FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 210: Chapter 210: Shamanic Grove

The walk down the winding roots of the Feline Spire was quieter than the night before. The chaotic jubilation had died down into a tense, thrumming anticipation. The tribe was holding its collective breath, waiting to see what kind of phantom the “Divine One” would pull from the Shamanic Grove.

As they walked side-by-side, Sol’s mind was not on the spiritual weight of the Rite. It was indexing the political landscape he had witnessed in the High Hall.

He had seen the way Elder Thorne looked at him… like a man calculating the exact weight of a threat and determining the sharpest knife needed to cut it out. He had seen the naked, entitled greed in Korash’s eyes.

Sol wasn’t a politician, but in his past life on Earth, he had been a voracious reader and a failed writer of epic, smutty fantasy NovelFires, before he decided to pivot into writing clickbait articles, because they paid better. He had literally engineered plots exactly like this for a living. He recognized the tropes playing out in front of him with mathematical precision.

Thorne is the classic “Old Elder” who refuses to surrender his grip on power, Sol analyzed silently, his eyes tracking the shadows between the giant roots. He’s a pragmatist. A survivor. He doesn’t care about miracles or prophecies; he cares about control. And he’s Korash’s father, which means the apple didn’t fall far from the rotten tree. Korash is the “Jealous Rival”—arrogant, entitled, and furious that an outsider is taking his spotlight and his perceived claim on the Chief’s daughter.

Sol’s eyes narrowed. Thorne is the internal rot. The math was simple. If Thorne couldn’t control the new “Divine Savior,” he would eliminate him. And if he couldn’t do it from within, he would look outward. He wants to sell the tribe to the Zharun Vanguard, Sol concluded. He’ll trade the Veynar’s independence for a high-ranking position as a puppet governor in the new regime. It’s textbook.

“What do you think about Elder Thorne?” Sol asked quietly, his voice low enough that the ambient rustle of the silver leaves masked his words from any hidden listeners.

Kira didn’t look back, her pace remaining steady and militant, but her shoulders stiffened noticeably beneath her armor.

“I hate him,” she stated, the venom in her voice unmasked and absolute. “I hate Thorne. He was Korg’s friend, once. They fought back-to-back in the southern swamps. But now? Now he’s just a vulture waiting for the tribe’s body to stop twitching so he can pick the bones.”

“He’s dangerous, Kira,” Sol warned, closing the distance between them. “His logic is sound. He speaks to the fear in the room. People will follow him because starvation and the Zharun are tangible threats. Miracles are abstract.”

“I know,” she whispered, her stormy eyes reflecting the dappled morning light. “That’s why this Awakening is so incredibly important. If our youths can get strong phantoms today… if we can show the elders and the people that the ancestors still favor us with power… my mother can use that momentum to keep the Council in line.”

She finally turned her head to look at him, the weight of a tribal princess resting heavily on her young shoulders. “But if they fail…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. Sol didn’t need her to. If the youths failed, the morale would break, Thorne would strike, and the Veynar would be enslaved or slaughtered by the next full moon.

They walked in silence for another few minutes, the massive, moss-draped archway of the Shamanic Grove coming into view in the distance.

Sol decided to pivot. He needed tactical data. He needed to understand his own cheat.

“Kira,” Sol began, carefully choosing his words. “You told me a little bit about the Sun Core system yesterday. But… what is it really like? What does it feel like for a genius?”

Kira blinked, surprised by the sudden shift to magical theory, but she answered readily.

“I don’t know everything,” she admitted, ducking under a low-hanging fluorescent vine. “Only the High Shaman or the Chief fully comprehends the mysteries of the Totem Path. But from what I have heard, and what my mother has taught me… for a true genius with a high-grade Sun Core, their essence flows through their veins like a warm summer breeze.”

She gestured with her hand, mimicking a flowing river. “It is described as completely effortless. The essence is light, pure, and incredibly fast. Ever since their awakening, a genius’s core capacity is vastly larger than an average warrior’s, and with each progression through the Nine Layers, that internal space expands further, allowing them to house more spirits and project more aura without straining their physical flesh.”

Sol nodded on the outside, maintaining a mask of thoughtful curiosity.

Internally, alarms were blaring.

Light? Effortless? A warm breeze? Sol looked inward again, focusing his mind on the massive anomaly sitting in his solar plexus. Yes, his core was undeniably massive… an endless sky spanning over a horizon. But the energy pooling at the bottom of it?

It was the exact opposite of a “warm breeze.”

The golden ocean was terrifyingly heavy. It was viscous, dense, and radiated a pressure that felt like it could crush iron.

Just to test Kira’s words, Sol tried to manually move a single “drop” of his golden essence from his core, up through his chest, and into his right arm.

Ngh—

Sol had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from grunting. The effort required was immense. It felt like trying to pump liquid mercury through a garden hose. His newly evolved heart had to beat with the force of a war-drum just to circulate that single drop. When the essence finally reached his bicep, the muscle swelled visibly, heavy with blunt, devastating physical power, but it was anything but “effortless.”

It was laborious. It was violent. It was an engine of war that demanded absolute physical supremacy just to operate.

He didn’t know what was going on. Was it a side-effect of his transmigration? Was it the interaction between his ’Free Use’ Domination power and the tribal magic system? Or was it the residual effect of his sex with the Goddess mutating the primitive container into something entirely new?

Whatever the truth was, Sol made an immediate, iron-clad decision.

He looked at Kira, who was watching him expectantly.

“That makes sense,” Sol lied smoothly, offering a confident smile. “I guess I have a lot to learn about circulating the breeze.”

He wasn’t going to tell her. Considering his bizarre arrival, the literal encounter with the Goddess who had reconstructed his cells, and the terrifying weight of the power he now carried, it was infinitely better to explore this anomaly in the dark.

