Alone, at the top of the Illusion Tree - Chapter 23 – The Three Eras

Eon returned to the library earlier than usual.

The morning routine had been completed with the same quiet efficiency. Martha’s stall arranged. Herman’s crates moved. The baker’s lessons practiced without instruction. No words wasted, no effort misplaced.

Then he went straight to Luna.

She did not greet him.

She rarely did.

Instead, she slid a stack of books across the table without looking up, as if she had already anticipated what he wanted.

“History,” she said. “Not the simplified versions.”

Eon nodded and sat.

The pages were old. Not in appearance alone, but in structure. They were not written like guides or records meant for players. There were no clear sections labeled for convenience. No summaries. No highlighted truths.

Just accounts.

Conflicting, overlapping, sometimes incomplete.

He read anyway.

Hours passed.

And slowly, a structure began to form.

There were three eras.

Not official in the sense of system categorization. No interface labeled them. No quest log confirmed their existence.

But the books agreed.

Three distinct periods.

Three shifts in the world.

The Beginning Era

This was the clearest.

Not because it was well-documented, but because it was simple.

The world was young.

Kingdoms were few. Settlements scattered. Most regions untamed, unclaimed, undefined. The boundaries between territories were fluid, often decided by proximity rather than conflict.

Magic was unstable.

Not weaker.

Unrefined.

Records described it as “raw” and “unshaped.” Spells were inconsistent, sometimes failing entirely, sometimes producing effects far beyond expectation. There were no standardized teachings. No academies. No classifications.

People learned through trial.

Often fatal.

Monsters were different too.

Less specialized. More volatile. Their forms shifted depending on environment, sometimes even within the same species. There was no clear hierarchy. No predictable scaling.

The world was… incomplete.

Not in a broken sense.

In a developing one.

Eon paused there.

It resembled something.

Not a finished system.

A foundation.

The Lost Era

This was where clarity began to fracture.

The records became inconsistent. Entire sections contradicted each other. Dates overlapped. Names appeared and disappeared without explanation.

Something had happened.

Not a single event.

A period of collapse.

Kingdoms that were recorded in the Beginning Era vanished without conclusion. Cities were referenced in one text and absent in another. Entire regions were described as “unreachable” or “no longer present.”

The language changed too.

Writers became uncertain.

Phrases like “it is said”, “records suggest”, “accounts differ” appeared frequently. Certainty gave way to speculation.

But there were constants.

War.

Not isolated conflicts, but prolonged, widespread war. Not always between nations. Sometimes between factions that did not clearly exist before. Some texts hinted at internal divisions.

Groups within kingdoms turning against each other for reasons that were never fully explained.

And then there were mentions of… disappearance.

Not death.

Not destruction.

Disappearance.

Places.

People.

Entire populations.

Gone without trace.

One passage stood out.

“The world did not break. It was removed in parts, as if something unseen had taken interest in its structure.”

Eon read that line twice.

Then a third time.

There were no follow-ups.

No explanation.

Just silence after.

The Forbidden Era

This one was different.

Not unclear.

Restricted.

The books that referenced it were incomplete. Pages torn out. Sections deliberately removed. In some cases, entire volumes were reduced to fragments, as if someone had attempted to erase the era itself but failed to do so completely.

Luna had watched him when he reached this part.

Not stopping him.

But not helping either.

What remained was enough.

The Forbidden Era began after the collapse of the Lost Era.

That much was certain.

What defined it was not growth.

It was control.

Magic stabilized.

Too much.

Spells became consistent, predictable, categorized. Systems of learning emerged. Institutions formed to regulate usage. What had once been chaotic became structured.

Monsters changed again.

No longer volatile.

Defined.

Classes of creatures began to appear. Behaviors standardized. Patterns established. The world became readable.

Safer.

But also… narrower.

Then came the prohibitions.

Certain knowledge was sealed. Entire branches of study declared off-limits. Not discouraged.

Forbidden.

The texts did not always say why.

But when they did, the reasoning was consistent.

“To prevent recurrence.”

Recurrence of what was never clearly stated.

Only implied.

