Chapter 155
While Nille and Lin Yue recovered within the safety of Rune Forge, life across Yamatai Academy continued moving forward.
The Interconnected Mid-Term Examination had entered its second week, and contrary to the panic many students initially felt after the announcement, the actual examination system proved far more flexible than expected.
Each mission was clearly labeled.
Each assignment displayed its difficulty.
Its expected completion time.
Its required skills.
Its potential dangers.
And most importantly, every student retained the right to accept or decline any task presented to them.
The result was immediate.
The academy's first and second-year students quickly discovered that many examinations were less about combat and more about demonstrating practical competence.
A first-year alchemy student named Marvin Halloway earned his first successful completion after helping a merchant family identify contamination within a shipment of medicinal herbs. The task required no fighting whatsoever. Instead, it tested observation, botanical knowledge, and proper documentation.
Three days later, he submitted his findings and received a passing evaluation.
Another group of second-year students accepted a logistics request from a noble household whose enchanted warehouse inventory had become corrupted after a mana surge. Rather than battling monsters, they spent four days reorganizing thousands of magically tagged items while identifying dozens of accounting errors hidden throughout the records.
The mission was tedious.
The reward was substantial.
The academy approved it immediately.
Across Sector One, dozens of similar examinations unfolded.
One student solved a long-standing dispute between two merchant guilds by tracing ownership records spanning three generations.
Another repaired an ancient irrigation system serving multiple farming communities.
A pair of aspiring artificers successfully restored a damaged defensive rune tower that had remained inactive for nearly twenty years.
None of these missions involved glorious battles.
Yet each demonstrated practical value.
Which was precisely the purpose behind the new examination format.
Meanwhile, many first-year students who initially feared failure quickly realized something important.
The academy wasn't testing whether they could survive impossible situations.
It was testing whether they could apply what they had learned.
Some succeeded through intelligence.
Others through diplomacy.
Others through technical skill.
The battlefield was only one possible path.
As a result, completion rates steadily increased.
Even students who failed simply accepted another mission and tried again.
There was little stigma attached.
The system encouraged learning rather than punishment.
The third and fourth-year students approached the examination very differently.
Many deliberately ignored the simpler assignments.
Pride played a role.
Experience played another.
After years of study, most upperclassmen viewed the examination as an opportunity to establish their reputation.
One fourth-year shaman selected a difficult escort mission involving a caravan crossing three dangerous regions.
Another accepted a monster suppression request requiring him to track a Level 380 malignant through a ruined mining settlement.
Several students formed temporary parties to tackle larger operations involving resource extraction, anomaly investigation, and exploration.
These missions often took one or two weeks to complete.
Some required extensive preparation.
Others required multiple attempts.
Yet because the examination lasted three full months, few felt rushed.
Students had time.
Time to fail.
Time to adapt.
Time to improve.
Ironically, many professors considered the examination one of the most relaxed assessment periods the academy had ever implemented.
Professor discussions regarding the new system became increasingly positive.
The two deans had received criticism initially.
Now many instructors admitted the results were difficult to argue against.
Students were engaging with the world.
Learning through experience.
Making mistakes.
Correcting them.
And most importantly, surviving long enough to learn from them.
Exactly as intended.
Far from Yamatai, however, entirely different events were unfolding.
Events hidden from the academy's awareness.
Events connected to far older plans.
Far older powers.
And far greater dangers.
Across the world, only a handful of locations rivaled Yamatai as centers of awakened learning.
One of those places existed deep within Europe.
The infamous Hoia Baciu Forest.
To ordinary people it was known through rumors.
A haunted forest.
A cursed woodland.
A place where compasses failed and people vanished.
Among awakened communities, however, its true significance was far greater.
The Hoia Baciu Dark Forest served as the foundation of one of Europe's oldest mystical academies.
Unlike Yamatai's relatively structured Twelve Sectors, Hoia Baciu contained its own isolated system of seven dangerous domains, were they name each domain sector based on the seven sins.
