A question immediately rose in Joo Do-gyeom’s mind.
‘......What?’
Another message followed.
『Prove your qualifications.』
At the same time.
FWOOSH—!
Flames sprang to life throughout the air around the apple tree.
They took shape in an instant.
Swords.
Enormous swords of flame burning white-hot.
There was not just one.
There were dozens.
Flaming swords of various shapes began circling the tree, each tracing its own trajectory.
Some were slow, some were fast, and some revolved in the opposite direction.
At the same time, System messages appeared one after another.
『Trial, Flaming Sword Turning Every Way, activated.』
『Avoid the revolving flaming swords and reach the foot of the tree.』
『An additional reward is granted if you arrive without being grazed even once.』
Joo Do-gyeom narrowed his eyes.
‘What is this?’
It was a mechanic he had never seen or experienced before.
He had never even heard about it from his comrades or anyone else.
Yet it was clearly unfolding before him.
A new mechanic that had remained unknown even in the future.
He could guess why.
The System message had told him.
‘The first challenger...... Did the first Hunter to enter the Garden of Eden have to face this?’
He did not know who that had been.
Their identity had remained unknown until the very end.
It was simplest to assume that the first challenger had died before their identity ever became known.
Faced with a completely unexpected situation.
Joo Do-gyeom quickly regained his composure.
What reason was there to question a situation that had already occurred?
More importantly, this was how things were supposed to be.
Dungeons and the System were unknowns that no one could fully understand.
Believing that Regression meant he knew everything and could clear anything was itself arrogance.
If anything, this felt familiar.
Most of the dangers Joo Do-gyeom had faced in dungeons during his previous life had been like this.
They appeared without warning, for reasons no one understood, entirely as they pleased.
There was no reason he could not adapt.
Moreover, there was the eighth of the Eight Dungeon Commandments.
‘A dungeon always grants rewards proportional to the player’s accomplishments.’
One more Trial meant one more reward to claim.
For Joo Do-gyeom, who wanted to accelerate his growth by even the slightest amount, this was actually a welcome situation.
Then only one question remained.
‘How should I get through this?’
Dozens of different blades revolved in a formation so dense that finding an opening seemed difficult.
He had to pass through them without even being grazed.
Even disregarding the additional reward, a single mistake looked capable of causing a fatal injury or even death.
He did not have to think for long.
The method was simple.
He would read every trajectory with the Clear-Eye Art, then break through by layering Shadowless Divine Step and Lightning Flash Flight.
A smile spread across his lips.
He did not know why.
Was it because the arrival of danger made him feel vividly as though he had returned to the battlefields of the past?
Or was this too part of the madness?
His thoughts vanished.
Joo Do-gyeom lowered his body and prepared to spring forward.
Then.
He suddenly stopped.
‘......Wait.’
Just a moment.
A thought had struck his mind like a bolt of lightning.
‘Those flaming swords......’
Did he truly have to avoid them to break through?
The System message had certainly instructed him to evade them.
And System messages always gave the correct answer.
But if one asked whether there were no answers besides the correct one, that was not true.
The rules of the System could be broken.
Had that not been the path Joo Do-gyeom himself had followed until now?
His battle with the Cannibal, which was supposed to be cleared through evasion.
His battle with the Corpse Giant, which had been created not to be killed.
Both had originally been impossible under the System’s rules.
Would a trap be any different?
No.
A red light seeped into Joo Do-gyeom’s eyes.
The Sure-Kill Eye.
The eyes capable of killing anything in the world stared directly at the dancing flaming swords.
Then he saw them.
Bright red points appearing clearly upon every burning blade.
They were neither living creatures nor tangible objects.
Yet even upon flames forged from divine authority, marks of death appeared without exception.
A fresh thrill ran through him.
‘So this is......’
The Heavenly Killer, which possessed the power to kill anything.
‘Simple.’
Joo Do-gyeom adjusted his grip on the Great Axe.
Then he walked straight ahead.
He did not evade.
Instead, he swung his axe directly at the first flaming sword that flew toward him.
TIIING—!
It was neither the clang of metal nor an explosion.
