Chương 39: Chapter 33 – Vision of Mist

The next thing Cade knew, a hand was shaking his shoulder. He jerked awake, squinting at the pale morning light bleeding through the slatted ceiling of the pavilion. Esmerelda stood above him, still and silent, her staff resting lightly in one hand. She watched him with that unreadable gaze of hers. Her staff reached out and tapped the butt against the mat beside him with a soft, deliberate thunk. Cade blinked and sat up slowly, joints stiff and muscles throbbing.

This was a dull, bearable kind of ache unlike the sharp pains of yesterday. He blinked the System interface into view and read off his resources. HP: 64 / 350 SP: 157 / 320 MP: 260 / 260 Better than expected. He was now at nearly a quarter of his total health and almost half of his stamina too. Of course his mana remained full. He didn't know why that part unsettled him. It just did. Like something was off that he didn't quite understand. He dismissed the window and focused back on the present.

Esmerelda had already turned and was walking. She paused only once at the edge of the pavilion and looked back. She gestured. Come. Cade hesitated. His mind, once slow with sleep, started racing. Was this it? Had he failed? Was she done with him? Sending him away? Kicking him out? He hadn't exactly succeeded yesterday. But he'd tried. Didn't that count? No. He shoved the thoughts aside. It didn't matter. Whatever this was, he would face it. He stood, wincing slightly as soreness crawled through his body.

His balance wobbled. Every step sent another complaint up through his spine. He stepped forward, barefoot on woven reed and wood, and followed Esmerelda into the pale light of the waking swamp. He followed Esmerelda down the root-stair spiraling from the edge of the walker-lily's pad, every step reminding him that his body wasn't close to ready. The descent was longer than he remembered—maybe it only felt that way because his knees kept threatening to buckle. His shell-shield wasn't with him.

Esmerelda had made a sharp motion back in the pavilion, a firm gesture that made it clear he was to leave it behind. That left him exposed, and he didn't like it. Down below, the swamp was waking. The first time Cade had seen the frog-cultivators' village, it had been shrouded in night, all shadow and silver mist. Now, under the early daylight, the walker-lilys revealed their strange majesty. Each massive pad floated high above the forest floor, resting atop a towering stalk that creaked and shifted as it moved.

From this vantage, Cade could see how the pads cleared the treetops entirely, drifting slowly but with deliberate intent. Dozens of walker-lilys dotted the area, each with their own occupants and structures. Some of the platforms held training spaces. Others hosted pools filled with bioluminescent algae. The teaching pavilion, he realized, was among the tallest, situated near the village's rear. And all of it was moving.

The entire village was crawling forward, step by step, in the direction of a vast thunderstorm that loomed on the horizon. Its clouds were distant but massive, pulsing with flashes of multicolored lightning. Behind them, the swamp left in the walkers' wake was alive. Rich, fecund, bursting with moss and flowering vines and darting birds that were too fast for Cade to [Identify]. A trail of life left behind by the village's migration. He struggled to keep pace.

Esmerelda navigated the terrain with effortless familiarity, her staff rarely touching the ground, her steps never misjudged. She knew where the roots thickened, where the mud turned treacherous, where the sinkholes waited. Cade did not. Twice he sank ankle-deep in swamp mud. Once, he tripped over a vine that moved as he stepped on it. And when he tried to leap over what looked like a shallow puddle, he missed and plunged headfirst into surprisingly deep water.

Esmerelda never looked back so he kept moving, trying to keep up. They pressed forward, deeper toward the village's front where the oldest, largest lilies walked ahead of the others. Cade spotted a familiar golden shape—Varosk, the Second Elder, perched motionless atop his shimmering platform like a statue of a god too bored to intervene in mortal affairs. As they approached, the walker-lily beneath Varosk began to descend. The entire platform slowly lowered to the ground.

When it touched the earth Esmerelda stepped forward and waved Cade along. He now knew what this was. Cade's stomach clenched. The memory of the golden mucus from yesterday was still fresh and he'd have to go through it again if he wanted to be able to communicate. Esmerelda handed him a thin, wide strip of bark. Cade grimaced. He remembered this part. Pearl had used bark just like this to scrape the mucus from Varosk's back. This time, Cade would be collecting it himself.

Varosk croaked deeply and turned slightly to expose the curve of his broad, golden back. His skin shimmered faintly in the filtered light, golden with embedded flecks like glittering ore. If not for the bumpy, wart-covered texture, it might've been beautiful. Cade approached with caution. He was close enough now to see the pattern of pores across the Elder's back. He pressed the bark gently and dragged it down. Nothing. Another croak from Varosk—louder. Exasperated.

Cade exhaled and tried again, this time pressing harder, putting his body weight into the scrape. The bark shivered in his hand, and then—there it was. Golden mucus welled from the pores, thick and slow. It had a strange, almost luminous sheen to it. The scent hit him next: sweet and metallic. Like warm honey poured over a copper pan. He nearly retched thinking about swallowing it again. He gathered enough for a single swallow and stepped back. The bark was slick and trembling in his hands.

