When we accepted the Tree’s offer and made our settlement under its protection almost 200 years ago, we were a tri-racial group: descendants of the rock spirit Asmonoth, descendants of the crimson angel Belzimir, and humans, a race whose origin is still unknown to us as they migrated to our continent more than 3000 years ago.
We have records of historical figures with mixed origins dating all the way back to the founding of the Sunny Empire. So while most preferred their own kind, many mixed families existed even then.
This status quo which was characterized by tentative tolerance, but not full acceptance changed after our ancestors escaped to the Black Desert. In the face of a common enemy, unity was important above all. Old grudges were set aside, and rivalries forgotten. This together with an already existing precedent made interracial relationships the norm.
Unsurprisingly, in the current day and age, we have reached a point where differentiating by race has become meaningless. Were you to ask, you’d most likely get a dirty look or a confused: “I’m Korgadarian.”
Not from the purists though. Pointing out that their eye color is a hereditary trait of a different racial group might land you in a knife fight.
So, keep your thoughts to yourself.
- Excerpt from How to Survive in a Desert: A Brief History of Korgadar by Alon Thomson.
Not much time has passed since the last Ents have departed the plain.
Nevertheless, it was not typical for people to wait quietly. Instead, the silence that was forced onto them through a march loud enough that not even Bob’s incessant chatter could pierce it disappeared as suddenly as it first appeared.
Excited conversations could now be heard coming from all directions, and when Kerek focused closely he could even hear snippets of speeches being practiced.
He didn’t mind the lively atmosphere, liking a little bit of conversation just like the next man and it was nice to catch up with the other guards.
A few minutes later he was already cussing out the naivety of his past self.
It went well enough until the metaphorical pile of small talk topics ran out, which wouldn’t have been a problem on its own. The silence that followed was amicable, not the awkward kind.
The issue was who decided to fill it.
The guards usually worked in pairs and it was none other than his partner Bob who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
A trio of young women seated themselves nearby, an opportunity that Bob couldn’t let slip by.
So, there he was bombarding the ladies with vastly exaggerated stories that were fast getting on the nerves of not only him, but all his other colleagues too, if the side eyes shot Bob’s way were any indication.
The more he tried to zone out the more Bob’s voice invaded his head.
Giving up on ignoring the situation he stole a glance at the trio of listeners who were lucky enough to get his partner's attention.
Seeing their strained faces was enough to give him a dose of secondhand embarrassment. The fact that they were getting progressively more strained with every subsequent word of Bob’s animated chatter reminded him that there was a reason why he never truly befriended Bob.
A horrible guy he was not, but a bad listener he sure was.
He couldn’t hold back anymore, he needed to act to preserve his sanity. “Bob, that’s a very exciting story. Now how about you let the ladies properly introduce themselves? I don’t think I managed to catch their names.”
“Oh, sorry,” Apologized Bob, having the decency to look at least slightly embarrassed.
The group of women exchanged a few meaningful glances before the tallest of them started introducing them.
"I’m Violet, and these are—"
"Violet, what a beautiful name,” interrupted Bob. “It reminds me of that one time a group of chaos slimes attacked the wall. Their bodies were dark purple and shining with magical energy. I, of course, was the first to notice them, and before anyone else could react I shot the leading smile straight between its eyes. Or where you’d expect the eyes to be. Did you know that …”
Kerek sighed quietly and went back to tuning Bob out.
Well, you couldn’t blame Kerek for trying, nevertheless, some people were not destined for enjoyable conversations.
When roots started erupting from the ground, it was as if the Tree itself decided to save him and his fellow prisoners.
The interruption couldn’t have come at a better time.
He pulled up his sleeve, closed his eyes, and did his best to relax while the Tree part slithered inside his vein. Some people preferred an entry directly through their face.
Kerek was happy that this was simply up to personal preference, while no practical difference existed, he liked his mouth unviolated.
The whole process didn’t make much sense biologically, as a part of a tree, especially the Tree had nothing to be doing inside a human body.
Not to mention the issue of dimensions, a branch wouldn’t fit inside a vein, no matter how much you might want it to.
The Tree didn’t care for such trivialities. For a being as powerful as It reality was at times merely a suggestion, even Kerek, at best an average practitioner understood that much.
