Chapter 159: The Return of Strength
Chapter 159: The Return of Strength
Taking Hestia’s words at face value, Rohan attempted to open his Great System status to check if there were any changes, and unsurprisingly, there were.
[Status]
[Titles: Rabid Wolf Slayer I, Hestia’s Acknowledgement]
[Rank: 25 ]
[Class: Evolution Gene ]
[Attributes: Molten ]
"Woah... it’s nice to actually see the changes settle in my status." Rohan exclaimed. Though he wasn’t clear on a few things he was seeing for the first time.
Particularly the number next to his rank, but he also took this opportunity to obtain an explanation about all of the aspects of his Great System status, considering he was standing and talking with its creator right now.
"What’s this number next to my Rank? And what do Class and Attributes mean?" Although he could hazard a guess to their functions, what use was guessing when he could get the answers from the source?
Hestia looked at the glowing panel floating in front of Rohan, yet her lack of expression made him feel far less excited about the changes that had just been made.
At first, he thought she was just reading it. But after a few seconds passed and her gaze did not move from that same line, Rohan’s expression slowly stiffened.
"That silence is not reassurring..." He spoke up.
But Hestia remained fixated on his status. "I am not concerned because the status has changed. That was the bare minimum to expect. I’m intrigued because it changed differently than I expected." She eventually responded.
Her eyes finally shifted from the panel to him.
"It is odd, I can clearly feel your level of strength should be around Rank 10 or so, yet your status displays you at Rank 25, how curious."
Rohan had nothing to add. "So my aura and my displayed rank are contradictory?" He asked. But he also slightly nudged her to answer his previous questions.
After all, that was the original intention from the beginning.
Hestia ignored that and stepped closer. The light of his status window reflected faintly in her silver eyes, though Rohan could not tell whether she was actually seeing the same things he was or simply perceiving it through some divine method of her own.
’Probably both...’
He decided not to ask.
"The number represents your level of strength," she said, "it is the Great System’s primary measurement of your existence. The stronger you are, the higher your number — to put it lightly."
"So," She turned to look at Rohan, as if he would be able to offer her an explanation, "Why is it you are breaking this universal law...?"
Rohan was stumped at first. He was happy to see that his strength had returned, but seeing how Hestia was acting right now was starting to make his hopes wane.
But then a thought struck him.
"Just to confirm, this is the ONLY method of measuring one’s strength in the Great System?" He reiterated.
Hestia lifted her brow, but she played along and nodded.
"I think I might have an explanation for this, then." He revealed. At this moment, his face fell into a grin. There was something about being able to one up a Goddess in the knowledge department that made him feel very smug.
Rohan tried not to let that grin widen too much.
...He quickly failed at that.
Hestia noticed. Of course she did, the Goddess seemed capable of noticing the thoughts behind his thoughts if she felt like it.
Yet instead of smiting him for his expression, she continued staring.
"Explain."
’Scary...’ Rohan was right on it.
Rohan cleared his throat.
"Back in my universe, a person’s strength is decided by two factors: Rank and Tier. While here, it is only decided by this numbered ranking system. Rank is the straightforward part. F rank, E rank, D rank and so on. It measures the amount and quality of Origin Energy someone has accumulated over their lifetime. The best I can put it is by comparing it to a container — going up from F to E rank would be like going from a small water bottle to a huge ten thousand litre tanker."
He then raised a finger.
"Tier is different. It measures what kind of existence you’ve become within that rank... I think. It measures quality rather than quantity like Rank does. Like the difference between a regular beast and an Elite beast. Both can be F rank, but the Elite is far stronger even though their rank is technically the same."
"My guess is that the Great System has combined my strength from both of these aspects into one, which is how it reaches Rank 25 as the result instead of the 10 you can feel." Rohan explained.
"So you are saying your universe recognises strength across two separate axes," Hestia said.
"Exactly." Rohan nodded quickly.
