The world swam back into focus. Fluorescent lights. The scent of chalk dust and cheap disinfectant. The monotonous drone of a history lesson about the Joseon Dynasty.
He was sitting at a wooden desk, his hand resting on a textbook. His old, worn middle school textbook.
His head whipped around. He saw faces. Young, immature faces he hadn't seen in over a decade.
Kim Min-su, who'd become a C-Rank healer. Park Ji-yeon, who died during The Eclipse.
And there, in the back row, smirking at him, was Kang Min-jun, the architect of his high school misery.
They were all fifteen years old. And so was he.
His hands flew to his face. The puffy, soft cheeks were there, but they felt smaller. He looked at his hands—soft, uncalloused, the hands of a boy, not a broken man.
It's a dream, he thought, a wave of relief so powerful it almost made him sick.
A horrible, vivid nightmare. But it felt too real. The memory of the wind, the texture of the cosmic seed, the crushing despair... it was seared into his soul.
"Is there a problem, Jackson?" the teacher asked, her voice laced with annoyance.
Before he could answer, a shimmering, translucent blue window popped into existence right in front of his eyes. Only he could see it.
[System Initializing...][Welcome, User Jackson Lee Mercer.][Seed Trait Acquired!]
Name: Jackson Lee MercerLevel: 1Trait: Unbound (Rank: UNIQUE)Description: The user is a vessel of infinite potential, unbound by the universal law of 'One Seed, One Soul'.Abilities:Slot 1: [???]Slot 2: [???]Slot 3: [???]Slot 4: [???]Slot 5: [???]
Jax stared, his heart hammering against his ribs.
It wasn't a dream. He had gone back in time. He was fifteen again, a full year before The Eclipse would change the world forever. And he had a Unique-ranked trait!
The galaxy seed had worked!