#3. The President (2)
Half an hour passed, and the road had climbed to five thousand feet elevation, its faded asphalt frozen to a grayish white nearly approaching pure white. Speed limit signs and driving caution placards whipped by at the roadside. The latter urged the installation of snow chains. Other vehicles had pulled over to fit theirs, but the ride prepared by headquarters' field support team was four-wheel drive with snow tires already mounted—no need to dawdle.
The closer we drew to the ancient sequoia groves, the faster my heart pounded. The flows of mana essence entering my vision were anything but ordinary. Unrefined strands of mana power were tangled in among them. Proof of at least one awakened being nearby. An awakened being's circuit sucks in the surrounding mana essence, and that sucking force is called dominance. The range over which that dominance exerts itself is known as the circuit field—or mana field.
I felt my lips go dry.
An awakened being whose field extends to distances where even the source isn't visible...
It was beyond expectations. The trees in Sequoia National Park were massive and ancient, true enough, but I hadn't thought any had opened their circuits yet. I'd figured it would take something on the scale of the Oregon mushroom that's expanded its mycelial territory for eight thousand seven hundred years—or Utah's golden poplars, estimated at a minimum eighty thousand years old—for that to become plausible. I'd come to these Sequoia woods purely to observe the initial precursors before full awakening, but it seemed I'd underestimated the potential born of sheer scale. Perhaps the quality of a soul tempered by eons was another variable at play.
The magical knowledge I possessed was fundamentally the product of digesting the spirit of that bastard mentor rotting away in my head. The arrogant prick had known a great deal, but he hadn't mastered every principle of magic. Thus, judgments based on that knowledge could contain errors. Then again, the old bastard had his own religious biases and human supremacism, just like the rest.
"We'll park here."
One of Kyung-tae's underlings turned the wheel, easing off the throttle. Once out of the car and past the trailhead entrance, I anxiously sought the path leading south. Kyung-tae, sticking close as my shadow, spoke up in evident confusion.
"Uh, hyungnim. The biggest tree around here's the other way. Somethin' called General Sherman."
"I know. But that's not what I need to see."
"You already spotted somethin'?"
"...You couldn't even imagine what I'm seeing."
I felt my own field contracting as if being squeezed. The pure contest of dominance against dominance that occurs when fields clash in territorial disputes. Compared to the power of this colossal tree—whose full extent was only now coming into view—my dominance over the mana essence around us was utterly insignificant.
What about after my circuit fully stabilizes?
A rough estimate later, I shook my head inwardly. I'd still be outmatched. There was a class gap no amount of circuit density or refinement could bridge. And as time passed, this giant's circuit would undergo its own natural optimizations. How efficiently it used the mana essence it drew in was a separate issue, but within this giant's domain, no mage—no primitive ability user—could perform at full capacity. They simply couldn't draw on the ambient mana essence with maximum efficiency. Unless they destroyed the tree itself.
At last, I halted. The sound of running water drifted from somewhere. Off-season, perhaps—or maybe because this wasn't the park's most famous tree—there was no one around but our group. No sign of the surveillance I'd feared, either. The security detail, disguised as tourists, stood at a distance, watching the perimeter.
Kyung-tae, sidling up beside me, read the plaque in front of the tree.
"The President... President, huh? What a grandiose name. This the one you were lookin' for, hyungnim?"
I didn't turn my eyes from it.
"Yeah. Could be this era's first natural awakened being."
"Awakened? You mean its mana circuit thingy's already open?"
Kyung-tae craned his neck to peer up at the towering canopy.
"Whoa. This President fella's seriously huge. Taller than a decent apartment building... Feels like starin' at a damn cliff."
His exclamations trailed off into near-mutters the farther back he stepped. I approached The President's overwhelming mass and pressed my palm to its rough bark. Inside the wood, I could almost tactilely sense the rush of mana essence and mana power. A sensation beyond mere sight. The circuit resembled rapids and waterfalls—turbulent and inefficient, yet beautiful.
To my eyes, mana essence and mana power appeared as waves of light points in differing patterns. Thus, The President was a tree of lights, dyed in vibrant hues from its deep roots to its lofty crown. Mana power escaping the imperfect circuit formed aurora-like clusters, streaming away like the Milky Way.
I let out a sigh laced with awe, then warned Kyung-tae.
"Kyung-tae."
"Yeah."
"Keep everyone within about five meters of me. Have those guys over there spread out to the sides. That's the direction the mana power's leaking."
"Whoa."
No need for Kyung-tae to relay it—one of the escorts was already on the radio. A glance back showed the guards in that sector scattering. I turned my gaze forward again. By eye, five meters was the maximum radius where I could exert dominance here. Technically, dominance over mana essence could be reversed to repel it or mana power. To avoid exposure to the wild, unrefined mana power, they had to stay close to me or get out entirely.
