Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The Slumbering Cage

The dreamworld welcomed me again—this time with a subtle but startling change. In the same forest where I always roamed, shadowy figures drifted nearby, and the fog loomed, ready to surge in at any moment. Yet now, there stood a new tree amid the familiar ones. At first glance, it looked perfectly ordinary, nothing like the grand or twisted shapes I had come to expect. Still, I knew in my bones it had not been there before.

I remembered clearly how I had arrived, although I sensed no actual harm caused by the Life Tree that needed repairing. I wondered if the Life Tree had induced this long sleep or if something else had triggered it. In truth, nothing about the situation felt straightforward. I only knew I had slipped once more into this dreamworld.

In the back of my mind, I worried about my family. By now, news must have reached District 98 that I had not died out in the fog, at least up until the day I arrived at District 99. Would Lirien, my newly adoptive mother, be proud that I had continued my search? The thought flickered by, but I discovered I did not truly care about recognition. I was not Tarin, chasing the family path. My path was my own.

Still, doubts festered. Here I stood, near an "artifact" I had dreaded to discover—only to learn I could not move it. This grand solution I had hoped for lay just within my reach, yet at the same time, it felt so far away. A bitterness seeped in. Why had I come all this way, only to fail.

Dark thoughts coiled around me like creeping vines. Suddenly, the dream shifted, nudging me away from despair. I blinked, finding myself in a far more comforting memory: Elina's advanced class. I was perched in my usual seat as though I had never left and I could hear low chatter from classmates—a warm, normal sound.

Meris sat beside me, her presence so familiar that my heart felt full. Across the room, Tarin, Cedric, Hana, and Lessa chatted or flipped through notes. Everyone else from that advanced class was there too, and seeing them filled me with a sweet ache. I had lingered in the fog for far too long, and the stark simplicity of normal human company felt like a blessing.

Part of me realized how foolish it might have been not to revisit them before leaving District 100 perimeter, even for a day or two, before heading deeper into the unknown.

Now, I faced leaving District 2 empty-handed, a mission unfulfilled. Yet a voice in my dream reminded me that District 2 was not the only major food producer in these parts. District 4, was also among them. Perhaps I had another chance.

My eyes drifted to the large board at the front of the classroom. Elina, in my dream, was teaching as she always did—but the content on the board was no ordinary lesson. Intricate diagrams, mystical equations, and perplexing symbols sprawled across the slate, changing even as I watched. I recognized references to Life Magic, cell growth, and regeneration. It was as though my dream had merged Elina's class with the knowledge I had gleaned from the Life Magic and beyond.

I realized that a different part of me was feeding these images into the dream, letting advanced theories and bizarre concepts slip into what should have been a simple session of history and basic arithmetic. Through the haze, I made out diagrams describing the current healing methods used outside long sleeps—how stem cells, particularly mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), could differentiate into bone, muscle, and fat. Apparently, this mechanism formed the backbone of my enhanced healing abilities. But the board showed a grim caveat: unrestricted cell division, without proper regulatory signals, led to unchecked proliferation and, ultimately, tumor formation.

As if in response to that warning, my own body intruded on the dream. I remembered feeling sick in recent weeks, coughing blood in the mornings, and noticing strange lumps beneath my skin. My enhanced regeneration, once a gift, had turned against me. I had built up resistance and endurance, learned to ignore pain—yet I succumbed to an illness all the same.

I died of cancer.

The memory of that final moment flashed. The silvery apple, with its promise of Life Magic, had only fueled the tumors, feeding them as it would feed any rapidly dividing cells. There was no grand judgment by a Life Tree, no cosmic punishment—just the cruel logic of biology.

Even so, this ill-fated interplay had left me with deeper insights. While I stood in the dream-classroom, I heard Elina's voice giving a gentle lecture about something unrelated—perhaps the history of District 98. Yet the board shifted and rewrote itself, displaying new approaches to Life Magic. Concepts formed and dissolved in white chalk, describing how to mitigate or outright prevent the explosive cell growth that caused tumors.

In a swirl of images, I saw multiple tumors appearing in my dream-body, each a failed experiment at regulating the growth. My heart core—still pumping blood and mana—offered plenty of power, but raw power alone could not solve the underlying issue. The real key lay in controlling signals, ensuring cells knew when to stop dividing.

