The next morning, Ludger left before most of the northerners had even stirred from their blankets. The air bit at his cheeks, crisp and sharp, the kind of cold that woke the body faster than any coffee ever could.

Snow stretched across the horizon like a white shroud, broken only by patches of black rock and the skeletal remains of frostbitten trees. As he walked, the crunch of snow under his boots echoed faintly in the empty plains, each step leaving deep imprints that the wind quickly tried to erase.

He adjusted the straps of his pack and glanced around. “Half the trees here look like they gave up on life,” he muttered. “Can’t blame them.”

It was obvious that planting anything in this frozen mess would be a waste of time. Even with fire magic, the snow would just swallow the warmth back into the ground. But the empire’s soil — what lay just beyond the edge of the frost’s reach — wasn’t far. One hour of steady walking, and the blanket of white began to thin. Patches of brown and green started to peek through, the air slightly less biting.

“Alright,” Ludger said under his breath, exhaling steam. “Let’s see what I’ve got to work with.”

He crouched down, pressing a hand to the half-frozen soil as he opened his status screen. The familiar blue interface blinked into view before him. The new skills of his druid class appeared… he hadn't planned to use anything aside from Healing Touch, but it seemed that fate had other plans for him.

[Herbal Whisper Lv 01]

Allows communication with flora and accelerates recovery of natural energy in the environment. Improves efficiency when identifying medicinal herbs and plant reactions.

[Plant Growth Lv 01]

Encourages rapid development of existing vegetation. Consumes mana relative to the scale of the area and fertility of the soil.

[Verdant Shield Lv 01]

Generates a barrier of interwoven roots and vines. Absorbs physical and elemental damage equal to your intelligence and wisdom added by a percentage according to the level of the skill. Cost: 50 mana

[Nature’s Breath Lv 01]

Revitalizes soil and air within a radius, improving growth rate and mana affinity of nearby plants.

[Life Bloom Lv 01]

Infuses a section of land with life energy, stimulating long-term fertility and resistance against blight, frost, and drought.

Ludger frowned, scrolling back through the descriptions. “So basically,” he muttered, “a gardening simulator… with extra steps.”

Still, the potential was obvious. If he could mix his Geomancer control with these druid skills, he could not only shape the terrain but also feed it — heal the ground itself, make it remember how to live.

He pressed his palm deeper into the soil, feeling the faint heartbeat of the earth under his mana sense — sluggish, almost asleep.

“Well,” he said quietly, smirking to himself, “time to play with dirt.”

Mana began to circulate in his veins, green light flickering faintly beneath his skin as he activated Nature’s Breath. The ground under his hand pulsed once — weakly — then again, stronger this time. It wasn’t much. But it was a start.

Ludger knelt in the damp field, fingers pressed deep into the dirt as a faint green aura began to seep from his hands. Nature’s Breath — it wasn’t as dramatic as his geomancy, no violent shaking or splitting earth, no walls rising from nothing. It was quieter, slower, almost… patient.

Mana poured from his core in smooth waves, wrapping around him like a warm current against the morning chill. The frost clinging to the ground hissed and melted away, and the color beneath began to darken — the dull gray-brown soil shifting toward a richer, deeper hue.

The skill worked subtly, but Ludger could feel it — the land breathing again. The air around him grew heavier with moisture, and a faint scent of wet soil and moss began to rise. Steam coiled around his boots as the mana lines spread outward, rippling through the ground like veins of light beneath the surface.

But it wasn’t easy. His mana bar began to drop faster than he liked, and the dull ache of overuse started to crawl up his arms. He grit his teeth and focused harder, forcing himself to recall what he knew about fertile ground.

Okay, he thought. What did the old farmers usually say?

He narrowed his eyes, remembering faintly.

“Loose soil,” he muttered aloud, “not too much clay… needs air flow, moisture retention… minerals, right? Iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium—” He clicked his tongue. “Damn it, I should’ve paid more attention in school.”

