CHAPTER ONE: THE TREE AND THE VOID
They called it the Awakening — the moment your Tree lit up.
Most kids saw their first branch glow before their tenth birthday, the golden etchings of their Arcana tree shimmering into visibility on the inside of their forearms. Each glowing line represented a skill — tiny sparks of potential leading upward into paths of fire, shadow, ice, blood, metal, storm... you name it. The more nodes you unlocked, the more powerful you became. The best of the best had Trees that stretched all the way up their shoulders and wrapped around their backs like divine tattoos.
Then there was me.
Seventeen years old. No Tree. No skills. No glow.
Just a single, pitch-black node.
No branches. No spark. Just a void, pulsing faintly in the center of my palm — like a hole the universe forgot to fill in.
I was what people politely called a Mono. The freaks who got one upgrade, one skill, and no more. The rest of the Tree never grew. No one knew why. Maybe the root rotted. Maybe the gods just didn't care.
The day it activated, I thought I was dying.
It happened during the Trials — our school's coming-of-age gauntlet. Everyone had to show their Arcana and what they'd unlocked so far. Some could summon fireballs, teleport short distances, control gravity, even bend metal. I walked into the arena with nothing but a blank palm and a heart pounding out of rhythm.
The others jeered. Of course they did. A Mono with no branch? A joke. A warm-up round. I didn't blame them.
But when my name was called, and I stepped into the circle...
The void pulsed.
Everything went silent.
And I mean silent. No wind. No breathing. Not even the buzz of the lights overhead. I blinked, and suddenly I could see the whole arena — not just from where I stood, but from every angle. Above, below, behind.
The ground cracked beneath my feet, not from force — but from absence. Space bent. The ground curled upward like a paper sheet. My opponent screamed, and in less than a second, he was five meters away — without ever moving.
I didn't push him.
I moved space.
And that's when the node finally spoke to me. Not in words. In understanding.
NODE UNLOCKED: ABSOLUTE SPATIAL CONTROL.
No branches. No limitations.
You are the root