Tower of Growth (1)

It's no exaggeration to call the Tower of Growth a whole other world. It was vast and endlessly varied.

Over the four years at Siyoram, cadets could undergo all kinds of trials through the Tower of Growth—'safely.'

A first-year's first Tower entry was more of an exam, really—too awkward to seriously call it a trial.

The environment was like a prehistoric forest straight out of the internet. The air felt heavy when you breathed it in, and the trees were thick.

The leaves spreading across the branches were so wide you could've stitched them into clothes—or so I'm told. ...I couldn't see it myself, but that was probably the case.

The plan was simple.

The mana concentration here was incredible. No comparison to the outside. It didn't even compare to the dungeon I'd entered before.

The same went for the trees and grass that had been gorging on that mana year-round.

The weeds growing everywhere in this place were the kind of mana-infused medicinal herbs you'd struggle to find outside.

First, I intended to gather everything I needed. It might be tough for others, but with Spatial Perception, it'd be easy for me.

Any positive growth you achieved inside the Tower applied outside as well, and you could also take any items you obtained here out with you.

So I'd roam around gathering herbs. While at it, I'd look for Hidden Pieces. If things matched the original story, there was a chance one was hidden somewhere around here.

I planned to sell the herbs outside, or use them myself once I got into alchemy later.

And I'd endure like that for five days. Deliberately suppressing my presence, evading other cadets, and occasionally firing off a bit of magic as a deterrent.

I'd been told by others that my presence was faint and hard to pick up on. On top of that, I had Spatial Perception, which let me notice someone approaching and their traces beforehand. I figured it was doable.

Spatial Perception—the whole foundation my plan rested on—was gone.

I crammed myself into a gap between some large boulders and dazedly tried to operate my Spatial Perception.

My mind felt like it was about to snap. Honestly, I hated the world.

Part of me wanted to just sprawl out and sleep, but that was the worst of the worst choices.

I somehow rallied my will and did everything I could to recover my Spatial Perception.

What felt like hours passed. Spatial Perception was still crumpled and useless, just like me.

'Haa...'

Looking at the state it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in, getting Spatial Perception back easily seemed impossible.

'...What about food.'

Five days of survival. Naturally, we weren't allowed to bring emergency rations. You had to find your own food and water in this forest.

Without Spatial Perception right now... that was going to be hard.

I could handle drinking water with magic somehow.

The only ways to get food here were catching and eating edible monsters, or chewing on tree fruit and herb roots.

Even if I somehow managed to hide myself, fumble around, and find something like tree fruit, telling whether it was poisonous or edible would be difficult.

Can't check by sight. Can't check by smell or taste either. In the end, I'd have to shove it in my mouth and confirm by my body's reaction.

I couldn't just sit here waiting to die.

First, I carefully rose. I pushed aside the leaves that perfectly concealed the gap in the boulders and crept out.

I took each step cautiously, afraid I might tumble, feeling around my surroundings.

— Thwack

'Urk.'

I smacked my head on thick tree branches more than a few times.

— Trip

'Wah, w-woah...'

I nearly went sprawling three or four times after my leg snagged on tree roots jutting out of the ground.

— Poke

'Ow.'

I jabbed myself dozens of times on sharp points while groping at trees. Once Spatial Perception recovered, my palms would likely be covered in marks.

My hearing was the only sense I could still truly call an organ. Countless sounds seeped into my ears.

I could hear footsteps. The sound of my own steps. Now and then I'd pick up a presence that wasn't mine.

Each time, I quickly hid myself somewhere I could take cover, and if there was nowhere, I'd flatten myself against the ground and kill my presence.

I stayed hidden until that presence grew distant. Once it disappeared, I'd quietly rise and start feeling around again.

This repeated a few times. It'd been hours since I first hid in the boulder gap. A few more hours since I'd started fumbling around again, looking for anything.

I'd managed to scavenge a little tree fruit (presumed), and I'd located two spots: a large clearing and a riverside.

I kept prodding at Spatial Perception throughout. There was no good news.

I'm not sure if this is the right analogy, but the space around here was too heavy. I couldn't push it back no matter what, so I couldn't expand its range.

'No answers here.'

I rolled the hard-won tree fruit in my palm, deliberating.

I still hadn't figured out if it was poisonous. First, following something I'd heard somewhere, I crushed a bit of one fruit and rubbed it on my wrist.

If a stinging sensation rose up, I'd heard that meant poison. Thankfully, even after some time, there was no real reaction.

I carefully held a piece of the fruit in my mouth. No throbbing either. I ate the fruit in small bits, spacing them out like that.

A lot of time on Day 1 had already flown by.

'Tch...'

I needed to make a decision soon. At this rate, nothing would come of it. Spatial Perception had become useless, and its owner—me—had also become a blind, useless mess.

Struggling on like this wouldn't bring any real benefit.

I couldn't gather herbs. Finding a Hidden Piece was out of the question. Thanks to the amplified blessing of Growth, I could feel myself continuously developing just by sitting still and breathing.

But if this was all I could do, I'd rather ruin my grades, drop out early, and hole up in the training room.

As I sat dazedly in the boulder gap I'd returned to with nothing to show for it, prodding at Spatial Perception, countless sounds reached me again.

'...Sound.'

The Curse of Sensory Sealing had taken my sight, taste, and smell. Over half my five senses were gone, leaving only hearing and touch.

I'd noticed that since being cursed, my hearing and touch had improved. I could pick up small sounds I wouldn't normally notice.

The sound of the wind blowing, the sound of grass blades bending in that wind, the sound of branches swaying, the sound of flowing water, the chirping of small birds...

I barely held onto my crumbling mental state and dazedly took in the sounds. My drastically sharpened hearing caught all kinds of noises.

