"Look at him, sleeping peacefully while making a lady’s heart ache with pain."
Vera’s voice reached Ezra through the darkness, carrying the same plain tone she normally used even when saying something that should have sounded emotional.
Ezra could hear her.
Not clearly, though.
Her voice felt distant, as though she were speaking from the other side of a wall, and when Ezra tried opening his eyes, there was nothing but darkness waiting for him.
He couldn’t see Vera.
He couldn’t see anything.
However, from the other voices around him, Ezra could tell that Vera wasn’t the only person there.
"Ahh... Lady Vera, please, you’re too close to Master."
Lucy’s worried voice followed almost immediately, sounding as though she were trying to stop Vera from doing something.
"I’m just looking at his cute sleeping face. I promise I won’t bite, Miss Maid."
Vera replied dryly.
There wasn’t even the slightest bit of guilt in her voice.
If anything, she sounded like Lucy was being unreasonable for suspecting her of whatever she was doing.
This feels similar.
The thought appeared inside Ezra’s mind as his consciousness gradually became clearer.
He had experienced something like this before.
Hearing voices while his body refused to properly wake up.
It was during the Trial of Steel, after he woke up in the infirmary in the trial base.
Ezra concentrated on opening his eyes.
At first, only a thin line of light entered his vision.
That alone made his eyelids twitch.
He blinked several times, trying to adjust while the blurry shapes in front of him slowly began gaining form.
White.
A ceiling.
Light.
Then...
A face.
Vera’s face was hovering directly above him, her long black hair falling slightly forward while her head blocked part of the light coming from above.
She had apparently been leaning over his bed to stare at him.
Ezra blinked again.
The blur gradually disappeared.
"Ara, he’s awake."
Vera spoke calmly.
For only a brief moment, a faint smile of relief appeared at the corner of her lips.
Ezra’s vision hadn’t completely cleared yet, so he barely caught it before her expression returned to its usual calmness.
Veda, who had been standing farther away, immediately reacted.
"I’ll get the doctor."
He turned and hurried out through the door before Ezra could properly look at him.
Ezra’s eyes returned to Vera.
He narrowed them slightly.
Vera remained leaning close enough that her face occupied most of his view.
"Good morning, Dancer."
Her voice was plain, but the slight teasing behind the name was impossible to miss.
"Ahh..."
Ezra released a tired sigh.
He had only been awake for several seconds, yet Vera was already Vera.
"Master."
Lucy quickly moved closer to the side of the medical bed once Vera finally gave him some space.
Ezra slowly turned his head.
Lucy stood there with her hands held tightly together in front of her.
The relief on her face was impossible to hide.
Her eyes looked slightly wet, and from the way she kept staring at him, she appeared close to crying now that she knew he was actually awake.
Ezra quietly looked at her.
For several seconds, he didn’t say anything.
He was still trying to understand exactly where he was.
The room smelled faintly of medicine and cleaning chemicals. White walls surrounded the medical bed, while several devices rested beside him, some displaying information he couldn’t properly make sense of from his position.
Hospital.
That was obvious enough.
The last thing Ezra remembered clearly was being inside the Royal Academy Shopping Complex.
He remembered Veda suddenly running toward him.
Lucy screaming.
Blood falling from his nose.
Then Vera catching him.
After that...
Nothing.
Before Ezra could ask what happened, the door opened.
Veda entered first.
A female doctor followed behind him, while a nurse carrying several medical tools entered last.
"Good evening, Mr. Ezra Ashenlocke."
The doctor greeted Ezra with a pleased smile as she approached his bed.
The nurse immediately moved to the other side.
She began checking Ezra’s condition without wasting time, carefully placing the medical tools she had brought beside the bed before starting her examination.
The doctor pulled over a wheeled chair.
Its small wheels rolled softly across the floor before she positioned herself beside Ezra and sat down.
Ezra looked toward her.
Something about her greeting had already caught his attention.
"So, it’s evening, huh?"
He turned his head slightly.
"How many days?"
His voice remained plain, although his tone was polite.
The doctor smiled.
"Don’t worry, child. You were only unconscious for a few hours."
She picked up her Zphone tablet and tapped the screen.
"We’re just getting close to midnight."
"..."
Ezra relaxed slightly.
So, he hadn’t lost several days.
That was good.
The doctor continued scrolling through the medical report displayed on her tablet while the nurse checked Ezra’s body.
A few seconds later, the doctor stopped.
"Okay, Mr. Ezra Ashenlocke."
She looked up from the tablet.
"I have some good news and some bad news."
Ezra stared at her.
The doctor glanced toward Vera, Veda, and Lucy.
"Would you like to be alone before I tell you?"
