When Kayn, Noah, and Akile returned, they were met with a strange scene. The two girls were kneeling on the ground, digging small holes near the entrance of the cave.
The three immediately approached them.
"What are you doing?" Kayn asked.
Rosy raised one of the small seeds between her fingers.
"Ariana gave us these. She said that if we put them in the ground, food will grow from them."
The three fell silent for a moment.
Ariana had appeared again.
And they had not been there.
But something else surprised them even more: the things they always threw away from fruits could somehow turn into food.
Naturally, they were skeptical.
The three started asking questions almost at the same time.
"When did she appear?"
"Did she say anything else?"
"Why did she come here?"
Steh then led them toward the lettuce Ariana had grown earlier.
She explained that it was edible and described how Ariana had instantly made the leaves grow using magic.
They still did not fully understand what magic actually was.
But Steh tried to explain it in the simplest way possible.
"It was the same thing she did with the fire."
The days continued moving forward in Arcadia.
Every morning began the same way. The fire was reignited. The tools were sorted. The spears were checked before the hunts began.
And for the first time, part of the group was no longer leaving the cave only to search for food.
Rosy and Steh stayed near the cave entrance, carefully watching the place where they had buried the seeds Ariana gave them.
Nothing had grown yet.
Even so, the two kept returning there several times a day.
They watered the soil.
Removed small rocks.
And stared at the ground as if expecting a miracle to appear at any moment.
Noah noticed this while tying a new stone tip onto his spear.
"You two have been staring at that dirt more than the forest lately," he commented.
Rosy did not take her eyes off the ground.
"Ariana said food would grow from here."
Silence lingered for a few seconds.
"Alright... but I don't think it's going to happen that fast," Noah replied. "We're focusing too much on this. We still need to hunt, gather wood, and keep improving the cave."
Steh shot him an irritated look.
"The seeds are important too."
"I never said they weren't," Noah answered calmly. "But food doesn't grow overnight."
Rosy noticed the tension building and quickly grabbed Steh's arm.
"Let's help them first... then we can come back here."
Steh let out a small sigh.
Even so, her gaze remained fixed on the soil.
She wanted those plants to grow.
She wanted to prove Ariana was right.
She wanted to show that this really could change the way they lived.
Then...
Something changed.
A strange sensation passed through her body for a brief instant.
Like a gentle warmth slowly flowing beneath her skin.
Small blue particles appeared around the soil for less than a second before vanishing again.
Nobody noticed.
Except Ariana.
High above the skies, her eyes widened slightly.
"Mana...?"
Ding!
[Traces of mana detected within humans.]
[Analyzing...]
[Human Steh has become the first human to naturally awaken mana.]
[Title Granted: First Mage]
[First Mage]
[Description: Slightly increases the holder's understanding of magic.]
Ariana remained silent for a few seconds, still watching Steh below.
Surprised.
This was already the second title the System had granted her in such a short period of time.
Maybe it was her personality.
Her curiosity.
Or simply the absurd speed at which humans were evolving.
While Ariana continued observing Steh in silence, Arcadia itself was changing in places far beyond that small cave.
Life was evolving.
Spreading.
And becoming increasingly unpredictable.
The goblins that had appeared within the forests no longer remained confined to a single territory. As time passed, different groups naturally separated from one another, forming small settlements throughout various regions of Arcadia.
Some were small.
Others had already become large enough to dominate entire sections of the forest.
And among them, differences began to emerge.
Certain goblins, after remaining exposed for long periods to the dense concentration of mana present within Arcadia, awakened an extremely basic understanding of magic. It was still primitive — small sparks, warmth gathering in their hands, slight disturbances in the environment — but it was already a beginning.
Some tribes became far more dangerous than others.
Meanwhile, the wolves remained within the territory they had always inhabited.
Unlike the goblins, they did not spread chaotically. The pack possessed an extremely rigid hierarchy and a level of coordination unusual even for creatures of that world.
And the leader of the pack had also changed.
The large white wolf had grown bigger than before.
Its fur now shone more brightly beneath the moonlight, and a small horn had begun growing from the center of its forehead.
Ding!
[Moon Wolf]
[Description: Leader of the pack. Evolved from a common wolf into a Moon Wolf. Its abilities become slightly stronger during the night.]
Far away from there, deep within the heart of a silent forest, a monstrous creature remained motionless.
A gigantic tree.
Its trunk possessed a grotesque, distorted face, enormous teeth buried into the flesh of an entire ox that it slowly chewed apart.
Crack.
The sound of bones breaking echoed constantly.
Blood flowed down the roots spread across the ground, while piles of animal skeletons surrounded the creature like remnants of ancient feasts.
"I can no longer sense them..." the tree murmured in an old, dragging voice. "Where did they go...?"
The surrounding trees swayed slightly.
As if all of them were extensions of its own consciousness.
Its perception spread throughout a large portion of the forest, endlessly searching for the humans.
During the entire period Noah and the others had lived within that territory, the creature had silently watched them.
Waiting.
Simply waiting for them to come close enough.
But its plans had been interrupted.
The forest fire had driven the humans away before it could act.
The memory still caused its rage to grow.
Its roots violently twisted beneath the soil.
Furious, the tree had massacred nearly every living creature within a radius of almost one kilometer after losing its prey.
And even now...
It was still searching for them.