Chapter 52: Origin Treasure [ 3 ]

Morning arrived without incident, and before sunlight had fully pierced the Thousand Boughs, the Raid Team was already moving. Jet ran between enormous roots with Frey several meters to his right while Cassian and Marcus kept pace ahead.

Twenty-seven Walkers flowed through the forest in a stretched formation, fast enough to cover ground but disciplined enough that nobody crashed blindly through vegetation.

The night’s rest had returned strength to Jet’s legs, yet his attention remained fixed ahead. Somewhere beyond those trees waited the reason experienced Walkers had gathered this many fighters in one place.

It didn’t take long to reach the scouts. Two figures dropped from elevated roots ahead and landed lightly across the trail, prompting Marcus to raise a fist and halt the formation.

One scout was a lean woman carrying a short bow; the other, a narrow-faced man with camouflage cloth wrapped around his shoulders. Both greeted Marcus before scanning the group behind him.

Marcus stepped forward and asked, "Where’s the Captain? I expected her to meet us here."

The male scout opened his mouth, but Jet felt the answer before hearing it.

Something changed in the air.

It wasn’t killing intent, nor the suffocating hostility of a monster preparing to attack. It felt heavier and quieter, like invisible weight settling across his shoulders.

Jet’s heartbeat accelerated. Beside him, Frey’s relaxed expression vanished, his fingers drifting toward the hilts behind his waist. The reaction spread throughout the Raid Team. Conversations stopped. Several younger members straightened unconsciously while the veterans merely turned toward the trees.

A woman stepped from behind an ironwood trunk.

She looked no older than thirty despite being First Generation. Deep umber skin contrasted with long copper-brown braids gathered into a thick knot high behind her head, leaving several narrow braids framing a sharply defined face.

A thin golden scar ran diagonally through her right eyebrow, and her eyes were an unusual dark amber that seemed almost metallic beneath the morning light.

She wore a fitted charcoal combat coat over segmented black armor, with reinforced boots reaching below her knees and a broad belt carrying knives, pouches, and a folded field map.

No oversized weapon rested on her back. Instead, a long bronze spear with a leaf-shaped black blade sat casually across one shoulder.

Marcus immediately called, "Captain Adesewa!"

The pressure didn’t disappear when she approached, but Jet understood its source now. Cassian gestured toward her and told them, "Jet, Frey, meet Adesewa Afolayan, our Raid Captain. First Generation Awakener and the person currently responsible for deciding whether all of us return to Zenith with something valuable or return missing several important body parts."

Adesewa stopped before them. Her gaze passed over Jet first, then Frey, lingering briefly on their weapons. Jet kept his face calm, but his eyes were solemn.

His heart was beating far faster than he liked. She wasn’t deliberately threatening them. That somehow made the pressure worse. Whatever difference existed between their current strength and hers was large enough that simply standing nearby made his body recognize it.

Adesewa nodded once. "Cassian told me about both of you. We’ll need your help if you’re still willing, especially because the situation changed overnight."

Cassian’s smile faded slightly. "Changed how?"

"Come see."

Nothing else was explained. Adesewa turned and moved through the forest, and everyone followed. Several minutes later the terrain began rising until the trees opened along the crest of a low hill.

Adesewa crouched before reaching the exposed edge and motioned everyone down.

Jet followed her example, pushed through waist-high ferns, and reached a natural overlook.

A valley opened below.

It was enormous, surrounded by forested slopes and walls of dark stone covered in hanging vines. Morning mist drifted between the trees along the basin floor, while narrow streams descended from several directions and converged into a vast circular pool occupying the center.

The water was unnaturally clear, reflecting the pale sky like polished glass. At its center sat a small island of white stone, perhaps forty meters across.

A single tree grew there.

Jet forgot the monsters for a moment.

The tree rose nearly twenty meters, its smooth silver bark threaded with lines of soft blue light. Broad translucent leaves shimmered whenever the breeze touched them, releasing faint motes that vanished before reaching the water. Dozens of white fruits hung among its branches, each roughly the size of an adult fist. They weren’t simply pale.

