Rowan's eyes snapped open.
Fire clawed down his throat, burning through his chest and stomach until every vein felt like it was filled with acid. He convulsed against the sheets, nails scraping wood beneath him as his body refused air. His lungs pulled in nothing but pain.
What—?
The thought shattered as memories not his own poured in. Not his bed. Not his room. Not his life. Images struck like shards of glass: a boy everyone called the ghost son, locked away in an upper chamber of Ironcrest Manor. A dead mother, once the Baron's mistress. Two stepmothers who despised his very existence. Years of silence, hunger, dust. And finally—a trembling hand pressing coin into a servant's palm, begging for a vial of poison to end it all.
The agony in Rowan's throat was no longer just the poison. It was the despair of the boy whose body he now inhabited.
His chest heaved, vision blurring. The bitter taste of bile filled his mouth as realization settled like a blade.
This wasn't Earth. It wasn't his old life. This was a world where knights bore steel and mages bent fire, where noble blood meant power—
and he was nothing but the bastard son of a baron in the kingdom of Altherya.
And this body… was dying.
As darkness pressed at the edges of his vision, something cold and mechanical whispered in his mind:
[Trade System Initialized.]
Rowan froze. The words weren't heard with his ears but carved straight into his thoughts, as if etched across his skull.
[Trade System Initialized.]
[Function: Exchange. Offer anything you possess. Receive something of equal value.]
A voice without warmth. Without care.
His body convulsed, bile rising in his throat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Yet the words pierced through the fog of agony.
Trade…?
His hand fumbled across the desk beside his bed, slick with sweat. Fingers closed around the brittle stem of a quill. Without hesitation, he forced the thought:
Trade this quill for an antidote!
There was a cold pause before the reply came.
[Offer denied. Value insufficient.]
Rowan's chest seized. His vision swam red. Not enough. He needed something worth more.
Clawing at the drawer in his nightstand, he dragged it open with shaking hands. Inside, wrapped in faded cloth, lay three pendants—deep green emeralds framed in silver. His mother's last keepsakes, hidden away from prying eyes.
His fingers trembled as he clutched one tight.
Trade… emerald pendant. For an antidote.
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then the jewel flickered, light swallowing it whole, vanishing as if it had never existed.
Something cold and smooth clinked into his palm: a small vial of deep blue liquid.
Rowan didn't hesitate. He ripped the stopper free with his teeth and swallowed.
The taste was bitter, metallic, burning worse than the poison itself. His stomach heaved, his chest seized, and then his whole body jolted violently. A scream tore from his throat as bile spilled over the sheets. The fire inside him slowly dulled, replaced by a gnawing ache that left him shivering and drenched in sweat.
Air rushed back into his lungs, ragged and raw. He was alive.
But the relief lasted only a heartbeat before a new dread settled in. His body was saved—yet he was still trapped in this room, still under Selene's eye, and the servant would soon return to finish the job.
Rowan's gaze slid back to the drawer. Two pendants remained.
And a thought, sharper than fear, pierced through the haze.
If I could trade for an antidote… what else can I trade for?
His fingers lingered on the pendants, their green gleam catching faint light from the shuttered window. His breath came shallow, uneven. Surviving the poison had only unlocked the flood of memories that weren't his, yet now weighed on him.
Rowan Ironcrest. The ghost son. Locked away since six, after his mother's death. Years of silence, dust, and scorn. Beatings when the servants remembered him, starvation when they didn't. Mocked. Ignored. Erased.
And finally, the end: begging Tomas for poison.
Rowan's jaw clenched. Too neat. Too convenient. No servant should risk his own neck smuggling poison unless someone ordered him to. Unless one of his "mothers" wanted the problem solved quietly.
If Tomas came back and found him breathing, he wouldn't hesitate to finish the job.
The thought curdled into anger. The cold voice stirred again.
[Notice: Host has unlocked eligibility.]
[A single Unequal Exchange may be performed. One chance only.]
Rowan froze. Unequal…?
[You may request something beyond your current value. In return, the cost will be decided by the system. This opportunity will not appear again.]
It was madness. Dangerous. Yet his mind sharpened. He rifled through the stolen memories—fragments of lessons overheard, scraps of gossip among servants.
In Altherya, only a rare few were born with strong magical affinities. Even among nobles, perhaps one child in ten awakened mana. Fewer still possessed an affinity strong enough to matter. A single mage could change the fate of a house.
Power that could not be ignored. Power no stepmother could erase.
This wasn't about surviving tonight. It was about securing tomorrow. About ensuring that when the Baron returned, Rowan Ironcrest would not be dismissed as a weak, forgotten bastard.
His grip tightened around the emerald pendant. His voice rasped, but carried weight:
"Then give me… the greatest affinity for magic."
The response was instant.
[Request accepted.]
The pendant shattered into light.
Then the pain began.
Rowan's scream ripped through the chamber. It felt as though molten iron flooded his veins, burning them hollow. His bones creaked, splintering under invisible hammers. His nerves sparked like lightning, each jolt threatening to tear him apart. He clawed at the sheets until his nails broke and bled.
It went on without end, a firestorm inside flesh too weak to contain it.
And then—silence. Rowan collapsed, sweat pooling beneath him, every limb trembling. His chest rose and fell in shallow bursts. But in that stillness, he felt it.
The world's mana—faint threads drifting like mist in the air—reaching for him. Recognizing him.
He gasped, eyes wide. He could feel every drop, every pulse of magic that others might spend lifetimes chasing.
The system's voice returned, cold as ever.
[Affinity achieved: Supreme.]
[Restriction: Spellcasting requires awakening and core formation. Until then, host may not cast magic.]
