The night air of Oros was not a thing of peace. It was a heavy, suffocating shroud that clung to the skin like wet silk. Within the high, jagged walls of the Bastion of Mourning, the darkness was held back by the flickering orange glow of mana-lamps, but as Cian Valerius slipped through the hidden postern gate, even that meager comfort vanished.
The forest beyond the walls, known as the Grey Weald, was a place of twisted geometry and silent screams. It served as the final buffer between the civilized lands of the Silverian Hegemony and the true, unmapped horror of the Abyssal Reach. In the first life, Cian had looked upon this forest with the eyes of a terrified child. To a sixteen year old scholar with no martial talent, the gnarled trees with their bark like charred skin were omens of certain death.
Tonight, however, his vision was different.
[Divine Talent: Akashic Scholar is Active.]
[Environmental Mapping Initiated.]
[Detection: High Concentration of Corrupted Mana Fragments.]
[Visual Overlay: Activating 'Source Code' Vector Analysis.]
Cian's world shifted into a spectrum of glowing blue lines and geometric shapes. The pitch black darkness of the Weald was no longer a void. Instead, it was a complex lattice of information. He saw the "Flow" of the Abyssal Miasma as it drifted between the trees like slow moving liquid. He saw the structural integrity of the rotting branches, marked with red highlight points where they were likely to snap.
He moved through the underbrush with a fluid grace that his young, untrained body shouldn't have possessed. His thirty years of experience as a mana slave had taught him the most important lesson of survival: how to be invisible. He knew the exact rhythm of the wind, the way the shadows stretched during the fading of the moons, and the precise moment a predator would blink.
I am weak, Cian thought, his fingers tightening around the hilt of the steel training sword. My muscles are underdeveloped. My lungs are still adjusted to the sedentary life of a library boy. If I rely on strength, I will die within five minutes.
He stopped, pressing his back against the cold, weeping bark of an Ironwood tree. His Akashic Scholar talent was already pinging his consciousness with data.
[Threat Detected: Tier 1 Abyssal Beast – Shadow-Stalker.]
[Distance: 22 Meters. Orientation: Three o'clock.]
[Status: Predatory Stealth Mode.]
The Shadow-Stalker was the quintessential nightmare of the borderlands. It was a feline horror with six legs, skin that resembled liquid ink, and eyes that were nothing more than glowing pits of violet fire. Its claws didn't just cut; they vibrated at a frequency that could bypass leather and light chainmail. In his first life, a single Stalker had once wiped out a four man patrol of Awakened guards.
Cian didn't turn his head. He watched the "Source Code" of the air in his peripheral vision. He saw the way the miasma rippled, displaced by a mass that was trying to remain undetectable. The beast was circling him, its movement perfectly synchronized with the rustle of the leaves.
It thinks I am a stray lamb, Cian analyzed, his mind calm and clinical. It is tracking my pulse. It is waiting for the moment my adrenaline spikes so it can strike when my heart is most vulnerable.
He intentionally let his sword tip drop. He allowed his breathing to become shallow and ragged. He projected the image of a lost, panicked noble boy.
The red heat map in his vision surged. The displacement of the air accelerated.
The Stalker leaped.
In that fraction of a second, the world entered a state of absolute stillness for Cian. This was the true utility of a Divine-grade learning talent. It wasn't just about reading books; it was about the instantaneous deconstruction of reality.
[Analysis: Shadow-Stalker (Tier 1).]
[Targeting Logic: The beast leads with its upper left pincer claw.]
[Structural Flaw: The third cervical vertebra is misaligned during the transition from leap to strike.]
[Critical Weakness: The mana core in the chest fluctuates every 0.4 seconds to maintain the invisibility shroud.]
Cian didn't swing his sword with a wide, clumsy arc. He didn't even use a standard guard stance. He dropped to his right knee, his body folding like a piece of paper. The Stalker's claws hissed through the air exactly where his throat had been a millisecond before.
He didn't use strength. He used the beast's own kinetic energy against it.
He held the training sword at a precise thirty eight degree angle. As the Stalker flew over him, Cian thrust the blade upward. Because he had identified the exact point where the beast's natural armor plating overlapped, the dull steel didn't bounce off. It slid into the creature's soft underbelly like a hot needle through silk.
SCREEE!
The Stalker let out a gurgling shriek that sounded like grinding metal. Its ink like blood, cold and viscous, splattered across Cian's face and tunic. He didn't flinch. He twisted the blade with a sharp, calculated motion, feeling the steel grate against the monster's spine.
He kicked the dying horror away, his boots skidding on the damp moss. The beast thrashed on the ground, its violet eyes flickering as the mana core in its chest began to destabilize.
[Target Slain.]
[Absorbing Tier 1 Soul Essence...]
[Divine Talent: Akashic Scholar is 'Refining' the Raw Corruption...]
A surge of heat, far more violent than anything he had felt at the Aptitude Stone, exploded in Cian's solar plexus. It felt as if someone had poured molten lead into his veins. He collapsed against the roots of the Ironwood tree, his teeth gritted so hard that his jaw ached.
This was the "Soul Break." It was the violent transition from the mundane state of a 'Dormant' to the supernatural state of an 'Awakened.' For most people, this process took hours and required a team of Masters to stabilize the mana flow.
