The image refused to change when he did.

He leaned forward, half expecting it to self-correct - to ripple, to shift, to resolve itself into the familiar features he’d known for two decades. It didn’t. The water was too pure, too still. It only returned to him, unchanged, as it was.

Golden hair, messy, streaked with blue, wild and untamed in an unruly cascade of locks that resisted the slightest attempt to tame it down into a semblance of neatness.

Pale skin, startling in its clarity, smooth and unblemished in a way that was not the result of diligent care, but rather, had simply never acquired the kind of damage years had a tendency to inflict.

Blue eyes, bright, vibrant, a striking shade reminiscent of the water’s surface in its deepest depths during broad daylight.

An unfamiliar face, a boy’s face, fifteen or sixteen years old. And yet...

And yet, handsome, breathtakingly handsome.

Handsome in a way that suggested he could have been painted into a masterpiece, in a way that suggested he should be displayed on the cover of a magazine or a novel, but who instead was crouching by the stream with an expression of complete bafflement plastered on his face.

He stared at himself for a while.

"Why," he asked slowly, "did the old man change my appearance?"

There was no answer to this question.

He pushed himself up from the water and stood at the edge of the stream, arms at his side and his new face tilted upwards towards the twin suns, breathing in deeply through his nose and exhaling calmly through his mouth.

The wind rippled across the tall blades of grass, and somewhere above him, the birds continued to circle.

"Fine," he said aloud, to no one in particular. "It doesn’t matter."

Because there was an entire world to save, and right now, he lacked any and all information necessary to make that happen.

No maps, no people, no civilization - and a completely new face wasn’t going to solve any of that.

"I still have to save this world."

A pause.

"I just..."

He released a soft breath through his nose. "I really wish he hadn’t made me younger."

But there was no point in wishing for things he could not change. Not anymore.

He sighed deeply and turned his face away, towards the horizon.

Age was going to be a problem. He didn’t know precisely how or when, but it was inevitable.

This new face was going to cause complications sooner or later.

He was still pondering what his next steps should be when a light appeared.

Abruptly. Without warning. Flickering in the corner of his vision and suddenly close enough that his body acted before his mind could comprehend the danger.

He lurched to the side, tripped awkwardly in the tall grass, and flung out his arms for balance. He stumbled. Just barely managed to keep himself from falling into the water.

He steadied himself. Glanced down at what lay ahead of him.

A golden rectangle suspended in mid-air.

About the same size as a thick book, hanging there at eye level with no obvious means of support. Radiating a faint golden glow that seemed to make the grass surrounding it somehow greener than it had previously been.

Strange markings carved into its edges, intricate symbols in shapes he couldn’t decipher, but that still conveyed an unmistakable sense of intention, of design.

He knew what it was immediately.

He had read enough novels to identify a system interface panel when it appeared in front of his face.

The symbols shifted and moved, changing their position as new text appeared, materializing on the surface of the screen word by word, as though written in real-time.

[Foreign presence detected...]

[Scanning Host...]

10%... 50%... 100%

[Host Compatible ✓ ]

He watched with arms hanging loosely at his side and new blue eyes tracking the text with a cool concentration. The shock had passed, and he was no longer surprised by anything that happened to him anymore.

He had already died once, talked to a god in a white void, awakened in a strange new body on a strange new planet. This was relatively easy to deal with.

Another screen appeared beside the first.

[Locating bound artifact...] 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

[Deck of Cards detected ✓]

[Pairing Host to Deck...]

10%... 50%... 100%

[Pairing Complete ✓ ]

Ethan frowned slightly.

The sealed deck. His sister’s birthday present - the one he had been holding in his hands before he collapsed on the pavement.

He hadn’t even thought about it since arriving here, but now, the memory surfaced clearly. Plastic wrapping, pale surface, shining slightly under the artificial streetlights. The way it had lain right in front of his open palm, just out of reach.

He reached into his pocket without conscious decision.

He closed his hand around something solid.

He pulled it out slowly.

The deck was still there. Still sealed, untouched, intact. The same wrapping, the same texture, the same everything - as though it had crossed whatever barrier separated his world from this one, as though it had been transported over by sheer force of will.

He glanced down at it for a moment and placed it back in his pocket. Then he turned his gaze back to the screens.

The golden rectangles vanished simultaneously, dissolving into the air without making a sound.

A breath passed. Then a new screen appeared, larger than the others, more intricate markings carved along the border, the golden glow brighter, steadier.

The text appeared.

[Welcome, Ash Vulkan]

[Initializing System Interface]

[Initialization Completed]

[Cards Loaded - 54 / 54 ✓]

[The Compendium is now open]