The Forgotten Chronicle
Many scholars devoted their entire lives to studying the anomaly.
Universities were founded around it.
Ancient ruins were excavated in its name.
Countless expeditions disappeared while searching for answers hidden beneath mountains, deserts, and forgotten oceans.
Yet after thousands of years of research, the truth remained scattered among fragments of broken tablets, ruined temples, half-burned manuscripts, and myths passed down through generations.
No single record could be fully trusted.
No scholar could agree on what was fact and what was fiction.
The oldest accounts all traced back to an age so distant that history itself struggled to remember it, an era when the world was said to have been ruled by living gods, when mountains could move at a divine command, when rivers changed their course according to celestial decrees, and when the forces of nature willingly obeyed the will of beings beyond mortal comprehension.
For most people, these tales were nothing more than legends.
Stories told to children before bed.
Myths crafted to explain an ancient world that primitive civilizations could not understand.
As the Age of Technology dawned and science became the dominant force guiding civilization, belief in the supernatural steadily faded.
Humanity built machines.
They split atoms.
They reached the stars.
They mapped the oceans.
They decoded the language of life itself.
The more mankind understood the universe, the less room remained for magic.
At least that was what people believed.
Yet despite every advancement, strange phenomena continued to exist.
Children were occasionally born with impossible abilities.
Ancient artifacts surfaced that ignored known laws of physics.
Entire villages reported encounters with creatures that should not exist.
Unexplainable energy readings appeared across the globe.
People who witnessed such events were often dismissed.
Others were feared.
Some vanished entirely.
Because throughout human history there had always been one constant truth:
People feared what they could not understand.
Thus, the stories of magic slowly transformed into folklore.
Folklore became superstition.
Superstition became myth.
And myth became something humanity convinced itself had never existed.
Yet hidden beneath thousands of conflicting accounts, scholars discovered a strange pattern.
A similarity repeated across cultures that had never interacted.
Civilizations separated by continents, oceans, and millennia all described the same event.
Different names.
Different interpretations.
Different gods.
But always the same ending.
A Great Fall.
A Divine War.
And a Creator who punished creation itself.
Thousands of books attempted to explain what happened.
Some claimed magic disappeared because humanity became unworthy.
Others argued the gods abandoned the world.
Many suggested an ancient catastrophe destroyed civilization so completely that only fragments survived.
Every theory contradicted another.
Yet one detail remained constant.
The Creator removed the magical races from the mortal realm.
Dragons vanished.
Spirits disappeared.
Ancient beasts faded into myth.
The gods themselves withdrew beyond mortal sight.
Humanity was left alone.
Abandoned.
Or perhaps entrusted.
No one knew which.
For countless generations mankind believed Earth was the First World.
The original creation.
The birthplace of existence.
The center of all reality.
And for countless generations mankind was wrong.
The Truth Before Creation
Before Earth existed...
Before stars burned.
Before time possessed meaning.
There existed only One.
The Singular Creator.
The First Will.
The Eternal Architect.
The being mortals would later call God.
But the Creator did not begin with Earth.
Earth was not the first realm.
It was not the greatest realm.
It was not even among the earliest creations.
It was the last.
The final experiment.
The final garden.
The final hope.
Before Earth, countless worlds existed.
Realms beyond imagination.
Some were oceans stretching endlessly through the stars.
Some existed entirely within storms of living energy.
Others were forests larger than galaxies.
Worlds of crystal.
Worlds of fire.
Worlds of thought.
Worlds where life existed without physical form.
The Creator crafted them all.
And at the center of every realm stood a tree.
Not an ordinary tree.
But a Divine tree, the the created crafted from a handful of small little seeds.
The foundation of existence itself.
Every Seed embodied three eternal principles:
Life.
Change.
Death.
Without Life, nothing could begin.
Without Change, nothing could grow.
Without Death, nothing could evolve.
Together they formed the foundation upon which reality itself was built.
