Tyrus sat among the exposed roots of the dead Tree while a faint green haze gathered around him and disappeared into his skin.
He had not intended to come this far into the remains.
The escort assigned to guide him had remained near the marked safe route while Tyrus followed several surviving roots deeper toward the Tree’s central mass and the Giant it had fed on. What began as another round of sample collection gradually carried him farther into sections that had survived the bombardment well enough to preserve their internal structure.
The residue around the corpse had been faint since Hans removed the enormous fragment. That changed when Tyrus’s body reacted to it.
He tried to leave once the pressure began gathering, but his body turned heavy before he managed more than a few steps. Energy that had been spread thin through the dead roots began drawing toward him instead.
Returning to the samples was no longer the problem but leaving was.
"What bad luck."
Another trace of green disappeared into his body.
"Is this where curiosity finally kills the cat?"
Tyrus closed his eyes.
The root beneath him became unusually clear inside his mind, almost as if something had reconstructed its entire structure for him to examine.
Layers of dead tissue separated within that image. Fibrous structures, vascular channels, damaged cellular regions and areas where the Tree’s mutation replaced ordinary plant organization with something he could not classify.
The clarity confused him. He had done something similar before, but never this cleanly.
Biological material had always been easier for him to break apart mentally than it was for most researchers. Enough observation gave him patterns, and enough patterns usually gave him a working explanation.
Now the steps between them were disappearing. He noticed a damaged section of tissue and understood how the surrounding growth had compensated for it.
Another section showed signs of nutrient transfer between the Tree and the Giant, while a third contained structures that once carried something other than ordinary fluid.
Psychic activity, perhaps.
Tyrus opened his eyes.
"Oh."
The pressure around him tightened again, followed by his head beginning to ache.
More information flowed into him anyway.
Samples scattered several meters away no longer registered as isolated pieces. His mind started comparing them without conscious effort, separating similarities, discarding repeated structures and drawing attention toward abnormalities he would normally have needed instruments and several minutes to confirm.
Tyrus barely moved his hand, pressing two fingers against his temple.
"This... is new." He paused. "Am I actually about to ascend?"
The green haze thickened. His breathing remained steady, but something inside his mind continued accelerating.
Everything felt increasingly organized.
Structures that should have required deliberate attention remained distinct from one another. One thought no longer pushed another aside. He could follow several biological relationships at once without losing the first even though a second, or even a third demanded his attention.
Tyrus slowly looked toward the Tree’s central remains.
Even from here, pieces of its biology began arranging themselves into relationships he failed to notice earlier.
The roots were not all structured the same way. Some appeared specialized for different functions.
His expression tightened, and he tried to pull his attention away. Whatever was happening to him was improving his processing, but improvement did not mean accuracy. Faster conclusions were still conclusions that needed verification.
Another wave entered his body and sank deeper than the others, taking the headache with it.
A strange warmth spread through his muscles, bones and nerves before reaching deeper into the surrounding tissue. His improved awareness followed the changes as they happened, catching accelerated repair and adjustment throughout his body with a clarity he had never possessed before.
Something was happening deeper still.
Tyrus could not resolve individual strands of DNA or explain exactly what was changing, but the activity reached far below ordinary tissue repair. Cells throughout his body were beginning to operate differently, and whatever process had started inside him was affecting far more than his mind.
"Ah." Tyrus slowly exhaled. "So that’s what Tier One feels like."
He looked down at his hands.
He looked down at his hands. Nothing appeared visibly different, and sensation remained intact despite everything changing underneath.
"All good. What else is changing?"
As he focused inward, his heartbeat separated cleanly from everything else. He could follow the tension moving through his arms, the contraction of nearby muscles, the flow of blood beneath his skin and even the expansion of his lungs against the ribcage.
"This is getting interesting."
Tyrus stayed still long enough to test the sensation, but before he could turn his attention back toward the Tree, the pressure around him expanded again and scattered loose bark and dust across the ground.
"This has to stop, but I can’t leave."
Several seconds later, an approaching engine pulled Tyrus’s attention toward the road into the Core.
An armored SUV came into view between the ruined structures while two Strikers moved overhead and a DASF escort followed along the secured route.
He spotted Tyrus and sprinted straight toward him.
"Commander..."
Tyrus barely followed the movement before Hans crossed the distance.
"Don’t! If you come here, you’ll—"
A small yellow barrier formed in front of Hans. With a grunt, he pushed it outward until it reached Tyrus and forced the swirling pressure away from him.
The weight pressing against Tyrus disappeared.
"Move, doctor!"
Tyrus did not waste time answering. He pushed himself away from the root and stepped into the space Hans had cleared.
Tyrus pushed himself away from the root and stepped into the space Hans had cleared.
His first stride carried him much farther than expected.
"What—"
He tried to correct with the next step, but his leg answered with too much force. His boot came down early and slipped against the ground, forcing him to catch himself before he fell.
The green haze immediately tried to follow.
Hans pushed harder against the pressure, widening the yellow field until it separated Tyrus from the dead roots.
"Keep moving!"
Tyrus shortened his next stride but it barely helped. His body was responding faster and with more force than the movements he had spent years treating as normal.
"Oh, this is ridiculous."
Hans kept the barrier moving beside him. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing."
Tyrus tried another careful step and nearly overshot it again.
"That’s the problem."
Once they were clear of the residue, Tyrus slowed enough to find a workable rhythm.
His steps still felt wrong, sometimes too light and sometimes too easy. The muscles in his legs produced more force with less effort, while his balance corrected mistakes quickly enough that he only noticed some of them afterward.
He flexed one hand. The same difference was there.
Strength had never been the defining part of his enhancement.
Apparently, Tier One did not care.
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