Ezra’s gaze moved toward Veda first.
Veda raised one hand and gave him a small wave when he noticed Ezra looking at him.
Ezra then looked toward Vera.
She stared back at him plainly.
Finally, he looked at Lucy.
She was still wearing the relieved expression of someone who had spent the last few hours worrying that something much worse had happened.
"I don’t mind."
Ezra returned his attention to the doctor.
"It’s not like they haven’t already heard the reason from you while I was unconscious."
He was only guessing.
Judging from the expressions around him, however...
He was probably right.
"Okay."
The doctor nodded.
She didn’t bother denying it.
"So, first..."
Her serious expression softened into another pleased smile.
"I want to congratulate you on reaching the Adept Alchemist rank."
Ezra blinked.
For perhaps the first time since waking up, his plain expression visibly shifted.
Adept Alchemist rank?
He immediately closed his eyes and focused inward.
His awareness entered his Mind Realm.
The familiar space appeared before him.
His First Star was there.
Perfectly constructed.
Ezra’s attention moved toward the Second Star.
His eyes narrowed.
It was now complete.
Not almost complete.
Not still undergoing construction.
It was complete.
Its structure had been perfectly formed, with none of the unfinished sections Ezra remembered seeing before.
Then his attention moved farther.
Toward the next Star.
His Third Star.
Only a fraction of it had been perfectly constructed, but there was no mistaking what Ezra was seeing.
Construction had begun.
Ezra opened his eyes.
"How is this possible?"
For once, faint confusion appeared openly on his face.
The doctor had clearly expected the question.
"That’s because you experienced something we Alchemists call Silent Enlightenment."
Ezra looked at her.
His confusion deepened slightly, although his usual expression prevented much of it from showing.
Silent Enlightenment?
His eyes briefly moved toward the other three.
Veda didn’t look confused.
Neither did Vera.
Lucy also seemed to already understand what the doctor was talking about.
Since she had already explained it to her.
However, Vera and Veda already understood the term from teachings back at the Ashenlocke estate.
So, she really did explain everything to them before I woke up.
Ezra returned his gaze to the doctor.
The nurse continued examining him for another short while before finally finishing.
She gathered the data from her medical tools and walked toward the doctor.
"Doctor."
The nurse handed over the recorded information.
"Thank you."
The doctor accepted it and quickly looked through the new data before placing it together with Ezra’s previous medical report and her Zphone tablet.
The nurse gave a small bow.
Then she stepped aside and waited quietly.
The doctor turned back toward Ezra.
"You already know that we Alchemists can experience Enlightenment at almost any time once we reach a certain level of understanding, correct?"
Ezra gave a small nod.
"During that phenomenon, we normally have two choices."
She raised two fingers.
"We can cultivate our Cognis at that moment and take advantage of the enlightened sensation while it is still fresh, or we can preserve that sensation and wait until we’re ready to cultivate it later."
Ezra listened carefully.
"That form of Enlightenment, however, is completely different from the Silent Enlightenment I’m talking about."
The doctor adjusted the medical report resting on her lap before continuing.
"Silent Enlightenment is an extremely rare phenomenon."
Her finger lightly tapped the edge of the report.
"During it, your Cognis begins cultivating itself without requiring you, the Alchemist, to consciously perform any cultivation."
Ezra’s eyes sharpened slightly.
Cultivating itself?
The doctor noticed his reaction.
"Exactly."
She pointed toward him.
"Your Cognis essentially continues generating and cultivating itself because of the Enlightenment you’ve reached."
She paused for a moment to let him understand before continuing.
"And depending on how deep that Enlightenment is, the amount of Cognis generated can become enormous."
The room remained quiet.
Even though Vera, Veda, and Lucy had already heard the explanation, none of them interrupted.
"An Alchemist experiencing Silent Enlightenment can potentially move from the Novice Alchemist rank directly into the Adept Alchemist rank."
The doctor continued.
"In rarer cases, they could even reach the Meister Alchemist rank because of how much Cognis the Enlightenment naturally generates."
Ezra remained silent.
His thoughts immediately returned to the library.
The books.
Life Essence.
Death Essence.
The relationship between the two.
Divinity.
Converted Essence.
Cognis.
Create and Destroy.
The questions he had repeatedly asked himself while reading.
So that was it.
He had thought he was simply becoming absorbed in the information.
Apparently, something else had been happening inside him at the same time.
The doctor looked down at his report again.
"Now, your situation became a little more complicated because of the state your Stars were already in before the Silent Enlightenment began."
Ezra focused on her.
"Your First Star was already in a state of overflowing gaseous Cognis before today."
She raised one finger.
"Your Second Star should have already been completely constructed, but it wasn’t."
