Retracing the wagon''s path to the marketplace, Finlay looked for the main street to get his bearings. It would’ve been easier if he had alighted there, but this detour wasn’t only for nostalgia purposes.


    Finlay attended the auction to scout people who could help him… or become a hindrance. He recognized many, though only vaguely. None there would put their lives on the line to keep the peace of Worwick, and that included the marketplace administrator, who was a proud Gilderian, a respected man in town, and an all-around nice guy. Nice in terms of medieval standards, not modern ones. He gave Finlay stale bread one time when he found him eating some of the feed meant for the beasts. It was Finlay’s first day at the job, and he was yet to get paid.


    Fun times, Finlay sarcastically thought.


    He also eavesdropped for helpful rumors.


    Merchants sitting on the row below Finlay mentioned that a wind sect elder was in town for some secret business. This was why the Vassenets were here even though they weren’t supposed to be—they aimed to recruit one of the elder’s acolytes to be their champion. They wouldn’t be successful, Finlay was sure, because their contestant for the tournament wasn’t a wind specialist.


    What if Finlay himself volunteered to fight for the Vassenets? He had intended to beat all the lords so there’d be no accusations of bias. However, the child Vassenet lord did have the right to Worwick.


    I’m not doing this to be close to that woman, am I?


    An extremely chatty Soulheart dealer from Lagranha, desperate for someone to talk to, told Finlay that he heard the Princeps of Gilders would supposedly come for the tournament finals. This was false. Finlay couldn’t recall those in attendance but the princeps wasn’t there. Must’ve sent a representative noble. This was the person Finlay should impress by exposing the explosion plot. An easy way to connect to the princeps.


    After that? Finlay didn’t know.


    His to-do list was getting longer. His time limit remained the same.


    Don’t get overwhelmed. Break down the monumental goal of saving Ilaya into smaller chunks. Pound those into tiny pieces. Grind those tiny pieces into fine powder, and tackle them one by one. Finlay had just reached the main road—one grain of his monumental goal done.


    He then turned left, opposite the way to the town square. He used his size to jostle through the thick mudflow of people, keeping a tight grip on the World Tree seed inside his pocket. When he reached the northwestern gate of the inner town, he was drenched in sweat with dust clinging to his sticky face. The guards talking amongst themselves didn’t so much as look at him exiting the gates.


    Traversing the northern outer town was the next grain to complete.


    Finlay donned Cogwyn’s cloak and pulled its hood low. It was a very tight fit. His height and confidence in his steps were his only assets to ward off muggers. He was robbed in this area before, which became part of his motivation to become a Warden.


    Only now did he remember those lowlifes. They probably died during the Gilders’ civil war.


    Unlike the side of Worwick where Finlay entered with Beor’s party, this area only had mostly disorganized dirt roads. A narrow gap between houses was the way to reach the alley behind them. Good luck finding the next opening. It was too long ago to remember the twists and turns, so Finlay employed the timeless strategy of brute force. Some unsavory-looking people observed him trying to find his way but didn’t approach him. Keeping a specific mountain peak in sight, Finlay dove into the maze of the outer town, and, after a lot of backtracking and dead ends, eventually found the way out to the mountains.


    Next grain.


    <hr>


    Tightly grabbing onto shrubs up the steep slope, Finlay turned around and beheld a view he had seen many times in the past. Or future?


    Finlay was on one of the mountains comprising the half-crescent range to the north of Worwick. The mountains were the edge of the Principality of Gilders. Far past them stretched the snowscape of the Frost Troll tribes where the Sporeal Tide armies that attacked Gilders came from.


    “It’s no coincidence I got transported here,” Finlay muttered to himself.


    Worwick far below looked like pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles forced to fit together. Turning westward of the town, past the rolling hills, Finlay tried to find the old guard towers that should be around Little Bowl, the drained lake once the center of the Speckle mines network. He was too far away to see anything. If he could morph a spectral roc’s eyes, he’d find the towers quickly.


    From stories, Finlay learned plenty about the abandoned mines but never risked visiting because of the bandits. The bandits, buzzed the gossip, sought Speckle deposits the original tunnels hadn’t reached.


    Bandits… Defeating them was also another way to make a name for himself.


    But Finlay needed to become strong first. In his current state, he was too weak to take down even a bandit’s grandmother. Not that he would actually test that.


