After sinking into the murky waters of lake equilibrium, my vision turned black and my other senses were muted. This feeling of non-existence lasted but a moment, soon to be replaced by wonder. As my sight returned, I found myself surrounded by countless colors, some I could swear I had never seen before.

The colors drifted lazily in the wind, floating by without a care in the world, their wispy bodies trailing behind. With every one of their motions, a hollow ‘ding’ would resound, which would then be answered by a different colour.

While my senses felt sharper than ever, my mind felt sluggish. It was becoming harder to think after each ‘ding’, as if the colors were lulling me into sleep.

Suddenly, I realized that I was... floating. The expanse of endless colors extended above and below me, with no end in sight.

Despite this strange sensation, I felt oddly at peace. This didn’t feel... wrong. I was but a single grain of sand in this great desert, this endless ocean... but it felt right. Like I was meant to be here. My mind continued to cloud over and eventually, I stopped thinking, content to bask in the sights forever.

Then, like a fish out of water, I gasped for air. I had been pulled out of the sea of colors by an unknown entity, thrown into endless darkness. Alone.

At first, I felt rage. Why did everything have to change? I had been just fine where I was! Now... now, I wasn’t there anymore. No longer surrounded by my fellows, each so different yet similar to the other.

An endless void. That described what I was staring at perfectly. Darkness to my left, above and below. Was there any point to such an existence? I still felt sluggish, but my mind was slowly clearing up. I took solace in this. The cold. That was what was waking me up. It felt like I had thrown the blankets off of me on a cold winter morning.

A long time passed. My mind had fully returned, and I had remembered what I was doing here. I was in the lake, wasn’t I? This was just an illusion, of a sort. All I had to do was bear it...

That was slowly becoming more difficult. I wasn’t used to the dark anymore.

More time passed.

A few hours maybe? This was still bearable, but Helios was it boring. And cold. Did I mention the cold? When would anything change, at this rate?

As if to answer my question, a small light appeared in the darkness. It was barely visible, yet I knew what I was looking at. A star. There were many of those in the night sky. What was it doing here, though?

Before my question was answered, another small light appeared. Then another. Then a dozen more. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by stars on all sides. I felt more in control, now. A strange warmth appeared in my chest, and the cold became less glaring of an issue. I looked down, searching for the warmth’s source.

Strangely, I noticed only now that my body wasn’t there. Instead, a small ball of fire sat where my heart would otherwise be. It glowed with primordial power and created enough heat to keep me warm. Was this what stars looked like from up close?

This was a nice change of pace, I’d say. Not as perfect as the first vision, but in hindsight, I wouldn’t have wanted to remain there anyway. The loss of... self felt terrifying once I had regained control.

Some more time passed, though it felt strangely short this time. The stars in the distance had slowly moved over the course of the past few minutes. Did they always do that? No, of course not. You would be able to see them move, if that was the case.

Sadly, a few of the stars had gone out after a while. Some turned bright at first, before disappearing, while others just suddenly dimmed.

More time passed. Many of the stars that had kept me company were starting to go out, one way or another. There weren’t many left... scratch that. A couple more had just gone. It was just me again. All by myself. The warmth was intensifying. The cold had disappeared. Yet I knew it would return, and soon.

My time had come, and the cold would rush in like a torrent, to fill up the space my heart had heated. I was prepared. I was curious about what else this vision had to show me, after all. Who knew what came next?

Then, the time came. My heart continued to heat up, before expanding into a giant fireball that hid the darkness from my sight. For a brief moment, all I saw was light... I felt myself slipping away...

The lights... they were back. I was back among the sea of lights. Had it always been so comfortable here? I couldn’t believe I had disparaged it before...

When I came to, I found myself laying at the edge of the lake, my lungs full of water. I started coughing uncontrollably, choking and spitting up all of the murky stuff that I had swallowed while unconscious. My head was killing me, but dark form was quickly repairing the damage, thank Helios.

I took a few more minutes to recover, but when I finally did, I found another reason to curse out the dry man. My clothes were damp.

Ding! Partial revelation(Life/death) achieved.

What? Revelation? Oh, right. The dry man had said this lake would help me with my essence. But how?

[Blackened essence(Formative)](50%)

Oh. That was a big jump.

I pumped my fist in jubilation. My essence had stalled at zero percent ever since it formed a few months ago. Nothing I had done had managed to budge it even a little, which hadn’t felt good at all. Here I was, trying to stay ahead of the curve, only for a single skill to act up.

