The first thing Asher noticed after the world shifted from his Recall skill and he found himself standing within the healer's room, was that her accommodations were a lot plainer than he'd been expecting. The room was small, and filled with little more than some simple, albeit extremely comfortable-looking furniture. For someone as important as she had to be, and seeing as she'd walked out of the wagon wearing a dress literally covered in gemstones, he'd been expecting a lot more opulence.

The second thing Asher noticed was the fact that the healer was sitting cross-legged on a plump cushion behind a small table in the middle of the floor, calmly watching him look around.

"You look surprised," she said calmly, not sounding the slightest bit alarmed at the stranger that just popped into her room unannounced next to her waiting luggage.

"And you don't," he pointed out, frowning. "How did you know when I'd be arriving?"

"I didn't. I've merely been sitting here, sipping tea and pondering our places in the universe," she said, motioning for him to take the cushion across from her. "Speaking of… Tea?"

"…Sure," he said, taking the offered seat and briefly wishing he hadn't lost the Ring of the Gourmet during his fight with Eight. Even though he didn't think she'd try poisoning him, not with the pure aura she had wrapped around her, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The woman gingerly picked up a ceramic teapot that looked as though it had been made by someone still learning their craft, before pouring him a cup. Returning the teapot to its rightful spot, she held his cup and leaned across the table, offering it to him. Nodding his thanks, he took it and sipped at the warm liquid. To his surprise, he actually felt some of the energy required to utilize his skills replenish, something he hadn't thought was possible.

"How did you do that?" he asked, staring at the woman in shock. "I have Identify. I can tell that this is regular tea."

"There are secrets in this world far beyond what you could possibly imagine," she chuckled, sipping from her own drink and letting out a pleasant sigh. "I bet there were a few tucked away in your original world as well."

Part of Asher felt as though he should be surprised at the fact she'd pegged him as a realm wanderer already, but honestly, it just felt natural that she would know that about him somehow. She had that mysterious air around her that only the truly old souls that had lived through multiple wars and global crises seemed to have.

"How old are you?" Asher asked before he could stop himself.

"Old enough," she smiled. "Let's just say I was there when the Noala Kingdom was first founded and leave it at that. There's a reason why everyone calls me 'Gran.' You're welcome to do the same, if you'd like."

"That… that was over three hundred years ago," he stammered, staring at her in a new light. "I didn't realize the people of this world could live so long."

"Most can't," she admitted, the smile on her face turning sad as she shook her head. "Granted, most also aren't a healer with skills from the Life element in the third tier. You could say I am something of an exception to the rule."

The two of them were silent for a few minutes, each seeming content to sip their tea as their minds wandered. For the first time in nearly a week, Asher didn't feel as though he was racing against time. After all, the one who was going to be resurrecting Leighann was sitting right in front of him. She couldn't exactly bring her back from the dead while the two of them were conversing.

…Probably.

"Why did you want to talk to me?" Asher finally asked, going directly after the mogrant in the room. He had so many different questions he wanted to run by her, but that was probably one of the most important ones. "You could have just pretended like you hadn't seen me and I would have been none the wiser."

"I wanted to speak with you, because you have quite possibly the most tangled lifeline out of anyone I have ever met," she admitted, giving him a curious look. "…Other than perhaps Donvath, I suppose."

It wasn't lost on Asher how Gran was the first person he'd met in the entire kingdom that didn't place High Prince before Donvath's name, but he was more curious about what she'd said.

"My lifeline? Is that a skill you have?"

"Indeed. It is a rather complicated one, especially after having been evolved to the third tier. Essentially, it allows me to view connections between different lives," she explained, her white eyes unfocusing a tad as she stared at the empty space surrounding him. "I am able to see that you've been in this world for only a handful of weeks, and yet somehow, you are already connected to not only Donvath himself, but the Head of the Assassin's Guild, and even the fourteen members of The Council of Death."

"Yeah…" Asher admitted, grinning sheepishly. "…I've been busy."

"Granted, none of those were the reason why I wished to speak with you," she continued, earning a surprised look from him. "I also saw the connection between you and little Theorn, and more importantly, the one between you and the young lady I am intending to resurrect tomorrow."

Ah… There it is.

Asher tried not to look at Gran as he worked on what he was going to say, but he could feel the woman's gaze pierce into him regardless. He had no idea just what she was capable of seeing with her third tier skill, but it was clear that the second tier Hidden Presence skill he was still using Permanence on was utterly worthless before her power.

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He couldn't shake the strange feeling in his gut that her ability to read him wasn't just linked to her skills, however. He'd thought it was just his own interest in her strange, white eyes that kept drawing his focus back to them, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was actually the subtle and telltale pulling of Secret Seeker directing his focus. Rather than answer her unspoken question about the connection between him and Leighann, he decided to ask his own.

"Your eyes… That's not a skill, is it? Your body has been fundamentally changed somehow."

For the first time, he caught a glimmer of surprise on Gran's own face, followed quickly by a far larger smile than he'd witnessed up to that point. "What makes you say that?"

"You're not the first person I've met with freaky eyes," he said, nodding toward her. "Leighann Frent. The woman you're here to resurrect. Her eyes were like black voids that sucked in the surrounding light, and she was able to see through my concealing skill and read my elements, despite the fact that it should have still been partially effective against even a tier three skill. Hell, the skill is strong enough to directly combat a truthseeker, but she got around it somehow."

