Time, for a mind trapped in the body of an infant, moved with agonizing sluggishness.
For the first two years of his new life, Kaiser's existence was defined entirely by boundaries. The physical boundary of his crib. The geographical boundary of the Duke's heavily guarded inner estate. And the oppressive, suffocating boundary of the black silk wrapped tightly around his eyes.
The blindfold his father had commissioned was not normal cloth. It was woven from dark-silk, harvested from monstrous arachnids in the abyssal chasms of the continent, and threaded with hair-thin wires of refined lead. It was heavy. It pressed against the bridge of his tiny nose and dug slightly into his temples. It was designed to completely seal off the terrifying, maddening purple radiation of his Void Eyes.
But for Kaiser, it was also a sensory prison.
In his past life, the simple cloth he wore over his eyes allowed the subtle shifts in air currents to brush against his eyelids. He could feel the temperature of a room through the thin fabric. This new blindfold, however, was a dense wall. It muted the world.
Yet, true mastery is not born in comfort; it is forged in restriction.
Kaiser, now two years old, sat cross-legged in the center of an opulent, thick fur rug in his nursery. To the maids who were permitted inside the inner sanctum, the young master was a deeply unsettling child. He rarely cried. He never played with the carved wooden toys they laid out for him. Instead, he would simply sit for hours, his back perfectly straight, his small hands resting softly on his knees. Beneath the heavy black silk, his face held a calm, almost regal detachment that belonged on the face of an ancient emperor, not a toddler. His pure white hair, already growing thick and unruly at the nape of his neck, cascaded down his shoulders.
What the maids saw as eerie stillness, Kaiser knew as furious, exhausting labor.
Breathe in. Hold. Let the vibration settle. Breathe out.
He was rebuilding his "Absolute Senses" from scratch. His toddler nervous system was weak, his eardrums fragile, his bones too soft to properly conduct the deep seismic vibrations of the earth. But as he sat there, pushing his concentration to its absolute limit, he discovered something miraculous.
This world was fundamentally different from his old one.
In his previous life, the space between objects was empty. It was just air. Here, the air was alive.
As Kaiser focused, he could feel a thick, invisible current flowing through the room. It was like sitting at the bottom of a gentle, invisible ocean. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the pressure of it against his skin. He could hear the faint, high-pitched hum it made as it rushed through the stone walls of the estate.
Mana. He didn't know the word for it yet, but he understood its nature perfectly. It was energy. And where there was energy, there were vibrations.
The heavy oak doors to his nursery creaked open. Kaiser didn't flinch, but his mind instantly painted a flawless picture of the intruder.
The footsteps were light, almost entirely devoid of killing intent, yet carrying a profound, quiet strength. The ambient 'ocean' of energy in the room gently parted around this figure, drawn toward her like water to a sponge. A soothing scent of crushed lavender and warm milk followed her.
"My sweet boy," Elara whispered.
Kaiser tilted his head slightly toward her voice. His mother.
Elara Warborn swept across the room, the heavy fabric of her aristocratic dress rustling like autumn leaves. She knelt beside him on the fur rug, her hands—soft and remarkably warm—cupping his small cheeks. She carefully avoided touching the edges of the dark-silk blindfold.
"Sitting in the dark again, my little sovereign?" she murmured, her voice laced with a bittersweet sorrow. She pulled him into her lap.
Kaiser allowed himself to relax against her chest. If Duke Arthur was the harsh, imposing mountain of his new existence, Elara was the sun. She spent hours every day compensating for the world he supposedly couldn't see. She would carry him to the gardens, guiding his tiny hands over the petals of blooming roses, describing their crimson colors in vivid detail. She would read ancient histories and myths to him until her throat went hoarse, ensuring his mind was stimulated.
She loved him with a fierce, uncompromising desperation. She believed he was completely blind, isolated, and helpless.
He rested his head against her collarbone, listening to the steady, comforting rhythm of her heart. I am not helpless, Mother, he thought, wrapping his small, chubby arms around her waist. I am just waiting for this body to catch up to my mind.
Suddenly, the ambient energy in the room violently violently shifted.
The invisible ocean of mana didn't just part; it was violently displaced, boiling and churning as if a colossal furnace had just been ignited in the hallway. The very stone floor beneath the thick fur rug began to tremble.
The oak doors didn't creak open this time. They swung wide with a heavy, concussive thud.
Duke Arthur Warborn had arrived.