Still, it was something. He wasn’t trying to make perfect farmland overnight, just something that could support crops long enough for the farmers to do their part later.

The green light around him grew stronger, pulsing with his heartbeat. He could feel the mana sinking deeper, threading through layers of dirt and rock, whispering to the dormant roots and spores buried in the frost. Some responded — faint sprouts breaking through cracks in the earth, struggling but alive.

“Yeah… that’s it,” Ludger muttered, forcing his breathing steady as sweat ran down his neck. “You don’t need to bloom. Just wake up.”

The soil continued to change, its texture softening under his touch. When he finally released the spell, the mana faded gradually — leaving behind a stretch of land that looked almost out of place amidst the white behind, a patch of living brown and faint green framed by thin snow.

Ludger sat back, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, panting lightly. His mana was down by nearly half.

“Not bad,” he murmured, glancing over the revitalized soil. “Now if only I could make it feed itself…”

He pressed his palm against the dirt once more and smirked. “Guess that’s the next experiment.”

After resting for a bit — or at least long enough to stop feeling like his bones were leaking mana — Ludger stood again and rolled his shoulders. His hands still glowed faintly green, the after-image of Nature’s Breath

lingering like a heartbeat beneath his skin.

He opened his screen briefly and noticed that the skill had already leveled up.

[Nature’s Breath Lv. 05]

“Good,” he muttered with a smirk. “At least the universe knows how to reward effort.”

With that, he pressed his palms back against the soil, and once more the energy pulsed outward — but this time, it was smoother. Easier. The flow of mana didn’t feel like forcing liquid iron through his veins anymore; it was more like exhaling. The ground rippled as life energy spread farther and deeper than before, the frost pulling back faster, leaving lines of damp, fertile soil snaking across the plain.

He didn’t bother thinking too hard about technique this time. The skill did the heavy lifting. His job was just to feed the land with mana and shape it enough to stay warm against the cold creeping from the north.

“Now…” he said under his breath, studying the stretch of darkened soil, “what the hell do I even plant here?”

He rubbed his chin, considering it. Grains wouldn’t last long this far north without constant heat. Root crops? Maybe. But even then, it would take weeks before they could tell if anything was growing. And Ludger didn’t have weeks to waste babysitting carrots.

He sighed. “Yeah, no. I’ll leave that headache to Darnell.”

He wasn’t the captain’s boss, but the man was good at organizing people and resources. Delegating was part of leadership — or at least that’s what Ludger told himself to justify avoiding more work.

“If anything,” he continued, smirking faintly, “I can just cover the place with grass. Let the northerners raise cattle, sheep, or whatever they eat up here. They look like the type to prefer meat over fruit and vegetables anyway.”

The image of Kharnek gnawing on an apple popped into his head, and Ludger snorted. “Yeah, that’d last about three seconds.”

He focused his mana again, shifting the spell from Nature’s Breath to Plant Growth, letting faint green lines of energy ripple through the soil. Soon enough, small blades of grass began to push through the softened ground, spreading outward in slow, widening rings.

By the time he stopped, a faint green shimmer covered a long stretch of the once-barren land — a sign that life had finally started to return.

Ludger exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Good enough for now. The cows can thank me later.”

By midafternoon, the sun was a weak blur behind the clouds — barely warm enough to melt the frost clinging to the stones. Darnell guided his wagon toward the borderlands, the horses’ hooves crunching against the hardened soil. He was expecting the same dead wasteland from before — the kind of place where nothing grew and the wind carried nothing but cold and silence.

But what he saw instead made him pull on the reins so hard the wagon lurched to a stop.

“What in the Emperor’s name…” he muttered, eyes widening.

The entire plain ahead of him — the same desolate field he’d left behind — was green.

It wasn’t lush farmland or anything that could make a noble weep with joy, but it was covered in grass. Real, living grass, stretching for hundreds of meters in every direction, waving gently in the afternoon breeze. It came up to his knees in some places, thick and soft, a shocking sight against the faint line of snow still visible in the far distance.

