God's Tree-Chapter 214: Knock at the Door

By midday, the city buzzed.

The rumors had begun.

A man had returned from beyond the lands of Morgoth.

Not injured. Not broken.

Changed.

Whispers passed through the guildhall, the market stalls, and even among the guards at the city walls.

But Argolaith paid them no mind.

He was in the training chamber again.

Focused.

The cube hovered in the center of the room—held in a suspended shell of mana, rotating slowly like a moon orbiting an invisible star.

Argolaith stood beside it, sleeves rolled up, eyes narrowed in concentration.

His runes—layered in circular sequences on the walls and floor—were each tied to a specific elemental signature.

Fire. Ice. Wind. Earth. Light. Shadow. Ether. Blood.

He wasn't trying to destroy the cube.

He was trying to understand it.

He fed a thread of fire into the field.

The cube pulsed, rippled once, and the fire passed through it—untouched, unregistered.

Next was ice.

The air grew cold around it—but the cube simply spun, unaffected.

Shadow?

It absorbed the darkness but didn't change.

Light?

It bent around the cube unnaturally—refusing to define its surface.

It doesn't absorb, he thought. It rejects.

It wasn't a void.

It wasn't a sponge.

It was something untouched by all known forces. A blank canvas that didn't interact unless it chose to.

He paused. Then did something bold.

He touched it with the tip of a memory rune.

And for a flicker of a moment—

The cube glowed.

A shimmer.

An acknowledgment.

It had accepted the rune's presence—but changed nothing in response.

Argolaith stepped back, exhaling slowly.

"You're not just for storing magic, are you?" he murmured. "You're waiting."

The cube stilled. Silent. Heavy with unknown.

He turned to his journal to write notes—hand halfway to ink—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

His head snapped toward the door.

Three measured knocks.

No urgency.

No fear.

Just certainty.

He wiped his hands, reactivating his defensive runes across the cube before striding to the door.

The hallway beyond was empty—quiet.

Except for the figure standing in the doorway.

A man.

Early thirties.

Tidy hair, streaked with gray. Eyes like blue steel, with an Adventurer's posture—upright, alert, but relaxed.

He wore a plain black cloak pinned with a platinum star-shaped brooch at the collar.

Argolaith narrowed his eyes.

He recognized the sigil.

The Grand Magic Academy.

The man bowed slightly.

"Forgive the intrusion. My name is Instructor Veylan."

Argolaith didn't move. "You're early."

Veylan smiled faintly.

"Only by a year." He glanced past Argolaith's shoulder—just briefly, but with sharp awareness. "Word of your… return reached ears far beyond this city."

Argolaith let the silence stretch.

Then stepped aside.

"Come in."

Instructor Veylan stepped into the elite room with the careful poise of a man who'd seen too many strange things to be easily impressed—but who knew how to spot power when he felt it.

He said nothing at first.

His eyes swept the training space. The intricate rune arrays. The stabilized airfields.

And then—

His gaze landed on the cube.

It floated in the protective spellframe Argolaith had etched into the floor—suspended like a star caught between time and gravity. Still silent. Still impossible.

Veylan slowed to a stop.

"Is that…?"

Argolaith nodded. "Something I made. It's not magic. It's not memory. It just is."

Veylan stepped forward.

Paused.

"May I touch it?"

Argolaith watched him. No hesitation.

"Yes. Just once."

The instructor extended a single, gloved hand.

The moment his fingers made contact with the cube—

His mana collapsed.

Not violently. Not permanently.

Just a brief, terrifying vacuum.

As if a plug had been pulled from a well of magic within his body.

His knees buckled slightly, and he let go, staggering back.

"What was that?" he rasped, blinking rapidly. "It took from me—just for a second."

Argolaith didn't move.

"It doesn't interact with magic the way we do. It doesn't understand it. Or maybe it does, and just doesn't care."

Veylan looked down at his palm, now tingling.

Then at the cube.

"You made this?"

"Yes."

"From what?"

"From nothing."

Silence.

Veylan's throat worked once, swallowing.

He looked back to Argolaith—this boy, barely eighteen, who stood there with calm certainty and something ancient behind his eyes.

"Tell me everything," Veylan said. "What did you see? Why has no one else ever come back?"