The Creator entrusted these sacred Seeds to powerful entities known as the great spirits , and these beings gain followers and among them one carried the blessing to safeguard the seed given unto them to give life to other new realms that the singular god molded a new barren world , and gave the seed the responsibility to bring life based on its own free will , and the Seed Bearers are the one tasked to safeguard these seeds until the great spirits were called by the creator
The First six Great Spirits.
Beings born directly from the Creator's will.
They were not gods.
Nor were they mortals.
They existed somewhere between.
Their duty was simple.
Plant the Seeds.
Nurture the worlds.
Observe life.
Protect balance.
Never interfere.
Never rule.
Never command.
Only watch.
And so the Seed Bearers obeyed.
Realm after realm blossomed beneath their care.
Life emerged.
Civilizations rose.
Species evolved.
Empires flourished.
And eventually every realm reached its end.
Some perished naturally.
Others consumed themselves.
Many simply completed their purpose.
The Creator watched every cycle unfold.
And for ages beyond counting, the process continued.
Creation.
Growth.
Decline.
Renewal.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The Birth of Jealousy
Yet among the countless spirits serving the Creator, there were lesser spirits that came after the six great spirits , came next seven spirits became the unbaptized Archangels named Amaley, Alpacor, Amacor, Apalco, Alco, Araco, and Azarague. The last spirit was called Luxbel,
Unlike the six great spirits , these seven lesser spirits ,they possessed greater freedom.
Greater individuality.
Greater emotion.
At first they rejoiced in creation.
They admired the worlds.
They loved the creatures born from the Seeds.
But over time admiration transformed into envy.
The lesser spirits noticed something.
Whenever new life emerged, the Creator watched.
Whenever civilizations grew, the Creator smiled.
Whenever living beings struggled, learned, and persevered, the Creator became fascinated.
Life captivated the Creator.
And the lesser spirits grew jealous.
"Why?" they asked.
"We were created first."
"We serve faithfully."
"We obey without question."
"Why do these fragile beings receive the Creator's attention?"
Jealousy became resentment.
Resentment became hatred.
Hatred became corruption.
And from that corruption emerged seven entities unlike anything creation had ever known.
Not demons.
Not gods.
Not spirits.
Concepts given form.
The first embodiments of imbalance.
The Seven Sins.
Pride.
Greed.
Wrath.
Envy.
Lust.
Gluttony.
Sloth.
They spread like a disease across reality itself.
Where they walked, harmony collapsed.
Where they spoke, kingdoms divided.
Where they ruled, sacred trees withered.
The Seven Sins whispered to countless lesser spirits.
Promising freedom.
Power.
Recognition.
A place above mortals.
Many listened.
And thus began the First Celestial War.
The War of the Sacred Trees
The conflict engulfed countless realms.
Entire worlds burned.
Ancient civilizations vanished overnight.
The sacred Seed Trees that sustained reality were targeted first.
For the Seven Sins understood a terrible truth.
Destroy the Trees.
Destroy the future.
Destroy the future.
Destroy hope.
One by one the sacred forests fell.
As their roots died, reality itself began to fracture.
Cracks appeared between dimensions.
Boundaries weakened.
Worlds collided.
Monsters emerged.
Time became unstable.
Entire realms collapsed into void.
The Seed Bearers fought desperately, some hide and ever cross over other realms , as war consumed many of these realms .
Many sacrificed themselves to preserve what remained.
Others fell to corruption.
The Creator watched as countless ages of work crumbled into ruin.
And for the first time since existence began...
The Creator felt sorrow.
The Final Realm
When the war finally ended, almost nothing remained.
The Seven Sins were defeated but not destroyed.
The surviving realms were broken.
The surviving spirits were exhausted.
The surviving Seed Trees were dying.
The Creator then made a decision.
A final creation.
A final experiment.
A final chance. the singular god took a few of its creation and place them into this realm.
Earth.
Unlike every realm before it, Earth was designed differently.
The Creator hid it from the rest of reality. but still connected to the remnants of its other creation
Separated it from divine conflicts, but somehow it also reach this place
Removed most magical influences.
