The violet gate swallowed Jin's shape and spat him out into a world that smelled of wet earth and old leaves. The first breath he drew was green and thick with the forest: loam, resin, a sweetness like crushed fern. Moisture clung to the air in slow threads and the morning light came filtered through layers of canopy, a soft, jade dusk that gilded the trunks and made the world feel as if someone had painted it with patience. He stepped off the threshold in his black leather, each movement measured and quiet, and let his boots sink into thread-soft ground. Somewhere beyond the trees a gull called — or a student — and the island's barrier shimmered above like a transparent dome, a halo of protection pressed around the land so it could not easily be touched from the outside.
Atlas felt sleepy and alive at once. The forest here was an old thing — trunks thick as columns, roots looping like the knotted hands of giants. Vines hung in heavy curtains. Little lights — insects or mana motes — moved with a careful, private choreography. Jin strolled with his hands in his pockets, his crimson eyes taking in a world that had become more legible to him. The sharpness in his vision made edges bite and small things resolve into distinct objects. He could see the slick of moss on a log across a hollow or the tiny chip in a stone a dozen paces away. Power in his chest hummed a new rhythm; the ring on his left hand glowed faintly as if pleased to announce him.
There were no demons in sight when he arrived — not yet. Only interrupted life: a fox whose ears twitched at his passage, a flock of startled birds ripping the canopy with sudden motion, and students running in flurried panic between trees, their voices fracturing the calm into ragged threads. They dodged as they fled; some carried training gear, some clutched bundles of papers torn in the scramble. The island's academy had become a chaotic theater, and Jin's arrival felt both too late and perfectly timed.
He kept walking. The forest opened and closed like a breathing thing, and soon he spotted movement by a fallen trunk: a figure slumped, leaning hard with hurt and breath like a broken bell. Silver hair caught the underlight and haloed the silhouette. Jin's steps narrowed and he recognized the face before he named it.
"Sarafina?" he said, voice low, more question than greeting.
She lifted her head with a small, stubborn effort. Bruises bloomed along her cheeks; a grimace carved its way through the exhaustion on her skin. Her blue eyes opened foggy, the cloudy glaze of someone not fully awake to the world. She tried to smile and failed, breath stuttering. Her shoulder drooped like a damaged wing; her ankle was swollen and the fabric at her abdomen was dark with a wound that had drained too much and not healed. The sight made something thin and fistlike close around Jin's chest, a reflex he had not expected.
He sat in front of her , quick and gentle, and touched her cheek. The skin was hot and clammy from fever and blood. A quick scanning of her injuries told him there were more than bruises: broken collarbone, a twisted ankle, a deep abdominal tear with internal bleeding — a dangerous combination that would turn mortal quickly if left.
Jin's fingers were sure and unhesitating. He pulled from his satchel two vials — small, translucent syringes of a kind Sarafina had seen but was forbidden to use during trials. One shimmered green with a health elixir; the other hummed faintly with deep S-level mana, a dense pool of restorative force. He pressed the first to her lips.
"Drink," he said. "Just swallow."
Sarafina blinked, confusion narrowing into recognition, and then his fingers tipped the vial and a cool liquid slid past her teeth. She coughed as the taste hit, then gasped as warmth spread through her, the first stitch of hope threading through the wound. The internal bleeding scabbed like time-laced ice; muscles knit in a rush that made her gasp and double over. He pushed the second vial — the mana draught — and she swallowed it without argument. The mana flowed in like sunlight through glass, rebuilding sinew and standing her bones up toward the sky.
She stared at him as if the world had tilted. "Jin Rotchy?" Her voice came out small and rough. "How — why —"
He watched her carefully, the invisible counting of seconds and the awareness of his own new depth echoing in his mind. He had been told not to use his god-energy, had sworn to use only mana; these vials were not god-energy, but potent. He had taken them ready for this very contingency. He offered nothing by way of apology; instead he smiled with that careless, sardonic tilt that made him seem younger than his burdens allowed.
"I came here through a transfer gate," he said simply. "It's a long tale with folding doors. Don't speak of why you weren't at the exams — help the others. Get yourself to the infirmary."
Sarafina was fumbling in a dozen thoughts; she had been trained to expect rules and then tragedy. Her lips trembled as the knowledge of the vials struck home: healing draughts had been forbidden in the academy trial. If the demons had not come, the students would have suffered or died because they could not use illicit cures. How had Jin reached them? How had he broken the rules and yet saved them?
She gathered herself with the raw efficiency that marked those who had been near battle enough to know the price of delay. "Jin," she said, voice half anasked question, half a promise, "You're not allowed here—Rina said you didn't enter the trial—how —"
He tapped the ring at his finger. "Gate," he said. He did not elaborate; space-splitting magic was a blunt instrument and a common one among stronger mages. It required power and technique, and the fact that he had opened one here meant both. Sarafina's eyes widened as the geometry of that clicked into place.
Jin avoided saying his mother's name and referred to his wedding ring as a transfer gate to here . Jin did not prefer to say his mother's name.
"Go," Jin urged. He rose, and his shadow stretched long in the mossy light. He kept his hands in his pockets, his posture unconcerned, but the pupils at the corners of his eyes watched the clearing's edges hungrily. "There are still demons. Don't dawdle."
Sarafina pushed herself up with a wince and a stubborn set to her jaw; the draught had already worked wonders, and her legs aligned, the swelling retreating like tide. She rose, then, and for a moment just looked at him, the gratitude a raw walnut kernel in her chest. "Jin—thank you. I'll repay you somehow."
He gave a short, dry laugh and a shrug. "Don't. I would look a beggar if I kept tally. Go help Rina. You're one of her rivals but also one of the best she has."
She blinked, surprise and something like a sour-sweet thrill at the words. "Rival?" she repeated, frowning in half-protest. She had expected to be shunted aside, not praised. The flushed warmth of the draught still made her cheeks shine and she felt ridiculous to be grateful to a man who could vanish through gates.
He turned to leave, moving with the same fluid ease he had worn since his rebirth. Sarafina watched his back until foliage swallowed him and he became a thin shadow that slid between trunks. Jealousy breathed a small, sharp flame in her chest, a heat at the corner of her heart that told her she wanted the space he really reserved for Rina. She smoothed the thought down, angry at the petty bloom that rose. Still, she felt the ember—an ugly, bright jealousy.
She drew a deep breath, uncorked half left mana vial from her belt, and poured it into herself. The infusion sent a clean, crisp certainty through her limbs and she felt whole again in less than a second. Her gaze hardened into an expression that favored challenge and resolve.
"Hah," she chuckled under her breath — a private laugh that tasted like iron and sugar. "Well then, Jin. You have named me as Rina's rival. I will be that rival and I will be better."
She planted her feet, dug the wind beneath them with a gentle gust of her own wind-magic, and launched herself skyward. Silver hair streamed like a comet's tail; blue eyes glittered with the cold fire of will. Up she rose through canopy and cloud, a streak of bright defiance against the green. Below, the island smelled of salt and moss and the wooden thrumming of students running and the distant, unsettling thunder of demon wings — a chorus that meant the trial had become a war.
In the leaves and shades of Atlas, Jin's shadow had passed; in the sky, Sarafina's glint cut a bright line. The island had become a place where choices would change fates, and the quiet forest, which had received him like a living thing, now thrummed with the electricity of an approaching storm.
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heat: Hi guys thanks so much for reading
Note: Jin can open a portal using the Purple Moon, but he could not go to Atlas Island because he was never there, and you know the reason. He also has transport device a coordinates transfer department, but it will not move because Jin does not know its coordinates either.