Chapter 3 : The Weight of Nine Days
"Look, Mom, Arthur is awake!"
From that single sentence alone, Rose had clearly found her joy again.
"I can see that, dear."
Lily's smile faded almost as fast as it had appeared. Something shifted in her expression, deliberate, like a decision being made right there in the doorway.
When she spoke again, her voice carried a weight neither of her children had heard from her before.
"My children, when your father left, he gave me these two rings. He told me that one day something would happen, and that I'd know when it was time to give them to you. I think that time has come."
She paused.
"I know you have questions. I don't have the answers. You'll have to find those yourselves."
She set the rings down and walked out slowly, leaving behind a silence neither of them wanted to be the one to break.
Arthur said nothing. Something settled in his chest, an emotion he couldn't quite name, taking up the space his usual composure normally lived in.
Rose, for her part, didn't seem moved at all.
Their father was an old memory, one that carried almost no weight for her. The only thing he'd ever left her was a sentence, said quietly, meant only for her.
My child, your life won't be what you imagined. Don't forget to support your brother, and don't make him worry.
She'd never really understood what he meant by that.
After seeing her system window, she was starting to.
[ SYSTEM ]
Species: Human (Primordial)
Name: Rose Walker
Age: 16
Realm: None
Soul Strength: None
Element: Karma
Talent: Karmic Overseer
Cultivation Method: Karmic Primordial Scripture
State: Karmic instability, chained by karma (9 seals)
Chained by karma.
She wasn't sure exactly what it meant. But she knew it had something to do with what their father had said.
"At least the ring is pretty," Arthur said. It was all he managed after the silence stretched too long. He turned the small band over in his fingers. A tiny red tear sat embedded in it, catching the light like something with a pulse of its own.
"You're right about that," Rose said.
She slid hers on. A blue window opened in front of her instantly.
"Arthur. Put it on. It's not just a ring."
He decided to trust her, and did.
[ SYSTEM ]
Red Tear Ring
Description: A ring built from unknown materials, holding an unknown power.
Effect 1: Conceals your fate from prying eyes.
Effect 2: Holds a personal space of 100 cubic meters. Upgradeable.
Effect 3: Accelerates mana gathering. Gain 300% more ambient mana. Upgradeable.
Effect 4: Sealed.
Effect 5: Sealed.
"Sounds useful. Powerful, even." Arthur kept staring at the window. "But I don't understand any of it. What's mana. What does it even mean to hide your fate."
"That's what I've been trying to explain."
Rose looked at him steadily.
"You didn't sleep for one night, Arthur. You were out for nine days. A lot happened."
And then she told him everything.
After the tremor, every living thing on Earth had gotten a system window revealing an elemental affinity. Everyone had one, though the strength varied wildly, from common elements up through rare, superior, and at the very top, a tier that as far as they knew only the two of them carried.
At the same time, the planet itself had changed.
It had expanded to nearly three times its old size. The original continents stayed where they were, but five new ones had risen out of the ocean, already being named by whoever got there first. Every satellite had come down within hours of the shift, doing real damage on the way, and taking most of the world's ability to track anything with them.
The satellites weren't the actual problem, though.
Portals had started opening everywhere. Streets, forests, fields, city centers. Inside them were creatures that didn't belong to any order anyone recognized.
Closing a portal meant sending someone in to kill the biggest creature inside, the one people had already started calling a Boss, because nothing else fit better. Leave a portal alone too long, and whatever was inside came out on its own.
That had already happened, more than once.
Some cities hadn't made it. A couple of small countries hadn't either.
Governments mobilized their armies fast, but regular weapons only did so much. Around the fourth day, something shifted. People started using their cultivation for the first time, and that was the first public appearance of what the world had already started calling magic, or spiritual energy, or a dozen other names depending on who you asked.
By the eighth day, the major cities were mostly cleared out. The portals were under control, for now.
The age of cultivation had begun, quietly and completely.
"So we'll have to cultivate," Arthur said. It wasn't really a question.
"Yes. And once you start, you'll get your full inheritance. It should fill in some of the gaps."
Rose stood.
"But eat something first. Cultivate after."
She left.
Arthur stayed where he was, thinking.
He'd expected to wake up confused. What he hadn't expected was this particular flavor of it, the sense that the more he learned, the less solid the ground under him felt. Every answer opened onto three more questions, and none of them were small.
Where was his father. How had he known this was coming. What were the nine seals on Rose's profile, and what did it mean that she was chained.
He didn't know about the seals yet. He hadn't seen her window.
The questions that were his alone were already more than enough.
What were they, exactly, the two of them, in a world that had just rewritten every rule it used to run on.
He got up, showered, and went downstairs to eat.
Every channel on the television was covering the same story from a different angle. Mana, portals, monsters, cultivation, the new continents, the satellites that had fallen out of the sky. The world had changed completely in nine days and was still hunting for the words to describe it.
Arthur ate in silence and watched the screen.
He'd need to get stronger. That much was obvious. Strong enough to find answers. Strong enough to protect the people still in this house with him.
He just didn't know yet what that would end up costing him.