Six Cardanian boys sat apart from the larger group of youths who had already finished their training for the day. Ever since they had followed Reoloy and Lavere six days ago, Gordoi had made them return—day in and day out.
The moon hung high in the windy night sky, and idle chatter drifted across the field as they lingered, watching one person struggle through another lap.
Avron tuned out the conversation around him, his focus locked entirely on Reoloy. The boy looked weak—painfully so. He was out of breath, his body trembling, despite not even matching their lap count, let alone completing the full regimen.
The orange-haired seventeen-year-old scowled, wondering why Gordoi expressed interest in this outsider.
"That's enough," the blacksmith called, causing Reoloy to collapse forward in a heap. Gordoi walked over, giving him a brief, unreadable look before turning to the others. "Why are you guys still loitering around?"
The youths stiffened at being addressed. The girls had already begun edging away.
"Want to do night training?" Gordoi asked, tilting his head with a light, almost playful smile.
Instantly, everyone darted away, heading back into town before he actually followed through with the idea.
"Lav-lav! Reollie!" Amali called as she fled. "See you guys tomorrow!"
And just like that, they were all gone—except Avron. He slowed just enough to cast one last look at Reoloy before taking off after the others.
Gordoi's gaze lingered in that direction, settling briefly on where the boy had stood. He recognised the look Avron had worn—but said nothing.
"Reollie?" he muttered, raising an eyebrow as he looked down at the collapsed teen.
"I… don't… know…" Reoloy managed between breaths, pausing to keep his lunch from coming back up. "…either."
Gordoi smiled faintly. Pleased that, at the very least, the boy was being accepted.
'He's going to need it,' he mused.
"Do you feel anything yet?" Gordoi asked, crouching down to Reoloy's level.
Reoloy looked up at him before letting himself drop back onto the ground, staring up at the night sky as he inhaled deeply. He could tell his body was improving—but as for what Gordoi was referring to…
He had never even heard of it before, so it made sense that he was struggling to grasp it.
"No," he said once he'd steadied his breathing. "All I feel is my muscles ripping to pieces."
Gordoi nodded. "I'll let it slide that you stopped right now, but you have to maintain ki breathing at all times."
A sharp smirk formed on his face.
"Or else."
A chill went down the boy's spine. He gave a short nod, immediately getting to it to avoid being brutalised in the name of durability training again.
Gordoi stood, pulling him up with ease before gesturing toward the building.
"Come on."
He motioned to Lavere as they headed inside.
Once in the store, they sat Reoloy down on a wooden chair. The younger blonde stepped in front of him, rolling her shoulders slightly as she prepared.
"You ready?" she asked, far more casually than before.
"Yeah," Reoloy replied. "You don't have to keep asking, you know."
"So you say," she said, as her unearthly aura screamed to life. "But I'm used to it. Everyone else needs the warning so they can brace themselves."
Lavere glanced up at his eyes, but they were closed. He seemed to be relishing the sensation of the energy flowing into him.
"You're really an odd case."
"You wouldn't get it," Reoloy said, paying close attention to the fragments of casis slipping into his circuits. "Hey, old man."
Gordoi perked up, not particularly bothered by the nickname as long as the boy met his expectations.
"Are you sure your theory is even correct?"
"…I haven't successfully proven it, no," the blacksmith admitted awkwardly. "But it still makes sense."
Reoloy sighed, not exactly encouraged.
Two days prior, he had finally confided in Gordoi about his inability to detect any energy besides his own. The decision came when he realised—whether he liked it or not—that it would become a serious disadvantage in the coming scenarios. He hadn't expected much help, but had been surprised to be dragged into one of the man's additional workshops.
He winced at the memory.
Gordoi called it a workshop, but "lab" was far more accurate. He'd been poked, prodded, and examined until the man finally explained the experiment he had in mind.
Mana. Ki. Casis.
Gordoi believed all three—despite knowing little about casis—originated from the same source and permeated the entire world. In his view, they were simply different expressions of the same raw material.
And he thought that Reoloy, with his abnormal sensory condition, might be able to gain perception of that material directly. Though it was mostly a blind hope.
The problem had been figuring out how.
They'd gone back and forth before eventually settling on the most straightforward method—brute force. Push his body to the brink. Maintain constant ki breathing. Flood his system with stimuli until something gave. That was how the current training regimen had been born.
Without Lavere's healing, it would've been pointless since Gordoi thought that forcing him beyond his breaking point was the approach with the highest potential.
'A casis healer...' Reoloy thought, cracking his eyes open slightly. 'It still blows my mind.'
The setting in the game had been that casis users were rare, so maybe that was why healers, which were one in ten million even among the users of the other two powers, were unheard of.
It wouldn't be far-fetched to believe that Lavere could be the only one among casis users.
"I'm feeling better now," he said, stopping her. "Thanks."
Reoloy stood, following Gordoi and Lavere to the living section of the building. As he looked around, he couldn't help but be fascinated by how different it felt from the rest of Cardana. The aesthetic here was far less futuristic—more grounded, almost traditional.
