The sun was climbing, the canopy fractured with dappled gold, but Edran moved as if in twilight—measured, quiet, inward. The forest no longer felt like a stranger, though it was still no friend. Its breath curled around him: in every creak of bark, every leaf that shifted as if whispering, every distant call of unseen beasts.
His steps had grown more fluid, less like stumbling and more like testing. Every root and ridge of earth was a silent sparring partner. His balance had improved. His breathing, too. But doubt had not left him. It lingered like a shadow stitched to his heels.
Am I really capable of this?
The memories weren't helping. They taunted him, visions of Ravian leaping effortlessly across canopies, of sword strikes guided by instinct and grace. Of strength wielded not like a tool, but like a truth. And here he was—walking, surviving, *failing* with style.
His jaw clenched. "You're not him," he muttered. "But you have *his body*. So use it."
A stream gurgled nearby, drawing him into a clearing bathed in soft light. The water shimmered, cool and glassy, a moment of stillness in the wild. He knelt by the edge, cupped the water, drank. The clarity of it cut through his weariness—and then he saw it.
The reflection.
It was Ravian's face. The sharp lines, the fierce brows, the silent intensity. Eyes that didn't blink away from pain. A warrior's face. But there was something behind those eyes—a flicker of hesitation. *Him.*
That flicker wasn't Ravian's.
His stomach twisted. He splashed the image away with a palmful of water, shaking his head. "You're not pretending," he told himself. "You're becoming."
The jungle thickened as he pushed on, the scent of moss and wet bark clinging to his skin. The silence shifted. Birds hushed. Branches stopped moving.
That's when he saw it—the unnatural trail. Flattened grass. Grooves cut deep into the earth. Not made by time. Not by weather.
He crouched, hand hovering over the soil. And then he saw the claw mark—long, jagged, deep into the bark of a massive tree. Raw and recent.
His chest tightened.
A single thought hit him with a pulse of cold: *You could've walked right into it.*
His hand dropped to the hilt of his blade.
"Damn it," he whispered. "That would've been it. Dead, because I was thinking about faces in water."
The System stirred. "A misstep, but not a fatal one. You are still learning."
"Learning how to be a corpse?"
"Learning how to *live.*"
He paced back, hand still on the hilt. The claw gouge loomed like a scar. "It's not just the body," he murmured. "It's *me*. My instincts. They're not his."
"Nor should they be. You are not Ravian."
"No," Edran said. "But if I fight like Edran, I die like Edran. And that man wasn't built for this."
Silence.
"Then become someone new."
Edran's eyes narrowed. That was the real challenge. Not learning moves. Not lifting rocks or dodging venomous jaws. It was becoming someone the jungle couldn't kill. Someone whose heartbeat didn't stutter when facing claw marks in trees.
He breathed slowly, gaze turning to the mountains in the distance—tall, brooding, shrouded in mist.
Not yet.
He turned from the path, moving deeper, until he found a place quiet and sun-dappled. A hollow beneath leaning stone. Cracked roots like ribs rising around it. Shelter.
He sat, arms resting across his knees. The weight of borrowed strength pressed on his shoulders like armor he wasn't trained to wear.
The System's voice returned, quieter this time. "Two lives. Two minds. One will."
He didn't respond. He didn't need to.
The plan would come. The control would come.
He looked once more toward the jagged peaks far beyond the trees.
But not yet.
For now, he would train.
He would become.
Tomorrow, the jungle would test him again.
Tomorrow, he would *welcome* it.