Instructions.
The word echoed in his consciousness like the toll of a bell, chasing away all other thoughts. Caelan stood on the training ground, staring into the void but seeing a whole new universe of possibilities before him.
Kira watched him, her violet eyes narrowing slightly. She saw not shock or revelation, but a child lost in deep thought, the way one might be when trying to grasp a complex rule in a new game. A faint, warm smile touched her lips.
"That's enough for today," she said softly, pulling him from his stupor. "Your little head needs to think all this over. Get some rest."
"Master Caelan."
The voice sounded from directly behind Kira—even, calm, and utterly unexpected. She flinched, her entire body jumping to the side as her hand instinctively flew to the hilt of her sword.
"Ah!" a short yelp escaped her. She spun around, her eyes flashing as she nearly drew her blade. Seeing Elias, her expression curdled with annoyance. "Elias! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?!"
The butler stood there, as imperturbable as a statue, as if he had been part of the landscape all along. He didn't even glance at the furious cat-folk. His gaze was calmly fixed on Caelan.
"Lady Lianna is waiting for you in the west garden for her afternoon games," he announced, as if nothing had happened.
Kira muttered something under her breath, adjusted her weapon, and with a final, warmer glance at Caelan, disappeared around the corner.
Caelan nodded silently and followed Elias. They walked through the silent, cool corridors of the manor. The last words of their lesson echoed in his head, particularly her question: "Maybe for you, fire is something else?"
She was right. For him, fire was not a feeling. But what was it? He began to sift through definitions in his mind, searching for a foothold. Fire was what made wood, gasoline, and alcohol burn… That was a superficial, childish understanding.
They passed the same tapestry he had seen on his first day. The five figures—representatives of the Alliance races. And in the corner, the same black scar—a hole burned through history, as if by acid.
His gaze caught on the charred threads. They reminded him…
A chemistry lesson. The teacher had explained how when you mix two substances—sometimes, even two clear liquids that looked like water—you could create a third, completely different substance, and as a byproduct, heat would be released.
He stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor, staring at the tapestry.
Heat.
The word sounded in his head not as a description, but as an answer.
He didn't see it, but he felt it. He didn't need to turn around. A sharp, focused gaze bored into his back. Elias's gaze. It was so intense that goosebumps prickled his skin.
Caelan flinched, snapping out of his trance, and hurried to catch up to the butler.
They walked on. But the thought would no longer stop.
What is heat?
He dove back into his memories, trying to pull out the necessary fragments. Heat is the movement of atoms. They vibrate. What was it called… kinetic energy? Potential energy? He tried to recall the terms from his physics class. He was pretty sure it was kinetic. Maybe I'm wrong, a thought flashed, but the core idea is right: the vibration of atoms is temperature. Heat. That's a fact.
Knowledge I thought would never be useful in life, he thought with a new irony, except to better understand my old world.
A faint smile touched his lips at the absurdity of it all.
And now… it might become the tool to dismantle this one.
He remembered: heat was the movement of the atoms that made up everything, and cold was simply its absence—the slowing of that movement, all the way to a complete stop.
They arrived at the familiar, ivy-covered archway that led to the west garden. There, by the pond, Lianna was already waiting, sorting through pebbles on the bank.
Caelan walked over to Lianna. His head was still buzzing with new theories, but seeing her, he pushed them to the back of his mind. The girl jumped to her feet to meet him, her face beaming with pride.
"Caelan, look! I did it!"
She struck a pose, solemnly announcing, "Now I'm going to be angry!" She furrowed her brows comically and even stomped her foot, trying to portray the most terrible rage. Caelan, braced for another burst of magic, instinctively tensed. But nothing happened.
"See?!" she exclaimed joyfully, her mock anger instantly vanishing. "Nothing happened! I can be angry, and nothing catches on fire!"
She laughed with pure happiness, her chin held high with pride. And in that moment, the air around them filled with a soft, pleasant warmth.
Caelan felt the warmth and couldn't suppress a smile. He liked this trait of hers—this energetic, somewhat naive sincerity. He played along. "Yes, you're right. You've almost mastered it."
At that moment, Elias appeared from the direction of the manor. The butler, who had left Caelan at the entrance to the garden, was now returning, accompanied by a young woman in a simple but elegant dress. Elias carried a folded blanket and a stack of books, while the woman held a wicker basket.
"Master Caelan, Lady Lianna," the butler announced as he approached. "Lady Amelia will be conducting your lessons on the hill today."
They followed the adults. The garden, meticulously manicured near the manor, gradually gave way to a wilder landscape. They climbed a small, grassy hill that offered a view of the entire estate.
Elias silently and with perfect efficiency spread the blanket. Lady Amelia, their new tutor, began to lay out light snacks from the basket.
Once they were settled, Lianna enthusiastically grabbed one of the books. "Look! Father reads this one to me often at night!"
Caelan looked at the book. It wasn't thick, bound in sturdy leather that was slightly worn at the corners, but clearly well-cared-for. There was no title on the cover, only a simple embossed symbol—a sun with radiating beams. A child's book.
Lianna opened it to one of the pages. The illustration took up nearly the entire spread. It depicted a battle.
"This is the Hero Asterion!" she said, pointing a finger at the central figure. "He was the strongest elf!"
Caelan looked at the drawing. The elf was depicted as bright and noble, with long white hair. The same sun symbol from the cover was embroidered on his chest.
That symbol… He had seen it before. On the white robes of that priest in the monastery.
"And this is the Demon King!" Lianna moved her finger to another figure. "He was very, very evil!"
