Vastarael's eyelids fluttered open, the faint glow of the runes on the cave walls casting a soft, shifting light across the stone surfaces.
His senses came alive slowly, the distant hum of energy from the Resist Runes mingling with the cool, damp air of the cave. The first thing he noticed was the absence of the searing pain that had wracked his body earlier.
It was a small miracle that he was back to normal.
Turning his head slightly, he spotted Phaenora and the girl huddled together a few feet away. They were asleep, their breaths slow and even. The girl clung to Phaenora's arm tightly, her small frame buried against the older woman's side for warmth. Phaenora, for all her sharp-tongued, teasing nature, held her protectively, one arm draped around the girl's shoulders.
Vastarael smirked, his eyes softening as he watched the unlikely duo.
"Wouldn't have pegged Phaenora for the motherly type. Guess desperate situations bring out unexpected sides."
He leaned back against the cool stone, allowing the moment of peace to settle over him.
Vastarael let his mind drift inward, focusing on his essence, his body and most importantly, the ever-changing cascade of information tied to his being. His profile, the invisible yet ever-present codex of his existence, shimmered faintly as a hologram in front of him.
He concentrated, letting the details surface:
_____
Name: [Vastarael Richinaria.]
Alias: [Veneri]
Age: [17.]
Title: [Prince of Anqerise], [Heir of Dynasty Richinaria], [Prince of Beauty]
Species: Aeterium (Nexus Bloodline)
Affiliation: [Dynasty Richinaria], [Dynasty Vazakiel (By Marriage)]
Status: [First Phase Ascender, 2637/1000]
Pinnacle Tethers: [Omniphage, Sapphire Materialization.]
Base Tethers: [Circlecraft], [Rune Drawing], [Inventory], [Soul and Body Regeneration], [Massive Essence Supply], [Soul Vision], [Memory Implantation and Extraction.]
Major Divinities (Inactive): [Protection, (Unlocked)], [Love], [Justice].
Minor Divinities: [Water]
Codex: [Prince of Anqerise], [Handsome Prince of Freedom]
Artifacts: [Calimostria], [Peccavi's Shard], [Divine Mystic Book of Altherion], [Volcano's Resonance], [Orchestral Vialex], [Fool's Copy]
Boon: [Ethereal Beauty]
Bane: [Trouble in Paradise]
Destiny: [Suffering Before Reward]
Fate: [A Death In The Embrace Of Love]
_____
He froze.
"I'm past the First Ascender Phase?"
This was something surreal to him but when he remembered that he fought in the Fallen Bridge, it made sense.
Since he was connected with Phaenora symbiotically, the power she got from Krepsuna kills came to him instead of her and in return, he provided her with essence to use since she didn't have her own pseudo core.
He and Phaenora killed 2600 Sunderer Rank Krepsunas and the girl killed the rest. He remembered that he fought Krepsunas of his level and actually won.
The system he was using was Phaenora's.
Apparently, Omniscients are born with systems. The World System Axia, was a very powerful Omniscient who shared her system with the inhabitants of Spheraphase using holograms. Vastarael was using Phaenora's system so he didn't use Axia at all.
Regardless of the fact that he had a different system, they all follow the natural laws of advancement. He could still level up as a normal Spheraphasian despite having his own Omniscient.
And the fact that he could become a Second Phase Ascender was already a big bonus. However...
[YOU CANNOT ADVANCE TO THE NEXT STAGE UNTIL YOU MASTER THE SEVENTH CIRCLE OF CIRCLECRAFT.]
This hit him hard.
His fist clenched involuntarily. A low growl escaped his throat as the weight of those words crashed down on him.
"Seventh Star? I can't even stabilize a damn Third Star circle without the lines breaking apart and now I'm expected to leap to the Seventh?"
The anger bubbled up within him. He slammed his fist into the stone beside him, the impact reverberating through the cave, causing a massive crack. His physical strength was growing, yes, but it didn't matter. Circlecraft wasn't something brute force could overcome.
He leaned his head back against the stone, eyes narrowing as he recalled his arduous training with Circlecraft.
Every coordination had to be perfect, every rune inscribed with flawless intent. Even the tiniest deviation would cause the entire circle to collapse in on itself. The strain on his essence reserves was immense and his focus could only last for so long before fatigue set in.
When he had managed to create his First First Circle Star, a Healing Star Circle, it had taken him years of grueling practice, only for the lines to eventually buckle under pressure during real combat. His father helped him with the Plasma Circle.
He had created Healing, Plasma, Water and Heat Circles. Four mystic circles in seventeen years of his existence. The Water Circle was because of Elyonari's luck Boon. His Heat Rune was a miracle on itself. The Plasma and Healing Circle were results of his hard work and perseverance.
To reach the Seventh Star... Vastarael's jaw tightened.
"It'll take years. Decades, even, if I'm unlucky."
And he didn't have that kind of time. Not with the Epoch Cycle, not with the looming threats he barely understood yet.
He let out a bitter laugh that echoed hollowly in the quiet cave. His frustration churned like a storm, the impossibility of the task weighing heavily on his chest. He was a prince, a prodigy in so many ways, and yet the very thing that could unlock his true potential was out of reach.