His men were equally stunned, staring around with open mouths.

“Sir, is this… the same place?” one of them asked.

Darnell blinked and rubbed his eyes. “I think so,” he said slowly. “Unless we took a wrong turn and ended up in the southern provinces.”

But no — there was the same rise of hills, the faint ridge where the thin snow line used to be. It was the border. Ludger had changed it.

They rode farther in, the horses snorting uncertainly at the unfamiliar scent of green instead of snow. And then Darnell saw them — two familiar figures in the distance.

Kharnek stood like a statue among the grass, arms crossed, his silhouette massive against the faint glint of the sun. And near his feet, sitting lazily against a pile of earth like someone napping after lunch, was Ludger.

The kid had his coat half-open, his sleeves rolled up, and a flask of water resting beside him. He looked more like a traveler taking a break than the person who had somehow revived an entire field.

Darnell and the soldiers approached through the sea of knee-high grass, their boots brushing against the blades with a soft hiss. The closer they got, the more they realized Ludger wasn’t relaxing—he was just staring at the ground, elbows resting on his knees, eyes unfocused like he was trying to solve a math problem no one else could see.

Kharnek grunted a low greeting as the captain drew near, but Ludger didn’t even glance up until Darnell called his name.

“Ludger,” the captain said, crossing his arms. “You look like you just lost a battle. I’d say you won this one—grass all the way to the damn horizon. What’s wrong?”

Ludger sighed through his nose, rubbing his thumb over the dirt caked on his fingers.

“I didn’t win anything. Not really.”

Darnell raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t winning? You just made a frozen wasteland grow a carpet.”

“I made it pretend to grow,” Ludger corrected. He finally looked up, and his tone was calm, but his expression carried that same faint irritation he always got when his own standards refused to be satisfied. “I checked the deeper layers of the soil. The spell only changed the surface—maybe a meter deep at best. Under that, it’s still frozen rock. The roots will die as soon as the mana I poured in fades.”

“So… temporary,” Darnell muttered, glancing around.

“Yeah,” Ludger said. “Two harvests, tops. Maybe less if the cold comes early.”

He scooped a handful of dirt and let it fall between his fingers, watching it drift like powder.

“My druid skills aren’t like Aronia’s. She can manipulate the nutrients in the soil and bind the mana flow better. I just forced mana into the land until it looked healthy.” He frowned, tapping his fingers against his knee. “It’s like painting over rust. Looks fine for now, but it’ll rot underneath if I move on too soon.”

Kharnek shifted beside them, brow furrowed but silent, listening.

“So, what do we do?” Darnell asked. “You planning to fix the whole field by hand?”

Ludger shook his head. “No. That’d take days… maybe weeks for land this big.” He glanced over the waving grass, his tone turning more pragmatic. “But there’s a workaround. I’ll need to keep the surface alive long enough for something else to take over. Grazing animals—cattle, goats, anything that eats the grass and leaves the rest behind.”

“...You mean poop,” Darnell said flatly.

Ludger smirked faintly. “Yeah, fertilizer. The real alchemy of life. They’ll keep the soil active while I move to the next area. After a few seasons, the land will start fixing itself naturally.”

He leaned back, resting his hands behind him as he looked over the field again.

“Without that, everything I just did will crumble after two harvests. Grass today, dust tomorrow.”

Kharnek gave a low rumbling laugh, half amused, half impressed.

“So the great mage says we need cows to save the north,” he said.

Ludger shrugged, dry as ever. “If it works, then sure. Guess I’m the empire’s first druid farmer.”

Darnell just sighed, staring over the field again, still struggling to wrap his head around how the kid had done all this in the first place.

“Every time I think I’ve seen the limit of what you can do, you find another way to make me feel like I’m still in training.”

Ludger smirked faintly. “Then you should start practicing magic, captain.”

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