Chapter 477 - Elle’s Awakening

Chapter 477: 477 - Elle’s Awakening

The garden at the entrance of the headquarters tree had never been so alive.

Lohan sensed it even before crossing the main arch, because Mental Perception already showed an immense luminosity coming from the center of the garden, a white and pink light that pulsed like the heart of something very large, and around it dozens of small lights from flowers and vines responding to that pulse, sprouting and opening at an ever faster rhythm.

When he finally arrived, he saw what Pip had tried to explain: in the middle of the dew flower bed, floating half a meter off the ground, a cocoon of soft light enveloped Elle’s small body, and all around it the ground burst into color.

A few guild members had already gathered there, keeping a respectful distance, with expressions somewhere between awe and reverence. Alice stood in the front row, her hands pressed against her chest, and Skye, who had been passing by with Sara, had suddenly stopped, her mouth slightly open.

"She’s evolving," Alice whispered, without taking her eyes off the cocoon. "I thought she still had a way to go, but she’s evolving."

"She was two levels short," Lohan answered, in a soft voice, sliding up to stand beside Pip, who was trembling like a leaf on a windy day. "But she spent the whole week helping the patrol groups, and the biomass injection sessions every night did the rest. She was very close."

It was hard to believe this was the same Pip who, a week earlier, still needed help to face packs of wolves. He had risen to Level 15 in seven days, and now took down on his own monsters that would once have made him run, his serrated wings cutting through the air so fast that the newer Players called him "the green lightning." But in that moment, all of his power meant nothing in the face of the fear of losing his sister.

"What if something goes wrong?" Pip asked, in a choked little voice, clutching his own hands against his chest. "Pip saw what happened with Pip, Halon, and Pip was scared! And Elle is tiny, and Elle doesn’t like pain, and what if..."

’Pip.’

Lohan’s voice reached the small warrior’s mind directly, firm and warm, without passing through any link, and Pip froze in midair, his eyes wide.

’Breathe. I’m sensing Elle right now, from the inside, and she’s calm. She’s a little afraid, but much more curious than scared. Can you feel that?’

Pip closed his eyes slowly and Lohan helped him, carefully projecting the image of Elle’s light, calm and steady, pulsing inside the cocoon like a flame sheltered from the wind. It was a skill he had refined over the past few days, projecting not just words but entire sensations, and Pip’s reaction was immediate, with his shoulders relaxing, his breathing slowing.

"Pip feels it," he murmured, in a calmer voice. "Elle is happy. Elle is... singing."

’Exactly. Now we just need to give her space.’

In a single mental movement, Lohan projected a message to all the members around them, all at the same time. ’Please step back about fifteen meters, and stay calm. The pressure from the evolution can be strong.’ The Players exchanged frightened looks, but obeyed almost instantly, forming a wide circle around the garden.

Lisa, beside him, let out a soft laugh.

"I still haven’t gotten used to that," she commented over the link. "You talking to everyone at the same time, with nobody knowing where it came from."

’Me neither, but it’s pretty useful.’

Lisa’s mental link subtly asked for the target’s permission to communicate, while Lohan’s simply invaded the person’s mind and spoke directly, which almost always startled unsuspecting targets.

It was then that the cocoon cracked.

A soft, almost musical snap echoed through the garden, and a seam of white light cut across the cocoon’s surface from top to bottom, releasing a shower of luminous petals that drifted slowly through the air before dissolving into golden pollen.

The seam widened, and Lohan felt the pressure of natural mana spread through the garden like a warm, fragrant wave, making all the surrounding vegetation lean toward the light.

The dew flowers grew to the height of a human’s knees, then to the waist, opening petals the size of plates, and the glowing vines coiled around one another, forming natural arches over the flower bed.

The air grew heavy with a sweet, fresh scent, like a spring morning after the rain, and all the guild members, from a distance, stood motionless, even the loudest ones, holding their breath.

The cocoon opened completely.

Elle floated out of it slowly, her eyes still closed, and it took Lohan a moment to realize how much she had changed.

Her butterfly wings, which had once been delicate and translucent like silk, now had the texture of glass petals, with golden veins pulsing at a gentle rhythm, and their edges opened into small luminous flowers that bloomed and vanished with each beat.

Her little body was a bit taller and firmer, but still kept all of its earlier delicacy, and her hair now had white and gold highlights amid its natural blue.

