On a lone floating islet, its surface baked to a dry crust and stripped of life, a single stone staff hovered in the air.

It quivered once, burst into blinding light, and when the glare fell away, a figure stood beside it.

His hair was a wild, winter white, bright as fresh snow and seeming to glow without a source. His eyes were a deep, open sky with slow clouds drifting through, like sentries on a quiet patrol.

A small, satisfied smile touched his lips as he reached out and closed his hand around the staff.

"And with this, I’ve used all 4 charges," Adyr spoke softly, content, then glanced over the Tower of Worth’s description one last time.

[Next Weighing: 100 days]

After he restored the staff using his 4 bloodline talents— Gaze, Presence, Malice, and Grace —the cycle time in its description dropped to 100 days.

That wasn’t the only change. Each time he refined the staff with his Genesis energy, its surface took on a cleaner polish. The web of cracks closed, the stone knit tighter, and it now felt far more durable than when he first claimed it.

His total gains from these 4 trials were staggering.

In free stats alone, he had earned 1,200. He had also secured 4 Synergy Essences and 4 Rank 3 Sparks.

The first Rank 3 Spark, Wall, still struck him as situational and not especially useful for his style. The other 3, however, were satisfying enough that he was already planning to weave them into his skill build.

And that wasn’t all. He had finished registering his talents to his character panel and pushed each of them to level 3, harvesting another heavy surge of stats across the board.

Eager to see the full extent of the power-up, he opened his character panel and reviewed the new changes.

[Name]: Adyr Hellcraft

[Race]: Nimbus Human

[Path]: Primora

[Evolution Step]: 3

[Physique]: 188

[Will]: 400

[Resilience]: 405

[Sense]: 225

[Energy]: 2518 (Not current energy, but just max capacity, showing how much he can store in his body.)

[Registered Talents]: 15/30 → 30/30

[Omnisight (Lv1)], [Sword Art of Existence(Lv2)], [Maleficent Architect (Lv2)], [Elysian Cook (Lv1)], [Tracking(Lv3)], [Throwing(Lv3)], [Linguistic(Lv3)], [Tactician(Lv4)], [Stealth(Lv3)], [Trapper(Lv3)], [Butchering(Lv3)], [Scouting(Lv3)], [Surgery(Lv3)], [Reader(Lv3)], [Masonry(Lv3)],

—

[Flying (Lv3)], [Sprinting (Lv3)], [Climbing (Lv3)], [Swimming (Lv3)], [Drawing (Lv3)], [Instrument Playing (Lv3)], [Singing (Lv3)], [Writing (Lv3)], [Persuasion (Lv3)], [Disguise (Lv3)], [Anatomy (Lv3)], [Deception (Lv3)], [Herbalism (Lv3)], [Farming (Lv3)], [Navigation (Lv3)]

[Sparks]: 10/10 → 14/20

[Sanctuary]: Nimbus Land

[Free Stat Points]: 1795

To prove his talents and register all 15 at Lv3, he spent a total of 1665 energy. In return, he gained 465 free stat points, including another 5 from the Mother Tree during this period.

Most of the talents were hobbies carried over from his previous life, but a few were chosen to fit this world, such as Flying and Herbalism.

In particular, Herbalism took him the longest to reach Lv3.

He studied not only Earth’s flora but also species recorded in the Beyond, reasoning that a broad taxonomy would help him identify resources in the field and make it easier to develop his Sanctuary later.

Looking over his 30 registered talents, he felt quietly glad he wasn’t the kind of man who sits idle. His habit of constant study and self-improvement had paid off. For an ordinary person, learning even 1 of these talents would take days, and pushing it to Lv3 would require months of focused practice.

Also, his improved stats made learning new talents easier. As his mind and understanding sharpened, especially with gains in [Sense] , the process sped up. Even so, without a solid foundation and a constant hunger to learn, it would still be taxing.

"Now, with this many unspent stat points, I can raise my Sense and Resilience stats and finally run my Gaze and Presence combo more efficiently."

Adyr ran a quick calculation. Right now, his strongest investigative tool was the pairing of those two bloodline talents; if he could maintain it for even 10 seconds without straining his mind or body, it would give him a massive survival edge anywhere.

Instead of spending all his free stat points at once, he increased them in measured steps. Each increment struck his body immediately, so the best method was a controlled rise: add a little, wait for his balance to return, then continue.

He began with [Sense] , adding 10 to it, and waited to savor the sensations that followed.

The change arrived at once. A brief wash of vertigo, a soft blur at the edges of his vision, and then a firmer, cleaner clarity settled over everything.

Adyr closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "I will never get tired of this sensation."

The way the world tightened into focus was addictive. The pull of that precision was so strong that even his old cravings for blood and killing felt muted beside it—almost.

He let his thoughts steady, then kept the same pace until he had allocated 300 points to [Sense] .

With the stat nearly doubled, he stood at the center of the barren islet, closed his eyes, and drew long, even breaths as if tasting the void.

When he opened his eyes and looked again into the darkness that seemed to run on without end, it no longer felt empty.

There was a shape in it now, a quiet intention moving through the black, and he had the distinct sense that something was studying him as surely as he was studying it.

His ears twitched as he sifted the silence like a hunter reading tracks, searching for the faintest thread of sound. The dark gave him nothing. No scrape, no breath, not even the soft lie of a distant echo. Yet a thin, precise cold traced his spine from neck to lower back, a signal his body had learned over too many encounters to ignore.

It was the same warning that came when a gaze found him from cover, a pressure with no sound and no weight that still drew every sense tight.

He understood what the silence meant. Someone was there, watching, close enough to matter.

The feeling was frightening in its depth, but it steadied him too, wide and quiet and strangely magnificent.

’’Knowing the cosmos is vast is only thought; feeling its vastness is weight. ’’ On that small, lone islet, with that ocean pressing his chest, he learned his measure.