"I'm the only one who knows that my mother possessed an ancient power."
Kim Rok Soo chuckled.
"Maybe it was because I was young, but I really liked how my mother said that it was a secret just between the two of us."
Cale opened his mouth to untangle the mess inside his head.
"Which ancient power did she have?"
"Mm."
Kim Rok Soo thought about it for a moment before standing up. He moved away from the bed Cale was leaning on and slowly walked around the bedroom.
"My mother possessed a wood attribute ancient power."
Cale thought about the wood attribute ancient power in the Henituse territory.
'The Indestructible Shield.'
It was the first ancient power Cale got that surrounds his heart now and was used quite frequently by him.
It was the power that was sleeping underneath the black tree that grew where the glutton priestess had died.
The black tree had turned white and transferred the power to Cale when he woke it up.
"Ah, it's not the Indestructible Shield."
Kim Rok Soo seemed to have noticed Cale's thoughts as he instantly said it was not that power. He then smiled after noticing Cale's gaze.
"I read The Birth of a Hero and it mentioned the Indestructible Shield. I knew you would have gotten that power for yourself. Am I right?"
"Yes, I took it."
"Awesome. I had a feeling you would do that."
Kim Rok Soo shrugged his shoulders.
He then stood in front of the window with the closed curtains. He was standing in front of a large window that usually allowed the sunlight to reach all the way to Cale's bed.
"Cale, do you know about the annual rings of a tree?"
"The rings you see when you chop down a tree?"
"Yeah."
Cale didn't ask why Kim Rok Soo was suddenly asking about annual rings.
Kim Rok Soo touched the curtain as he continued to speak.
"Looking at the annual rings of a tree lets you know the approximate age of it. Each circle represents one year. Annual rings look different based on where the tree is growing, the nearby environment, and weather."
A wood attribute ancient power.
"My mother said that she could see the annual rings of all living things."
"Annual rings."
Cale said those words once out loud. His expression then turned odd. Kim Rok Soo then added on.
"She said that she could see the entire annual rings of a person from birth to death."
Cale Henituse's mother had a wood attribute ancient power.
That power allowed her to see a living being's birth to its death.
"But you see..."
Kim Rok Soo turned to look at Cale.
"My mother sat me down and told me something at one point."
He recalled a memory from when he was very young. It was a conversation that he somehow could not forget, despite how long it has been.
