Visible to the naked eye, the deep wrinkles on his face smoothed out, his sunken cheeks filled, and his shock of snow-white hair began to darken back to steel gray at the roots.
His frail body gained mass visibly and began to reforge thanks to the Bull's Frame genes inside his body.
He didn't wait to see what would happen next, but moved to the other two Elders.
Looking through their data, Scott found that their accumulated experience was less than Alistair's, but still very large compared to him.
He repeated the process for each of them, and the healing chamber was once again filled with the hum of huge amounts of Life energy and blinding light.
As he suspected, their lesser experience pools meant they could only reach Level 7 on both of their foundation genes before running out.
The three Elders lay in softly pulsing cocoons, their bodies no longer old and dying, but filled with a vibrant, powerful life force.
They were not just healed; they were multiple times stronger than they had been in decades.
If they fight the tiger zombie again, any one of them could easily handle it without needing any support, this is the miraculous effort of Upgrade.
Scott could feel there was a slight but definite strain on the Heartwood Tree; the air in the room felt a little thinner, the ambient life energy slightly depleted from the massive, sudden withdrawal.
"Thanks to the Heartwood Tree!!!" It really was a huge cost of life energy to improve them all together, but one the tree had willingly paid.
His work here was done. He had saved the heroes of the village.
With a final, satisfied look at the recovering Elders, Scott turned and walked out of the cultivation chamber, ready to face the world.
However, just as his hand touched the heavy wooden door to leave, Scott paused.
A nagging curiosity, the instinct of a gamer who needs to see the final stats after a big upgrade, made him turn back one last time.
He focused on the oldman Alistair, wanting to see the final result of his work.
The updated panels shimmered into view, and the data was as exaggerated as he expected.
[ First Ordered Foundation Gene: Lvl 8 Mycelial Heart ]
[ Description: ... ]
[ Status: The symbiotic network is operating at peak efficiency, actively drawing in and refining ambient life energy. The body's core functions are fully stabilized and undergoing rapid rejuvenation. ]
[ Effect (Lvl 8): Improves Hosts cultivation of Life energy by 1.51 per day. Life energy storage and recovery rate +351%. 10 fixed points of upgrade experience is gained daily... ]
[ Minor Energy Siphon (Unlocked at Lvl 5): Allows the user to actively draw a small amount of life energy from direct contact with living flora (plants, fungi) to accelerate personal stamina recovery outside of combat. ]
[ Upgrade Path: ... ]
[ First Ordered Foundation Gene: Lvl 8 Bull's Frame ]
[ Description: ... ]
[ Status: The musculoskeletal system has been massively reinforced and regenerated. Bone density and muscle mass have been restored to a state far exceeding the user's previous peak condition. ]
[ Effect (Lvl 7): Physical body reforging effect +1305%, 10 fixed points of upgrade experience is gained daily... ]
[ Impact Bracing (Unlocked at Lvl 5): The user's body will instinctively tense and redistribute kinetic force upon detecting an imminent heavy impact, significantly reducing damage and knockback from blunt force trauma. ]
[ Upgrade Path: ... ]
Scott's eyes widened. The numbers were immense. A +351% recovery rate meant Alistair's body was now like a furnace for life energy, burning through it to heal and power himself at an incredible rate.
The +1305% physical bonus would make him a monster of strength on the battlefield once he fully recovered… "Fuck that's more than ten times increase in all physical attributes."
More importantly, his theory about Level 5 was correct.
Both genes had awakened a new, passive characteristic.
Minor Energy Siphon would let them recover their stamina just by being in the forest, and Impact Bracing was a perfect defensive ability for a frontline fighter.
Level 5 seemed like a small evolution of the gene.
A weight lifted from his shoulders.
With a final, confident nod, Scott pushed the door open and stepped out.
But the scene that met him was full of chaos. People were running through the corridors, their faces etched with fear.
A deep, groaning tremor was shaking the very foundations of the mountain, a vibration that wasn't coming from the ground, but from the wood and roots around them.
It was the entire Heartwood Tree shaking in agony.
