My head still throbbed. I stared at the vines inked across the page and whispered, “What was that?”

Crimson thorns. I knew I had seen that before. A book, yes—I’d read it once. The heroine, a girl with healing magic. The story was full of yandere suitors, each clawing to keep her close. At the time, it had been entertaining enough. She ended up with the crown prince, happily ever after. Typical RoFan.

But that ending I just remembered… that wasn’t in the book. The blood, the corpses, the smile. No. In the version I read, there was nothing like that. Maybe I hadn’t finished it.

A character named Jeanne had only been mentioned once, a throwaway line about a girl from the Dorian family who was sent to a march and died there. Forgotten. That was all.

So I really was transmigrated. I was Jeanne now, and this world was the world of Crimson Thorns. If Jeanne—if I—was meant to die in obscurity, then that fate could be changed. This was my body now, and this world was full of plants I had never studied before. Forget the heroine and her suitors. Forget that eerie ending. I’d make this my research paradise.

I looked down at the book again. The Gift of Growth.

The text described it as the ability to hasten a plant’s natural growth. Seeds sprouting in hours instead of days. Fruit ripening before its season. It couldn’t make a desert bloom or turn salt into soil, but it could speed what already lived.

Was this Jeanne’s power? My power now? My heart thumped. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. For research, for discovery, for everything I’d always wanted to do. I could see it already—rows of plants growing faster than anyone thought possible. Trials, experiments, answers. What they threw away as useless was everything I could ever want.

The passage further read, in a small postscript at the bottom: little is known of this gift, as it is incredibly rare. There has only been one recorded bearer—Altheon, the Verdant Hand, a figure whispered of in legends before even the founding of the kingdom.

I pressed my hand to the page. Jeanne had been discarded for this? Cast aside? They were blind. She wasted away in gloom, told she had nothing, when in truth she carried a power that could shape how life itself grew. Her fate had been to die forgotten in a coastal march—but mine wouldn’t be. With this gift, I could rewrite it all.

I read on, and the script shifted from powers to history. Magic had not always been common. When it first appeared, the gifted were so few that they gathered together, founding a kingdom to protect themselves. But there were never enough of them to rule. Their answer was to pass land to every noble child at sixteen, ensuring each would have the chance to build their house and spread their gift. Powers were hereditary, usually echoing the parent’s gift. The system guaranteed magic bloodlines grew stronger with every generation.

So that was the ceremony. That was the weapons review Vesa had mentioned. A test of one’s gift, then land as reward and responsibility. It made sense now.

The next pages spoke of the founding duke families. The Dorians—my family—were among them. Their power: Corrosion. Stone, steel, flesh, all withered to dust at their touch. Fearsome on the battlefield, it had won them their rank as one of the four pillars of the empire.

I swallowed hard, tracing the lines. Corrosion, destruction, decay. That was the family legacy. And here I was, with growth.

The other names followed. The Valcrests, who could create weapons from pure magic, blades and shields that shimmered like light. The Marrens, stormcallers who bent wind and thunder to their will. The Kallixes, firelords whose flames melted stone. And above them all, the royal line, gifted with Ruin—the dominion of annihilation itself, a power feared for its ability to unravel matter and energy alike, strong enough to eclipse even the dukes and shape empires.

All of them, powers made for war. All destructive. All decisive.

I looked back at the vines on the page. Mine was different. Life instead of death.