Cian did it alone.
[System Notification: Rank Evolution Initiated.]
[Dormant Rank -> AWAKENED (Rank 2).]
[Soul Core Manifestation: 100% Success.]
His heart gave a singular, violent thud. The silver light of the "Primordial Heart-Core Breath" he had practiced in the library flared outward, physically pushing back the darkness of the Weald for several meters. The thin, brittle mana channels of his youth were being hollowed out and reinforced with a silver sheen, turning his body into a vessel capable of holding the world's power.
But his Divine talent wasn't finished.
[Divine Talent: Akashic Scholar detected a surplus of Essence.]
[Initiating Secondary Core Manifestation...]
[Warning: High Physical Strain.]
[Class Evolution: Beast -> MONSTER (2 Cores).]
A second, smaller sun began to form in his chest, orbiting his primary heart core. This was the "Monster Class." It was a secret of the Abyssal Beasts that the Silverian Hegemony had tried to suppress for centuries. Humans were supposed to have one core. Monsters had many. By having two cores at the Awakened rank, Cian's mana capacity didn't just double; it grew exponentially.
[All Requirements Met.]
[Divine Talent: SOVEREIGN TUTOR is now UNLOCKED.]
Cian slumped to the ground, drenched in sweat and Abyssal blood, but his eyes were burning with a terrifying clarity. He looked at his hands. They were trembling, but the power thrumming beneath his skin was undeniable.
He stood up, looking at the carcass of the Shadow-Stalker. It was already beginning to dissolve into black ash, as all things from the Reach did when they died. He reached out his hand, testing the interface of his newly unlocked talent.
[Sovereign Tutor: Level 1.]
[Active Ability: The First Link (Locked).]
[Description: The power to bridge souls and rewrite the talent ceilings of subordinates.]
[Requirement: You must form a 'Pact of Loyalty' with a living student.]
I see, Cian thought, wiping the gore from his brow with the back of his hand. The scholar phase is officially over. I have the foundation. Now, I must begin the architecture.
He looked back toward the Bastion of Mourning. The lights on the walls seemed dim and pathetic now. In his previous life, he would have been terrified of the walk back. Now, he felt like a king returning to a playhouse.
He had achieved in a single hour what the geniuses of the Hegemony spent decades trying to reach. He was an Awakened Rank, Monster Class warrior.
The solo phase was working, but he knew the political vultures wouldn't wait. He needed an army. He needed a "Mysterious Force" that could operate in the shadows while he played the part of the frail, bookish son of House Valerius.
As he walked back through the postern gate, he noticed a figure standing in the shadows of the courtyard. It was a girl with long, silver hair and eyes that held the same weariness as their father.
Elena Valerius. His older sister.
In the first life, she had been a "Heroic" talent warrior who had worked herself to the bone to protect her "talentless" brother, only to die in a nameless trench during the Hegemony's betrayal.
Cian looked at her, and for the first time, his Akashic Scholar talent scanned a human soul with full intensity.
[Target: Elena Valerius.]
[Rank: Awakened (Level 3).]
[Talent: Master Rank.]
[Analysis: Severe Mana Blockage in the left lung. Faulty Breathing Technique detected. Potential for Growth: 400% if optimized.]
She is dying, Cian realized, his heart clenching. The 'Sentinel Breath' the family teaches is killing her because it wasn't designed for a Master talent soul. It's like putting too much pressure into a pipe that hasn't been reinforced.
"Cian?" Elena stepped out of the shadows, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Her face was pale in the moonlight. "Where have you been? You were supposed to be in your rooms. If the Imperial Overseer found you missing..."
She stopped mid sentence. She looked at him, her eyes widening. She was a warrior, and her instincts were sharp. She could feel the change. The boy who had left the Bastion had been a lamb. The man who stood before her now had the aura of a wolf.
"You've... you've Awakened," she whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief. "But how? There was no ritual. No Essence Stone. Cian, what did you do?"
Cian didn't answer immediately. He walked toward her, his footsteps heavy with a confidence that seemed to anchor the very air around them. He stopped just a few inches from her, looking her directly in the eye.
"Elena," he said, his voice resonant and calm. "The breathing technique you are using... it hurts, doesn't it? Every time you circulate mana into your left lung, it feels like hot needles."
Elena froze. "How did you... no one knows about that. I told Father it was just a training injury."
"It's not an injury. It's a flaw," Cian said. He reached out and placed a finger on her chest, right above her heart. "In the first life, I couldn't save you. In this one, I'm going to make you the first Saint this border has seen in four hundred years."
Elena looked at him as if he had lost his mind. But as his mana—the refined, Supreme grade mana from the Primordial Heart-Core Breath—leaked into her system through his finger, her pain vanished for the first time in years.
"Tonight, we start your training," Cian said. "But you must promise me one thing."
"Anything," she breathed, her eyes wide with wonder.
"You tell no one. Not Father. Not Kael. To the world, I am still just a scholar. But in the shadows, you will be the first blade of my army."
[System Notification: Potential Student Detected.]
[Would you like to initiate 'The Sovereign's Link'?]
Yes, Cian thought.