CHAPTER 56: SECOND MANA HEART

Lucius took a deep breath, his jaw tightening as he forced himself to stay calm.

’What in the cringe?’ he thought. The situation was surreal.

He’d come here for a mana heart, not for melodrama, and yet here was Lily shouting like this was some second-rate romance drama.

He could swear he had been perfectly quiet, perfectly on his own — so how did this even happen?

"What?" Lucius asked flatly, his voice dry with disbelief.

Lily’s arms folded even tighter across her chest, her chin tilting up with triumph.

Her silver hair glimmered in the sunlight, but her expression was so self-satisfied it made him want to gouge out his own eyes.

"I knew it!" she declared, cheeks puffing slightly. "You came to my place to beg for our engagement back, but I—"

She didn’t get to finish.

Lucius lifted his hand lazily and flicked a finger to the right.

Space folded like paper, and Lily was suddenly yanked off her feet, sent flying neatly into Elliot’s arms as if fate itself had arranged the embrace.

The guards at the gate jumped at the sudden movement, but before any of them could speak, the great locks of the Evergreen gate groaned and slid apart.

Lucius didn’t even look back at the scene he’d left behind.

He stepped forward through the threshold, Villy following at his side with her usual composure.

"...I didn’t overreact, did I?" Lucius asked finally, his tone light but edged with curiosity.

He glanced down at the maid, waiting.

Villy, ever blunt, gave her verdict without hesitation. "I personally think Lord Lucius reacted quite well. She’s an annoying human woman."

Lucius broke into a warm smile. "Thank you for understanding," he said genuinely, his voice softer.

And then, on impulse, he reached for her hand.

Villy’s eyes widened slightly as his fingers closed around hers, it was firm.

"Shall we?"

She barely had time to respond before he pulled her closer, his other arm sliding beneath her knees.

She gave a small gasp as she found herself swept up, cradled against his chest in a princess carry.

Her heartbeat skipped unreasonably at the casual intimacy, though her expression betrayed nothing.

Lucius smirked faintly, then without another word, he began to float.

The ground shrank beneath them, the trees passing in a blur of emerald green.

With a surge of space energy, he shot forward like a streak of light.

Evergreen Forest unfolded before them.

Unlike the tame parks of the cities, this land was alive.

The air shimmered faintly with mana, saturated with earth and wood particles so dense it was almost visible.

It was no wonder this place was famed as a sanctuary for awakeners attuned to Earth.

The deeper they went, the quieter it became.

The wards on the tree made sure monsters didn’t come to this area, it was a nice safezone.

Lucius’s destination loomed in the distance: an oversized tree that seemed to scrape the very sky.

Its trunk was impossibly thick, bark a rugged mosaic of earthen brown streaked with veins of silver.

Its leaves were divided strangely — half vibrant green, half pale white, like the tree itself held two worlds in balance.

Around it, flower petals swirled gently, carried by a soft wind that never seemed to stop.

"That’s the Thousand Year Bloom," Villy said in a quiet, almost reverent tone. "It’s one of Evergreen’s greatest landmarks. Some say it was planted by the first Wood Sovereign thousands of years ago."

Lucius let out a low whistle. The name was exactly as he remembered from the novel.

He angled their flight upward, ascending along the colossal trunk until they reached a wide branch the size of a car.

He set down lightly, boots crunching against the bark.

Then, with care, he lowered Villy onto her feet.

"Is this where you’ve chosen?" she asked, glancing around.

"Yes," Lucius replied with certainty. "You can’t see it, but the wood energy here is overflowing."

Villy nodded silently, folding her hands before her as she stepped back to give him space.

Lucius settled into a meditative stance. His breath slowed, his body loosening as he closed his eyes.

For a moment, he simply existed, feeling the pulse of the great tree beneath him.

’I don’t use wood as much as I use space,’ he admitted inwardly. ’But it’s still important. Roots are what hold a world together.’

He extended his will outward.

Immediately, the energy in the air began to seep into him — gentle at first, like the touch of morning dew.

He had expected something subtle, slower than space since Wood was an inherently slower element.

But he was wrong.

The moment he made true contact with the Bloom’s core, the energy didn’t seep.

It barreled forward.

Like a train at full speed, the wood mana slammed into him.

His body jerked violently, his balance broken as he fell backward against the bark.

His chest burned, his veins alight with pain.

"My lord!" Villy cried, stepping forward instinctively.

But before she could reach him, the System’s cold chime cut across the chaos.

[You are forming your Second Mana Heart.]

Lucius’s body convulsed, but his mind sharpened.

He let the rush drown him, feeling the raw essence of wood surging through every fiber of his being.

It wasn’t like space.

Space was endless, vast, untouchable. A canvas of silence and distance.

Wood was different. Wood was life.

It was the steady push of roots breaking stone.

The endless patience of branches stretching toward sunlight.

The cycle of seed to sprout, sprout to tree, tree to soil, soil to seed.

Creation, destruction, renewal locked in an unbroken loop.

’Wood isn’t just growth,’ Lucius realized, his mind blazing. ’It’s persistence. Endurance. The will to live and keep living no matter what.’

It truly was beautiful.

[Your Understanding of Wood has increased.]

[Your Understanding of Wood has increased.]

[Your Understanding of Wood has increased.]

The notifications echoed one after another, overlapping in a constant stream.

Lucius’s aura flared outward uncontrollably.

The great branch beneath him vibrated, petals whipping into a cyclone.

Villy raised her arm to shield her eyes as winds roared, pressing against her skin with cutting force.

And then it stopped.

Silence.

Villy opened her eyes and was nearly blinded.

Lucius floated above the bark, his entire body consumed in a radiant golden light.

His veins glowed with emerald patterns, his eyes blazing like two suns filtered through leaves.

He looked less like a man and more like some mythic figure carved into legend.

The golden light pulsed once, twice then exploded outward in a rippling wave that spread through the entire forest.

[You have made a Mana Heart]