"Young Leighann has already entered the Crossroads?" Gran asked, her eyebrows raised. "No wonder Elnor wishes for her to be resurrected so quickly."

"What are the Crossroads?" Asher asked, blinking at the new term. Draken had told him all about the elemental advancement process back in Whikoga, but he certainly hadn't mentioned anything like that. "Is that like the different stages of elemental advancement?"

Gran stared at him, her white eyes burning into what felt like his very soul as she decided how much she wanted to tell him. Finally, she nodded. "The Crossroads are what we call the timeframe between the Stage of Bleed and the Stage of Power. It takes time for one's elements to bleed together and form new skills, and during this time, it is not unusual for some of that to bleed out into a person's physical form."

"Wait, I thought the Stage of Power was when a person began physically changing due to their elements," he said, thinking back to what Draken had told him. "Only after a person improved all their skills to the third tier."

"It is far from a quick process," Gran chuckled, taking another sip from her cup. "There are very few people in this world capable of getting their hands on nearly twenty million shards quickly, after all. Thus, we have the Crossroads. A time where, while a person's elements and skills blend together, they begin manifesting physically as well."

"Why tell me this?" Asher asked, his brain busy committing all this to memory even as he asked. "I heard you tell Theorn he needed to figure things out for himself. Are you trying to stunt my growth or something?"

"In the same way no two seeds will ever become the same plant, no two people flourish best under the same instruction," she replied. "I can sense that Theorn will grow and bloom best if left to discover these secrets for himself."

"And you think I won't?" Asher asked, slightly offended at the insinuation.

"I think you won't survive long enough to get the chance if I don't warn you," she said solemnly, silencing him. "You've made far too many powerful enemies for someone still working their way through the Stage of Honing. To be honest, it is a miracle you have survived as long as you have, yet a person can only be dragged along by their powerful elements for so long. I can see how your lifeline has been severed and reattached multiple times these past few weeks. It is like nothing I have ever seen, and it brings me no end of sorrow to see how you must have suffered."

"I have a skill that makes me rather hard to permanently kill," Asher admitted, seeing no point in lying to the woman capable of seeing his literal lifeline. "Which is why I need to stop Leighann from being resurrected. She has knowledge that can't get out."

"Precisely what is it you are afraid of people knowing?" Gran asked, peering deep into his eyes, her own white eyes almost blinding. "Your unique element that has never existed before now? Or your ability to permanently sever someone's lifeline for good?"

And just like that, Asher's reckless and haphazard plan was shattered to pieces. He sucked in a deep breath at the realization that Gran knew his deepest secrets as well. He'd already been pushing his own moral code when it came to his plan to kill Leighann, seeing as her dark-spotted aura had revealed little more than a few murders in her past that she wasn't proud of. But there wasn't a chance in hell he could bring himself to kill the woman sitting before him, sipping her tea as though she was merely chatting with an old friend rather than an assassin capable of ending her long life permanently. Gran's aura was all but blinding, and he somehow knew if he went down the possible road that laid before him, he'd be losing a large part of himself as well.

"How can you see my element? My skills?" he asked, letting out a weary sigh as he came to terms with the fact that his secrets wouldn't remain such for much longer. He'd kept himself under wraps for as long as he could, but now that he knew Leighann wasn't the only person capable of reading him with a single glance, the jig was up.

All he could do now was grow strong enough to take down anyone who might want to pick a fight with him because of his strange abilities.

"By the time most people reach the Stage of Bleed, they start gaining the ability to sense the elements another person has," Gran explained. "It usually takes years of practice, but some will grow so good at this new sense that they'll be able to pinpoint precisely what elements an opponent has just from getting near them. As for your skill, that is due to one of my own. I have the Judgement skill evolved to the third tier, which allows me to see auras as though they were physical things and give me a sense of a person's capabilities and temperament. You, child, have an aura like that of the reaper's scythe. I can feel your ability to sever a person's lifeline with a single flick of your wrist. However, I can also feel the caution with which you wield the blade, only striking down on those you deem fit for such punishment, like some vengeful specter."

"I suppose that explains why you felt safe enough to invite me to your room," Asher grumbled, more than a little upset to learn that she'd uncovered all his secrets in but a single glance.

"Indeed," she chuckled. "I will tell you this, my young reaper. Your secret will stay safe a little longer. I will be resurrecting Leighann tomorrow as planned, but I will ask her to keep what she's learned of you to herself. You may have caught on to this by now, but my word carries more than a little weight in this kingdom."

"Why would you do that? Why have her lie for me?"

"Because where many will look upon you and have their fearful eyes drawn to the blade capable of ending their lives for good, I look upon you and see the weight of which you swing your blade," she explained. "There are monsters in this world far more powerful than you could possibly imagine. Beings and creatures that, if The Council of Death were to run into, would scare those old bags of bones back into the graves they crawled out from. Most of these threats were believed to be unstoppable, unkillable forces of nature that we could do little more than try to slow down. Until now."

Gran slowly got to her feet, her thin frame suddenly feeling far larger than it was as she towered over him. Her white eyes beamed down into him, and Asher realized he'd stopped breathing for a moment as her weight all but crushed him into the cushion he sat on.

"You, my young reaper… You are the best chance I've seen in all my years at putting these horrifying powers that threaten the world to rest, once and for all."

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