Restricted supernatural power. and made sure to retain stability
Allowed humanity to grow through its own effort.
These few were seen as gods , they rule and then also departed. because war and calamity also reach these world in order to save it, they sacrifice their own life to isolate the increasing influence of the magical realm slowly merging with earth.
The magical races vanished.
a few remaining Seed Bearers withdrew, and faded
Earth became isolated.
A sanctuary.
A world where life could mature without interference.
Humanity would either prove creation worth saving...
Or become its final failure.
The Cracks Return
For thousands of years Earth remained stable.
Then the barriers began weakening.
The wounds left behind by the First Celestial War never truly healed.
Small cracks started appearing between realms.
Most went unnoticed.
Some lasted only moments.
Others endured.
Through these cracks came spirits.
Creatures.
Fragments of forgotten worlds.
Many carried remnants of Divine Seeds.
Some planted mystical trees upon Earth.
Trees saturated with primordial energy.
Trees capable of altering reality.
Trees capable of awakening dormant potential within humanity.
And so the impossible began happening once again.
Humans awakened.
Not through technology.
Not through genetics.
But through resonance.
The ancient power hidden within creation itself responding to the Seeds.
Nille and the Awakened Generation
What Nille and the other awakened humans do not yet realize is that their powers are not random.
They are not mutations.
They are not accidents.
Every awakened individual carries a fragment of resonance connected to one of the countless realms that existed before Earth.
Some resonate with forgotten Seed Bearers.
Others with ancient spirits.
A rare few unknowingly carry echoes of the Seven Sins themselves.
The mystical trees appearing across the world are not ordinary anomalies.
They are descendants of the First Trees.
Children of the Divine Seeds.
Their appearance signals something terrifying.
The barriers protecting Earth are failing.
The Final Realm is no longer hidden.
And entities beyond the cracks have begun to notice humanity once more.
The awakenings occurring throughout the world are not the beginning of a new age.
They are preparations.
Because the same conflict that destroyed countless worlds before Earth is stirring once again.
The Seven Sins were seen as mortal vices not a sentient representation of a real immortal spirit
The last surviving Seed Bearers made a choice to in trust the seed to a mortal vassal , until it find its chosen host.
The ancient spirits are moving in secret.
And somewhere beyond the fractured boundaries of reality, the Creator remains silent.
Watching.
Waiting.
Observing whether humanity will succeed where countless realms failed.
Nille's journey, the rise of awakened humans, the appearance of mystical trees inside his metaphysical enclave, the strange anomalies, and the growing instability of reality are all pieces of a far larger story.
A story that began before Earth existed.
A story written across countless destroyed worlds.
A story about the final realm standing at the edge of another celestial war.
And whether humanity will become the salvation of creation...
Or the force that finally ends it forever.
The stories were not new.
In fact, they were so old that most people had stopped paying attention to them centuries ago.
Children grew up hearing them.
Traveling storytellers recited them in village squares.
Professors debated them inside university halls.
Religious leaders quoted them during ceremonies.
Novelists rewrote them into countless forms.
Some versions painted the Creator as a benevolent father.
Others portrayed Him as a distant ruler.
A few darker interpretations described Him as a cruel god who abandoned His creations after growing dissatisfied with them.
The details always changed.
The names always changed.
Yet the foundation remained the same.
The tale of the First Seeds.
The tale of the Lost Realms.
The tale of the Divine War.
And the tale of humanity inheriting a broken world.
By modern standards, these stories occupied the same place as ancient mythology.
No different from legends of dragons, celestial emperors, primordial giants, or sea gods that once ruled forgotten oceans.
People enjoyed the stories.
Few believed them.
Among ordinary citizens, the myths served primarily as entertainment.
They inspired books, films, games, songs, and theatrical productions.
Entire industries had been built around retelling the legends of the Seven Sins, the Seed Bearers, and the countless worlds said to exist before Earth.
Many famous fantasy franchises borrowed heavily from them.
The average person could probably identify the Seven Sins more easily than they could name their nation's founding rulers.
