Four years passed…
But inside the clan, time was not measured in days.
It was measured by how much you could endure without breaking.
Ares was no longer the child who had entered the gate years ago.
He now moved with a strange steadiness for a five-year-old.
His steps were light… but calculated.
As if his body had learned early that every movement has weight.
Inside the sea of his consciousness…
The Gravity Core rotated slowly.
It was no longer that small seed that had been born amid pressure and death.
Now it had become:
Larger.
Denser.
Quieter.
Its silence was not weakness…
But focus.
Sometimes, when he stood still, the small pebbles near his feet would slide toward him without him noticing.
He was not doing it on purpose.
His gravity simply… had begun to have a presence.
During those years, he never stopped observing.
The clan was not a place for showing off…
But a place that made even miracles seem ordinary.
Through fragments of conversations, the looks of the elders, and the massive maps hanging in the upper halls…
He began to understand.
This world…
Was not just a continent.
Not even an ordinary planet.
It was a world so vast that the word "boundaries" seemed like a comforting lie.
And his clan?
One of the ten strongest clans in this world.
Not a title spoken for pride…
But a fact measured by the number of disasters that walked under its banner.
More than that…
It was among the top three.
As for his mother's clan…
It ranked fifth.
A blood alliance between two powers from the peaks of this world.
Ares understood something early:
He was not born in a place that creates heroes…
But in a place that consumes them.
But the greatest thing he discovered was not the ranking of the clans.
It was the path this world follows.
The Path of Eternal Ascension.
The main path.
A path that challenges the limits of the body, breaks the pillars of lifespan, and pushes a being toward something closer to immortality.
Most of those who stand at the top of the world… walked it.
But it was not the only path.
There was also:
The Elemental Path.
For those born carrying an innate harmony with fire… or wind… or lightning… or something rarer than that.
They do not learn the element.
The element is the one that acknowledges them.
Then there was the path rarely mentioned except in a different tone…
The Celestial Body Path.
The hardest path.
A path that turns the body itself into a weapon that surpasses laws.
It does not rely on talent as much as it relies on something harsher:
Endurance.
Most who tried to walk it…
Broke before they even began.
Despite all that, one law remained constant inside the clan:
No training before the age of seven.
Only then do the meridian lines fully form,
And the body becomes capable of receiving spiritual energy without collapsing.
That was why the children waited.
Not with excitement…
But with patience imposed upon them.
On that day…
Ares sat cross-legged on a gray rock in a quiet courtyard.
He closed his eyes.
He was not training.
He was simply… sensing.
The air.
The emptiness.
The weight.
Then…
Something subtle began to happen.
The dust particles around him trembled.
A strand of hair fell from his shoulder…
But it did not touch the ground immediately.
It slowed down.
As if the distance had suddenly become longer.
Inside his consciousness…
The Gravity Core rotated.
Heavier than before.
Deeper.
And suddenly—
The system spoke in its cold, lifeless voice:
[Analyzing…]
[Physical structure: stable.]
[Meridian lines: stable.]
[Neural reactions: stable.]
[Final analysis result… The host has fully adapted to spiritual energy and can begin training before the age of seven.]
The Gravity Core stopped rotating for a fraction of a second.
...
Ares slowly opened his eyes.
He did not smile.
He was not surprised.
He simply lifted his gaze toward the heights of the clan…
Where the peaks disappeared into the clouds.
And for the first time since his return…
He thought of only one thing:
"Then… I will not wait."