A clear sound like a glass bell shattering rang out over the grasslands.
The flaming sword, struck squarely on its red point, scattered into sparks where it stood.
It had died.
The flame.
The divine authority.
The Trial.
Before the Heavenly Killer, even such distinctions were meaningless.
Joo Do-gyeom did not stop walking.
TIIING—! TIIING-TIIING—!
As he advanced, he cut down, smashed, and split apart every threat blocking his path.
With each step, another flaming sword was erased from the world.
Through the heart of a Trial designed to force its challenger to escape desperately by timing every movement.
He simply smashed his way through.
Only destruction remained.
Then.
Just as the final flaming sword scattered like stars across the night sky.
『......』
The System fell silent.
It felt like quite a long silence.
And then.
『Trial neutralization confirmed.』
『......Neutralization method not anticipated.』
『Judgment review requested.』
『Review complete. No precedent. No evaluation criteria.』
『Reward calculation limit exceeded. Requesting approval from higher authority.』
『......Request pending.』
‘......?’
Had the System always been this talkative?
Was it only his imagination, or did it seem flustered?
Even then, messages continued pouring out.
『Additional condition, ‘Reach the destination without a single contact,’ fulfilled.』
He had not evaded the swords, but destroyed all of them.
Still.
It was true that none had touched him.
『User Joo Do-gyeom displayed extraordinary play in the Garden of Eden dungeon.』
『Overwhelming.』
『A special reward is granted in addition to the designated Trial reward.』
『Clear reward Mana Stones greatly increased.』
『Two randomly selected stats greatly increase.』
『Agility Grade increased: E+ => D-.』
『Stamina Grade increased: D => D+.』
『Title ‘First Challenger’ acquired.』
『Class privilege granted: Special Skill for Chef of All Things.』
『Skill All-Things Restorative Soup (Level 1) acquired.』
A waterfall of messages poured down.
Standing at its center, Joo Do-gyeom slowly began to smile.
Mana Stones, stats, and even a Class privilege.
It was a feast of rewards, without a single useless one among them.
The fact that they were unexpected gains made them all the more satisfying.
Among them, however.
One thing drew Joo Do-gyeom’s attention more strongly than the rest.
‘A Title?’
A Title, already?
As Joo Do-gyeom remembered it, Titles were one of the System’s Hidden Pieces that would not be discovered for several more years.
Most were extremely difficult to obtain, but their effects were powerful because they added abilities that did not originally exist in the Status Window.
At this point.
‘It was worth smashing the whole thing apart.’
Joo Do-gyeom immediately opened his Status Window.
Then he checked.
Beneath his name.
A line that had not existed before had appeared.
『Title: First Challenger』
The detailed information unfolded before his eyes the moment he thought of it.
『Title, First Challenger.
Detects ‘Trials’ hidden throughout the world and grants the right to challenge them.
Each completed Trial increases the Title’s rank.』
“......”
Joo Do-gyeom read the description twice.
Afterward, he reached a single conclusion.
‘......Impressive.’
It did not raise his stats.
It did not grant him a Skill.
It offered not a single effect that would make him stronger immediately.
Yet it was extremely good.
As he had already experienced, being a regressor did not mean he could know every piece of information from the future.
He was only one individual.
But First Challenger could partially compensate for that weakness in his information.
As he had just experienced firsthand.
‘Trials make Hunters stronger.’
Furthermore, the Title ‘First Challenger’ came with the additional message that its rank would increase whenever he completed another Trial.
‘I like it very much.’
Just as Joo Do-gyeom finished organizing his thoughts.
Another message appeared.
『Higher-authority approval complete.』
『Qualifications verified.』
『The path to the Tree of Life opens.』
His eyes widened.
He was surprised that the reward settlement was still not over.
“......What?”
The word escaped his lips.
***
The Tree of Life.
It was a being from ancient tradition.
It was said that two trees stood at the center of the Garden of Eden.
One was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
And the other was the Tree of Life, said to grant eternal life to whoever ate from it.
Of course, that was merely a story from an ancient scripture.
At least in the future Joo Do-gyeom knew, the Garden of Eden dungeon was an ordinary dungeon with nothing worth seeing besides Adam’s Apple.
