Taisu was silent for a few moments, then said to Jay:
— It seems Canan will be your home for quite some time.
To reach the imperial level, you need to commune with the rudimentary laws of the universe.
From level 1 up to level 5, talent and resources are indispensable.
But the remaining levels depend on luck.
Some take an eternity to feel the laws, but the AHIA possess the trait of hiding or revealing them.
I don't know how or why — I only know they can.
When he heard this, Jay finally understood why he was in Canan.
An individual with a high level of talent has extreme luck — after all, being born with such talent is already great fortune.
His own talent was low, and it was easy to imagine how his luck was.
Thanks to heavenly jealousy, he had reached the evolutionary level 5 Pinnacle.
But to advance to the next level... it would take a miracle!
— I understand, Master — Jay said, rising calmer now.
The fear in his eyes was replaced with unshakable determination.
— I'll be away from the planet for a while.
Your brothers will take care of everything you need.
Be a useful ally to the AHIA prince, and everything will go well.
But if he makes things difficult for you... — Taisu didn't even need to finish.
His gaze said it all.
Jay looked at his master, who spoke with a cold, emotionless tone, and realized:
the AHIA are strong, but they are not the only strong ones on the planet.
If the AHIA prince didn't know what was good for him, he could dispose of the prince, and his master would handle the aftermath.
— I wish Master a good journey and an early evolution to level 8 — Jay said, bowing.
— Good luck — Taisu said, as he disappeared from the room, smiling at Jay.
While Jay came to terms with his new reality, somewhere in the central continent of Orion, a rift opened before a castle gate.
From the rift came Taisu. He knelt before the door and said:
— You were right, Majesty. The AHIA are looking for someone, but at the moment they have no leads.
— I understand... Tell the 12 patriarchs to stay alert.
The AHIA are acting far outside their normal behavior — said a low, calm voice.
After that, Taisu stood up, bowed, and stepped away from the door, slow and deliberate.
The guards at the castle gate didn't even notice someone had been standing right in front of them.
Taisu had gone to Canan by order of the Emperor of Orion.
The Emperor had noticed the AHIA were very active for over a year, as if searching for something or someone.
The message Jay sent to Taisu had been used as a good excuse and reason to be in Canan.
From what Taisu could tell, the AHIA were looking for someone at level 7 Pinnacle or the legendary level 8.
That was the only possible explanation for Lano wasting his time with him.
It wasn't the first time he or another level 7 had entered AHIA territory.
Normally, they ignored it as if they saw nothing.
But today was highly abnormal.
While the planet's powers tried to understand the AHIA clan's actions, in Canan...
Walking through the castle corridors, passing servants and other clan members, Dry reached the royal garden.
There was the tree, at the center of the fountain, appearing as a simple tree.
— Scan the tree in the fountain and give me all the information about it — Dry said to the unit in his head.
Scanning...]
[Error scanning × = the tree is isolated from the world. What appears is only a projection of the tree.
For the unit to scan this specific tree, it must see the real tree, not the projection.]
Dry looked at the tree in the garden.
He wasn't surprised at all by the unit's result.
From the moment he learned that the legendary tree Feng had told about was the same as the one in the garden, he understood that this tree, like him, was a thinking being.
And no thinking being would expose itself so easily.
If Dry had to bet, he was sure the ancestors of the clan were in the same space as the tree.
— I really hate feeling like I'm in a dead end — Dry said to himself, returning to his room to continue his sleep.
Dry had a dream.
In the dream, he was small and fragile, alone and afraid, until a colossal being took him in, protected him, trained him, and nurtured him.
But at the end of the dream, that being wanted to devour him.
— What kind of shitty dream is that?! — Dry woke up sweating, lost in thought.
He was confused by this new life.
On one hand, it was always good to be alive.
On the other, sometimes he wondered who he was: Geremi or Dry?
In the early days, he had an exact answer — he was Geremi Pereira Spark in a new body.
His brother and best friend was Antônio Pereira Spark, and he called him Tony.
But as time passed, it became harder to answer the question.
However, that didn't matter so much now, because whether he was Dry or Geremi, it didn't change the fact that, in 17 years, he would die.
— What is this...? — Dry noticed knowledge he didn't have before suddenly appearing in his mind.
He remembered that, at the beginning of the multiverse, beings were composed of the rules of the multiverse itself —
each being a rule, each rule a domain.
And he felt within himself a need to dominate all things,
as if supremacy were his essence.
That was just a tiny fraction of the knowledge.
Soon, more and more information began to arise, hard to decipher clearly.
At first, Dry just found it a bit uncomfortable,
but after a few minutes, an enormous headache struck him —
like a CPU struggling to process an absurd amount of information at once.
His brain reacted to this anomaly.
In desperation and agony, Dry cried.
At the moment he could no longer bear it, he saw a shadow appear in his room.
Seeing the shadow, Dry said:
— Help me...
Then he fainted.
Safira was talking with Lara about what to cook for Dry in the afternoon
when she felt Dry's suffering.
In the middle of the conversation, she vanished from the kitchen.
When she appeared, she was already in Dry's room.
She saw her son on the bed, tears on his face, as if in despair, and heard him asking for help.
Her heart froze instantly.
She held her son, who fainted, and vanished from the room.
She appeared in the tent of DRAHIA Tanya, the clan's chief healer.
— Tanya, see what's happening with Dry! — Safira said as soon as she arrived at the tent, finding Tanya speaking with another clan member.
She didn't care about interrupting.
Perplexed by Safira's sudden appearance, Tanya looked at Dry, who seemed to be having one of the worst nightmares imaginable.
His body convulsed, his eyes darted rapidly but with no visible irises.
He had muscle spasms all over his body — in short, it was not a situation Tanya liked to witness.
— Let him go — Tanya said to Safira, who, hearing this, immediately released Dry into the air.
Tanya wrapped Dry in her domain and examined what was happening to him —
from the most basic biology to the most ethereal laws.
But no matter how she probed, she couldn't understand what was happening to Dry in its entirety.
— Safi, are you sure your son isn't a reincarnate? — Tanya asked, looking at Dry in astonishment.
Tanya felt as if something inside Dry competed with her for control of her own domain.
The sensation was faint, but real — like competing against an AHIA with an active gene,
which was impossible, since Dry was only three years old.
After some time, Dry stopped convulsing.
He seemed calmer and at peace, as if in a deep sleep.
— I'm sorry, Safi.
I can't tell what's happening with Dry.
It's similar to the awakening of a reincarnate, but more severe.
I've never seen or heard of a memory recovery case this violent — Tanya said.
What Tanya didn't tell Safira was that such an awakening was impossible.
While examining Dry, she felt his soul was exactly as the soul stone had shown: pure, without past lives.
If there was no past life... what, then, could be awakening?
— He seems much calmer now. Thank you, Tanya — Safira said sincerely, relieved.
— Dry has fallen into a coma.
He should wake up in two to five days, but I can't say exactly if it will take longer — Tanya replied, worried.
— He will be fine — Safira said, holding Dry in her arms again and vanishing from the tent.
[An anomaly has been detected in the agent's soul, unfavorable for the Unit × Agent fusion.]
[Activating secondary containment protocol...]
[Secondary containment protocol activated successfully ✓]
[The agent will be incapacitated, except for the most basic activities — seeing and hearing.]
[The agent's soul will be deprived of total interaction with the world,
placing him in a state of bodily paralysis and mental incapacity for a period of 17 years, starting now.]
[Countdown initiated ✓ 17 years and 6 months until the agent's obliteration.]