"I’ll accept it... but I have one condition."

  "A condition?"

  That condition was…

  "Everyone, this is the sponsor of our new project."

  Thomasin Mayfield stood before the students of the paleontology department and the professors overseeing it.

  She gestured toward Dan Burn—a mere first-year, standing amid a crowd of older students. On his chest was pinned a badge engraved with the words:

  Patron

  The condition was that Dan must serve as the representative of the sponsor, rather than someone untrustworthy like Randy Moss.

  "Senior Thomasin… calling me a sponsor is a bit much, don’t you think—"

  "Patron."

  "...Fine."

  (( That’s Dan Burn… the one who beat Rafinya! ))

  (( The one who made Rafinya lose her mind?! That guy?! ))

  (( Isn’t he the one sponsored by Lady Casca?! ))

  (( What’s someone like him doing here?! ))

  (( I heard the family even wants to propose his engagement with Rafinya! ))

  "Everyone, please, calm down first."

  Thomasin cleared her throat, and the murmurs died down. Dan thanked her and offered a brief clarification.

  "I’m only here as a go-between for this department and Mr. Randy Moss."

  "But even so, he is essentially one of our sponsors, and he will support this place without limit."

  The instant Thomasin said "unlimited funding," the passion in the room ignited. Eyes widened, voices rose, a ripple of disbelief and excitement swept through the department.

  Then a man, likely in his mid-forties, stepped forward. Black hair streaked with gray, a neat mustache, round spectacles, his manner radiated knowledge and refinement. Dressed immaculately, with a fatherly presence, he approached Dan, slipping off his glasses.

  "Dan, isn’t it…"

  The boy turned. Thomasin quickly introduced him.

  "Professor, this is Dan, the representative from our sponsor group."

  "Good day, professor."

  "Dan, this is Professor Pi’erre, head of our department."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Professor of Paleontology:

  Pi’erre Bourne

  "Hello, professor."

  "Thomasin told me about you. She said you’ve taken an interest in this field, but I didn’t imagine a promising student like you would come to us as a sponsor."

  "Just a middleman, sir. It isn’t my money."

  "Haha, my apologies—‘middleman sponsor,’ then."

  Like Thomasin, Professor Pi’erre clearly didn’t buy Dan’s explanation. Rumors that he might secretly be an heir to vast wealth were bound to spread faster than ever.

  But that didn’t matter.

  Prince Fury had already staked everything when Casca became his sponsor. There was nothing left to lose. If he had to stake more for the sake of the answer he sought—the greatest question of his life—then so be it.

  "First, as sponsor of the project, I’d like to show you the progress of our work. Come along."

  "Yes, professor."

  Professor Pi’erre led Dan behind the research center, to the preserved specimens of "ancient creatures" found in Artheris.

  Surrounded by cases of orange-brown stone slabs of varying size—from fingertip to palm to the heft of a thick book—Dan stared at the traces etched into stone: the imprints of life from an unimaginably distant past.

  "Professor… these are…"

  Prince Fury thought he knew them well. Diablo’s shores were littered with them.

  "Horseshoe crabs, right? You’re showing me horseshoe crab fossils?"

  Professor Pi’erre chuckled.

  "A good guess, but no, these aren’t horseshoe crabs. They went extinct long before horseshoe crabs even existed."

  "We call them trilobites."

  Trilobite.

  An ancient creature—one of the earliest signatures of evolution. Small, yet immensely significant in the history of the world.

  Its body was like armor, carved with divine symmetry. The torso divided into three long segments from head to tail, a sacred geometry. Its layered shell gleamed like ancient metal, paradoxical against its humble ocean origin. Some even bore eyes like crystal, raised as beacons of the evolutionary path unfurling toward the future.

  It moved across the seabed of a primeval world. Each tiny step echoed through time. Every ridge across its back was a record of an era. Trilobites were not just sea insects—they were proof the world never stood still. They were among the first pioneers of all life we know today.

  The professor handed him a slab. Dan traced his fingers along the ridges of its exoskeleton.

  And in that moment, Prince Fury thought of his soldiers’ faces—yet realized none of them bore any trace of this lineage.

  Which meant…

  This insect of the ancient seas had lived its course, struggled, fought, and died… long before the Diablo people ever came into being.

  "Professor… how long did they live?"

  "We cannot know exactly when they were born from the fossils alone. But the mana currents preserved in the limestone tell us how long since their journey ended."

  "How long, professor?"

  "Between 540 to 250 million years ago—that is when they existed."

  Dan froze.

  He could not fathom it. To him, twenty or thirty years felt long—the span in which a child grew gray and passed away. Yet compared to this insect? It was nothing.

  "The Ophilis dynasty, stretching back 500 years with Snowhaven’s history… How many dynasties would it take to match this creature’s span, professor?"

  The answer: five million dynasties.

  From the first Ophilis, repeating until Nora today—five million times over.

  "...It’s so hard to believe, professor."

  Professor Pi’erre smiled gently.

  "This is the seed sown by Professor Darwin himself. You must have read his work, yes?"

  "Yes… it’s his strange ideas that drew me in."

  "Then let me show you what we, his successors, are searching for now."

  He guided Dan to a podium, upon which lay a thesis.

  "This is what we seek. We believe this is the answer you yearn for as much as I do. If the theory of divergence holds true, then traced backward… all life on Earth would converge to a single origin point."

  That origin was called—

  LUCA.