Later that evening, Sun's father returned from work.
His name was Eli.
He walked in with tired eyes and a soft smile. The specific combination of a man who had survived his day and was carefully optimistic about the rest of the evening.
How are you, Sun? he asked. Did you get the pun?
I'm great, Dad,Sun replied. "Though I have to ask. Are you sure you did not name me that just to use that joke?
Eli stretched his neck and considered this.
Nothing special happened at work, he said, answering a question no one had asked yet.
Sun looked at him for a moment.
Win any bets today?
Eli went very still.
Then, slowly, he turned to Sun with the expression of a man watching a cliff edge approach.
Oh come on, he said quietly. Remember what I told you. Do you want your mom to find out I started again?
Sun gave him a blank look.
Eli's eyes moved to a point just over Sun's shoulder.
She is behind me, isn't she.
It was not a question.
A calm voice came from the doorway.
So my dear husband has been gambling again. Despite my warning.
Both of them froze.
Sun had governed a divine concept for three thousand years. He had faced fifty gods at once and did not flinch.
He was sweating.
He still did not understand it. No matter how many times he analyzed the situation, he could not explain why his mother's particular tone of voice produced this specific response in him. The data did not support it. She was D-rank. He had faced God level beings without blinking.
None of them had used that voice.
Mary smiled.
Why don't the two of us have a short talk, Eli.
Sun silently prayed for his father.
When a former god starts praying, the situation is serious.
That night, Eli's apologies echoed through the house at regular intervals.
The next morning, Eli came out of the bedroom with a swollen forehead.
Dad, Sun said. "What happened to your head?
Eli cleared his throat.
Slipped in the bathroom. Hit my head.
Sun looked at him.
Then looked at the swelling.
Eli was D-rank. His body could absorb significant physical damage without visible injury.
A bathroom fall would not do this.
Sun said nothing.
He filed it under things he understood completely and chose not to discuss.
That same morning, Sun discovered something more disturbing than kissing.
He had thought kissing was the peak of human absurdity.
He was wrong.
Very wrong.
It started with a simple question.
Where do humans come from?
He expected something reasonable. Cultivation perhaps. Some form of divine creation. A manifestation process involving energy and will.
His mother told him the truth.
Humans grew inside other humans.
Sun went quiet.
Inside? he said finally.
Yes, she said. The mother carries the child.
He waited for the rest of the explanation.
There was no rest.
So you are telling me,he said carefully, that a human is created inside another human.
Well, not fully formed at first.
That is worse.
She tried to explain. Growth. Development. Birth. The full process from beginning to end.
It did not help.
Let me make sure I understand, Sun said. A smaller human forms inside a larger human. Over a period of months. And then exits.
Yes.
And this does not concern you.
It is natural.
He stood up and began pacing.
This species presses mouths together as a greeting ritual, he said, mostly to himself. You vibrate each other's hands to indicate peace. And now I learn that you carry your offspring inside your bodies for months before releasing them.
That is not what it is!
Then why, he asked seriously, does it sound exactly like that?
She opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Your reproduction method,Sun said, sounds like a long term invasion that everyone agreed to ignore.
He sat back down and returned to his breakfast with the expression of someone who had encountered something that would require extended analysis.
His mother stared at him.
You are four years old, she said.
Yes,Sun agreed. "And already very concerned."
Kael arrived an hour later.
The seed shifted the moment he walked in.
Sun noted it the way he always noted it. Quietly. Without reaction. The same faint wrongness he had been adding to his list since the first lesson. Still no name for it. Still not enough information.
He filed it and turned his attention to the table.
Today we cover the structure of the tower, Kael said, setting out his materials. "One hundred floors. The ranking system from E to SS. And the source of all power within the tower.
Sun listened.
Every path of power in this tower traces back to one of the Seven High Gods," Kael continued. "Healing comes from the God of Light. Physical strength from the God of Progress. Knowledge from the God of Manifestation. No matter how different a path looks on the surface, follow it far enough and it connects to one of the seven.
Sun considered this.
It was accurate as far as it went.
He raised his hand.
Why are the High Gods the source of everything?
Kael paused.
Because they created the framework that makes power possible," he said. The seven laws. Everything in the tower runs on them.
And before the seven laws?
There was nothing.
Sun said nothing back.
Before the seven laws there had been considerably more than nothing. But this was not the moment for that.
What about paths that do not connect to any of the seven? he asked instead.
Kael looked at him.
Those do not exist, he said. Every path connects. Even unusual ones. Even rare ones. He paused. "Doubt, for example, falls under the God of Emotions. Every concept finds its root in one of the seven.
He returned to the chart.
Now, the ranking system. At E rank a climber awakens their first authority. The system merger at age five begins this process. From there the climber develops through D, C, B, A, S and finally SS rank. Each stage brings greater power and deeper connection to their chosen path.
"Like the God of Flames," Kael said, pointing to an example on the chart.
Sun froze.
Not visibly. He had too much practice for that.
But inside, everything stopped.
He looked up slowly.
The God of Flames,Sun said. Is he still Alive?
Kael frowned slightly. Yes. All the subordinate gods are Alive. Why?
Sun Froze.( pun intended)
He was no longer fully in the room.
He had killed the God of Flames.
He was certain of this. It was one of the memories the seed had not taken. The battle. The fifty gods. The God of Flames stepping forward. The fight that nearly ended him before he ever reached the seed.
He had won.
He had confirmed it before everything went dark.
And yet Kael was describing him as alive and active with the casual certainty of someone stating a fact so obvious it barely needed saying.
Which meant one of three things.
The God of Flames had survived.
Or he had been replaced by someone using the same title.
Or something had happened to time itself that Sun did not yet understand.
That is enough for today,Kael said, beginning to pack his materials.
Sun did not respond.
He sat at the table after Kael left and worked through it carefully.
He had assumed the seed was the reason he was here. Reincarnation as a side effect of the merger. His divinity absorbed, his memories partially stripped, his existence rebuilt into something smaller and mortal and temporary.
That had seemed like a sufficient explanation at the time.
But if the God of Flames was alive, if the gods he had fought were alive, then what exactly had his death accomplished.
And more importantly.
Why had he been brought back at all.
The seed pulsed beneath his ribs.
Once.
Steady.
Patient.
As if it already knew the answer and had decided he was not ready for it yet.
Sun looked at his hands.
Small. Pale. Four years old.
He had a great deal of work to do.