The first week was very humiliating.
Aldus set a cup of water on the table in the garden and told Cale to freeze it.
Cale stood there for an hour, his hands were stretched forward, and nothing happened. Slowly Frost formed on his fingers and melted, then formed again. Into a wild loop. During this process, the cup sat there staring at his idiotic stance, without a care in the world.
"You're just trying too hard," Aldus said from his bench, where he sat with his tea laughing occasionally. "You're forcing it."
"I'm just trying to get my hands to do what you said."
"What I said was to imbue mauri and it would work itself out. The whole essence of magic and your powers is true raw energy and that energy is mauri. And if you can't feel mauri through your veins then you're not ready"
Cale gritted his teeth, he felt a cold knot in his chest, he assumed that was the mauri his uncle was talking about. He reached for the cold knot in his chest. But it was quiet. He pushed against it, and he could now feel the flow of mauri. He understood the concept now, or at least he thought he did. He tried again this time the frost on his hands thickened, but the water remained liquid.
By the end of the week, he'd managed to produce a layer of ice on the surface of the liquid. But just when he thought he had gotten It right It cracked when he tried to lift the cup.
Aldus nodded, seemingly dissatisfied. " That's better, I guess. Tomorrow, we'll try a larger vessel."
He hadn't gotten this one yet, and the old man was talking about a "Larger Vessel".
---
By The second week, Aldus had introduced a pail of water.
" It's the same principle," he said. "But this time, you'll need to project your mauri, and you'll need to hold the cold for a lot longer."
He demonstrated by causing the water to rise out of the bucket into the air forming different shapes and let it land back into the bucket. He looked at Cale and said "I have affinities only to pure water elements unlike you so it might be a little different. But it's still the same concept".
This was Cale's first-time seeing Aldus's elements and he was unperturbed because he had predicted he would be very strong even without knowing which powers he possessed. He was quite surprised that it was a water Element.
His arms ached. His hands were chapped from the frost. He stood in the garden for hours each day, always focusing on the cold knot, coaxing it to release.
On the tenth day, the bucket froze solid.
He stared at it, elated. And somewhat happy for his latest achievement. The ice was thick, clouded and uneven, but it was ice .
Aldus came to look. He touched the surface, felt the cold radiating off it. " That's not bad. Now, Let's do it again. Do it a thousand more"
---
By the third week, Cale could freeze a bucket of water in under a minute.
After each day he would go inside have a little chat with Aldus who was cheeky and funny. Afterwards he would go into his room and do some body fitting work outs Aldus had taught him.
Progressively, Aldus moved him to moving water, at a stream that ran through the back of the property. Cale stood at the edge, trying to freeze a section of the current. The water kept flowing, breaking his ice before it could he could properly form them.
"You're fighting it," Aldus said. "Water moves. And Ice is water that has learned to be still. You just have to work with the flow, and not against it. Take it slow, calm and clear your mind."
"Focus"
Cale closed his eyes and let the cold seep into his palms. He imagined the current slowing, the molecules locking into place, and the motion becoming completely still.
When he opened his eyes, a disk of ice floated on the surface, spinning gently with the current.
Aldus smiled. "There you go. Now do it until you can't stop doing it. Do it until it becomes a part of you." He said grinning as he headed back inside.
---
The fourth week brought a new lesson.
Aldus emerged from the house carrying two wooden swords. He tossed one of them to Cale, who caught it awkwardly.
"Your ice is very weak, you know?" Aldus said bluntly. "You can freeze a bucket, but that's nothing and won't stop a Fallen Constellation beast. Not to talk more of Zodiac Demons, Terrors and the rest of them. If you'll survive. You need other tools."
Cale looked at the sword. "I've never used a weapon."
"There's a first time for everything. It's time to earn. First one single simple task." he paused as if to check if he was listening " From today, you're going to do a thousand swings Every day, No excuses."
"Like this "
He set his foot, in a balanced stance. He thrusted the sword forward and swung.
From that day on, Cale's afternoons were consumed by the sword. He stood in the garden, his legs braced, his arms aching, swinging the wooden blade in patterns Aldus drilled into him. Overhead. Horizontal. Diagonal. Thrust. The motions blurred together.
A thousand swings took hours. Blisters slowly took control of his hands and healed gradually with the help of his ability—Regenesis, but the pain still stung. Aldus stood nearby, correcting his posture, his grip, the angle of his wrist.
"Again," Aldus would say. And Cale would continue to swing.
When his arms gave out, Aldus handed him a spear. "Now do thrusts. A thousand"
What's this man's deal with a thousand. he thought.
When his shoulders burned, Aldus replaced it with a staff. "A thousand strikes."
Oh, come on.
When his legs trembled, Aldus gave him a knife and made him practice footwork, circling the training dummy until Cale thought his knees would buckle.
