Ch 1: How a genius lived his life
I grew up in the slums, the kind of place where even the air feels tired. Rotten wood, rusted tin, streets caked with mud and filth. People here don't dream—they just survive, one day at a time.
That's all I knew.
I never saw my parents, not even once. The nuns at the orphanage used to tell me I was left at the door as a baby, wrapped in rags that smelled of smoke. They never said more, and I never asked. Their voices carried enough venom for me to know they despised me. I didn't need words to understand them.
I could see it.
Anger dripped from their shoulders like red fire, disgust crawled around their mouths in a dark haze. Everyone had colors to them—emotions twisting and churning, always shifting, always loud. At first, I thought the whole world was like this, that everyone saw what I did. But the way people looked at me whenever I mentioned it told me the truth: I was alone in that sight.
And not just that. Mana itself was visible to me, a slow river of light flowing through veins, pools gathering in the air, thin circles etched with runes glowing faintly when someone tried to use magic. Most people in the slums didn't have circles. They were talentless, and they hated those who did.
Which is why I never told anyone about mine.
My magic circle shines a soft green, and from it flows the one thing I've mastered: healing. My hands glow that same green light, warm and steady, mending skin, closing wounds, knitting broken flesh together. The first time it happened, I was bleeding, my leg torn open from broken glass, and I begged for the pain to stop. The circle answered. The cut sealed before my eyes.
Since then, I've practiced in secret. No one knows. If they did, they'd use me, sell me, maybe even kill me. In this place, hope is a luxury people crush under their boots.
So I live quietly, quietly… and yet, even as I heal myself, I can't heal the emptiness inside.
---
That night was different.
Sleep dragged me into a dream unlike any I'd had before.
I stood in a vast, dark room—no, not a room. A space without walls or end. The air was thin, heavy, filled with shadows that pulsed like a heartbeat. The ground beneath me cracked and bled ink, crawling up my legs, wrapping around me like chains.
I tried to move, but the darkness swallowed me, seeping into my skin, filling my lungs. Fear burned in my chest. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.
And yet… I didn't die.
The shadow didn't destroy me. It accepted me.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the slums. My bed was as rotten as ever, my room still damp with mold. But my body felt different. Alive, sharp, as if something new had been carved into me.
I raised my hand, and a black mist curled around my fingers, swallowing the faint morning light. Cold, powerful, hungry.
Shadow.
I didn't know why or how. Only that I had been given something far beyond healing. Something dangerous.
And deep inside, I could feel it—a presence, faint, waiting. Like a locked door in the corner of my soul.
I didn't know it then, but that door would open soon.
And when it did, the system would awaken.
---
The first time I tested the shadows, it nearly scared me as much as the dream.
It was early morning, the streets still empty, the mist clinging to the crooked rooftops. I slipped into one of the alleys where no one went—a dead end where the walls leaned so close together you could barely move. My hand trembled as I called to it, that cold energy that had embedded itself inside me.
The shadows answered instantly.
They stretched from my fingertips like liquid smoke, slithering down the wall, bending to my will. At first, they moved awkwardly, clumsy, like a newborn stumbling on its feet. But when I focused, when I thought of them as part of me, they sharpened—becoming blades, claws, tendrils.
And it felt… good. Too good.
Healing was gentle, soft. It soothed wounds, erased pain, restored balance. But this—this was raw and consuming. The shadows obeyed every thought, every emotion. When I felt anger, they writhed violently. When I felt fear, they closed in around me, shielding me like armor.
It was intoxicating.
But dangerous.
If anyone saw me, if word spread that a boy from the slums had shadow magic, I wouldn't live long enough to see tomorrow. Shadow was rare, feared, and wanted. Too wanted.
So I kept it hidden, just like I did with my healing.
Still, something gnawed at me. Both powers lived inside me now, light and dark, green and black. And I didn't understand why.
---
But, something came three nights later.
I woke to the sound of whispering. Not outside. Not in the orphanage halls. Inside my head.
At first I thought it was another dream, another drowning in that endless dark. But when I opened my eyes, a faint screen hovered in front of me, glowing with white letters no one else could see.
> [System Initialization…]
[Synchronization with Host's Soul: 67%...]
[Detected Attributes: Healing (Light Variant), Shadow.]
[Special Conditions Met. Unique System Granted.]
I froze. My breath caught in my throat.
The letters shifted, new lines unfolding across the translucent screen.
> Welcome, Heir of Duality.
You have been chosen.
I sat upright, heart hammering. My roommates were still asleep, snoring in their cots, but my world had shifted in a way I couldn't explain.
A system? A voice calling me Heir of Duality?
> [Tutorial Mode Available. Begin? Y/N]
I didn't touch anything, but the system seemed to sense my thoughts.
> Beginning Tutorial…
The room around me blurred. In an instant, I was no longer in the orphanage but standing in that endless black space again—the same one from my dream. Only this time, it wasn't empty.
Floating before me were two circles of light. One glowed green, familiar and soft—the healing magic I had known for years. The other pulsed black, cold and endless—the shadow I had just discovered.
Between them, a path stretched forward into the unknown.
The voice whispered again, clearer now, threading directly into my mind.
> You carry both light and shadow. You will walk between them. Heal and destroy. Save and consume.
I clenched my fists, staring at the two powers swirling before me. My whole life, I had been unwanted. Forgotten. But now… now the world itself seemed to be handing me something.
A chance.
End of chapter 1