Even without his Absolute Senses fully restored, Kaiser felt the sheer, crushing weight of his father's presence. In the world of martial arts, Kaiser had met men who possessed 'killing intent.' But Arthur didn't project intent. He projected dominance. His body was a condensed reactor of a different kind of energy—thicker, heavier, and far more violent than the ambient mana.
Aura, Kaiser's mind cataloged the sensation. The energy of the physical body pushed to its absolute apex.
"Arthur," Elara said, her tone instantly cooling, tightening her protective grip around Kaiser. "You are projecting again. Reign in your aura. You will frighten him."
"If he is a Warborn, he must learn the weight of a true knight's aura before he learns to walk, Elara," Arthur's voice boomed, vibrating the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
The heavy, armored footsteps approached. The Duke stopped right in front of them, towering like a monolith. Kaiser tilted his head upward. Even through the lead-lined blindfold, he could feel the blistering heat radiating from his father's immense frame.
"He is two years old," Arthur rumbled, looking down at the boy. "And yet, the servants whisper that he does not cry. He does not play. He sits in the center of the room like an old monk."
"He is a quiet child. He is thoughtful," Elara defended fiercely.
Arthur grunted, a sound like grinding stones. Suddenly, Kaiser felt a massive, calloused hand wrap around his tiny forearm. The grip was shockingly gentle for a man of Arthur's size, but it was unyielding.
The Duke lifted Kaiser straight up into the air, holding him at eye level. Elara gasped, reaching out, but Arthur raised a hand to stall her.
For a long moment, the father and son simply 'looked' at each other. Kaiser hung in the air, perfectly still. He didn't kick. He didn't squirm. He simply adjusted his breathing, entering a state of absolute, tranquil equilibrium, and turned his blindfolded face directly toward the source of the Duke's thunderous heartbeat.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. He sent a microscopic, razor-thin pulse of his terrifying Aura directly into Kaiser's body—a standard, albeit ruthless, test among martial nobility to check a child's physical constitution.
Most toddlers would have shrieked in agony as the heavy, burning energy invaded their weak meridians.
But Kaiser had twenty-eight years of experience in redirecting kinetic force. As the burning Aura entered his arm, Kaiser instinctively manipulated his breathing, clenching his tiny internal muscles to diffuse the violent energy, scattering it harmlessly into the ambient mana around him.
He didn't even wince. He just tilted his head, as if silently asking, Is that all?
A heavy, stunned silence fell over the room.
Then, a deep, rumbling sound erupted from Arthur's chest. It started low, vibrating the walls, before exploding into a booming, terrifying roar of laughter.
"Ha! Hahahaha!" Arthur threw his head back. He pulled Kaiser close, ignoring the heavy armor that clanked against the boy, and patted him roughly on the back. "Did you see that, Elara? Did you see? Not a single flinch! He swallowed my aura pulse like it was mother's milk!"
"Arthur, put him down! You are being reckless!" Elara scolded, snatching Kaiser back into her arms, shooting her husband a furious glare.
"He is a monster, Elara!" Arthur grinned, his eyes burning with an intense, ambitious fire. He looked down at the blindfolded child with a terrifying mixture of pride and expectation. "The Holy Church calls his eyes a curse, but look at his bones! Look at his absolute lack of fear! Even without sight, his instincts are monstrous."
Arthur knelt down, bringing his rugged face inches from Kaiser's.
"Listen to me, my son," the Duke whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal seriousness. "The world outside these walls will pity you for the rag on your face. They will call you a crippled noble. Let them. Let them underestimate the dark."
Arthur stood up, his massive cape billowing behind him. "When you are of age, I will strip away their pity, and replace it with terror. You will be the greatest blade the Warborn family has ever produced."
With heavy, thudding steps, the Duke left the nursery, leaving a turbulent wake of displaced mana and ringing silence behind him.
Elara let out a long, shaky sigh, holding Kaiser close. "Do not listen to him, Kaiser," she whispered into his pure white hair. "You do not need to be a weapon. You only need to be happy."
Kaiser rested his head against her, his tiny hands clutching the fabric of her dress. He loved his mother's gentleness, but in his heart, he knew his father was right.
In a world filled with magic, aura, and beasts, weakness was a sin. To protect his mother's smile, to eventually uncover the truth of the Void Eyes that slumbered beneath his blindfold, and to grant his own wish of one day seeing the world... he could not remain a crippled noble.
Three years, Kaiser calculated silently in the dark. Give me three more years for this body to temper itself.