The night was thick with mist, curling around the trees like ghostly fingers. Ryn stood motionless on the damp forest floor, his gaze fixed on the flickering campfire before him.
Opposite him, the Stranger sat on a fallen log, his dark cloak blending into the shadows. He had returned without warning, appearing as if he had never left. His presence was familiar yet unsettling, like a specter from a past Ryn couldn't escape.
"Where is the masked man?" Ren asked, his voice quiet but firm.
The Stranger idly turned a twig in his fingers, as if the question was of little consequence. "He did his job, and now he's gone," he said. "We may meet him again in the future, or maybe not." He tossed the twig into the fire, watching as the flames hungrily consumed it. "What about you? Did you achieve anything after all this chasing?"
Ren didn't answer immediately. He looked at the Stranger, searching for something in his expression, but the man's face was unreadable. Finally, he spoke.
"Nothing."
The word hung between them, heavier than the silence that followed. The Stranger tilted his head slightly, as if considering Ren's response.
"Are you sure?" he asked after a moment. "I've been gone for a few days already."
Ren's jaw tightened. He could feel the weight of his failures pressing down on him, coiling like a snake around his ribs. He had chased shadows, followed leads that led to dead ends, fought battles that left him no closer to the truth.
"I've lost my way," he admitted, his voice barely more than a whisper. "That's all."
The Stranger studied him for a long moment, then exhaled a quiet sigh. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his gaze unreadable in the firelight.
"Well," he said finally, "it doesn't matter."
Ren looked up sharply, surprised by the indifference in his tone.
"Is that all?"
The Stranger shrugged. "You lost your way. Are you ?" He picked up another twig, twirled it between his fingers, then snapped it in half.
Ren stared at the fire, watching the flames dance. He had no answers, no clear path forward. But perhaps what mattered wasn't what he had lost, but what he would do next.
The night stretched on, the fire crackling softly between them. Somewhere in the distance, a lone wolf howled, its cry swallowed by the endless dark.
And Ren, for the first time in a long while, wondered if being lost was just another way of finding something new.
The night sky hung above like a dark tapestry, stars blinking like distant embers of a dying fire. The ruined temple stood in solemn silence, its broken pillars and shattered stonework whispering tales of an age long gone. The cold air carried the scent of dust and time, the remnants of forgotten wisdom lingering like ghosts.
"The time for wandering is over," the Stranger murmured, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon. His voice, always measured, carried an edge of finality. "We need knowledge—true knowledge, not fragments of forgotten inscriptions and half-formed theories."
Ryn exhaled slowly, his breath visible in the cold air. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He had always been searching, grasping at truths that slipped through his fingers like sand. Now, at last, a direction lay before them, though it felt less like a choice and more like a necessity.
"So, an academy," Ryn mused, testing the word on his tongue. It felt foreign yet inevitable, as if the path had been carved long before he had set foot upon it.
The Stranger's expression remained unreadable, but a flicker of something—determination, perhaps—passed through his eyes. "It's the only logical step. We need to understand what we're dealing with. The era has changed, and we can't afford to be relics of the past."
A gust of wind swept through the ruins, picking up dust and scattering brittle leaves across the cracked stone floor. The echoes of forgotten voices stirred in the air, their whispers just beyond comprehension. Ryn felt the weight of unseen eyes upon him, as if the past itself was watching, waiting to see what choice they would make.
"And what if the academy isn't the answer?" Ryn asked, his voice quiet but firm. Doubt lingered in his chest, not out of fear, but out of instinct. Institutions, no matter how grand, had their limits. He had seen it before. Power gathered in one place was like fire—it could warm, or it could consume.
"Then we burn it down and carve our own path," the Stranger replied without hesitation.
A smirk tugged at the corner of Ryn's lips. "That sounds like something you'd say."
The Stranger didn't smile, but there was something approving in the way he inclined his head.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The wind howled through the ruins, and in that sound, Ryn thought he could hear the past and the future colliding—an old world crumbling, a new one rising from its ashes.
Finally, they turned away from the temple.
The past was behind them now.
Ahead lay the academy, where knowledge, power, and danger awaited in equal measure.
And whatever they found there, they would either master it—or destroy it.
* * * * * *
After much thought, I decided to end the first arc here.
If you read the summary of the novel, you will know that Rin is not the main character in this novel, but in order to introduce the world more, I decided to use him as a model.
I was supposed to expand more but... never mind.
Now the main arc will begin.