He’d come a very long way, hadn’t he?

Nearly ten years in his dreams as Shaden. Ten years of living in another reality, yet time had passed so quickly for him. He could still remember the bizarre day he had been born; he could still recall the struggles he’d gone through as he relearned how to walk, talk, and eat. Or he’d pretended to do the last two, since communicating in his dream world never had been a problem to him. It was one of the reasons why the world was never realistically alarming for him, since so many things worked out conveniently for his sake.

Many things had happened since his birth. He’d blown up a forest unintentionally, indirectly causing his family to move from the village he’d been born to the walled city of Danark. He’d self-studied magic using the few books he’d had, and after getting a grasp on the essence of it, accomplished feats only imaginable in Demund’s world. Recently, he’d restored his brother’s amputated feet after Rother had returned from his training in the north with their father.

Life was a bliss as Shaden. His life had been proceeding fairly smoothly before his grandfather had taken him in. He’d first learned to circulate when he’d learned swordsmanship at the Swordsmanship Training Academy of Danark, where he’d met his first real friend as Shaden.

A wolf girl who went by Mistilia. She’d gone to hone her skills elsewhere, and the Academy never had felt the same since then. He wondered how she was doing since quite the time had passed since they’d last met. The beastman girl had left a mark on him—a kind of scent that would let others know that he was a friend of hers. He wondered if the smell still lingered since he’d scrubbed his body a lot during his travels.

His grandfather had taken him in when the city had tried to chain him up. It was still a mystery as to why. He guessed it was because of his vast mana pool that seemed infinite to him. No matter how much he’d expended it, he never grew empty, and though fatigue had overtaken him in the past after excessive use, he rarely experienced anything like it now. His power had grown, though how exactly powerful he was, he wasn’t sure, even when he had explored the world to an extent.

He recalled his time at Saiton, the city named after the legendary sage, where he’d visited the Great Library. He’d collected information for his project back in the ‘real’ world, where he was working on his presentation for the Junior’s Advancement. He really wanted to win. First place would earn him a ticket to the Preliminary Islands, where his best friend was.

Jothan. How long had it been since he’d last seen him? A year and a half? He wondered how long it would be until he met his friend again.

Pleid had assisted him in his search for knowledge at the Library. As the Third Elder of the Saiton Consortium, the young-looking, white-haired man rarely didn’t know anything that was related to mana. The man was a human hundreds of years old, maybe thousands, but Shaden knew little of him. He’d have to revisit the place someday.

Speaking of light-haired people, Deion had graduated. He’d been the last person to put Enariss into a corner, the only person whom Enariss had failed to overpower. Why such a person had stayed in TISE High, he didn’t know.

Why Enariss was in TISE High, he still didn’t know. No...she’d mentioned it once. Her mother had been in an accident, and it had caused her to stay with her father. There were so many things he didn’t know about her. Why she’d acted so strangely after they’d encountered the hooded figure, why she’d joined the Junior’s Advancement without telling him.

They were rivals now, struggling towards a prize. Honestly, he was worried. Someone of her caliber was sure to have prepared something mind-blowing, enough to overshadow the topic he’d chosen. They had been given laboratories inside the school to work on their experiments, underground rooms where even explosions were allowed.

There was one more student that had been picked by the school. A guy named Edan, who was one grade above them. He’d caught glimpses of him around the school and in the MMA Club. Well, not that it mattered. He wasn’t one to pay much attention to his surroundings.

But lately, his surroundings had been paying attention to him. He was too eye-catching, even by his standards. An amputee with near-perfect grades, who came to school with the strongest, smartest, prettiest, probably richest girl in school, who was friends with the popular athletic duo (were they really that popular?), who had claimed victory in the previous Sports Tournament over Enariss during the relay-race, who had gotten permission from the Student Council to do something, who was excelling even though he was an outsider living off of a scholarship—Demund stood out too much. He guessed that the biggest problem was him being in the Special Class now, where the school’s logo was red embroidered with gold, instead of the normal black. None of the normal students cared about him; it was the elite, the rich, and the excellent that gave him so much stress in his life.

“Ignore their stares,” Enariss had told him. So far, they still bothered him. A lot. The small acts of discomfort, the whispers he heard behind him, the blatant remarks—they were building up.

Of course, there were good people too. Wane had been one of them, as well as Portia and Rory. Maybe they had been doing out of their obligations, but they’d helped him adjust. Then Wane had vanished, and the other two had slowly become distant.

At least Shaden was treated much better. It was the motivation that kept him going, the catharsis that allowed him to stay cool during his troubles. It would be his birthday in a few months now. They’d celebrated Eilae’s 11th just days before. Her family had sent her an exquisite dress through a courier all the way from their residence in the Rvuvick Empire. She had held it with joy; it was the dress she’d wanted for years.

He still felt guilty for having her spend her 10th birthday with him. Sure, they had spent the week lavishly doing whatever Eilae had wanted to do, and sure, they’d spent over fifty gold coins, but...it had just been the three of them. With everything he was hearing from Lytha and his father, many people would be coming to his birthday, including most of Eilae’s family. They’d come for him, but not for their daughter? It left a bad taste in his mouth.

She had told him not to worry about it, but how could he not? Sometimes, he wanted Eilae to act spoiled like the child she really was. But she always held her elegance before her, never letting it crumble.

Well, she was acting more childish nowadays, but not completely. At least she had more smiles than before.

His time was limited. After his tenth birthday, he wouldn’t be able to see his family again until five years had passed. He’d have to spend his time in the other families, learning the things he was meant to learn—as the successor of the Limen name, as the heir of Skotos. Until his fifteenth birthday, that was how his life would be—traveling around the other four families, away from everyone he knew.

He had to make memories with his family before then. Which he was. Playing with his sister, training with his brother, exploring the city with Eilae—and much more. Yet, time flew by even with all of the busy tasks he was cramming into his schedule. While he looked forward to his birthday, he dreaded it at the same time.

Time was too quick, for both Demund and Shaden. The date for when he’d go to Zone 1 for the Junior’s Advancement was approaching—and quickly. He’d have to finalize everything by then, make sure nothing would go wrong in the moment of presentation. Unlike the other entrants, little was known about his subject of SAP manipulation, so the teachers could do little to help him. It was a bummer, but he’d have to pull through everything alone.

But he didn’t worry. He was confident in his abilities. The other world’s abilities.

All he had to do now was to wait for the hands of the clock to pass by.