Guys, I've been thinking about something and I want your opinion. It took White Radish a thousand years to gather his ancestral powers because he was searching for the same ancestral powers as the original White Star, considered the strongest, right? But he also went after the ancestral power of Cale's mother.
This raises two possibilities:
The Annual Rings of Life were a power that belonged to the original White Star.
It was a case similar to the Sky-Devouring Water, where White Radish went after an ancestral power that he considered more suitable for himself than the one that belonged to his predecessor.
But here I want to focus on the first possibility, because if it's actually correct, it creates a very... interesting scenario. Remember when Cale obtained the second portion of the Annual Rings of Life, and young Jour's voice stated that only a Thames could properly use that power? In this context, this statement creates three possibilities based on the idea that this ancestral power belonged to the original White Star:
The Thames later obtained the Annual Rings of Life and made some kind of modification and improvement to the power, making it so that only members of the lineage could use it completely.
The original White Star was a member of the Thames lineage.
At some point, someone from the lineage descended from the original White Star (the same one from which the Crossman came) married into the Thames, giving rise to the lineage from which Jour came.
It's also worth pointing out some things that seem too related to be mere coincidences, such as the fact that the last body the White Radish possessed was conveniently that of a Thames, that it was a Thames who taught the Lion King how to consume a dark elemental, and that Jour did all that—breaking her own plate and dividing her ancestral power—as if she knew for sure that someone dangerous was behind that ancestral power.
It's almost as if the Thames and the power of the Annual Rings of Life were interconnected with the White Star.
I don't know about you, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced of these assumptions and theories.