Flashback
City of Pinter: The Beginning of a Fractured Life ⟣
Oro Lix was born in one of the narrow alleys of Pinter, a city located south of the royal capital.
A crowded city, permanently noisy, its stones eroded, where the scent of burnt bread mingled with the odors of sewers.
From the moment he was born, he knew warmth only sparsely. His father worked in the shipyards, long hours for a meager wage. His mother spun cloth for the wealthy houses, returning each evening with cracked hands and dust that clung to her clothes.
Their home was a single room whose roof leaked in winter and whose walls hid rats in summer. Yet his parents insisted on smiling every night to reassure his small heart.
But Oro, even in his childhood, did not fully believe those smiles were sincere.
He saw how their expressions changed when they thought he wasn't looking. How exhaustion collapsed onto their shoulders and a weight fell into their eyes.
By the age of six, he had understood that poverty was not an incidental circumstance… but a merciless fate.
⟢ His First Painful Memory ⟣
Oro remembers a winter night sharply.
Rain poured without mercy, and the sound of the wind filled the room.
He held his mother's trembling hand and asked her:
"Mom… will we ever become rich?"
She hesitated a little, as if afraid to speak a lie she could not carry, then answered in a soft voice:
"Perhaps… if you are brave enough to fight your fate."
He did not understand the meaning of "your fate," but he kept the word.
Over the days, that sentence became a quiet motto living in his chest:
(If I don't fight my fate, I will not survive.)
⟢ The Incident of Losing His Parents ⟣
When he reached nine, he received news of his parents' death.
A strange man knocked on their miserable door and stood for a long moment before speaking:
"Oro… it was an accident… a wagon overturned on the coastal road. They died together."
Later, he learned that they had been on their way to buy some medicine they could not fully afford.
But they tried.
Until the last day, they kept resisting the betrayal of poverty.
That night, Oro did not cry.
He sat alone on the floor of the room, watching the firewood dust float, and wondered:
(Is this the fate my mother spoke of? A fate that leaves us no choice?)
Something like hatred sneaked into his chest from that moment on.
A hatred he didn't know how to name, but it became his constant companion.
⟢ After His Parents' Death ⟣
Oro was taken to a rudimentary orphanage on the outskirts of Pinter.
The place was not as bad as it was desolate.
He never felt like a child of that gathering of pale-faced boys.
He spent his following years in hard labor:
carrying sacks at the port, cleaning stables, stacking firewood.
Every coin he earned felt like a small victory against that fate.
He had no teacher or mentor.
The whole world seemed like an enemy.
So… he never learned to be attached to anyone.
He preferred silence.
He watched people like he watched sick birds… wondering which of them would fall first.
⟢ The Beginning of His Curiosity About Magic ⟣
At twelve, he met an old man who sold strange stones and herbs.
For the first time, Oro glimpsed a sparkle of possibility:
"You can become something more than a poor man begging for a chance."
From that day, he gathered scraps to buy any book about energy and magical abilities.
His books were not scientifically accurate. Most were torn popular pamphlets, but they were his only window.
Over time, he began to see magic as a tool to change fate.
It might have been an illusion… but he loved the illusion of power more than the reality of helplessness.
⟢ What Remained Inside Him ⟣
Despite the poverty and hunger, a small spark remained in his heart.
A spark that said:
"If I become strong enough… the world will not be able to take anything from me again."
At fifteen, Oro Lix owned nothing but a thin body and a will as sharp as a blade.
He lived in a small room behind the herb seller's shop, who sometimes showed him kindness, though never giving him anything for free.
Every night, after a long day's work at the port, Oro would sit on the clay floor, light a short candle, and open the pages of old books:
"Principles of Activating the Energy Flow… Techniques for Manipulating the Ether…"
Most were fragmented texts, some stuffed with superstitions.
But Oro learned quickly a strange skill:
to separate truth from illusion.
When he read of meaningless rituals, he recognized them as mere superstition.
And when he found difficult instructions, a gut feeling told him they were a step in the right direction.
Thus, step by step, he began to build his knowledge alone.