Her finger moved downward as though drawing an invisible path through the air.
"So, when the Silent Enlightenment began and your Cognis started cultivating itself..."
She used her hands to demonstrate the movement.
"The generated Cognis first continued filling the necessary structure."
Her palms moved closer together.
"Your Second Star was perfectly constructed."
Ezra listened without interrupting.
"Then the process continued into constructing your Adept Star."
The doctor shifted her hand again, demonstrating the Cognis moving from one Star toward another.
"Like that, your Third Star also began constructing itself because the Silent Enlightenment hadn’t stopped generating Cognis."
Ezra’s eyes narrowed.
He understood now.
The white lines beneath his skin.
The blood.
The sudden collapse.
His body had been receiving far more Cognis than he had consciously prepared it to handle.
The doctor was about to continue.
"But because my body couldn’t handle the Cognis of a Meister Alchemist rank, my body went through Cognis Reverse to keep itself from breaking down."
Ezra finished the explanation for her.
The doctor stopped, then she smiled faintly.
"Yes."
She nodded.
"Exactly."
Veda folded his arms.
Lucy looked toward Ezra with concern again.
Vera remained quiet, although her eyes had stayed on Ezra throughout the explanation.
The doctor lowered her gaze toward the report in her hands.
"Which brings me to the bad news."
Her pleased smile gradually disappeared.
The atmosphere around the bed changed with it.
Ezra already had an idea of what she was going to say.
And from her expression...
It wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed hearing again.
"I’m sure you already know."
The doctor looked directly at him.
"Your body’s constitution isn’t suited to handling the cold of this kingdom."
Ezra didn’t react.
Since he already knew that.
The doctor continued.
"It’s a very rare condition, but from your medical results and what we’ve observed, you seem to have been doing fairly well at preserving your condition."
Her eyes moved toward the newest data the nurse had given her.
"However, preserving it isn’t the same thing as solving it."
Ezra’s fingers shifted slightly against the blanket.
The doctor noticed but continued speaking.
"Your body has developed considerably, especially since you became an Alchemist. The problem is that the cold keeps causing it to regress. You have a condition that causes your red blood cells to break down faster than your body can replace them, and exposure to low temperatures makes it worse. When that happens, your blood can no longer supply your body properly. Your bones, muscles, and organs gradually lose the nourishment they need to maintain their strengthened state."
Her tone remained calm, but there was no longer anything casual about it.
"Your body develops."
She raised one hand.
"Then your condition pushes against that development."
Her other hand moved in the opposite direction.
"You’re essentially forcing your body forward while something continues pulling part of that progress backward."
Lucy lowered her eyes.
Veda’s expression became more serious.
Vera remained still.
"And now that you’ve reached the Adept Alchemist rank, the amount of Cognis your body will need to handle is going to increase again."
The doctor placed both hands back on the report.
"That’s why what happened today is dangerous."
Ezra stared quietly at her.
"Growing stronger as an Alchemist will become increasingly difficult for you if your body continues like this."
The doctor paused.
Her eyes remained on him.
"And putting yourself through that much pain during breakthrough repeatedly isn’t something you should treat casually."
The room became quiet again.
Ezra didn’t answer immediately.
The doctor gave him several seconds before saying the part she had clearly been leading toward from the beginning.
"If you intend to continue advancing as an Alchemist..."
Her expression remained serious.
"...then you need to find a cure for this sickness."
Ezra stared at her.
The words weren’t exactly surprising.
He had known his body had problems for a long time.
He had known the cold affected him differently.
He had known that the pills, heat, training, food, and everything else he used to preserve his physical condition weren’t actually curing anything.
They were simply helping him manage it.
But hearing a doctor tell him that his growth as an Alchemist itself would eventually become difficult because of the condition yet again...
That was different.
Ezra’s gaze slowly moved toward his hand.
He opened his fingers.
Then closed them.
His body didn’t feel particularly weak right now.
If anything, after completing his Second Star and beginning construction of the Third, he could sense that something inside him had changed.
His Cognis felt different.
Larger.
Heavier.
Yet the body containing all of it remained the same body the doctor had just warned him about.
So, I’ve reached the Adept rank huh...
Ezra thought quietly.
His fingers tightened slightly beneath the blanket.
...but if I want to keep going, I’m going to have to push toward solving this problem now.
His eyes lifted toward the doctor again.
The Silent Enlightenment had pushed him forward.
Farther than he had expected.
But apparently...
That unexpected progress had also made one thing much harder to ignore.
Yet again.
If Ezra wanted to continue climbing through the Alchemist ranks, preserving his condition would no longer be enough.
At some point...
He would have to cure it or find a better way to preserve it.
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