After a jump like that, the skill evolution felt like it was right around the corner! Unfortunately, logic told me the opposite. It had taken an ancient lake of life and death to give me half of the necessary progression. Who knew when the next opportunity would come along?

Oh well. There was no point rushing that. Time was on my side. Speaking of time, [Essence lifespan](50%) had increased by the same amount as my essence had. When the parent skill evolved, so would my lifespan skill. Another thing to look forward to.

After resting for a while, I spent some time meditating in my mental palace; which had taken a pretty hard hit from the war. It was odd how badly my mentality had been shaken up by those battlefields. Everything was still there, but it looked like an earthquake had passed through. My fence had been knocked over, my trees were standing sideways...

Only now, a few hours of meditation and landscaping later, did everything start to return to normal. I made plenty of use of my evolved mental palace skill, which allowed me to create changes in my forest by hand. Before, all I could do was sit around and wait for stuff to happen. Now, I could go out and replant the trees by myself, put my fence up a second time and repair my shack slightly. There was still a lot of work to be done, but it looked fine so far.

With that done, I felt it time to leave the cave. I spent another few hours leisurely strolling down the mountain, where I found the dry man’s house. By now, night had fallen, and the moon hung bright in the sky. The mist wasn’t present near the mountain, so this was actually the first time I saw the moon and stars in like a month.

Sure enough, the stars weren’t moving. I knew they didn’t...

Seeing that the lights were still on inside of the dry man’s luxurious house, I didn’t bother knocking and just entered.

Inside, I found the dry man and his generals, as well as Maria.

“When did you guys arrive?” I asked, surprised.

Maria jumped out of her chair and ran over to hug my leg, only letting go when I shook her off. The dry man didn’t pay her behaviour any heed, though.

“I brought them over a few hours ago. So? Did you grasp the opportunity I gave you? Did the lake show you an example of life and death?”

“Wait...” I replied, confused, “Is that what it does? I just became a star for a while...” I muttered, disappointed.

Hearing my unspoken complaint, the dry man chuckled.

“Indeed, that is what it does. It shows us a single example of a being living its life. Back then, the lake showed me the life of a tree. I experienced its birth, its life, and its death in but a few seconds. My understanding of life and death was too limited to truly see it for what it was, at the time, but now, I can understand the boon the lake gave me. You will too, one day...”

“Huh. So I saw the birth and death of a star, then? It took a few hours, though...”

At this, the dry man started laughing. “I admit, I don’t know the significance of seeing the life and death of a star. I believe the lake shows random beings to its occupants. Olgierd, for example, lived the life of a dragon, while Ash lived that of a cricket. He still complains about his terrible luck to this day.” The dry man shared jovially.

“Hey! I thought you promised not to joke about that anymore!” Ash protested.

“Yes, yes. My apologies, Ash. Anyway, Arthur. Have you decided when you will leave yet?”

“Want me gone that quickly?” I joked, before continuing. “Yeah, I decided to leave early tomorrow morning. I miss my family. I think it’s time I go visit my little sister.” I said, while looking fondly at Maria.

“I can understand.” The dry man said sincerely. “Here. I still need to return this to you. Take this, too.” He said, pulling out a familiar chalice along with a folded piece of paper. “Originally, I was going to give you a decent tier 5 artifact as a reward, but I’m afraid a certain someone...” he said, pointedly looking at Ash, who cringed slightly,’ broke it during the war. After your performance, however, I felt it fair to reward you with the lake, as well as this map.”

Gingerly, I received both items from the dry man.

“The map leads to the femur of a juvenile tier 7 dragon. I got my hands on this bone centuries ago, and it was in no small part responsible for my ascension to tier 6 at the time. Back then, I was being chased by my enemies and hid it on the island of Ostaran, which is one of Ostapor’s seventeen states. I intended to retrieve it after reaching tier 7, but... I’d rather you have it. You’ll need it, if you ever want that pet of yours to become a true dragon.” He explained.

Suddenly understanding the significance of this gift, I hurriedly stowed it in my spatial pouch.

“I would recommend that you wait until you reach tier 4 before heading to that island, though. It is a dangerous place, filled with exotic monsters and plagues. Many outlaws hide there, as a result. Strong ones, too. Oh, by the way, I put a small enchantment on that chalice. You should be able to store it inside of that pouch of yours, now. The enchantment wears off in a few months, though, so I recommend you don’t dilly dally.”

I nodded in assent, genuinely thankful for his thoughtfulness, before heading to a guest room to take an early night. I had a lot on my mind, but when I closed my eyes, those all disappeared. After just a few minutes, I fell asleep.