    The sun sailing lower in the sky told Finlay he’d been trekking for a good three hours. It took him a moment to remember what should be the sun’s path this region of the north. He resumed his ascent and entered a wooded area. Good thing the slope angled gentler; he was almost out of breath. His newly bought clothes were caked in dirt after he tumbled down moss-covered rocks a couple of times. Crumpled melfroth leaves tied with reeds around his arms and legs provided a minty respite for his aching muscles. Taking advantage of the Lumin Wisp’s residual healing, he pushed himself hard.


    Finlay had a good enough reason to disobey the Healer’s orders. Two, actually.


    Every moment he hadn’t built his mind shrine and crucible for anima refining was less preparation for the tournament. And every day the World Tree seed hadn’t sprouted was wasted time. These two factors were connected. Finlay would need strength beyond a normal man to reach Big Bowl, the next mountain over, where he’d plant the World Tree seed.


    According to ancient Kymorathi tales, Big Bowl was once a mighty mountain taller than its other mountain siblings. It was ringed by a lifestream that made it look like it was ablaze. A powerful eruption thousands of years ago, perhaps from Kymorathi blood magic tinkering with the lifestream, caused its collapse, leaving behind a cauldron-like depression so wide you could lose several Worwicks inside.


    Somewhere in the vast crater, a thin vein of a lifestream breached the soil again—the perfect place to plant a World Tree. Beor’s party would discover this lifestream several months after the Second Great Speckle Rush had begun. An impressive find that wasn’t celebrated because people were too busy killing each other by then.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Finlay learned about this from Cogwyn when they met again, including the lifestream’s location. Cogwyn suspected the earthquake that revealed the Speckle vein must’ve exposed the lifestream too. It wasn’t there before else other people would’ve found it long ago.


    Though getting inside the crater that was Big Bowl’s namesake was no easy task. Sheer cliffs that were the lip of the caldera stretched almost vertically up to the sky. Impossible for Finlay to climb them unless he had a way of strengthening himself.


    Which he did… if he hadn’t gotten lost.


    It had been twelve years since Finlay had last stepped foot on this mountain. Making his mission more difficult, the place he was searching for was only around the area of the marketplace. Might as well be a pin if the mountain was a haystack. He was wondering if he should’ve asked Beor for good luck tips when he stumbled into a distinct rock formation that he recognized.


    The head of this dog-shaped boulder pointed the way.


    He followed breadcrumbs of memories. That weird tree with ribbony branches. The patch of brown among the green, the earth exposed by a recent landslide. The shallow cave lined with fluorescent pink mushrooms. He even recalled the bones of a large creature that had been overtaken by vines. Curious why scavenger beasts hadn’t dismantled it.


    Finlay slowed his pace upon reaching a patch of the forest same as any other. Unless one knew what a forest should look like. And shouldn’t.


    Ancient trees grew so close to each other that Finlay had to squeeze himself through the gaps in places. Other areas were completely blocked off by thick lower branches that had braided themselves into walls. Tangled roots running aboveground threatened to trip him and clashing canopies made the mid-afternoon turn to dusk.


    Finlay could hear Grandpa Swaney lecturing him about how a forest grows.


    Overcrowding like this should be impossible because of competition for nutrients in the soil and sunlight. Stronger trees would win. Weaker trees would die. Each surviving tree would have its own area it dominated. As the winner trees grew, their lower leaves wouldn’t get sunlight and would fall off, like some sort of self-pruning. Lush weeds taller than Finlay shouldn’t sprout next to trees for the same reason. Yet, the undergrowth was wild and untamed, home to assorted insects more than happy to bite him.


    “This is it.” Finlay touched a tree his previous self scratched with a knife to use as a marker when he first explored this area.


    A starving jarlion led him here before. Or rather, the jarlion was chasing him, and he successfully trapped the large maned cat in this maze of tree trunks.


    Finlay didn’t know back then that a trickle from primeval natura veins deep in the crust had seeped up the mountain like a rising bubble and pooled inside it, giving off residues of energies above. It was sort of like a… world pimple. Primeval natura was concentrated life, as opposed to the regular sort of natura that has already been filtered through the layers of the world and becomes more absorbable for plants and animals. A world pimple didn’t have the full effects of a lifestream, but it still sent life into overdrive.


    A natura oasis, the elves called it. Much better name than world pimple. Elven Witchblade covens built their crone shrines over places like this since lifestreams were tremendously rare.


    But because the primeval natura was stagnant, contained inside a pocket in the mountain unlike the free-flowing lifestream, it produced stale emanations that disturbed the order of how everything was supposed to be. The ecosystem wasn’t interacting properly. Plants didn’t follow the growth succession of forests.