They seemed illuminated from within, their surfaces pulsing gently in time with the luminous veins running through the trunk. Mana saturated the valley, but around that island the concentration became so dense Jet could almost taste it with every breath.

Then he noticed what guarded it.

Two colossal serpentine beasts lay coiled beneath the tree. Their bodies were as thick as barrels and easily more than twenty meters long, covered in overlapping bronze-black scales. Yet from the shoulders forward they resembled monstrous lions, each possessing a broad feline head surrounded by a mane of rigid golden spines.

Muscular forelimbs ended in claws embedded into the island’s stone, while the rest of each body stretched backward into immense python coils. Four curved fangs protruded even with their mouths closed. One creature slept with its head resting atop its coils; the other periodically lifted its nostrils toward the fruit above.

Beyond the island, monsters covered the valley.

Jet counted twenty, then thirty, then stopped trying when movement among the trees revealed even more. Horned quadrupeds rested near the water.

Long-limbed predators occupied rocky shelves.

Several armored beasts prowled between clusters of vegetation while winged Lesser Monsters nested against the valley walls. They weren’t one species or even one pack. Something had drawn predators that should ordinarily have fought each other into the same basin.

"Is that..." Jet hissed softly, heat entering his eyes as he stared at the glowing fruit.

Adesewa followed his gaze. "Yes. Palladium Fruit. Grade Three Origin Treasure."

Frey inhaled slowly beside him. Jet did the same.

Origin Treasures were among the rarest naturally occurring resources known to Awakeners, comparable in scarcity to Relics but fundamentally different in nature. Relics were objects produced through mechanisms humanity still didn’t fully understand.

Origin Treasures were concentrations of supernatural environments themselves: living plants, mineral growths, strange liquids, crystallized secretions, and other consumable resources formed where Mana, dimensional conditions, and local ecology converged in extraordinarily precise circumstances.

They could appear in the Beyond or inside Dungeons, sometimes surviving only days before losing potency. Unlike Monster Cores or Mana Crystals, which usually required refinement and served specific progression paths, Origin Treasures could directly transform an Awakener depending on their properties, strengthening Mana foundations, nourishing the body, repairing pathways, increasing affinity, or producing rarer effects unique to the treasure.

That made them obscenely expensive.

An Origin Treasure could trigger bidding wars between Guilds, wealthy Awakeners, and old families. Even lower Grades rarely entered ordinary markets because whoever discovered them usually consumed them, sold them privately, or watched a major organization purchase the entire harvest before public buyers learned it existed.

Jet forced his attention away from the Palladium Fruits and back toward the valley.

Frey had done the same. His brow furrowed as he studied the monsters below before looking at Adesewa. "Cassian told us there were a little over thirty Lesser Monsters yesterday. I’m counting closer to sixty now, and unless I’m badly mistaken, several of those signatures feel much stronger than the rest. They’re still Lesser, but some look like they’re sitting right at the edge."

Adesewa’s jaw tightened. "That’s why I stayed here overnight. More arrived after sunset. Not as one group either. They came separately, from different parts of the forest, and I don’t know what changed enough to draw them here so quickly. We’re now looking at fifty-eight confirmed Lesser Monsters, possibly more concealed along the slopes."

Her spear shifted as she pointed toward three shapes near the pool. "Those are the ones I’m worried about most. They’re at the peak of Lesser Rank. The Palladium Fruit is useful to us, but to monsters already pressing against their current limit, one mature fruit could provide enough energy to trigger their ascension into Greater Rank.

They know it too, whether through instinct or sensing the Mana. Paradise is sitting a few meters away, and every creature closest to advancement will become violent the moment those fruits are within reach."

Nobody spoke for several seconds.

The two lion-python hybrids remained beneath the glowing tree, surrounded by nearly sixty waiting monsters.

Cassian’s expression had gone grim. He looked toward Adesewa and asked, "Then what do we do? Yesterday’s formation won’t survive this."

Adesewa studied the valley one final time before turning toward the Raid Team. "No. It won’t. We need a new battle plan."

Jet looked past her toward the silver tree again, excitement returning beneath his caution. Whatever tomorrow demanded, he wanted one of those fruits. And for that reward, he was willing to face the valley below tomorrow.