Asher stared at Wilna, struggling to comprehend what she’d just told him. A part of him had entertained the idea that he’d potentially live forever from his Eternal Regeneration constantly working in the background as a passive skill, but not aging? At all?

  His mind briefly went to the future and what this meant for him. All of the new friends he’d made upon coming to this world would continue to grow older and live their lives, leaving him behind. His dreams of growing old with Samantha, of enjoying their time together as they joked about grey hairs and past adventures were shattered, suddenly completely off the table. Brian would one day grow older than he was, no longer able to look up to him as a hero or trusted figure. He would have to watch the two of their bodies slowly wither away and eventually fail, all while they were forced to watch him in the prime of his youth.

  Immortality was a nightmare.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, laughing weakly as he tried to wrap his head around what little he knew from his first-aid studies and random knowledge he’d picked up from the internet during his old life on Earth. “Even if my body was constantly healing itself, I’d still be growing older, right? I mean, I’m not going to be twenty-three forever… right?”

  “One moment,” Wilna said, getting to her feet and turning to leave before pausing and giving him a stern look. “Don’t go warping away or anything. Understand?”

  Asher nodded aimlessly, and Wilna walked off. A minute later, she returned, sitting back down and nodding at him. “I’ve officially closed down the library. You and I are the only ones left for the night, so we don’t need to worry about being disturbed, and we can speak candidly with one another without fear of eavesdroppers. Allow me to start with saying I feel as though I need to apologize yet again for springing this on you, Asher. This is never a conversation that should be held lightly.

  “To begin, I think I need to clarify what I said earlier. Whatever it is that is granting you your immortality, it is distinctly not your regeneration skill,” she explained, snapping Asher out of his inner turmoil for a moment as he grew confused.

  “Huh? Why do you say that?”

  “A person or an object’s age is something that is constantly increasing ever so slowly without end,” Wilna explained. “I have witnessed people undergoing incredible feats of healing magic in my life, and during these procedures a person’s age often does slow down, but it never stops. Whatever it is that has granted you your immortality, it is not your healing skill. It is something more.”

  “Then what could it be?” Asher asked, his mind running down his skills. He could maybe see Complete Resilience giving him a resistance to aging… Or Permanence allowing him to permanently remain young one day once he’d evolved the skill… but as it stood, neither felt correct.

  “I believe you are not thinking clearly in your panic,” Wilna said, reaching across the table and taking his hand in one of her own. Her porcelain skin was cool and hard to the touch, and the unexpected texture helped ground him a little bit. “The why is not nearly as important as what being immortal entails, but I have a theory. I believe it is your element’s passive.”

  “Of course,” Asher gasped, realizing that had to be the case in an instant. Even with how scattered his thoughts were at the moment of watching everyone he loved die one day, it made perfect sense. “All this time, I had no idea what the Eternity element’s passive was, but making me immortal sounds about right. Oh god, does that mean I’m going to have to experience the heat death of the universe at some point?!”

  “I have no idea what that is, but calm down,” Wilna frowned, squeezing his hand a bit harder than necessary and causing him to jump at the sudden pain. “Now that we’ve established the most likely ‘why’ behind your immortality, it is time for you and I to have the chat that every elemental-kin has with their creator. Or at least, the one every elemental-kin should have with their creator.”

  Taking a deep breath that had to be learned behavior seeing as she most certainly didn’t need to breathe, Wilna fixed him with a hard look, her shining eyes boring straight into his own as she spoke with what felt like complete and utter certainty. “You will not live forever.”

  “Huh?” Asher managed, her certainty giving him sudden whiplash after what she’d just revealed. “But you just said-”

  “I said you are no longer aging, yes,” Wilna nodded, letting go of his hand and sitting up in her chair once more. “There is quite a large difference between being immortal and being invulnerable. I have witnessed enough elemental-kin die over my long lifespan to know that first-hand. Even if you theoretically have the ability to live forever, you can die just as easily as anyone else.”

  “You don’t understand,” Asher said, shaking his head as he let out a mildly insane laugh. “I don’t die just as easily as anyone else. Even if I die, I come back to life. If I’m not aging, either? I’m probably about as close to a true immortal as one could possibly get!”

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  A small part of Asher wondered if discussing the inner working of Eternal Regeneration with Wilna was really the best idea, but that voice was currently being drowned out with images of him drifting through space in a few billion years, long after this world’s sun blew up and the planet was destroyed. As he was now, he’d truly die if his body was destroyed, but there was no telling how powerful Eternal Regeneration would become once he evolved it to the third tier. If it truly made it impossible for him to die…

  Was that a hell he was really willing to bring upon his future self?

  “You are spiraling again!” Wilna snapped, actually leaning forward and lightly smacking him in the face. Despite her attempt at being gentle, getting smacked in the face with what was functionally a chunk of porcelain hurt, and Asher recoiled as he was brought back to the here and now once more. “I understand that you have an impossibly powerful healing skill, but I promise you this. With the sheer quantity of monsters and skills that exist in this world, it is all but guaranteed that one day, something will come along with the power to kill you.”

