Chapter 6: Abnormality
The night in Aldia Village was deep and quiet. Outside Aiden's house, a pale moon hung in the sky, casting a soft silver light over the rooftops and the sleeping fields. The trees swayed gently in a cool breeze, their leaves whispering secrets to each other. Inside one small house at the edge of the village, everything was peaceful.
Then, a sound shattered the silence.
A deafening **BOOM** erupted from the upper floor. A blinding flash of green-white light tore through the roof, like a small star had been born in the middle of the night.
Jonathan and Sara Scytes woke up instantly.
Jonathan's hunter instincts kicked in immediately. Years of experience as a seasoned mage—wielding both fire and water—surged through him. His heart hammered against his ribs.
He shot out of bed, his feet hitting the floor without a sound. He was at the bedroom door in a flash, a faint blue glow already shimmering around his hands as his mana awakened.
But Sara was faster.
Her body seemed to dissolve into a cloud of tiny golden sparkles and vanish. In the very next instant, she reappeared in the hallway right beside Jonathan. Both parents reached their son's bedroom door at the same moment.
A blast of hot air hit them, pushing through the cracks around the door. It carried with it a cloud of choking dust and the sharp, ugly smell of burnt wood and something metallic. From inside the room, all they could see was a blinding, painful white light.
"Aiden!" Jonathan shouted, his voice sharp with fear.
There was no answer. Only a faint, ominous crackling sound.
He didn't wait. With one powerful shove, he smashed the door open—and then he stopped dead, his breath catching in his throat.
The sight that met their eyes left both of them speechless.
The room was gone. Or rather, it was destroyed. The wooden walls were melted halfway down, turned into blackened, smoldering ruins. The ceiling was torn completely open, leaving a jagged hole to the night sky.
Stars twinkled faintly through the thick smoke that drifted upward. Everything within several steps of the center of the room was crushed, burned, or simply erased. The air itself wavered with heat, making everything look blurry and unreal.
And there, in the very center of all this destruction, was Aiden.
He was floating.
His small body hung several feet above the shattered floor, surrounded by a radiant, pulsing glow. A soft green light poured from his skin in gentle waves, making the dusty air ripple around him.
His dark hair floated around his head as if he were underwater. His eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell with shallow, steady breaths.
Sara's hand flew to her mouth. "Aiden!" she cried out, her voice trembling with terror. "Aiden, are you alright?!"
The sound of her voice seemed to reach him. Aiden's eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened.
What he saw stunned him. The destroyed room, the blinding light still fading from his skin, and the horrified faces of his parents staring up at him from below. For a second, his mind was completely blank.
*What… happened?*
Then, the memory rushed back. The vortex, the pain, the explosion. As he realized he was floating, his control slipped. The glow around him flickered and died. He started to fall.
Jonathan moved before Aiden could hit the ground. His figure became a blur of motion. He crossed the ruined room in less than a heartbeat and caught his son in mid-air. Aiden's small body was trembling, his breathing fast and ragged.
Jonathan landed softly on what was left of the floor. His eyes, sharp and worried, scanned the unbelievable damage. Heat still rose from the blackened walls. He raised a hand, fingers moving in a quick, precise gesture.
A stream of clear, cool water appeared from nowhere, swirling through the air. It washed over the scorched wood and stone, cooling them with a loud hiss of steam, and settled the choking dust until the air was just smoky, not burning.
Once the room was no longer an oven, Jonathan looked down at the boy in his arms. His usual calm fatherly expression was gone, replaced by a stern, serious mask that couldn't hide the deep worry underneath.
His voice was grave. "What," he asked, each word heavy, "did you just do?"
Aiden flinched. The seriousness in his father's voice scared him more than the explosion had. He lowered his head, his words sticking in his dry throat.
"Dad… I—I was—"
"Don't hesitate," Jonathan interrupted, his voice low but sharp. "Tell me everything. Leave nothing out."
Aiden's throat felt tight. He swallowed hard. His small hands were clenched into fists, trembling. Finally, the words spilled out, filled with guilt and fear. "Father, I'm sorry. I didn't listen to you. I… I used the breathing technique. I've been absorbing mana."
Jonathan's face grew harder, but he stayed silent, listening.
"I—I planned to be careful," Aiden rushed on. "I thought… if anything felt wrong, I would stop. I just didn't want to wait until I was twelve. I wanted to see if I could really do it. So that first night, I tried it. And it worked, just like the book said. So I kept practicing, every night, to form the mana veins. Before tonight, I had about seventy percent of them done."
Sara gasped softly, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Aiden took another shaky breath. Then Aiden continued. "But tonight… it was different. My body started sucking in mana like crazy! It was like a whirlpool opened up inside me. I tried to stop, but I couldn't. It started to hurt… so bad. It felt like my whole body was breaking."
Jonathan's face lost its color. Sara looked terrified.
Aiden's voice broke. "Then… just when I thought I was going to die, it stopped. The last of my mana veins finished forming. The pain just vanished. All the mana rushed toward my heart.
