Twenty years later — Year 510 After the Coronation — Planet Nihari —

"..."

Before the mouth of his secluded cave, Robin sat cross-legged on a jagged boulder, his back straight, his face angled high toward the heavens. His posture looked tense, almost painful, yet he didn't move a muscle. His wide, luminous eyes were fixed upon the vast, painted sky as if he were trying to pierce through the firmament itself.

The stillness of his expression, the quiet focus in his breathing, made it clear that he wasn't merely gazing for beauty's sake — he was searching. Searching for something important.

Minutes stretched into more minutes. The mountain breeze whispered past, stirring his hair slightly, when suddenly Robin raised a finger and shouted, his voice breaking the tranquil silence of the valley:

"Ha! Evergreen! That's you up there, isn't it!?"

The place he pointed to shimmered in Nihari's sky — a luminous orb suspended in the void, like a moon bound to the planet by invisible chains. It was one of the minor celestial bodies drawn into Nihari's gravity field, though smaller and much more distant than the rest. Its glow was not silver like the usual moons, but a deep, vivid green. Every inch of its surface — oceans, rivers, and plains alike — glimmered in varying shades of verdant jade. And upon that small world stood three titanic trees, their colossal crowns reaching beyond clouds, visible even from space.

There was no mistaking it — it was Greenland itself.

(Tch… finally your cursed Prime Minister remembered me!) Greenland's ethereal voice echoed, laced with annoyance. (I honestly thought he'd leave me forgotten until the very end, like he did with Jura!)

Robin chuckled, shaking his head. "Hehe, I'm sure he had his reasons for keeping you waiting this long." His smile deepened as he watched the green planet drift slowly across the horizon, its light dimming as it vanished behind a distant mountain ridge. Only when it disappeared did he lower his head, rolling his neck with a few audible cracks.

(Hmm… during the transfer, he intentionally made things complicated for me,) Evergreen muttered with a softer tone now. (He said he wanted to hide me within Nihari's second belt as a sort of decoy. You see — the closest belt will draw everyone's attention, they'll assume it holds the most vital worlds. The outer belts, though, will bear the brunt of enemy attacks. That guy is an asshole but kindda smart.) She paused briefly before adding with a playful sigh, (Besides, he mentioned leaving a space for Jura right next to me in the second belt, so… I'm not that angry anymore.)

"Oh? Not bad at all," Robin nodded approvingly. "Kristan's mind really is dangerous — that's precisely why you must always place the right person in the right position, and then… sit back and simply watch the game unfold."

"Speaking of watching…" Robin clapped once, the sharp sound echoing faintly. His gaze snapped toward a glowing object floating directly before him — a radiant golden sigil, humming softly, vibrating the very air around it.

It looked, at first glance, like one of the countless runic engravings Robin had created before — but something about this one was utterly different, alive in a way that defied explanation. It occupied a space roughly equal to Robin's own height. At a casual look, it seemed like a beautiful pattern, intricate yet ordinary — the kind any talented artist might reproduce.

Yet when Robin blinked… the entire design shifted. When he tilted his head slightly, the lines rearranged themselves. When a soft gust of wind brushed past, the whole engraving changed again!

And the deeper he stared, the more he felt it — as though the mark was drawing him in, layer by layer. He could sense depth where there should be none, worlds hidden within the golden lines. It was as if he were staring not at a drawing, but at a living universe of his own making — one that he had somehow painted, yet did not truly understand.

"Incredible…" Robin whispered, eyes wide, voice trembling with quiet awe. "It's… alive."

Whoosh!

A breeze rippled through the air as Evergreen materialized beside him, her form glowing faintly with soft green light. "What's so incredible about this thing?" she asked, folding her arms, studying the floating mark with a half-smile. "Sure, it's bright and fancy — but that's all."

"…You can't see it?" Robin blinked in disbelief, pointing toward the sigil. "The transformations — the constant shifting. I spent ten years of my life completing this!"

