When he finally emerged from the lake, the cries of children surrounded him. Not only did the entire place quake as if an earthquake had struck, but the water also turned a vivid red from the injuries Stone, now Illyan Ragnar, had endured. Again.

Illyan ceased to feel the pain at some point, now only experiencing a euphoric sensation coursing throughout his body.

“Hahahhahah!” He laughed hysterically, lying on the surface with his eyeless face turned upward. It was a sincere laugh after many years, appearing extremely crooked and frenzied.

Many children, frightened by this sight, ran to the Grand Shaman.

“Grand Shaman! What is happening?!”

“Is it an enemy ambush?!”

“That guy is weirdly laughing! That’s a sign of insanity!”

The children clamored, casting scared faces at the laughing man.

“Don’t move from here. He just made a mistake in the meditation circulation. I will go fetch him.”

Kaoran's soothing voice calmed them as he swam towards the center of the lake with a worried and slightly angered face.

“Stone!” He called out, but the boy wasn’t responding.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but his consciousness quickly left him after the adrenaline faded.

‘Heh, so reckless… Won’t do that ever again…’

With this last thought, he fell into the embrace of darkness, handing over his life to fate—or, in this situation, to Kaoran, who had already reached him and pulled him out of the water.

...

“Ah... Damn it.” When he regained consciousness, he felt as if his body had been trampled by the largest wild animals of the Valas Tundra and slashed thousands of times by the sharpest blades.

He opened his eyes, yet no light entered. Panic set in, but the core memory of what happened replayed in his mind.

The realization came to him, but instead of feeling depressed, he smiled.

‘It was a good trade-off.’

“Stone! You reckless fool!” The sudden voice sounded beside him.

It was the voice of the elderly man, trying to sound angry despite being extremely worried. Upon hearing the insult, Illyan responded with a grateful tone.

“Thank you for caring for me.”

“You dumbass.” Kaoran sighed as he started to smoke his anxiety away. This boy would bring him to the grave sooner than he wanted.

“How much time has passed?”

“Not much. Just a few hours. It seems your regeneration is quicker than before,” Kaoran said with a frown.

“I see.”

“So, what happened? There is no way nothing went wrong.”

Illyan began to describe the golden eye he saw at the lake's bottom. When Kaoran heard this, his eyes widened in disbelief. Something like that hiding in the lake for several years, or possibly longer, unsettled him.

“Sigh… I should have stopped you. I didn’t expect that something like this could be lying there…” Kaoran seemed to regret not ensuring what lay at the bottom of the lake. After all, nobody went to the lake for anything other than a baptism, so nobody explored the bottom for generations.

“Not your fault. How could you know about this? The bottom is so cold that even you could have problems down there. Nobody sane would go there,” Illyan said with a self-deprecating tone.

“But you warned me before. I just failed to find anything, sigh.” Kaoran remembered when Illyan talked about those golden lights years ago and even went to look into the lake. Yet he didn’t find anything.

“Just because a delirious kid sees a glow doesn’t mean that there was really something or that it was a threat. You went there to look at it and didn’t find anything. If even you can’t detect it, then who? Anyway, what do you think that is?”

Illyan didn’t think that Kaoran made a mistake. Just because he was the shaman didn’t mean he knew everything.

In truth, Kaoran even made a basic divination to see how he would fare, and the only thing he got was a huge success. Which turned out to be true in the end.

“I don’t know, Stone. If it was really an eye, then it could be the eye of some very strong entity. Like I said before, this tribe is at the bottom of the world’s hierarchy. I traveled a bit when I was younger and was really not much in the world. So it could be possibly anything. I don’t know about that language and the ‘truth’ you were speaking about, though.”

Even Kaoran couldn’t possibly understand what had transpired there even if he were there.

Seeing that he managed to change the topic, Illyan sighed in relief.

“Don’t call me Stone anymore. I have the name now.”

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“Ah! I almost forgot completely what you went there for! Did you get the proper name? That’s great! If the eye disrupted the ceremony and you ended up with a bad name or even nameless, it would be a tragedy!”

Kaoran really forgot about this part. After all, the entire valley went through the earthquake, and he didn’t have time to think about it until now when it got calmer.

“Heh. It was actually a big success. Just like your divination said. That eye was actually close to getting me, but I used its powers against it as I named myself with its help.”

“What? Then…”

“Yes, I used the combination of the second and third way of how to get the name you told me about. And the name I got should be really good since I think the entire place started to ripple at the sound of it,” Illyan said with confidence.

But Kaoran stiffened at this. When Illyan talked about the eye, he automatically blamed the earthquake on it. But now it seemed that the eye was innocent in this case!

He wanted to say something, but in the end, he just sighed in exasperation.

“So what do you want to call yourself now?”

“From now on, I am Illyan. My true name is impossible to understand in my current state. I managed to say it only once when it formed, and it destroyed my throat completely. So this is an abbreviation of the part I understood,” Illyan explained with a blank face.

The entire time he talked with Kaoran, he lay on his back without moving to look at him. He didn’t see anyway.

“Your name… That probably means your name is too powerful for your current power. That is unusual and rare. I guess it was really a success. Even at the cost of your eyes.”

Kaoran’s sentence ended with a sarcastic remark, but Illyan nodded at it.

“Yeah. I was too reckless. I promised myself to be better. Thankfully the prize I have to pay is only temporary.”

