The world outside the hallway was a breath of quiet nostalgia.
Fresh air, swaying trees, distant chatter—mundane, almost peaceful.
For Jin—no, Rael, now—it felt oddly comforting.
It had been nearly twenty years since he'd last walked these academy grounds.
Not this exact one, perhaps. But an academy all the same. A place of trials and youth. Power and pain.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was sharper than he remembered. Or perhaps his senses were just weaker.
Still…
He had missed this.
Back then, he'd been part of one of the great houses—status, power, expectations. And he had carried the crushing burden of knowing the future. Every step was calculated. Every word weighed. Every relationship—conditional.
And now?
Now, he still knew the future. Or at least, a future.
But this time, he didn't plan to shoulder the weight of the world. He didn't care who ruled the continent, which sect rose or fell, or what path the Crownless walked.
All he wanted was one thing:
Peace.
Just surviving the academy would be enough.
After that? He could vanish into a quiet corner of the world. A mountain, perhaps. A small house. Maybe farming. Something simple.
He walked the path slowly, guided not by instinct, but by memory—fragments from his past life. The dormitories lay ahead. Boys' wing, second floor. Name plaques adorned the doors like forgotten tombstones.
He searched.
And then—there it was.
Rael Drayce.
The door creaked as he opened it.
Inside was a small, clean room. Barely furnished. Everything was arranged neatly—books aligned, bed made, no clutter. It was… spartan. Disciplined.
Rael had been a lot like Jin in that regard.
A faint breeze drifted through the open window. Pages fluttered on the desk.
He stepped closer.
A diary lay open—faded ink, trembling handwriting, a single entry scrawled across the page.
---
207th Entry
I finally made it into the academy. But why am I constantly being bullied?
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
Why am I so useless…
It's been thirteen years since I was supposed to unlock my basic skill.
Am I really that worthless?
I guess it would be best if I joined Mom and Dad in the afterlife…
…
No! I have to survive!
---
Jin closed the book slowly.
So that was it.
A broken boy. No talent. Bullied. Depressed. And yet… not without will. There was something desperate in those words. A cry from the edge—but not a surrender.
He looked around the room once more.
Neat. Orderly. Empty.
This was his life now.
The life of a failure.
A student who couldn't even awaken a basic skill by eighteen. Someone the academy laughed at. Someone the instructors ignored. Someone who didn't belong.
Jin sat down on the bed, the weight of silence filling the room.
"Don't worry, Rael," he said softly. "I'll live the best life for both of us."
---
But peace required strength.
And strength required power.
He couldn't live quietly if he was hunted. And someone like him—someone who didn't trust anyone—couldn't afford to be weak.
His first goal was simple:
Regain his basic skill.
Luckily, this body didn't have any skills of its own. A blank slate. That made the process smoother.
The Concept was already built.
He'd carved it deep into his soul across a lifetime of combat.
Now, he just needed Essence.
That was the hard part.
He sat in the center of the room, legs crossed. Hands on his knees. The window still open, the wind stirring gently.
The skill he wanted to learn was his old basic: Quick Draw.
A simple sword-drawing technique. Fast, efficient, deadly in its execution. His first kill had been with that skill.
It wasn't flashy. It wasn't powerful.
But it was his.
He closed his eyes and focused inward.
---
Essence.
It was like blood, but invisible. A flow within the soul. To use it, one needed to pull it into a loop, circulate it through the Core, and execute.
For someone like him, who had once walked the tier of Nova, it should have been simple.
But this body…
This body was stagnant.
Circulating Essence was like untying a wet knot with frostbitten fingers.
Slippery. Painful. Frustrating.
He focused. Tuned out the world.
His breathing slowed.
No vision.
No thought.
Just the faint pulse inside his Core.
First—nothing.
Then… a chill.
A cold current tickled his spine. He gritted his teeth, guided it.
It resisted.
He pulled again. And again.
For half an hour, he fought the current.
Slowly… painfully…
Essence moved.
Not much. Barely the size of a pinch of salt.
He let out a quiet breath.
"At this rate, it'll take three weeks to form a usable Essence Core."
He opened his eyes. The wind had died down. The room was silent again.
That wouldn't do. He needed results—faster.
---
He considered the options.
Option one: Buy an elixir. But he had no funds.
Option two: Absorb ambient Essence from the world. Too slow.
Then his eyes narrowed.
Wait. Wasn't there a discovery in his past life?
A hidden field in the forest behind the academy… an area dense with natural Essence. Back then, a random student stumbled upon it. By the time Jin heard about it, the field was already drained.
Not this time.
This time, he would be the one to find it.
He would take everything for himself.
His survival depended on it.
But first—he needed to get his footing.
He turned back to the diary.
He needed to learn who Rael knew. Who hated him. Who tolerated him. Who might have once cared.
Whether bullies, friends, rivals, or crushes—it didn't matter. Information was power. And right now, he was blind.
Tonight, he would read.
At midnight, he would leave for the Essence Field.
---
This second life was already shaping up to be a lot of work.
But at least this time, he had a chance to live it on his own terms.
And nothing—not fate, not destiny, not weakness—would take that from him.
Not again.