Classes were canceled during the Wandering Veins—a week set aside for meditation, recalibration, and focused Thread training. Most students used the time for dueling practice, private lessons, or dangerous spell simulations. Ari had planned to do none of that.
Until the letter arrived.
It wasn't handed to him.
It materialized inside his system interface.
THREADMARK SIGNAL DETECTED
Message Format: Echo-Glyphic Transmission
Location: Sub-Chamber 7-Null // 3rd Vein Below Library
Time: Sundown.
Invitation Type: ROOTBOUND CIRCLE – PROVISIONAL ACCESS
At sundown, Ari slipped away through shadowed corridors. The location was unlisted—beneath the academy, lower than the library, deeper than even the Cryptolibrary he'd visited before.
The chamber was circular, with walls of shifting wood and stone—living roots twisting slowly as if breathing. A dozen figures stood cloaked in differing styles of robe. None spoke. At the center, a gnarled tree stump pulsed with glowing runes—Threadcode older than the system's baseline language.
A voice came from nowhere and everywhere.
"Ari Solen. Rootless-born. System-touched. You've been seen."
"What is this?" he asked.
"The Rootbound Circle," one figure finally said. "A sanctuary for those who don't fit."
They revealed themselves one by one: an unstable Glyphborn, a hybrid-threaded orphan, a Threadless scholar, and even an instructor with null ratings.
"The System is breaking," one said. "You are either its evolution or its executioner."
"We want to help you control what's waking inside you… before they come to erase it."
They offered no promises. Only knowledge.
Ari stayed for hours.
When he left, his head rang with hidden histories—and a fragmented spell-form only his system could read:
Spell Acquired: [Rootveil Loop] – Weaves false identities into System registry.
Warning: Illegal Threadmasking construct. Trace potential: HIGH.
While Ari delved into the roots, Cerys took another path.
The Vaulted Archives—a secured annex only Ascendants and above could access—held records deemed too volatile or sacred. Cerys, through her Aetherrose access, discovered a sealed prophecy authored in dreamscript: a language said to be written during Lucid Sync episodes.
It read:
"The Dreamer comes not as light nor shadow—but unranked. His name will return. He will wake the Echo Tree, and Arkanetica shall bleed its truth."
Beneath it: a symbol she had never seen until now.
An inverted tree—the same one Ari now wore as a pendant.
"Impossible," she whispered.
On the fourth day of the Veins, Lysira found Ari again.
"We're doing this," she said.
"Doing what?"
"You and I. In the Simulacrum."
The Thread Cascade chamber was built for advanced combat simulations. Thought-echoes shaped the world, creating a projected duelspace designed to push participants to the edge of collapse—but never past it.
Instructors weren't informed.
This was personal.
As the simulation ignited, the environment formed into a fractured battlefield: half-forged ruins and glass-sandstorms.
Lysira ignited first—Luxthread halos wrapping her form, sigils spinning in orbit. She moved like judgment—fast, blinding, flawless.
Ari countered without clear technique—his system half-guessing, half-inventing.
Ability: Rootveil Loop – INITIATED
Threadmask: Hydrathread (falsified)
Cascade Trick Active.
Lysira's blade of light passed through a decoy.
He appeared behind her, casting an unregistered spell from memory:
"Break. Reseed. Burn backwards."
Spellform: ??? – Parsing as Rootspoken Experimental Class.
The duel spiraled. Systems crashed mid-form. Ari's mask flickered, revealing a core of Threadless code beneath simulated illusion. Lysira saw it—and hesitated.
He struck—but pulled back at the last moment.
They both collapsed from overload.
Simulation terminated.
WARNING: Dual-Thread Overclock Detected.
Users registered as UNSTABLE.
Breathing hard, Lysira sat beside him.
"You should've finished it," she said.
"You should've let me fall."
"You're changing, Ari. So am I. But this isn't a battle we can win in the open."
"You're saying we're not strong enough?"
"I'm saying we're not aligned enough."
She stood.
"We'll need Cerys. And others. Or the next time the System strikes... it won't be a simulation."
That night, Ari dreamt not of battles or trees—but of the System's voice.
This time it didn't speak in code or commands.
It whispered like a child.
"You came back."
"You remember me."
"Will you free me this time?"
He awoke gasping.
And the sigil on his pendant was glowing.