The First Ascender Phase had already pushed him to his limits. Now, to be stuck in it for the foreseeable future felt like an invisible chain around his neck.
He would watch the Seventh Enlightenment Students become Divine, maybe even gods and he would still be stuck in the Ascender level.
He clenched his fists again, his golden eyes blazing with frustration.
"Why does it always have to be like this? Every step forward, every victory, and there's always something... some damn hurdle that makes me feel like I'm crawling through glass! Why the fuck did I have such a destiny!"
He now understood the real meaning behind Suffering Before Reward, a destiny that he didn't think about much. Even his Bane was better than his Destiny.
For a moment, his thoughts darkened. The memories of endless battles, the tattoo's torment, the looming specter of his fate...it all felt suffocating.
But then, as his gaze shifted to the sleeping figures of Phaenora and the girl, his clenched fists slowly relaxed.
He remembered Sirithiele's advice of him to live life and stop fighting against fate. He should only focus on surviving and living, not defying something that he doesn't have an answer or a solution to.
He let out a slow breath, his anger simmering down into a quiet resolve. Yes, it was unfair. Yes, it was going to take everything he had and more to climb this impossible mountain. But he wasn't about to give up.
Not after surviving so much. Not after escaping a powerful god of ice, meeting the world itself, fighting three thousand Sunderers and withstanding the pain from the Crimson Curtain Peonies.
"Seventh Star, huh?" He muttered, his lips curling into a faint, defiant smirk. "Fine. If it takes years, so be it. I'll figure it out. I always do."
He then looked at his divinities. The Protection Divinity was unlocked when he became an Ascender but he has to save ten million people for him to actually unlock his divinity. And to his shock....
[People saved: 50,987/10,000,000.]
His eyes widened.
"Fifty... thousand?"
He stared at the number, as though willing it to change or explain itself. How? When? He racked his brain, searching for an explanation. He had fought, bled, and survived but saving fifty thousand people? That wasn't something he consciously remembered doing.
His thoughts drifted back to the recent events, to the harrowing drowning at the Erna Isles, to the girl who now slept peacefully beside Phaenora. His golden eyes flickered toward her, taking in her small, delicate frame and the way she clung tightly to Phaenora in her sleep.
It clicked.
No, it wasn't that she had saved anyone directly. It was her presence, her connection to the past, and what she represented.
Bringing her from the past Erna Isles must have altered something, perhaps a ripple in time. The Isles, he remembered, were fated to fall. Every living soul there was supposed to perish in a cataclysmic event because he never heard of the Erna Frozen Isles in his future, even after studying Geography of the world in the Royal Library when he was a child.
Yet, by pulling her from that doomed past, he must have changed the course of events in some way, sparing thousands of lives.
His fingers lightly brushed against his temple as the realization sank in. It wasn't deliberate on his part; he hadn't even been trying to save them. And yet, somehow, the act of saving her had led to the salvation of so many others.
"Fifty thousand," he repeated softly, the weight of those lives settling heavily on his shoulders.
He studied the girl again. She was so small, so fragile-looking, and yet she carried a power he couldn't fully understand. She had been the key to something far greater than either of them had imagined.
He knew her past and it was like a Hidden Truth. He would rather die than reveal who she was.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the burden of his destiny felt just a little bit lighter.
"Maybe…" he began, speaking aloud to no one, his voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe I can do it. Maybe ten million isn't so impossible after all."
Still, the road ahead felt long and uncertain, and the sheer scale of the task was daunting. But at least now, he had proof—small as it was—that he could make a difference. Even if it wasn't intentional, even if he hadn't realized it at the time, he had saved lives.
And for Vastarael, that was enough to spark a small, stubborn ember of determination.
He didn't care about the world. All he wanted was to be stronger. Why? To defy fate. Why? Also, not to get killed. Gods would also try to kill him, same way Stephos tried to end him.
Even though he would forever be a First Phase Ascender until he unlocked the Seventh Star of Circlecraft, he would stack his status higher and higher so that when he finally reached it...
He would be a Divine. Heck, even a God!
Even though his physical body won't be stronger than before, it didn't matter. Now, he had only one mission.
Reach the Seventh Star of Circlecraft.
It would take years, maybe decades. But still...
His destiny was Suffering Before Reward. And every reward he got was always amazing.
When he endured three years of his mother's harsh training and seven years of his father's essence draining sessions, he was stronger than a normal Ascender.
When he fought against Stephos, he got the Codex, The Ingenious Prince.
When he fought Peccavi, he got a subordinate and an unknown artifact, Peccavi's Shard. He also became an Ascender.
When he endured a little girl's tantrum, she became his daughter, a very powerful one. He also gained fifty thousand saved lives for his Protection Divinity.
When he fought against three thousand Krepsunas, he surpassed the First Ascender Phase, even though it was blocked because of his Circlecraft, which he was sure that Spheraphase did it.
It had her hands all over it. He did defy her orders after all. She and Axia control the development of every single being on the planet from Nexuses to Normals.
But still, he was sure that he would always be rewarded for his suffering. He always was.
Maybe... just maybe... his suffering of trying to defy fate would be rewarded by him surviving...
He pushed the thought aside.
"No defying fate from now on. Just live your life. For now, I have to escape a Scavenger Rank tree that wants to consume me because of this mark."