Eryndor stood quietly in the center of the Human Trial Space, watching the remnants of his previous trial disappear.
The Tower had recreated a future that should have been impossible to change, and yet he had changed it.
A city that had once fallen had survived.
A man who had once been blamed had been spared.
A person who had once been destined to die had been given another path.
None of those changes had destroyed the world.
The Tower had simply recorded them.
[Trial Phase complete.]
Eryndor looked at the notification.
He had entered the Tower carrying the certainty of someone who had already lived through the future.
Now that certainty was gone.
What remained was something much more useful.
Possibility.
The Tower suddenly became silent.
Then the space around him began to change.
The countless trial platforms disappeared one after another, leaving only darkness.
For a moment, Eryndor wondered if another trial had begun.
Instead, a single platform appeared beneath him.
Ten lights formed a circle around it.
Eryndor recognized them immediately.
The same ten positions that had appeared during his failed Core assessment.
His expression became serious.
The Tower had returned to the matter it had postponed.
His Core.
He stood in the center of the circle.
A message appeared.
[Core potential assessment resuming.]
The first light awakened.
A sensation passed through Eryndor’s body.
His soul seemed to become heavier.
Then the second light awakened.
The pressure increased.
The third.
The fourth.
Eryndor’s breathing became slower.
The fifth light appeared.
For an instant, he felt something ancient stir beneath his consciousness.
The mirror pendant grew cold.
Eryndor reached for it.
The Tower reacted.
[Interference detected.]
The sixth light flickered.
Then vanished.
The seventh appeared.
Then the eighth.
The Tower stopped.
Eryndor waited.
Nothing happened.
Then the ninth light appeared.
The entire Trial Space trembled.
Eryndor’s eyes widened.
The ninth light remained stable.
The tenth position stayed dark.
A final message appeared.
[Core potential: 9.]
Eryndor stared.
Nine.
He remembered the meaning.
Nine Cores represented natural potential reaching the Primordial Rank, with the possibility of breaking the natural limit once and stepping toward Eternal.
But something was wrong.
He could feel that the Tower’s assessment was incomplete.
The mirror was interfering.
There was something beyond the nine lights.
Something the Tower could not reach.
The tenth position remained completely silent.
Eryndor looked at it.
For a moment, he felt an inexplicable sense of recognition.
Not from his memories.
From somewhere deeper.
The sensation disappeared.
The Tower finalized the result.
[Core potential established.]
[Nine-Core foundation recognized.]
[Current Core manifestation permitted.]
Eryndor felt something awaken within his soul.
A single Core began forming.
It was small.
Almost impossibly small.
Yet the moment it appeared, Eryndor felt the difference.
Energy began circulating through his body with greater stability.
His senses sharpened.
His existence became more firmly anchored.
He had finally obtained his first Core.
Not before the Tower.
Not during the Awakening.
Only after completing the trial and passing the assessment.
The Tower had fulfilled its purpose.
Eryndor clenched his fist.
“So this is a Core.”
The Tower gave no answer.
He could feel that the Core wasn’t merely a container of energy.
It was part of his potential.
A foundation.
A limit.
A promise of what he might eventually become.
But the ninth position had left another question behind.
Why nine?
And why had the tenth position reacted to him?
Eryndor knew he didn’t have the answer yet.
He didn’t need it.
Not now.
The Tower began shaking.
A vast notification appeared across the Trial Space.
[Initial Trial sequence approaching completion.]
All around Eryndor, the remaining awakened humans began completing their own trials.
Kael stood over a shattered construct, bruised but smiling.
Seraphine had created a stable network of Radiant Threads.
Neris had finally synchronized her elemental energies.
Rhaegon had learned to control his Bloodflame without losing himself to instinct.
Mireya had transformed her Curse Mark into a controllable technique.
Avaris had completed his examination of the Tower’s records.
Hundreds of other awakened humans were reaching similar milestones.
Not everyone had succeeded.
Some had failed.
Some had been forced to continue.
Some had reached their current limits.
The Tower did not promise everyone the same result.