The demon in the drawing was dark, with black horns. He looked like a monster from a fairytale. Caelan silently studied the picture. It was… simple. A bright hero against a dark monster. Just like in all the stories he had ever read. He didn't know whether to believe it or not. But this was a fantasy world. It was possible for absolute heroes and absolute evil to exist here.
He turned the page. Other figures were depicted standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the elf.
"And these are humans, like Father!" Lianna pointed proudly. "And these are dwarves. And these are the cat-folk, like Kira!"
She looked at him, her eyes suddenly shining with a realization.
"Caelan… Asterion was an elf too. Are… are you a hero too?" she asked, her voice filled with a childish, utterly sincere hope.
The simple, childish question hung in the quiet garden with a weight that made him freeze. He looked at Lianna's hopeful eyes, then at the illustration in the book—at this idealized, bright elf, the hero of an entire world.
His mind wasn't on good or evil. Lianna's question struck deeper, at the very core of his new, undefined existence. Who am I in this world? What is my purpose?
In his past life, the answer had been simple: the safety of his family, peace, and the freedom to do whatever he wanted. A foundation that had been ripped out from under him by fire and steel. He had lost everything else.
What now? the thought echoed in his consciousness. What do I want?
The answer came instantly, cold and clear as a mountain spring.
Freedom.
To be free from collars, from others' commands, from a fate forced upon him. To be so strong that no one could ever make his choices for him again.
He looked at Lianna, and the first genuine, slightly sad but resolute smile appeared on his face. He answered her not as a child to a child, but as a person who had just found his path.
"If being a hero means fighting for freedom, then… yes. I will be a hero."
Lianna didn't understand the full depth of his words, but she saw his determination and clapped her hands happily. For her, the answer was simple.
"Hooray! I have a hero for a friend!"
The day passed quickly.
As the evening sun began to paint the sky in shades of orange and pink, Caelan sat at the writing desk in his room. The day spent with Lianna had turned out to be not just a game, but his first real lesson. Lady Amelia, their tutor, had been patient and methodical.
He replayed the new, crucial information he had absorbed from the children's books and her explanations. The fragments were assembling into the first coherent picture.
One thousand six hundred and fifty years have passed since the Great War.
An Alliance of five races—elves, humans, dwarves, cat-folk, and dog-folk—defeated the demons.
They "liberated" these lands. The "Heart of Etheria." And now, the human capital, Etherium, stands here, and their estate is located just nearby.
He pondered that word—"liberated." He had seen that word in the history books of his old world. And he knew that it didn't always mean what it said.
"But the most boring of all were the rules of etiquette," the thought flashed through his mind as his gaze fell upon the book left on the desk. "Bows, titles, the proper fork for fish… all that aristocratic nonsense."
He physically shuddered, and goosebumps prickled his skin. Brrr.
He pushed the book aside. "But that's not important."
His mind instantly returned to the only thing that mattered. He looked at the word he had circled on his sheet of paper. The word that had become the key to everything.
Instructions.
He stood up and began to pace the room. Alright. Instructions. But how to give them? How to make mana execute a command? Say "Heat"? He tried it mentally. No. It's just a word. A concept. It's like shouting "Faster!" at a mountain, hoping it will start running. I need a mechanism. I need… a language.
He remembered his theory: heat is the movement of atoms. So, the instruction shouldn't be "create heat," but "make the atoms move faster." But how to specify the speed?
And then, it hit him.
Frequency. Like a processor. Like a monitor. Hertz. One hertz is one oscillation per second. It's… it's a measurable quantity! This is a language I understand!
He stopped in the middle of the room, ready for his first real experiment. He created his usual, empty sphere of pure mana to isolate a workspace—a small patch of air in front of him.
He couldn't see the atoms, but he knew they were there.
He began, mentally ramping up the frequency while carefully monitoring his mana consumption and any sensations.
"One hundred hertz… five hundred hertz… one thousand hertz…"
He could feel his mana reservoir draining at a steady, measurable rate. And that alone was a breakthrough. The instruction was being executed. His mana wasn't just leaking; it was being consumed for a specific task. His theory was correct. But there was no heat. Not a flicker. He pushed on, bringing the frequency up to ten thousand hertz. A significant portion of his reserve was gone, and only now did he feel a faint, almost phantom wave of heat emanating from the sphere.
He stopped the experiment. Why? The mana cost is colossal, but there's almost no effect…
He looked at the empty air. Gas atoms... they don't oscillate in a fixed position. They travel. They move in straight lines until they collide with something else. My instruction is to 'oscillate.' I'm applying a command for vibration to particles that are defined by linear motion. It's the wrong tool for the job. The energy is being spent, but it's fighting the fundamental nature of a gas. To properly heat it, I would need a different instruction—one that increases the speed of their travel, making them collide harder and more often.
I need a material where the atoms are already fixed in place. Where their natural state of thermal energy is oscillation...
He sat down at the desk. His gaze fell on the charcoal pencil.
"Here, the atoms are densely packed. Ordered. In a lattice. They will transfer the vibration to each other almost instantly."
He picked up the pencil. He carefully enveloped its tip in invisible mana and began again. The mana drain felt the same as it had with the air.
"One hundred hertz… five hundred hertz…" At this point, he could already feel the pencil in his hand growing faintly warm.
"…One thousand hertz."
At the very same mark where the air had produced no effect, a miracle happened. The wooden part of the pencil began to faintly smoke, and the graphite tip started to glow with a dull, dark-red light.
A cold, triumphant smile of a scientist spread across his face. The mana cost—the same. The command—the same. But the result was a thousand times more powerful.
In this moment of triumph, a sharp, authoritative knock sounded at the door.
"Caelan. It's me. Can I come in? We need to have a serious talk."
The Duke's voice.