something capable of harmonizing life, desolation, personal growth, soul repair, and individual choice all at once? Doubt crept its way into the edges of his mind.

Maybe he was overcomplicating this. Maybe he should simply grow a replacement tree instead of trying to redesign the entire metaphysical structure of Cynthia's Legacy by himself. Vorduun's deep voice rumbled through his memory.

"Patience, one step at a time." Cade exhaled as some of the tension building within him eased. One step at a time. He did not need to solve every problem immediately. Cade leaned back into the drifting cloak surrounding his body while his thoughts shifted toward the structure of the old Great Tree. Eight massive root-pillars surrounding a central ninth pillar. His expression slowly tightened as he also remembered the vision after Sildraxa's attack.

The eight colossal entities surrounding the impossible tree-dragon at the center. Eight surrounding one. The pattern felt far too deliberate for comfort. Cade still did not fully understand what he had witnessed during that vision, but the memory left an unease twisting through him now. The old Great Tree had mirrored the octagonal ritual. Whether intentional or not, Cade did not want to recreate it. The new tree needed something different. Something not connected to the horrific past.

Another idea began taking shape inside his mind. The new Great Tree would be supported by only three pillars. One for the frogs' growth and creation. One for the tortoises' desolation and destruction. And one for those seeking their own path. For those who wished to step beyond the identities and destinies anyone imposed upon them. A faint smile replaced Cade's exhausted and weary expression. That could work. Growth, desolation, and self-determination existing together instead of endlessly consuming one another.

The image settled in his mind until it no longer felt like vague hope born from exhaustion and guilt. Once his mental image settled firmly into place, Cade stood upright and planted his feet. The ground beneath him felt solid while winds from the dying vortex whipped streams of ash around his bare body. His cloak shifted softly behind him before settling once more. He inhaled, and pure essence surged toward him from every direction. This time Cade did not merely circulate it through his channels.

He seized the incoming essence and directed it inward toward the rhizome woven throughout his body while simultaneously pushing his will and mental image alongside it. Grow. The command resonated throughout his body as he directed the rhizome to expand through the soles of his feet. More and more essence flooded into the rhizome as Cade guided it toward the first step of his plan. Grow underground first. Build a stable foundation that can support what is soon to come.

Nearly every old cultivation story Cade had read before the System harped on one specific lesson above all others. Foundations mattered far more than almost anything else. A weak foundation always failed eventually, no matter how impressive the structure above it became. You could not build a tower to the heavens on a weak foundation. While he wasn't planning to grow a tree capable of reaching the heavens, he still knew that its foundation would determine how much it could grow.

Starting with a strong foundation was slower, but far easier than repairing cracks later. In this case, a shallow or incomplete root system would eventually collapse beneath the weight of the Great Tree he pictured in his mind. For what Cade envisioned—for what he wanted this new Great Tree to become—the roots needed to spread farther and deeper than anything before it. Before the System, a growing plant would need to split precious energy between expanding upward toward sunlight and downward into the earth.

Growth above and below competed for limited resources within the plant. But Cade stood amidst an ocean of pure essence. He had no need to prioritize what grew above ground yet. Instead, Cade focused entirely on spreading the rhizome's roots. He pictured the rhizome extending downward into the earth beneath him while simultaneously guiding it to spread outward as far as possible.

Without consciously realizing it, Cade slowly brought his palms together before his chest in a prayer position as he focused entirely on the growth below. The rhizome obeyed. An unpleasant crawling sensation spread through Cade's feet as roots pushed through flesh and emerged from his soles and into the ground beneath him. The feeling intensified, yet while it wasn't pleasant, it did not truly hurt. He had nearly grown used to the sensation of something alive growing throughout his body.

Cade felt the rhizome plunge roots downward through loose ash and soft earth while countless smaller tendrils simultaneously branched outward, extending towards where the old root-pillars once stood. Thin white roots rapidly thickened into larger structures as pure essence flooded continuously into them from Cade's channels. The growth accelerated as each inhale pulled more essence into his body. The rhizome greedily consumed every bit of essence Cade directed into it.

Thunder rolled overhead while the dying Ashen Vortex still churned around him, carrying streams of liberated essence through the ruined landscape. Then something strange happened. The essence swirling through the vortex started drifting inward. At first the shift remained subtle enough that Cade almost dismissed it. But the longer he continued feeding the rhizome, the more obvious the effect became.

Winds shifted as surrounding currents of pure essence bent toward him before flowing into his channels with each breath. He had not consciously attempted to manipulate the surrounding essence. Yet somehow his will still tugged at it. Carefully, Cade focused on the sensation, and the surrounding winds immediately accelerated toward him. Excitement flickered briefly through his exhaustion. The rhizome responded as its roots exploded farther outward beneath the realm.

Cade felt them burrowing through packed earth and ancient ash. Larger roots split apart into countless smaller branches that continued spreading deeper beneath Cynthia's Legacy. The sensation became strangely immersive. Cade could feel the underground landscape through the rhizome. Cold compact soil. Fragments of buried stone. Residual pockets of essence hidden deep underground. The rhizome pierced through everything it encountered, absorbing what it needed to continue growing while leaving the rest behind.

Thunder rumbled overhead again as Cade inhaled and more essence rushed into him. Massive underground structures rapidly formed beneath where the Great Tree once stood while the rhizome pushed farther and farther downward. Until suddenly Cade felt one of the roots deep below push into a hollowed-out section beneath the earth. Cade's concentration sharpened as he directed his awareness toward the strange pocket underground.

The surrounding soil abruptly gave way to open space as the rhizome continued spreading deeper into the cavity. Then the roots encountered something large and brittle. Long segmented structures cracked apart beneath the rhizome's advance while curved fragments splintered as it pushed farther inward. Then the rhizome suddenly stopped and Cade felt something small, round, and impossibly dense blocking the path forward. The advancing growth pressed against it from multiple directions without effect.

For the first time since beginning its expansion, the rhizome had encountered something it could not penetrate.