Max did not stop. His mana continued to nurture the mountain range, and the changes came almost instantly. Wild plants spread rapidly, fruits and mushrooms multiplied across the land, and even the trees stretched a few more inches toward the sky. Their leaves grew thick and lush, glowing with a soft ethereal light.
Rosalia beat her wings and pulled herself away from Max, landing on green earth that had been dead only moments before.
Max rose to his feet and dusted himself off. Not a single bruise marked his face. "I ask only that you listen to me for a moment. I know I have no right to speak, but I can repay you. I can repay your entire clan."
"No..." Rosalia said, shaking her head. "We don't need you. Nothing can fix what—" But before she could finish, Henry stepped in and placed a large palm on his daughter's head, his fingers brushing through her hair.
"Hold on, Rosalia. Don't let your emotions get the better of you." Henry stepped toward Max, his eyes shining with the kind of greedy light as if he was looking at a priceless treasure.
"Father?"
Henry did not even look at his daughter. He simply pushed her behind himself while stepping forward.
"Max, this power... can you control it now?" The face he wore was warm, almost fatherly, the kind of face meant to calm hearts and lower guards, but Max had seen too many men like that before. In his old world, politicians lied to crowds with the same soft eyes and measured smiles. If he had been a little more naive, he might have mistaken Henry's greed for sincerity.
"Yes. Ever since I drove the enemies away, my control over my abilities has improved," Max answered with a calm face, swallowing the rest of the truth. He had spent a long time testing that control, and in the process, whatever little had remained of the ruined place had been destroyed by his own hands. That was not something they needed to know.
"Good, son. Very good. Do you remember what I said during the battle?" Henry stepped forward again, making every warrior stiffen, while the villagers looked on in uneasy confusion.
"That killing them all would have been my salvation," Max answered, his hand clenching shut as the flood of mana finally came to a halt.
"And yet I didn't do it. But I believe they won't dare trouble you again for as long as I remain here."
His eyes found Rosalia's. "I know you will never forgive me, and maybe I don't deserve that forgiveness, but I will not live while owing this kind of debt. That is not something a man can swallow. Give me two years. In that time, I will restore your fields. No, more than restore them, I will make this clan stronger than it has ever been with my abilities. And when that is done, I will leave."
"You must be crazy to think that we wou—"
"Of course, we will accept you," Henry cut Rosalia off without hesitation, extending his hand toward Max as though the matter had already been decided.
"Father! We can't!" She burst out, trying to step in, but Henry turned his head toward her, and the fury in his eyes froze her where she stood.
"I am still the clan chief, and my word is final. Whether you like it or not, Max will remain with us until he fulfills his promise. And if he fails, we will cast him out with our own hands." Henry turned toward the gathered clan, his voice rising like thunder.
"Any objections?" he roared, but not a single person stepped forward for Rosalia. The weight Henry's name carried among them was still far beyond anything she could command.
"No, Chief!" the warriors roared as one, while the villagers could only shake their heads in uneasy silence.
"Good. I expect the same from you, Rosalia." He turned back to Max, his hand still stretched out between them.
"Thank you, Chief." Max took it, his eyes burning with a sharp ferocity. He had two goals now. The first was to repair what had been broken between him and Rosalia. The second was to win the trust of the Ice Dragon Clan.
"The rest of you, prepare the area for the night. This place is good. We can make use of it." Henry's eyes swept over the mountains stretching before them. It was a strong place to defend, and the forest could feed them for a while, at least until Max's power began turning the ruined future of their crops into something worth relying on again.
But for that, they would have to send someone back to their old territory and pray that at least something had survived. Even a single crop could become hundreds with enough mana and enough time. Otherwise, Henry would be forced to send someone toward the Thunder Dragon Region for seeds, and that meant exposing the clan to a threat even worse than hunger.
"Come, I want to talk, just the two of us." Henry threw his arm over Max's shoulders and patted him like a man welcoming home a son he had already decided to keep, drawing an inward smile from Max.
The moment the ancestral beast fell from the sky and devoured the mana he returned to the world, Max understood that this was his path to his first bloodline. Now he had only one real obstacle left: making Rosalia fall in love with him, and that would be far harder than winning over the clan.
Two years was also how long Max thought he would need to restore the clan with the scraps of modern knowledge he carried from his old world. He had never been a farmer, but he had spent enough nights half-watching shows about crops and land while his mother lay passed out drunk on the couch, the smell of alcohol soaking the room.
What helped him even more was mana. The way it pushed life forward, how it thickened leaves, fattened fruit, and turned weakness into growth, that was the true key to sinking himself so deeply into the clan that they would never be able to tear him out again.
And the two years he had offered were nothing more than a convenient excuse. Deep down, he could already see the day when they would be the ones begging him to stay.