There were references to individuals.

Not heroes.

Not villains.

Figures who had “gone too far.” Who had accessed or created something that disrupted the balance established after the Lost Era.

Their names were removed.

Their works erased.

Only their consequences remained.

One fragment read:

“The world was nearly made to forget itself.”

Eon closed the book after that.

The library was quiet.

Luna had not moved from her position, though her eyes flicked toward him briefly before returning to her own reading.

Eon leaned back slightly, processing.

Three eras.

A beginning defined by instability.

A middle defined by loss.

A present defined by restriction.

It was not just history.

It was progression.

Or correction.

He looked down at his hands.

At the absence of a class.

At the way the system responded to him differently.

At the goblins that changed only under prolonged pressure.

At the fact that no one else seemed to encounter what he did.

A thought formed.

Not sudden.

Not sharp.

But steady.

If the Forbidden Era existed to prevent recurrence…

Then anything that resembled the past

Anything that moved outside the controlled structure

Would not be guided.

It would be… unaccounted for.

Eon exhaled slowly.

He was not following a path.

He was stepping into gaps.

And the deeper he went, the less the world resembled something designed

And the more it resembled something that had been shaped, restricted, and left incomplete.

He closed the final book and stood.

Luna spoke without looking at him.

“Understanding history doesn’t change it.”

Eon paused.

“No,” he said quietly.

“But it explains what’s missing.”

Luna did not respond.

Eon left the library.

Outside, Haven’s Reach continued as it always had. The same routines. The same motions. The same quiet life.

Unchanged.

On the surface.

But now he knew.

This world had been different once.

Night settled over Haven’s Reach with a quiet familiarity.

The torches were lit one by one. Shadows stretched along the stone paths. The forge burned brighter against the dark, its steady glow marking the place where the town now gathered without needing to be told.

Eon stepped into the open space.

The crowd was already there.

Not large. Not loud. But present.

They knew.

Boros stood at the center, as always. One axe in hand, the other resting at his side. No announcement. No signal.

Just readiness.

Eon exhaled slowly and stepped forward.

Something was different.

Not in his stance. Not in his breath.

In his mind.

The books from the library lingered. The structure of the world. The idea of restriction. Of controlled paths. Of what had been removed.

And what still remained.

“Ready?” Boros asked.

Eon nodded.

This time, when Boros mov-

Eon moved first.

The distance closed faster than before. No hesitation. No waiting for the “correct” moment. He stepped into range and struck, forcing the exchange instead of reacting to it.

The first clash was sharp.

His fist met the haft of Boros’ axe, deflecting just enough to avoid a direct counter. The impact still sent a jolt up his arm, but he didn’t pull back. He followed through, shifting his weight, forcing Boros to adjust instead of dominating the space outright.

A change.

Small.

But real.

The crowd quieted.

Boros stepped back half a pace.

Not retreat.

Assessment.

Then the second exchange began.

Faster.

Heavier.

Eon moved with less thought now. Not abandoning control, but committing sooner. When he saw an opening, he took it. When he didn’t, he created pressure instead of waiting.

A strike landed.

Not clean.

But enough.

Boros’ shoulder shifted slightly from the impact.

A murmur moved through the onlookers.

Eon didn’t hear it.

He was already moving again.

The rhythm changed.

Before, every second had been survival.

Now it was contention.

He dodged a horizontal swing, stepped inside, aimed for Boros’ center. The counter came immediately, but this time Eon anticipated it. He twisted, taking the edge of the blow instead of the full force, and stayed on his feet.

Pain registered.

He ignored it.

Another exchange.

Another near hit.

Another adjustment.

Time stretched.

For the first time, the fight was not one-sided.

It hovered.

Balanced on a thin edge.

A moment came

A real one.

An opening.

Boros overextended slightly on a downward strike. Not a mistake. A test. But it was there.

Eon saw it.

He moved.

Everything aligned. Distance. Timing. Commitment.

His fist drove forward

And stopped short.

Not because he hesitated.

Because Boros had already moved.

The counter was immediate.

Precise.

Decisive.

