Edran sat beneath the leaning stone, knees drawn up, arms resting across them. The jungle pulsed around him—not hostile, but ever-watchful. His breath was steady now, the silence in his chest no longer born of fear, but focus. He had survived beasts, missteps, humiliation. But more than that, he had survived himself. The thrashing of panic, the sting of inadequacy—they hadn't vanished, but they no longer ruled him.
And still, the real question lingered.
*What do I do with all of this?*
The borrowed strength. The inherited instincts. The life of Ravian, pulsing just beneath the surface like a tide not yet risen. He flexed his fingers slowly, watching the veins rise, the knuckles tighten, the ease with which power gathered even in stillness. It should have felt like a gift.
It felt like a puzzle.
His thoughts returned, inevitably, to the snake. Its fangs against his skin, the sheer absurdity of its failure. The fear hadn't come from the snake. It had come from himself. From not knowing what he was capable of—or what he wasn't. From the vast, echoing silence where Ravian's mastery should have been.
He muttered, half-bitter: "I'm wearing the armor of a god and moving like a child in boots too big."
"Your analogy is inefficient, but not incorrect," the System said, its tone smooth and dry as river stones.
Edran didn't even flinch. "How do I make it mine?"
"You must align memory with muscle. Instinct with intent. Start from the foundation."
"And where's the foundation buried?"
"Deep," the System replied. "The earliest layer. Ravian was not forged in a day. You must return to his first discipline. His earliest years of training. Meditation will allow access."
He let out a long breath. Meditation. It sounded simple. But nothing about this was simple.
He cleared a patch of moss-covered ground, settled into a seated position, and closed his eyes. The jungle faded. The breath became his anchor. In. Out. In. Out.
His heartbeat slowed.
*Show me,* he thought.
And it began.
Not in clarity. Not like a story.
More like sensation.
Rain on stone floors. Cold. The rigid stillness of sitting for hours. The sound of a wooden staff sweeping across dirt. The feel of bruises, discipline, hunger.
Then: voices. Shouts. Corrections. Drills.
Not in language, but in rhythm.
*Strike. Step. Breathe. Fall. Rise again.*
A boy's body—Ravian's, perhaps younger than Edran expected. Small, hollow-eyed. Training under torchlight while others slept. Learning to fight not to win, but to *endure.*
Pain as education. Failure as ritual.
The flood of memory overwhelmed him. Sweat beaded down his brow. His back ached from the posture. The past was not a story, it was a storm.
And through it all, he saw that the strength he now wore had not come from glory, but from *grit.*
Edran opened his eyes.
The jungle remained, but something inside him had shifted. He hadn't learned techniques. Not yet. But he had seen the *cost* of them. The repetition. The violence. The silence.
The boy who had become Ravian had *bled* for every inch of mastery.
Edran stood slowly.
"Then I'll bleed for it too."
His voice was calm.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the stir of something familiar now. Less foreign. He turned to a tree—not to destroy it, but to test it. A stance. A strike. A breath held, then exhaled.
Not Ravian's.
Not Edran's.
Something in between.
The beginning of something new.
The System spoke again, quieter now.
"You have touched the first thread. Follow it deeper."
Edran nodded, his stance grounding.
Training began tomorrow.
Tonight, he would *remember.*