"Wait. How are you so sure about that?" Caelan asked, suddenly skeptical of the source of Ren's confidence.
"Well, duh... it's silver. Of course it's time. We've read plenty of books that point out that the time element is silver," Ren responded with absolute confidence.
"That's... valid?"
He didn't know whether to call that bullshit or admit that it actually made sense. In a way, it did — most of the books he had read always described the time element that way. But on the other hand, all of those books were fiction, and most of what was in them was made up.
There was also the fact that it was the time element.
The Time Element.
There was no way that element wasn't incredibly rare. For a nobody like him to awaken it sounded like something straight out of one of the fantasy novels he used to read.
There was also the matter of lineage, which almost literally determined an awakened person's element. A certain thought suddenly made Caelan uneasy.
'Does this mean that man has the time element hiding up his sleeve?'
Caelan shivered at the thought, thinking of none other than his abusive father.
However, none of that barely mattered right now.
Since he had fully awakened, it was finally time to confirm Ren's theory about his element.
Just before he could try to reach into his heart core, Ren called out to him.
"Wait."
Caelan raised an eyebrow at Ren's sudden talkativeness. He decided to ignored for the time being and asked,
"What's wrong?"
Ren seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying.
"Let me handle this."
Caelan tilted his head at the request, which he found to be quite strange. Ren had never shown any particular concern or interest in anything before.
That, included when his — their mother died.
After thinking it over for a moment, he let himself retreat into the dark space within his mind. Immediately, he lost his sense of bodily control. Instead, it felt as though he were watching through someone else's eyes.
No matter how many times he had done this, he could never get used to the deeply uncomfortable, almost terrifying feeling of not being in control of his own body.
'Is this what Ren has been feeling all this time?'
He suddenly felt terrible as he realised how selfish and inconsiderate he had been.
Well, even so, it was fortunate for him — and unfortunate for Ren — that Caelan had always been selfish. So even though he did feel guilty, he barely regretted his choice.
Pushing that thought aside, he willed himself to disconnect from his physical body's vision and looked around using his own senses. It had been a while since he had let Ren take over. Before the awakening, this space had always been dark and empty.
Now, however, as far as he could see — which wasn't very far, actually — the once-dark space was illuminated by two small orbs of light, each barely larger than a basketball.
One was pure white.
The other carried a faint silver tint, with wavy patterns spread across its surface that made it resemble a silver marble. There was something about it that pulled at him — the otherworldly glow of it, and a strange, creeping temptation that invaded his mind and caused him to unconsciously press his hand against its surface.
The moment he made contact, cracks began spreading across it.
He jolted in surprise and immediately panicked. The silver-white core began draining rapidly, before the other core followed suit, cracks spreading across its surface just as quickly.
He forced himself to calm down. It was then that he realised it wasn't his fault. He quickly reconnected his vision and hearing to his physical body.
!!
What he saw stopped him cold.
The wounds covering his body were rapidly healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Or so Caelan thought at first. Upon closer look, he realised the wounds weren't actually 'healing'. It was rather more accurate to say that they were 'reversing'.
The fresh bruise on his back — courtesy of the female doctor — reverted to the state it had been in before that. And from there, it continued rewinding, back to before his father had beaten him, and before the gang had reduced him to a pulp.
Even as wondrous as the sight was, at this rate, his newly formed cores would shatter from sheer overuse and the excessive mana consumption that came with it.
"Wait, Ren! Stop!"
He didn't listen.
Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Caelan forced mana into both cores.
Or at least, he tried to, before failing spectacularly.
If he'd had a heartbeat right now, he was sure it would have been on the verge of exploding. Partly because he was panicking. Mostly because that was quite literally what was about to happen.
Taking a mental breath, he decided on a different approach. Instead of forcing the mana, he did his best to stay calm and guide it gently into the cores.
But no matter how hard he tried, the mana refused to enter his heart core and filled his lower core instead. It was then he understood. Ren was currently pushing the heart core to its absolute limit, while the lower core had already been emptied some time ago.
'Wait. Does that mean a core can't be filled and used at the same time?'
With that realisation, he quickly abandoned his previous attempt and turned his focus entirely onto the lower core, desperately hoping that Ren would somehow find a way to salvage the situation on his end.
Cutting off his vision from the outside world, he turned his attention back to the cores within him. The white one was slowly recovering from its cracks. Meanwhile, the silver-white heart core was drawing from the mana stored in the lower core to repair itself, even as it continued draining its reserves.
Curiously, the two cores were connected by a single white thread. If his guess was correct, Ren was using the heart core to reverse his wounds while relying on the lower core to continuously supply it with mana.
Caelan had no idea how Ren was managing both cores simultaneously without his help. Even so, one thing had become clear: a single core couldn't accumulate and expend mana at the same time. But by having two cores, that limitation no longer applied to them. Theoretically, they would never run out of mana, as long as their rate of consumption didn't exceed the second core's rate of recovery and supply.
Which, did not apply to the current situation. At the pace Ren was consuming mana, Caelan couldn't force enough into the lower core to keep up with him.
Exhaling heavily — not that he had any breath to speak of — he tried the only thing left available to him.
He forcefully stopped the mana from being spent. The mana Ren had been drawing on to mend their body was forced to remain inside the cores instead.
Thankfully, Ren didn't resist and let the process proceed smoothly.
The cracks marring both cores also began to slowly mend themselves, using the mana within to repair the damage naturally.
Sighing in relief, he cursed the personality occupying his body.
"You reckless son of a gun."
"..."
Whether the silence meant guilt or simple indifference, Caelan barely cared, as long as Ren didn't pull something reckless again.
***
Before either of them realised it, it was already nearing noon by the time they finished.
By then, Ren had finished explaining to Caelan what he had been doing.
"So you're basically saying we really do have the Time Element?"
"That's right."
"The Time Element as in 'The Time Element'?"
"You heard me just right."
"So we really, really do have the Ti —"
"Enough." Ren facepalmed in frustration. "Yes. We have the Time Element. What is so hard to understand about that?"
Honestly, after watching Ren reverse their wounds and seeing their broken ribs return to normal, Caelan was more or less convinced they genuinely did possess the legendary Time Element. Even so, that didn't stop him from questioning it, even if only for the benefit of doubt.
"That's... unbelievable." Caelan thought outloud.
"You know what. It's my turn."
"..."
Seeing no reply, Caelan was almost ready to laugh it off as a joke and take it back, when Ren finally answered.
"...Sure."
"Hell yes!"