CHAPTER 635: THE MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTER (2)

Silence reclaimed the bend. The corridor breathed slow again, the distant thoom steady. Sentinel statues down the hall did not stir—they must have felt no threat.

Mikhailis rocked back on his heels. He flexed his fingers; no tingling, no pain, only heightened awareness—colors marginally brighter, air vibrations clearer. A shift inside his thoughts too, as though an extra sense had slotted quietly into place, unnamed.

He brushed moss flecks from his coat, rolling shoulders. "Well," he muttered, voice still husky with adrenaline, "that was... enlightening."

Rodion’s reply dripped pleased sarcasm.

Bravo. Oscar-worthy poker face. Perhaps next time add jazz-hands.

Mikhailis snorted. Next time, he thought, I might faint instead. But outwardly he arranged a neutral expression.

A soft rustle echoed back the route he’d come: two hooded elves reappeared at the far end—his ever-present shadows. They’d seen nothing, or if they had, showed no sign. He offered them a casual nod, as though he had simply paused to admire bark art.

The tattoo gleamed still—sharper, like fresh ink. He pulled his sleeve down. Cloth hid the mark completely, unless one knew where to look.

Note: corridor runes no longer pulse at your approach. Hypothesis: pact granted local pass privileges.

He hid a grin. "Convenient," he breathed. "Maybe they’ll let me skip the visitor line."

Somewhere above, a bell-like chime rang, soft but carrying. He recognized it: the Elders’ summoning note. Time to look innocent and not at all like a man secretly bound to a sentient tree.

He resumed walking, a dutiful guest on his best behavior, boots tapping a polite tempo. His shadows parted to let him pass, then fell in behind with practiced grace. Runes along the walls remained steady—no suspicious glow, no heartbeat reaction. As if the tree whispered, He’s with me.

A new elf stepped forward at the next junction—an attendant garbed in robes of coral and dawn-peach, eyes deep as still ponds. She carried a rod of carved living root, its surface etched with the same new glow as his hidden tattoo. The rod pulsed once—hello, brother—and quieted.

She bowed, short and precise. "The Elders await. This key will attune to you alone." Her accent was old-garden Elvish, syllables crisp like morning frost.

Mikhailis bowed in return, smile relaxed. "Then let us not keep them pacing."

They moved down a spiral stair made of fused roots. With every step his new pact thrummed against his palm, vibrating in time with the stair’s living fibers, as though the entire staircase recognized him. Fascination warred with nerves. He catalogued textures, hues, even the slight ozone tang in the air.

At the bottom a arched door awaited, vines knotted around a heart-shaped hollow. The attendant held the rod to his palm; twin glows synced. The vines loosened with a sigh, curling aside to reveal the Elders’ dome beyond. Somewhere deep inside the tree, a heartbeat matched his own.

Full integration risk minimal. Analytical potential—off the charts, Rodion whispered, a shimmer of genuine excitement slipping through the synthetically calm register.

Mikhailis eased a breath past his lips and crossed the threshold. The air on this side felt thicker, as if the chamber kept a private climate—warmer at the heart yet crisp at the edge, like summer sun trapped in a marble mausoleum. His pulse thrummed against the inside of his ribs; each beat seemed to echo through the timber, coming back a fraction stronger, until he wasn’t sure whose heart he was hearing anymore—his or the tree’s.

Ahead, the root-altar waited. Six thick roots braided together at chest height, rising from the polished floor before diving back into living walls. At their juncture a single trunk-knot bulged outward, its bark smoothed to a glass-sheen finish. Pale light leaked from hairline fractures, curling like smoke in slow motion.

Mikhailis took a step. The light brightened, pulsing in perfect time with the rhythm thudding inside his chest.

It knows I’m here.

A second step. Brighter still. Soft motes—flecks no bigger than dust—spiraled away from the knot and drifted lazily into the air. They looked fragile, almost soap-bubble thin, but they carved tiny prisms in the glow, scattering rainbow fragments across his coat.

He knelt; leather creaked. The floor felt elastic, like standing on a living drumhead. When his fingers brushed bark it was warmer than human skin, and there was a faint yielding—as though the root wanted to meet him halfway.

"Rodion. Phase-Scan Omega. Full diagnostics."

Initializing Phase-Scan Ω. Standby for composite analysis.

A ring of pale gold spread from the point of contact, spider-webbing over the root’s surface. At the same instant his ant-queen bond tattoo woke, flickering beneath his glove in sympathetic reply. The glow leaked through seams, outlining knuckle bones and tendons in silver fire.

Rodion’s data stream scrolled across the corner of his vision. Tiny graphs danced, shifting on the fly.

Stage One: Mana Mapping. Result: Frequency resonance with user’s bond mark. Amplification detected. 2.3× synchronization.