Varosk watched him with patient, lidless eyes. Cade met his gaze, nodded faintly, and braced himself. It's just warm honey. Just warm honey. He pinched his nose, closed his eyes, and tilted the bark up. The mucus oozed across his tongue, thick and cloying. He forced it down, fighting every gag reflex that tried to rebel. It slid down his throat and hit his stomach as the world began to twist. Warmth, cold and warm again cycled from his guts. A spiraling current moved through him.

Lights flickered behind his eyelids. Gold motes swirled in the dark. Then Varosk croaked once more. And Cade's vision exploded into violet lightning as the golden motes swallowed him once more. Cade didn't jerk or scream this time. The shock of being pulled into another body—another life—was still jarring, but he braced for it now. He let the sensation wash over him instead of fighting it. He stood on cracked earth, heat radiating up from the ground in slow, pulsing waves.

The air tasted of dust and something burnt. The body he inhabited was smaller, more lithe, and balanced low to the ground. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The black frog. Her limbs moved with careful purpose as she trudged through the desolation. Cade felt her weight shift through her hips and spine. He felt the dryness of her throat. He had panicked last time—wasted half the vision wondering if he was dying, hallucinating, or somehow becoming this frog.

This time he understood what was happening. He was here to observe and learn from this frog. The frog reached the same barren clearing as before—a patch of flattened earth that carried no wind or signs of life. Something about the emptiness here was deliberate, a chosen void. She sat. Her stance was rigid, meditative, yet not as peaceful as the first time he witnessed this vision. There was tension coiled through every limb, through every muscle. Cade recognized that feeling.

Pressure waiting for a point of release. The day turned to night as the black frog sat motionless. Cade focused inward with her and it felt as if time slowed down to a crawl. He felt the energy, the same energy he had sensed vaguely last time. Only now it was like a haze was lifted. It was a circulation in her pathways. A cycle. It started in her core—just below and behind her navel. Energy pulsed outward from it, riding up the spine, branching through invisible channels into her limbs.

Cade felt it flow down her arms and legs, into her fingers and toes. Then it slithered back—returning through those same channels, converging once again into the core. Again. And again. And again. It synced with her breathing, it pulsed like her heartbeat. Was this what the frogs called 'essence'? Cade briefly wondered before shaking off the urge to try and analyze. Right now he needed to just observe, to hold the sensations in his mind. Cycles passed throughout the night.

Minutes turned to hours and although time seemed to move at a crawl, dawn still approached. When the first rays of light shone onto the wasteland, the frog shifted. She rose fluidly onto her feet, arms lifting into the elongated pose Cade remembered. Only now he could feel the internal mechanics of it—the subtle tilting of the pelvis, the tightening of the abdomen, the lengthening of the spine. She shaped her body into a vessel for the energy. Time slowed even further, moving down to barely a trickle.

Every sound thickened. Every motion stretched. He felt her core tighten, compressing the gathered energy. Then she exhaled. The release coursed through her spine, splitting at the shoulders and hips, rushing to the limbs. But instead of looping back as it did during the night, the energy broke outward. Cade felt it leave, felt it shed its form, felt it change as it exited her skin. Mist.

It seeped from her pores, her fingertips, the corners of her mouth—soft at first, then building, swelling, expanding until it surrounded her like a cloak. Time ticked forward as Cade felt the energy surging from her core until she was emptied completely. The sudden loss hit Cade. Her core, once full and powerful, now felt drained and aching. For a moment, time paused, nothing moved, and Cade felt the emptiness the black frog now held. Then she inhaled and time snapped forward.

Her body accelerated, rushing through the sequence Cade faintly remembered—mist rising, the sky cracking open with violet lightning, the first cold drops of rain falling onto dead soil. Life surged upward in spirals—green shoots piercing earth, leaves unfurling, vines coiling. Then the world tore open with brilliance as the massive tree erupted skyward, its trunk splitting the horizon. The vision dissolved into gold. And Cade fell backward into himself.

He was flat on his back now, the firm lily pad supporting his skeletal human frame. Overhead, wide leaves fanned gently in the breeze. Sunlight filtered through in broken patches, catching on drifting pollen and tiny golden motes of the vision still clinging to the air. His body felt hollow, empty, but despite that, he remembered. He held the cycle of the black frog and embedded it in his mind. The flow, the feeling of energy, the release and transformation into mist. He could copy what she did, he knew he could.

He just needed another chance with that tool Esmerelda gave him yesterday. Mistweaving. That was the word Esmerelda had used. One of the three paths of the frog. He hadn't managed to activate it yesterday, but now— Was that what the vision had been? A demonstration? A lesson, encoded into the mucus? And if so, why did it feel so personal? So visceral? He hadn't just witnessed the technique—he'd felt it, lived it. The compression of energy. The shift from internal to external.

