My heart was beating faster ever since I heard that.
‘Why have I never used the skill that I should have been able to use just after my awakening?’
This was a question that had suddenly created chaos in my eyes.
My heart was asking if what I just heard was even the correct words or some kind of joke by some unknown person.
As if confronting me, my inner voice was asking me if I can even use this skill.
Can I though?
I should have been able to use it and maybe if I had used it before, my life would have differed from what it was now?
But the question remained… why?
I looked at her pure blue eyes that had a special blaze in them.
She was smiling at me as if she was watching an actual child finding out something amazing for the first time in their life.
My chaotic eyes, my heart, the sweat falling down my back, the air that seemed heavy suddenly.
All this weirdness was something I didn’t want to feel, but I was feeling it as if some defense mechanism telling me not to do what I was thinking of. 𝙚𝙙𝙤𝒗𝒆𝒍．𝒄𝙤𝙢
She sighed while looking at me and patted my head with her special touch once again.
This time, her touch was warmer than before.
As she touched it, the warmth started covering my head, then it slowly went down and from my neck, chest, stomach, and to the ends of my toes… like a fluid filling a jar.
This was strange, and this was enough to bring me back to the way I was.
Sighing again, she sat back and started her long explanation.
“You are special, Eon.
You are more special than you think.
The feeling you get, that opposing feeling of not thinking what you were thinking, was also your origin skill.
[Sun’s Blessing].
This is not something anyone other than you have, and the reason… well, I don’t know.
An [Origin Skill] is something that could belong to only one person.
Maybe there was something before you that this skill belonged to or you might be the first one to have it.
But, only you have it.
Though having the skill for the first time would make you a [Beginning]. something that many divine beasts are.
That skill isn’t something you can use right now, and that’s first the reason you instinctively avoid it.
But you have been using it instinctively all this time.
[Sun’s Blessing]. This is a skill that balances different energies inside your body.
It protects you from foreign energies like dead Mana or the negative energy of the demonic beast you had met some time ago.
But… that isn’t how you use it.
You can use the skill itself after your origin’s awakening… which would be a long way in the future.
But, the passive use of this skill, Eon, is something that is my specialty.”
Suddenly, her face turned very serious and there was clear worry on her face.
Her specialty?
Well, it was acceptable to know that the one that protected me from the dark hands of the slime was my skill and that the time I had to spend in the cave with blood crystals was also safe thanks to that skill.
This was all understandable… which was weird but, what did she mean by it being her specialty?
I wanted to ask but she shook her head.
“No. Let’s hold this one for later.
I know you have many questions and the biggest one would naturally be if I know the way you can get out of this great forest.
After all, you have a family you have to go back to.”
Her words suddenly sparked the greatest light in my eyes.
“You know?!”
From the way she said it, she was sure how to go out of this place and I was looking for none other than that thing.
She was my grandma, but a family was waiting for me and… it had been three years already.
For the last three years, I had suffered, and all this had been hell for me.
I had come a long way and fought long, bloody battles.
For the first time in this life, I walked to death’s doors.
She knew how to get me out of this hell.
But the answer that I got from her… confused me.
“Yes… and no.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked with a shocked look.
What did she mean she knew and not at the same time?
This differed from the ancient willow’s clear denial.
She was saying she knew, and that she didn’t?
What the hell does she mean by that?!
This was no joke as I could feel the sadness and pity in her voice but, I didn’t know what answer I should accept.
Did she know how I can get out of here but can’t tell me or, she didn’t know, but I can leave even without that.
I looked at her with a tough expression, and she shook her head with a bitter smile.
“Do you know what this is…?” she said and a screen-like image appeared before my eyes.
This was the same as the screen, and maybe this was some type of skill.
But the thing I was seeing in this image was… unbelievable.
“Is this thing here?” I asked as I looked at the screen with wide-open eyes.
I couldn’t deny this after seeing it with my own eyes, but… this was unbelievable.
The thing before me was [Lost Knowledge] or more specifically, an [Ancient Artifact].
Before my eyes… was a [Gate].
And this was no normal thing.
This was something I had only seen in one ancient history book and this thing before my eyes was even grander than what I had seen.
If the books recorded it as a two to three-meter tall, this thing before my eyes… was covering an entire room of twelve meters in height, and almost double width.
This was not something that should be possible, but it was.
And… if this thing was here then, it meant I can get out of this hell.
But, if this was real, then what did she mean by yes and no?
Seeing my confused expression, she nodded her head with pity and hope.
“As you certainly know, this is a [Gate].
An ancient artifact and ancestor of this era’s [Warp Gates].
But, unlike them, this specific one can connect to any place in this world but…” she paused and looked at me with a serious gaze.
A gaze filled with the words that told me to prepare myself.
She was telling me to prepare to hear the bitter truth about myself that I had firmly understood from the last fight.
I was ready, but this was still painful to hear after all the training and shit I had gone through.
“This [Gate] is special that can send you to your loved one and I would have happily let you use it, but… you’re weak.”