Adrian's consciousness returned slowly, the world coming into focus as he awoke in a quiet, softly lit chamber of the outpost's medical bay. His body ached with lingering pain
A figure moved beside his bed. The healer's hands wove delicate patterns of golden light across his chest, each thread easing the ache only slightly. The damage ran deeper than surface wounds.
"You're awake." The healer's voice carried relief. "Good. I was beginning to worry."
Adrian's throat felt raw when he spoke. "What happened? After I..."
"Collapsed?" The healer's expression softened. "Your mother arrived. Lady Blackwood ended the battle in minutes."
"The others? My team?"
"Most survived. Forty-three casualties total, but it could have been thousands without your intervention." The healer finished his spell and stepped back. "You've been unconscious for three days."
Three days. Adrian tested his limbs, feeling the deep ache that spoke of bones recently mended. "Where is she? My mother?"
"High-level meetings with the Organization. She'll come when she can." The healer gathered his supplies. "Rest now. Your body needs time to fully heal."
The door closed with a soft click, leaving Adrian alone with the weight of what had happened. He pushed himself upright, ignoring the sharp protests from his ribs. Every movement sent fire through his nerves, but underneath the pain lay something else.
Power. Raw, overwhelming power.
His mana capacity felt transformed, not merely expanded but fundamentally altered. Where once a modest pool had sustained his spells, now an ocean churned within his core. Fifty times greater than his awakening day, maybe more.
Pain had brought power. Risk had brought reward.
He replayed the battle frame by frame. Starbreaker had been expected, though brutal in its execution. But the mist, that white-grey aura that had dissolved monsters with a touch, that had been something else entirely.
The memory became clear. The Source within him had analyzed every affinity it encountered on the battlefield, cataloguing their essence, then merging them into something raw and primal. He had reversed the natural flow.
Affinities branched from the Source like rivers from a mountain spring. But he had forced them back upstream, combining them into a fraction of that cosmic river he had glimpsed during his awakening.
Impure, yes. If the true Source was the sun, his creation had been merely a spark, less than one percent of its purity. But the experience had shown him the path forward.
Before, he had theorized about combining affinities into stronger spells. Now he knew. His future lay in mastering countless affinities, merging them until the Source revealed itself fully.
On the battlefield, he had wielded the mist like a brute, crude blasts of condensed energy, fists wreathed in reality-erasing smoke. But one day, when his comprehension deepened, he could weave this raw Source into true spells of his own making.
Adrian tested his body, flexing fingers that should have been shattered. The pain was sharp but manageable. He could still circulate healing spells through his meridians.
For the next hour, he focused inward. Mana flowed like liquid light through damaged channels, knitting flesh and mending bone. Soon, his body was whole again.
Curiosity pulled at him. Could he summon the mist again?
He extended his hand, palm up. Mana split into countless threads, each becoming a different affinity. fire, ice, gravity, light, shadow, then merging back together. Slowly, the white-grey aura shimmered into existence above his palm.
It hissed like living smoke, clinging to his skin like a second layer. The power within it made his teeth ache.
But the cost was immense. Mana poured away at frightening speed, his vast new reserves draining like water through a broken dam. He tested the limits, if kept only on his hands, he could sustain it for fifteen minutes. Spread across his whole body, perhaps three.
Powerful, but not sustainable. For now, a trump card.
He dismissed the mist and rose from the bed, muscles protesting but functional.
The door opened before he reached it.
Elara entered, her presence filling the room. Her eyes, sharp, swept over him in an instant assessment.
"And what do you think you're doing, standing up like that?"
The words struck him with the force of childhood memory. Adrian felt his composure crack, the confident mask he wore in battle dissolving under that familiar maternal tone.
He straightened his shoulders, trying to salvage some dignity. "Mother, I'm fine. The healers did their work, and I—"
"You're fine?" Her eyebrow arched dangerously. "You were unconscious for three days, Adrian. Three days."
"I've already healed myself." The words tumbled out before he could stop them, sheepish as a child caught stealing sweets. "I mastered the healing spell and used it on my injuries."
The stern look on her face deepened into something approaching fury. Golden mana flowed from her fingertips, scanning his body.
"Reckless casting in such a fragile condition." Her voice carried the edge of a blade. "Do you have any idea what internal damage you could have caused?"
Adrian remained silent, unable to meet her gaze. The woman who had ended a battle in thirty seconds was scolding him like he was six years old again.
But when her anger shifted, her tone hardened with something deeper than frustration. Pain leaked through the cracks in her composure.
"I saw you on that battlefield, Adrian." Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Soaked in your own blood, seconds from death beneath a D-Rank monster's claws."
She turned away, hands clenching at her sides. "If I hadn't arrived when I did, you would have been lost."
The weight of her grief pressed against his chest. Adrian opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. What could he say to answer such fear?
Elara faced him again, and her expression had transformed. The mother's worry remained, but now it mingled with something else, the sharp suspicion of an A-Rank Defender.
"I saw the white-grey mist around you, dissolving as you collapsed."
The air in the room seemed to thicken. Adrian felt his pulse quicken under her scrutiny.
"Adrian," she said, her voice steady, "how did you use that? Something even A-Rank Defenders rarely manage to achieve?"
The question hung between them.