Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 65: Crystal and Destiny

Chapter 65: Crystal and Destiny

It was during one of my regular visits to the Lord of the Furnace that I discovered crucial information, heavy with promises and dangers.

A gigantic crystal, of titanic dimensions, was slowly forming at the very heart of the demonic continent, in the Terra Neutralis region, somewhere north of our position.

According to Xagros, it would take about a month of travel on horseback to reach that remote place. I was offered this convenience, this quick, almost tempting solution—to ride to the destination, save time, preserve my strength.

But I had declined.

Not out of pride, nor out of recklessness. Simply because certain quests, certain ascents, can only truly be accomplished on foot, by facing every stone of the path, by feeling every heartbeat of the world beneath one’s steps.

There was, in that choice, an intimate necessity: that of being worthy of what I was going to find there.

We would leave on foot. Without mounts, without a luxurious escort, with no other shield than our own endurance.

We would face the insidious dangers of the wild, crossing treacherous expanses, forgotten territories, trapped by centuries, as inhospitable as they were hostile to any life.

The months to come promised to be harsh, relentless, carved from the raw stone of trial.

I knew it.

And I also knew that to survive, we would have to recondition ourselves. Tear from our souls the treacherous comfort that the city had imposed on us, straighten our bodies and minds, harden them until they became as impenetrable as rock.

Return to the essential. To instinct. To naked survival, without artifice, where only the inner fire and the will to live draw the line between man and corpse.

Before that mini-world, I feared far too much what could happen there.

I had recently discovered that it would take no less than four months of uninterrupted walking to reach the designated zone.

Four long months trekking the vast wilderness of this continent, through endless plains, unfathomable forests, and capricious mountains.

The very idea of this journey already imposed its weight on my shoulders.

It had been nearly six months since I had been thrown into this foreign world, and yet, I felt that this journey would mark the true beginning of my existence here.

Departure was imminent: in just a few weeks, we would hit the road.

The countdown had already begun, and with it, a strange mix of impatience and apprehension settled within me.

I had taken care to keep Lysara informed of our plans.

She had accepted the news without the slightest protest, with an almost unsettling calm.

Deep down, she must have been preparing for it for a long time, aware that this parenthesis of comfort could only be fleeting.

In a world where every step forward demands a blood toll, no one can hope to remain sheltered forever.

Lysara knew it; it was a truth engraved in her flesh as much as in her mind.

Come evening, after completing my personal writing ritual, I lingered for hours in the library, immersed in my studies.

My focus was mainly on Terra Neutralis.

I already mastered the basics, but that wasn’t enough; I relentlessly delved into every concept, exploring every nuance, every subtlety hidden between the lines.

I had to be ready for anything.

In a world this merciless, the slightest ignorance could be paid for dearly, and I had no intention of letting fate snatch away what I had begun to build.

Through my relentless research, I unearthed information of inestimable value.

Among them, one revelation particularly caught my attention: the evolution of a species’ rank relied, in truth, on a single factor.

A truth simple in appearance, but whose implications were dizzying.

Understanding this mechanism was the key to anticipate, to survive—and perhaps even, to dominate.

One ascended to a higher rank by accomplishing certain feats—real, measurable achievements, impossible to dispute.

It could be a revolutionary technical breakthrough, the attainment of a noble title, or a feat of arms of such magnitude that it would mark the chronicles.

But deep down, all of this obeyed one and the same law: it was not we who decided.

The choice never belonged to us.

It was the system itself that, in silence, delivered its verdict.

There was neither a tribunal to deliberate, nor a form to submit.

No possible appeal. Only that mute, invisible, and inexorable judgment.

And one day, without warning, something within us changed.

An inner voice, imperceptibly different, made itself heard.

Then, instinctively, without needing confirmation, we knew.

During my readings, I also came across the official classification of artifacts and skills.

Every object, every power, every fragment of knowledge was meticulously cataloged, ranked according to complex criteria that only the most seasoned scholars seemed to fully grasp.

Understanding this organization meant glimpsing a hidden part of the world—a secret mechanism that governed the balance of forces and drew the lines between the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Artifacts were classified in a strict and codified order: Inferior, Common, Enhanced, Rare, Epic, Legendary—like my purse and my watch—then Mythic—such as the equipment worn by Lysara, that armor forged in a forgotten time.

Beyond that still stood the most elusive categories: Relic, and finally, Divine.

Each tier represented an almost abyssal qualitative leap, a power difference so vast it could, on its own, decide the outcome of a battle... or a destiny.

As for skills, their evolution followed a hierarchy of its own, subtler but just as demanding.

From Inferior to Novice, from Novice to Adept, each step marked a delicate crossing, often invisible to the eyes of laypeople.

Then came the ranks of Expert and Master, where art ceased to be mere practice and became a natural extension of one’s being.

Then opened the spheres of Legendary and Mythic, domains reserved for a rare few, before reaching the highest peaks: Ancient and, finally, Divine.

Each ascent was a silent battle against one’s own limits, a never-ending quest toward an ideal that few even dared to dream of reaching.

Earlier, the watchmaker had told me of another mystery: the Blood Moon.

A rare and deeply unsettling phenomenon.

At unpredictable intervals, without anyone managing to explain the true causes, the moon would blaze with a deep red, as if it were slowly bleeding into the night sky.

Under that scarlet light, all creatures, all monsters of this world seemed to tip into a murderous frenzy.

Their natural ferocity multiplied, their reason faded, giving way to a raw and irresistible bloodlust, as if an ancestral force were pulling the strings of their being.

But, after that digression, I refocused my efforts on the study of Terra Neutralis.

I had now gathered the fundamental knowledge I needed to understand this world.

It was time to stop unnecessarily broadening my horizon.

From now on, all my attention had to turn to the essential: what awaited me immediately.

The journey, the dangers to come, the choices to be made.

Every second of hesitation could come at a high price.

I no longer had the luxury of getting lost in distant curiosities.

Then came another decisive turning point: reaching level 20 in my profession.

A symbolic threshold, but also a true shift, where the art I shaped each day ceased to be mere know-how and became a force in its own right.

Nothing would ever quite be the same again.

I felt it instantly.

A shiver, sharp and cold, ran down my spine, followed by a strange sensation of clarity, as if an invisible veil had just lifted from my mind.

A milestone had been crossed, irreversibly.

And with that progression, a new skill was granted to me, like the silent reward of efforts that only the world seemed to have measured.

Material Awareness (Inferior).

It had nothing spectacular in appearance.

No dazzling light, no deafening explosion.

Just an imperceptible quiver in the air, like a secret vibration.

Yet it was going to change many things.

Thanks to it, I could now perceive the compatibility between materials: their intimate resonance, their silent harmony.

Each fragment of matter revealed to me its deep nature, its hidden affinities.

This ability allowed me to drastically reduce instabilities during assemblies, whether to forge an artifact, enchant a complex structure... or even fuse living and inert components, an operation of near-surgical precision.

A discreet gift, almost invisible to others, but of formidable efficiency for those capable of understanding its true value.

I was no longer simply a craftsman shaping matter out of habit or technique.

I had now become a silent interpreter of the material world, a reader of invisible harmonies.

I could sense what others did not even perceive, hear the secret whisper of materials, feel their affinities, their refusals, their silent desires.

Every object, every fragment now seemed to vibrate with its own life, waiting for me to understand it and give it form.