That was how deeply embedded the stories had become within human culture.
Yet despite their popularity, very few regarded them as actual history.
Most viewed them as symbolic lessons created by ancient civilizations attempting to explain the unknown.
A story about human greed.
A warning against pride.
A metaphor for war.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Even among the awakened population, opinions varied greatly.
Some believed the myths contained fragments of truth.
Others dismissed them entirely.
The scientific community largely categorized them as cultural artifacts rather than historical records.
At least publicly.
Privately, many researchers were far less certain.
Especially those connected to the Four Institutes of Veiled Origins.
The Four Institutes occupied a unique position within society.
Officially, they were prestigious academies dedicated to researching anomalies, awakenings, dimensional phenomena, and ancient civilizations.
Unofficially, they served as the world's largest repositories of forbidden knowledge.
Knowledge that governments preferred not to discuss openly.
Knowledge that frequently contradicted accepted history.
Every student admitted into the Institutes eventually encountered the stories.
Usually during their first year.
The myths of the First Seeds were required reading.
Not because the faculty believed them.
But because too many anomalies seemed connected to them.
Ancient ruins discovered on different continents contained identical symbols despite being separated by thousands of years.
Artifacts recovered from dimensional breaches frequently depicted enormous trees surrounded by celestial beings.
Certain awakened individuals occasionally reported dreams featuring landscapes that matched descriptions found in ancient texts.
Most disturbing of all, references to the Seven Sins appeared repeatedly throughout anomaly records spanning several centuries.
No single piece of evidence proved the myths were real.
Yet no one had successfully disproven them either.
Thus the stories remained trapped in an uncomfortable space between history and fiction.
A possibility.
A question without an answer.
Students often joked about it.
Every year new arrivals would eagerly consume the ancient chronicles, convinced they had uncovered the greatest secret in human history.
Every year senior students would laugh.
Then reality would set in.
Thousands of scholars before them had attempted to solve the mystery.
Thousands had failed.
Some spent entire careers searching for evidence.
Others became obsessed.
A few disappeared while investigating dimensional anomalies connected to the myths.
The records were filled with contradictions.
One manuscript claimed Earth was the final realm.
Another described Earth as the seventh.
A third argued Earth existed before all others.
The identities of the Seed Bearers varied wildly between cultures.
Even the number of original realms changed depending on the source.
No matter how deeply one investigated, certainty always remained out of reach.
That uncertainty frustrated generations of researchers.
Yet it also kept them searching.
Because every few decades something happened.
A discovery.
An artifact.
A dimensional breach.
An awakened individual exhibiting impossible abilities.
Something that reignited the debate all over again.
Nille himself had heard the stories countless times.
Every student at Yamatai Academy had.
Most could recite entire passages from memory.
Some professors practically worshipped the ancient chronicles.
Others openly mocked them.
To Nille, they had always been little more than background noise.
Interesting.
Mysterious.
Perhaps even inspiring.
But ultimately distant.
Ancient myths belonging to another age.
Stories that had no direct connection to his life.
At least that was what he used to believe.
Then the awakenings accelerated.
Then the anomalies increased.
Then ancient trees began appearing where none should exist.
Then people started reporting dreams that matched forgotten scriptures.
Then impossible creatures emerged from dimensional fractures.
Then ancient artifacts reacted to the presence of awakened humans.
And suddenly the old stories no longer felt so distant.
For the first time in recorded history, reality itself seemed to be moving in the same direction as the myths.
The similarities were becoming impossible to ignore.
Even among the Four Institutes, a growing number of researchers had begun asking a dangerous question:
What if the legends were never meant to explain the past?
What if they were warnings about the future?
And if that was true...
Then perhaps humanity was not witnessing the birth of a new age.
Perhaps they were witnessing the return of a very old one.
Yet now, at only seventeen years old, Nille found himself standing at the edge of a truth far larger than anything he had ever imagined.
For most of his life, he had treated the strange events surrounding him as isolated incidents.
Coincidences.
Lucky encounters.
