God’s Tree

Sweat gathered on Argolaith's brow—not from heat, but focus. One mistake in sequence, temperature, or ratio would render the elixir unstable, or worse—deadly.

He remembered his first few failures, early on—when elixirs exploded in his hands, or made him vomit green smoke for hours. He had no teacher. No guide. Only the notes he'd found in books from Athos's library, and whatever instinct had been carved into him by solitude.

Now, those instincts guided his hands.

He crushed crystal, stirred clockwise, ignited oils at specific intervals. Each step a dance between art and science.

The mixture cooled and condensed. Slowly, the cauldron's glow dimmed, and the scent of bitter fruit and metal filled the air.

He poured the thickened liquid into a curved vial, its surface etched with faint runes he hadn't seen before. As the liquid touched the glass, it stabilized—turning from a dull purple to clear gold.

The vial pulsed once with soft light.

Kaelred leaned closer. "What is that?"

Argolaith smiled faintly. "An elixir of enduring strength. Enhances muscle growth without harming the body's bones. Stabilizes energy flow. I… read about it once. I didn't think I'd ever make it."

Thae'Zirak's eyes glinted. "It would take most alchemists years to refine it."

Malakar nodded. "You just made one of the highest-tier natural enhancement elixirs."

But the trial was not done.

The stone table pulsed again.

The ingredients reshuffled—new ones appearing now. A bowl of soft silver dust. A writhing, living vine. Fragments of flame-lichen and small blue pebbles that radiated cold.

Argolaith's eyes narrowed. "Pills now."

He set to work without hesitation.

The pill he crafted had to balance flame and ice—to regulate the body's inner heat for extreme conditions. One mistake would create an internal burn. Another might drop the body's temperature to fatal levels.

He blended with care. Rolled the compound into perfect spheres. Sealed them with leafskin treated with whisper-thorn oil.

They cooled instantly.

Three pills. Each glowing faintly.

As he set the pills beside the elixir, the table flared once more. The trial wasn't finished. Not yet.

Argolaith stepped back, breathing hard.

Another set of ingredients began to materialize—rare, volatile, unpredictable. He saw shattered dragon scale. Red widow seeds. Spirit-spine fungus.

Malakar's voice echoed softly from outside the grove. "This trial is not about what you know. It's about what you've become."

Argolaith's fingers curled.

He looked down at the tools.

And smiled.

The grove pulsed with expectation.

Argolaith stood once more before the stone table, its surface alive with flickering light. A thin sheen of sweat clung to his brow, not from exhaustion, but from the intensity of focus the trial demanded. His hands were steady, his breath slow. The elixir of enduring strength sat at his side, glowing gold and perfectly stable. The three elemental regulation pills were stacked neatly beside it.

But the trial wasn't finished.

The table had given him more.

Before him now were five rare and unstable ingredients, each with a reputation for danger:

Ashroot Blight – a plant whose sap corrodes metal but enhances internal mana flow. Graven Feather – a single black plume that drips shadow ichor and feeds on light. Pulsefire Husk – the hollow core of a beast once struck by lightning-magic, still crackling with dormant energy. Ironflame Resin – thick, slow-burning sap that must never touch air directly. And finally, Sunmourn Dust – powdered from a flower that only blooms where death and life intersect.

Kaelred whistled under his breath from the grove's edge. "Those… are not beginner-friendly."

Malakar's tone was low, cautious. "The forest is pushing him now. It wants to know if he can create something that both strengthens and preserves."

Argolaith studied the ingredients. The challenge wasn't in crafting power. It was in crafting balance.

One wrong proportion and the concoction would destroy whoever consumed it from the inside out.

This was a test of refinement. Of knowledge. Of understanding what the body and spirit could endure—and what would destroy them.

He took up the pestle.

He began with the Ashroot Blight.

Its sap had to be teased out carefully—heat destroyed its useful traits, and cold made it inert. He crushed the leaves between two stones lined with frostvine powder, extracting the sap slowly into a vial suspended above flickering cold-fire. The sap oozed downward, a slow silver line that shimmered green under the light.

Next, the Graven Feather.

He ground it slowly, not fully, just enough to fracture the stem. The shadow ichor began to leak from its spine. He used a fine-tipped needle to draw it out, one drop at a time, blending it with the blight sap. The mixture fought him, trying to separate—two forces unwilling to share space.

But Argolaith added a drop of sunmourn dust, and the moment the gray powder touched the mixture, they fused—violently, brilliantly, and then calmed.

A small glow formed in the center of the flask, like a heartbeat.

The Pulsefire Husk came next—its crackling core carefully carved open with a bone-handled blade. Tiny embers of blue light shimmered and hissed as they met the air. Argolaith added a breath of his own mana to still the reaction, then dropped a shaving of it into the mix.

The elixir turned amber—rich and pulsing.

Kaelred leaned forward. "He's doing it…"

Ironflame Resin was the last. He sealed it within a capsule of leaf-skin, then submerged it into the final mixture without breaking it—allowing the heat to suffuse the liquid slowly, not overwhelm it.

Only when the capsule melted, evenly, did the elixir stop reacting.

It stilled.

Golden-amber, faintly glowing, smooth and viscous. When Argolaith poured it into the rune-etched vial, it pulsed once—a perfect blend of regenerative strength, magical enhancement, and body-tempering resilience.

He had made an elixir of progression.

A formula few had succeeded in crafting.

The forest shifted. Not physically—but the feeling in the air changed.

The table cleared itself, and in its place, a single item appeared.

A single, sealed pill container, shaped from translucent amber crystal.

Argolaith stepped forward.

Within the container were three raw materials—components he had never seen before, with no names, no preparation instructions. Just three ingredients glowing faintly, each a different color: red, blue, and white.

And the moment he touched the container, a message flowed into his mind.

"This is the final task."

"Create something of your own. Not from memory. Not from instruction."

"Prove that your understanding is not inherited—but earned."

Kaelred whispered, "He has to improvise."

Malakar nodded. "This is where most fail. Not from weakness—but fear of uncertainty."

Argolaith set the container on the stone. His heart pounded once.

Then stilled.

He took the red crystal and crushed it into powder—sharp, spicy, sparking faint heat. Likely a fire-body stimulant. The blue was a thick gel—cool, but reactive to metal. Water essence? Possibly frost? The white was solid and smooth, weightless like hollow bone.

He didn't hesitate.

He set the ratios. Created the binder from remains of earlier herbs. Mixed them carefully into a thick paste, kneaded it, shaped it into a sphere. Whispered a steady breath of mana over the surface to harden it.

The result: a pill with no name.

A creation born of instinct.

The moment the pill hardened, the grove pulsed.

The forest shuddered—not in pain, but in recognition.

The air warmed. The wind returned.

And then the voice came one last time.

"You do not follow.

You forge.

You do not repeat.

You remember."

The stone table receded into the ground. The alchemical tools vanished.

The circle faded.

Argolaith stood now with two perfected elixirs, three elemental regulation pills, and a pill of his own creation.

Kaelred was already clapping. "You know, I'd make a joke, but even I can tell that was impressive."

Malakar nodded once. "You are ready for the tree."

Thae'Zirak gave a rare smile. "You will not just survive what's coming. You may shape it."

Argolaith looked toward the horizon. The pull of the third tree was stronger now. Close.

Waiting.