But then… this glowing vortex appeared around me. It got bigger and brighter and spun faster. I tried to make it stop, but I couldn't. And then… everything exploded."
When Aiden finished, the room was utterly silent.
For a long, heavy moment, neither parent spoke. The only sound was the soft *drip… drip… drip* of water condensation falling from the broken ceiling.
Jonathan and Sara looked at each other. Their eyes held a shared feeling of stunned disbelief and creeping dread. They could hardly believe what they had just heard. Their son had been cultivating mana—right under their noses—and they hadn't sensed a thing.
That fact alone was terrifying.
They were both experienced, powerful mages. They could sense the faintest shift of mana in the air for meters around. Yet, for all those weeks, as Aiden practiced every night… they had noticed nothing. Not a single ripple. Not a whisper of energy.
*How was that even possible?*
Jonathan let out a slow, controlled breath, his mind racing. "He was doing this right here. Every night," he muttered, more to himself than to Sara. "And we didn't feel anything. Not even a change in the air…"
Sara suddenly focused back on Aiden. Motherly fear pushed aside her confusion. She rushed to his side, kneeling on the scorched floor. She took his small, cold hands in her warm ones.
Her palms began to glow with a soft, familiar light—the same gentle healing energy she used on Jonathan's cuts and bruises. Aiden felt a wave of warmth and comfort flow into him.
Her voice shook. "Aiden, are you hurt anywhere? Tell me the truth, quickly!"
Aiden blinked, still dazed. "I'm not hurt, Mom. Really…"
"Don't lie to me," Sara said, her eyes searching his face for any sign of pain. "How can you not be hurt after such a—" She stopped mid-sentence. Her expression changed from worry to pure bewilderment.
Her healing mana was flowing through his body perfectly. There were no blockages. No hidden wounds. No damage to his bones or organs. Nothing at all.
She checked again, slower this time, probing deeper with her magic, looking for the smallest injury. She still found nothing.
Finally, she looked up at Jonathan, her face pale and confused. "He's… completely fine," she whispered. "No injuries. Nothing wrong inside him at all."
Jonathan's eyebrows drew together. "That's impossible," he said flatly. The disbelief in his voice was clear. "He was at the center of that blast. Even a trained mage with a shield would have been hurt… How can a child come out without a single scratch?"
No one had an answer.
For a while, they just stared at Aiden. Their small son sat amid the wreckage of his room, faint traces of green light still flickering occasionally around his fingertips.
He looked so small and ordinary, not like someone who had just caused an explosion. Jonathan couldn't wrap his mind around it. His seven-year-old son had survived an event that should have killed him, without a mark.
It made no sense. Sara was just as confused.
But before they could say anything more, Aiden looked up at them. His face was pale, his eyes huge with guilt. His voice was tiny and fragile. "I'm sorry, Dad… Mom… I didn't mean to cause trouble. I just wanted to be strong. Like you."
The room fell quiet again. Jonathan sighed, the stern anger melting away into tired concern. He crouched down so he was at Aiden's eye level and placed his large, calloused hand gently on the boy's head. His voice was still serious, but a deep warmth was there, underneath.
"I'm glad you're safe, son. But now you see why I told you not to do this." He looked Aiden straight in the eye. "Mana isn't a game. It's dangerous. It's unpredictable. It almost killed you tonight. Promise me you won't try this again. Ever. Do you understand?"
Sara knelt beside them, brushing Aiden's messy hair back from his forehead with trembling fingers. "Listen to your father," she said softly. "You'll have plenty of time to learn when you're older. Don't rush it, my love. You only have one life. Don't risk it for power. When the time is right, you can become a mage."
There was a brief silence. The room felt heavy with relief, but also with the chilling fear of what had almost happened.
Then, in a small, hesitant voice, Aiden said something that sent a bolt of pure terror straight into his parents' hearts.
"But Mom, Dad… I already created a Mana Heart."
The world seemed to stop.
Jonathan's eyes went wide. Sara's breath hitched in her throat. They both stared at Aiden as if he had just spoken in a language they couldn't understand. They couldn't believe what they had heard.
For a moment, there was no sound at all. No words. Just the three of them, frozen in the destroyed room.
Jonathan finally found his voice. It came out as a trembling whisper. "You… what did you just say?"
Aiden blinked, not understanding the weight of his own words. "I said… I already made a Mana Heart. I can feel it inside. It's light green."
Another long, deep silence followed.
Sara's eyes filled with tears—a mix of overwhelming disbelief and a new, sharp fear. Jonathan could only stare, utterly stunned. In his mind, his son's words echoed, but he still couldn't accept them.
*A seven-year-old child… has formed a Mana Heart.*
Something that had never been done in all of recorded history… had just been done by their son.
Outside, the night wind blew gently through the huge hole in the wall and ceiling. It carried with it the smell of smoke and the silent echo of the explosion that had just changed their lives forever.
Author's Note: Which part of the chapter did you like the most? Write it in the comment section tolet me know, and stay tuned for more chapters