The night after Younes's declaration to master mana passed slowly, like the dragging of a sword across stone. He sat cross-legged beneath a dying tree on the edge of his village, a place forgotten even by the wind. His eyes remained shut, and his breathing steady. It was the same routine he had followed for over a year now — but without results.
His thoughts swirled.
"What is mana? Why does it answer no one? Why only the chosen?"
The elders claimed mana was a gift, not a right — a divine thread connecting chosen bloodlines to the unseen energies of the world. But Younes had no noble lineage. His blood held no prestige. He was a blacksmith's orphan, raised among ash and iron, not scrolls and sacred texts.
Still, he felt it — something calling, faint like a whisper beneath the earth.
Every day, he trained. He lifted stones to build strength, ran through the hills to sharpen his endurance, and meditated under the sun and stars, reaching inward with blind hope.
But nothing ever came.
The First Attempt
On the tenth day of the new moon, Younes stood on a barren hill overlooking the plains. With trembling hands, he performed the movements detailed in the old, crumbling book he had stolen from the traveling merchant.
The ritual required three things:
• Will — unshaken determination
• Focus — a mind clear as glass
• Sacrifice — something the world would recognize
Younes had nothing to offer but himself.
He drew a line in the dirt with a stick, sat within the circle, and whispered the chant again and again.
Hours passed.
Then a whole day.
The sun set, and the cold crept into his bones. Still, he did not stop.
On the second night, his lips cracked, and his stomach howled with hunger.
But his mind burned with defiance.
"If gods won't listen to me, then I will scream into the void until it breaks."
The Isolation
Back in the village, the others mocked him. They called him the Hollow Boy, a fool chasing fairytales.
Even the kind-hearted shopkeeper who once offered him leftover bread now shut her doors at the sight of him.
"You're wasting your life," a man spat at him in the square.
But Younes had already stopped living their version of life.
He now existed in the spaces between breaths — between what was real and what could be.
He spent each morning gathering herbs to eat, each afternoon studying ancient carvings near the old temple ruins, and every night returning to the hill to try again.
He began hearing things.
A hum in the soil.
A shimmer in the wind.
A beat beneath the silence.
Was it real? Or madness?
A Step Closer
On the thirty-third night of his meditation, during a violent thunderstorm, something changed.
Lightning struck the old tree above him — the one he had sat beneath since the beginning. Bark exploded, the trunk splintered, and Younes was thrown back.
When he opened his eyes, everything was still.
Except… his hands.
They shimmered faintly. Not fire. Not light. But something… other.
He gasped and tried to hold it, grasp it — but it faded like smoke.
For the first time, he had touched it. Mana.
Only a flicker. A breath. But it was enough.
Enough to prove the world wrong.
Enough to ignite the flame inside him.
The Awakening Begins
Younes returned to the hill the next day. He no longer sat with desperation, but with purpose. His breathing synced with the rhythm of the earth. His thoughts no longer cried out in frustration, but listened.
He didn't yet control mana.
But it had heard him.
And now, it was watching.
And for the first time in his life, he smiled — not because he was close to victory, but because the journey had truly begun.