As Sunny read through the menu, many people around the room shot him curious looks.
He was not sure why, but assumed it was because he had become a Master directly from a Sleeper.
At a specific table, a group of girls could not take their eyes of him as they talked about tasting a special snack together.
Thinking about the time he visited a club, his mind filled with what Effie had called honey.
A shudder ran down his spine.
'Feel free to share it to your hearts content, just don't bring it anywhere near me!'
Soon after he finished looking over the second page of the menu, the familiar figures of his friend's entered the doorway.
Their eyes wondered around the room looking for their companion, Nephis's eyes landed on the shadow on the floor.
It was waving its arms enthusiastically.
Once the cohort realized what they were looking at, they simply followed the happy shadow to a table on the other side of the room.
It was situated away from most people, near one of the corners of the room.
When their eyes landed on Sunny, he gave them a little wave.
For some reason when Nephis saw him... she felt below him?
It was weird, it was like her body understood him as someone great, something divine, something that needed to be worshiped.
It was not a strong feeling, like an itch in the back of her mind.
'Is this that damned attribute?'
Her body shuddered at the thought.
'If this is how it works naturally, I wonder how strong it is when he purposefully uses it?'
She was not keen to find out.
Little did she know Sunny was trying his best to suppress it.
He had learned the hard way just how powerful his attribute was.
Anyways, once they sat down, Effie obviously began to browse the menu.
Kai simply ordered and iced coffee, while Nephis and Cassie chose to get a simple coffee.
Sunny ordered three plates of their special for the day, and a cup of coffee.
While they waited on their orders, Kai was the first to ask.
"Sunny. How did you Ascend?"
The man in question gave him a deadpan look.
"How does one usually ascend Kai? I went into a nightmare seed of course."
Kai frowned.
"I already guessed that. What I meant to ask was how you found a seed, more importantly how did you clear it all by yourself?"
Sunny gave him a dark look.
"I had help finding it, as for how I cleared it..."
He gritted his teeth.
"I killed the things I needed to. Don't ask me anymore about it."
Sunny did not want to talk about the things he had done to leave the nightmare.
The cohort exchanged a look or two, except Cassie, she was blind and could not look at anything.
Kai's face turned solemn, he was not expecting him to tell them the entire story like some magical tale. But he definitely didn't not expect Sunny to outright tell them not to ask.
Effie just looked at him with fire in her eyes.
"What... did you cheat on Princess a time or two?"
Sunny shot her daggers.
Nephis looked at her, but then turned to Sunny with questions in her eyes. She did not care what he did in his free time, well that's what she tells herself to sleep better at night.
"I did not cheat on anyone. Nephis and I are not a thing, and no I did not. I was too busy trying to escape that damned place."
Effie just laughed.
Nephis on the other hand let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Cassie who was sitting next to her, jabbed her in the ribs with an elbow.
Nephis looked at her as if asking 'Why did you elbow me?'
Cassie's smile was simply terrifying.
"You know Sunny, Nephis visited you almost every day. They never let her get close after the first time, because they thought she might have been the cause of your weird change. But she still tried."
Nephis's face became a little hot as she elbowed Cassie.
When Cassie turned to her, the smile had gone from terrifying to incredibly smug.
Sunny who picked up on Cassie's efforts decided to play along.
"Why did she visit me so much?"
His smile was light and teasing as he stared at Nephis.
Suddenly her ears turned a shade of pink as she coughed into her hand.
"I had to make sure you were okay, who knows what the hospital staff would do to you while you were sleeping."
Effie and Kai shot her a weird look, and Sunny's smile widened.
"What exactly were you scared of them doing to me, I was sleeping in a pod?"
Nephis's mind raced for an excuse, she thought over all the possibilities she could.
"They might attack you."
It was a statement, but her tone sounded like a question.
Kai gave her a blank look, his flaw was not needed for this one.
Effie's face looked like she came to an epiphany, before smirk crossed her face.
"Say Princess, you didn't think they would try to take your prince from you, right?"
The question was vague, but everyone knew what she meant.
Sunny's gaze became darker as he gave Effie a death glare. Truly he looked terrifying right now.
Effie just chuckled awkwardly.
"If you don't want to lose your first arm wrestling contest, stop talking."
Effie suddenly became much livelier.
"What? You are challenging me to an arm wrestling match? You have gotten cocky since ascending huh?"
