It was still night when Joel's eyes opened, but he wasn't the one who woke up at that moment. He was a completely different person, with a soft, almost emotionless gaze, who looked around for a moment in surprise. Then he looked at his hands and touched his clothes like something he had never touched in his life.

  He wasn't Joel, that was clear. He didn't even remember his name, having left it the day he joined the mountain temple. Although all his companions called him Ashoka.

  Despite being in a completely strange situation, he didn't panic. He simply crossed his legs on the tree branch and leaned his back against the trunk, assuming a meditation posture. Softly, his voice began to reverberate in the forest as he recited his favorite sutra by Siddhartha Gautama.

  The forest fell silent, as if the crickets and night birds had stopped their singing to listen to the vibration of those words. The air around Ashoka seemed to become thicker, charged with an almost sacred silence.

  Like Hoshinobu, the samurai, Ashoka immediately realized the situation he was in. He was a kind of spiritual fragment who had managed to cross from Earth to this strange fantasy world, where magic dominated people's lives and represented the path to power over others.

  Joel had dreamed of him when he was still a child, but the memories were still clear. It was strange to see himself from that perspective.

  His lips stopped moving, and for a moment he remained motionless, his eyes closed. Then he spoke to himself in an almost imperceptible murmur: "So... the cycle repeats itself. The wheel of samsara drags me even here."

  He slowly opened his eyes, and there was no fear in them, but an unfathomable calm. He looked at the stars through the leaves, so different from the sky he had known, and a flash of nostalgia crossed his face. "What purpose does my spirit have in this place?" —he wondered quietly—Should I learn something I never knew?

  At that moment, a strange tingling ran through his body. He felt Joel's presence, as if deep within that shell lay the true owner of the flesh, pushing, claiming his space. Ashoka smiled softly. "Calm down... young traveler. I haven't come to steal from you, just to walk a little with you."

  He immediately understood that his presence had a purpose, completely tied to Joel's life and destiny. However, he had nothing to give the young man. He wasn't a talented warrior who could pass on his swordsmanship, nor a sculptor capable of inspiring him to create the impossible. He was a simple man, who grew tired of life and decided to abandon it all to follow his own spiritual path.

  But there was something Ashoka knew immediately upon awakening in this world, aided a little by Hoshinobu's memories. Magic, faith, and spirituality can open doors to unthinkable things.

  He closed his eyes again and resumed his meditation, this time with the intention of reaching the state he'd nearly reached in his last life. He still remembered how, before dying, he'd been on the verge of Nirvana... or at least that's what he thought he felt.

  Time passed, but he didn't care. His concentration deepened with each moment, and thanks to the physical capabilities of his new body, he could easily ignore hunger and thirst.

  On the fifth day, something began to change, both within him and around him. First, it was his sutras: each word resonated in the air, and the vegetation responded to his prayer. The trees swayed in an impossible rhythm, as if obeying the vibration of his voice. Then, a strange warmth ignited within him, and his skin began to glow with a faint radiance.

  By the tenth day, he no longer spoke a word. His meditation had found a purer form of communication: he transmitted his will through intention and the simple beating of his heart. Animals began to approach as well, mostly birds and rodents, all drawn to him, perching silently around him on nearby branches and trees.

  On the twelfth day, thirst was overwhelming him… until, in response, a gentle rain fell from the sky. Ashoka raised his face and drank the water that ran down his cheeks, without breaking his trance.

  By the eighteenth day, hunger was overwhelming him. Then some small rodents appeared and, without fear, left seeds and wild fruits in front of him. Ashoka took them automatically, feeding on the gift.

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  The extraordinary thing was that there came a moment when the gathering of animals multiplied to the point where they numbered hundreds, simply watching him. No one fled, and no one attacked. All the fauna seemed suspended in an impossible truce, as if they shared a common purpose: to witness something impressive.

  He didn't know it, but the magic of that world was responding to his spirituality with an intensity never seen before. Each beat of his heart was transformed into a silent spell that vibrated in perfect harmony with the forest. He was no longer a man in meditation: he was the center of a living symphony, a resonance between the human and the natural.

  By the thirtieth day, his mind shut down completely. His organs ceased to function, except for his heart, which continued to beat slowly and solemnly. His body stiffened like a statue, radiating an ethereal glow. It was then that the first luminous entities appeared: butterflies of pure light that danced around him, following the rhythm of that one heart that refused to stop.

  By the fiftieth day, his skin began to wrinkle like ancient parchment, and all the hair on his body had turned white as snow.

  By the seventieth day, he was completely bald and withered, his eyes sunken into the darkness of a face that seemed on the verge of death. And yet, his heart continued to beat, calling out.

