Chapter 7 - THE SACRED RITUAL OF SPIRIT SOIL

Leboa children received their blessings before the sunset of their birth day. My mother carried me to the sacred grove behind the Medupi Institute an unlikely site for ancient magic, yet one the Leboa wives had claimed long before the university was founded. Ancient trees circled a depression in the earth where spiritual soil lay hidden. She placed me on the soil. The ground warmed beneath me. Roots curled beneath my body, recognizing their kin. A glowing sigil of life pulsed beneath my back: birth, growth, creation, decay, renewal and the cycle that guided all nature. And then the vision came. A vast field of fertile land stretched beneath a golden sky. Rows of barren earth waited silently. Farming spirits shimmering, gentle humanoid forms watched me from the edge of the field. A voice whispered: "Nurture the barren. Restore the broken. Create life where none should be." When I awoke, I inherited: a spiritual farming space, a blessing of infinite storage and the spirits who would guard me. My mother kissed my forehead with trembling lips. "You are our hope," she whispered. But my father, ever the realist, added quietly: "…And our danger."