The root slithered forward meeting his offered hand, only to stop abruptly.
The tree as always waited patiently for consent. He gave a nod and the wooden appendage plunged inside him and while he barely felt its entrance, his body was instantly flooded with mana.
There was a reason why most of the citizenry visited these meetings, even the more apolitical ones. The practical benefits were immense.
With no time to waste Kerek sat himself as comfortably as he could, closed his eyes, and visualized cultivating in the Way of the Tiger, the standard body reinforcement technique.
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Assuming it was subpar would be reasonable for almost everywhere in the World. Not in Korgadar. The city took its open science approach seriously, making all publicly funded research available to anyone interested.
The technique was not the most widespread one for nothing. Yes, there were without a doubt secrets hidden deep in the ancient archives of the legacy families.
He didn't doubt that they hoarded useful discoveries, but he was doubtful that their knowledge reached the heights they wanted the rest of them to think.
Korgadar was a machine running on free education, effective healthcare, and a strong military. If a group of wealthy ex-nobles thought that they could match the concentrated efforts of tens of thousands then they were in for a rude awakening.
Well, they still had elixirs, tutors, and connections on their side. That was the reality of life, equality in opportunity was an admirable ideal to pursue and an unrealistic demand at the same time.
The Way of the Tiger started by gathering his mana inside his bones, this was a difficult exercise in control and Kerek soon found his forehead covered in sweat.
He imagined his bones growing denser, dense enough that he could rip his own hand away and club Troll heads with it.
He stood in the void, surrounded by endless nothingness, his left arm in his right hand. He wasn’t alone for long as a monster thrice as big as him, with red angry eyes materialized close by. Its skin dark green, rugged, and full of scars. The breath of the Troll was strong enough to make him grimace, though the battle axe it wielded was the more dangerous weapon.
He stood there naked. His body his only protection. His body his only weapon.
He beckoned the troll with his severed arm, provoking it.
It snarled and started closing the distance in a mad sprint. In a real battle, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. This however was a battle of will and there the rules of reality grew murky.
He didn't dodge the blow as that would defeat the whole purpose, instead, he gave the Troll a crazed smile and headbutted the axe strike about to sink into his shoulder.
It hurt, it hurt like hell. His vision was spinning while blood trickled down his face, soon blinding his eyes and filling his mouth with warmth.
Nevertheless, his head had rebutted the strike.
Not giving the troll any time to recover Kerek closed the distance and blindly struck with his weapon, through sheer luck or his imagination greasing the wheels he struck the Troll’s groin cloth.
The fact that he struck with a severed arm and not one still attached to him was now paying dividends, groping trolls was not exactly a pastime of his.
He couldn’t see the Troll's reaction as his eyes were glued together with warm blood. Rather than seeing it he heard it and the scream was loud enough to make his ears ring, proving that it was indeed a he.
Stumbling while clenching his ears was the last thing he did before an axe hit his already injured head and smashed it like a watermelon.
He opened his eyes with a wince and a killer headache, his concentration falling. Recognizing his limits, Kerek loosened his hold on the mana in his bones. The relief was immediate while the mana saturated the rest of his body.
That wasn’t the formal process, normally a practitioner would control the release and let the mystic energies flow from their bones into their mana channels in the required pattern.
That wasn’t the case for Kerek, his control was too sloppy when he was young, so instead he created a workaround of sorts.
When his headache was mostly gone, he concentrated on his mana-saturated body and flung all the mana into his bones once more, this time for only a fraction of a second.
He hurriedly diverted all of it inside his mana channels according to the technique.
It was a necessary compromise, if he were to skip the bone-reinforcing step altogether, he’d soon find his frame too fragile compared to his otherwise enhanced body.
Too sloppy to do it normally, but too stubborn to switch to a new technique, young Kerek instead changed the typical steps: bones - channels, into bones - a short break - bones for a second - channels.
He asked his teacher about it and she was intrigued by the method, a little bit of testing discovered that while it wouldn't give him any extra benefits it'd let him use the technique to its full potential even with his lacking control.
Cultivating like that for years has made him grow used to it, so he never bothered to learn it the traditional way.
