The air in the training hall of the Thorne Estate tasted of ozone and expensive incense.
Alistair Thorne, age seven but possessing the soul of a man who had seen empires fall, gripped the hilt of a training sword. His small hands were calloused—unusual for a boy of his noble standing.
"Again," his father, Duke Valerius, commanded. The Duke was a man of towering presence, a High Knight whose aura alone could crack stone.
Alistair didn't speak. He breathed. In his mind, he mapped the flow of mana in the room. He could see it—the shimmering blue threads of the world's lifeblood. In his previous life, science was king. Here, magic was the physics of the soul. He combined the two.
Vector calculation: 45 degrees. Mana output: 12%.
He moved. He wasn't just swinging a sword; he was channeling an Arch Mage's precision into a Swordsman's strike. The wooden blade whistled, cutting through the air with a faint silver glow. CRACK. The training dummy, reinforced with dwarven steel, didn't just break—it exploded into splinters.
The Duke stood in stunned silence. "Alistair... that was a mana-fused strike. Only Knights of the Third Order can..."
"I felt the friction in the air, Father," Alistair said, wiping sweat from his brow, his voice calm and mature. "I simply adjusted the mana density to negate the resistance."
"You are a genius," Valerius whispered, a mix of pride and fear in his eyes.
Alistair looked out the window at the sprawling city of Thorne-Valia below, then up at the two moons hanging in the purple sky. This time, he thought, I won't let the business fail. I won't let the family bloodline end in shadows. And I will find her—the one the legends say waits at the edge of the stars.