When she finally opened her eyes, they shone a deep blue, with small golden specks slowly circling her pupils, and Lohan felt her light, through Mental Perception, grow from a small flame into a steady, welcoming bonfire.

"Elle..." she murmured, looking at her own hands, and a small blue flower bloomed in the palm of one of them. "Elle feels the flowers. Elle feels... all the flowers. Elle can hear them singing."

"ELLE!" Pip shouted, and shot toward her, hugging her so hard the two of them nearly fell into the middle of the flower bed. "Elle is okay! Elle is okay, Elle is okay!"

"Pip, Elle can’t breathe," she laughed, her eyes full of tears, but hugging her brother back just as hard. "But Elle is so happy. Elle is so, so happy."

Lohan opened the guild interface, almost by instinct, and Elle’s profile appeared before him, glowing with the same intensity as the fairy herself.

[Name: Elle

Race: Fairy (Common) → Natural Fairy (Uncommon)

Class: Flower Gatherer (Common) → Blooming Guardian (Uncommon)

Level: 11]

He stared at that screen for a moment, feeling a mix of joy and something deeper, a quiet certainty that this confirmed what he had imagined during Pip’s evolution.

It hadn’t been a fluke, nor a privilege of a single native. It was a path, and he now had two proofs that it worked.

’Congratulations, Elle,’ he said, projecting the words with as much affection as he could gather. ’You look beautiful. And more importantly, you’re okay.’

Elle turned to him, with a smile so wide it nearly lit up the whole garden, and a rain of blue petals fell around her.

"Halon! Elle is so happy!!" she exclaimed, flapping her wings with enthusiasm.

The crowd, seeing that everything had ended well, burst into applause and cheers of celebration, and soon people began to approach, surrounding the little fairy with questions, hugs and improvised gifts.

By that point Elle had won over every member of Astralis, probably being the third most popular figure in the guild, behind only Halon and Lisa.

Alice cried openly, hugging both fairies at once, and Skye, still a little slack jawed, laughed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Outside the circle, at the edge of the forest, Lohan sensed a new presence, small, shy and curious, watching everything from a distance.

It was a white and silver light, pulsing with a quiet joy, and he recognized right away whose it was even before seeing the outline of the unicorn standing between the trees, her ears turned toward the garden.

’Elle’s friend,’ he thought, without projecting anything, just letting the thought exist. ’She came to see.’

The unicorn stayed still for a few more seconds, and then turned around and disappeared among the trees, without making a sound.

But Lohan felt, before she vanished, a wave of happiness so pure and so simple that he kept it carefully, like a reward no one else had noticed.

That night, after the garden returned to calm and Elle fell asleep hugging her brother on a bed of petals she herself had created, Lohan logged out of the game, and the transition back to the real world came, as always, with that strange sensation of heaviness.

But now there was a difference compared to a week ago.

He opened his eyes in the dark bedroom of the apartment, took off the helmet and stayed still for a few seconds, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for the headache to arrive, the way it always did after a long session. And it didn’t come!

His head was light and clear, with no buzzing, none of the tired fog that used to come with the end of the night, as if he had just slept eight hours instead of spending twelve connected, dividing his attention among dozens of clones.

Lohan smiled, and got up.

In the kitchen, while preparing the two Grade SS Nutritive Solution ampoules that made up his breakfast, he noticed small details that would have gone unnoticed before.

The sound of the refrigerator turning on, even the muffled conversation of two neighbors in the hallway, which he could follow without effort, and a mental list of all the day’s tasks organized itself, in the right order, without him needing to write anything down.

He read three guild reports at the same time, running his eyes over the ocular device’s screen while thinking about something else, and at the end, he remembered every number, every comma, every observation from Dylan.

None of that was a game skill, nor an active trait. It was simply his mind, which had changed, and which now carried that change into the real world.

In front of the bathroom mirror, he furrowed his brow hard, trying to think of everything at once, and for an instant, a very faint blue glow appeared under the skin of his forehead, just above his eyebrows, pulsing a single time before disappearing.

’I’m going to have to hide this when I’m with Isabella,’ he thought, with a low laugh, running a hand over the spot where the glow had appeared. ’Or at least learn to control it.’

He stayed there a while longer, looking at his own reflection, and thought about the Mana Stone, hanging around Lisa’s neck, and the echo that still called to him. One more day, maybe two, and he would finally have the Level 21 evolution to make sure everything went well.

This time, he thought, he would be ready for nothing bad happen again to him.