With every breath, he felt higher and higher concentrations of ambient mana entering him. That would’ve been fine if he wasn’t getting a steady stream of mana through the Tree root too.
Kerek was not a man of risk, so he recognized that it was high time to put on his rebreather. While most of his mind was busy with cultivation he slowly guided his hand around his neck where the gadget was dandling.
One satisfying click later and his rebreather was firmly in place.
It was an engineering marvel and an important safety tool. The Tree had its branches full with the ritual, so managing the internal mana concentration of tens of thousands of people at the same time was a recipe for a disaster.
In the past, there weren’t that many participants. The population was smaller, and the number of people respecting the Tree was lower.
Now there were enough of them to inconvenience even It. That’s why the College of Arcane Arts came in and submitted a theoretical design of a rebreather. A tool that would regulate any intake of ambient mana.
The leadership at the Institute of Mechanization and Weaponry was intrigued by the proposal and soon a joint research team was created.
A few weeks later a prototype was built and before the year ended they were already being mass-produced.
The Tree still had to regulate the mana, after all, it was pumping it inside every participant. Nevertheless, the task turned out to be much easier with ambient mana kept at bay, which was only logical.
Taking care of a pond is difficult. Taking care of tens of thousands of ponds is grueling to an unimaginable degree. Taking care of tens of thousands of ponds during a storm is impossible.
Not that there were many ponds in Korgadar, and one person wouldn’t be able to take care of even a single pond let alone ten thousand. So, while the metaphor sucked, it was obvious that the Tree didn’t. It was amazing.
The Way of the Tiger focused on creating impenetrable skin and a sturdy skeleton, with a secondary focus on increasing muscle strength.
The shortcomings were obvious enough, the technique was without a peer when it came to increasing toughness and the strengthening effect was quite strong too, but it didn't provide any perception enhancement whatsoever. Nor did it provide any special abilities or fancy techniques.
It was therefore not surprising that practitioners used it to build a solid physical foundation before switching to a more advanced technique.
Kerek had a different plan. With his average talent hopping between many techniques seemed counterproductive to him, even mastering a second one would take too long.
Rather than spreading himself too thin, he decided to double down. He may never shoot lightning from his fingers, fly, or have molten magma coursing through his veins.
That said he should one day be tough enough to survive a building collapsing on him, strong enough to bench-press cows and his skin will serve as an impenetrable barrier that even the sharpest of swords won't be able to pierce.
That was the future he envisioned for himself.
He could feel his body resonating with these thoughts, the mana in his channels churning violently, like grains of sand caught in a raging sandstorm.
The mana splashed around violently, but eagerly.
He felt strong, he felt tough, he felt invincible. He accepted the Tree's mana hungrily, demanding more and more. His channels were overflowing, his mind was straining.
Then as suddenly as it came, the alignment of his mind and body disappeared.
It was a state every practitioner strived for, no matter whether wizard or knight, sorcerer or martial. Holding it for a few seconds was already incredible, still, Kerek couldn’t help but feel greedy.
No, am I brainless? Forcing it will lead me nowhere, patience is the key. Sometimes it was difficult to be patient, especially when you were lagging behind others and Kerek knew that if he took more risks he could’ve been better.
He also didn’t think it was worth it, he liked to read books and corpses weren’t very good at that.
With his mind back on track he spent the next twenty minutes fighting against his exhausted body to keep cultivating.
His mind and body might no longer be in a state of perfect union, but it would've been a waste. Such a perfect cultivation environment was something to be treasured.
He still did his best to imagine his body growing stronger, the closer the body and mind were connected the more difficult and rewarding grew the cultivation, and mental pictures were an effective learning tool to achieve that.
Nonetheless, he was too tired to imagine something specific or complicated, so he took the most uninspired of mental images and imagined his muscles simply growing bigger.
His forehead was now completely covered in sweat, not only that but even his clothes got drenched.
His legs started cramping up and his back was growing increasingly uncomfortable. Just as he was about to give up the ringing of the Startbell could be heard.
He started slowing his cultivation until it halted completely, but the passive cycling he usually kept going in the background didn't resume.
His channels could use the rest, and overworking them would be only counterproductive in the long term.
The necessary preparations must've been finished as the Startbell signaled the end of cultivation and the beginning of something much less enjoyable, politics.
