"So tell me - why the hell haven't you actually awakened yet?"
Fenix stood frozen like a deer caught in torchlight, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly as he struggled to find any response that made sense. The stranger before him was a walking contradiction - ragged clothes and a drunkard's posture, but eyes that cut through him like surgical blades, seeing things that Fenix wasn't even sure existed.
His throat felt dry as sand. How could he explain that he didn't even know who he really was anymore? That everything about his existence felt like an elaborate lie - this face he wore, this name he carried, even the rhythm of his own heartbeat? The truth was too impossible to speak aloud.
And now this mysterious man was staring at him like he could read every secret written on his soul.
It was like having a knife pressed against his throat - too close, too sharp, one wrong word and everything would come crashing down around him.
The stranger tilted his head, studying Fenix with the patient intensity of a predator watching wounded prey. After what felt like an eternity of uncomfortable silence, he let out another thunderous belch that echoed off the ancient tombstones.
"Hmm..." His voice softened slightly, though it still carried that underlying edge of steel. "I can see you're not ready to talk yet. Fair enough, kid. When you finally decide you want to stop being pathetic, come find me at the old Sakura tree on the hill. Maybe then we can turn you into something worth looking at."
And just like that - he was gone.
Fenix blinked hard, his brain struggling to process what had just happened.
One moment, the massive figure had been standing there with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, radiating the kind of casual menace that made hardened warriors nervous. The next moment? Nothing. Empty air and the whisper of wind through dead leaves.
No flash of movement. No ripple of displaced energy. No footprints in the soft earth. The man had simply ceased to exist in that spot, like he'd been nothing more than a particularly vivid hallucination.
Fenix spun around wildly, checking every shadow and corner of the cemetery. His heart hammered against his ribs as panic set in. Had the stranger moved behind him? Was this some kind of test? Was he being watched even now?
But there was nothing. Just old stone and older silence.
Without thinking, Fenix turned and ran toward the main house like all the demons of hell were chasing him.
---
That night, he tried once more to break through the barrier that seemed to surround his dormant power.
He sat cross-legged in the small attic room that he and Abigail had claimed as their living space, his palms pressed flat against his knees as sweat beaded on his forehead. His chest ached from the strain of trying to force energy that refused to come. His eyes stung with frustrated tears he refused to let fall.
But no matter how desperately he focused, no matter how much willpower he poured into the effort... nothing happened. The aura core remained locked away inside him like a treasure chest without a key - present but completely inaccessible.
Eventually, exhaustion claimed him. He collapsed onto his thin mattress and fell into a restless sleep filled with dreams of crimson eyes and mocking laughter.
---
Morning came too soon, bringing with it the same crushing routine of failure.
Fenix dragged himself upright before the sun had fully risen, already reaching for that familiar spark of power that never quite materialized. This had become his personal torture - waking up every day with hope that maybe today would be different, only to have that hope crushed within minutes.
But this morning, something inside him finally snapped.
Not his aura core. That remained stubbornly silent.
His patience.
He shot to his feet with a snarl of pure frustration, his hands clenched into fists that trembled with impotent rage. "What's the point?" he growled at the empty room. "Why won't this damn thing just work?!"
The sound of his own voice, raw with desperation, startled him back to awareness. He was losing control, and that scared him more than any mysterious stranger ever could.
Midday found him wandering the halls of the main house like a ghost, his shoulders slumped in defeat and his head pounding with the dull ache of constant stress. He walked past servants who whispered behind their hands, ignored the pointed stares of relatives who saw him as a walking reminder of their family's fall from grace.
He was trying very hard to pretend none of it mattered when he heard something that made his blood turn to ice.
"...Abigail..."
He stopped dead in his tracks, his head whipping around like he'd been struck by lightning.
The voice had come from around a corner near the old armor gallery where portraits of dead heroes watched with painted eyes. Two house guards were speaking in low, urgent tones, apparently unaware they had an audience.
Fenix pressed himself against the wall and crept closer, staying hidden in the shadows.
"Lord Khan wants to arrange an engagement between the girl and that Richter boy," one of them was saying in a tone that suggested he thought it was a terrible idea.
