"Back to zero, huh..." Jabba exhaled slowly, his shoulders sinking under the weight of realization. The words left his lips like a bitter truth he could no longer deny. It was the first ti in his existence that he had ever felt this hollow—so weak, so dependent, so stripped of every ounce of power that had once defined him. "No matter..." he finally murmured, forcing determination back into his tone, "I’ll start retraining myself from scratch and try to catch up to you as soon as possible"
"Ehehe~ give it two weeks, and he’ll be the one trying to catch up to you, ehehehe." Arkalon’s mischievous laughter echoed across the mountain, the sound bouncing between the cavern walls like the cackle of a ghost who knew sothing no one else did. He shook his head several tis, the grin on his face stretching unnervingly wide.
"Are you mocking my determination?" Jabba frowned, a flicker of confusion twisting his features. He was still unaccustod to Arkalon’s unpredictable behavior. The soul creature’s laughter felt strange—too human, too alive. He turned sharply toward his teacher, seeking a reasonable answer. "What’s wrong with him exactly?!"
"...He’s not entirely wrong, so I’ll let it slide." Even Robin allowed himself a rare smile, tinged with mild embarrassnt. His voice carried a calm authority, yet there was a faint amusent beneath it. "Just ignore him and start training. We don’t want you catching a random cold after all this effort."
"..." Jabba was once again caught off guard by the bizarre, almost familial energy between those two. Their exchanges felt casual—too casual for a teacher and a soul creation. It was clear he had missed far more than he realized. Still, he nodded with quiet resolve. "Alright then, I’ll begin repairing my tattoos and modifying them slightly to accelerate the recovery of my physical strength."
"No need." Robin’s tone was matter-of-fact, yet his hand never stopped moving across the canvas, steady and deliberate. "There’s a new thod developed by Shaddad—safer, faster, and more efficient. You’ll scream a little, yes, but the results will be worth it." He didn’t even glance up as he continued, "Find sothing else to focus on for now."
"From a Shaddad?" Jabba blinked in surprise, caught between disbelief and curiosity. Then he waved a dismissive hand, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "Fine, doesn’t matter. I suppose I’ll see him soon anyway." He gave a few decisive nods. "Alright, I’ll start gathering soul force instead. The stronger my soul becos, the more I can contribute to your research."
"Don’t waste your ti on that nonsense." Robin finally looked up, his eyes sharp as blades. "I’ll give you the first two volus of the Soul Atlas and the Soul Hunting Technique later. I’ll also assign you a few initial souls to begin your cultivation properly. Just leave the matter of soul force aside for now until I finish developing this technique."
"..." Jabba stared at his teacher, eyes slightly widening. So many questions swirled in his mind—what was the Soul Atlas exactly? What kind of technique could be called Soul Hunting? But he bit his tongue. He knew himself too well; if he started asking now, he’d drown Robin in a thousand questions and still not be satisfied. It was his own fault for having spent lifetis asleep, locked away from the flow of knowledge and progress.
"No matter..." he whispered again, this ti more resolutely. He clenched his fists tight enough that his knuckles popped. "I’ll rebuild my foundations then, from the ground up."
"A small note before you start..." Robin chuckled darkly, still focused on his drawing. "You won’t rebuild anything—you’ll build from scratch, quite literally." He laughed under his breath. "While I was repairing your energy convergence core, I may have accidentally erased everything inside it. And, by further mistake, I wiped out all the patterns within your soul domain as well. Right now, you’re like a newborn child who has never trained before. So prepare yourself for your very first foundation again, and don’t rely on any shortcuts from your past life’s training."
"Wha—?!" Jabba’s entire body jolted as if struck by lightning. "Is that even possible?!"
"Apparently, it is." Robin shrugged nonchalantly, his tone a mixture of pride and regret as his hand continued its delicate strokes across the board. "Wasn’t planned, but it happened." Without looking up, he continued, "You’ll have to cultivate Gravity again, as if you’ve never experienced it before. It’ll frustrate you alittle—but once your body adapts, everything else will follow naturally."
For several minutes, silence filled the cave. Only the faint scratching of Robin’s pen could be heard.
Jabba examined himself repeatedly, running his awareness through every fiber of his being, every vein and vessel, every pulse of spiritual emptiness within. Eventually, he muttered under his breath, "...Doesn’t that an I can cultivate in anything I want now?"
"..." Robin froze. The pen stopped mid-air, his gaze fixed on the half-finished design before him. Then, slowly, he raised his hand from the board. His expression shifted ever so slightly, as though he’d just heard the exact sentence he had been dreading, "...About that..."
