Chapter 39: Return
When Rohan eventually woke up, the sight of his all too familiar living room blessed his eyes.
The tattered roof of his apartment hung above his head as a reminder of his living situation. You’d have to be blind to call his apartment beautiful, but it was the most comforting and welcomed sight to Rohan. Only after returning did he realise how much he missed the outside world.
It was familiar; relatively safe from random beast attacks — as long as you stayed in the city — and was overall a much better environment to live in compared to the technology-less world of the Origin Realm.
As someone who grew up so used to technology all around him, unconsciously making up a majority of his life, being deprived of it was both a breath of fresh air as well as a torture on his mind.
However, despite the comforting feeling of returning to his home’s embrace, Rohan couldn’t have felt even worse.
"Haaa... So I died in the end anyway. I should have guessed, there was no way of getting out of that place alive."
The loss of his Firestone Skin Gene weighed immensely on his mind. That was the key to his future right there! And now it was lost to the annals of history because of the spite of those subhumans who tricked him!
"Fuck you, Rudith! I hope you rot in hell!"
Rohan kicked the side of his sofa from all the pent up anger, his only reprise being that final image of Sarah’s distraught face as the E rank Elite diverted its attention to her.
Rattle!
However, along with his kick came a sound he didn’t recognise... No, one that he did recognise but had no place in this world. After all, they were supposed to have been lost to the Origin Realm when he died.
Rohan cautiously inserted a hand into his pocket where he stored his Origin Crystals when out hunting, feeling a jolt of shock shoot through him when it brushed against something hard.
His fingers started to tremble. Slowly, almost too afraid that moving quickly would somehow ruin the illusion, he pulled out the contents of his pocket into the open.
One crystal...
Two.
Three.
Then even more.
A small pile of faintly glowing red Origin Crystals spilt into his palm and onto the worn sofa cushion beneath him, each one carrying that familiar warmth and Origin Energy that no object from Earth could ever imitate.
Rohan stared at them.
His mind was blank for a few seconds.
Then, with far more urgency than he’d ever utilised, his hand dived back into his pocket and fished out the final item buried among them.
His jaw hung low and eyes were wide open when he identified the object in his hands.
"There’s no way..."
The Firestone Skin Gene.
It was still there!
Its unique red glow reflected in his widened eyes, and for a long moment Rohan sat there in stunned silence, clutching it so tightly he almost feared he might crack it.
"...No way."
His voice came out hoarse.
"No fucking way..."
He checked again.
Then again, frantically inspecting every inch of the gene like a lunatic.
But no matter what, the results stayed the same. His Origin Crystals, the Firestone Skin Gene. They all came back with him to the outside universe...
Which could only mean one thing.
"I didn’t die."
Rohan’s breathing quickened all over again, though this time not from fear.
The words felt too good to be true.
Because if he truly did die in the Origin Realm, then everything on his person should have stayed there. Dropped, claimable by whoever found his corpse next.
That was the rule every awakened knew and became familiar with.
The only explanation for him still having all of his loot was that he didn’t die. Instead his time in the Origin Realm had run out and he was subsequently kicked out just like Elane was.
’The E rank Elite must have ignored me the whole time I passed out, which gave me the chance to live until I could leave.’
Rohan had to thank his fast acting thoughts in those final moments.
Noticing Sarah sneaking in and managing to shift the huge ant’s attention to her was the only way he could have made it out of that place.
’I can’t waste any time now that I’m here!’
Rohan immediately sat back down on his sofa in a meditative position, clutching the Elite Gene tightly in one hand.
Absorbing a Gene was a much different process than registering Genetic Armaments. It was a permanent assimilation into one’s genome, and so it was something that had to be carefully considered and was irreversible once started.
The process could last up to an hour to finish as well, rather than a few dozen seconds like with Genetic Armaments.
Rohan closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down.
His excitement was too close to boiling over, so he had to quell his chaotic emotions since he knew that if he rushed something as important as gene absorption, he’d come out crying at the end of the process as a cripple.
The Firestone Skin Gene rested in his palm like a living ember.
Even without looking at it, he could feel the dense warmth radiating from the crystal. The feeling was different from an Origin Crystal. Purer in one sense, but more targeted and far more complex. There was an imperceptibly small hidden structure contained inside of it, which Rohan guessed could only be the genetic code of the Firestone Skin.
’This is the real beginning...’
Rohan drew in a deep breath and settled further into the sofa, forcing his back straight and his thoughts empty. He placed the remaining Origin Crystals on the table beside him, not wanting anything to distract him or interfere with the process.
Then he focused inwards.
He was already familiar with the sensation of Origin Energy by now.
’Yuck... All I ever hear about is how dirty and thin the Origin Energy permeating the outside universe is, but its different to actually feel it for myself.’
He began the absorption process.