"So maybe your Great System doesn’t know how to display two separate measurements, because your universe doesn’t work that way. Instead, it took both parts of my strength and compressed them into one number."
For the first time since their meeting, Hestia looked genuinely silent.
"That’s my theory, anyway..." Rohan did his best to fill that silence.
He quickly became cautious, seeing that she still wouldn’t budge.
But Hestia, noticing this, finally snapped out of her inner thoughts.
"Remember. Your caution is a strength. Do not abandon it simply because you have recovered a portion of your power, even if it is greater than expected."
Rohan’s expression became more serious.
He gave a small nod.
"I won’t."
For some reason, that answer seemed to satisfy her more than any dramatic oath could have.
The warmth in his chest pulsed once. Rohan did not know whether to feel grateful, unsettled, or terrified by that.
So he settled for all three.
Hestia walked past him toward the open face of the temple.
"Come," she said. "It is time."
Rohan’s body tensed.
Just like that, the conversation moved from theory to reality.
He followed her.
The temple seemed longer than before as they walked between the columns. The pale fog beyond the broken outer stones remained unmoving, but as Hestia approached, it began to change. Slowly at first. Then all at once.
The fog parted.
Not blown away by wind. Not dispersed by force. It simply opened, as though the world itself recognised her passage and made room.
Beyond it was not another chamber, nor a courtyard, nor the empty white nothing Rohan had half expected.
There was darkness.
A vast darkness filled with distant lights.
Rohan stopped at the edge of the temple.
For a moment, he could not understand what he was seeing.
Then his mind caught up.
Stars.
Countless stars stretched beyond the boundary of Hestia’s realm, scattered across an immense black expanse. Some burned white. Others glowed red, blue, gold, and colours he did not have names for. Far away, clouds of luminous dust curled like smoke across the void. Immense structures of light hung in the distance, too large and strange to be constellations, too ordered to be natural.
Rohan forgot to breathe.
The Origin Realm had been vast. Erenhot, the eastern forests, the unknown lands beyond the human domain — all of it had made Earth feel small.
But this...
This made even the Origin Realm feel like a single room with locked doors.
"The greater universe," Hestia said.
Rohan swallowed.
"I was hoping for a forest."
"There are forests."
"Nearby?"
"No."
"Of course not."
Despite the words, his voice lacked its usual edge.
He could not look away.
The temple did not appear to be floating in space exactly. The boundary was stranger than that. Hestia’s sanctuary existed beside the universe, not within it, separated by a membrane of pale light that rippled faintly whenever the stars beyond shifted.
Rohan felt the warmth in his chest pulse again.
This time, he noticed something else.
Somewhere far beyond the sanctuary, so distant that he could barely tell whether it was real or imagined, there was a tug.
Rohan’s eyes narrowed.
Hestia noticed immediately.
"You can feel it."
He looked at her.
"I think so."
"What does it feel like?"
Rohan searched for the words.
"Like..." He frowned. "Like hearing someone whisper my name from another room, except the room is on fire and upside down."
Hestia looked at him in silence.
Rohan exhaled.
"I’m bad at divine descriptions."
"That was more useful than you think."
She raised her right hand.
The air beyond the temple began to fold.
Rohan had seen teleportation before. He had experienced his own strange spatial ability. He knew the stomach-twisting sensation of being yanked from one place to another without warning.
This was nothing like that.
Hestia did not tear space open. She invited it to become a doorway.
A circle of warm light formed before the broken columns, its edges woven from threads of white-gold fire. Within the circle, the stars bent and rearranged themselves, then vanished behind a new image.
Land.
Actual land.
Rohan stepped closer despite himself.
Beyond the portal, he saw a barren plain beneath a bruised violet sky. The ground was dark and cracked, like old volcanic glass. In the distance, jagged mountains rose like broken teeth, their peaks surrounded by slow-moving bands of silver cloud. Strange lights drifted above the horizon, not quite stars, not quite flames.