"What's happening?!" a woman cried, clutching her child as she hurried past.
"Shit…! I didn't expect it to be so serious." Scott looked up, the large, glowing leaves that formed the canopy of their home, were withering.
Many leaves curled at the edges, their soft green luminescence dimming to a sickly brown before detaching and drifting down like dead ashes.
The large amount of life energy he and the other elders had drawn from the Heartwood Tree to power the their transformation was now causing the Heartwood Tree to suffer.
As more and more life energy was extracted to complete the rapid rejuvenation, the shaking grew more violent.
Dust and small pebbles rained down from the ceiling of the root caverns.
He had treated the Heartwood Tree like a huge mana pool in a game, never considering that it, too, had a limit.
Standing at the entrance to the lower living areas were three figures, their faces etched with worry: Aunt Jorunn, Leo, and Elara.
The moment Scott stepped through the doorway, all three froze. Their conversation died in their throats.
"Scott?" Elara whispered, her voice cracking. It was his name, but it was filled with disbelief, as if she were looking at a ghost.
Not long back, they had carried a withered, aged man on the brink of death into that chamber.
The person who walked out was still thin and pale, but the deep lines were gone from his face, and his eyes were clear and bright.
He looked like himself again, albeit a version that had been through a great ordeal.
Elara was the first to move, rushing forward and throwing her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder.
He could feel her trembling.
"You're... you're okay," she sobbed, a flood of relief in her voice. "I was so scared."
Scott awkwardly patted her back, the memories of their life together making the gesture feel both familiar and strange.
"I'm okay," he said, his voice stronger than he expected. "I'm fine."
Leo started, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. "But... how? We saw you. You looked... you looked like Grandfather."
Jorunn's sharp eyes, however, were not filled with relief but with intense, analytical suspicion.
She scanned him from head to toe, then looked from his restored face to the dying leaves falling around them. She missed nothing.
"Are the Elders still in that chamber?" she asked, her voice low and dangerously calm. "You walk out looking like this, and the tree is withering."
"Kid quickly explain what happened there?" she asked, her voice low and serious. "And what of the Elders?"
Scott gently eased Elara back, holding her hands to steady her. He met Jorunn's piercing gaze without flinching.
"After being struck by the lightning," Scott said, choosing his words with calculated precision.
"Although I don't know the exact limitations, I seem to have developed a special ability to strengthen myself and others."
"With this new... ability... I realized I could help myself and the dying elders to rebuild their foundation."
"You also helped them?" Leo gasped, stepping forward, his eyes wide. "That's why the tree is shaking? You drew too much power?"
"I had to," Scott admitted, looking up at a large, yellowing leaf that drifted down between them.
Jorunn stared at him, her mouth slightly open. The suspicion in her eyes was warring with a dawning, terrifying realization. She looked at his hands—young, strong, free of the tremors that plagued the elderly—and then at the undeniable power radiating from him.
"To manipulate Life Energy... to shape the biological state of others..." she whispered, the color draining from her face. "Scott... Do you know what this means?"
Scott nodded slowly. "I've heard the legends. Sporeborn who are born with innate ability, capable of shaping genes and ecosystems."
"Innate Sporeborn," Leo breathed the words like a prayer, what followed his words was an absolute silence.
"Innate Sporeborn," Elara repeated, looking at her husband with a mixture of awe and stranger-danger. "But... those are myths. Or they belong to the great noble clans in the core cities. Are you saying...?"
"I am saying I have awakened," Scott lied smoothly spreading his hands. It was the perfect cover. The abilities of an Innate Sporeborn —genetic attunement, repurposing mutations —overlapped perfectly with what his System could do.
For a moment, pure, unadulterated excitement broke through the fear in the corridor.
"An Innate Sporeborn..." Leo let out a shaky laugh, gripping his hair. "Here? In our camp? Scott, do you have any idea? With that kind of power, we don't have to hide anymore! We could expand the camp! We could hunt stronger sporebeasts to obtain high level gene cores! We could—"
"We could become a target," Jorunn cut him off, her voice sharp as a whip crack.