Effie wished with all her heart that she could put this little runt into his place, but with her current body, she was unable to do it.
As her face became a little solemn, Sunny realized his mistake.
But then his smile widened. What kind of friend does not bring gifts when returning from a long journey.
And Sunny had acquired something invaluable in the current age.
During his time with Eurys, he had asked him once or twice about the natural awaking process.
His answers were roughly the same as Ananke's, but he was much more knowledgeable about the intricacies and the hows of the process.
Eventually Sunny got to the question he really wanted to ask.
"Eurys, do you know any essence refining technique's?"
As his skull rattled, he laughed.
"Boy, what kind of Divine does not know an essence refining technique?"
Sunny thought about it for a second and nodded.
"I want you to tech me the basics of how to refine essence."
Eurys just laughed.
"You know it will do you no good right, you are not even an awakened. Which is very weird seeing as how you already have a soul core, seven no less!"
Sunny smiled.
"It is not for me. My friends likely won't conquer a nightmare as quick as me, simply because they are not forced to. While I can only leave here through a nightmare, it would be stupid for them to conquer a nightmare less than a year after awakening."
Eurys seemed to think about it for a second.
"Alright I will teach it to you, but when you use it remember to constantly gain essence from shards. For you it will be hard due to your weird core, but for others they simply need a few soul shards to use while they refine, preferable a rank or two above them."
Sunny nodded, and soon Eurys began to teach him the basics.
~~~
"Hey Effie, want to get out of that body and back into your other one?"
Effie looked at him with a saddened expression.
"You don't have to make fun of me Sunny."
Just the fact she used his name told him how much this topic meant to her.
"No, I mean it. I happened to have learned an essence refining method, one made by Nether himself no less."
Effie's face instantly reversed.
"What? You know how to ascend naturally!?"
He put his finger to his lips.
"Shhhhh. I can't let everyone know I have it."
Effie calmed down as she nodded.
"You will have to get Saint Tyris to bring you to the Chained Isles, once you are there we can talk."
Sunny was pleasantly surprised to hear where they had chosen to anchor themselves.
'Fate really is strong!'
Soon their food had arrived, and they began to eat.
As Sunny ate, he relished the taste of various spices and even more so the existence of vegetables.
One did not really think about it, but in a land of eternal darkness plants did not grow very easily. During his nightmare, only the high class could find vegetables and even then, it was in very small quantities.
He scarfed his food down without saying another word the entire time, he was in heaven.
Well, until a familiar doctor approached.
"Master Sunless, we really need to follow proper procedure. The government has been informed of your return and have sent many specialists to assist in your testing."
After a pause he added.
"They request your presence immediately."
The last part was barely audible, he clearly did not like the position he was put into.
"They said that If you refused to come to tell you that soul Reaper is here to see you."
Suddenly, they had Sunny's attention.
"Alright, I will see you all later."
Nephis and Cassie nodded.
Effie waved, as Kai spoke.
"Alright Sunny, we will talk to you later."
With a nod, Sunny followed the plump doctor out of the cafeteria and back towards the hospital complex.
On the way, Sunny just looked around the academy grounds. It looked the same as he remembered, not even a single difference.
'It is nice to be back.'
Sunny was not exactly relieved, but being somewhere without eternal darkness and not being besieged by endless amounts of darkness dwellers as they were called was a start.
As they approached the doors to the complex, Sunny's shadow sense felt an all too familiar shadow. On the second-floor lounging in a random armchair was Master Jet.
All around her, people moved setting up machines and trinkets of all kinds. It looked like they were getting ready to go to war.
Well, minus the MWPs, military transports, and weapons.
As they walked up the stairs, Sunny finally decided to speak.
"What kind of tests will you be doing?"
The doctor began listing off random tests that Sunny knew nothing about, he just tuned most of the unfamiliar terminology out except for the last part.
"But before all that, Soul Reaper will conduct an interview with you. To gauge your mental state as well as inform you of important topics that an Ascended should know."
'Finally, something I understand. This guy might as well be speaking an ancient language of the dream realm.'
When they reached the crest of the stair, Sunny saw a pair of icy blue eyes looking at him from down the hall.
After a short walk, he greeted.
"Master Jet."
Jet waved her hand.
"We are both Masters now, Jet is fine."
He smiled.
Sunny remembered back to when she became a full member of the cohort during the third nightmare, so he had missed her just as much as the others.
"Alright Jet, let's get started."