While Rey remained unaware outside the white space, an crucial decision regarding his future was made without his consent.
Outside, reality was far less forgiving.
Rey stood frozen, eyes locked onto his status screen.
What once felt like a flourishing garden of power now resembled a barren wasteland.
All his monstrous abilities were gone.
His stats, his skills, everything he had accumulated step by step had vanished without a trace.
What remained was a painfully ordinary human body, backed by nothing more than a slight edge in strength.
Only one thing endured.
The Ability of Darkness.
To anyone else, it might have seemed insignificant compared to other abilities.
To Rey, it was still enough.
Yet even he could feel it.
Life without those abilities was different.
He had never been separated from them since the day he obtained them.
And now, their absence left a hollow pressure in his chest, as if something vital had been carved out.
"Hmmm…"
Rey exhaled slowly, then clenched his fist.
"No. I'm not sitting down like this."
In his mind, Aiden's presence loomed clearly.
"This is another test, isn't it? If I can't pass this, then there's no point moving forward. Those abilities exist for me to use. I'm not some vessel meant to carry borrowed power."
His grip tightened.
"I have my own stance. Even without them."
A faint spark of stubborn resolve ignited in his eyes.
"And if this is a chance to prove I'm not someone to be trifled with… then I'll take it."
He looked down.
His bow and arrows lay on the ground, abandoned when everything had been stripped away.
Rey picked them up.
Familiar weight. Familiar balance.
He stepped back into his Darkness, reaching for the ability he had refined countless times before.
The Eyes of Hawk.
A name he chose purely because it sounded cool.
Victor had mocked him relentlessly for it.
Rey still liked it.
This time, entering his ability core felt entirely different.
What once responded smoothly now resisted like a foreign body.
Focus slipped away the moment he tried to grasp it.
Mana no longer flowed at his command. It pushed back, ignored him, slipped through his fingers.
Controlling it felt like moving a body that wasn't his own.
Gaining focus was twice as hard.
Controlling mana felt five, maybe ten times harder.
It refused his orders outright.
For the first time since awakening, Rey was forced to confront himself without shortcuts.
This was reality.
No filters. No borrowed strength.
He forced himself deeper.
When he finally breached the surface of his ability core, a chill ran down his spine.
Something was wrong.
The ability core felt vastly different.
More complex and dangerous.
As if losing focus for even a moment would cause him to be swallowed whole.
It felt like the gate to an Eternal Darkness had opened inside him.
One that didn't discriminate between enemy and host.
Rey instinctively pulled back, his body tense like a startled cat.
He couldn't afford to lose himself now.
Steadying his breath, he tried something else.
He summoned the bird he had killed before.
To his surprise, it didn't take even a minute.
It was there.
Beside him.
That alone calmed him slightly.
Slowly, carefully, Rey gathered his focus again.
Minutes passed.
He stood unmoving for more than ten minutes, sweat rolling down his temple.
Then, after nearly twelve minutes, something finally happened.
A faint, blank outline crept across his vision.
It began to take shape.
Covering his eyes.
The ability was the same.
Yet… not the same.
He couldn't explain it clearly, but everything felt different.
As if the ability itself had changed alongside him.
His vision sharpened.
Darkness peeled away with familiar clarity, yet the world felt clearer than ever before.
Rey swallowed hard, half-expecting another failure.
But luck, for once, didn't turn its back on him.
His pupils expanded as he drew his bow to its limit.
Focus narrowed.
The arrow trembled slightly.
And then—
He released.
The arrow flew without hesitation.
It struck the target dead center.
Not only that.
It pierced straight through the hide of the dummy, sinking deep into Zero's reinforced material.
Rey's focus shattered instantly.
He froze, hands shaking in shock.
Staring.
"What… did I just do?"
Confusion flooded his face.
His legs almost gave out not expecting the result.
Doubt followed immediately.
"A fluke?"
He tried again.
Activated the Eyes of Hawk.
But the clarity was gone.
His old, unstable self returned.
This time, the arrow bounced harmlessly off the target.
Rey let out a quiet sigh.
"Yeah… figures."
A faint smirk appeared on his lips.
"I can't be that good, right?"
He continued shooting.
Arrow after arrow.
Meanwhile, something shifted silently within his Arsenal panel.
Unnoticed.
< Bow > {E+}
[99% → 99.7%]
His proficiency rose.
Still not enough to advance.
Still painfully slow.
But it hadn't stopped.
After emptying his quiver twice, Rey finally lowered his bow.
He needed a different space.
Some training could be done outside.
Other things couldn't.
