Zeff widened his eyes. His face was plastered with surprise.
To further confirm his theory, he slapped his face with his hands. *Pak!*, *Ouch!* He was hurt! So it wasn't a dream either. He took off his shirt and ran in front of the mirror.
Zeff momentarily stopped and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He truly was a kid! He shouted in his mind. He also noticed the scrape on his head, but his focus was not on it.
While facing his back at the mirror, he was twitching his neck towards it to gaze at the reflection of his back. There he saw what he wanted to see.
"The strange tattoo!"
It glowed briefly after Zeff exclaimed it.
Zeff went back and sat on his bed. Although the tattoo was still there, the tattoo itself looks different. The watch in it had disappeared; only the seals remained.
Regardless, he confirmed that he was right. It wasn't an afterlife. He was alive back to his kid self.
"How did it happen?"
He muttered.
"Could it be that what happened recently was just a dream?"
"No, it's impossible!"
"Wait, could it be a peek into the future?"
"That didn't seem to be the case either, huh."
"There was only one conclusion in my current situation. I strangely traveled back in time after my death to that place."
"Could it be one of the effects of the forbidden Time Sovereign technique?" He questioned, but no one could give him the answer he was seeking.
"....."
Zeff had fallen silent as he sank his face under his arms and knees. Then a moment later, "Hehe, hehe, haha, hahaha...!" His petite shoulders trembled as he started to guffaw which is very unusual for his child-like figure.
"Haha, I am alive!"
"Haha, haha, hahaha!"
The laughs of a kiddy voice resounded inside the room.
After calming down, he started thinking over the past. Right, knowing that he was in the storeroom recently, it must be around that time! Zeff thought to himself.
"The reason I went to the storeroom was that I was looking for high-grade equipment. Thanks for my awful result in the appraisal ceremony in the town."
"As a son of a noble in this town, I brought shame to my family after the appraisal ceremony. While the others were able to manifest their soul power, Me, on the other hand, failed miserably."
"Soul force is the mysterious power that circulates in the person's body. And it was classified into four different ranks.
"The first is [Insect]. It is equivalent to those with normal soul force. [Stone] are those with a stable soul force, though not weak, will never improve; [Bird] are those recognized to have great potential, and [Dragon], are the geniuses who were born with boundless possibilities or limitless. They own the sky. They have the talent to soar high."
"On the other hand, there's the [Trash]. They are equivalent to a useless person. Also mean, a cripple." Zeff darkened his vision as he mentioned the last words.
"At the Appraisal Ceremony, I failed to muster my soul force for some unknown reason. But, I learned later that there was damage in one of my meridians which greatly affected the flow of my soul power."
Zeff looked at his hands, then he tried to summon a bit of soul force. However, just as he expected, nothing came out. He could not even feel the flow of it across his body.
Around this time, the damage in his meridian was yet to heal. But Zeff wasn't as worried about it as before. If it was before, he would be so depressed right now.
He even threw a tantrum several times and sulked to the point of ignoring his parents. He was so naive. Because of it, his father went to--
Wait!
It was also around this time that his father, mother, and grandfather would be going to die. He could not let his father, Jeff Anworth, his mother, Zarina Anworth, and his gramps too, Jao Anworth, die this time.
Even if he had to go against heaven's will, he must change his destiny. No, he must change everyone's future!
Right at this moment, Zeff Anworth, the man who came back from the future was fully convinced that he returned to his past when he was still a seven years old kid.
He had only one path to tread on, to use his knowledge from the future to change everyone's destiny.
This time, he would make sure that the Anworth family would rise to power, not only as a puppet but as puppeteer.
Zeff stood up once again and faced the mirror. Although he was inside a seven years old child, his demeanor and the look in his eyes were that of a person who already witnessed the real face of the world. A person who had countless life-and-death experiences. A person who already peered into the abyss.
Zeff was staring at his reflection in the mirror with a glint in his eyes. He would make sure to return the favor to those fools, who betrayed him and his family.
Those fools will soon experience two times suffering.
But before that, he needed to think over the past to recall all the important incidents that may take place in the coming future.
"Right, if my memory serves me right, it was the 21st day in the 6th month of the year 576 of the Hellsgate calendar."
"A month from now, a group of bandits will come to attack this Town. As a noble, although a declining noble, my father will come to face them along with some subordinates. But, my father would not get assistance, those subordinates would abandon him, leaving him alone to face the 50 strong bandits."
"After the death of my father, who is the protector of this town, the bandit's group then started burning the houses and did vile acts. To let me escape from this town, my mother and grandfather will face the bandits next. But they will get defeated and get killed as well."
As the only surviving noble of the Anworth family, I was adopted by the Sylverious Family. A noble from the neighboring town, a close friend of my family. Or so I thought was the truth. But unbeknown to me and my family, this whole damn thing was truly set up by them!"
The Sylverious Family was the one pulling up the string behind the scene.
Since I was still too ignorant to handle the task, naturally, the role to manage this town would fall under the Sylverious Family as they were my new guardians. It was their reason for pulling up such a traitorous act.
"It's time to pay them back," Zeff muttered in a cold voice that could freeze the blazing fire.