After finishing the second book, Leo leaned back slightly in his chair, his gaze still fixed on the final page that now lay open before him.
Unlike the haunting memoir of Captain Vonn, this one did not end in madness or massacre, but it still painted a bleak picture.
Varn Elric had survived.
That was the first thing Leo acknowledged, the most important takeaway of all. The man had gone in, broken through, fought beasts, suffered injuries, and returned with his mind and journal intact.
His potential was permanently capped, yes— but even then, he had endured.
And that, Leo reasoned, was something to be admired.
As he reflected deeper, Leo's thoughts lingered on the irreversible damage to Varn's mana circuits.
The elasticity of his mana pathways, once capable of expanding and adapting to sudden fluctuations in flow, had become rigid and inflexible after meditating inside the world.
