“So about those rewards...” I began, glancing at the dry man.

He chuckled lightly and set Maria down, before heading for the tent’s exit. As he passed me, he waved at me to follow him. The moment we exited the tent, he put a hand on my shoulder and I felt my body sag. Suddenly, all my strength left my body and I fell to the ground below. Before I even hit the ground, though, my body turned into dust. The feeling was not dissimilar to when my body turned intangible, though the lack of control or mental preparation made it a much less pleasant experience.

When my sight returned, I found myself fully reconstructed. My surroundings had naturally changed after the shift, but I hadn’t expected the change to be quite as dramatic as it turned out to be. Instead of the standing dead wood I had gotten used to seeing on this side of the between lands, I found myself surrounded by old, but healthy willow trees. Their branches hung lazily in the wind, creating the occasional patch of sun that lit up the bright green grass and ferns below.

The warm breeze continued into a large clearing, that had just enough space for a nice-looking wooden house and a pond that stretched to the tree line.

Some space was being used to grow vegetables, while the rest of the grass was left open. Currently, a man was hunched over in the vegetable garden, using his leather gloves to tend to its produce. I approached him slowly, trying to prevent a conflict, but quickly found out that I wasn’t staring at a random gardener, but the dry man himself. He was wearing leather overalls over his otherwise indistinguishable clothing.

When he noticed my arrival, he looked up from his work.

“Ah! Arthur! I’ve been waiting for you. My transportation is quite convenient, since it allows me to travel long distances instantly. Unfortunately, the ‘instant’ part doesn’t work for people I take along with me. I decided to do a spot of gardening while I waited for you to reform. I hope you don’t mind...?” the dry man explained.

I shrugged, since I had time to spare anyway. My current surroundings were far more interesting...

“What is this place? Where even are we?” I asked, while admiring the rest of the little retreat. It was just teeming with life. After not having seen any bugs for weeks, seeing the dragonflies hover over the pond felt somewhat alien.

“This is my house. Maria and I lived here, before...” the dry man grimaced, “Well, you know what I mean. This place is still located in the between lands, actually. I found it many centuries ago. As far as I know, this is the only place in my territory that has anything that vaguely resembles a plant in it.”

“Right...” I murmured, accepting his explanation, “That doesn’t explain why you’ve brought me here, though...”

“Patience, young man. Patience.” He said, before getting up and gesturing for me to follow him. His attire naturally shifted back to his usual outfit as he left the vegetable patch, before he brought me to the edge of the clearing, where we headed down a small mountain path.

And it was a mountain path. It seemed to go on forever and started to incline halfway through. It looped around the mountain, eventually allowing me to see how high up we had gotten. Once the trees finally left some space for me to see the surrounding area, I found out that we were climbing the only mountain nearby. The dry man’s home was at the foot of the mountain, occupying a small patch of what was actually a massive forest. It didn’t quite spread to the horizon, though. Instead, it cut off suddenly, turning back into the grey wasteland known as the dry forest. From a distance, the mountain must have stood out as a giant green mirage.

We headed further and further up, but the dry man refused to answer any questions.

“You’ll see.” He continued saying.

Eventually, about two hours in, we finally made it to the peak. There, we found a small cave entrance, which, naturally, the dry man refused to explain. The cave was completely overgrown, both inside and outside, with vines and other plants. No brown rock was left untouched, and it only got worse as we progressed.

This ‘reward’ better be good...

Thankfully, the cave itself was unnaturally consistent when it came to its height and width. I would have thought it a tunnel, were it not for the stone protrusions that hung from the ceiling. As far as I knew, those took ages to form...

It still took us another two hours to head to the bottom. At some point, the vines that hung on every side of the cave had started to bloom. Were it not for the fact that I was being escorted by a tier 7, I would’ve hightailed it ages ago...

At its end, the tunnel opened up into a large round chamber, that had a small lake in it. The plants continued into the lake, where they disappeared in its murky water.

“We’re here.” The dry man said simply.

“So... what is it?” I asked, motioning towards the lake.

“When I first discovered this place, along with the surrounding mountain, I thought the lake to be some kind of source of life. Only later did I realised that this was a place of death...” he spoke morbidly.

“A place of death?” I inquired. That didn’t make much sense... The entire mountain was covered in flora and fauna!

Instead of replying, the dry man asked me a question.

“Arthur... how do you define ‘life’?” he asked, without turning to look at me.

Not having considered the question before, I took a moment to think.

“Everything that can react to things?” I proposed eventually.

“Expound.” Was his reply.