He had questioned the difference, and the older man had simply said that he had gotten bored being surrounded by the same thing as everywhere else after a while.
"You're spending the night, yeah?" Gordoi asked, looking back over his shoulder.
Reoloy gave him a flat look and pointed outside.
"Ah, right. It's past midnight," the blond said, scratching the back of his neck. "Dumb question."
They stepped into what appeared to be a very old-school living room. It was extremely large and empty, furnished only with some floor cushions and low tables.
The temporary master-student duo settled on either side of a table.
After turning on the cooling in the room, Lavere took a seat beside Reoloy, earning a brief brow raise from her father, though he held his tongue.
"We only have five days left," Gordoi started calmly. "You need to get over your sensory issue by the end of today."
Reoloy frowned.
"Do I need to?" he asked, leaning back on his hands. "The point of the training was to meet your standards so you'd let me go in. This is something else entirely."
Gordoi placed his hand onto the table, fingers spread out wide. He stared into the reincarnator's eyes resolutely.
"It is now a passing criterion."
Reoloy shot forward, slamming his hands against the wood. His glare carried barely restrained venom.
"You said you would be fair," he said coldly.
"And I am," Gordoi responded evenly. "I never explicitly said what my standards were."
He raised his other hand's index finger.
"One: show decent physical improvement."
A second finger.
"Two: learn how to sense energies."
And then a third.
"The last one I'll withhold for now," he said, closing his eyes and lowering his hand. "You're naturally progressing through it already anyway."
"What—"
"I would say I'm being kind," Gordoi interrupted. "Setting only three goalposts instead of dozens."
Both went silent, Reoloy's head hanging in frustration and rage. Beside him, Lavere shook her head slowly, her disapproval clear.
"You're actually horrible," she said flatly.
Gordoi shrugged, clearing his throat to call Reoloy's attention to his hand on the table.
"If we don't want to waste any more time," he said, "let's get started."
Reoloy frowned. He had no choice but to swallow his grievances and play by the man's rules, though he would make sure to remember this.
"We're doing that again?"
The older blond smiled. "That's right."
A light golden ki trailed out from his hand, spreading throughout the room.
The reincarnator's frown deepened. The last time they had done this exercise, he had collapsed and started convulsing from shock. It was why Lavere had to be on standby so he wouldn't come too close to death again.
He glanced at her. She stared in wonder around the room. It meant it had started. He could only see the bare traces of ki, so he was completely ignorant of the fullness of the scene that made her so awestruck.
"Don't brace," Gordoi instructed. "Remember, we're just tricking your body into thinking that you're at immediate risk of death."
If it were possible, Reoloy's frown would've gotten worse, but instead he focused on his breathing. He concentrated on his awareness of his circuits, tracing the pathways intimately so that he could avoid tensing.
And then, answering its master's command, the radiant energy flowed inwards towards Reoloy all at once.
When it clashed violently into him, it immediately sent tremors through his vessel, but he endured. His fingernails dug into the table as he clenched and tried his best to keep the breathing technique going.
Lavere watched with concern as blood spewed out of his mouth, already getting up to heal him. However, Gordoi grabbed her arm across the table.
"Not yet," he said, voice firm. "He needs to get closer."
"He's dying..." she shot back, staring at him incredulously.
Unyielding, Gordoi shook his head.
"Not yet."
Reoloy felt like his organs were bursting apart. Contrary to what he expected, he didn't experience a burning sensation, like last time. Rather, it was as if he were being cleaved up by thousands of microscopic blades.
'This bastard is applying his attribute to his ki...!'
Still, he couldn't stop. He had to keep his breathing in order. In and out. He led his breath as if it were flowing through the metaphysical channels of his body, desperately hoping for an end to the agony.
In and out.
His heartbeat was starting to become irregular, and he was struggling to avoid stirring the mana stored within it. Once again, he cursed how his preference not to use mana was adding to the burden of his challenges.
In and out.
More blood spilt from his orifices. His mind was slowly blurring. It wasn't likely that he could keep this up for any much longer. He could faintly hear a commotion outside of himself. It didn't really matter because whatever it was weighed less significantly to his buzzing brain.
In and ou—
'Oh.'
Reoloy fell forward, his head cracking against the table before he collapsed completely, sprawled across the ground.
---
The blue-black-haired boy found himself in an empty space. A sense of déjà vu struck immediately, prompting him to look around more carefully.
'It's not empty.'
He was floating in the middle of an ocean of stars, countless points of light stretching endlessly in every direction, and far off in the distance, a single radiant point burned brighter than all the rest.
'A black—no, white hole?' he questioned dryly.
It was a breathtaking sight. And yet, he found himself more annoyed than awed.
He'd been dumped into another strange, unearthly space. The novelty was wearing thin. Still, he didn't think he was dead—he could faintly feel his body, somewhere far away. So he waited, expecting to be dragged back once they were done resuscitating him.
Before he could properly start complaining, his astral form went rigid, and he felt an interference breach from beyond the visible expanse.
Extend your world.
The words didn't echo. It felt like they were being carved into his brain over and over again, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A silent scream tore through him as the intruding substance seeped into the star-filled void, igniting each point of light until the entire expanse shimmered brighter.