The precise moment that energy became mist. And that final, aching emptiness when nothing remained. But before he could follow the thought deeper, a shadow fell across his face. A massive, golden head leaned into view. Varosk. The Second Elder stared down at him with solemn, unblinking eyes.

"You live," the frog said, voice deep and resonant.

"The mucus strikes harder the second time." Cade blinked. His throat was dry, but he managed a small nod.

"Yeah," he rasped.

"That was… intense." Varosk's eyes crinkled at the corners in what might've been amusement.

"More will come." That didn't sound comforting. Cade sat up slowly, bracing a hand against the moss as the world shifted back into place. He considered telling them what he saw but Esmerelda was already turning away. She didn't ask if he was ready. Just a firm "Back to the pavilion. Lessons begin." Cade stood with effort and followed, though his legs felt boneless. As they left the pad, he glanced over his shoulder at Varosk.

"Uh—thanks. For the, uh… translation mucus." Varosk let out a low grunt and waved a webbed hand in dismissal. Cade wasn't sure if that was approval or get lost, but either way, it seemed like the end of the conversation. The path back was quiet. Esmerelda walked ahead, her posture straight, her staff tapping the ground every few steps. He trailed behind, still reeling from the second time he's witnessed that vision. Essence becomes mist. After a while, he gathered the nerve to speak.

"Can I… ask something?" Esmerelda didn't look back.

"Ask."

"Yesterday, you said I had to put my essence into the threads of the skein. That's how it works. But I don't—" he hesitated, then pushed forward.

"I don't even know what that means. I don't think I have essence." Esmerelda stopped walking. She turned her head just slightly, enough that one wide eye met his.

"That's a stupid thing to say," she said flatly.

"Everything has essence. It is the first truth. It is how you exist." Cade opened his mouth, but she kept speaking.

"I saw your channels, remember? When you lay broken and half-dead. You have essence. You're just too blind to see it." Then she turned back and kept walking. Cade stood frozen for a beat before scrambling to catch up. Esmerelda's words echoed in Cade's head as they continued walking. You have essence. You're just too blind to see it. He couldn't tell if it was meant as an insult or a lesson. Maybe both. He fell into step behind her, still nursing the strange emptiness left by the vision.

The idea that he had something fundamental inside of him but the System had never even noticed dug deep. The frogs spoke of it like it was obvious. But the System? The thing that easily took over Earth, transported people to Tutorials, and gave them super powers? Nothing. Cade frowned.

"Sorry," he said finally.

"I don't mean to ask dumb questions. I'm just… confused. My System screen doesn't show anything like essence. Just Health, Stamina, and Mana." Esmerelda snorted. The sound was harsh, derisive.

"You think your 'System' knows more than your own body?" Cade opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. She glanced over her shoulder at him with an annoyed croak.

"Where do you think those numbers come from?" He blinked.

"Uh… attributes? Like, vitality gives more health, endurance gives stamina—""No," she cut in." Why? Why does vitality matter? Why does endurance give stamina? Why is there a pool to begin with?" Cade fell silent. He hadn't thought that far. The System brought so many changes that he just sort of accepted at face value. Health was how much damage he could take. Mana was fuel for magical abilities. Stamina for the body's movement. It all worked. But why did it work?

If what Esmerelda had said was true, then the numbers were shadows of something deeper. Something he hadn't been able to see.

He glanced down at his own hands, watching the faint twitch of muscle, the tiny tremor from fatigue. Essence was real to these frogs. By the time he looked up again, Esmerelda was twenty paces ahead. He muttered a curse and jogged to catch up, breath still hitching from soreness. She didn't wait. She never waited. He nearly ran into her when she stopped without warning at a small clearing where a brilliant electric-blue frog waited beneath a hanging canopy of vines.

The frog handed her a rough and heavy-looking sack. Esmerelda took it in both hands. Then, without hesitation, she opened her mouth. The entire sack vanished as she swallowed it whole. Cade stared but Esmerelda was already walking again. By the time they reached the pavilion and began climbing the root-stair back to the platform, Cade had fallen into silence again, deep in thought about what he'd seen in the vision. The black frog's movements, the cycle of energy.

The way it poured out of her and transformed into mist. He barely realized they'd arrived under the pavilion's roof until Esmerelda handed a large leaf to Cade. On the leaf were a mix of fruit, dark nuts, and two small strips of what looked like dried fungus.

"Eat," she said.

"You need it." Cade accepted the food, grateful, though he barely tasted the first bite, still deep in thought.

"I think I've got it now," he said between chews.

"The mist. I think I understand what I'm supposed to do with the skein." Esmerelda didn't smile.

"No," she said flatly.

"You don't." Cade paused mid-bite.

"But I—""You have no aptitude for Mistweaving," she said, turning away. That stung more than it should have. Before the disappointment could land too hard, Esmerelda added, almost casually, "Mistweaving is not your path. But perhaps Stormcalling is."