The midday sun poured through the crystal canopy above the academy's training hall, scattering into a thousand blues and silvers. Rin finished the last bite of his meal—a simple stew of grains and vegetables—then stood when Rose's voice reached him.
"Time."
She was already waiting at the terrace ring, crimson hair catching stray beams like burning thread. The Sword of Gluttony was nowhere in sight. Today would be body alone.
Rin rolled his shoulders once, calm, eyes steady. Two days of grinding meditation had finally taught him how to circulate frost through his limbs, not just unleash it. It was crude, inefficient, leaking from his pores in mist, but it was his first foothold.
Rose's eyes swept over him, sharp as steel. "No blade. No bursts. You'll fight with nothing but your body—and the ice you can keep inside it. If it leaks, you've already lost."
Rin's lips tightened. "Understood."
They bowed.
---
The clash began instantly.
Rin blurred forward, frost running through his calves like lightning, accelerating his step. He drove a fist straight for her guard—ice held tight inside the bones and tendons, invisible, but carrying the density of a hammer.
The floor cracked under the force when Rose deflected it.
She hadn't even lifted a sword. From her forearm sprouted a narrow blade of ice, curved like a claw, that intercepted his fist with a sharp ring. The block dispersed without effort, dissolving into shards that hung in the air before vanishing.
"Good power," she said coolly. "Sloppy control."
Her left hand snapped out. From her palm erupted a cluster of ice rods that launched like bullets. Rin raised his arm, circulating frost through bone and muscle, hardening it invisibly. The rods shattered against him with a muffled crack. He countered immediately, driving a kick toward her ribs.
Rose twisted, and in that same motion her hip grew an extra arm of ice that lashed out like a shield, catching his shin and pushing him off balance.
Rin landed in a crouch, exhaling slow. "You can morph freely…"
"Because I control every stream," Rose replied, stepping forward.
Her palm flattened, and from the air above them condensed a long pole of ice, solid and smooth, a bo-staff forming in her grip. She swung low. Rin reinforced his thighs, shins, and core in one stream, caught the blow on his leg, and barely stopped the force from toppling him.
The ground cracked beneath his stance.
"Better," she said. "But you flood too much into one place. You'll exhaust yourself before I break a sweat."
She pressed, thrusting the staff forward. Rin sidestepped, circulation rushing into his arms and shoulders, and caught the staff bare-handed. The impact jolted through his bones, but the ice within him absorbed it. He twisted, snapping the staff apart—only to find it wasn't solid.
The staff dissolved into chains, wrapping around his wrist and tightening like a vice.
Rin cursed inwardly and flooded his entire arm with frost. The chain cracked apart in a burst of frozen shards. He lunged with a palm strike, ice dense beneath the skin.
Rose answered with elegance—her forearm elongated into a flat blade mid-parry, deflecting his strike, while a spike erupted from her shoulder, forcing him to pivot back or be impaled.
Every exchange was like this: her body shifting seamlessly, ice becoming whatever she needed—shield, weapon, trap—while Rin struggled to contain his power inside.
But each clash taught him something.
He learned to thin the flow into his arms, layering ice into tendons rather than drowning muscle. He learned to time circulation with impact, making his fist hit harder without wasting aura between strikes. He learned to harden his ribs just before a knee landed, absorbing the blow without a burst.
And little by little, his movements grew sharper.
At one point, Rose drove a jagged spear of ice toward his chest. Instead of armoring his whole torso, Rin focused—circulation flooding only into a palm. He caught the spear bare-handed. The point cracked against his skin, not breaking through.
Rose's eyes flickered—amused, maybe even impressed. "Good. That is what I mean. Invisible strength."
Rin pressed forward. His body blurred, frost pushing speed into every tendon. A punch cut the air like thunder, and this time Rose actually tilted her head to dodge instead of blocking. The aftershock cracked the ring wall.
For the first time, she smiled. "Now you're learning."
