124 Sprouts of Wisdom

He had been humbled — taught where he truly stood in the world and had been forced to face what the consequences of his actions would cause.

There was nothing that could force a person to change like the agonizing and incessant sting of regret.

That was something he was sure about. There was no greater suffering than the unceasing torment brought on by genuine regret. It was a special kind of pain that had no anodyne. Pleasures of the flesh would never be able to abate something as terrible as it. Neither would the passage of time.

Only fools and cowards believed that — desperately so, with their miserable, little hearts.

No, time did not affect it either, and in fact, only served to intensify the agony. This was a hard-earned piece of knowledge that he had obtained on his own.

Reed was no different, regardless of his status, power, or personal upbringing.

It did not matter whether one had a power as godlike as the ability to reshape reality. And it surely did not matter whether one was born as either a prince or an orphan.

Regret was such a weighty, inescapable penalty that not even God was above it, much less the likes of mortal men. Some things transcended even the one who created them… and regret was one such thing.

The moment Reed understood this and came to terms with it, he would give back what he had taken from him. Until then, he would wait...

Several days passed with little to show for them. Failure was all that had arisen from his unrelenting efforts. It would not budge so much as a millimeter for him. If anything, it was getting even harder for him to pick up the stone.

It was as if it had responded to his efforts and redoubled the amount of pain it caused whenever he tried to pick it up. The stone would raise the threshold of pain it would inflict upon him for every time he failed as punishment for his continued hubris… and ignorance.

The stone could not be lifted with mere strength of will alone, just as one could not shrug off their innermost regrets just because they wanted to with all their heart.

Running away from one's problems would not accomplish a single thing.

Thus, nothing had changed. His persistent attempts had been nothing more than exercises in futility. Reed still had not yet grasped what the stone wanted of him.

He was unworthy...

Because of his cowardice. He had already resolved himself to protect and prevent the tragedy that was to befall them, but it was not out of selflessness or a sense of responsibility.

Fear was what had driven him to act. It was the fear of loss and of the eternal guilt that he would have to carry for the rest of his life that had driven him into his current, frenzied state.

That was the source of his desperation. There was nothing about it that was commendable.

An insidious, twisted delusion had taken hold of Reed — that he had properly reformed and become worthy of lifting the stone. He had come to believe that he truly had resolved himself to saving the old couple because it was the correct thing to do.

That Reed was doing it for them… when in truth, it was all but a honeyed lie. A sweet thing he had convinced himself of in order to move forward.

He wasn't doing it for them; He was doing it for himself.

It was a truly detestable thing, which was the stone had punished him the way it had done. He would not tolerate being told such a pathetic lie.

Reed had reached his wit's end. He couldn't handle it anymore — picking up the stone. The suffering that came with the stone had grown too much to bear.

For the first time since he had woken up on that day, he had not picked up the stone. He finally realized that it wasn't going to happen, even if he tried putting his life on the line. Chances were it'd probably punish with something even worse than before if he tried to pick it up again…

It was a baby step, but it was a step forward in the right direction.

He wanted to try picking it up, but he knew that nothing good would come of it. That he would only come to regret it.

In a way, it had become an obsession for him. It had unwittingly turned into a miserable pissant and a slave to the power it possessed.

Only now had Reed finally seen what he had become as of late. What he once promised himself to never bend to had gotten the best of him.

Desperately clinging to power not my own, to the point of I nearly lost myself to it. ......God-fucking-dammit. I— this isn't who… I am.

How alluring you are but I know you for who you really are — a burden.

Reed had seen how power had clouded the judgment of common people all too well. People who had never experienced the intoxicating surge of ecstasy always succumbed to it.

They'd become slaves to it without even knowing it'd even happened.

He hated to it admit, but he now understood why the stone had rejected him.

I'm not ready. I will never be able to lift it as long as I am susceptible to the power it contains.

Poison — that's what it is. I've always known this. But even so, I've never been able to avoid the effects it's had on me.

New questions had arisen from this realization. It was the beginning of something new — growth. 

Then how do I prevent it from affecting me? How does one become immune to the effects that power has on the heart? Can it be done?

Although small, these seeds — those simple questions — were the means upon which he would change. In fact, it was a reason for celebration…

Regret was a painful gift that offered a person a clearer insight of themselves and the world at large. It made them see life past their own limited perspective.

To wallow upon regret was a mistake, as was to try to forget it.

Reed had finally reached the breaking point. At some point in time, he had committed both mistakes.

When she had sacrificed herself to protect him, he had wallowed in regret. Tried to chain it to himself with… an oath to her…

…And when she had been sacrificed, he had tried to run away from it in exile in a land far, far away…

But this time… it was different. In this specific situation, he could neither wallow nor run away. The circumstances had forced Reed to finally confront his regrets head-on.

It had not happened yet; Reed could still save them.

He had no excuse to wallow in what'd happened or run away from it. The future was in his hands. He just did not know it yet.

I need answers and I'm way out of my league here.

What I need is back up. Someone who might be able to point me in the right direction…

Thankfully, he knew two such people. They could help him. In fact, they had been the first people who had popped into his head. He was sure that they could shed some light on his problem.

Two entire lifetimes of wisdom were downstairs in the bakery, probably enjoying their morning cup of coffee.

There was nothing to lose in asking them… aside from a couple of loaves of bread and some coffee.

Such a price is easy enough to pay, thought Reed.

Reed gazed at the stone a final time before he finally forced himself out of his bedroom. He had taken the first step and broken the hold — the curse of the stone — it once had on him.

…Little did Reed know that the moment he stepped out of the bedroom, something had happened to the stone.

The stone, which had once been completely dyed crimson, had changed.

A tiny patch of crimson had disappeared. Beneath the stained blood on the stone lay something else, unknown to Reed and even to… him.

It was something new. It was not something that had been put there by him. A most curious thing had happened — a change in the course of fate that would eventually lead to… incredible things.

Where it had come from, or how it had formed was beyond the ken of the stars.

The stone, for the briefest of moments, throbbed in anticipation and the Anima around it blossomed in response. The garden plants that'd been Reed and Lu'um's bedroom had mysteriously grown what seemed like an entire decade by the time they'd turned in for bed that night.

It'd been quite the surprise — seeing a miniature forest grow out of nowhere...