Varric stopped to catch his breath, then smiled when he saw Axel. “Thank God you’re still here,” he said, handing over a neatly wrapped package. “Here. This is for you.”

Axel tore it open and froze. Inside lay four perfectly cut crystals—two jet black, two milky white.

Charles leaned over, his expression shifting to surprise. “Are those... Essence Stones and Soul Stones?” He frowned slightly. “Wait, Tristan gave you these?”

Each of those stones was worth millions. Four of them meant twenty million credits—an obscene amount for any school reward.

Varric gave an awkward laugh and scratched his head. “Well, the principal did help arrange it, but he didn’t pay for them himself. The Brighthelm family issued it as a... forgiveness payment.”

Axel blinked. “A forgiveness payment?”

Varric nodded, still sheepish. “The principal found out about your situation a bit late. He’s an educator, not a politician, and the victim was a Stormwatch Academy student, so his hands were tied at first. But he wanted me to apologize to you for not stepping in sooner.”

For a moment, Axel didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t expected Tristan to move behind the scenes for him. He hadn’t even reached out—he’d assumed he wasn’t important enough to bother someone like that.

And yet, Tristan had quietly gone out of his way to protect him.

“Please thank Mr. Tristan for me,” Axel said sincerely. “Was he the one who... negotiated this?”

Varric’s shoulders relaxed, a smile tugging at his lips. “He was. The Brighthelm family came to Shiverstone to investigate Vernon’s death. Mr. Tristan personally went to talk to them.”

The way Varric said “talk” made Axel suspect the principal’s approach had been anything but polite.

“If you’d really killed Vaughn over some petty dispute,” Varric continued, “the principal would’ve made sure you lived—but that’d be it. Once he learned the truth, though... he said you deserved compensation.”

Vince and Rosaline exchanged looks, their expressions caught somewhere between amusement and disbelief.

Deserved compensation? Then demanded it—and actually got it. That was the kind of influence Bloodstone Warfare’s headmaster, Tristan, wielded.

Axel pocketed the four stones carefully. “Thank you, Teacher Varric. Please give Mr. Tristan my regards.”

“You’re the pride of Bloodstone Warfare,” Varric said warmly. “Ever since you won the Academy Competition, the school’s reputation has skyrocketed. The principal said you’re welcome back anytime—to set an example for the younger students.”

Axel raised an eyebrow. “Younger students? Teacher Varric, I am a freshman.”

Varric froze mid-smile, then coughed awkwardly. “Right... well.”

The others chuckled softly. After a few more minutes of small talk, Varric waved goodbye and headed toward his gate.

“Having the right connections pays off,” Charles said with a grin, clapping Axel on the shoulder.

“Captain,” Axel said suddenly, frowning in thought. “If the Rock Spinal Cord is similar to a Fire Spirit, and Vernon was willing to pay that much for it... why didn’t he just buy one himself? I mean, didn’t a Fire Spirit only sell for a hundred million once?”

Charles shot him a look somewhere between amusement and disbelief. “Who the hell told you a Fire Spirit’s worth a hundred million?”

Axel blinked. “Isn’t it?”

Charles sighed, rubbing his temple. “Those things are priceless. You can’t measure their value in money. Fire Spirits, Rock Spinal Cords—they’re natural spiritual objects born from mutations. You can’t mass-produce them, and even when someone finds one, it’s sold almost instantly. The trade volume’s so small there’s no real market price.”

He leaned back, his tone turning matter-of-fact. “And even if you could afford one, you might not be able to use it. To wield a Fire Spirit properly, for example, you need to be a melee Awakener with an extremely high damage threshold. Without both, the thing would just burn you alive.”

Charles chuckled. “In short,” he said, “money’s not the hard part.”

Axel finally understood. Maybe collecting spiritual objects of other attributes was what kept driving the ancient tree inside him to evolve.

Just then, a small military transport plane rolled up to the terminal. A uniformed agent stepped out and gestured for them to board.

“Everyone’s exhausted,” Vince said as they climbed the ramp. “Let’s get some rest on the flight.”

Axel nodded, feeling the fatigue in his bones. He’d collected the life crystals from both Vernon and Vaughn earlier. The smaller one he’d given to Annabelle. Now, alone in his seat, he held Vernon’s dark-green crystal between his fingers and closed his eyes.

The engines roared. The plane shook as it accelerated down the runway, pressing him back into the seat. Axel drew in a slow breath and began absorbing Vernon’s life force.

As the plane lifted into the night sky, the first strand of Vernon’s Force seeped into his body—and a sudden, deafening buzz erupted in his skull.

A vivid image burst into his mind.

He was no longer in the cabin. He was Vernon—standing in front of a shabby house somewhere in Shiverstone. His chest burned with agony. A barefoot woman, so beautiful it was almost unreal, smiled sweetly as she reached out and tore the massive, beating heart from his body.

Bang!

The vision shattered. Axel jerked awake, drenched in sweat, lungs heaving. They were already ten thousand meters in the air. Everyone else was still seated, eyes closed in meditation, completely unaware.

“What the hell was that…?” he muttered. His pulse pounded in his ears.

He’d seen Vernon’s death—exactly how it happened. That couldn’t just be coincidence.

The woman in the vision had been human, yet Vernon, in his infected form, hadn’t attacked her.

“Why?” Axel frowned, mind racing. “Was she the one who turned him?”

His breathing quickened. Back in Dune, he and Skye had uncovered Wolfe’s experiments—creating infected people in secret—but that lead had died with Wolfe’s suicide. Later, in Universal Studios, he’d seen two more infected and learned that even the Holy Light Organization had ties to them.

He’d always suspected there was a deeper network at work—something monstrous hiding under the surface.

And now, for the first time, he’d seen one of them.

“Why kill Vernon, though?” he whispered, shaking his head to clear the thought.

He turned his focus inward. Within his mindscape, the Ancient Sky Tree shimmered with new vitality, its branches denser, its roots digging deeper into the void.

“Could that vision be a new ability?” he murmured.

Testing the theory, Axel took out another life crystal—one he’d found in Northern Suppression Town—and let a trickle of energy flow into him. Instantly, flickering fragments of the crystal owner’s last moments appeared: a glimpse of despair, then a flash of self-destruction.

His eyes widened. “As I thought.”

It was almost like the power of an Undead Guide—the rare awakeners who could glimpse the final memories of the dead.

Axel’s version wasn’t perfect. The upside was that he wasn't afraid of the other person's soul dissipating like true Undead Guides did. As long as the life force was crystallized, he could access it whenever he wanted.

The downside was clear—his visions were fragmented, incomplete. But if he kept evolving... maybe he could refine it. Maybe even surpass them.

He smiled faintly. “If I keep getting stronger, I can push this further.”

The hum of the engines filled the silence. Everyone had settled into meditation. Axel steadied his breathing and resumed absorbing Vernon’s crystal.

Within his inner world, tiny streams of green Force spiraled toward the Ancient Sky Tree, weaving through its trunk like veins of light.

Two hours passed in a blink.

The pilot’s voice crackled through the cabin speakers, announcing their descent. One by one, the members of the Obsidian team opened their eyes.

“Axel…” Rosaline turned toward him, about to wake him gently.

Vince lifted a hand. “Wait. Give it a second. He’ll wake up soon.”

The energy pouring from Axel’s body was far stronger than it should’ve been. Even for someone with secrets, it was staggering. His Force aura had become a living storm, far beyond that of any ordinary Level Four Awakener.