Chapter 33: My Wife’s Gnosis Is Rebuilding

The readings finally began to settle.

Cassian leaned toward the display and checked the numbers twice before slowly exhaling. "Her Gnosis container has rebuilt itself."

Reinhard stared through the barrier as a familiar blue window appeared in front of him.

[SS Investment Complete.]

[Target: Emily Ashcroft.]

[Stage Two: Gnosis Container Restoration Successful.]

[Gnosis Recovery Investment Updated.]

[Restoration Compatibility: 20% → 70%.]

[Target Value Increased.]

[Emily Ashcroft: B → B+.]

[Reward Calculation Complete.]

[Legendary Reward Obtained.]

Seventy percent.

It was a much bigger increase than Reinhard had expected, but he didn’t open the reward. He dismissed the window without even looking at it.

It can wait.

Right now, Emily mattered more.

The treatment lights slowly dimmed, and Emily’s body relaxed against the bed. Her breathing was still weak but steady, and Reinhard waited until Cassian gave him a nod before entering the chamber.

Emily’s eyes opened slowly.

For a moment, she simply stared at the ceiling before taking a careful breath.

"Reinhard."

He was beside her immediately. "That sounds serious."

She looked at him, almost thrown off by the joke. "I can feel something."

He raised an eyebrow. "Something good, or something that’s going to make Cassian start yelling?"

Cassian gave him a tired look from behind the equipment. "I’d prefer neither."

Emily laughed softly, but her expression quickly became focused as she looked down at her hand.

"Mana. I can feel it staying."

Reinhard’s expression softened. "Really?"

Emily closed her eyes and breathed in.

A faint shimmer rose from her skin, coming from inside her body rather than gathering from the air around her.

Her eyes opened again.

"...It really worked."

"It did," Reinhard said.

She had felt mana return before, but this was different.

This time, it stayed.

A tear slipped down her cheek. "I can hold it. I can actually hold it."

Maki stepped forward and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Emily..."

Emily laughed through her tears. "I thought I’d forgotten how."

"You didn’t," Yuna said with a smile.

Reinhard took Emily’s hand, and she held onto him tightly.

"See? It only took one treatment to fix your container. I bet it won’t even take a month to get you fully ready."

Emily laughed softly. "And you’ll make sure of it?"

"Obviously. Your husband is amazing, after all."

"You’re impossible." She squeezed his hand. "But I believe you."

Cassian cleared his throat.

"There’s something else."

Emily turned toward him.

"Your Gnosis container has been restored enough to function again, but your actual Gnosis ability is still dormant."

Her smile dimmed slightly. "I expected that. I’ve been trying to reach it, and it’s still asleep."

"Waking it will take the next phase."

"That’s fine."

To everyone’s surprise, Emily closed her eyes again.

A faint shimmer gathered around her fingers.

Cassian’s expression changed.

"Wait."

Emily didn’t.

Instead of letting the mana settle inside her body the way Yuna had taught her, she guided it outward and shaped it into a pattern she had used thousands of times before.

A translucent blue barrier formed in front of her.

It wasn’t large, and its edges trembled, but it held.

Yuna’s eyes widened. "Mana Shield? You can already make it?"

Emily nodded. "It’s been a while."

Cassian hurried toward the readings, his eyes moving between the monitor and the shield.

"You’re reproducing techniques already?"

"I used this one for years."

The movements were still familiar.

Her problem had never been forgetting how to use her abilities. She simply hadn’t been able to keep enough mana inside her body to use them.

The shield flickered and dissolved into blue particles.

Emily took a deeper breath.

"I’m running out of mana."

Yuna checked the readings. "You used almost everything you gathered."

Emily looked down at her hands. "So little."

"For now," Yuna said.

Cassian continued studying the monitor. "Your reserves are almost nothing compared to what they used to be, but you’re already reproducing techniques from before your Gnosis was shattered."

"It just shows she’s a genius." Reinhard poked her cheek. "But you’re still slower than me. If you don’t hurry up, I’ll be the one protecting you for the rest of your life."

Emily puffed out her cheeks. "Who would want that?"

"Your husband, obviously."

"I don’t have a husband like that."

Maki’s lips twitched, Lily covered her mouth, and Yuna giggled while Reinhard laughed at the small smile Emily was trying to hide.

Emily raised her hand again, and several small spheres of blue mana formed above her palm.

Lily leaned closer. "I remember those."

"They were useful," Emily said.

"They were annoying."

"They worked."

"They were annoying because they worked."

Emily laughed as she moved her fingers, causing the spheres to orbit slowly around her hand.

Reinhard watched them for a moment. "Can I try?"

Emily looked at him. "You’ve never tried?"

"Not like this."

She shifted slightly to give him room.

"Go ahead."

Reinhard raised his hand, and a single sphere of mana formed above his palm.

Emily’s smile disappeared.

She stared at it.

"Do that again."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

He formed another sphere.

This time Emily leaned closer, her eyes widening.

"That’s..."

Yuna looked over. "What?"

Emily pointed toward Reinhard’s palm. "How much mana are you putting into that?"

Reinhard looked at the sphere.

"I don’t know."

Cassian walked over and studied it for several seconds before his expression changed.

"Reinhard, how much mana do you normally have?"

"Enough."

"That isn’t an answer."

Reinhard shrugged.

Cassian ran a scan.