This was exactly what he had feared.
He had read again and again, and heard from countless mouths over the centuries, that those who happened upon the Eye of Truth while chasing after side pursuits — like Elder Zulan, who sought the ultimate balance between all forces; the First Nihari Chosen, who imrsed himself in the mysteries of anatomy; Shaddad, who delved deep into the boundless potential of the physical body; or even Jabba, who once pursued the blood’s hidden miracles — were, by fate itself, never ant to beco Great Truth Chosen.
No matter how brilliant they were, when such people built their foundations upon the Law of Truth, they would at best receive a single pattern, perhaps two if luck was generous, and only the most gifted among them would grasp three. That much would be enough to climb to the third degree, but beyond that, the path was eternally sealed. No training, no perseverance, no divine insight could break that ceiling.
It wasn’t an obstacle of will — it was a law written into existence itself. The highest degrees of Truth were reserved only for those who pursued the Truth for the sake of Truth itself — not for those who treated it as a tool, a stepping stone, or a convenient supplent to their own ambitions. Only the pure-hearted seekers, the ones who stared into the void for the sake of understanding the void, could walk that infinite road.
The five ancient Great Truth Chosen, whose nas echoed through every era, were all such beings — and in this age, Robin shall be the sixth.
He wanted his disciple to rise to that sa level, to beco a Truth Chosen himself... but the thought of Jabba ending up like Shaddad — powerful, wise, yet forever stuck at the third stage at best— made a faint heaviness grow inside him.
Now, the question was... how could he possibly explain this to him without sounding like a jealous master, one trying to clip his student’s wings before they could spread?
"The coming era’s going to be quite interesting..." Jabba murmured, his lips curving into a bright grin as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "There are so many possibilities — endless ones, really!"
"Hmm?" Robin turned toward him swiftly, curiosity flickering in his gaze. "What possibilities?"
"Maybe I could try rging Gravity with Truth?" Jabba’s voice rose slightly, carried by the excitent of an idea that sounded wild even to him. "It always seed impossible before — the two forces reject each other naturally — but now that I’m starting from zero, maybe I can actually make it work."
"Forget it," Robin interrupted with a lazy wave of his hand, his tone calm but final. "Master Laws don’t rge with anything else. They are at the top of existence."
"Oh, then I’ll just build my foundation around the Law of Truth alone," Jabba said, his grin dimming a little but not vanishing. "It’s not particularly powerful in combat, but I can live with that." He nodded to himself a few tis, trying to convince his own heart. He had once wielded the imnse, crushing force of Gravity itself — switching now to a law that focused purely on understanding rather than destruction was a hard pill to swallow. Yet if it ant standing beside his teacher again, he would accept the trade-off.
"...I wouldn’t advise that," Robin muttered after a pause, narrowing his eyes slightly. He was just about to explain his reasoning—
"No worries! Maybe I’ll find a Blood Law that suits instead," Jabba interjected, nodding again with renewed enthusiasm. "I still have my Eye of Truth, I can feel it. I’ll manage with just a first-stage understanding and carve out a path close to what fascinates ." He began stroking his chin again, smiling to himself as he spoke more freely, "Or perhaps... I could mix sothing from Blood with Gravity? I’ve worked with it for so long; it feels almost like second nature to now..."
"...?" Robin blinked at him for a mont, sowhat surprised that Jabba hadn’t even asked why he discouraged the Law of Truth in the first place. Then he simply chuckled, shaking his head slightly before returning to his sketch, his hand now moving faster than before.
"...Try whatever you wish," Robin said at last, his voice low but composed. "Just don’t start constructing your first foundation before consulting ."
"Of course," Jabba said quickly, nodding several tis. His gaze, however, remained distant, lost in the horizon of his own imagination. "I’ll probably need a long ti to decide which law to pursue, and even longer to create the perfect cultivation technique for it — not to ntion rebuilding my foundations from scratch."
"Take your ti," Robin said gently, tilting his head as he shifted to a new section of the grand pattern before him. "You have four hundred and sixty years to complete it."
"Hmm? Why four hundred and sixty years specifically?" Jabba narrowed his eyes suspiciously, his tone half-playful, half-serious. "What are you planning?"
"Heh~ you could say sothing’s brewing," Robin replied, the corner of his mouth curling upward as a faint gleam lit up his eyes. He traced a perfect half-circle with an elegant stroke, then began filling its interior with intricate symbols at breathtaking speed.
Then, without warning, he raised his pen, clapped his hands together sharply — BAAA! — and declared with a grin that carried both pride and mystery:
"Alright... it’s finished."
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