“Well... a rock can be broken in half. Though it will change because of this, it can’t react to that change. A plant, for example, can grow in a different direction if the locations of the sudden changes. Animals and humans are even more so. In other words, everything that is alive can react to changes, while dead things can only ‘undergo’ them.” I explained, my confidence growing as I thought up a halfway decent argument.

The dry man hummed noncommittedly.

“I would describe that as a feature of life, not a definition.” He eventually said, “Let me give you my definition. Everything that breaks ‘order’ is life. Life brings uncountable changes, twisting fate as it pleases. Death, on the other hand, is a return to order. It’s when a chemical and/or a metaphysical cycle runs out of the energy needed to persist, and returns to equilibrium.”

“Okay...” I murmured, as if the second part of his explanation didn’t completely fly over my head. I understood some parts, though...

“So, again, why bring me here?”

“This pond represents death. It is always at equilibrium, both chemically and metaphysically. However...” he mused, before picking up a rock and chucking it into the pond.

This caused some kind of reaction, and the lake suddenly stirred. Green lights erupted from the lake, before falling back down. The entire lake lit up, showing a storm of small green lights that mesmerized me.

“...this lake also represents the shift from death to life. The opposite can be found everywhere, but this spectacle is rarer. This will also be your reward.” He finished.

“My reward?” I asked, momentarily caught off guard.

“Indeed. You will learn much from the principles this lake holds. Your essence will benefit.”

“You mean?” I asked, surprised he had found out about my essence skill by himself.

“Of course. You wear your essence openly. Any classer of my level would be able to find you from hundreds of miles away.”

“Huh...” I gulped audibly. That wasn’t a reassuring thought.

“Now then... No time to waste.” The dry man said, before grabbing me by the shoulders and hurling me right into the middle of the lake.

The last thing I remember seeing before passing out was how the vines turned from luscious green plants into whips made of animal bones when they passed into the water.

Was it too late to start panicking?

-Scene transition-

The dry man patted his overalls, dusting some of the dirt on them to the ground below. His growing love for gardening had been a welcoming hobby. It allowed him to clear his mind and forget his problems for a while. Helios knew he had needed it, in the years after Maria’s disappearance. Thankfully, she was now back, safe and sound.

It stung that he had to leave his beloved daughter in the encampment, but there was nothing for it. His sudden return home had been for two reasons. For one, he wanted to share some of his revelations with the boy. It was a risk to expose the lake, sure, but he owed the young man. This was one way of rewarding him for his bravery, one far more valuable than any tier 5 equipment he had stored in his vaults. What was more, he had enjoyed the look on the boy’s face as he had thrown him head-first into the lake of equilibrium, as he liked to call it.

The second reason was far less pleasant, however.

He was expecting a visitor. His ascension couldn’t go unnoticed. He had done well hiding his proximity to the barrier, all these decades, but he knew the moment he opened his eyes as a newly advanced tier 7, that his new peers would seek him out. Well, one of them, anyway.

The pope of the Helios church had always been a nosy person, after all.

Sure enough, the area was starting to become brighter. The birds, which usually stayed quiet in his presence, were now singing as if to welcome Helios himself. How pretentious, the dry man thought.

A bright flash announced the pope’s arrival.

The old man, who had lived for millennia, still bothered trimming his beard and wearing his fancy white and gold clothing. Who was he even hoping to impress at this point?

A small smile appeared on the dry man’s face when the pope sunk several centimeters into the mud and the grime covered his sandals.

The pope cursed inaudibly and used a skill to make the mud disappear, opting to float the rest of the way. When he finally reached the dry man, he moved first to introduce himself.

“Good day, young man. I am the current pope of the Helios church. I guard Helios’ interests on this continent. As you are a newly advanced peer of mine, you may call me Myers, however.” The old sod spoke good-naturedly, before extending his hand as a welcoming gesture.

The dry man sighed internally. No matter how high you climbed, there was no escaping politics.

The dry man invited his visitor inside of his home, where the old man nagged the dry man’s ears off with mentions of ‘cooperative growth’ and ‘militaristic symbiotics’. The pope’s kind smile never faltered once, even when he was suggesting they go to war for the sake of strengthening their respective armies with levels and experience.

By the end of their conversation, the dry man was convinced that he was speaking to a con man, despite the immense power that roiled off of the pope’s body, causing his robe to billow in the wind.

The conversation ended with neither agreeing to anything, but the future of the between lands was starting to look a little brighter. After all, the sudden monopoly that the dry man had gained couldn’t mean that he would start to coddle his troops. Classers grew through battle, after all...