Warmth.
Not the drifting, womb-like haze from before… but something clearer. Sharper. The warmth of awareness.
His eyes flutter open.
Light spills across a ceiling shaped from stone and curling vines, purple motes hovering in the air like tiny stars. For a moment he simply stares, unsure of what he's even looking at. Then a strange thought surfaces, uninvited:
"Where am I…?" The moment it forms, something answers.
[You are in the garden dubbed, Edenfall.]
The voice is sudden, rough, aged, and masculine. Blooming directly inside his mind.
"WHO said that?!" He jostles back in sheer terror.
[I am an effect of your skill, Nexus.]
"My skill…?" He asks.
[Yes. Your Singular skill, known as 'Nexus.']
"What's a skill?" The boy asks.
"…" Nexus remains silent, almost as if searching for something .
[A skill is an ability that was attained through specific means; this allows you to manipulate specific energy, mostly and mainly mana, to achieve a specified outcome. Skills possess specific tiers: Common, Advanced, Unique and Supreme.]
Eden, unsure of what was happening, breathed a heavy heave. Though he was confused and feeling incredibly out of place. He was sure of one thing: this voice in his head was helping.
Again the questions rise, fragile:
"Where… is Edenfall?"
[There is no data present in what was absorbed of Edenfall's designation. Though the environmental mana density is excessive.]
His eyebrows knit.
Mana.
He remembers the word. The air around him still feels thick, alive.
"What… is mana?"
The voice answers immediately.
[Mana is the foundational energy of existence. Every creature interacts with it.]
He looks down at the warm glow haloing around his skin, shimmering faintly.
"Why can I… feel it? The heaviness?"
[This is due to the nature of one of your Advanced Skills known as Mana perception.]
"And the thing that appeared earlier… the notice… what was that?"
[That was me notifying you. Your skill, Usurper, absorbed a dying lifeform. The energy harvested granted a passive skill: Lesser Regeneration.]
He swallows.
"Usurper…as in I eat things?"
[It allows integration of external energy and information. Due to a result of Usurper's interaction with the extensive knowledge present in the books you absorbed. It interprets what is acquired.]
His stomach tightens.
So he devoured that flower. Completely. Not physically, but its very essence.
A strange, shivering guilt flickers through him.
He turns away, pacing slowly across the library floor. Each step kicks up shimmering dust. Outside the doorway, the warm light of Edenfall winds between leaves, painting gold along the walls.
He hesitates before asking the question that's been clawing at him since waking.
"…Then what am I?"
Silence stretches.
The longest pause Nexus has given him so far.
Finally,
[Insufficient Information.]
"Then what was that flower I absorbed?"
[The flower you absorbed is known as a Hyplasia.]
That frustrates him more than anything else.
"How did you know that but not what I asked before? You're supposed to know things!"
[The information you absorbed is incomplete. After fully assessing your body and its attributes, your sensitivity to mana is at undocumented levels. This suggests Much of the caretaker's archive is fragmented. Your nature is not of documented classifications.]
He then realises that Nexus is only aware of this information due to the fact that he absorbed it earlier. But then he realised that he was not able to articulate himself earlier, so why now?
[Basic knowledge was integrated once it was absorbed; data that needs intense analysis is processed and retained by me and presented upon query.]
But then stops cold; he just realised something.
"Caretaker…?" he echoes, voice small.
The word tastes heavy, important.
[The recorded information reflects one individual, known as the caretaker. Identity is unknown; his objective, to tend to Edenfall.]
He searches the room desperately, as if the caretaker might appear from behind a shelf.
But only silence greets him.
He lowers himself onto a stone seat, hands trembling faintly.
"I don't know anything… not even who I am."
Another quiet moment. Then Nexus speaks, softer, still rustic, but less rigid.
[An identity matching your circumstance is designated in the records.]
His heart stutters. "Designated?"
A faint pulse of warmth spreads through his mind, like golden ink filling a blank page.
[The recorded name: Eden.]
He breathes in sharply.
"Eden."
It feels right. Like a chord struck cleanly inside his chest.
"Eden.." he repeats, the word trembling at the edges. "That's me?"
The garden outside seems to shift in answer, flowers tilting faintly toward the window, leaves whispering as if greeting an old friend.
For a long heartbeat, Eden sits in silence, gripping the new name close.