Staring out through the window at the lake's dark surface, where distant lights trembled in faint reflections, Roland Weiss found himself thinking of a legend everyone on this planet had heard at least once.
The story claimed that a River of Time flowed through the world, sustaining the passage and circulation of time itself.
And with the power of the Butterfly of Beginning and End, one could swim upstream, back into the past.
There were countless arguments about whether the tale was real. Most people dismissed it outright, treating it as superstition.
But hardly anyone dared to truly test it.
Roland Weiss stepped away from the window and sat down on the old-looking bed in his room.
Because every time someone tried to use the Butterfly of Beginning and End, they had to pay with their life, offering up their entire vitality and cultivation as the fuel that made the power turn.
The price was absurd.
Who could accept gambling everything on something when you didn't even know what the outcome would be?
So even if someone possessed the Butterfly of Beginning and End, they wouldn't use it recklessly.
Anyone would ask the same question:
What if the rumors were false, and it was all just a scam?
Roland searched his memory, pulling up every scrap of information he'd ever known about the Butterfly of Beginning and End.
If he hadn't been driven into a corner, with no escape left, he never would've activated it so hastily.
But now he was utterly convinced the legend was true.
The proof was standing right in front of him. He had returned to the past with his own body. Even if he wanted to deny it, he couldn't.
I really was reborn…
The realization settled deeper with every heartbeat.
"It's just a shame…" he murmured, looking down at his hands, young, smooth, pale, so different from the scarred, wrinkled fingers he'd worn in his previous life. "From the very start, I wasted an absurd amount of effort. I killed tens of thousands… enraged the righteous sects… provoked endless vendettas."
He exhaled softly.
He'd endured suffering after suffering just to obtain, and then perfect, that legendary Myrks.
Yet even though he had been reborn, the Butterfly of Beginning and End hadn't come with him.
Humans might rule this world through strength, but Myrks were its essence and foundation.
They existed in thousands upon thousands of forms. So many that no one had ever managed to catalogue them all.
And by their nature, not every Myrks could be used repeatedly. Some scattered and vanished after a single activation… or the second… or the third.
Others could be used again and again, as long as the cultivator carefully controlled the strain and never exceeded their limit.
Even so, the Butterfly of Beginning and End had to be the kind that could be used only once, before disappearing forever.
Roland's eyes dimmed with a flicker of regret.
"But even if it's gone… I can still refine other Myrks," he said, pushing the sadness aside. "I did it once. Why wouldn't I be able to do it again?"
The fact that he had been reborn at all made losing the Butterfly of Beginning and End acceptable.
Not to mention…
I still have my real treasure, three hundred years of memories and experience.
So even after rebirth, even after losing that Myrks, Roland Weiss hadn't lost everything.
His memories held countless treasures, rare materials and precious items that didn't exist yet, or hadn't been claimed by anyone at this point in time. Major events. Turning points. Incidents that would later be written into history.
Over those three hundred years, there had been innumerable geniuses, hidden pioneers of techniques and abilities… even people who hadn't been born yet.
Along with them came hard-earned combat experience, along with the memory of long, exhausting study.
With all of that behind his eyes, Roland could grasp his current situation with chilling clarity, and see the opportunities opening up ahead.
"So… how do I start?" he muttered, leaning his back against the bed's hard frame.
After a moment, his brows furrowed.
Three hundred years was a long time.
Even without touching the truly tangled, painful memories he didn't want to drag up right now, remembering the exact locations of hidden treasures, or the timing of rare encounters, was difficult.
Worse, the places he remembered weren't close. They were scattered across vast distances, and many could only be entered under very specific conditions… at very specific times.
The conclusion was simple.
Cultivation came first.
Right now, I hadn't even opened my Essence Core. I hadn't stepped onto the path of a Myrks Master.
At the moment, I am nothing but a mortal.
I need to move fast. Cultivate, catch up, and squeeze every opportunity dry the moment it appeared. Because even if I knew where the treasures were, without a proper foundation I'd only be walking to my own death.
His immediate problem was cultivation.
If he wanted to claim magical treasures in this world, he needed to raise his base as quickly as possible. If he moved as slowly as he had in his previous life, it would be too late, his knowledge would become meaningless, and the treasures would remain out of reach.
"To cultivate quickly… I'll need resources. I'll have to borrow them from the clan," Roland said quietly, weighing his options. "In my current state, I don't have the strength, the influence, or the connections to travel back and forth through dangerous mountains, valleys, and lakes…"
He smiled humorlessly.
"Right now, even a common water piranha could kill me. If I reach the Third Tier of Myrks Master, I'll have enough strength to protect myself, and leave this peninsula."
From the perspective of someone who had walked the demonic path, the Valen Peninsula felt suffocatingly small.
Valen Village felt like a cage.
Even so… while a cage limited freedom, its bars also provided a kind of safety.
Fine.
For now, I'll stay inside it.
Once I reached the Third Tier of Myrks Master, I would be able to leave this poor, cramped peninsula behind.
Fortunately, the Awakening Ceremony was tomorrow. After that, I could officially begin training as a Myrks Master.
Thinking of the Awakening Ceremony stirred old memories, ones that had been buried deep in the corners of his mind for a long time.
"Talent, huh…" Roland smiled coldly, staring at the gray ceiling.
