Chapter 433: Training (7)
The elves could barely breathe as they watched. The mana around him pulsed in alternating rhythms, one like a heartbeat, the other like a storm. The effect was mesmerizing. The leaves bent toward him as though caught in invisible wind.
Thalan whispered, awed, "That... breaks every law of resonance."
Lindarion nodded faintly. "Because laws are born of limitation."
He exhaled, and the two energies merged into one clear wave that rippled outward across the glade. Every soldier felt it. Their mana threads quivered, not in rejection, but in response.
Several elves gasped as their own energies stabilized, the usual resistance between elemental affinities suddenly softening. Fire attuned with water, earth with wind. Even the air tasted different, metallic, alive.
Ashwing watched from above, his tone quieter now. ’That’s new.’
’It’s the World Tree,’ Lindarion replied in his mind. ’It doesn’t resist me anymore. It listens.’
’Or maybe it’s testing you.’
’Maybe both.’
Below, the soldiers struggled to mimic what they’d seen. The ground flickered with uneven pulses of mana as each attempted to align harmony with chaos. Some managed to create brief sparks of balance; others failed immediately.
Lindarion moved among them, silent and precise. When one elf’s control slipped, he’d rest a hand on their shoulder, a calm pulse of mana correcting the rhythm.
"Don’t force it," he said quietly to one of them. "Let it flow through dissonance. Chaos isn’t your enemy, it’s your shadow."
Slowly, the glade began to fill with shimmering light, faint, unstable, but beautiful. The Dual Flow was dangerous, unnatural even, but under Lindarion’s guidance, it became possible.
Hours passed.
Some of the soldiers collapsed from exhaustion. Others stood trembling, their mana threads flickering erratically. Only a handful managed to sustain the Dual Flow for more than a few seconds, among them, Thalan.
His staff pulsed with green light, but this time it danced with faint streaks of gold. His control faltered, but he held on, sweat streaming down his face.
Lindarion watched, and for the first time, nodded approvingly. "Good. You’re not resisting. You’re listening."
Thalan gasped out, "It feels... wrong and right at once. Like walking on water that could drown you."
"That’s what it means to live beyond limits," Lindarion said softly. "That’s what the world has forgotten."
When at last the training ended, the forest seemed to exhale with them. Mana rippled through the air, fading slowly into stillness. The soldiers knelt where they stood, utterly spent.
Lindarion sheathed his sword, the faint hum of power dissipating around him. "Enough for today."
Thalan straightened weakly, eyes burning with wonder. "This... Dual Flow... is this what you used yesterday, when we sparred?"
Lindarion’s gaze flicked toward him, unreadable. "Yesterday was restraint. Today was truth."
Thalan bowed his head in silence.
Ashwing swooped down, landing lightly beside Lindarion’s shoulder. "So, let me get this straight," he said aloud, stretching his wings. "You’re teaching them to break the laws of mana, but politely."
Lindarion arched a brow. "Something like that."
Nysha appeared at the edge of the clearing then, her usual crimson eyes half-hidden beneath the shade of her hood. "They’ll collapse if they keep training like this," she said flatly.
"They won’t," Lindarion replied. "The World Tree won’t let them. It’s feeding them small fragments of mana. Enough to recover."
Nysha’s eyes narrowed slightly. "You speak as if it’s alive."
"It is."
"Then you’re playing with something that can’t be controlled."
Lindarion looked at her, the faintest flicker of emotion behind his golden irises. "Everything alive resists control, Nysha. That’s why I trust it."
Her gaze held his for a moment longer, then she exhaled and turned away. "Just don’t lose yourself in it."
When the last of the soldiers had left, only Lindarion, Thalan, and Ashwing remained beneath the fading light.
The glade was quiet now, but the air still carried the echo of power. The roots beneath the earth shimmered faintly where Lindarion had stood, as if the World Tree itself had marked the ground with memory.
Thalan broke the silence. "If this technique spreads beyond Lorienya..."
"It won’t," Lindarion interrupted softly. "Not yet. The world isn’t ready to hold contradiction. Even the gods struggle with it."
Thalan looked troubled, but he nodded. "Then perhaps this is enough, to prepare our hearts, even if our hands fail to follow."
Lindarion’s golden eyes softened. "Exactly."
As night fell, he turned his gaze toward the distant horizon, where the stars shimmered above the canopy like scattered embers. For a brief moment, he thought he felt something stir within him — the faint whisper of an older power, not the World Tree’s, not Dythrael’s, but something beyond.
[ Core Synchronization Complete. ]
[ New Passive Acquired: Eternal Equilibrium. ]
[ Description: Grants the user instinctive balance between order and chaos. Mana stability under stress increased by 400%. ]
Lindarion exhaled slowly. "So this is the price of walking between two worlds."
Ashwing tilted his head. ’You okay?’
’Yes.’
’You sure?’
He looked up at the stars again, their light reflected in his eyes like fragments of forgotten suns. ’For now.’
Dawn filtered through the canopy in sheets of gold. The forest breathed with a rhythm that wasn’t entirely its own anymore. Birds sang, yes, but beneath their song came another hum, lower, resonant, threaded through the roots and veins of Lorienya itself. It was as if the land were whispering back to its prince.
Lindarion woke before the light had fully settled. His chambers were carved into the heartwood of a massive silver-barked tree, and every wall pulsed faintly with living mana. He could feel the World Tree even here, miles from its trunk, its lifeblood was everywhere.
Ashwing lay coiled on the windowsill, tail twitching. The dragon blinked sleepily, then raised his head. ’You didn’t sleep much again.’
’There’s... movement in the forest,’ Lindarion murmured, pulling on his dark cloak. ’The mana is restless. I can feel it adjusting to what we did yesterday.’
Ashwing yawned, wings rustling. ’You mean the Dual Flow thing? Yeah, the whole forest buzzed like a hive after that. Even I felt dizzy.’
Lindarion smiled faintly. ’That’s because it’s learning. The trees, the roots, the soil—they’re remembering the rhythm. It’s... alive in ways we’ve forgotten.’