"What? That arrogant little Tier Three brat?" his companion scoffed. "Complete waste of good bloodline if you ask me. The girl's got potential, even if her brother's a disappointment."
Fenix didn't need to hear any more.
The words hit him like physical blows, each one driving deeper than the last. Abigail? His precious sister, the only family he had left in this world, being sold off like livestock to some low-tiered family's spoiled son? After everything they had suffered together, after all the promises he'd made to protect her?
His vision went completely red. His fingernails bit into his palms so hard he nearly drew blood. If he had been strong - if his aura core had finally awakened like it was supposed to - he could march into Khan's office right now and tear that marriage contract to shreds with his bare hands.
Instead, he stood there in the shadows, completely powerless to change anything.
'Pathetic.'
The word echoed in his mind like a curse, tasting bitter as poison on his tongue. And then, through the haze of his rage and self-hatred, he remembered the stranger from the cemetery. The mysterious man who had told him to seek him out when he was ready to stop being weak.
As he was debating whether that encounter had been real or just a stress-induced hallucination, he overheard more whispered conversation from nearby servants.
"Have you heard?" a young maid was saying to her companion. "The ghost is back again."
"That old drunk who shows up every few years?" the other replied with a nervous giggle. "He disappears for months at a time, then comes back like some kind of curse for a season before vanishing again."
Ghost. Drunk. Someone who appeared and disappeared without warning.
Fenix's heart began pounding with sudden understanding. That had to be the same person - the stranger who had materialized in the cemetery like he'd stepped out of thin air.
His mind was made up in that instant.
---
That evening, Fenix stood by the cracked window of their attic room, watching the sun paint the sky in shades of orange and purple. Abigail was across the room, carefully cleaning a chipped plate while humming a half-remembered lullaby their mother used to sing.
"I'll be out until late tonight," he said quietly, not quite meeting her eyes.
She looked up from her work with mild curiosity. "Where are you going?"
He hesitated for just a moment. "Training. I found... a place where I can practice without being disturbed."
It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth either. The guilt of keeping secrets from her twisted in his stomach like a living thing.
But Abigail just nodded with the kind of trust that made his chest ache. She had never been the type to cage people with questions or demands. Somehow, that unconditional faith made lying to her feel even worse.
At least she wouldn't be alone. Lily, the one maid in the entire estate who still treated them like actual human beings instead of embarrassing reminders of failure, would keep watch. The woman was a Graduator-rank fighter who could take down a dozen armed men before her morning tea got cold. If anyone could keep Abigail safe, it was her.
---
The sky was deepening into rich purple and gold by the time Fenix reached the hill that rose behind the main estate buildings.
There it was, exactly as the stranger had described it.
The ancient Sakura tree stood alone on the hilltop like a sentinel keeping watch over the valley below. Its delicate pink blossoms drifted on the evening breeze like tiny pieces of captured sunset, creating a carpet of petals around its massive trunk. Despite everything else falling into ruin, this tree remained perfectly beautiful - untouched by war or time.
And leaning casually against its trunk, chewing on a blade of grass like he had all the time in the world, was the mysterious man from the cemetery.
Fenix stopped at the base of the hill, suddenly uncertain. What was he doing here? What did he hope to accomplish?
Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he began climbing toward the tree.
The moment his foot touched the grass at the tree's base, the stranger spoke without bothering to open his eyes.
"So you decided to show up after all. Good. Let's get started immediately."
Fenix opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. "You... you didn't even ask what I wanted from you."
The man finally cracked one eye open, a crooked grin spreading across his weathered face. "Kid, if you didn't desperately want power, you wouldn't have climbed this hill. The question isn't what you want - it's how badly you're willing to suffer to get it."
Fenix found he had no argument for that logic. The man had seen right through him with embarrassing ease.
"So what happens now?" he asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.
The stranger pushed himself away from the tree trunk and stretched like a cat waking up from a long nap, his joints popping audibly in the quiet evening air.
"Now?" he said, his voice dropping to something low and dangerous. "Now we're going to kill the weak, pathetic version of yourself. And hopefully, something stronger will crawl out of the wreckage."
The words sent a chill down Fenix's spine, but he found himself nodding anyway. He had come too far to back down now.
Whatever this man was planning to put him through, it had to be better than another day of helpless failure.