A question flickered through my mind: Were the regulatory signals themselves the problem? Possibly. But what caused them to fail so thoroughly? The endless onslaught of small mutations in DNA each time cells replicated. With the rapid regeneration, those errors multiplied at a terrifying rate, spawning uncontrolled growth in too many directions. Even forging a new type of mana-regulated stem cell made little difference, according to these dream-diagrams. The lethal pace of mutation won every time.

Not even the silvery apple's Life Magic could halt such random, destructive chaos in my tissues. There was nothing miraculous about it, and the dreamboard seemed to mock any naive hopes I once had.

Suddenly, I felt the ground shift, as though the floor under my feet dissolved. In a breath, I found myself yanked into my mind library—a vast mental space where countless copies of me exchanged information. I saw multiple perspectives, each representing an attempt or failure in refining the regeneration process. We had tried this, tried that, only to end up with the same grim conclusion. Something had to change on a more fundamental level.

Why rely entirely on signals from mutable cells? one version of me asked.

Why not develop our own framework, separate from all that? suggested another.

One built entirely from Life Magic. My first true manifestation of magic, I realized, though it might be small or experimental. An unchanging system that would not mutate over time, or at least not in the same way.

Runes.

The word echoed in the library. Yet I remembered Hazeveil's runes shifting and distorting merely from my presence. My bodily corruption—unchecked mana swirling uncontrollably—caused them to warp. Normally, runic inscriptions stayed stable, but my ever present corruption made them change in unpredictable ways. And still, Hazeveil remained functional despite that warping.

Debate sparked among the copies of me. Could we not create a deeper runic system, one that remained unchanged despite the corruption? Was that even feasible?

Amid the clamor, I sensed another presence in the library, the same ancient entity that had once guided me to form my heart core. Its warmth enveloped me with genuine joy, as if it, too, believed we were on the cusp of something important. Then, in a gentle pulse of energy, it vanished.

We pressed on, ignoring corruption for the moment. We reasoned that if DNA could mutate, perhaps runes could handle some controlling role. This new regeneration process might demand enormous energy, but it would forcibly impose triggers for apoptosis—the self-destruct protocol every living body cell already had in some form. By layering Life Magic in runic patterns, each dividing cell would carry a built-in check. If the DNA strayed too far from its original blueprint, the cell would die instead of growing out of control.

It would also track the lifespan of cells to ensure that all would eventually die, preventing rogue cells from lingering. It was a very basic and crude system, designed solely to eliminate these rogue cells so that the capability for rapid healing could truly be harnessed.

The ever-present corruption in my body might eventually twist these runes over time, but in that dreamlike consensus, we felt compelled to try. Perhaps the "corruption" was more than blind chaos.

My only apprehension was how Kara might react. Could Kara be angered by me tampering with runes in every single cell of my body? If any step would provoke her, this was likely it.

As the dreamboard's chalk lines glowed, now present in my mind library, I reached my decision. I would go forward with this new approach, bridging biology and magic through runes that might outlast the pitfalls of DNA. All the while ignoring what the corruption might do to these new runes.

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I had a plan. Whether it succeeded or not was another matter entirely.

…

Life seemed to flash before my eyes in that dreamworld, as though entire seasons passed in moments while my body changed. We did not master this new healing system on the first try. It took many frantic attempts, countless small experiments, and eventually the methodical alteration of every cell I possessed. Through it all, the dream itself bent and reshaped around me, shifting like a living tapestry that reflected each step of my metamorphosis.

Then, with a jolt, I opened my eyes in the waking world and felt time crash down upon me like a tidal wave. My cheek brushed against something prickly. Reaching up, I found coarse hair across my jaw, the beginnings of a beard, much like the faint scruff I had once observed on Tarin. The realization sparked a chill of alarm.

How many months had passed while I was adrift in that unconscious realm?

All around me lay a twisted cage of Life Tree roots, forming an almost cocoon-like shell. If I stretched out my hand, I could feel the thick, fibrous bark, though no light filtered inside this chamber. Everything was enveloped by the heavy scent of damp earth and living vines.