He had no teacher to show him his mistakes.
He failed countless times.
But failure meant nothing to him…
as long as he did not die, he would try again.
In the nights following his fifteenth year, Oro began to feel something different in his hands.
A faint current, like a cold thread beneath the skin, pulsing then vanishing.
He read in one of the books that some people have a natural inclination toward a specific element.
He did not yet know what his inclination was.
But in one of his failed attempts to move a small stone on the table, something happened that changed everything.
He did not manage to move the stone…
rather he saw it split into two with a sharpness like a sword.
At first he thought his sight deceived him.
But when he touched the split stone, he understood.
This… was his inclination.
The Element of Cutting.
A power that enables its wielder to form thin, cutting strands of energy, visible only when focused.
⟢ His Extreme Training on the Cutting Element ⟣
The room was not a suitable place for such training.
So at every dawn, when people slept, he would go out to a barren ground near an old drainage stream.
A filthy place, full of insects, where no one approached.
That was why he chose it.
He stood there in the dark, opened his palm, and concentrated all his attention on the sensation of those energetic threads under his skin.
At first, he could only generate them for a single moment.
Then ten seconds.
Then a full minute.
Weeks passed with him repeating the experiment each night.
His hands sometimes bled.
His fingers trembled.
But he remained standing, channeling his energy into an imaginary line between his thumb and forefinger, cutting through dead branches.
Over time, he could form short blades and launch them a meter.
Then two meters.
Then five meters.
He called them himself:
"the Hidden Cut."
⟢ Training in Precise Control ⟣
His goal was not only to produce power but absolute control.
So he dedicated whole months to learning how to:
— make a cut split without completely destroying the target.
— form more than one blade at the same time.
— change the angle of the cut during launch.
Sometimes he carried a piece of wood the size of his palm, drew lines on it with charcoal, and tried to cut only the line without breaking it.
He spent nights in the cold practicing, repeating, and correcting.
No teacher.
No support.
No money.
Only an obsessed patience.
⟢ The Fruits of His Training ⟣
By the end of his fifteenth year, Oro was capable of executing:
— slanted cuts at high speeds.
— parallel strips of energy that sliced a target into fine layers.
— a circular cutting motion that surrounded him for defense or attack.
His body had developed greatly.
His shoulders were broad.
His hands carried small scars known only to him.
But at his core was a steady feeling:
"Now… I am no longer that boy waiting for his fate. I will make it myself."
The Night of the Letter ⟣
It was a stifling summer night.
Oro Lix had just finished his long training on the barren ground near the drainage stream.
His hands pulsed with energetic heat, and his heart panted like an ember that had not cooled.
When he returned to the dilapidated room behind the old man's shop, he noticed something he was not used to seeing:
A black envelope, sealed with red wax, placed carefully on the pillow.
The envelope was strangely clean amid all that dust.
Its mere sight made his intuition ring silent alarms.
He placed his fingers on the wax and hesitated.
Then he cut it with a single motion.
⟢ The Letter ⟣
"To Oro Lix,
We are an organization of wide influence. We learned of your mastery of the Cutting element at such a young age, despite your lack of education and support.
We have an offer for you: a special competition to select the toughest individuals.
If you pass it, we will grant you unlimited funding for your research and experiments.
You will gain a status no child of the poor will reach.
If you do not participate… you will remain lurking in the shadows.
Do not fear anything. The competition is entirely legal and backed by high parties in the royal capital.
We will send a carriage to transport you tomorrow after dusk.
Opportunities like this are offered only once."
When he finished the last lines, he had stopped breathing for a few seconds.
⟢ The Trap That Tempted Him ⟣
It was not money alone that tempted him.
It was that final line:
"Unlimited funding for your research."
Those words awakened his old ambition buried under the ashes of his miserable life.
He imagined himself in a real laboratory… among hundreds of rare volumes… mastering dozens of elements… inventing a new technique for absolute cutting…
The idea was like a velvet snare, pulling his will step by step.
True, his instinct cried danger deep within.
But he wrapped it in a logical excuse:
"Even if it was a trap, —"