---
They went on until his shirt clung with sweat, breath heavy but steady, veins humming with frost that finally obeyed him in bursts. When she called the spar to an end, Rin's fists were scraped, his arms trembling—but not from waste. From use.
Rose's voice was calm as ever, though her eyes glowed faintly with approval. "This is the beginning. Remember: my morphs, my chains, my weapons—none of them matter. You don't need them. What matters is that you can choose. Flood your fist, or your heart, or your whole body—but on your terms, not ice's."
Rin exhaled, shoulders dropping. "Control."
"Control," she echoed.
---
Dinner was quiet that night. The academy's high lanterns bathed the chamber in soft silver, students whispering as the two royals passed. Rin ate little, mind replaying every clash, every adjustment, every leak sealed by force of will.
When they left the hall, the city of Sylvanyr stretched beneath the night sky—bridges glowing, rivers alive with drifting light, cherry blossoms scattering into air thick with mana. Their butler met them with a bow and opened the carriage door.
As the vehicle glided across the skyways, Rose broke the silence.
"You think I'm pushing you to fight without your blade," she said. Her tone was softer now, less a command, more a truth. "I'm not. I'm making sure the blade is never your cage."
Rin turned his head.
"You must be able to fight barehanded. With ice, with steel, or with nothing at all. Internal or external, burst or subtle, visible or invisible. You must be capable of commanding the water in the atmosphere and using it when surrounded. You must make yourself the ultimate existence to defeat the Void and save your world.
"Even if you are a swordsman, you need to strengthen yourself and your control to become one with your blade. Simply holding a blade doesn't make you different from system users—you'd both be redundant people with potential who rely on shortcuts."
Her gaze sharpened, voice like frost. "True mastery is choice. That is what you need. And that is what I want from you."
Rin's eyes narrowed with focus. He said nothing, but the faint frostlight flickered once beneath his skin, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Rose noticed. Her lips curved—not in mockery this time, but in quiet pride.
"Good," she said. "Then tomorrow, we begin again."
The carriage descended. Lanterns swayed in the garden breeze. Rin walked to his chamber without another word, laid his blade on the mantle, and sat cross-legged on the floor.
This time, when he pulled the river inward, the frost flowed more cleanly through his veins. Not perfect. Not yet. But closer.
Tomorrow, he thought, steady and certain, I'll waste less.
---
Later that night, Rin and Rose went to the base of the physical World Tree. From there they were sent back to the upper islands—the land of the Ice Elves, where the Sylvanyr royalty resided.
Rin went into the palace, showered, then walked to the north training grounds, designed for the male royals of Sylvanyr.
He swung his Sovereign Blade and practiced his stance until sweat dampened his back. Afterward, he walked to the terrace and sat alone. The training grounds had long since gone quiet, moonlight spilling silver across the runes etched into the stone. His breath came slow, steady now, the frost inside him subdued after a long day of struggle.
But still… his gaze wandered upward. Past the towers. Past the drifting lanterns. Toward the stars that didn't belong to him.
"…Jae-seok. Hyun-woo. The others…" His voice was low, almost inaudible. "I wonder if they're still fighting. If Earth even remembers I exist."
His hand touched the necklace at his chest. For the first time since he'd arrived, the warmth of Sylvanyr felt heavy—like the further he grew here, the further away those bonds stretched.
He exhaled, eyes darkening. "What am I doing, training in a place of blossoms and crystal, when my world is still burning?"
A soft thunk echoed behind him. Not hostile—casual, almost arrogant. Rin turned.
There she was.
The spirit of the World Tree lounged on a branch jutting over the terrace, one leg swinging lazily, her back propped against the trunk as if she had always been there. Petals circled her like a crown, drifting but never falling, and her grin was cool and knowing.
"Brooding again, little heir?" she teased, her voice like wind through chimes. "You really do have a talent for staring at the stars and pretending they'll answer you."
Rin's jaw tightened, but he didn't rise. "I don't need your mockery tonight."
