Ling Gu's final gaze—the one filled with greed, terror, and awe—was still burning in Dream's optical sensors when the paper wall slid shut, closing off the scene. Before Dream could analyze what had happened, Ling Gu's tone suddenly changed, the aristocratic boredom returning to his voice.

  "It seems an urgent matter has arisen." He stood up with a graceful movement, brushing non-existent dust from his silk robe. He glanced at the silent servant who had appeared from nowhere. "Take care of our new 'friend'. Take him to the west training grounds. The Lefty will know what to do."

  Then he looked at Dream with a mocking smile. "You want to train in 'Rei', correct? And not something... different? After all, you possess everything, but... no one is born perfect, 'Dream'." He let out a faint laugh, then turned and exited the room, disappearing into the palace corridors like a phantom.

  Hong-min's sarcastic voice exploded in Dream's mind.

  "Follow me."

  The servant's voice was cold and flat, as if nothing in the world could possibly interest her. She turned and began to walk, and Dream had to follow.

  It was a silent journey through the palace's endless corridors. No one spoke. Dream noticed how the servants and warriors they passed avoided looking at him directly. It wasn't fear, like in the city streets, but a strict discipline, as if an order had been issued to ignore the existence of this strange, stone being. He was just another shadow walking behind another shadow. This quiet, this organized ignorance, was more oppressive than any overt hostility.

  They exited through a side door into a wide, open courtyard. The cold air hit Dream's stone face, carrying with it new sounds. The clash of wooden swords, muffled cries of pain and effort, and the smell of sweat, iron, and damp earth. It was a massive training ground, similar to the one he knew in the House of Despair, but larger and more savage. Dozens of warriors, bare-chested, were fighting with organized brutality under a gray sky.

  None of them showed fear as Dream crossed the grounds. Instead, there were cautious, curious glances, the looks of fighters assessing a new threat. Fear was not permitted here.

  At the far end of the grounds, a man stood watching the training. He wore simple clothes, but his presence was overwhelming. His right arm was as strong as the root of an ancient tree, while his left arm was amputated above the elbow, just a stump covered in hard, wrinkled skin.

  The servant reached him and bowed slightly. The one-armed man glanced at them, then nodded. The servant bowed once more and disappeared as silently as she had appeared.

  The man fixed his eyes on Dream. There was no fear in them, only a deep, calm assessment. "My name is Wěn. That is all you need to know," he said in a gruff voice. "We will begin immediately."

  He walked around Dream, his eyes studying every crack in his stone body. "You don't need training in physical strength or endurance. The nature of your race is clear." He suddenly extended his right hand and placed it on Dream's chest. Dream felt a sharp, hot sting, as if a needle of fire had pierced his armor. Wěn had inserted a thin thread of 'Rei' energy into his body.

  "Hmm... I see," Wěn withdrew his hand. "Follow me. I know what to do with you."

  Wěn led him away from the clamor of the fighting to a quiet corner of the grounds where the earth was covered in smooth white pebbles. There was no training equipment here, only silence. A few other warriors were sitting there cross-legged, their eyes closed in deep meditation.

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  "Sit," Wěn commanded, and sat down himself.

  Dream sat on the ground. "Close your eyes."

  Dream shut off his optical sensors.

  Wěn took hold of Dream's stone hands. "Do you feel anything inside you?"

  "There is a foreign substance inside my body. It must be eliminated," Dream said.

  "That substance is 'Rei'. I want you to summon it. To feel it for yourself, without any external interference." Wěn sighed. "Perhaps you think I will give you some rule on how to do this, but I cannot. At this initial stage, my presence is useless. I will only tell you my experience: feel. Summon that energy. I heard you have more than one Soul Gate, so this will be harder. The 'Rei' you feel now, try to understand it. Memorize its shape, its texture, its heat. Try to call it forth and make it pass through your entire body. When you feel it around you and in you, call for me. This is all I know. My explanation is surely lacking, for I possess a single 'Rei' gate. As for you... I do not know how those gray eyes see the world."

  Wěn left him and walked away.

  And Dream began his journey into the void.

  The first day passed, then the first week. He sat like a silent stone among other stones. He was trying to "feel". He focused on the faint spark of 'Rei' that Wěn had left in his body, trying to grasp it, to replicate it, but it would fade like the echo of a forgotten song. It was like trying to catch smoke with fingers made of stone.

  Three weeks passed. Dream was still listening to and memorizing the world outside. He overheard a conversation between Wěn and Ling Gu. "Sir, he is alive, but this is illogical. He has remained in meditation for a full month. We should wake him," Wěn said. "No," Ling Gu replied. "Leave him. He is my friend, after all. I trust him."

  A month passed. The gray sky changed to the blue of the hot summer. He could feel the sun's heat searing his outer shell and hear the constant drone of insects that filled the air. It wasn't just data. Hong-min's memory connected this drone to the long, lonely afternoons in the orphanage yard.

  Hong-min's voice said sarcastically in his mind. 404 replied coolly.

  Two months passed. The leaves on the few trees in the grounds began to turn yellow and orange. The air grew colder and crisper. Dream was still trying. He tried to pull energy from the 'Echo of Creation' around him, but he found no handle to grasp. He tried to push something out from within himself, but he found nothing to push. He was empty.

  *Hong-min said with boredom.

  He fell silent for a moment, then spoke as if remembering something with suppressed anger. replied 404's logical voice.

  Hong-min screamed into the mental space. said the current 404 calmly. <'Illusion-404' was quick to learn 'Rei', but 'Dream' is slow. A possible hypothesis: the cause is the influence of the 'Soul Echo' ability. You have existed as a memory log of Hong-min, a being born without an effective Soul Gate. Perhaps this has affected the basic structure of 'Dream'. But one must not be hasty. According to data extracted from Hong-min's memory, the average learning period for 'Rei' on the Murim continent is three months. Only two months have passed.>*

  Three months passed. Then four. Then five. Winter began to set in. Dream could hear the sound of the cold wind whistling across the grounds and feel the first snow as it fell on his shoulders and melted. He was still silent, a stone in the middle of a snowstorm. A new trainee tried to touch him out of curiosity, but a single glance from Wěn was enough to make him back away. Dream was isolated in his bubble of silent failure.

  In the sixth month, despair reached its peak. In Dream's mental space, the ghost of Hong-min had stopped screaming and being sarcastic. He was sitting in a corner, curled in on himself, silent. Depression filled the void.

  One day, Hong-min decided to do something. He rose from his corner and walked until he stood beside Dream's silent consciousness. He pulled a bottle of sake out of thin air.

  he said, opening the bottle. 404 said from the darkness.

  Hong-min ignored him and began to drink.

  In that moment, Dream felt it.

  A small, sharp, and hot spark in the center of his body. He didn't try to pull it; he didn't try to analyze it. He let it be. He allowed it to enter. He allowed it to exist.

  That spark moved, turning into a thread of sharp, red energy. It opened the blocked pathways in his body, spreading like a network of silent lightning, reaching every one of his limbs, before returning to settle in the center of his being like a small, calm, and glowing ball of fire.

  Dream opened his eyes.

  Winter was at its peak. His body was covered in a thick layer of snow, as if he were an ice sculpture. A few dry leaves were frozen to his shoulder, and there was a spot of bird droppings on his head.

  He had awoken.