"Transformations?" Evergreen tilted her head left, then right, squinting hard. After a few moments, she sighed and shook her head. "Nope. Looks exactly the same to me."

"…?" Robin stared at her silently, confusion washing over him. When he turned back to the engraving, he froze — it had changed again. The pattern was new, foreign, impossible. Was it possible that he alone could perceive these continuous, reality-twisting changes?

"What is this thing anyway?" Evergreen floated around the sigil, inspecting it from different angles. "You poured years into it, sacrificed a ridiculous amount of your foundations to draw it — the entire process was maddening! Big Sister Neri nearly lost her mind because of this thing — and because of you!"

"It's the first pattern of the Master Law of Balance… it's complete," Robin murmured proudly, his voice low yet filled with an unshakable sense of triumph.

This moment unfolded on the sacred island of the Cosmic Elder, Zolan — the same place where Robin had once witnessed that ancient being attempt to engrave his new foundations with the Master Balance Runes. Robin could still recall every shimmer of that light, every flicker of power that danced inside his energy gathering center. Yet even then, those runes began to fade, dissolving like mist.

To fight that decay, Zolan had forged more and more runes, while Robin stood their motionless, doing nothing but seeing all of this without the means to fight back.

Since that day, he started trying to replicate those runes purely from memory, retracing the steps of the Cosmic Elder with relentless obsession.

He had attempted it through soul force, through projection, through carving them into Treant bark. But neither the soul nor the physical vessel could bear the weight of those cosmic symbols. Each attempt collapsed, leaving behind scars of failure and lessons of endurance. It had taken him decades — entire lifetimes of focus and refinement — to build even a single rune composed purely of natural energy.

Now, floating before him, the Master Balance Rune pulsed with tranquil majesty. It was nearly alive. It shimmered faintly like molten glass, yet its power was vast and serene. Forged at the cost of forty full levels of energy.

In all the known universe, only he and the Cosmic Elder were capable of crafting such a thing.

"The first pattern of the Law of Balance?" Evergreen tapped her chin several times, unimpressed, her tone laced with teasing disbelief. "Sounds like an enormous waste of time, if you ask me."

"Not for me," Robin replied softly, a quiet laugh escaping him, warm and genuine. He raised his right hand, guiding the glowing rune aside with deliberate care, moving it from before him to hover serenely near the cave's entrance. Then he exhaled a long, steady breath. "The time just isn't right yet… that's all."

"You've got to be kidding me!" Evergreen's shrill voice broke the calm. She zipped up to his face, wings fluttering rapidly as she pressed her nose to his. "Are you seriously going to climb all the way back to level forty again? And then start drawing those Truth Patterns all over again?!"

"What's the problem?" Robin's smile deepened faintly. During this early phase of reconstruction, he didn't need complete isolation. "I've already achieved one of my big goals years ago. The Balance Rune is complete. Don't you think I've earned the right to play with the Truth Patterns a little? They were my first passion, my real path. You could say this is my version of a peaceful break."

"A break that lasts for years?!" Evergreen threw her arms in the air, groaning dramatically. "Unbelievable." With a flick of her small hand, a shimmer of emerald light appeared, forming a tiny portal. Without another word, she darted through it, vanishing back into Robin's soul domain with a final exasperated, "Ugh!"

Robin chuckled quietly, the sound echoing softly in the tranquil cave. He could already imagine her complaining to Neri about him again, probably calling him insane or hopelessly obsessed. But he didn't mind. Not now.

He drew in a slow breath, feeling the cycle begin anew. After so many rounds of destruction and rebuilding, the first eleven levels of his foundation formed almost effortlessly, as if his very soul remembered the rhythm of creation.

Then, letting his awareness sink deeper into his energy gathering center, he opened himself to the silence within.

And there, deep inside that radiant space, a faint, satisfied smile curved his lips.

He could see the patterns within were clearer than ever before.

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