"Kara, how long has it been this time?" I asked, my voice strangely soft in the cocoon's hush. A tense pause followed, during which I feared Kara might be angry with me. After all, I had imprinted runes in every cell of my body. Mana now coursed through me unchecked, warping those runes.

When her response finally arrived, I exhaled in relief.

[Kara]

[The last stasis was a long one. You have been sleeping for nine months.]

My eyes widened. "Nine months?" I echoed, stunned. That explained the facial hair, at least. "Tell me… how long has it been since I first left District 98?"

[Kara]

[Total time elapsed since leaving District 98 in search of lost artifacts is two years and five months.]

For a moment, I simply stared at the root cage. Two years and five months—and I still had not accomplished my mission. In fact, I had found it, technically, but it was immovable, completely useless so far from civilization.

Anger and frustration simmered in my chest. I placed a hand against the roots and muttered, "Let me out."

No response.

I tried again, this time shouting my demand. But the living bark remained silent. The Life Tree had enveloped me for reasons I could not fathom. Part of me guessed it had sensed my ongoing long sleep and chose to shield me. If it genuinely wished to trap me here, I imagined it would have crushed me with its roots or pinned me to the ground. I had seen the Life Tree tear through solid rock in its domain; if it wanted me gone, it could have destroyed me easily.

Instead, it caged me without restraining my movements. Why?

Anxious energy sparked inside me. I recalled how I was supposed to continue toward District 4, hoping to secure a different food-production artifact. The thought of an entire winter passing in District 98 while I lay sleeping under a foreign district made me clench my fists. So many people must have died, starved while I was gone. And here I was, locked in place by the Life Tree as though it had no care for time.

I was twelve and a half now—an apprentice Chainrunner who had spent more than two years outside the ward, lost to time in these endless sleeps. My stomach knotted. Fury swelled, and I drew upon my enhanced body, letting Hazeveil flare with a rush of mana. Slamming my fist into the woody barrier, I felt the impact ripple through my entire arm. Over and over, I struck at the roots, pounding until my muscles burned and my breathing grew ragged.

Yet the barrier held firm.

Hours bled into days. Kara quietly informed me each time a new dawn arrived, but inside the cocoon, I could not sense it. I had no concept of daylight or moonlight, only the suffocating enclosure. My rage drove me to keep punching the thick wood for hours on end. Time and again, I broke the bones in my hands, only to watch them knit back together in seconds thanks to my newly refined healing. In that process, I witnessed the potency of the runic system we had designed, allowing unstoppable regeneration carefully regulated that would purge the new rogue cells.

The cost, however, was hunger, a clawing emptiness that gnawed at me from within. Without a food supply, my body tore through its reserves at alarming speed. But I was used to hunger. I had endured it for years in District 98, so I clenched my teeth and carried on, stubbornly refusing to yield to exhaustion.

I sat there in the cramped, root-walled cocoon, feeling frustration churn like acid in my stomach. I had spent a full week pounding and raging, half out of my mind with worry. Every hour I spent trapped here was another hour wasted—another hour not searching for the artifact that District 98 so desperately needed. I had barely rested, let alone slept. In my short, fitful breaks, I tried to reflect on how I might harness the Life Magic inside me, but every time I caught my breath, my urgency flared again and drove me back to hammering at the unyielding wooden barrier.

Time slipped through my fingers like water. I felt a growing dread that I might starve if I could not escape. My backpack contained only a little water. I knew better than to bring food outside my hideout—too risky with all the predatory beasts in the fog, but that left me with nothing to eat. With my new onyx core capabilities, I could survive a while without sustenance, but hunger gnawed at me with increasing ferocity.

I should hurry, I kept telling myself. Hurry, hurry. But in truth, no matter how hard I punched or kicked, I was making no real progress. Despite my enhanced strength, I accomplished little more than a handful of shallow scratches on the Life Tree's roots. My knuckles bled and healed, bled again, and healed again, but the barrier stood firm. Eventually, my body threatened another long sleep—this time out of sheer exhaustion and lack of nutrition.

At last, I realized that mindless attacking was pointless. I let my sore arms fall to my sides and sagged against the coarse bark. Yes, I could leave a few marks here and there, but my fists would never break open a path. The Life Tree's strength was too immense, far beyond anything I could overcome with brute force.

