Cain woke up the next morning feeling different, and it took him a moment to realize why.
He was rested. Properly rested.
For a few seconds, he simply lay there staring at the ceiling, enjoying the unfamiliar sensation.
His body felt heavy in the best possible way, as though months of accumulated exhaustion had finally been dragged out of his muscles while he slept.
He had fallen asleep sometime around dawn the previous day, and by the time he opened his eyes again, an entire day had passed.
A full day.
He had slept for nearly twenty-four hours.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been excessive, maybe even wasteful. But after everything he had endured, it was hardly surprising.
On Ember Isle, true rest had never existed.
Even when he managed to sleep, part of his mind had always remained awake, listening for movement, watching for danger, ready to spring into action at the slightest disturbance.
Every night had been spent on hard ground beneath unbearable heat, knowing that a single mistake could mean waking up to claws at his throat.
Sleep had been shallow, broken, and never enough, but his body had endured it because it had no choice.
Now, for the first time in months, there had been no monsters, no oppressive heat, and no constant pressure hanging over him. For the first time since arriving on Ember Isle, he had been able to let his guard down completely.
And his body had taken full advantage of it.
Cain exhaled slowly as he sat up and ran a hand through his hair.
He felt lighter.
Not just physically, but mentally as well.
The tension that had followed him for months wasn’t completely gone, but it had loosened its grip. His thoughts felt clearer, his reactions sharper, and even the lingering aches throughout his body seemed less noticeable than before.
For the first time in a long while, he felt human again, but the brief sense of comfort didn’t last long before reality reasserted itself.
The system had given him fourteen days before Phase 2 began, which wasn’t much time considering how little he knew. He still didn’t understand the system, the Hero Qualification, or what awaited him next. The only thing he knew for certain was that the trial wasn’t over; it had merely progressed to its next stage.
Cain swung his legs off the bed and rose to his feet, his thoughts already settling into place as he considered what came next. The answer was obvious. If he wanted to survive whatever lay ahead, he needed to get stronger, and in a world like this, the fastest way to do that was through a rift.
Whether the system would recognize rift monsters the same way it had recognized the creatures on Ember Isle was another matter entirely.
He had no idea if killing them would grant experience, levels, skills, or anything at all.
But that uncertainty didn’t bother him.
It was still worth testing. Because even if the system gave him nothing, rifts themselves were valuable.
Every awakened person knew that. Monsters weren’t the only things found inside them. There were materials, weapons, artifacts, and, on rare occasions, skill books worth fortunes.
Even without the system, obtaining any of those could improve his chances of survival.
And right now, survival was what mattered.
Any advantage, no matter how small, could become the difference between living and dying once the next trial began.
There was also another reason he couldn’t afford to ignore.
The fourteen-day countdown.
If he spent the next two weeks sitting around and waiting for it to end, the edge he had sharpened on Ember Isle would begin to fade. The instincts that had kept him alive would dull. His reactions would slow. The habits he had built through constant danger and fighting would weaken.
And that was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
Three months on Ember Isle had taught him a simple lesson: weakness wasn’t always about how strong you were. Hesitation could get you killed just as easily, and so could becoming comfortable enough to stop pushing yourself forward.
That was why sitting around and waiting for the countdown to end had never really been an option.
If anything, he needed to keep throwing himself into difficult situations, keep fighting, keep adapting, and keep growing stronger.
That was the only way to stay sharp.
And if the next trial was anything like the last one, staying sharp might be the only reason he survived it.
This brought him to his next problem.
The hunter’s license.
Normally, students received their licenses immediately after the Awakening Ceremony, but Cain hadn’t stayed long enough for that.
The moment his result had been announced, he had left.
He hadn’t been able to stand it: the looks, the whispers, the laughter. All of it pressing in at once, leaving him with no reason to remain. So he had walked away before the process was completed.
At the time, it had felt necessary.
Now, it was inconvenient.
To enter a rift legally, he needed a license, and to get one, he had no choice but to go through the Guild Association.
And that, inevitably, meant answering questions.
Cain frowned slightly as he thought it through.