Guiding What Lies Below

[System Active – Cycle 00006]

Status: Rooted

Primary Objective: Survival

Secondary Directive: Data Acquisition

Mana Core Activity: Dormant

It wasn’t a sudden breakthrough.

More like the feeling of remembering a word that had been sitting on the tip of your tongue for days. Elusive. Aggravating. But not unfamiliar.

The mana inside me had always flowed without my guidance—gathered gently through the soil, settling deep into my core like mist coiling into a jar. I’d accepted it as passive. As natural. But lately… I’ve been feeling an edge. A subtle distinction between receiving mana and touching it.

One day—if you could call it that, since I’ve long stopped measuring time by sunrises—I focused harder than usual. Not on growth. Not on survival. Just on feeling. Following the tension. Tracing it back.

That’s when I realized I could choose where the mana went.

I didn’t have hands, or even cells in the traditional sense. But I had roots—long, thin extensions of my being—and through them, I could guide that shimmer of power. Like sending a drop of ink into a crack, I directed a flicker of energy down one particularly stubborn root tip that had been pressing against unyielding stone for who-knows-how-long.

The rock didn’t melt, or shatter, or crumble in some dramatic release. But it gave. It yielded, ever so slightly, as if acknowledging my effort.

That alone changed everything.

I started practicing—slowing my intake to feel where the mana settled, then redirecting it outward. Not much. Just a trickle at first. But roots that had been stalled for weeks began inching forward. Cracks widened. Tiny channels formed. I wasn’t just surviving anymore—I was learning how to reshape the world around me.

Then, without prompting, a quiet message etched itself into my awareness—clear, neutral, unintrusive.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

> [Trait Unlocked – Low-Level Mana Manipulation (Passive, Evolvable)]

> Allows limited directional control of mana within the hosts body, aiding in atacking, defending and localized mana refinement.

Sometime after that—hours, days, maybe longer—I felt something lock into place. A resonance in my core. Subtle, but definite. Like an internal muscle that finally understood how to move. Not a skill exactly. More like... a function clicking on.

From there, time lost meaning again. Weeks or months—blurred into one another. I stopped counting because the counting didn’t matter. What mattered was progress.

I pushed deeper. The stone below me was stratified, hardened by ancient tectonic shifts. I remembered enough from my past life—my job had something to do with fault lines and subduction zones, didn’t it? That vague memory was oddly comforting now. Like I belonged here, in the bowels of the Earth.

With each meter I gained, the mana thickened. My growth accelerated. My roots became focused tools rather than wandering limbs.

And then one day—if you could call it that—I woke from a long meditative drift and checked the size of my roots.

> Total Root Depth: 73.12m.

I had tunneled through over sixty-six meters of bedrock.

I hadn’t felt it, not really. It had just… happened. Slow, deliberate, inevitable.

And my core—my mana core—was filling faster than ever. I don’t know the mechanism behind it, but I have theories. I could feel it. The pressure. The density. What had once been a near-empty hollow was now firm, humming gently like a sleeping heart. When I checked, the saturation was at 24.2%. Nearly a quarter of the way there.

Maybe the deeper I go, the purer the mana. Or maybe my roots act as refining structures now. Whatever the reason, I can tell that my mana isn't just growing. It's becoming heavier. Richer. Denser.

A part of me wonders what happens at 100%.

Another part of me dreads it.

But all of me knows one thing for certain—I’m no longer the same seedling that woke up a short time ago in a cracked wasteland.

Something is changing.

And this time, I’m not just observing it.

I’m guiding it.

[System Summary – End of Chapter 00006]

Root Expansion: +56.82m

Total Root Depth: 73.12m

Mana Saturation Rate: +0.0036 m/hr

Trait Unlocked: Low-Level Mana Manipulation (Passive)

Environmental Flags:

‣ Bedrock Layers Penetrated

‣ Dense Mana Flow Detected

‣ Subterranean Pressure Variance Logged

Core Status: 24.2% Capacity

Time Since Rebirth: ~3 months