For a moment, I simply breathed, allowing my mind to settle. So many days had blurred into a haze of panic and frustration, yet I had not once genuinely tried to find another path. Digging? Useless. Roots extended beneath me in every direction. Furthermore, the handful of tools I carried did nothing against such living fortification.

Why was the Life Tree keeping me here, anyway? If it wanted to harm me, it could easily have done so. Instead, it enclosed me gently, almost protectively, and then refused to let me out. My thoughts swirled with theories. Was it testing me? Waiting for me to do something? The tree had given me a fruit brimming with Life Magic before—an item it produced only every five years. Perhaps it sensed that I still held a spark of that power.

Maybe it wanted me to show something.

The idea rang in my head. My minor Life Magic so far had only been turned inward, helping me heal from injuries and manage my body's enhanced regeneration. But did it have another application?

With that spark of possibility, I placed my fingertips on the rough surface of the nearest root. At first, I felt nothing—no stir of energy, no sign of understanding. Nonetheless, I recalled the times back in District 98 when I forced myself to calm down enough to sleep through hunger. I needed that same state of mind now, a release of urgency so I could tap deeper into the hidden energies swirling around me.

It was far more difficult than before. My anxiety over the artifact and the district weighed heavily on me, making me restless, but I had no choice. I drew in slow breaths, letting each exhale carry away a fraction of my tension. Days passed as I repeated this, drifting in and out of a meditative state. Kara's quiet notifications about the passage of time whispered at the edges of my consciousness, but I tried to ignore them.

Little by little, a faint perception blossomed. Tiny sparks of green light flickered in the darkness whenever I truly managed to calm my racing heart. They were invisible unless I focused—a gentle glimmer of Life mana radiating from the tree's roots. Even in my half-starved state, I recognized this energy as something akin to the minor magic beasts wielded—less about precise knowledge, more about raw power guided by intent.

In the darkness, I recalled the scratch marks I had left from pounding so furiously. My gaze found them by feel rather than sight. In my fury, I had lashed out at a being that wasn't even an enemy. Laying my hand on the bark, I tried to channel the same Life Magic I used on myself, except outward.

At first, I sensed only a muddled swirl of mana, unbound and unrefined. My emotions jostled with the free-flowing energy, making it surge and retreat like a tide. But I concentrated on one simple notion: heal. In response, the trickles of mana began to align. It was nothing like the precise magical understanding—just a primal melding of will and power.

A few minutes later, I noticed something changing. The scratches, while still present, seemed shallower than before. Another few minutes, and the bark slowly knitted together, as though guided by my intent. I could scarcely believe it—I was healing the Life Tree's own roots, just as I might repair my own wounded flesh.

My mind spun. This was the same unregulated mana that caused the so-called corruption in my body, the same chaotic force that mutated cells if left unchecked. Yet here, it appeared to respond to my direction, shaped less by logic and more by determined feeling and will. Was it truly random, or was there something deeper to it? After all, it was the form of magic used by every beast I had seen so far, which explained how even certain mindless beasts could wield such complex formations.

Questions bred further questions. I had scarcely begun to form answers when I heard a low creaking sound all around me. The root cage trembled, and bit by bit, the enormous tangle loosened. A faint light seeped in through widening gaps, a sure sign that the Life Tree was unblocking my path.

The cocoon, which had felt so impenetrable before, now shifted away on its own, sliding in slow, groaning motions. Stale air rushed out, replaced by the damp scent of forest soil and a hint of the outside world beyond the trunk's domain. I stared as the roots uncoiled from around my ankles, each sinewy length retracting into the tree's main body.

The Life Tree was freeing me at last.

For several heartbeats, I just stood there, half in disbelief, hunger twisting my gut. Had I proven something by using Life Magic on the tree's scratches? Perhaps the tree only wanted to see if I could wield the Life Magic externally. Or maybe it never intended to keep me imprisoned at all, simply waiting until I slowed down enough to understand.

Exhausted, I slumped against the now-retreating bark, then stepped forward, crossing from the cocoon's interior into the open air. Overhead, thick branches groaned gently in the breeze, as if to acknowledge my departure. I brushed my hands on my cloak, wishing I had the strength to celebrate. Instead, relief warred with a pressing urgency: I had to keep moving. The artifact search still beckoned.