With most of his systems sealed and even Aiden pulling back his guidance, Rey turned to his final option.
The dagger.
If his skills were intact, he wouldn't bother with it now.
But this was all he had left.
The dagger was never his main weapon.
Bow came first.
The dagger was his last card.
A weapon chosen quietly, never declared to the staff.
Something meant for close combat.
For lethal situations.
For moments where retreat wasn't an option.
Rey rolled it in his palm.
Then began to move.
Slow swings at first.
Letting his body remember.
Relearning motion.
Rebuilding himself from nothing.
Rey had already prepared two dummies in advance.
Their vital points were reinforced with Zero's matter, layered carefully the way he intended.
Right now, Zero was the only reason this training was even possible.
Without their bond, even this might have been sealed off.
"Maybe this is outside his sealing range," Rey muttered, glancing at the hardened matter protecting the dummies.
He began swinging his dagger.
Wild. Fast. Almost reckless.
Like a man trying to beat familiarity back into his own bones.
Half an hour passed before his breathing finally steadied, sweat soaking into his clothes.
Only then did his body feel warm enough to go deeper.
"Hohhh…" Rey exhaled slowly, closing his eyes.
"Now for the real thing."
He focused inward.
On the faint presence of mana drifting inside him.
This alone was possible because of the core he had awakened long ago.
A core he still knew almost nothing about.
A mystery without clues.
He tried to move his mana.
Resistance met him instantly.
Strong enough to lock it in place.
"Come on… move already."
He pushed harder.
Sweat trickled down his forehead as frustration and mental pressure stacked together.
His control was clumsy.
Painfully so.
Rey finally understood it clearly.
He was terrible at mana manipulation.
Not just below average.
Rock-bottom bad.
A bitter regret surfaced.
A ridiculous ability that once let him control energy like breathing.
A cheat code he never expected to miss this much.
And now, without it, he was learning its true worth.
It took another half hour just to wrestle his mana into motion.
Moving it was harder than controlling it.
Guiding it toward his hand felt like dragging iron through mud.
At last, it reached the dagger.
What Rey was attempting was simple in theory.
Coat the blade with mana.
Force his proficiency forward.
If possible, break through today.
Slowly, painfully, his persistence began to pay off.
Mana clung to the dagger's surface.
Unstable.
Wavering.
But real.
Then he felt it.
His mana was draining far too quickly.
"Hm… why is it dropping this fast?"
This had never happened before.
"…No. It probably always did."
His lips tightened.
"My abilities just covered it with recovery."
Another weakness exposed.
By the time he managed to coat just over half the blade, his mana emptied out completely.
The colour drained from his face.
"So that's it for today…" he muttered.
Then—
A surge exploded from within him.
Mana flooded his body violently.
His threshold system activated.
Mana Overload.
A forced release meant to counter total depletion.
His body trembled as power rushed back in.
Crude. Excessive.
But usable.
Rey didn't hesitate.
He poured it out recklessly, wasting huge amounts just to finish coating the blade.
Instability worsened.
Overflow leaked everywhere.
His eyes felt like they might burst as he gripped the dagger with both hands, like holding a short sword.
He could see it.
The path forward.
The next stage of proficiency.
"Just a bit more…"
His teeth clenched.
"More…!"
He emptied everything.
A blinding white flash swallowed his vision.
When it faded, Rey opened his eyes.
The dagger in his hands was fully coated in mana.
Not clean.
Not refined.
The coating wavered like unstable flame.
But it was his.
Something he had achieved alone.
Without borrowed systems.
Without crutches.
His legs gave out.
Rey nearly fell backwards, barely managing to keep the dagger raised as he stared at it.
His vision shook.
Blurred.
Mana deficiency hit hard.
The dummies image split into four in his sight.
He chose the closest image and swung.
Missed completely.
The actual dummy stood inches away.
His strike was clumsy.
Weak.
Rey collapsed onto the ground, staring at the ceiling.
A wide grin spread across his face.
Like someone who had just won something priceless.
Behind him—
The dummy he had "missed" shifted.
Then split cleanly in a diagonal line.
Zero's matter shattered effortlessly.
The severed pieces fell apart before dissolving and returning to him.
Rey lost consciousness.
As he slept, panels flooded the air in front of him.
Notifications rang continuously for over a minute.
But there was no one awake to see them.
Except one presence.
"You really amazed me this time…"
A faint voice echoed softly.
"Not bad."
The figure vanished as if it had never been there.
Leaving Rey alone in the basement.
Unconscious.
With his future quietly shifting once again.