At the same time, the distant singularity let out a loud sound, reminiscent of the loud rupture from when he had dragged from his room. Then the pain stopped, and in its place was a new feeling—
The feeling of everything.
'What is this overwhelming... peace?' he thought, rapidly drifting closer to the white hole that now violently roared with a blinding light. 'It's not enough... I'm not there yet...'
Just as he was about to be devoured by it, the space shattered.
Reoloy—still just a spectral form—stood above an ocean. The sun beamed into his eyes. He looked around and spotted a great tree in the distance with a large, multi-winged bird soaring carelessly around it.
In the opposite direction, he saw a pulsating distortion seemingly swallowing the air itself.
'What even...?'
He blinked, feeling something different about himself. Like something had opened up.
'There's no way,' he thought in astonishment. 'I can feel it...'
Whatever resentment he had harboured for Gordoi suddenly took a backseat as he pondered the implications of what he was experiencing.
Reoloy knew what mana felt like from sensing his own.
He knew what ki felt like because he could feel Gordoi's right now.
And as for casis, it was faint, but he could somewhat pick up Lavere's.
The thing he was perceiving through this newly gained sense was something else entirely.
It was even more faint than the casis he felt, but he still felt it more vividly than everything else because it threaded through everything and constituted the world itself.
'The crazy old bastard was right...'
The building block for the three powers existed. It wasn't just Gordoi's randomly fabricated mythical fixation.
He hadn't asked too many questions before because he honestly didn't care, but now he wanted to know what exactly had triggered the man to research this in the first place.
'And then there's all this and everything before...' he thought, drifting as his gaze passed over the tree, the bird, the distortion and the ocean beneath him.
He automatically flashed back to his conversation with Nameless. The guard beast had mentioned them being in the manifestation of his mind.
'But can mind realms change?'
Reoloy's thoughts were disrupted by the familiar but now much clearer feeling of Lavere's energy surging into his body.
'It's about time,' he thought, calmer than he would've been before.
He felt a pull on his consciousness before finally waking up.
---
Reoloy shot upright with a gasp, his eyes darting as he took in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the blood. A disturbingly large puddle of it—right beneath him.
"...You're not actually trying to kill me, are you?"
Gordoi didn't answer, instead observing him carefully.
"Are you okay?" Lavere asked, shuffling closer, light concern evident in her voice. "That got really dangerous."
Reoloy turned to her, ignoring any lingering soreness. His eyes fixed on her. Not her physical form in particular—but the vivid appearance of her casis.
"No, but I'll be fine," he said, fixated on the sensations he now felt a little too clearly.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Lavere asked, frowning in slight discomfort.
Reoloy snapped out of it, awkwardly shifting.
"Sorry," he started. "It's just now that I can see things properly, I'm taking it all in."
The blonde's head tilted in confusion before her eyes snapped open in shock.
"You're saying... this stupid method actually worked?" she asked in disbelief.
Gordoi released a wave of ki, his expression stern.
"So you can see and feel this now?" he asked.
Reoloy stared at him blankly, grudgingly admitting to himself that the plain sight of his ki was beautiful. He could even feel the attribute that had caused him so much pain earlier—albeit much more tranquil at the moment.
The teen smirked somewhat cockily.
"More than just that," he replied. "I confirmed your theory."
Abruptly, the ki vanished.
Gordoi's entire expression faltered in a rare, incredible display of openness. It caught the teens off guard. The man looked overwhelmed by emotions.
"Are you telling the truth?" Gordoi asked hesitantly.
Reoloy nodded after brushing off the weird reaction.
"I felt it," he said seriously. "It's much harder now, but I still feel it—almost like a far-off whisper."
The blacksmith planted his hand over his face. He seemed to be deep in thought, but then he broke out laughing. An earnest, child-like laughter. It looked like a tension that had been on his shoulders had suddenly vanished.
"Reoloy," he called.
"Yeah, what?"
"I'll acknowledge this much," Gordoi said. "You've partially passed the first and third criteria… and fully passed the second."
Lavere smiled as Reoloy instinctively tried to jump up—only to stop halfway, reminded of his barely recovered body.
"However..."
Both of them turned, warily wondering what nonsense the man would pull now.
Gordoi smiled, waving off their concern.
"I never thought of a name because I had no reliable way of proving it," he continued lightly. "Since you're the one who brought my stagnant search to an end... you name it."
"A name, huh..." Reoloy muttered, leaning back in contemplation. He thought about the whole experience, souring when he remembered the terrible pain.
'Does this bastard expect me to forget that he used his attribute on me?' he thought, his anger threatening to resurface.
"Wait. Attributes..." he murmured, looking at the man. "That can work."
Gordoi leaned forward slightly.
"You've got something?"
Reoloy recalled a heated discourse on an internet forum about the developer's decision to go with the name "attributes."
He had found it stupid back then, especially because he thought the overwhelmingly popular alternative suggested by the community was too on the nose.
But ironically, he could use it now.
"Let's call this discovery," he said, grinning at Gordoi. "Element."