Rowan's relief shattered. His teeth clenched, bitter laughter slipping past his lips.
"So I have the gift… but I can't use it."
Even so, the fire in his chest was no longer poison or despair—it was resolve.
Slowly, his gaze slid back to the drawer. Two pendants remained.
If he couldn't cast yet, then he needed knowledge. He needed another edge.
His trembling hand reached for the second pendant.
"Then let's see… what else I can buy."
Rowan's fingers closed around the jewel, cool silver biting into his palm. He had mana affinity now, yes—but power without a way to use it was just another chain.
"What can I trade for that matters now?"
"System," he rasped, throat raw. "Can I trade directly for power? Strength. Something to protect me now?"
The answer came swift and merciless.
[Affirmative. However—unrefined power without methods to control it will exceed host capacity. Result: overload. Result: death.]
Rowan's blood chilled. In other words, raw strength would kill him. Not an offer— a warning.
He ground his teeth. So he couldn't grab power. Not yet. But he could seize the tools to survive until he was ready.
His eyes narrowed, sifting through the boy's memories. In Altherya, no one touched magic before fifteen—the age of Awakening, when a core could be formed. Before then, spells were impossible. No noble, no commoner, could bend the rules.
But magic wasn't the only path. There were whispers of craftsmen who inscribed runes to harness ambient mana. Objects that worked even for those without cores. Tools, weapons, wards. Runesmiths.
Knowledge. That, he realized, was something he could survive on.
He gripped the pendant tighter.
"Trade this sapphire pendant… for knowledge. The training of a runesmith."
The jewel flared, then vanished, its light searing into his mind.
Rowan staggered, clutching his skull as waves of memory not his own poured in. The weight of hammers. The scent of burning charcoal. Diagrams of runes etched into steel and stone. Principles of symmetry, inscriptions, the slow art of binding mana into form.
He gasped, sweat dripping from his chin. But even through the dizziness, exhilaration cut through. It was more than memory—it was skill, a foundation.
The knowledge confirmed what he already feared: without Awakening, spellcasting was sealed. But runes were loopholes. Anyone with enough precision could wield them. And with his supreme affinity, the resonance he felt for mana would give him an edge even veterans lacked.
Rowan's lips curled into a tight smile. "So I'm locked out of magic for now. Fine. Then I'll carve my own path into it."
The thought settled like steel in his chest.
And then—
A creak.
His head snapped toward the door. Footsteps in the hall. Slow. Careful.
Rowan's body went still, hand inching toward the jagged chair leg he had hidden earlier.
Tomas was coming.
The latch clicked. The door creaked inward.
"Tomas," Rowan croaked, forcing weakness into his voice.
The servant slipped inside, candle stub in hand. The flicker painted long shadows on the walls. His face was schooled into worry, but his eyes—sharp, calculating—betrayed a flicker of shock at seeing Rowan upright.
"My lord," Tomas said smoothly, though his hand dipped toward his waist. "You're awake? The fever must still be burning you. Rest—"
The dagger glinted as he lunged.
Rowan's heartbeat thundered, but his hands didn't falter. He jerked sideways, dragging the bedsheet with him. The sharpened chair leg he'd hidden beneath the folds rose like a spear.
The blade sliced his shoulder shallow, fire tearing his flesh. Rowan gritted his teeth, forcing the wood upward with every ounce of desperation.
The point punched through cloth. Through flesh. Tomas's breath caught in a wet gasp.
Rowan snarled, shoving until the wood sank deep. Hot blood sprayed across his face, dripping down his chin.
The servant's dagger clattered to the floorboards as his knees buckled. His eyes locked on Rowan, wide with hate, lips curling in a dying sneer.
"You… should've stayed dead…" he choked, crimson bubbling from his mouth.
Then his body slumped, sliding limply off the improvised stake.
For a moment, only Rowan's ragged breaths filled the room. The corpse sprawled at his feet, eyes glassy, blood seeping into the sheets.
His stomach churned. The metallic tang of blood filled the air, thick and suffocating. Rowan staggered back, bile rising hot in his throat.
He bent and retched, vomit splattering across the floorboards beside the corpse. His hands shook violently, slick with blood that wasn't his.
The boy whose memories haunted him had never raised a hand against anyone. The man Rowan had been before had never killed. But here, in this locked chamber, he had impaled a servant like an animal.
And no one was coming to help him.
The stench of iron and vomit pressed down like a weight. Rowan wiped his mouth with a trembling sleeve, breath shallow, uneven. His gaze dragged back to Tomas's body. The eyes still stared, accusing. The lips still curved in that final curse.
He forced himself to look. To accept. Because denial was weakness, and weakness had nearly killed him once already.
He had survived poison. He had survived the system's fire. And now he had survived his first kill.
But survival here meant more than enduring.
Rowan's thoughts snapped sharp, calculating. Selene would notice Tomas's absence. She would notice if her poison failed. If he stayed in this cage of a room, his death was inevitable—dagger, poison, or worse.
His fingers curled into fists. "If I stay, I die," he whispered hoarsely. "So I won't stay."
His reflection stared faintly in the darkened window: blood streaking his cheek, sweat soaking his hair, eyes hollow but burning cold.
The ghost son of Ironcrest Manor was supposed to be forgotten. Powerless. Already dead.
But tonight had rewritten that.
Rowan's lips twisted into something between a grimace and a smile. "I'll vanish before morning. Let them believe the ghost is gone… until I return to haunt them."
He rose slowly from the blood-slick floor, standing over the corpse with the candle's flame painting his shadow long and sharp across the wall.
The boy who had begged for poison was gone.
What remained was something else entirely.