  By the ninetieth day, thousands of luminous creatures surrounded him. The air was filled with their flashes, resembling a starry firmament breathing around the tree. Even gigantic winged beasts, monsters feared by the empire and considered living calamities, descended silently and perched around the tree where he stood. None showed hostility: all watched over the place like guardians of a sanctuary.

  On the hundredth day, the miracle became incomprehensible. Entirely spiritual entities, with semi-transparent bodies, began to manifest. Their forms were impossible to describe, as they followed no logic. They ranged from humanoids made of green fire, shadows crowned by halos of light, to bodies that were like mirrors of moving water. And all of them simply stared at Ashoka's almost mummified body.

  They were the same entities that the Church of Myrrial claimed to venerate in its temples, but that few had ever seen in person. Now they were all there, radiating a mixture of surprise and concern, as if what was happening to Ashoka was not in their plans... but beyond them.

  His heart then faded with painful slowness, until on the one hundred and seventh day it barely beat once a minute. With each faint beat of his heart, the spiritual beings surrounding him emanated an unfathomable sadness, a compassion so pure that even the entire forest seemed to share it. Ashoka's eyes began to bleed, scarlet rivulets running down his withered face. And as if nature were weeping with him, a soft rain began to descend, caressing him, in an act that seemed to say, "Enough is enough."

  It was on the one hundred and eighth day that his heart finally stopped beating. The instant was absolute: the raindrops hung suspended in the air, motionless like shards of glass. Not an insect, not a wind, not a thought seemed to move. Everything froze, and the watching spirits shuddered.

  Then, violating all possible logic, a horizontal cut began to open in the center of Ashoka's forehead. From that impossible wound, an inconceivable amount of blood gushed forth, entire rivers flowing as if the body held an ocean within.

  But the blood didn't obey gravity. It rose and fell simultaneously, danced around him, crashed against the bark, and stained it a pure red. The tree he was in was completely covered, turned into a bloody totem. And soon, the tide spread further, covering neighboring trees, roots, even the butterflies of light, who didn't flee, but submerged themselves in that crimson river as if they had always expected it.

  The spirits showed no fear. On the contrary, they radiated anticipation, as if awaiting the culmination of something mysterious, even for themselves.

  Finally, when the entire forest breathed that inhuman red, the blood stopped. And from the center of the wound on his forehead, an eyelid began to open.

  The eye that was revealed was anything but normal; it was unique, with an iris of liquid gold and a red sclera like living embers. That eye opened slowly, deliberately, as if gazing into a newborn world. And when it finally opened, the entire forest, the spirits, the beasts, even the night sky, seemed to hold their breath.

  Then the heart began to beat again. At first, it was only a timid, irregular thump, like the beating of a worn drum. But soon it regained strength, until each pulse resonated clearly, bringing movement back to the world. The rain fell again, the leaves swayed in the wind, the insects resumed their nightly song. Everything returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.

  The blood… that impossible tide, that crimson ocean that had stained the trees and sky, suddenly disappeared. It evaporated as if it had never existed, leaving only the fresh scent of damp earth in the wake of the rain.

  Ashoka had achieved what he had never been able to in his previous life: he had reached Nirvana.

  The spiritual power and natural magic of this world had guided him beyond all limits, freeing him from the cycle of desires and suffering, and with it, from the cycle of rebirth itself. For him, it was not the end, but a step toward a different existence, beyond all mortal bonds.

  Unfortunately, that wasn't something he could share with Joel. Nirvana wasn't a teaching, a technique, or an inheritance. It was a pure experience, completely mental and spiritual, impossible to share.

  However, the mere fact that his body managed to pass through the realm of the transcendental for an instant was enough to permeate it with the purest energy of nature, transforming it completely.

  The wrinkles disappeared, as if time were erased with each breath. His skin tightened again, his muscles reformed with the firmness of a young warrior, and his bones regained their strength. The process was so rapid and complete that in a few moments he was once again the man he had been in his prime. Only his hair, white as snow, remained as an eternal mark of what he had experienced.

  His body was no longer human in the common sense. It now possessed a superhuman regenerative capacity and perfect natural balance. As long as there was natural life around him, he would never die of hunger or lack energy.

  The spirits who had accompanied him during his transformation seemed to greet him. They emitted a silent murmur, a wave of emotions of acceptance and jubilation. They bowed in reverence, and one by one they began to fade away, like embers dying in the darkness. So did the winged beasts, who spread their wings and disappeared into the sky.

  When it was all over, Ashoka was left alone, sitting on the branch of the tree. There were no witnesses, no chants, no trace of the impossible that had just happened. Only he, immersed in his introspection, certain that he had crossed a threshold that few in the history of that world had even dreamed of reaching.