A small house carved from white bark stood among towering trees, its pale surface almost glowing beneath the dense green canopy of the Forest Hidden Monster Hunter Academy. Thick roots coiled through the earth around it, and shafts of light slipped between the branches high above, leaving the elder’s home wrapped in a stillness that felt set apart from the rest of the academy.

Nothing there looked neglected. The roots curled around stones and flowerbeds with almost deliberate care, as though the land itself had been taught where to stop and where to grow. Faint lines ran through the white bark of the house like natural carvings, like age-old script written by wood instead of ink, and even the wind seemed to soften by the fence.

Few NPCs ever came this far. This was where the elders lived, in quiet seclusion, far from the noise of common paths and burdened with responsibilities that reached far beyond the Forest Table.

The moment Rangar touched the wooden fence, it cracked softly, and its tips bent into bird shapes that sang something like a doorbell. Martin and the others flinched at the sight.

It felt mysterious, almost unreal.

"Wow."

"That was amazing."

"Mhm."

A moment later, the door opened, and an elderly man stepped out of the house with a wooden sword strapped to his hip. He did not hurry. He simply walked toward the visitors at an even pace, yet each measured step seemed to press the quiet deeper into the clearing.

The weapon immediately drew Martin’s and Chaosgraphy’s eyes. At first glance, it looked rougher than the practice swords beginners swung on their first day in this world.

The wood was plain, unpolished, and almost disappointingly ordinary, yet the longer Martin looked at it, the less ordinary it felt.

The elder stopped a short distance from the fence, unsheathed the sword, drove it into the grass, and rested a hand on it as though it were a staff. Age sat on him, but frailty did not.

With the way his fingers settled on the hilt, he looked less like an old man leaning for support and more like a swordsman pausing only because the world had not yet given him a reason to move.

NukEncore narrowed her eyes. "Is he trying to impress us or intimidate us?"

Rangar chuckled. "Both."

When the elder spoke, the birds carved into the fence carried his voice.

"I assume you didn’t bring these youngsters here for sightseeing, Rangar. Are they worthy of my time?" he asked. Then his eyes settled on Martin, and recognition flickered across his face as he remembered seeing him with Cassandra at the Forest Table.

He sneered.

Rangar failed to catch the subtle shift in his expression. "Absolutely! They’re players from the most accomplished party in our academy so far! One of them wants to learn the Imprinter Subclass so their identity can remain the same across the levels!"

Rangar’s words were true enough, but the elder only drew in a long breath and tipped his head back.

His gaze sharpened into something hawkish.

"A mere subclass?" he asked.

NukEncore’s eyes narrowed at once. Her chin lifted a fraction, and one of her hands tightened at her side before she forced it still again. Martin noticed it immediately.

She was not simply offended by the elder’s dismissive tone. He had brushed aside something she had come here taking seriously. A faint shimmer of heat stirred around her fingers before fading again. Even that tiny slip made her mouth tighten, as if she refused to let the elder see just how deeply that line had struck her.

Rangar gulped and clenched his hands. He had thought the elder would see the novelty in his words, but this man had devoted so many years of experience and effort to the Imprinter Class that he had become the first line of defense of the Forest Hidden Monster Hunter Academy.

Rangar should have been more careful. Such a noob mistake.

Then the ground trembled.

A sharp crack split the stillness as thick roots ripped through the soil and burst from the grass in all directions, flinging dirt and torn blades of green into the air. The force of it rolled through the clearing a heartbeat later. Martin felt it in the soles of his boots, while loose blades of grass bent outward as though the air itself had flinched away from the elder’s will.

They did not twist wildly for long. Under the elder’s command, they straightened, split, and unfolded into sharp wooden weapons, spears, swords, and jagged forms Martin could not even name, all of them circling him in a slow, disciplined orbit.

An Orb formed around him as well, pale and clean against the green, its surface faintly rippling like polished glass touched by light. Then a branch rose from the earth behind him and curved itself into a seat, and the elder settled onto it as naturally as if the forest had risen for the sole purpose of offering him his rightful place.

"Does this look like the power of a mere subclass?" the elder asked.

Rangar lowered his voice. "His wooden sword carries imprinted skills from various legendary items. The wood itself is sacred, second only to the Light Tree. What you just saw was only a glimpse of what he can do. I’d dare say he could animate the entire forest itself to defend it from monsters."

Martin looked at the wooden sword again, and that was still the strangest part of it all. There was no divine glow on its surface, no jeweled guard, no grand design proclaiming itself a legendary weapon.

It looked like little more than a carved length of wood, yet the earth itself had bent to its will in the elder’s hand. For a moment, Martin thought that might be the whole point. A weapon like this did not need to look impressive. It only needed to answer the hand worthy of holding it.

"Damn," Martin said aloud. "I wonder what level I’d need to reach before I could hold my ground against that kind of power."

Chaosgraphy’s smile widened instead of fading. Most people would have felt smaller in front of power like that, but she looked entertained by it, as if the elder had just shown her a stage trick she wanted to learn and ruin for fun.

Chaosgraphy caught that little reaction at once, and the corner of her mouth curled as though she had just found the evening even more entertaining.

She chuckled. "I love that way of thinking. I had the same thought, except I pictured myself turning this whole forest into a roller coaster before cutting it down."

NukEncore puffed out her chest. "Hmph! It’s impressive, but an Imprinter still uses other skills and classes anyway! With my flames and my fire equipment, I’ll give this class the same depth, if not more!"

Rangar, Martin, and Chaosgraphy all looked at her with deadpan expressions.

Girl, aren’t you being a little too blunt right now?

For the first time since stepping out of the house, the elder’s sneer shifted, not into softness, but into sharpened interest.

"So loud," the elder said. "Let us see whether that confidence belongs to a worthy Imprinter or merely to a girl who enjoys hearing herself speak."