And that's not a curse? It's not that Five wasn't really hoping that he'd had a similar experience to him, because he's not sure anyone else could recreate the circumstances that led to his regression. It's not the only way he was aware of. The Commission could build bodies, but even that wasn't anything magical. He still never would have guessed poisoned sap.

"Where is the tree?" He's assuming it happened recently. If there's one thing he'd like to avoid, it's losing more years because he messed with something he didn't understand. "Did it have something to do with the dark water?"

Five squints harder at him, feeling the edge of a headache coming on as he tries to dissect that sentence. So a magic tree was giving away weapons at the bottom of a lake with spirit animals. That actually sounds a lot like what a five-year-old might come up with, but he takes a very large breath and attempts to take that at face value.

"So you were trying to get a weapon that was in the tree and got some age-regressing sap on you?" That's... ridiculous, and his expression says as much. He hates magic more every day. "How is it just affecting you now?"

His eye twitches when he says 'around your age', but he holds his tongue until he finishes his story. If Five is following, the weapons came from a lake that his disciples fetched, but they had this magic sap on them. (Does it matter how the sap came into play? Is this some kind of 'tree of life' situation?) Then they invented a temporary cure, that he's been... taking as medicine ever since.

"Did you finally run out, or do you have someone producing more for you?" Ordinarily he doesn't jump at magic solutions that he can't understand, but this is a special case. Would something like that work with him? "How long does it usually last?"

Five nods, slowly, as he makes a mental note of that. As a time-traveler, the idea that there's a magic pill that can age a person for a specific number of days is difficult to reconcile. But apparently anything is possible. Does he continue to age otherwise? If he stayed in his current state, would he eventually get older? If not, he pities him for whenever he finally runs out of medicine.

"Oh, I'd think I know a thing or two about age regression." He's somewhat of an expert in recognizing people at different ages. "By unstable, you mean it'll wear off sooner if you use too much energy. Is it always the same two ages?"

He's going to get stuck on that for a while. While he's sympathetic, what he's describing goes so against all the rules of time that he knows how to manipulate, and magic is... frustratingly inconsistent.

"No, it's not common. From what I've seen of the people in our group, the ones who don't look their age choose to be in the prime of their life." Unlike the two of them. He flexes his jaw as he stares down at Chu Wanning. It's hard to say which one has the worst deal; at least Five will theoretically reach the age he once was in a few excruciating decades. "What happened to me was a mistake."

Five nods. He was as surprised as he was when he heard about them, but then they really had no reason to tell him. It isn't so bad to be mistaken for someone in their twenties when you're upwards of a several hundred, as far as the most extreme example he's come across. Then there's people like Wrath, who could be thousands of years old and can probably appear however he wants to.

Then comes the question they all ask eventually. He feels older every time he has to answer it, but that never seems to amount to much.

"Fifty-nine." It's hard to believe it's been over a year since he made that tiny error that had enormous repercussions. Chu Wanning might be one of the few who can relate. "That doesn't have anything to do with magic sap. There's nothing I can do to reverse it."

It is a little nice, not to get any pushback when he reveals his age, even if he has to admit his failure. But then, nobody would choose to be like them.

"I made an error when I was projecting my consciousness across every possible instance of time." In other words, what he did was very impressive, and shouldn't be overshadowed by what was seemed like an insignificant consequence. He frowns. "It isn't a curse, I just screwed up the math."

"I can." He still could, and he hasn't dropped the habit of working on the math to jump back in the middle of trying to figure out how to hop dimensions. There's just been so many distractions that he'll probably have to scrap half of it. The apocalypse was a living nightmare, but every now and then he misses the solitude.

This isn't the first time someone has told him they're familiar with some magic spell that's similar to what he does, and he's not any more pleased that so many people were able to figure it out.

"That's a good name for it." If they didn't know what they were doing, the results could be... well, apocalyptic. "Most people don't have any business messing with time."

Who is he telling? Five bristles, even if what he's saying is generally correct and should be a relief to hear. If the Commission existed in his world, there's a very good chance they would have assassinated his grandmaster before he even thought to come up with the technique. For some reason they decided to recruit Five instead of letting him die in the apocalypse, but his was a unique case.

"What happened to him?" He asks anyway, because the answer is important. Not just because he's screwed up so many times using his powers, but as a former temporal assassin, he has a lingering need to know about disruptions in the timeline. For all he knows, as many people who have admitted to doing the same, they could have created this dimension just by screwing it up badly enough.

The Time Gate of Life and Death. Interesting.

Five weighs the story as he listens, deciding for himself how possible it seems. He didn't simply go back in time, he went to another timeline where his daughter didn't die. Of course there's the issue of creating a paradox by running into yourself, and it's no surprise to him that they fought, but jumping sideways is theoretically more complex than simply going back to an earlier time and preventing her death.

The lesson to that tragedy would probably be that it's too dangerous to try to change what's meant to be. Generally that's true; Five knows the risks better than anyone and has lived with the consequences. He's just more determined than most in spite of them. He's seen his family die three times already, and every time he fixed it. Call him stubborn, but after decades of figuring out how to get back to them, he's not going to stop trying until he gets it right.

"Another tree." He hums, curious why they rely so much on them. That can't be a coincidence. "Does all your magic come from the same forest?"

Five tries to keep an open mind at his answer, but he also notices how he doesn't seem to agree with the term. 'Magic' isn't a word he particularly likes using, and it isn't what he would call his own abilities. He usually uses it dismissively, and with a fair amount of distain for things he can't make sense of. So he understand the need for correction, and he scoffs at his own attempt to make sense of his story.

"Unrelated to the spells and mystic trees, then." He's heard something similar from some of the others. And as much as he wouldn't admit it, they're able to explain the origins of their abilities better than he can his own.

He's not really sure what he feels about all these strange revelations, but he is somewhat sympathetic to his predicament. If there's a finite amount of medicine for this chronic condition of his, he'd be rationing it too.

"What's your plan now? I thought I stood out, but...," he frowns and eyes him critically. Five can defend himself if someone confronted him about stealing their booze. He doesn't know if even a very determined five-year-old could manage on his own. "They'll notice eventually."

He hasn't already thought about what he'll do when he runs out? If the beacon fails again, like Five knows it will, he'll be stuck here for who knows how long. It shouldn't be any of his concern, but he's got to realize that he has terrible odds for survival the way they've been going.

This evening really took a turn. Here Five had just planned on stealing some alcohol and drinking until he wasn't so bothered by everything he experienced in this miserable village. Now he's still sober and bothered for weird new reasons that he never would have considered as possible.

"How many people know?"