Her smirk widened. "Mockery? No, no. This is reassurance." She sat up slightly, elbow on her knee, chin in her palm. "You're worrying about Earth, aren't you? Time, friends, family. Whether you'll return to ash instead of soil."
Rin's eyes flickered, betraying surprise. "…You can read that?"
"I don't need to," she said simply. "It's written all over your face. You wear your burdens like banners."
She snapped her fingers. Petals burst into light, rearranging into a slow-turning clock that hovered in the air. The hands spun forward, then slowed until they crawled like syrup.
"Listen carefully. The flow here in Sylvanyr is not the same as your Earth. Time bends differently under the branches of the World Tree. Ten years here…" She flicked the clock, its hands reversing until only a single notch passed. "…is barely a year on Earth."
Her grin tilted, mischievous. "Which means if you train here for a whole year, your dear friends will only think you've been gone a month. Stay five years? They'll call it five months. You won't miss their war."
Rin's eyes widened, tension easing from his shoulders. "…A month?"
"That's right." She leaned back again, smug, one hand behind her head, the other flicking petals lazily into the air. "So stop sulking like a child torn between two homes. The world gave you a gift—a place where time lets you sharpen yourself without abandoning those you care for. Use it."
Rin looked down at his hands. His fists curled, steady now. "…That… helps."
"Of course it does. I'm endlessly helpful." She smirked, eyes glinting in the moonlight. "Now, stop staring at the stars like a widower and get back to work. You've got ice to tame."
Before Rin could reply, her form dissolved into a scatter of glowing blossoms, vanishing into the night breeze as if she'd never been there. Only the faint scent of petals remained.
Rin exhaled, slow, certain. His gaze returned to the stars—not with longing this time, but resolve.
"…A year here for a month there." His lips pressed into a thin smile. "Then I'll make this year count."
Codex Record: The Elf Bloodline and the Fractured Flow of Time
> "Before the Scriptwriter was defeated, he left behind a curse—what he thought would unravel eternity. Instead, it became the elves' second blessing."
The elves of Sylvanyr are a people unbound by decay. Once their bodies reach maturity—usually in their thirtieth year—they cease aging altogether. Their beauty does not fade, their strength does not diminish. A maiden of thirty will look the same after ten thousand years: flawless, luminous, untouched. To mortals, they are known as undying beauties, and to stand among them is to feel the weight of eternity.
Fertility remains constant throughout their span, a rare blessing among long-lived races. The men of Sylvanyr share this blessing, but their numbers have slightly reduced by the ancient wars and by their own reckless pursuit of danger. Even in immortality, men chase battlefields and peril, often ending their eternal lives before time ever could.
The fracture of time itself came ten thousand years ago, during the battle with the Scriptwriter. As his defeat drew near, he cursed the elves, shattering the rhythm of their years beneath the World Tree. But where mortals would have withered, the Sylvanyr bloodline adapted. His curse became their shield.
Now, twelve years beneath Sylvanyr's branches equal a single year beyond. To outsiders, their growth appears glacial, their children blooming only after centuries. Yet this distortion became their strength, granting patience and mastery beyond imagination.
Thus stands Rose Sylvanyr—appearing no older than eighteen, though her memory holds above two centuries. Thus reigns Queen Seraphina—radiant as a maiden, though she has ruled for more than ten thousand years.
> Codex Note:
The Sylvanyr World Tree is not the only one. Across the elven cosmos, other branches rise—worlds of twilight, shadow, and flame, each with their own children. Dark elves, duskborn, storm-blooded—each nurtured by their own trees. Yet none match Sylvanyr, the Eldest Sister, whose roots wound deepest into the marrow of reality. It is her branches that bend time. The others remain tethered to the rhythms of the outer worlds—where a year is a year, and eternity does not cheat the clock.
And so, when Seo Rin Sylvanyr's blood awakens fully, he too will inherit this stillness. His march toward age will halt, his youth frozen in place—an heir not only to his blade, but to the patience of eternity.