My hearing had gotten better. I hadn't really paid it much attention. I'd heard people say that when you close your eyes, the energy that would've gone to sight spreads to your other senses.

I didn't know if that was actually true, but since it felt that way to me, I just assumed it was.

'...This is really loud, though.'

But right now, I seemed to be hearing a bit too well.

The sounds reaching my ears kept multiplying. Every noise produced in the forest was transmitted to my ears.

Was this because the energy meant for Spatial Perception was spreading to my other senses?

Thinking about it, that made sense. My ears had always been good, even in my previous world.

While my body was generally frail—blurry vision and all—my ears were the only organs that worked normally.

Sensing someone's gaze through touch. Feeling it tactilely rather than intuitively was strange, but like my hearing, I'd always sensed gazes well on Earth, and I felt them even more keenly after coming here.

'Mana.'

I could feel mana, too. The ambient mana was so abundant that distinguishing specifics was tough, but all kinds of mana reached my skin, my senses.

The vibrant mana permeating the trees. The mana evident even in things like weeds. The flow of mana moving through the earth. The mana drifting through the empty air.

Mana that fundamentally carried the nature of life and the natural world, clear and blue...

I could feel it even without Spatial Perception.

When I thought about it—

At some point, I'd started sensing mana entirely through Spatial Perception.

Since when? No. I'd always perceived mana via Spatial Perception.

Ever since I was young, my vision had been blurry and bad, but at least I could still see.

After being cursed, the world, completely swallowed by darkness, was terrifying.

So I relied on my unstable Spatial Perception, which showed a world not too different from my old blurry one, and after it stabilized and normalized, I must've relied on it even more.

Spatial Perception was so all-purpose that this was all the more true.

I'd figured out many things about Spatial Perception.

The reason I could perceive a book's contents without opening it was that I was receiving the entire spatial information within its range at once.

Even without opening the book, it existed within that space. So by perceiving the space as a whole, the book's contents came along with it.

I perceived mana the same way. Because mana, too, existed within space in the end.

My hearing and touch had strangely sharpened in exchange for losing my sight, taste, and smell. I hadn't paid it proper attention. I'd been neglectful because I had Spatial Perception.

I relied on Spatial Perception. Maybe 'relied on' isn't even the right way to put it. Just as people have eyes to see the world, I had Spatial Perception in place of eyes to perceive the world.

People depend on sight. I depended on Spatial Perception.

But that wasn't the only thing I had.

Mana Affinity. All-Rounder. The physical abilities that rose when I became a superhuman. And my hearing and touch, which had become unusually sharp...

There were probably many things I could've used, but I'd buried myself solely in Spatial Perception.

'.....'

It was a strange thought.

Since things were already wrecked, I felt like giving it a proper try.

With a deep breath, I set aside thoughts of Spatial Perception for a moment.

I pulled back the Spatial Perception that had been kicking and struggling madly, trying to unfurl.

The sensation of that energy spreading out in all directions surged through me.

— Whooong

The wind blew. It slipped through the gap not covered by leaves and grazed my skin.

Before the wind could slip through the gap, it reached my ears first. I felt it before it brushed my skin.

I felt the mana along with it. The wind carried mana. The ground I sat on, the boulder I leaned against, the grass and trees filling my surroundings—mana overflowed from them all.

I opened my senses. Most superhumans open their senses. They read attacks and drive their own strikes home through enhanced sight, hearing, and touch.

Up until now, I'd done all that with Spatial Perception. My sight was gone, and Spatial Perception had felt more reliable than hearing or touch.

I perceived the world through sound. I grasped my surroundings through touch. I read the shape and nature of mana.

Spatial Perception had become useless, but the proficiency I'd gained from operating it hadn't disappeared.

I drew a map in my head. A clumsy one, pieced together from scattered information, filling in what had been blank spaces.

Before I knew it, I'd forgotten my hunger. My thirst had been quenched long ago, so there was no threat to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my life.

The lingering remnants of the elixir, clumped somewhere in my body—energy I'd yet to fully absorb—wriggled in response, as if resonating.

I kept my senses open and continued to grope through my surroundings. Using the gathered information, I drew a map.

.

.

.

— Step

A footstep.

That sound rang out, breaking through my focus.

That footstep alone reached me with striking clarity. I was sitting still in the boulder gap right now. It wasn't my presence.

I'd heard quite a few other presences too. My intensifying hearing was picking up far more sounds than I'd imagined.

— Step, step, step.

— ...Huh? ...where...

Those footsteps... no, those footsteps were now approaching this way. I could faintly make out voices too.

This was exactly like the swordsmanship lecture before, when I'd sensed Aiden walking straight toward me among the crowd of footsteps.

'They've got me.'

I'd been suppressing my presence as best I could while moving around. Sometimes I'd even used magic to assist while traveling.

But with my eyes in this state, I couldn't properly confirm what kind of trail I'd left behind.

There were about three presences approaching from that direction. One of them might have a detection-type ability, or there could be a cadet skilled in professional tracking techniques.

Either way, it seemed they'd picked up my trail.

Should I run?

The thought crossed my mind briefly, but I shook my head right away.

Realistically, running was difficult. In this state, my position was already compromised. I'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be caught before long.

Even if I did manage to flee, it wasn't just these people—a lot of cadets were already targeting me. I didn't know how long I could keep running, and there was nothing to gain from it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anyway.

'......'

It wasn't even worth calling it resolve.

I rose. I didn't suppress my presence anymore. The movements I heard through my ears grew urgent.

This spot wasn't suited for a fight. I moved my feet toward the clearing I remembered.

Unlike earlier, when I'd stumbled and stepped with caution—

my gait was considerably steadier.