    Add a permeating sense of wrongness. A thick atmosphere. Pressure.


    If not for this disturbing feeling, herbivores would’ve feasted on this unlimited buffet. Instead, both prey and predator avoided this area. Only the insects and other creepy crawlies, with minds and bodies too simple to be affected, enjoyed it here.


    Finlay wasn’t the exception to the negative impact of stale natura. He swung between light-headedness and sharp concentration. There was also a persistent feeling of heaviness squeezing him as if he were wading through water. Fortunately, his muscles felt relief as fatigue from the hike slowly left him, a benefit of the concentrated natura. Would’ve been much better to begin his training at a lifestream but he needed to be strong to reach the lifestream.


    Here he was with no choice.


    He found a tree wider than its neighbors, a sign of intense life residues. Its thick gnarled roots exposed above ground had formed a nice nook by its trunk.


    A small meal for energy before starting. Finlay unslung Cogwyn’s cloak that he had tied into a bag. Inside were fruits, more medicinal herbs, and edible mushrooms he foraged along the way. When the Sporeal Tide invasion spread, Finlay swore off from eating any mushroom. But that was some years away, and he needed food now. As for water, numerous springs dotted the mountain. He passed one several minutes ago. Took a quick drink and left because water attracted animals.


    Living off the land again. Finlay couldn’t say he missed this.


    What he missed was corporate cafeteria food. He took it for granted when he was still on Earth even if it could match for a king’s feast in this world.


    For now, he had to be contented with a greenish plemy fruit. All the red ones were pecked open by birds; worms claimed the half-eaten remains still hanging on the branches. Unripe plemys had hard-to-peel-off skin and their flesh was tart and sour. Finlay had eaten worse. The yellowing starkissed fruit tasted better; he only had to contend with its many pointy seeds. He also chewed the stringy mushrooms and sucked the healing sap off the saegenta leaves.


    After finishing, Finlay rubbed the fruit peelings over his skin to keep off insects and confuse predators. It was prudent not to rely solely on the disconcerting aura around to keep hungry jarlions away, not knowing how long he’d be meditating here. He had found some jarlion tracks down the mountain though none nearby.


    He climbed into the gap in the roots and found a snug fit. Danger could come from only one direction now—in front of him. Predators rarely went for their prey head-on, preferring to ambush or chase them.


    Sitting cross-legged with his back straightened as much as possible in the confined space, Finlay closed his eyes and formed a triangle pointing down with his fingers in front of his chest. This was the basic meditative pose of the Core monks.


    The descent into the isolation of his mind began.


    Finlay breathed rapidly in small bursts, inhaling through his nose and exhaling out his mouth. Reaching a hundred cycles, he slowed down. He inhaled deeply, drawing it for several seconds, feeling the air down his throat. He held his breath for the same amount of time before gradually releasing it for twice the count. Each cycle, he added one more second. He made sure to breathe with his belly and not expand his chest.


    Humans normally breathe around twelve to twenty times a minute. Finlay’s goal was to reduce it to three. Maybe four, for now. Deliberately slowing down breathing required too much concentration for his untrained body, hindering his meditation. There was also the strain on his fairly unhealthy lungs.


    Push through. This was merely one obstacle out of many.


    He’d overcome them all.


    From eating rotting vegetables and cleaning animal manure to fighting at the siege of Aegis Forest, the last battle on Ilaya. Finlay endured. He was just a random guy plucked from Earth. This second time, he was no longer a random guy.


    He’d be the Caretaker of the new World Tree… which he needed to plant first.


    Acceleration and amplification. These two anima-manipulation techniques would be Finlay’s climbing gear to scale the Big Bowl and reach the lifestream.


    Finlay could hear the lecture of Master Isidore again. Anima could be thought of as the life force. Certain religions considered it the soul. Each sentient being, including some plants, could produce their own anima. The rest was converted from natura, borrowing life from the world.


    Accelerating the flow of anima through the conduits of one’s system breathed more life into the body, allowing extraordinary feats of strength and agility. Amplifying the anima, sort of like fanning flames, caused its residues to permeate through the life conduits, reinforcing bones and muscles to absorb the body’s stress pushing past its limits. This was his first lesson as Master Isidore’s student.


    Before Finlay could do either, he needed to awaken his anima-sense. He couldn’t control what he couldn’t feel.


    The moment Finlay could sense his own anima, his mind shrine would be constructed. The first intentional cycle of anima throughout his body would determine the initial size of the psychic crucible wherein natura would be absorbed and refined into anima.