Then another.

His expression became increasingly strange.

"That’s impossible."

Reinhard smiled. "I’ve heard that before."

Cassian finally turned toward him.

"Your mana reserves are roughly ten times what I’d expect from a normal C-Rank Awakener."

The room went quiet.

Emily blinked. "Ten times?"

"Approximately." Cassian looked back at the readings. "A Gnosis has limits. If you force too much mana into it, the pressure can destabilize the entire container. Yet yours is holding."

Reinhard thought about the Immortal Emperor Body and the mana it had been storing inside his cells ever since Aurileus.

He wasn’t about to explain that.

"Should I be flattered or worried?"

"Both."

Yuna suddenly straightened.

"That explains it."

Everyone looked at her.

"His mana control. You’ve been manipulating mana without showing any strain, even while using several abilities at once."

Cassian nodded slowly. "A normal C-Rank would have to be much more careful."

Emily looked at Reinhard. "So that’s why you never seem tired."

Reinhard placed a hand against his chest and smiled.

"So what you’re all saying is that I’m just built different?"

Lily’s lips twitched. "I guess those are the right words."

Emily laughed softly. "If you’d been an Awakener when I was rising through the ranks, I might have had another rival."

Reinhard’s smile widened. "You would have had another rival. Your future husband would never let his wife leave him behind."

Emily shook her head, still laughing. "You’re right. I would have had a very strong rival."

"Good."

Reinhard looked at the mana sphere floating above his palm.

"Then you’d better hurry up."

Her eyes narrowed playfully. "Are you challenging me?"

"Obviously."

Lily looked at Maki. "Now there are two of them."

Emily smiled.

"Fine."

For the first time in years, Emily looked at Reinhard and felt something she had almost forgotten.

Excitement.

Not because she was desperately trying to reclaim everything she had lost, but because she had found someone she actually wanted to surpass.

She moved her hand, and the orbiting spheres condensed into a thin blue blade.

It was smaller and shakier than the weapon she had once carried, and its edge trembled in the air as her breathing grew heavier.

Cassian stared at the readings.

"Even weapon creation?"

He looked at the blade for another moment before closing his eyes.

"Fine. I give up."

Reinhard smiled. "That’s probably the healthiest response."

Cassian glanced at him. "You don’t seem surprised."

"I am. I’m just better at looking impressive while being surprised."

Lily snorted. "You definitely practice that."

"Every morning. Otherwise I wouldn’t survive you people."

Even Maki smiled.

Yuna watched Emily’s readings. "You should rest."

Emily looked at the blue glow around her hand.

"After one more."

Reinhard folded his arms. "That’s how it starts."

"How what starts?"

"You say one more, and suddenly it’s three hours later."

"You’re the one who does that."

Reinhard paused.

"That’s true."

Emily laughed, and the last of the tension in the room finally disappeared. Reinhard smiled before walking over to one of the nurses and paying for the treatment.

[$7,183,340 --> $6,633,340]

[Current Balance: $550,000]

That is a lot but... It’s absolutely worth it.

Reinhard watched her carefully. The smile on her face was different from the ones he had seen before. She was having fun again.

He quietly activated Mind Glance and let her thoughts drift into his mind.

It’s really here. I can do this. I can actually do this.

He let the skill fade.

He didn’t need to hear anything else.

Maki’s eyes were shining as she watched her sister smile. Yuna had gone still beside the monitors, looking at Emily as though she were watching someone finally come home after a very long journey, while Lily stared at the mana blade with an expression that suggested Emily was about to become troublesome again.

She didn’t seem unhappy about it.

Emily was already thinking about what she could do instead of what she had lost.

Good.

That was what Reinhard had been waiting for.

Eventually, the blade faded from her hand. Emily looked down at her palm, where a faint blue glow still flickered between her fingers.

"So this is what it feels like."

Reinhard stepped closer. "How does it feel?"

She looked up at him. Her eyes were still wet, but her smile remained.

"Like I’m getting something back."

"You are."

Cassian stepped forward again, this time much more cautiously.

"The container is still fragile. Don’t push yourself."

Emily nodded, but her eyes remained on her hand.

"But I’ll be able to train, won’t I?"

"Eventually."

"How long?"

"I don’t know yet. We need to see how your Gnosis responds over the next few days."

Emily was quiet.

She had waited two years to feel mana again, and now that she finally could, waiting for another answer felt almost impossible.

"I’ve already waited long enough."

Maki smiled faintly. "You’re already planning your return?"

Emily looked down at her hands before slowly raising her eyes.

"I’ve spent two years thinking about everything I lost. I’m not going to spend the next two thinking about it again."

Reinhard watched her quietly.

There was no hesitation left on her face.

She wanted the life she had lost, and for the first time, she wasn’t willing to accept that she couldn’t have it.

"I want to walk the path of an Awakener again," Emily said.

Reinhard smiled. "Then we’ll walk it together."

Cassian watched the two of them for a moment before clearing his throat. "There’s one more thing."

They both looked at him.

"Now that the container is stable, we have two options. We can continue restoring your Gnosis..." His gaze moved down to Emily’s legs. "...or we can start working on your body."

Emily froze.

Reinhard looked at her and gently tightened his hand around hers. "Your choice."

Emily stared down at her legs for a long moment before slowly raising her eyes.

Her fingers tightened around his hand.

"I..."