Chapter 2: The Pedagogy of the Blade and the Void
Five years in the Thorne Dominion were not spent in a nursery. They were spent in the Gravity Vaults.
In Magi, the power system was a ladder of Absolute Refinement. To move from a Rank 1 Mage to a Rank 9, one had to undergo the "Four Deaths."
The Death of the Flesh: Replacing biological limits with Aether-conductive marrow.The Death of the Mind: Overclocking the brain to calculate Law-interactions.The Death of the Heart: Severing emotional tethers to ensure cold efficiency.The Death of Reality: Forcing the world to accept your Will over the natural Law.
At age five, the twins were already at the Marrow Stage.
The training was simple: They were placed in a room with a Rank 3 Iron-Gale Beast—a creature made of razor-sharp wind and hatred.
"You have ten minutes," Alaric said from the observation deck. "If you are still alive, you get to eat. If not, the beast gets to eat."
Silas didn't wait. He was a creature of action. He lunged forward, his tiny body glowing with a liquid gold light. He didn't use a weapon. He used The Law of Impact.
BOOM.
Every step Silas took shattered the stone floor. He was a cannonball of pure kinetic force. He struck the beast's wind-shield with his bare fist. The collision sounded like two mountains hitting each other. Silas was thrown back, his knuckles bleeding, but he was laughing. It was a manic, arrogant sound.
"Is that all?" Silas roared, his golden aura flaring. "Your wind is thin! Your pressure is garbage!"
Kaelen, meanwhile, stood in the corner, his hands in his pockets. He wasn't watching the beast; he was watching the way the wind moved. He saw the "Nodes" of the spell—the points where the Aether was most concentrated to maintain the beast's form.
"Silas, you're hitting the shell," Kaelen said, his voice flat. "The engine is located at the third cervical vertebra. The Aether-density there is 12% higher. Stop being a brute and hit the math."
"Shut up, Kaelen! I'll break the shell and the engine!" Silas shouted, his ego refusing to be corrected.
Silas launched himself again. This time, he used Vector Acceleration. He didn't just move forward; he increased the "Force" of his own weight by ten times. He became a living bullet.
CRACK.
The beast's wind-shield shattered. Silas buried his fist in the creature's chest, the shockwave liquefying its internal organs.
Kaelen sighed. He walked toward the remaining wind-wraiths that were swarming toward him. He didn't raise his hands. He simply looked at them.
[Ability: Void Erasure - 1% Output]
A sphere of absolute blackness, no larger than a marble, appeared in the center of the wraith swarm. It didn't explode. It didn't burn. It simply "un-made." The air, the sound, and the ghosts within a three-foot radius ceased to exist.
The wraiths didn't die; they were deleted from the timeline of the room.
"Too much noise," Kaelen remarked, looking at the charred and broken arena. "You used enough Aether to level a village, Silas. I used enough to light a candle. My efficiency is 4,000% higher than yours."
"Efficiency is for people who can't win with a punch," Silas spat, wiping blood from his mouth. "I am the Force. You are just the janitor who cleans up the reality I break."
"If I didn't clean it up, the reality you break would collapse on your head," Kaelen countered.
From the observation deck, Alaric Thorne watched them. He didn't feel pride. He felt a cold, calculated satisfaction. His sons were monsters.