A child of destiny was born, carrying a secret from another world.
The castle of the Noctemar family glittered under stars that seemed to trace the universe's secrets themselves, while on the horizon hung the full golden moon in a wondrous phenomenon that occurs only once every century.
In the castle's most splendid chamber, Princess Selena cradled her newborn in trembling arms.
Her weary gaze could not conceal the joyful sparkle that illuminated her face.
"Look, Sirius," she whispered hoarsely, "his eyes... They are golden, as if they hold the wisdom of the ages."
Prince Sirius, ruler of the Shademont fiefdom, leaned down, gently holding his wife's hand. "He is fate's gift to us, my love. Our little Orion.
Truly a miracle born under the shadow of the golden moon that graces our sky once every hundred years."
He added, softly touching the infant's hand, "I haven't seen eyes like these since my great-grandfather. He is truly a son of the Noctemar house."
Yet, unknown to Orion's parents, within this small vessel, the soul of a great warrior from a lost world was struggling to adapt to the frailty of infancy.
The memories were muddled like a distant dream, but the sensation of lost power was as clear as the sun.
Orion opened his golden eyes, contemplating the world around him with profound curiosity.
His small hands looked upon the fingers that had once, he felt, gripped a sword with confidence.He wondered silently about his new place, trying to remember what he had been in his previous life, but the memories were distant and obscure.
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As the months passed, signs of premature maturity began to manifest in Orion in ways that astonished everyone.
By his third month, he was making distinct sounds resembling words, and by his sixth month, he could utter clear syllables.
Remarkably, he understood simple instructions and responded to them correctly.
His exceptional ability to learn language lay in his instinctive grasp of its structure and grammar.
His past memories granted him a deep understanding of sentence construction and parts of speech, as if his mind was equipped with a linguistic compass guiding him toward correct comprehension.
He would listen with intense focus to every conversation around him, then begin mimicking the sounds and linguistic structures with astonishing precision.
By the time he approached his first year, he had mastered the language completely, speaking with fluency as if he had never heard another tongue.
============================================================================Upon reaching his first year, Orion's ancient instincts began to surface in ways that amazed all around him.
While other children his age crawled after dolls and toys, Orion crawled towards a decorative sword hanging on the palace wall.
"No, little one, that is not a toy!" Selena called out worriedly.
But his small hand grasped the sword's hilt with surprising firmness.
A strange sensation washed over him, as if his hands remembered what his mind did not know yet.
A glimpse of memory flashed before his eyes: a much larger sword in his hands, and a friend's voice calling him by a strange name... but the image faded as quickly as it had appeared.
By the age of two, the castle library became his favorite playground.
While his peers played with balls, Orion sat in the royal library chamber, trying to turn the pages of a book on world geography with his small hands.
His serious looks hinted at a curiosity far beyond his years.
One evening, Sirius sat with his young son before a sprawling map.
Saying to him, "This is our empire, Aurethia," "Here are the Dwarf Kingdoms under the mountains, and there, the Sylvan forests where the Elves dwell."
Orion pointed his small finger towards the map.
"Big... the world is big and full of wonders."
============================================================================Upon reaching three years of age, Sirius began teaching his son the basics of swordsmanship.
The father corrected his son's grip on the small training sword, smiling at the child's strange seriousness."The sword is not merely a piece of iron," the father said, adjusting his son's grip.
"It is a tool that requires understanding and respect."
Orion gripped the sword with a confidence that amazed his father.
It felt as if the sword was a part of him, as if his hands remembered what they had never known.
Then suddenly, unintentionally, he executed a complex defensive maneuver he had not learned from his father.
The father's hand stopped moving, and he looked at his son in astonishment.
"Who taught you that move?"
Orion couldn't answer.
Suddenly, a blurred image of an older man training him in combat manifested before his eyes, and a voice saying: "Ren, you are my most talented pupil!" Then the image vanished as quickly as it came, leaving the small child bewildered.
============================================================================As time passed, Orion became more capable of controlling his skills.
He spent hours in the castle garden, practicing the basic sword movements his father taught him, but with a mastery astonishing for a child his age.
He learned the basics of mana control from his mother, Selena. She showed him how to create a small spark of energy in her palm.
"Mana is the life energy that flows through everything around us," his mother explained while demonstrating the technique.
"It requires focus and pure intent."
After many attempts, Orion managed to produce a small mana spark in his hand.
He felt a warm and strange sensation, similar to the internal energy from his previous world (ki energy), but gentler and smoother.
His curiosity drove him to practice more, eager to understand this new power.
But Orion was not content with only the daily training sessions his parents arranged; he would wait until midnight, then sneak into the castle garden to train in secret.
"This mana," he muttered, breathing deeply, "is easier to control than 'ki' but requires a different understanding.
I must learn how to integrate it with the sword."
============================================================================Meanwhile, Orion began to gradually discover the world around him.
In the castle library, he found ancient tomes speaking of the Aurethian Empire and the Four Kingdoms:
- The Human Kingdom: The largest in territory and the most powerful, stretching from the Northwest to the South-Central region.
- The Elf Kingdom: Located in the Northeast and extending towards the North-Central region.
- The Dwarf Kingdom: In the Southwest, bordered by the Human Kingdom's territory on the side of the Shademont sector.
- The Demi-Human Kingdom: The smallest in area, neutral and preferring isolation in the far South.
He discovered that his family ruled the Shademont fiefdom near the border of the Dwarf Kingdom, which explained the frequent visits by dwarf emissaries to the castle.
And as he turned the pages of a massive historical book, he found an entire chapter dedicated to the Noctemar family.
He discovered that his family was among the first to stand against the darkness invasions in the ancient wars, and that the golden eagle emblem adorning the castle flags symbolized foresight and protection.
But what piqued his curiosity more was the mystery shrouding the origins of the Empire itself.
The chapter ended and the first threads of Orion's destiny began to weave, carrying with him the secrets of an unknown past and an uncertain future.