Unexpected opportunities that somehow kept finding their way into his hands.
But as more pieces of the puzzle revealed themselves, those so-called coincidences were becoming increasingly difficult to believe.
The weapon once kept in Granny Amparo's possession.
The mysterious Buntala.
The Core Tree now under Nyx's management.
The countless anomalies that seemed to gravitate toward him no matter where he went.
Individually, each could be explained away.
Together, they formed a pattern.
A pattern that made Nille deeply uncomfortable.
For the first time, he began examining everything from a different perspective.
Not as separate events.
But as parts of a much larger design.
A design he could barely comprehend.
Silently, he reviewed the known facts.
The weapon inherited from Granny Amparo was no ordinary artifact.
Every attempt to identify its origins had led to dead ends, contradictions, or records that should not have existed.
The Buntala itself was even stranger.
What many believed to be a rare mystical treasure was now proving to possess connections far beyond mortal understanding.
Recent discoveries suggested that the Buntala was tied directly to Hyde, one of the oldest and most mysterious entities currently known.
An existence whose history seemed intertwined with forgotten ages predating recorded civilization.
Then there was the Core Tree.
The heart of Rune Forge.
The source from which countless changes had begun.
And somehow, Nyx had become its caretaker.
Not merely a guardian.
Not simply a manager.
But something far more significant.
Almost as if the tree itself had accepted her authority.
Accepted her presence.
Accepted her role.
Nille could no longer dismiss these developments as chance.
Because when he counted everything carefully, a disturbing realization emerged.
He alone currently possessed connections to three separate relics, forces, or entities that should have belonged to entirely different legends.
Three.
Not one.
Not two.
Three.
Any single Institute researcher would dedicate an entire lifetime just to discover one such connection.
Yet somehow Nille had become entangled with three.
The odds were absurd.
Almost impossible.
Unless someone—or something—had intended for it to happen.
That thought lingered in the back of his mind.
Not as certainty.
But as a possibility.
A possibility he could not ignore.
The ancient stories spoke of Seed Bearers.
Of chosen guardians.
Of individuals who unknowingly became focal points around which fate itself revolved.
Nille hated those kinds of narratives.
The idea of being some destined hero never appealed to him.
Heroes attracted attention.
Attention attracted enemies.
And enemies tended to kill people.
No, Nille preferred practical solutions.
Practical thinking.
Practical survival.
Whether fate existed or not did not matter.
Whether the myths were true or not did not matter.
Whether some ancient force was manipulating events did not matter.
What mattered was reality.
And reality was becoming increasingly dangerous.
The number of awakened individuals was growing.
Dimensional anomalies continued appearing throughout the world.
Ancient organizations were moving in the shadows.
The Four Institutes were becoming more active.
Governments were quietly mobilizing resources.
Even Yamatai Academy was beginning to reveal secrets it had long kept hidden.
The world was changing.
Fast.
Too fast.
And Nille understood something many people did not.
The people who survived periods of great change were rarely the strongest.
Rarely the smartest.
Rarely the most talented.
They were the ones who adapted first.
The ones who prepared before everyone else realized danger had arrived.
If the weapon, the Buntala, and the Core Tree were truly connected to some larger truth, then sitting around waiting for answers would be foolish.
He needed information.
He needed allies.
He needed strength.
Most importantly, he needed to understand what role these relics actually played before someone else decided that role for him.
Because if the old myths contained even a fraction of truth, then relics like these were never merely tools.
They were pieces of something greater.
Pieces of a system that had existed long before humanity.
Pieces of a game whose rules had been forgotten.
And for reasons Nille still could not understand, three of those pieces had somehow ended up in his hands.
Whether that was a blessing or a disaster remained to be seen.
But one thing was becoming increasingly clear.
The story unfolding around him was never about a single awakened student trying to survive academy life.
It was about forces older than nations.
Older than civilizations.
Perhaps even older than Earth itself.
And somewhere within that vast and ancient design, Nille had already become a player.
Whether he wanted to be or not.