Time slipped away like fine sand through open fingers, almost unnoticed at first, until its weight became undeniable. In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.
Five days that felt both impossibly short and unbearably long. Five days that thrust the Adventurer Guild from obscurity into the very heart of Grey the entire Evergreen Region.
For Sage, those five days were a whirlwind of ink-stained fingers, hoarse commands, aching bones, and a mind that never truly rested.
He often found himself laughing one moment and on the brink of collapse the next, caught in a dizzying dance between pain and exhilaration he had never known before.
Everything changed when Gregor and the first wave of Adventurers returned from the dungeons.
They didn't come back empty-handed. They arrived bearing monster cores pulsing faintly with mana, strange metallic ores that rang like bells when struck together, and crystallized growths harvested from the depths.
