Mastery fruits were exactly the kind of reward that made secret realms worth the risk of finding them.

Natural treasures were different from spells. They weren’t blueprints or stored power, they were physical objects with properties that couldn’t be replicated anywhere outside the Astral Heaven.

And Mastery fruits did exactly what the name suggested. Zelda had eaten enough to push her Mastery to a hundred. The remainder she had distributed to the agents and supervisors like Mark, giving each of them as much as they could handle.

"They couldn’t eat much," Zelda explained. "Due to over-saturation."

Winston nodded. Over-saturation was a hard limit built into every class grade below Sacred.

Push Mastery gains too fast and the body stops accepting them, entering a forced cooldown period where nothing would register until the saturation cleared.

Normal class holders hit that wall earliest and hardest. Epic grade holders like Mark had more tolerance, but they still ran into it.

Sacred class holders were the only ones exempt, their Mastery capacity was effectively unlimited in progression terms.

Which explained why the agents, experienced as they were, were still hovering somewhere between fifty and seventy points despite being Initiates for a long time.

Zelda had also explained how she had saved Mark’s life on day one. Winston had used that information and pieced together from the soul readings and behavioral shift in Mark’s emotional state from what it had been at Nightwing to what it was now.

Being saved from death by someone he had spent years looking down on had apparently done something genuine to him.

John and Rebecca followed Mark, so their loyalty chain ran through him rather than Zelda directly. Winston had already noted that.

He’d scanned their souls and they were clean enough for now. If that changed, he’d handle it before it became a problem so Zelda wouldn’t need to.

Then Zelda pushed the box forward across the table.

"There are fifty fruits inside. That should be more than enough for both of you to reach a hundred."

Winston looked at the box. Then at Zelda. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Fifty fruits were remaining after she had already eaten enough to hit a hundred herself and distributed portions to agents and supervisors.

The original count must have been significant. He didn’t ask how many. He just processed the fact that her first instinct with a rare natural treasure had been to use it on everyone around her before thinking about saving any for herself.

Mastery fruits were Tier One natural treasures. They wouldn’t carry over into the second Realization progression.

That was a known limitation of the treasure’s tier. But even if they had worked for second Realizations, Winston knew Zelda well enough to know the box would still be sitting in front of him right now.

Freya picked one up. Winston picked up another and they bit into them at the same time before devouring the fruit completely.

[1 Mastery Gained]

One fruit gave one full Mastery point. To earn that naturally would have required killing at least ten Tier One monsters and that was before accounting for fatigue and diminishing returns deep into a grind session.

They looked at each other.

Then they both reached into the box at the same time.

Winston ate ten fruits. Freya ate thirty. When they finished, Winston’s panels now read this.

[Mastery: 100] [0%]

[Slots: 9/10]

[Souls: 799]

One hundred points. The absolute peak of a first Realization for a Rank One initiate. Winston’s base output now matched a Level 20 monster at its ceiling, the highest a Rank One could naturally reach.

His energy pool had climbed from eighteen hundred to two thousand. The usable soul slots had ticked up from nine to ten as the hundredth point triggered another threshold increase, though one slot remained on cooldown from the Tree Troll incident, leaving nine active.

As for the seven hundred and ninety nine souls planted in the Garden, Winston couldn’t help finding it slightly absurd that he could only access ten of them at a time.

But every twenty Mastery points added a slot and he knew exactly how to push that number higher once he had a second Realization to work with.

Then the new panel appeared.

[Exit the Astral Heaven to Receive Your Trigger]

Winston looked at it.

"What’s this condition for receiving our trigger about?"

Zelda glanced over.

"We can’t receive our trigger until we leave the Astral Heaven. That’s standard, it was covered in our second year curriculum." She said it casually, but Freya’s expression shifted slightly, as a quiet confusion crossed her face and she was looking at Winston like she wasn’t sure if he was being serious or if he actually didn’t know such a detail.

Winston caught the look and didn’t react to it.

"I know what a trigger is," he said evenly. "A class holder hits a hundred Mastery, exits the gate, receives the tigger for how to ascend to Rank Two. And yes, I know it can’t be received while still inside the Astral Heaven."

Zelda folded her arms and Freya waited as they both wanted to see where he was going with this.

"But normally," Winston continued, "that Mastery is earned by killing monsters. Ours wasn’t or at least not entirely. Zelda, yours came almost entirely from the fruits. I came in with ninety from grinding and topped it off with ten fruits. It makes you wonder how the system actually registers the Mastery. Whether the source matters or just the number."

Freya straightened slightly.

"That’s actually a fair point. I didn’t think about it that way."

Zelda, meanwhile, was looking at Winston with an expression she had spent six years developing, the one reserved specifically for when she was seeing through something he was doing.

Her eyes moved briefly to Freya. Then back to Winston.

’Don’t tell me he’s trying to act cool in front of her.’

She didn’t know whether to laugh or just accept it.

Winston stood up and cracked his neck after that.

"Anyway. Time to get moving."

Zelda blinked. "Moving where?"

"To the beacon." He said it like it was the obvious next step. "I have to open the gate and get everyone out."

Zelda stared at him and a short laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it.

It was the kind that came out when something sounded too absurd to take seriously. But then she kept looking at him and the laugh slowed before finally fading.

"Wait." Her voice dropped. "You’re actually serious."