The impact hit clean.

Eon’s body lifted from the ground and dropped hard a second later, air forced from his lungs in a single, empty gasp.

Silence followed.

He didn’t get up right away.

The sky above him was dark, scattered with stars he hadn’t noticed during the fight.

Footsteps approached.

Boros stood over him.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then-

“You had it,” Boros said.

Eon let out a weak breath, somewhere between a laugh and frustration.

“Almost,” he muttered.

“Not almost,” Boros corrected. “You reached it.”

Eon turned his head slightly, looking at him.

Boros’ expression had not changed much.

But something was different.

Subtle.

His eyes.

There was something there now that hadn’t been before.

Approval.

And beneath it

A faint smile.

Not wide. Not obvious.

But real.

Eon saw it.

And understood.

The gap was no longer unreachable.

He pushed himself up slowly, every movement heavy, every muscle protesting.

The crowd began to disperse, quieter than usual. There was no need for commentary. They had seen enough.

Boros adjusted his grip on the axe and stepped back.

“Same time,” he said.

Eon nodded.

This time, without hesitation.

As he turned to leave, the night felt different.

Not lighter.

Not easier.

But clearer.

He had lost.

Again.

But for the first time

It had not felt absolute.

Eon logged out.

The familiar shift pulled him back into the stillness of his room. For a moment, he remained seated inside the capsule, letting the sensation settle. His body felt heavier than it should have. Not from strain, but from accumulation. Too many thoughts, too many fragments beginning to align.

He stepped out and went straight to his desk.

The forums loaded.

Illusion Tree

He did not hesitate this time.

A new post.

Not about goblins.

Not about mechanics.

History.

He began typing.

The Beginning Era. Raw magic. Unstable systems. A world still forming. He wrote it as he understood it, not simplifying, but making it readable. Then the Lost Era. Fragmentation. Disappearances. Contradictions in records. He included the uncertainty, the lack of clarity, the way the information itself seemed broken.

Finally, the Forbidden Era.

Control. Restriction. Removal.

He added more than just summaries. Observations. Patterns. The idea that the world had not simply progressed, but had been corrected. That something had gone wrong, and what existed now was a version shaped to prevent it from happening again.

He paused before adding the last part.

Then continued.

His own experience.

The goblin variants. The adaptation. The way prolonged presence changed outcomes. The absence of EXP, yet the presence of something equivalent. The possibility that the system redistributed growth instead of denying it.

He did not frame it as fact.

Only as theory.

When he finished, he adjusted the visibility.

Private.

Friends only.

There were still no friends.

It remained a record.

A continuation of the one before.

If someone like him ever found it, they would understand.

He leaned back, exhaling slowly.

Information preserved.

For now.

He lingered on the forum a while longer, drifting through threads without focus. Builds, arguments, short-lived discoveries that would be replaced within days. Nothing that held weight.

Then something different appeared.

An announcement.

A large one.

Pinned.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he opened it.

A tournament.

Held in the capital.

Specia

Hosted by a guild.

Tyrants

He read it carefully.

A one-on-one combat tournament. Open registration. Structured brackets. Standard elimination.

The rewards were simple.

Top five, entry into the guild.

The winner is given a custom weapon, crafted to specification.

Eon stared at the screen for a moment longer than necessary.

A weapon.

It meant nothing to him.

Not yet.

But the rest

Players.

Fighters.

Not beasts.

Not patterns.

People.

His mind drifted briefly to Boros. To the fights. To the gap that had started to close.

A tournament like that…

It would not be the same.

But it would be close.

He leaned back slightly, considering.

Specia.

The capital.

A central hub.

If there were answers beyond Haven’s Reach, they would likely converge there. Players, information, movement.

And perhaps others like him.

The thought passed without conclusion.

He closed the thread.

The room was quiet again.

Eon shut down the screen, stood, and moved to his bed. The routine was familiar. Mechanical.

But his mind was not.

As he lay down, the fragments of the day remained.

The three eras.

The idea of a seed.

The capital.

The tournament.

They lingered and slowly, without resolution, they carried him into sleep.

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