The small boy who was once the world's most formidable spirit master sat motionless in his rickety wooden chair. His gaze was absent, his eyes fixed on a knot in the wood of his desk, yet his mind was miles—and decades—away.
Just an hour ago, he had been a man in his prime, his body a temple of refined power, even as it was being systematically dismantled by the nine tails of his sworn enemy.
He subconsciously reached up, his small fingers tracing the fabric of his tunic over his chest and stomach, searching for the jagged entry wounds and the wet heat of his own blood.
There was nothing. His skin was smooth, unmarred by the scars of a thousand battles, and his small heart beat with a steady, youthful rhythm that felt entirely alien to him.
The experience was jarring. He felt like a small boat with a broken mast, tossed mercilessly into the heart of a supernatural thunderstorm, only to wake up in the unnerving stillness of a forgotten harbour.
It took nearly an hour of rhythmic breathing to wrestle his ragged emotions into submission. He focused on the present, forcing the ghosts of his fallen brothers and sisters to retreat into the back of his mind.
Outside the single, grimy window of his cabin, the world was swathed in a thick, oppressive pitch black. The deep silence of the night suggested it was the early hours of the morning, the time when the veil between dreams and reality was at its thinnest.
But William was far beyond the need for sleep. He had just been resurrected, catapulted back through the river of time by a power he didn't fully understand. The memory of the Nine-Tailed Fox's mockery still rang in his ears, a dissonant chord that refused to fade.
"So, I really came back to the academy... sigh," he whispered. His voice was a soft, prepubescent treble that made him wince.
He leaned back, the old wood of the chair creaking under his slight weight, and began to sift through the memories of this specific era of his life. At this point in history, William was not a hero. He was not a prodigy. He was a nobody.
He didn't hail from a prestigious clan with deep pockets, nor did he possess a bloodline that granted him innate advantages.
While the Aspire Academy was renowned as one of the most elite institutions in the Southern Human Kingdom, William's place within its walls was at the very bottom of the social strata. He had joined not as a formal disciple, but as a porter.
In the hierarchy of the academy, a porter was little more than a pack animal with a name. His existence was defined by labour: carrying heavy crates of spirit stones, delivering alchemy ingredients to the laboratories, and providing manual supplies to the "true" disciples—the children of wealth and power who viewed him as part of the scenery.
It was a life of servitude, yet it wasn't without its silver linings. In exchange for eight hours of back-breaking labour every day, the academy provided him with this meagre cabin on the outskirts of the campus, a few basic cultivation resources, and permission to attend general lectures.
He even had the right to join outside expeditions, provided he was there to carry the luggage.
But to the man who had once stood at the pinnacle of spirit mastery, this life was an insult to his potential.
"I have to change everything," he muttered, his fists clenching so hard that his knuckles turned white. His fragile, underdeveloped body trembled with a mixture of repressed rage and cold determination.
"I've been given the chance to return the favour to that damned fox twofold. I can't waste a single moment. Not a single breath."
He looked out the small window. His "living space" was a repurposed storage cabinet situated so far on the fringe of the academy grounds that he was practically an outcast.
In his previous life, he had spent years here, slowly and painfully crawling his way up through the ranks. He had harboured a desperate wish in his final moments, a defiant bark in the face of death, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine it would actually manifest.
He was twenty years in the past. Every tragedy he had witnessed, every mistake he had made, and every secret he had learned was now his greatest weapon.
"I need to plan," he told himself, his eyes sharpening as the master within took full control of the child's body.
He reached into the single, stuck drawer of his desk and pulled it open with a sharp tug. He reached inside and withdrew a small, milky-white crystal.
It was a spirit crystal, the universal currency and the most basic fuel for cultivation in this world. It glistened faintly in the dim starlight, a solid piece of condensed energy. He set it carefully on a patch of the desk he had wiped clear of dust.
Next, he pulled out a thick, short candle. Its surface was unsightly, covered in irregular green waxy bumps from previous uses. In this world, it was known as a Candle of Light.
The green substance was a specialised spirit-reactive wax; when touched with a spark of fire or a pulse of spirit energy, it would burn with a steady, clear radiance that could pierce even the deepest magical gloom.
The candle was composed of a common byproduct found on the peripheries of major spirit ore mines. To the average person, it was a low-value commodity, a mere utility for warding off the midnight gloom. To William, however, the substance was more than a wick and wax; it was a chemical catalyst.
Between the spirit crystal and the candle, William held the two most ubiquitous items in the academy's supply chain. It was only natural that a porter, whose life revolved around the logistics of such materials, would have access to them.
"I recall my strength was stagnant for many years before the Great Fall, but I have to verify the baseline," he muttered. He gripped the spirit crystal in his left hand and the candle in his right.
Closing his eyes, he reached deep into the recesses of his small chest, searching for the spark. He found it—a thin, shivering thread of spirit power that felt like a strand of spider silk compared to the raging ocean of energy he once commanded.
With a focused breath, he guided that thread to his fingertips, igniting the wick. The candle flared to life, casting a flickering, sickly green glow against the peeling wallpaper of his room.
In the eyes of a contemporary master, the candle was useless for diagnostic purposes. Testing spirit power in this era relied on heavy, expensive lithic pillars or resonance bells—methods William considered hopelessly rudimentary and inefficient.
He intended to use a technique of his own design, a method of spectral refraction that wouldn't be discovered by the world's alchemists for another decade.
The spirit crystal he held was a "Grade Zero" specimen, the dregs of a mine. It was cloudy and saturated with impurities, but for a simple diagnostic, it would suffice.
As the fire took hold, the green wax began to liquefy. The material reacted to the heat, forming viscous, glowing beads that pooled around the base of the flame. William carefully tilted the candle, allowing the green droplets to fall onto the milky surface of the crystal.
One bead. Five. Fifty. He watched with the patience of a craftsman until the entire surface was submerged in a layer of translucent green sludge. Setting the candle aside, he used his thumbs to rub the wax, ensuring an even, airtight seal across the crystal's facets.
Fwoosh!
He began the true test, injecting his meagre spirit power directly into the core of the stone.
The moment his energy met the crystal's lattice, the green wax didn't just glow—it began to dissolve. The substance was a perfect conductor; it acted as a solvent for spirit energy, vanishing into the crystal's pores as if it had never existed.
William's expression remained a mask of stone. He watched the centre of the crystal, where a tiny, shy spark of light began to coalesce. He continued the infusion, pushing his small body to the brink of exhaustion until the light stabilised and the internal structure of the stone underwent a final, permanent shift.
He raised the crystal to the moonlight, squinting at the internal pattern.
"Faint white... and only twelve dots," he said, his voice dripping with melancholy. "Twelve spirit points. I'm not even halfway to the threshold of a true Spirit Apprentice, let alone a Master."
He stared at the result, unsure whether to laugh at his own frailty or weep for the long road ahead. In the spirit-master hierarchy, twelve points were the mark of a commoner with a slight "gift"—hardly enough to warrant a second glance from the academy's elite.
If a time-traveller had approached his younger self on this very night and claimed that this boy would one day stand as a titan capable of challenging the Nine-Tailed Fox, William would have called the man a lunatic. Yet, the evidence was in his hands. He was starting from the absolute bottom, a porter with the soul of a god and the strength of a gnat.