"Personally, I think that any warrior who only knows one weapon is a dead warrior," Aldus said. "You have to learn them all. Especially since you have weak abilities."
Weeks turned into months. Cale's hands grew calloused. His movements lost their hesitation. He could switch weapons from sword to spear to staff without even thinking, each weapon feeling natural in his grip. The thousand swings that once took hours now took less than one. His body remembered the motions.
Aldus began to introduce sparring. Cale lost the first dozen bouts, his footwork sloppy, his timing, totally off. But slowly, he learned to read Aldus's movements and find openings. He started to win some exchanges.
"Your form is acceptable," Aldus said one evening, after a session with the staff. "It's not there yet. But it's acceptable."
Cale took that as a compliment.
---
His system screen had changed too, though he told no one.
It was something like
```
User: Caelan Ashford
Status: Awakened
Rank: E
Sign: Scorpio
Stage: Awakened
Aspect: — (pending)
Element: Water/Ice
Affinities: 1 (Scorpio)
Special Powers: Frostbite, Regenesis, Death Sense, Scorpion's Grip
Mauri: 100/100
Experience: 42/100
Memory: —
Echo: —
Flaw: —
Seals: 12 (1 active)
```
He'd learned the term from an old book in Aldus's library: Mauri, the energy that flowed through all awakened and all humans in general. His mauri had grown from barely a trickle to a full reserve. He could feel it now, a reservoir inside him that held exactly one hundred units of power.
His Experience had climbed too. Forty-two points toward whatever was to come next. He didn't know what happened when it reached one hundred, but he was curious.
Aldus never asked about stuff like. For all Cale knew he didn't care. He only cared about what Cale could do with them.
---
One morning, Cale stood at the stream, his hands extended. He'd been practicing for weeks, trying to freeze a section while keeping it still enough to hold.
He let the cold flow from his palms, but this time, he didn't fight the current. He let it move, slowing it gradually, and guiding it into stillness.
The water stopped.
A section three feet wide froze solid, the ice was smooth and clear. He held it for a full minute before releasing it back to flowing.
Aldus appeared at his side. He looked at the ice, then at Cale.
"You've learned to control your ice," Aldus said. "Now we will proceed to work on speed."
---
The months passed. Cale's routine became ingrained: The mornings were spent on the stream, the afternoons occupied with weapons, the evenings studying texts from Aldus's library. And finally, before he slept, he checked his phone reading a few webtoons and did his new worked out routine. He learned about the zodiac signs, the history of the Fracture, the nature of Fallen Constellations.
His system screen continued to inch upward.
```
Experience: 68/100
Mauri: 100/100
```
He was close to something new. He could feel it.
One evening, after a particularly long sparring session, Cale sat on the garden bench, catching his breath. Aldus joined him, a cup of tea in each hand.
"You've done well," Aldus said, handing him a cup. "Better than I had expected."
Cale took it, surprised. "So, you didn't expect much?"
"I expected someone who'd been told he was worthless for years. That kind of thing leaves marks emotionally. At least I thought so." Aldus sipped his tea. "But you've pushed through it."
Cale stared at the steam rising from his cup. "I'm still very weak. My ice barely freezes a person. My strikes are far too slow."
"Strength comes with time. Control is the foundation. And you have that now." Aldus set down his cup. "When you go to the academy, they'll try to remake you in their image. with tests, rankings, expectations. Indulge them, but don't let them change you."
"I don't know if I'll even get in," Cale said. "I'm still rank E."
Aldus shrugged. "You talk like you don't know your an Ashford and Ashford's happen to be the strongest family alive in Antaris."
Cale thought about his Experience, stuck at sixty-eight. He thought about the seals, he still didn't understand what those were. He thought about the strange fields in his system that no one else had.
He wanted to ask Aldus about them, about what they meant. But the words wouldn't come. The secret felt too heavy to share.
So he just nodded and drank his tea.
---
That night, Cale lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. His system screen glowed faintly in the dark.
```
User: Cale Ashford
Status: Awakened
Rank: E
Sign: Scorpio
Stage: Awakened
Aspect: — (pending)
Element: Water/Ice
Affinities: 1 (Scorpio)
Special Powers: Frostbite, Regenesis, Death Sense, Scorpion's Grip
Mauri: 100/100
Experience: 68/100
Memory: —
Echo: —
Flaw: —
Seals: 12 (1 active)
```
He was halfway to something. He didn't know what, but he could feel it pressing at the edges of his awareness. The next seal, maybe. Or a new skill.
He dismissed the screen and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he'd swing the sword a thousand more times. Tomorrow, he'd freeze the stream again. And Tomorrow, he'd be a little closer, a little bit stronger.
He fell asleep with his hand resting on the pendant Aldus had given him, and for the first time in years, he dreamed of something other than being a loser.