"Big brother… why are you still awake?"
Roland heard the words as his door cracked open and a young teenager slipped into the room.
The boy was slender and a little shorter than Roland. His features were almost identical, so similar it bordered on unsettling.
Roland sat up, looking at him, and something complicated flickered across his face.
"So it's you," he said quietly. "My twin brother."
His eyebrows rose, then, after a heartbeat, his expression settled back into cool indifference.
Seeing that familiar coldness, Paul Weiss lowered his head, staring down at his toes.
It was the posture he always took when speaking to his older twin.
"I noticed your window was open," Paul said, gesturing toward it. "So I came in to close it. Tomorrow is the Awakening Ceremony… it's already so late, and you still haven't gone to sleep, big brother. If Uncle and Aunt found out, they'd worry about you."
Paul wasn't surprised by Roland's indifference. His brother had always been like this, since they were little.
Sometimes Paul wondered if that was simply how geniuses were. Like they belonged to a different species than ordinary people.
Even though they looked alike, Paul felt like an ant when he compared himself to Roland.
Born from the same womb, at the same time… and yet the heavens were unfair enough to gift Roland Weiss dazzling talent, while Paul Weiss was plain as a stone.
Whenever Paul walked through the village, people would whisper the same thing:
"That's Roland Weiss's little brother…"
Uncle and Aunt constantly told him to learn from his older brother.
Even now, when he looked in the mirror and saw his own reflection, he felt only disgust.
Those thoughts had circled inside Paul for years, piling up day after day, night after night, like a boulder pressing down on his heart.
And over time, his head had bowed lower and lower. He'd grown quieter and more withdrawn.
Worry…?
At the mention of his uncle and aunt, Roland nearly laughed.
He still remembered it clearly: his parents in this world dying on a clan mission.
When he and Paul were only three years old, they became orphans.
In the name of "raising" them, his uncle and aunt seized the inheritance their parents had left behind, then treated both boys cruelly.
At first, Roland had planned to live as a normal child. He'd even intended to hide the knowledge and abilities no child his age should possess.
But life in his uncle and aunt's home had been brutal enough that he'd had no choice but to reveal some of his talent.
Drawing on knowledge from Earth, he'd written a few pieces, texts and poems he remembered from his previous world.
It was enough to shock people, to attract attention.
And under that pressure from the outside world, young Roland Weiss had decided to wear a cold, indifferent face as armor, minimizing the risk of exposing secrets or weaknesses.
Over time, the coldness became habit.
After that, his uncle and aunt stopped being openly harsh to him and his younger brother.
Year by year, their situation became more "optimistic." Better treatment became more common.
But it wasn't love.
It was investment.
Paul Weiss had never seen that truth.
Not only had he been deceived by their uncle and aunt, he had also begun to nurture resentment inside himself.
Even though he looked like a gentle, honest boy now, Roland remembered what came later.
After Paul awakened A-rank talent in the Awakening Ceremony, the clan poured effort into raising him.
And slowly, all that buried jealousy, bitterness, and hatred surfaced.
Again and again, Paul had attacked his older twin, suppressing him, sabotaging him, making his life difficult.
As for Roland…
His talent had been judged as C-rank.
Fate loved its jokes.
A pair of twins, where the older brother, with mere C-rank talent, had been treated as a genius for years… while the younger one, always overlooked, turned out to be A-rank.
The results shook the clan, and the way they treated the two brothers changed overnight.
After the ceremony, the younger twin was like a dragon ascending to the heavens.
The older twin became a bird with broken wings, unable to fly, and worse, turned into a laughingstock.
Then came the endless trouble from his younger brother, the cold eyes of his uncle and aunt, and the clan's contempt.
In his previous life, Roland Weiss had hated those eyes.
He had hated his lack of talent. Hated the clan's cruelty. Hated the unfairness of fate itself.
But now, with three hundred years behind him, he looked back on that road with a calm heart, without even a trace of hatred.
Holding grudges had never brought him anything.
He even wondered if, from a different perspective, he could understand his younger brother… his uncle and aunt… even the enemies who would come centuries later to hunt him down.
The strong devoured the weak. Survival of the fittest.
Those had always been the rules of this world.
Everyone had ambitions. Everyone fought to seize their chances.
In a world of war and killing… what was there that couldn't be understood?
With three hundred years of experience, Roland felt as if he finally understood the logic behind most people's choices.
My goal in this life will be the same as it was in the last.
I'll do whatever it takes to reach immortality, no matter what path I have to walk.
And if anyone tries to stop me… no matter who they are… I'll kill them.
Roland Weiss's ambition was too vast.
And stepping onto the road toward immortality meant making the world your enemy, condemned to solitude and bloodshed.
That was the conclusion he'd reached after three hundred years.
Revenge wasn't his purpose.
And the path to immortality didn't allow compromise.
At the thought, Roland couldn't help letting out a faint chuckle. Then he gave his brother a passing glance and said, flatly:
"You can go."
Paul's heart trembled.
Under Roland's gaze, sharp as an ice blade cutting straight into the deepest parts of his heart, Paul felt exposed, like he was lying naked in the snow, unable to hide a single secret.
"In that case… I'll see you tomorrow, big brother," Paul said.
Not daring to say anything more, he slowly closed the door behind him and left the room,leaving Roland Weiss alone once again.