And a mere five meters, at that. My current self felt so small and pathetic it was almost laughable. But it wasn't pure negativity. Awe outweighed the self-mockery. This tree was far more beautiful than anything I'd seen before.
Deciphering The President's circuit didn't take long. Its complexity was still low, and even among those circuits, only a fraction performed meaningful functions. Still, it differed markedly from a human circuit. A difference that would only widen going forward. More weight fell to the hypothesis that abilities manifesting across species would take divergent forms.
"Hyungnim."
Facing an unknown he'd never encountered, Kyung-tae spoke cautiously.
"So, what ability's this guy got?"
"Ability?"
"Yeah."
"It'll grow better than before. Get tougher, too."
"...That's the answer?"
"Isn't that the primal urge of life itself?"
A simple phrasing, but this was truly remarkable. It would substitute mana power for part of the energy needed for growth. I was eager to see how much vaster this giant would become. What changes would biomass-rich plants exhibit once bio-enhancement left them overflowing with energy? Whatever form those changes took, human civilization would suffer the birth pangs of encroaching greenery.
Kyung-tae made an awkward face at the response.
"Makes sense, but callin' it a 'desire' for a plant feels off."
"Why?"
"Plants got no intelligence."
"Who says?"
"Huh? Isn't it obvious?"
"Nothing's obvious in this world."
"Uh..."
"Question common sense sometimes. Plants have intelligence. Cognitive abilities, too. Just different principles and forms from ours."
Watching fools who deem only human-defined intelligence as 'true' intelligence—and mock plants accordingly—reminded me of imperialists who claimed their civilization alone was real and plastered the world in colonies. I hated imperialism. Not for right or wrong, but because it was imperialism.
"Not convinced, huh?"
Kyung-tae shook his head at my question.
"Nah, hyungnim's always right to me, Kim Kyung-tae. Just... it's the total opposite of what I knew, so it don't feel real yet. Haha."
"Hm."
Such conversations had repeated so often fatigue was setting in, but with the knowledge to prepare for the future residing solely in me, what choice was there? This guy needed to keep his wits sharp for what lay ahead. Plants accounted for 99.5% of Earth's biomass—a harbinger that most emerging awakened beings would be flora.
"Here's a simple example."
I opened my mouth.
"Many trees recognize their kin."
"Whoa."
"Close genetic relatives don't compete—or if they do, they don't go for the kill."
In short, plants had families, too. A natural strategy for preserving and propagating genes, just like in human society.
"But even within the same species, trees of differing 'bloodlines' wage fierce wars. Hostile roots stretching to claim more territory. In dense forests, you can map the familial ties of the trees by examining the underground roots."
"That's wild. How do they judge without a brain...?"
Answering fully would overload with info. Irked by the hassle, I condensed the long explanation into one line.
"A plant's roots are its brain."
"..."
Kyung-tae fell silent and eyed the ground at his feet anew. As if ordinary eyes could pierce the topsoil. In truth, I'd oversimplified. Plant intelligence was distributed beyond the roots. But the roots' share was overwhelmingly dominant, centered on the root tips. Those cells exchanged electrical and chemical signals, forming a network functionally akin to an animal brain. Even roadside wildflowers had them in the tens of millions. For a giant like The President? Better to weigh them than count.
Even without such colossi, the cognitive network mass in any decent-sized tree far exceeded a human brain. The difference lay in processing methods—a gap rendering mutual empathy nearly impossible. That's why I thought vegans preaching 'eat only plants to spare lives' were full of shit.
If you value life that much, just starve to death.
The smug moral superiority those savage barbarians exuded evoked the nauseating chosen-people complex of my mentor and the London bastards. Shaking off the train of thought, I turned from The President.
"This one's done. Let's check the others."
Kyung-tae looked surprised.
"Already?"
"Newly opened circuit—nothing more to see for now. Maybe if I come back later."
I wanted to observe its development long-term, but reality forbade it. Couldn't uproot and transplant the whole damn thing. At least I'd glimpsed the fundamentals of bio-enhancement circuit operation—different from humans. Worth the trek. In programming terms, I'd collected code. Building a library this way would prove useful someday. I could only hope these efforts would surpass the imperialists' knowledge and relics.
After that, I toured The Senate, McKinley, Lincoln, and Franklin in order, finally standing before General Sherman, the park's undisputed giant—and by ordinary tree standards, the world's largest.
Kyung-tae eyed the nearby tourists warily as he asked,
"How is it?"
"Less developed than the others."
"Pfft, all size, no substance."
Larger biomass raised awakening odds, but probability was probability. Mana essence flows pierced General Sherman like light cracks in places, but no meaningful circuit yet.
"Chairman."
Hong Young-sik, the vice president who'd been on a call, turned to me.
"A message from Diamond Casino."
I took the phone from him.