The war had ended, but the echoes of its tremors still pulsed beneath the surface of the continent. Yet, amidst rebuilding, alliances, and shifting power structures, a decision—both ancient and bold—was made.
The Kingdom of Vastelune, at the suggestion of Ari himself and with the solemn blessing of both King Vastelune and the Aurelion court, decided to revive the ancient Pilgrimage of Originis.
It was a tradition lost to time, once undertaken by the very founders of magic itself—the Originis. They traveled the breadth of the world not as kings or legends, but as humble souls: no soldiers, no coin, no servants. Only a pendant—etched with the cipher of self, a pure fragment of code from the First Compiler—that glowed faintly with one's soul signature.
And so, Ari Solen, now 19, clad not in robes of war but in simple traveler's garb, left behind the castle walls and titles. Around his neck hung the Sigil of Originis, a slender obsidian pendant woven with ancient threads of nulllight. It shimmered only when one looked closely, and it held within it every truth Ari had earned.
No money. No titles. No escort. Only himself.
His companions watched as he departed at dawn.
Cerys stood with her arms behind her back, composed but clearly suppressing the urge to follow. "He walks into the world... unguarded again," she whispered.
"Not unguarded," Eluin corrected with a quiet smile. "He walks as the world's mirror. That's more dangerous than an army."
Lysira crossed her arms, pouting slightly. "Tch. He better not get in trouble. Or I swear I'll burn every tavern that mocks him."
Primira sighed, "He's still foolish... but undeniably sovereign."
And Saphielle, standing beside them in her now-permanent residence in Vastelune, clutched her parasol and watched Ari's figure vanish over the horizon. "So that's the legacy of a god... traveling like a commoner."
Ari's pilgrimage began with the cold northern expanse of Caelumreach, where blizzards had no name and villages mistook him for a wandering orphan. He offered help for a place to sleep. Fixed a broken aquifer with a spell he refused to name. Then left, with only a nod, when they tried to pay him.
He crossed through merchant cities, war-scarred border towns, and neutral nations. In one village, a merchant accused him of theft. When the pendant was revealed, the village elder knelt in stunned silence—an Originis walks again.
The pendant was not a badge. It was a revelation. It never glowed for liars or impostors. It revealed who Ari truly was—to those ready to see.
He saw the corruption of false peace in one city and the purity of selflessness in a starving child from another. He cast no grand spells unless he had to. But those who met him would speak of the boy with eyes like obsidian fire and a presence like memory incarnate.
Ari slept on straw, ate with beggars, debated philosophy with monks, and once helped a queen's guard escape a political assassination with nothing but his words.
But most importantly—he listened. To pain. To hope. To the world itself.
And with every step, the glyphs beneath his skin pulsed brighter, not with power—but with understanding.
By the time the first report of the Threadless Pilgrim reached back to Vastelune, he had already been sighted in five kingdoms, two mountainside temples, and the underground libraries of Nox-Valen.
Not one soul could say who he was—yet everyone remembered him.
Just a boy with no coin, who left behind understanding, healing, or transformation.
And deep within Ari, as he camped one silent night beneath a star-threaded sky, he whispered to the flames:
"Power saved lives. But this… this journey will teach me how to honor them."
The pendant flickered softly. As if the Originis themselves remembered, and approved.