He didn’t plan to break his promise so easily.

“Maybe. But it will take a few years minimally. Eyes are too complicated of organs to heal,” countered Kaoran as he watched the blood pits left in his eye sockets.

“But it was worth it.” Illyan closed the lids of his eyes and seemed to rest.

Kaoran sighed at this until he heard another of Illyan’s words.

“And the problem concerning the ‘Zephyr’... You don’t need to worry anymore. I solved it.”

Kaoran’s eyebrows jumped at this. He wanted to ask, but seeing that Stone, no, Illyan, was tired and needed a lot of rest, he let it be. After watching the boy for a while, he left.

He needed to take care of many things since the valley was lately less safe.

The northern creatures started to hunt in big numbers in this area, and there was nothing the Bakur Tribe could do to stop it. There were simply too many of them.

So the question was what step should they take? Originally, they stayed here since they didn’t have another place to live, and living in the wild when those creatures roamed the forests was an impossible task.

They had already called back everyone outside of the tribe ever since the raid, or else they could easily become prey. It is not like they needed to fight the tribes anymore. They would be taken care of.

Fortunately, the valley was still hidden from all the danger, but who knows for how long that will be.

“At least everything retreated from here for now.”

Kaoran feared the earthquake would attract someone uninvited here, but fortunately, it did the opposite, and everything fled.

That gave them a breather for now.

“Old man! How is he?!” The distant yet vibrant shout was heard by the shaman as he was walking around the camp.

“Ah, Urchin. He is alright. Well… As alright as someone who just lost his eyes could be,” shrugged Kaoran.

“W-what?! And it didn’t heal? Does that mean he will be blind forever?!”

Urchin seemed to panic as his voice got louder. That attracted some attention, so Kaoran smacked him on the head.

“Don’t yell. It will take time, but it will be fine after some time.”

Still holding his head that hurt now, Urchin sighed in relief.

“That’s good then. Lately he has quite misfortune behind his ass.” At this, he laughed a little.

“Yes, he doesn’t have it easy, but this was also my fault for not stopping him.” Kaoran sighed at this, and Urchin didn’t know what to say. He was at a loss.

Kaoran was also silent as they stood there in silence.

In the end, Kaoran could only smooth the situation with a few words.

“He is now resting, but you can go visit him once he is awake. He has been in a good mood since he got his name.”

“Ohh! How was it, how was it?! Was it a good name or something lame?”

Urchin was also very interested in getting his own name. And he isn’t far off with his merits. Since he never thought about visiting the Kennera Lake to get himself a name, he only needs to use the merits to cover the ceremony.

Knowing that Stone got the name, he was hyped.

“Judge that for yourself. He is now named Illyan,” Kaoran said with a small smile. He liked the name that the boy got.

“Hmm. Not bad! It suits him! But it seems more erudite than classic names in our tribe, doesn't it?”

“Well, Illyan is smart so he will definitely be much more erudite than me in the future.”

“Do you think my name will be similar?”

“I would say your name will be definitively unique.”

At this, both of them laughed.

Few days passed, and Illyan finally could get out of the tent. During these days, he was visited by Degres, Urchin, and a few others to see his state.

But he felt good like never before.

He had complications with his vision, but Kaoran carved him a cane out of wood to help him walk. Of course, that won’t solve the root of the problem, but Illyan can help himself.

Thanks to his acute hearing, he could understand his surroundings quite well. Furthermore, as his Spiritual Perception grew, he could feel it around him sometimes.

That made it possible for him to feel the surroundings a little.

Moreover, his achievement in ‘The Way of the Body’ was quite high, so he could move much easier than regular blind people.

With those factors, he started to walk around the camp. To hide his injury, he also wore a cloth hiding his eyes. He did it so he isn't the center of attention and to make sure his eyes heal without problems.

Exposure could cause many unnecessary problems, and he didn’t want to risk it. Especially when it doesn’t cost anything to wear it.

Illyan couldn’t yet do anything too difficult, as he wasn’t ready for that. But he could tend to his field. Since he remembered the shape, smell, and the position of all herbs on his field by the book, he could do most of the things he did before. Although it took three times more time.

But he still did it not only to get used to his condition but also to harvest as much of them as possible.

From Kaoran’s words, Illyan realized that the Sabretooth Snow Tigers and the bear weren’t just a coincidence and that they started to infest the area, hunting the other tribes.

They were still fine, but that would probably only be for a short time since there were so many of them.

As such, it was important to harvest as much of the herbs they grew as possible for the possible migration they will need to undergo. Fortunately, the herbs grew quite well after they found the right way under the protection of the Totem.

In truth, growing the plants should be a basic way to get the food, and most of the tribes did so. Yet the Bakur Tribe, which traveled a lot, didn’t have the time to grow something on their journeys. But now seeing that the herbs could grow so quickly, they would continue to grow them whenever they return to this valley.

If they return to this valley, that is.

Fortunately, they managed to do another baptism before leaving the valley.

So even if they leave for too long, their younger generation is still fine.

But the generation later will need to find another way to get stronger…

As these thoughts went through his mind, Illyan wondered where to go if this place needed to be abandoned.

Going with the tribe was something he already decided was not his path. But he couldn’t leave before paying off the merits and before he learned everything from Kaoran.

“Haah… We will see in the future…”