Yuzu didn't sleep well.
Something in him felt cracked open after what happened in the greenhouse — like his bones had been hollowed out and filled with light, or maybe something far older. His tongue still tingled with the memory of that fruit's impossible flavor. The kind of taste you couldn't name. The kind that changed you.
He barely remembered how he made it back to his dorm. He remembered the ceiling — the blank one — and the way it wasn't blank anymore.
Three fruits now shimmered above his bed.
Three.
None of them matched any spirit in the Academy's registry. One looked like a pear, but with silver skin and a ring of fireflies orbiting it. Another resembled a fig, except it blinked when you stared too long. The third... it pulsed. Not like a fruit, but like a heartbeat.
He couldn't tell if they were real, or just echoes of that strange inner world.
But they were his.
And they were growing.
Morning came too quickly, dragging Yuzu back into the Academy's routine — or at least, the part of it he was still allowed to attend. After the Germination Ceremony, students were grouped based on their fruit's class and potency. Yuzu, officially flavorless, wasn't sorted at all.
Technically, he wasn't even supposed to be here.
But Master Gelmo had "forgotten" to submit the paperwork.
So Yuzu drifted in the in-between — too weak to belong, too strange to ignore.
He spent most of his day alone. Other students whispered when he passed. Some stopped pretending to whisper.
— "That's the Zero-Flavor. Heard he cried after the Bloomstone rejected him." — "I heard his family bribed the Academy just to get him in." — "Nah, he's cursed. Spirits avoid him. It's like he's made of rot."
Yuzu didn't argue. He didn't correct them. He just kept walking.
Let them talk.
Let them rot.
They had no idea what he had inside him now. Not a pretty little fruit spirit that glowed and sang and got posted on dorm walls like some badge of honor. His fruit didn't sparkle.
It devoured.
That afternoon, Master Gelmo found him again beneath the fig tree.
The old gardener didn't say anything at first. He just stood there, watching the branches sway in the breeze, hands clasped behind his back.
Then, finally:
— "It's awake, isn't it?"
Yuzu didn't respond immediately. A wind stirred, and he could've sworn he smelled something impossible — like cinnamon smoke mixed with citrus thunder.
— "I saw a tree," Yuzu said slowly. "In a place that wasn't real. It had skills. Powers. It... talked."
Gelmo grunted, like this wasn't news to him.
— "Good. That means it's taken root. You'll need that strength soon."
— "Why?" Yuzu asked. "What's coming?"
Gelmo bent down, brushing fallen leaves off the base of the fig tree.
— "You ever heard of the Harvest Wars?"
Yuzu frowned. "Yeah. Old myth. From before the Fruit Council unified the continents. Spirit wars. Cultivators tearing orchards apart. Whole cities leveled. Why?"
The old man's voice dropped, quieter than before.
— "They weren't myths."
Yuzu's stomach tightened.
— "The Primordial you bit into... it was a war crime, Yuzu. A forbidden fruit, sealed because it nearly wiped out the world once. You tasted it. That means the war starts again — with you."
Yuzu laughed. He didn't mean to, but it came out sharp and ugly.
— "I didn't ask for that."
— "None of us did," Gelmo said. "But it calls who it calls."
Yuzu stood up. He looked at the garden. The students. The vines and towers and floating spirits.
He didn't belong here.
Not anymore.
Maybe he never had.
— "What do I do now?" he asked.
Gelmo looked at him. Really looked — eyes like weathered bark, old and full of something too deep to name.
— "You grow," he said.
That night, Yuzu didn't go back to the dorms.
He returned to the greenhouse.
The door creaked open again, vines parting like they recognized him. The air inside was thick — still, heavy, sweet with decay and something else. Something alive.
The tree was waiting.
Its bark shimmered under moonlight. The fruit he had bitten was gone now. But in its place, a branch had begun to grow — black, twisted, bearing buds that pulsed faintly in time with his own breath.
He stepped closer.
And the world shifted again.
The inner garden.
His tree.
Only this time, it had changed. New branches had formed. More fruit-icons had appeared, floating like fireflies around the trunk. He reached out instinctively, and one of them pulsed in response.
[New Skill Gained: Flavor Pulse – Rank F]
Send out a burst of aura that reveals nearby flavor signatures. Useful for tracking, hunting, or intimidation.
another one flickered beside it:
[Passive: Forbidden Palate]
You can consume techniques. Chew them. Digest them. Make them yours.
Yuzu exhaled slowly.
This was real.
It wasn't just magic. It was hunger. It was transformation. It was evolution — raw, unchecked, and unregulated.
He wasn't a cultivator anymore.
He was something else.
He opened his eyes, back in the greenhouse. Everything smelled sharper now. Brighter. His senses buzzed.
And far away — deep beneath the roots of this world — something stirred.
Elsewhere, in a city carved from stonefruit cliffs, a council of elders gathered in silence.
A messenger knelt in front of them, panting.
— "A flavor surge," she said. "Off the charts. Ancient signature. Woke up two days ago, west of Verdurosa."
One elder leaned forward.
— "Primordial?"
The messenger hesitated, then nodded.
The room went cold.
A woman in golden robes stood slowly.
— "Then the Harvest must begin again."