The Tree of Life in his right hand was huge—it had branches for every element, dozens of roots, hundreds of leaves, countless fruits, and a pretty thick trunk. His lexecon wasn't next to it because he had already put it into the Tree of Life in his left hand.
Watching all this happen, Elric couldn't help but get excited. He didn't get any of it—why he was different from everyone else. Maybe there were rules he just didn't know about yet. But still, having two Trees of Life… didn't that mean he could grow stronger than anyone else?
Elric wanted to tell Mr.Chowicz what had happened, since Mr.Chowicz was his teacher, after all. But after thinking it over, he hesitated.
What would happen if he told his secret? It could be his ace card later on. Once everyone knew about it, it wouldn't be a secret weapon anymore.
Realizing that, he decided to keep it to himself.
When he went to find Mr.Chowicz, who was training Sila at the moment, Sila was running laps around the training square. After finishing, he came back over.
"Run another hundred laps," Mr.Chowicz ordered.
Sila turned to go, but as Mr.Chowicz turned back to talk with Elric, Sila flipped him off behind his back with an annoying smirk.
Since Sila was already a strange person, this kind of behavior wasn't really a surprise. Even so, Elric wouldn't be too happy about it either. Still, physical training was just as important as using lexecon.
"Is there something you need?"
Elric nodded, smiling brightly. He showed Mr.chowicz something incredible.
It had been almost two weeks since he started training to awake up the Tree of Life. So the fact that he could use it now was amazing.
Chowicz looked completely shocked. "That's crazy. Looks like you're really talented. Your future is definitely bright." After saying that, he looked at Elric's Tree of Life as it showed up.
"It doesn't look very good," Elric said.
Chowicz shook his head. "No big deal. Just keep working on it. Hard work will make up for your weaknesses."
With the Tree of Life successfully awakened, chowicz's first lesson ended. He started teaching the next lesson—something Elric had been looking forward to.
"When you first put your lexecon in, you put it into your body, right? What happened after that?"
Elric listened and tried to remember. He had been in a hurry and wasn't paying much attention since Death was watching nearby, but if he had to recall…
"A strange 10x10 grid."
Chowicz tried to cover Elric's mouth, but it was too late. He sighed, feeling helpless.
"I forgot to teach you this, but from now on, if anyone asks about things like lexecon paths, lexecon colors, or the Tree of Life—don't answer. Especially about your first lexecon and the Life Grid."
Elric quickly understood what he meant. First lexecon—so there were different ones in order. And the Life Grid must be that strange grid he saw.
He nodded. "I won't tell anyone."
"Good. You're a smart student," chowicz praised.
"The Life Grid is where you put your lexecon. Think of it like a bag—if you keep putting items in, it eventually fills up. The grid is the bag, and lexecon are the items."
After speaking, he crouched down and punched the ground, breaking it easily. Underneath was familiar pink sand. Chowicz took out a tiny pencil and pressed it against the sand.
Sparks trailed along the lines as he drew a 10x10 grid, and next to it, he placed three small black rectangular blocks in a row.
"Everyone's Life Grid is different. Some are 10x5, 6x7, 8x9. But 10x10 is considered perfect—and very lucky." He pointed at the black blocks.
"Think of these as lexecon. They take up space—cross shapes, five or six tiles, vertical, horizontal, diagonal, plus shapes, L-shapes, etc. Usually, the higher the rank, the more space it take, and the harder it are to activate."
Elric was quick-witted and caught on immediately. "So we should use the space as efficiently as possible, right?"
Chowicz nodded proudly and kept explaining.
"Think of a jar full of rocks. Because of their shapes, there are gaps. You could ignore them, but that would be a waste of space. You can fill them with something like sand."
Chowicz sighed. He had planned to bring a board, rocks, and a glass jar, but who would have thought his new student would awaken the Tree of Life so quickly? He wasn't ready. He wanted Elric to wait a day so he could get his teaching stuff together, but seeing that eager look in Elric's eyes reminded him of his own curiosity back then.
So he taught without much preparation. Even so, Elric understood everything. Partly because the teacher explained things well, and partly because Elric quickly understood the main points.
"The top row uses ancient English letters A–J. If you have fewer than ten columns, just count what you have. The vertical rows are 1–10. To describe where to put something, you say the letter followed by the number—that's one tile. Keep going until it's done. On paper, you can use ^ to show it continues, like A1^A2^A3 for three vertical tiles."
Elric remembered how he placed his lexecon. Back then he didn't know what to call it, but now he did. His lexecon took up three vertical tiles at E1^E2^E3. He didn't know if that was a good spot.
"There are professionals who can arrange your lexecon for you to make fighting easier, but they're expensive. The cheapest is probably around 50 cerulean Stones."
Hearing the price made Elric wince right away. But he knew showing his lexecon or letting others arrange his Tree of Life and Life Grid was risky, so he probably wouldn't do it unless he absolutely had to.
Money was clearly the biggest problem to.
"Lexecon can act in many ways—like physical objects, waves, or abstract forms. Be careful of paths like the Frequency Path. They can find lexecon frequencies and steal them," chowicz said with concern.
Elric remembered the restaurant robbery. Later, he learned from the police that it was a group called Cerberus. Those two who were stealing lexecon were doing exactly that—finding frequencies and taking them.
"Lexecon also give off colors. Each path has its own color, though some overlap—like Music, Silence, 'Familiarity', Joy—they're light orange."
Elric remembered his own was orange too. Maybe his lexecon belonged to one of those paths. He couldn't wait to use it.
"Teacher, please hurry and teach me how to use lexecon."
Chowicz nodded. "Let me see your lexecon. But if anyone else asks, say no unless it's absolutely necessary."
Elric nodded and let him look. In just a short time, chowicz finished.
"Yours is a stationary type, which is good. Moving types are strong but harder to handle because you need to leave space for movement. For example, if it takes up three tiles and moves two forward, you need to save five tiles." He paused to let Elric think about it. "The top-left corner of the Life Grid is the starting point, counted diagonally downward. The closer it is to that corner, the first it activates."
Chowicz's face became calm.
"To use a lexecon, you must meet its condition first. And you have to activate them in order—starting from the one closest to the top-left. You can't skip. You use the first one before the second."
Elric touched his lexecon. It felt as if he had become one with it. He could hear its strange whispers, making him feel different.
He felt like he was going crazy.
But he understood his condition—the requirement was to hear sound at close range louder than 55 decibels.
It seemed his lexecon was related to the path of sound.