If he revealed that his core operated on fundamentally different laws of physics than the rest of the world, he wouldn’t be treated as a savior. He would be treated as a monster, a guinea pig, or a threat to be studied and dissected.

…

The transition from the winding roots of the Feline Spire to the valley floor was a descent into an older, heavier kind of magic.

Kira stopped abruptly at the entrance to a natural ravine shrouded in thick, silver mist. The trees here were different from the rest of the Great Heartwood. They were gnarled, ancient, and covered in pulsing, blue-glowing runes carved directly into their iron-hard bark.

“This is the Shamanic Grove,” Kira said, turning to him.

The stoic mask of the warrior princess had slipped completely. Her stormy eyes were wide, filled with a desperate, flickering hope that placed an immense, invisible weight on Sol’s shoulders.

“The other initiates are inside. Someone will give you a Refined Stone,” she instructed, her voice a tight whisper. “Take a strong one, Sol. A wolf. A hawk. Even a bear. Something that proves you are who we say you are. Just… don’t fail.”

Sol looked at the fog. Deep within his chest, the heavy, mercury-like tide of his Liquid Silver essence sloshed. It wasn’t just reacting to the dense Primal Essence hanging in the valley air; it was salivating. His newly awakened Sun Core felt like a starved predator smelling fresh blood on the wind.

He offered Kira a single, reassuring nod, and stepped into the mist.

…

The interior of the Grove was a place of surreal, suffocating beauty. The “Singing Moss” carpeting the valley floor didn’t play the ancestral melodies he had heard before. Instead, it emitted a low, continuous vibration… a heavy hum that felt like the earth itself was breathing beneath his sandals. Massive, broken crystals glowing with a soft blue luminescence were embedded in the trunks of the ancient trees, casting long, dramatic shadows that seemed to dance through the fog.

In the center of the clearing, surrounded by a ring of monolithic stones, sat a massive stone altar.

A dozen teenagers were already there, standing in a loose semi-circle around the altar. They were the tribe’s finest youths, warriors in training, but right now, they just looked nervous.

The moment Sol’s heavy boots crunched onto the gravel of the clearing, every single head snapped toward him.

The expressions painted across their young, war-painted faces were a chaotic spectrum of human emotion. He saw raw envy. He saw bitter jealousy from a few boys standing at the front. He saw awe, profound respect, a desperate kind of hope, lust…wait-wait…wait… Lust?

Sol paused. He blinked, refocusing his crimson-tinted vision on a girl standing near the middle of the pack. She was a few years younger than his twenty-two years, but the primitive tribal diet and rigorous physical training had clearly done wonders. She was voluptuous, draped in form-fitting leathers, and she was currently staring at him like he was a perfectly cooked slab of Essence-Meat. She looked like she couldn’t wait to swallow him whole.

If this were any other time,I would have absolutely loved to have a heart-to-heart, negative distance, conversation with her.

But right now, tribal politics and his own survival took precedence. He steeled his heart, locking his expression into an unreadable mask of divine indifference, and looked away… albeit not before taking one last, respectful glance at her impressive assets. Focus, Sol.

He cleared his throat, his deep voice travelling through the humming moss. “Hello.”

The youths blinked. They didn’t understand the bizarre Earth greeting, but the confident, rumbling tone translated perfectly. A chorus of awkward, hurried tribal salutes and mumbled greetings echoed back at him.

Before the silence could stretch into something uncomfortable, a priestess draped in heavy orange robes stepped out from the shadows of the altar.

“Welcome, Divine One,” the priestess said, bowing her head deeply. “Please. Stand here, in the center of the circle, before the altar.”

Sol nodded solemnly. As he walked forward, the teenagers hastily scrambled to make way, parting like the Red Sea to let him pass. He took his place at the absolute front, the most prominent position in the Grove, feeling the heat of a dozen stares burning into his back.

A moment later, the fog parted at the far end of the clearing. High Shaman Zephyra emerged, moving with a gliding, spectral grace. Behind her trailed a procession of younger priestesses, each carrying a woven basket made of dark vines.

Even from twenty feet away, Sol’s mutated core reacted. The baskets were practically vibrating with suppressed, chaotic energy. The Soul Stones.

Zephyra stopped before the altar. Her ancient, milky eyes found Sol instantly, and her mouth deepened into a warm, knowing smile. But when she turned to address the circle of initiates, her demeanor shifted from welcoming women to a hardened survivor of the wilds.

“Welcome, children of the Veynar,” Zephyra’s voice echoed, surprisingly strong for a woman. “In a moment, the priestesses will present the stones. You will step forward and choose a soul to anchor your newly awakened cores.”

She raised a gnarled finger, her tone dropping into a dire warning.

“But remember this: it is not just you who are choosing. They are also choosing you. These spirits have been drained of their vitality, battered by our hunters, and trapped within the stones to break their will. But the soul of a beast is a proud, violent thing.”

Zephyra paced slowly in front of the baskets. “The risk remains absolute. Some spirits are cunning. They pretend to be coy, hiding their remaining strength, waiting for the exact moment you open your core to accept them. When you are most vulnerable, they will strike, attempting to shatter your mind and take your flesh for their own. We have lost strong youths to this arrogance before.”

She stopped, looking directly at the boys who had been glaring at Sol earlier.

“Do not try to force your way,” the High Shaman warned. “If the stone burns your hand, if the spirit rejects your pull, let it go. Choose a weaker soul, and live to hunt another day. A living warrior with a rat phantom is worth a hundred dead geniuses who reached too far.”

Zephyra turned back to the altar, gesturing to the priestesses. “We begin. May the Ancestors guide your hands.”