Ed finished eating the roasted meat.
He cleaned his small knife with a handful of leaves and stood up to continue his work.
The camp needed better defenses.
However, before he could take a single step, the world around him seemed to slow down.
A deep hum vibrated at the base of his skull.
It wasn’t painful, but the pressure was immense, as if gravity itself had suddenly multiplied.
The System unfolded before his eyes, but this time, the screen wasn’t its usual pale blue.
It glowed with an intense, majestic golden hue.
[Cosmic Anomaly Detected: The soul of King Grey has bypassed its original reincarnation cycle in the world of Dicathen.] [The host has altered the flow of the universe.
“Fate” demands a vessel.]
[Hidden Quest Completed: The King’s Destiny Changes.] [Reward: ‘Arthur Leywin’ Growth Template assimilated.]
[Quadra-Elemental Affinity: Unlocked (Latent Phase)] [Mana Core Forging Technique: Downloaded to memory.]
Ed stood perfectly still.
In his unified mind, an avalanche of pure knowledge settled into place.
He understood, with mathematical clarity, how to alter the temperature of the air to create Fire, how to manipulate moisture for Water, and how to solidify mana for Earth, adding to his preexisting affinity for Wind.
He comprehended exactly how he needed to structure his fragile energy center to forge it into a true Mana Core.
It was absolute potential.
The power that was destined for him in another life had followed him across space and time.
But the unified Ed didn’t smile.
His stoic face remained unchanged.
He knew better than anyone that knowledge did not equal immediate power.
[System Warning: Before you try to shoot lightning from your fingertips and turn yourself into ash, consider this a fair warning: it’s only a template.
Your current body has the structural integrity of a stale cracker.
If you attempt to use advanced fire magic right now, your veins will explode.
Start training.
And you’re welcome.]
Ed closed the golden interface with a thought.
The System was right.
The reward was merely a map to the absolute pinnacle, but he still had to walk every single mile with his own two feet.
“One step at a time,” he muttered.
A week passed.
The Northern Forest no longer felt like an exile to Ed; it had become his personal training ground.
Utilizing the new core forging method provided by the System, Ed transformed heavy manual labor into physical and magical conditioning.
Chopping trees, lifting heavy rocks for his trap foundations, and running through the forest with logs on his back…
he did it all while forcing mana to circulate through his veins, forcibly widening his energy channels through raw pain and martial discipline.
The rudimentary lean-to had transformed into a fortified base camp.
It featured carved wooden stakes hidden among the bushes, and his reserve of smoked meat was steadily growing thanks to the silent lethality of his hunts.
It was on the afternoon of the seventh day that the tranquility was finally broken.
Ed was sitting on a cut log, sharpening his knife.
His ears, heightened by the flow of ki and mana, caught the crunch of a dry branch thirty meters away.
It wasn’t an animal.
The weight and rhythm of the footsteps indicated a human trying to be stealthy, though failing miserably by a veteran’s standards.
Ed didn’t look up.
He just kept sharpening the blade.
“Well, well.
The rumors said the young master of the Rothtaylor House was eating mud and crying in the woods.
I’m glad to see reality is a bit more…
interesting.”
Emerging from the trees was a petite figure draped in a high-quality robe.
It was a girl with reddish-brown hair and a dazzling, yet completely hollow, smile.
Lortelle Kehelland.
The genius merchant of the Elte Company.
In the original story Ed knew, Lortelle came to mock the fallen noble and buy his pathetic survival tools for a few copper coins, preying on his desperation.
Ed stopped sharpening the knife.
Slowly, he raised his gaze.
Lortelle’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second.
Those were not the eyes of a seventeen-year-old boy who had just lost his fortune.
They were cold, calculating, and completely devoid of emotion.
They looked at her as if evaluating the market price of her corpse.
“You are standing on a dual-tension pressure trap,” Ed stated.
His voice was flat, lacking any of the arrogance or anger Lortelle had expected.
“If you move your left foot, a hardened wooden stake will pierce straight through your ankle.”
Lortelle froze.
She slowly lowered her eyes and saw the taut string covered by dead leaves, resting just millimeters from her boot.
She swallowed hard but quickly recovered her merchant’s smile.
“What an…
impressive security system, Mister Ed.
I apologize for the intrusion.
I am merely a humble vendor looking for clients.
I thought perhaps you might be in need of salt, bread, or tools.
That is, assuming you have anything of value to trade in this…
peculiar situation of yours.”
Ed drove his knife into the log.
He stood up, his military presence imposing itself.
“Don’t play games with me, Kehelland,” he replied, his tone like a king addressing a common peddler in his court.
“I know who you are.
And I know you don’t walk all the way out to this forest out of charity.”
He walked to the back of his camp and returned, tossing a bundle wrapped in thick cloth at the girl’s feet, making sure it landed safely outside the trap’s radius.
Lortelle, intrigued by the boy’s absolute indifference to her charm, crouched down carefully and opened the cloth.
Her eyes widened.
Inside were three shadow fox pelts, a slippery low-rank beast that was highly sought after.
But what shocked her wasn’t the animal; it was the condition of the pelts.
They were skinned with millimeter perfection.
No clumsy cuts, no damage to the fur.
They had been separated using a Wind Blade with the precision of an expert surgeon.
“Coarse salt.
A carbon-steel butcher’s knife.
Three rolls of hemp rope, and an insulated wool blanket,” Ed dictated, listing the items coldly.
“That is what those pelts are worth in the academy’s black market, assuming your standard thirty percent profit margin.”
Lortelle looked up, genuinely stunned.
Not only had the idiotic noble hunted fast beasts without any apparent attack magic, but he knew her company’s secret profit margins and negotiated with the aggression of a seasoned veteran without even blinking.
“And what if I refuse that price?” she asked, testing the waters, her mercantile curiosity fully awakened.
Ed looked down at her with the same immovable expression.
“Then leave the pelts on the ground, turn around the way you came, and make sure not to step on tripwire number four on your way out.
I have things to do.”
Silence enveloped the camp.
Lortelle stared at the ash-blonde boy.
There was no bluff in his words.
He wasn’t desperate.
He didn’t need her; she was just a convenient tool on his board.
For the first time since she arrived at Sylvania, Lortelle Kehelland, the merchant who could read anyone’s weaknesses, couldn’t find a single crack in the armor of the boy standing in front of her.
A genuine, slightly predatory smile formed on her lips.
“We have a deal, Mister Ed.
I will bring your items before nightfall.”