Ryn checked his status again.

Not because he expected it to change—but because part of him still hadn't fully accepted how easily it had happened.

[Essence: 63]

[Essence Rank: High-Trainee]

He exhaled slowly.

"…High already."

In his first life, advancing even a single tier within Trainee had taken months of grinding, injuries, and near-burnout. Progress had been something fought for inch by inch, every gain paid in exhaustion.

This time?

He'd crossed the threshold without resistance. In a single sitting.

Ryn plopped his back down on the warm grass, its soft tips comfier than any pillow right now.

His arms folded loosely as his thoughts turned inward.

I should've saved it.

He didn't know how easily it was to advance a rank with the pill. Using it this early meant he'd essentially wasted part of its value.

Later, when advancement actually mattered, this jump wouldn't be there for him.

He clicked his tongue softly.

"…Can't be helped."

The pill had done what it needed to do. Regret wouldn't change that anyway. With the upcoming Hero's Ceremony, he had a feeling that this was the right call.

Ryn stood up, brushed down his clothes, and reached into his Dimensional Ring.

Jay noticed the movement immediately. His hands stilled.

"What's up?" he asked, glancing over.

Ryn pulled out one of the containers he had taken from the vault and placed it beside Jay on the wooden floor.

"A gift," he said after a moment. Then, as an afterthought, "Sort of."

Jay blinked, eyes flicking between the container and Ryn.

"Not from me," Ryn added, the corner of his mouth lifting faintly. "From Asteris."

Jay hesitated, side-eyeing Ryn.

"…Okay," he said finally, crouching down. "I'm opening it."

He eased the container open, looked at the object inside, then blinked.

"…Wait. No. That can't be right."

Ryn stayed silent.

Jay crouched lower, squinting like the answer might rearrange itself if he looked hard enough.

"I've seen this before," he said slowly. "From the materials book that Maria bought me."

He swallowed.

"It's…a Dryad's Flower, is it not?"

Ryn nodded, the smile forming wider on his face.

"And—and," Jay continued, words picking up as the memory came back to him,

"It was supposed to be an ultra-rare material. Something the already rare Dryad species only shed once in their life."

Ryn tilted his head slightly, eyes unfocusing as if he were recalling something mundane.

"Remember that flower," he said, "the one we had to kill with herbicide?"

Jay blinked. "The one that kept regrowing no matter how much we cut it?"

"That one," Ryn said. "Remember how much Life Energy it had?"

Jay nodded, eyes following Ryn's gaze.

"Well," Ryn continued, "this has about ten times that amount of Life Energy. Condensed into a petite little flower."

Ryn let the silence sit for a moment longer.

Then he spoke.

"I want you to absorb it."

Jay stiffened.

"…Absorb it," he repeated.

"Yes. It should be a huge boost to your Life-aligned Essence."

Jay dragged a hand through his hair, then let it fall back to his side.

"Ryn, that's—" He stopped himself, searching for the right word. "I've never done that…"

"Remember the cave? Just do the same thing."

Jay glanced back down at the container, then at his own hands. He flexed his fingers once, twice.

"…Okay," he said finally, voice quiet but steady.

He reached for the container and took the flower. Ryn watched closely, but didn't intervene, deciding to sit inside one of the rooms instead.

Jay closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, settling into a familiar rhythm. His posture straightened, shoulders loosening, as he siphoned off the flower.

The change was subtle.

A faint warmth gathered around him, barely visible, but warm—like a ray of sunshine.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Then Jay broke the silence, eyes still closed.

"…You know," he said quietly, "if you'd told me a year ago what we've been doing on the Isles, I would've thought you were messing with me."

Ryn huffed. "I still can't believe it now."

He shifted where he sat, resting his forearms on his knees.

"…I thought I understood this place," he went on. "In my head, it was simple. Get in, get stronger, and get out."

Jay's breathing stayed slow and even as the Essence continued to settle.

"And?" he asked.

"And I was wrong," Ryn said.

Jay cracked one eye open, glancing at him. "Wrong how?"

Ryn stared ahead, gaze unfocused.

"I treated it like a shortcut," he admitted. "Never expected there to be so much… history buried here."

He gestured faintly around them.

"Like where we are right now," Ryn continued. "Who would've thought we'd end up sitting in the First Hero's home?"

Jay was quiet for a moment, the slow rhythm of his breathing uninterrupted as the Essence continued to flow.

"…The second guardian made more sense now," he said eventually.

Ryn glanced at him.

"Well, I didn't believe it at first," Jay continued. "But seeing all this…do you think what it was saying, about the past—was it all true?"

Ryn didn't answer immediately. He stared at the night sky, one that was one moon away from looking like the tragedy prior.

"…Yeah," he said at last. "I do."

Jay frowned slightly. "You're sure?"

Ryn nodded once. "The dragon spoke with certainty, like it was recounting old memories."

Jay shifted slightly, the Essence around him flowing steadily now, warm but controlled.

"…About humanity living on the Isles," Jay said. "And the world ending once already."

Ryn didn't respond.

He let the words settle instead, sinking past the surface of thought and into something heavier.

The Evernight had defined nearly everything about his life. Every decision, every sacrifice, every plan he'd ever made had been shaped around it.

Yet, the dragon's words irked him.

It all came down to a single, unavoidable fact.

That it had happened before.

The realization struck harder than he expected.

If the Evernight had already come once—if it had been severe enough to drive humanity off the world and into the sky—then it wasn't an unprecedented disaster.

It was a recurring phenomenon.

And anything that returned implied a deeper cause. Something unresolved. Something fundamental.

He couldn't pin it all on the Cult. They might have hastened its arrival, might have worsened its effects—but they hadn't created it.

The Evernight had existed long before them.

That was what truly changed his perspective.

Then…

"Asteris…" he muttered.

Jay's eyes opened halfway. "The First Hero?"

Ryn nodded slowly.

"…The dragon said he drove the night away," he said slowly. "Not destroyed it. Just… forced it back."

"Which means he figured something out," Ryn continued. "Something no one else had."

Jay frowned slightly. "But if he knew how to do that… why not end it?"

Ryn looked around the room again.

"That's the thing," he said. "He thought that he did. But as it turned out, he was wrong."

Jay swallowed.

"Does that mean…" he hesitated, then forced the words out, "another world-ending event is bound to come?"

Ryn didn't answer right away.

That alone was enough to make Jay shift his posture.

Jay exhaled slowly, trying to steady himself as the Essence continued to flow.

"So Asteris wasn't preparing for a possibility."

Ryn shook his head. "He was preparing for an inevitability."

Jay let out a quiet, almost humorless laugh.

"That's insane. That'd mean he turned the Isles into a preparation ground."

"Everything here," Jay continued, voice lower now, "had only one purpose. To train the next Hero."

He paused.

"And according to the second guardian…"

Jay lifted his gaze to Ryn, eyes fully open now.

"…that someone is you."

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