Argolaith moved to the side table, poured water into two glasses from a clay pitcher, and offered one to Veylan.

He didn't sit. He just began to speak.

"The reason no one returns… is because they never reach the Galaxy Maker's realm."

Veylan blinked. "Galaxy Maker?"

"The tree. The one at the heart of the secret realm. My tree."

Argolaith took a sip of water.

"The land beyond Morgoth isn't just a place. It's guarded. There's a creature—looks part man, part void—called the Reaper Beast. If it senses you don't belong there…"

He tapped the rim of his glass.

"You don't get another chance. You die."

"And it didn't kill you?"

"Because the Galaxy Maker called to me."

Argolaith stepped to the window, looking out over the rooftops.

"I walked across a world that shouldn't exist. A realm made of stars and memory, where time flows differently. I completed three trials—lives, creations, and understanding. I saw a thousand worlds. I taught, failed, built, lived, died… and climbed back again."

Veylan stood very still.

His voice was quiet now.

"What did it give you?"

Argolaith didn't answer right away.

Instead, he held up his hand.

The air rippled slightly above his palm.

Then the cube vanished from its pedestal and appeared above his hand with a soft blink of reversed space.

Veylan flinched.

Argolaith closed his fingers slowly.

"It gave me a spark."

"One I'm still learning to hold."

"One that sees what's been hidden…"

"…and makes what's never existed before."

He turned to face the instructor.

"That's why no one comes back. Because they were never meant to go in."

"But I was."

The room fell into a thick, reflective silence.

Instructor Veylan stood unmoving, eyes locked on the cube now gently hovering above Argolaith's palm. His fingers twitched once, as if resisting the urge to reach for it again—curiosity and caution at war within him.

Argolaith lowered the cube, allowing it to blink back into the stasis shell hovering over the pedestal.

"You understand now," he said quietly. "I didn't just survive the secret realm. I was shaped by it."

Veylan let out a long breath. He finally turned away from the cube and walked toward the far wall of the room, resting one hand lightly on a support beam.

He stared out at nothing in particular for several long seconds.

Then, without turning around:

"You shouldn't be able to do any of this."

Argolaith tilted his head. "But I can."

Veylan gave a strained chuckle.

"Yes. That's what worries them."

That drew Argolaith's full attention.

"Them?"

Veylan turned back, his face unreadable. "The Council of Elders at the Grand Magic Academy. The high instructors. The Archmage herself." He paused. "They saw your name when you entered the Mithril rankings. When you reappeared from the lands beyond. And then when your identity glyph surged with an unknown classification of magic… it triggered ancient alarms that haven't gone off in centuries."

He took a step forward.

"They're not just curious about you, Argolaith. They're… cautious."

Argolaith's eyes narrowed, but not in fear.

"Do they think I'm a threat?"

Veylan hesitated. Then, with sincerity:

"They think you're an anomaly. And anomalies are always one of two things: world-changers… or world-breakers."

Argolaith folded his arms. "So they sent you to test me."

"Not test." Veylan held up a hand. *"Observe. Learn. Maybe understand. But even I wasn't prepared for this."

He glanced back at the cube.

"That isn't a spell. That isn't an artifact. That's… something else. Something no one's seen before."

Argolaith nodded.

"Because it's not from Morgoth. It's born from the Galaxy Maker. I didn't craft it. I formed it."

"From what?"

"From the formless."

Veylan fell silent again.

His mind was racing. Argolaith could see it behind his eyes—the calculation, the tension, the fear of a young man who had already passed through death and starlight to become something more.

Finally, the instructor spoke.

"You still plan to come to the Academy next year?"

"Yes."

"Even knowing what they think of you?"

Argolaith stepped forward until they stood nearly eye to eye.

"I don't need their acceptance."

"But I will need knowledge."

"And I won't stop growing just to make them comfortable."

The words hung like a blade in the air.

Veylan didn't flinch.

He smiled—faintly. Grimly. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"Then I suggest you get ready, Argolaith."

"Because if you walk through those gates with this kind of magic…"

He glanced once more at the cube. Its silent glow pulsed, slow and steady.

"…you won't just be a student."

"You'll be a warning."