There had never once been a story about a Tree of Life being discovered.
Yet.
RUMBLE—!
With a low vibration, the air behind the apple tree began to split open.
The wavering space, rippling like a rising heat haze, peeled apart to either side and revealed a narrow path within.
The flaming swords had not been guarding the apple tree.
‘Was it this path?’
Joo Do-gyeom stared at the entrance for a moment before moving forward.
His hesitation was brief.
After all, he had proven his qualifications.
And the door had opened.
***
The path was silent.
There was no sound of wind.
No sound of insects.
It was a place that seemed to have left every sound in the world behind at the entrance.
At its end stood a single tree.
Joo Do-gyeom stopped without realizing it.
It was small.
Only slightly taller than an adult.
Its branches were bare, and so few leaves hung from them that he could count them on one hand.
It looked like an ancient tree withering toward death.
And yet.
‘......This is withered?’
The stature of the existence he sensed from that miserable-looking tree was anything but small.
It felt like looking upon a grandmaster who had aged only in outward appearance.
What would it have been like if this tree were whole?
The Witch of Gluttony, or the Earth Demon Dragon?
Perhaps even the Demon King of Annihilation?
It would have felt like something greater than any despair he had ever faced.
It was not one of his five senses.
He simply knew.
It was the sensation of one existence recognizing another.
The Tree of Life.
It was real.
At that moment.
『The Tree of Life has been reached.』
『Trial reward granted. Leaf of the Tree of Life (1).』
『Additional-condition reward granted. Leaf of the Tree of Life (1).』
RUSTLE—.
Along with the messages, the bare branches trembled faintly.
Two of the few remaining leaves released themselves from their stems and drifted down.
As if entranced, Joo Do-gyeom reached out and caught them.
In his palm.
Two tender, pale-green leaves radiated a gentle warmth.
At the same time, knowledge flowed into his mind.
‘Leaf of the Tree of Life. No matter the wound, no matter how close to death......’
It completely reversed it.
Once.
Even if the heart had burst.
Even if the brain had been crushed.
The moment the leaf touched the body, the flesh returned to the state it had been in while alive.
A sacred relic of resurrection.
As Joo Do-gyeom confirmed that knowledge, one combination naturally came to mind.
‘Death Reprieve.’
The Unique Skill that postponed death for ten minutes.
The leaves would kindle a spark in the Skill he had once thought might someday prove useful.
A sacred relic capable of reversing everything within those ten minutes.
‘......I have two lives now.’
No, since there were two leaves, did that make three?
At the thought, Joo Do-gyeom let out an idle laugh.
Before his Regression.
If he had possessed these leaves on those hellish battlefields, how many more people could he have saved?
It was a pointless hypothetical.
Joo Do-gyeom folded the thought away and tucked it deep into his Inventory along with the leaves.
Ah, one thing belatedly occurred to him.
‘Wait. If I’d drunk Grace of Abundance beforehand, would the leaves have doubled too......?’
Surely not.
Joo Do-gyeom hurriedly checked the leaves’ information.
『Leaf of the Tree of Life - Grade: Unmeasurable』
They were not Ungraded.
They were divine objects whose Grade itself was impossible to determine.
‘......Of course not.’
Joo Do-gyeom stroked his chest in relief, then turned his head and continued examining the tree.
That was when he found it.
At the end of a bare branch.
A tiny bud hung there, tightly curled in on itself.
It was a fruit.
One that had not yet ripened.
As though confirming what he saw, a System message appeared.
『The Fruit of the Tree of Life has not yet ripened.』
『Prove your qualifications.』
“......”
The Fruit of the Tree of Life.
According to tradition, the fruit granted eternal life.
Joo Do-gyeom stared at the tiny bud for a moment, then gave a quiet laugh.
‘One thing at a time.’
Greed invited disaster.
For now, the two leaves were enough.
When he turned away.
RUMBLE—.
As though it had been waiting, the space began closing again.
After Joo Do-gyeom left the narrow path, the split in the air healed behind him.
As though it had never existed.
All that remained was the peaceful grassland and a single apple tree.