  “But-”

  “Can you survive having your soul plucked from your body and devoured by a Soul Reaver?” Wilna asked, giving him a pointed look as she began ticking options off on her fingers. “What about your body disintegrating in an instant from the breath of a solar dragon and the ashes scattered upon the winds with a gust of its wings? Messing up a trip through the realms and falling into the void? Searching for artifacts in the abyss and encountering any of the horrifying creatures that dwell within? Someone with a unique skill capable of countering your regeneration and putting you down for good? There are countless dangers and magical abilities scattered throughout this world and the realms to consider. Named monsters strong enough to wipe out entire armies of people within the Stage of Power. Even if you have the potential to live forever, rest assured, sooner or later, something will kill you.”

  It wasn’t lost on Asher the strangeness of Wilna attempting to reassure him that there were plenty of ways he could die one day, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Slowly, he nodded, the last of his hysterics fading away as he realized she’d made at least one very good point, even if she didn’t realize it. In fact, there was someone with a unique skill capable of countering his Eternal Regeneration and putting him down for good.

  Himself.

  Asher let out the strangest sigh of relief as he sank down in his chair, the pounding in his chest finally slowing down to a more reasonable level as he realized everything would be okay. His own Sever the Thread was the perfect counter to Eternal Regeneration and his Eternity element’s passive. He wouldn’t have to one day experience the heat death of the universe, or the rest of the human race evolving into some sort of higher being and leaving him left behind. He could live for as long as he wanted to, and then decide for himself when it was time to hang up his coat and take the long rest.

  Though while he no longer had to fear drifting through the cold depths of space in a few billion years, there were still the more immediate problems his immortality caused.

  “I’m going to have to watch everyone around me die one day, aren’t I?” he asked quietly, looking at his own hands and wondering how he’d feel about looking at such young hands after he’d experienced his first full century of life. It would be one thing if it was a skill that granted him his immortality, but if it truly was the Eternity element's passive, that was a problem. Skills could be turned into artifacts, provided one had a trusted enchanter and skilled gem crafter on their side. But elemental passives didn't work that way.

  “It is something every elemental-kin needs to come to terms with shortly after their creation,” Wilna said softly. “Although for us, it is often our creator revealing that we will have to watch them die one day. What a cold twist of fate for the universe to throw at us. Allowing certain members of humanity the power to create immortal children, only to force those children to watch their parent slowly grow old and wither away before their unchanging bodies. Crastons do not cry, but I have never felt such sorrow as I did the day I watched my creator take his last breath. Most of my family had scattered by that point, at our creator’s own urging, so that we wouldn’t have to witness his death. But I refused to let him pass all on his own. He’d created one of the largest families in the entire world. It was only fair that at least one of his children be there for him to comfort him in his final moments.”

  “I’m sorry,” Asher said, looking at the craston in an entirely new light. Somehow, hearing Wilna lament about her own experiences made him feel just the smallest bit better about his own worries for the future. Simply knowing that he wasn’t alone made all the difference.

  “You asked earlier if all elemental-kin knew one another,” Wilna said, shaking her head as if to clear it of old memories that haunted her to this day. “One of the reasons why we try to keep in touch is because it is too painful to grow close to mortals. None of us wish to experience that pain anew. Some people think elemental-kin believe ourselves to be better than regular humans, because we largely keep to ourselves and don’t open up to others. The reality is that we simply do not wish to grow attached.”

  “Have you ever tried coming up with a way to share your immortality?" Asher asked, his mind finally shifting gears over toward how to tackle the problem of being the only human immortal, rather than lamenting his woes. If magic granted him immortality, surely there was some method of doing the same for those he cared about.

  “That line of thinking leads to little more than darkness and woe,” Wilna said, frowning as if she knew exactly what he was thinking about. “Take The Council of Death, for example. There lies a group of humans who desperately sought any way to conquer the limits of mortality and live forever. Would you want that for those you cared about?”

  “I see your point… More than you could possibly know,” he added, shivering at the thought of Samantha or Brian turning into walking corpses with fires burning in their eye sockets. “But that’s only one solution. There has to be others!”

  “Perhaps there are,” Wilna said, giving him one last sad smile as she stood up. “Not that I believe it will stop you in any way, but you should know you’re currently going through what all elemental-kin go through when their creators reveal that their human bodies will give out one day. I too spent decades searching for a solution, and other than potentially binding my creator’s soul to a porcelain construct, a fate he said he wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy, I found nothing.”

  “I’m not giving up without even trying,” Asher said, getting to his own feet and feeling hope kindle within his chest. He had unique elements and tools that Wilna never had access to. Skills that still had more evolutions to undergo and abilities that had never been seen before in this entire realm.

  And if this realm didn’t have an answer to keeping those he cared about alive, then he’d just have to go find it on another.

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