He swallowed hard. The root throbbed stronger, almost impatient. "It’s... accelerating us both," he murmured.

The rune lines under his skin brightened. What had been faint, sky-blue fibers now flared into molten gold, burning so bright he half expected smoke.

Stage Two: Cellular Resonance. Composite structure: Elven lignin bonded with... elemental crystal latticing. Implausible fusion.

"Living crystal-root hybrid," he whispered, awe thickening the words. That shouldn’t exist outside an alchemist’s fever dream.

Tiny tingles crawled along his shoulders, across the nape of his neck. He could almost hear microscopic mineral facets sliding over organic fibers, like wind chimes chiming somewhere beyond audible pitch.

The root’s pulse slowed—longer spaces between beats, as if it waited for a decision.

It’s not speaking. But it’s listening. Testing me. He felt the idea rather than heard it.

Rodion generated a fresh line of text, colder than the previous.

Designation proposed: Entity Type—Dormant Pact Root. Status: Active Seeking.

His tattoo bloomed a third time, brighter than the moss lanterns overhead. Heat rolled across his palm—pleasant, comforting, but insistent, like a campfire coaxing numb hands.

Oh.

A nervous chuckle slipped free before he could catch it. "It’s responding to that. The ant-queen’s bond..." The realization carried both wonder and risk. Tying more pacts to the queen’s brand might deepen power—or create conflicts his nervous system couldn’t juggle.

Rodion’s voice thinned to a razor.

Mutual resonance confirmed. Latent ability threshold approaching. Shall I initiate containment protocols? Or allow contact?

His throat bobbed. Containment means we break the link. We lose whatever this root is offering. He thought of Serelith’s fireside stories: sentient groves that recorded vows and curses in sap; trees that bled when treaties shattered. If this root did remember—if it held the lost history of elves and Blight—walking away would be criminal research negligence.

He shifted, lowering himself until he sat cross-legged, spine straight but relaxed. One breath, two. Then he laid his open palm flat against the knot.

"Stay with me," he murmured, not sure if he spoke to Rodion or the root. Maybe to both.

He matched inhale to root-beat. Exhale, same length. On the fourth cycle his pulse merged with the tree’s rhythm. Room sounds blurred: distant sap flows, faint crystal tings, even Rodion’s datapings receded behind a pleasant roar of blood in ears.

The root remained silent, but energy flowed—gentle at first, then stronger. His tattoo shimmered beneath the glove, but now he also felt it inside muscle fibers, winding through capillaries like liquid light. Under skin, lines rearranged themselves: old curves sharpening, new glyphs knitting across bone. No pain—just the surreal sensation of becoming a living manuscript.

Warning: Symbiotic energy exchange commencing. No immediate threat detected. Continuing data mapping.

Numbers spun. Mana potential, neurological load, psionic throughput—Rodion charted each metric like a conductor reading sheet music.

Mikhailis’s eyelids fluttered. Pictures—not memories, more like moods—poured into him: the scent of wet loam after first thaw; a choir of cicadas droning beneath crimson moons; grief carved into living heartwood, sealed with amber tears. None belonged to him, yet each flickered through his mind, leaving a ghost taste on the tongue.

Rodion parsed impressions into conceptual phrases:

You: traveler out of place.

Me: guardian of lost magic.

Together: anchor.

A lump thickened at the back of his throat. The root’s offer felt fragile, shy—like a child stretching out a seed in cupped hands. He wanted to protect it, study it, understand it.

"That’s... almost poetic," he whispered, voice barely air. A crooked smile tugged.

Rodion’s scathing reply came a half-beat late.

Jealousy implies ego. I simply find the statistical likelihood of this occurring without prior manipulation to be—

"Shut up and let me commune with my new friend."

He let his eyes close entirely, trusting sensors and instincts. Warmth rolled deeper, branching behind sternum, seeping into shoulder joints, down spine. Each place it touched adopted the root’s glow for a second before settling to a calm ember hue.

A faint vibration rippled outward through floorboards; unseen dust motes danced upward, reflecting light like a tiny galaxy above the altar. Sentinel statues at corridor’s edge hummed, but did not move—acknowledging the pact, conceding sovereignty.

Somewhere high overhead, leaves rustled although no wind blew. Saplings hidden in beams uncurled shy buds. The entire structure responded, as if the tree itself breathed relief.

Within his mind, threads aligned—ants’ telemetry, leyline hum, queen-bond resonance—and for one crystalline instant Mikhailis saw every overlay stacked in perfect symmetry. A multi-colored x-ray of the world’s secret veins.

Then the vision receded, leaving afterimages like stars behind eyelids.

The glow eased. Root-pulse returned to its earlier lazy tempo. His tattoo dimmed to a steady lambent line—still brighter than before, but no longer burning.

Energy integration complete. Tattoo resonance stratum plus one. Additional functions locked—analysis pending.