The humid air of Hedel Isle clung to Qin Hong's skin like a second yer as he struggled up the moss-slick stone steps. His training pack—loaded with enough supplies for a month—bit into his shoulders with every bored breath. Ahead, Guann moved with effortless grace, the faint ozone scent of his lightning ability lingering in his wake.

  *If he took the Amplification Core and doubled his power...* Qin Hong's imagination conjured images of cities leveled by storms, mountains split by thunderbolts. The thought made his already aching legs tremble.

  Guann paused on a weathered step, lighting a cigarette with a snap of his fingers. The spark that ignited the tobacco cast flickering shadows across his sharp features. "Ability fruits aren't inherently strong or weak," he exhaled, smoke curling into strange runic shapes. "Their power depends entirely on the user. There are two wells we draw from—" he tapped his temple, then his chest "—will and body. The flesh has limits. The mind..." His golden eyes gleamed. "...the mind can move mountains."

  The clearing they entered felt like stepping into a cathedral of nature. Towering hardwoods formed a living colonnade around a circur meadow, at whose center stood a rustic cabin that looked centuries old yet perfectly preserved. The air hummed with energy that made Qin Hong's teeth tingle.

  "Do you think I can develop my Absolute Domain in a year?" Qin Hong asked, wiping sweat from his brow.

  Guann's lips quirked. "Jason unlocked his in a week through sheer desperation. Fme Knight Bert needed ten years." He spread his arms wide. "You've been standing in mine since we arrived."

  Before Qin Hong could process this, the world exploded.

  A bolt of lightning descended with apocalyptic fury, shearing a three-hundred-year-old redwood in half. The concussion knocked Qin Hong backward as the sundered tree erupted into fmes. Guann's gaze swept right—and where his eyes traveled, thunder followed. One after another, ancient trees became towering pyres until the entire eastern treeline burned like a wall of torches.

  *"Breath of the Thunder God"...* Qin Hong's ears rang as the dispy concluded. *This is an Absolute Domain?*

  "Your training begins—" Guann began, before a seismic roar interrupted.

  The Tyrannosaurus that burst from the tree line moved with terrifying speed for its size. Twenty tons of primordial fury closed the distance in heartbeats, its yellowed teeth gleaming like scimitars.

  "—with survival."

  With a crackle of electricity, Guann vanished.

  Qin Hong's survival instincts overrode shock. He shed his pack and dove sideways as jaws big enough to swallow a motorcycle snapped shut where he'd stood. The dinosaur's hot breath reeked of rotting meat as Qin Hong scrambled up and ran, his boots kicking up clods of earth.

  The forest offered no refuge. The Rex bulldozed through hundred-year-old oaks like matchsticks, sending wooden shrapnel flying. Qin Hong's lungs burned as he zigzagged, the monster's footfalls shaking the ground like artillery strikes.

  "Fucking hell!" he screamed when a stray tooth grazed his shirt, shredding fabric like tissue paper. A mispced step sent him tumbling over exposed roots—a fall that saved his life as the killing bite meant for his head sailed overhead.

  The Rex's momentum carried it past, buying precious seconds. Qin Hong summoned Voidbde, the dark purple energy humming to life—only to freeze at the absurdity. His weapon looked like a toothpick against those tree-trunk legs.

  The dinosaur wheeled, its reptilian eyes locking onto prey. Qin Hong's knees trembled.

  *This is how I die.*

  Then—lightning.

  A spear of pure electricity materialized in Guann's outstretched hand, its crackling length humming with contained fury. The Rex sensed death and turned to flee, but too te.

  "Judgment Lance."

  The projectile struck with the force of a meteor, punching clean through the dinosaur's skull in a shower of bone fragments. The colossal body crashed forward, fttening an acre of forest in its death throes.

  "Dinner's served," Guann deadpanned, brushing nonexistent dust from his jacket.

  ---

  That evening, after devouring more dinosaur tail than he thought humanly possible, Qin Hong found himself unceremoniously ejected from the cabin.

  "Kill your own Rex within three days," Guann ordered before the door smmed. "Consider that one a tutorial."

  The lock's click echoed finality. The isnd's nocturnal chorus—screeches, hoots, and unidentifiable rustlings—reminded Qin Hong exactly how exposed he was.

  After an unsuccessful search for shelter, exhaustion cimed him beneath a towering strangler fig. He dreamed of cities crumbling under reptilian feet.

  Dawn's pale light found Qin Hong stiff and shivering. His muscles protested as he stood, every bruise from yesterday's chase announcing itself. Then—a new sound cut through the morning mist.

  *Thump. Thump. THUMP.*

  The footsteps shook the ground with terrifying regurity. Qin Hong's hand flew to Voidbde's hilt as the trees across the clearing... parted.

  Five meters of muscle and fury emerged—a silverback goril that defied evolutionary timelines. Its bck eyes gleamed with unsettling intelligence as it sniffed the air, nostrils fring at Qin Hong's scent.

  *That's... not scientifically possible,* Qin Hong's brain stammered before survival instincts overrode academia.

  The beast charged with shocking speed, knuckles pounding the earth. Qin Hong barely dodged the first earth-shattering sm, but the shockwave sent him flying into a tree trunk. Pain exploded along his spine as he slid down, tasting blood.

  The goril advanced, its breath hot and rancid. In that moment, something in Qin Hong's mind... shifted.

  *I'm not prey.*

  He unched forward, Voidbde fring to life. The goril's next swing met only air as Qin Hong ducked and weaved with newfound precision. Each dodge brought him closer until—

  *SHINK!*

  A single horizontal ssh severed the beast's right foot clean off. The goril toppled like a felled oak, confusion turning to terror as it tried and failed to stand.

  Qin Hong approached methodically. When the creature attempted to crawl away, he clenched his fist—Voidbde's orange form activating. Blood fountained from the remaining ankle as tendons parted like wet paper.

  What followed wasn't battle—it was execution. Qin Hong watched dispassionately as life drained from the beast's eyes, the rising sun painting the clearing crimson. When stillness finally came, he pced one hand on the goril's cooling brow and delivered the mercy stroke.

  ---

  High in the canopy, unseen observers watched.

  "He passed," Guann murmured around a cigarette, pride warring with concern.

  A shadow detached from the trunk, resolving into the familiar silhouette of a Shadowdancer—though its face now mirrored a woman's haunting beauty. Illya's voice, sweet as poisoned honey, purred:

  "Such delicious brutality~ And you worried I'd steal him?"

  Guann didn't flench. "Your taste in recruits hasn't improved."

  The shadowy figure pouted, crossing arms beneath an improbably ample bosom. "Must you be so cold? I simply wanted to see your new pet project." Her crimson lips curved. "Though watching you py guardian angel all night was... enlightening."

  With a derisive snort, Guann blew smoke in the apparition's face. "Unlike some, I don't abandon my students."

  The beautiful illusion shattered as Illya's ughter morphed into something jagged. The Shadowdancer's form melted back into void as she hissed:

  "Wait until he learns what really happened to the st Temporal Heart bearer."

  Then—she was gone, leaving only jasmine perfume and the first true flicker of doubt in Guann's golden eyes.