It only offered the opportunity to evolve.
Eryndor looked around.
This was the first generation.
The first humans to enter the Tower.
The first humans to awaken Talents.
The first humans to discover Races beyond ordinary humanity.
They had no established cultivation system.
No ancient guides.
No generations of accumulated knowledge.
They were creating everything from the beginning.
And Eryndor realized that was exactly what the Tower had wanted.
It hadn’t been built merely to make people stronger.
It had been built to make existence evolve.
The Tower suddenly opened a massive passage.
Beyond it was darkness.
Then light.
Eryndor looked toward the opening.
For the first time since entering the Tower, he could sense something beyond the Trial Space.
The outside world.
Aetherion.
He remembered the world before the Awakening.
A smaller world.
A quieter world.
A world where humans believed themselves to be the dominant intelligent species.
That world no longer existed.
Outside, the Ten Domains had descended.
The golden barriers surrounded their ancient territories.
The black Sun remained in the sky.
The red Moon watched from above.
The stars had changed colours.
Beasts were becoming intelligent.
Plants were awakening.
Cosmic bodies were beginning to gain consciousness.
And somewhere beyond ordinary perception, corruption had already begun touching the newly awakened world.
The first day was not even over.
Yet the old age had already ended.
Eryndor stepped toward the passage.
Before he could leave, the Tower displayed one final message.
[Initial Trial completed.]
Then another.
[Path established.]
Then another.
[Evolution permitted.]
Eryndor stopped.
He looked back at the Tower.
He had entered searching for answers.
Instead, he had gained something more important.
A beginning.
The Tower had not explained the mirror.
It had not explained his incomplete memories.
It had not explained why his Core potential seemed to stop at nine.
It had not explained the strange existence behind his memories.
It had not explained the Ten Primordials.
It had not explained the golden barriers.
And it certainly had not explained the darkness he had sensed beyond the world.
Those answers would come later.
For now, he had to face the world as it was.
Not as he remembered it.
Eryndor stepped through the passage.
The sensation of crossing from the Tower into the outside world was unlike anything he had experienced.
The vastness of Aetherion immediately overwhelmed him.
The world was enormous.
Mountains stretched across horizons that had never existed before.
Forests covered lands that had once been distant.
New rivers flowed through unfamiliar regions.
The air itself carried energy.
Eryndor looked upward.
The black Sun hung above the world.
Seven strange cores could be seen within its dark radiance.
Its expression was terrifyingly unnatural.
Farther away, the red Moon watched from the sky, its seven cores glowing faintly within its crimson surface.
Around them, the stars displayed countless colours.
Eryndor stood silently.
The world was beautiful.
And frightening.
Then he saw the nearest golden barrier.
It stretched beyond the horizon.
Eryndor could sense the ancient remnant within it.
He remembered the reaction from the Tower.
The barrier had recognized something in him.
He didn’t know what.
Not yet.
He turned toward Vaelcrest.
Somewhere beyond the golden barrier was the place where he had grown up.
Aldren would still be there.
Eryndor’s expression softened.
For eighteen years, that small home had been his entire world.
Now the world had become something far larger.
But no matter how vast Aetherion became, no matter what he eventually discovered about himself, there was one thing Eryndor already knew.
He would return.
Not because the future told him to.
Not because destiny demanded it.
Because he chose to.
He looked once more toward the horizon.
The first day of the new age had only just begun.
Humanity had awakened.
Beasts had awakened.
Plants had awakened.
The ancient remnants had returned.
The Tower had opened.
And somewhere in the vastness beyond the world, powers that had slept for ages were beginning to stir.
History would eventually look back upon this day and give it a name.
They would measure every year after it from the moment the world changed, calling the day the beginning of a new age.
But Eryndor did not know that name yet.
He only knew that the world he had once remembered was gone, that the future he had once feared was no longer certain, and that whatever awaited him beyond the horizon would be shaped by the choices he made from this moment forward.
The old world had ended at dawn, and beneath the black Sun, the red Moon, and the ten golden barriers, Eryndor took his first step into The Awakening.