Chapter 142: Levi’s First Evolution.
Levi dreaded the upcoming evolution after recalling the agonizing pain he went through during his awakening... All because he decided to leave the other two seeds slightly behind.
But Levi’s mind was still unchanged... This was the right move in his eyes.
As for the pain? Everyone suffered from it. At least, Levi could choose the time and space while getting something good out of it.
Without further ado, Levi kicked off the evolution by removing his clothes, keeping only his boxers. Then, he brought the evolutionary formula close to his mouth.
The evolutionary formula solution was gray and seemed to vibrate once in a while, akin to trapping an ancient voice in a bottle.
It took Levi a mere fifteen minutes to concoct it. While the materials were rare, the process itself was nothing extraordinary... It was more or less similar to what he had gone through with Arthur’s and Shia’s formulas.
After a deep breath, Levi sent it in one gulp, almost spitting at its horrid, moss-like, bitter taste.
Then, he uttered his tattoo’s incantation, bringing it to life... Acting deaf to Ash’Kral’s teasing snickers, Levi pressed on the illuminating crimson seed on his tailbone.
However, his consciousness didn’t get sent inside the Ancestral Rooted Plane. Levi wasn’t surprised. Ash’Kral had informed him that their evolution process didn’t involve getting tentacled by any of the trees.
They were powerful enough to instantly recognize the best available evolutionary path the moment the formula’s effect took place.
A second... Two seconds...
Ka-thumb!
Levi’s heart skipped a beat the moment it felt the temperature rise abruptly. Before Levi could react, a freezing ache ran through his veins and soul!
Heat and cold pounded his body and soul, seemingly competing with each other to inflict the most amount of pain on Levi!
Argh...
Levi gritted his teeth, incapable of doing anything else to resist the sudden extreme shifts in temperatures. If his body wasn’t somewhat already used to it due to his sadistic cultivation process, Levi would have been laid on the ground, spasming nonstop.
"Don’t let down your guard, the flares are only the start," Ash’Kral reminded sternly.
His petite, cute form was already surrounded by close to thousands of crimson spinning rings inside his ruined castle within the Shadow dimension.
Unlike Levi, he had already gone through this process hundreds of times until he grew bored with it... Even the heat and cold flares did nothing to his visage.
On the other hand, Levi had already fallen on his back and started rolling back and forth while scratching his body in pain and immense irritation.
"Argh... It’s... too... much." He huffed, one word released with hot steam, and the next with chilling air.
His body’s temperature system was left confused, barely keeping up with the flares.
The flares weren’t metaphorical... The Sun and Void seeds in Levi’s abdomen were releasing dark and golden bursts, attacking the Crimson seed and punishing Levi simultaneously.
Too bad, the Nine Senses seed wasn’t a nobody either.
The moment it felt its Germination process threatened by its neighbors, it channeled a vibrational invisible shield around it.
Despite the Sun and Void seeds’ desperate attempts, the Crimson seed’s coat split, and a tiny red root (radicle) pushed downward to anchor into Levi’s pelvis... Precisely, the sacrum!
The sacrum was the base of the spine and the back part of the pelvis. Its importance to a body’s movement and stability was serious.
The seeds considered their host’s body as two halves, cut from the abdomen... The abdomen was the surface, while the lower body was the underground. The upper body was above the surface.
Thus, the roots spread to the lower body while the stem grew on the spine as a base. The branches and leaves appeared later on throughout the upper body.
Of course, it wasn’t a real tree growing inside one’s body... It was more like the addition of a new organ, plus a nervous system that touched everywhere.
The real tree was created inside one’s soul and appeared in all of its glory in their Spiritual Leywell.
Argh...
Unbeknownst to any of this, Levi couldn’t help but groan in agony after a sudden electrifying wave assaulted him from his spine.
He thought at first that it was related to the Crimson tree’s root, but soon realized that it was something else.
His spine shifted, and Levi found himself paralyzed. He couldn’t even twitch a finger. Yet? He could still feel the flares eating him up.
This freaked him out.
’Ash’Kral... Why... am... I... paralyzed...’ Levi asked telepathically with great difficulty.
"Be patient; your body is evolving a mutation... A great one at that."
Ash’Kral remarked in surprise, realizing exactly what kind of mutation Levi was getting... Harmonic Spine!
At this point, he truly started wondering if the kid was favored by the heavens.
Meanwhile, all Levi could feel was a dull, metallic pressure pressed along his spine, like invisible fingers dragging a blade down his nerves.
Then it began.
A silver layer slowly moved up his back, starting at the base of his spine and following each vertebra with precise care.
His skin began to change... not ripping or shedding, but reshaping... as if smooth metal was forming under the surface, building into a neat line of overlapping plates that made no sound.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t even twitch.
Every breath was an effort.
It felt like the sound had turned inward, bouncing through his bones, pressing rhythm against his ribs and skull.
His heartbeats turned into steady beats... His spine felt like strings being slowly adjusted by something old and powerful.
The silver layer kept moving upward... cold, smooth, and alive.
It wasn’t armor. It was part of him now, lined with faint glowing patterns, each giving off tiny waves he couldn’t see.
Levi felt every pulse... every vibration in sync with it... His senses reached past his body, into the air, the ground beneath him, and even toward things moving behind walls he couldn’t see.
It was like he had a built-in, high-level echolocation system running along his spine.
Then, a final vibration snapped through his core, like a conductor’s baton striking the air.
CLANG!
And suddenly, it stopped.
Sound rushed back.
Senses fully activated.
Levi gasped, collapsing forward, arms trembling as sensation returned in violent waves.
But he didn’t fall completely, the silver ridge along his spine held him upright, humming faintly, like the after-ring of a bell struck too hard.
Soon, the pain faded.
The silence lifted.
And with it, Levi felt something new.
He didn’t just hear the world now.
He felt its rhythm, its heartbeats, like... He was one with it.
As Levi slowly stood up above a pool of sweat mixed in with drops of blood, pouring from his spine.
Breath in, breath out.
Levi lifted his head and kept staring at the new look of the world around him in utter disbelief and awe.
Remember when Levi first used echolocation on the city and was marveled by its beautiful, colorful waves?
Well, colors Levi had no name for... suddenly exploded across his senses... not light, but vibrations, translated into radiant palpitations!
Every atom sang. Every breath of air, every footfall in the distance, every ripple of tension in the concrete beneath him became a brilliant frequency mapped out before him in astonishing precision!
A neighbor’s footstep nearby flashed like a blue ripple.
A heartbeat behind a wall throbbed crimson.
The faintest tremor in the ground danced in gold.
He saw them all.
Not with sight... but with resonance.
The Harmonic Spine wasn’t just letting him feel the world... it was translating its rhythm, tuning him into a spectrum of vibration more exact than vision could ever offer!
And in that moment, Levi understood:
He hadn’t gained a new sense.
He had been deaf to the true language of reality all along.
The language of Vibrations.