Ashen Ascension: The Divided Flame-Chapter 60: The Seed Of Evolution

The first thing he did was place all four Crest berries into his mouth at once. Their skins split beneath his teeth, releasing a faintly bitter sweetness that dissolved quickly on his tongue.

Within moments a gentle warmth began to move through his body, spreading from his chest outward along his limbs.

The torn flesh across his back tightened, not painfully, but with a steady knitting sensation that told him the damage was being addressed at a deeper level than the leaves he had chewed earlier.

Those leaves had dulled pain and slowed the bleeding; these berries worked with greater precision. Taking four together was excessive for minor injuries, but his wound had been far from minor, and he could feel the difference almost immediately.

He did not allow himself to linger in the sensation.

The sudden surge of recovery stirred his hunger sharply, as though his body had been waiting for sufficient resources before demanding replenishment. He reached into his bag, retrieved all the food tin can he had, and pried them open. The contents were plain and dense, but he ate without complaint. In a short span the containers were empty, yet the gnawing in his stomach persisted. Healing consumed energy, and the berries had accelerated the process.

He took out the water bottle next and drank deeply, not stopping until it was drained. The liquid eased the dryness in his throat and settled the worst of his hunger, though it did not entirely erase it. Only then did a measure of relief pass through him.

His body no longer felt strained to its limits, and the wound at his back had begun its gradual closure.

He opened the bag again and pulled out the last book he had not read. The book on his world Phelios. He had heard everything that Ivor had said but he wanted to see how much was accurate.

He began reading through the book. Pages kept turning and he lost himself in that soon enough he had his answer. Nara had told him exactly the current state of his world. Although thebook focused on human and only mentioned two things about beasts.

That beast had a beast kingdom and they were not the real inhibitor of Phelios.

Ivor closed the book and placed it inside. He finally had a view on how big his world was and how small the shrouded district was.

Finally, he was ready to address what happened to him. He had awakened as a beast. He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward.

He found his mana circuit easily. It looked like a faint blue web spreading from his center and running through his body like thin veins of light. At the center was the mana core. The circuit held one hundred and eight nodes. All of them were unattuned. They were not useless, nor were they broken. They simply had not been trained or filled yet.

He noticed something else. A thin dark layer seemed to cover the mana network indicating its Umbra alignment. Umbra had not damaged the circuit, but it dimmed the blue glow slightly, like a light seen through dark cloth. The structure remained stable. Nothing felt cracked or unstable. It only felt limited, as if a soft shadow rested over it and kept it from shining fully.

He focused deeper.

Another structure responded at once.

The soul circuit did not look like the mana one. It shone with a soft golden light. It existed in the same inner space, yet it did not mix with the blue web. The two systems coexisted without tangling, as if they followed different rules but accepted each other’s presence.

This circuit also held one hundred and eight nodes. Unlike the mana nodes, these felt older, more natural, as though they were part of his life from the beginning rather than something to be trained into existence.

At the center of the golden circuit, nine attuned soul nodes formed a perfect ring. Inside that ring burned a small ember. It did not flicker wildly or shift. It burned in a steady, quiet way, constant and alive.

The Ember Seed.

Just outside the ring rested the tenth attuned soul node. It was connected, close enough to feel part of the structure, yet it did not join the circle. The space it left behind felt deliberate, as though the design required it to remain separate for now.

As he observed the golden circuit, he noticed something else as well. Soul energy was flowing into him from somewhere beyond his body. He could not tell where it came from, only that it entered naturally and without resistance.

The energy moved straight into the Ember Seed, which accepted it without struggle. From there, it passed through the ring of nine nodes, becoming cleaner and more refined before spreading through the rest of the soul circuit.

He was surprised by how strongly his body had reacted to something that was not physical in nature.

After the soul awakening, all of his earlier injuries had healed faster than they should have. Even now, the deep cut across his back, though not fully closed, no longer felt as severe as it had before. Under normal circumstances, a wound like that would have made it difficult for him to sit upright, let alone climb a tree.

The pain should have been sharp and constant, forcing him to move carefully with every breath. Instead, it had been reduced to a dull throb. The cut still bled slightly, and his muscles were tight around it, but it no longer controlled his movements.

What unsettled him was not the relief, but the reason behind it.

Mana strengthened the body directly. That much made sense. Mana flowed through muscles and bones, reinforcing them. The soul, however, was different. It was not flesh, not blood, not something that should stitch skin or harden muscle. The two circuits were separate inside him, blue and gold, distinct in structure and feeling.

Yet after the soul awakened, his body had grown stronger. His endurance had improved. His pain had lessened.

He could feel that it was real.

He did not understand the connection between soul and body, but after a few moments he forced himself to move past the question. There was no answer he could reach today. Instead, his thoughts shifted to the knowledge that had come with the Ember Seed.

As he focused on it, the structure of his advantage became clearer in his own mind. Other awakened children had one system to train, 108 mana nodes to strengthen their bodies and fuel their skills. He had that as well, but he also had 108 soul nodes. Two complete circuits. Two foundations.

Two hundred and sixteen anchors.

He did not think of it as simple addition. The two systems did not feel like separate pools of strength; they felt like parallel structures waiting to align. If they ever began working together properly, the result would likely be far greater than twice the output of a single circuit.

His attention returned to the golden ring at the center of his soul system. The Ember Seed was not merely a skill. It felt more like a mechanism.

He reviewed what he understood about it.

Normally, when someone learned a skill, the required nodes were permanently tied to that pattern. Higher-tier skills demanded more nodes, and once committed, those nodes could not be reclaimed. Growth meant spending more of a limited resource.

The Ember Seed changed that rule.

It allowed a skill to be broken down and rebuilt without increasing the number of nodes used. The pattern could be refined within the same footprint, as long as he had the necessary soul energy and a deep enough understanding of the skill itself.

That condition was important.

The Seed would not evolve something simply because he wished it. He would need to truly grasp how the skill functioned—its structure, its limits, and the principles behind it. Only then could the Seed dismantle and reconstruct it into a stronger form. During that process, the skill would be unusable. The greater the improvement, the longer and more draining the reconstruction would be.

He understood that recklessness here would be dangerous. If he tried to force growth without comprehension, the result could fail or leave him vulnerable at the wrong moment.

But Ivor understood the biggest advantage of the Ember Seed.