Rain fell steadily against the roof, drowning out the sounds of dinner. My family's laughter, Asha's sharp tongue, and Helga's squeals all faded, replaced by the steady hum of the storm outside. Out here, I could finally breathe. Relief washed over me, cool and light, as if the storm had swept away the chaos and noise of home.
Still, beneath that relief, a bit of loneliness lingered. Sometimes I missed the warmth inside, even as I wanted this quiet. Standing here, I felt caught between two worlds—not just between the house and the garden, but something deeper: a quiet distance growing in my heart.
I thought of the academy, of the path my parents had at last agreed to let me walk. But the truth was, my desire to go there hadn't begun with ambition or pride. It began the day my memories returned. Suddenly, everything around me felt both familiar and foreign—my dreams came shadowed with anxieties from another lifetime, and the future was laced with a restlessness I could not explain to those around me. The academy became more than just a school; it was a refuge and a promise, a place where I might finally understand where the past ended and my new life began.
I was eight then. Just a boy who had woken after a week-long sleep. Yet in that time, I had lived another life—twenty-eight years as a man working in a corporate office. Endless deadlines, fluorescent lights, the monotony of meetings. But I also carried the habits of that life: reading, analyzing, devouring web novels late into the night. Those stories taught me one lesson above all: survival begins with caution, and knowledge is the sharpest weapon.
The first thing I learned after regaining my memories was the name of the place I lived: the Brown Barony, a quiet backwater of the Safran Empire—the largest human territory on the Aria continent. Unlike the world I had known before, built on science and steel, this one was woven from mana. Here, power flowed not from machines or circuits, but from the unseen currents of magic that shaped every stone, every breath, every life.
As I struggled to carve out a way to survive in this unforgiving world, my parents led me one day to the temple. The moment its towering gates loomed before me, dread coiled in my chest. The sight of the priest and priestess struck me like a curse, dragging forth memories of witch hunts from another life. My pulse thundered, each beat a warning that I was about to be condemned — perhaps even burned alive — for the forbidden knowledge I carried within.
The sacred hall seemed to close in around me, its silence heavy, its sanctity suffocating. My knees weakened, and I nearly collapsed beneath the weight of terror. From that day onward, I turned my back on faith. I became an atheist, unwilling to entrust gods or priests with my fragile existence, unwilling to bow before powers that had once promised salvation but now only whispered of death. Yet even as belief crumbled, survival demanded new paths, and fate soon carried me elsewhere.
For the sake of my brother's safety and my own, our family left my grandfather's house and resettled at the barony's border — a quiet stretch of land where my father once gathered herbs beneath the forest's shadow. Life there carried the scent of earth and healing, but change soon followed, pulling me toward a harsher destiny.
When we later moved near my uncle's estate, that destiny revealed itself. I was placed into knight training, my days consumed by drills and discipline. My uncle oversaw every strike and stance, his stern gaze unyielding. At my side trained his eldest son, Jon — four years my senior, stronger, faster, already molded by years of practice. I struggled to keep pace, but each clash of wooden blades carved me closer to the warrior I was meant to become.
In the five months after regaining my memories, I learned the fundamental truth of this world: it is governed by absolute power and a rigid class system. At the top of the pyramid sit the royalty; at the bottom are commoners like me. To survive, one needs power. The only realistic route for a commoner is to become a knight or a magician. But magic requires wealth and innate blessings, leaving the path of the knight — a road paved strictly by effort — as the only true choice.
Every three years, my uncle accompanied the Baron to the imperial capital to file taxes and secure development funds for the barony. With his departure, formal training was suspended for a month and a half.
Driven by boredom, I began sneaking into the forest behind the villagers who gathered firewood. But my curiosity outpaced my sense of direction, and before long, I was thoroughly lost.
Wandering through the dense foliage, I eventually stumbled upon an overgrown footpath. Following it led me to a clearing with a modest hut and an old man tending to a garden of vibrant flowers. When I asked for help, he simply smiled, offered no intrusive questions, and guided me safely back to the edge of the village.
That night, my corporate brain—fortified by hundreds of late-night fantasy novels—couldn't let it go. An enigmatic elder living alone in the deep woods of a backwater barony? It was practically a textbook fantasy trope.
The next morning, I snuck back into the forest.
Hidden behind the thick trunk of an oak, my suspicions were instantly confirmed. The old man stood in the center of the clearing with an ordinary sword. With an effortless, almost fluid swing, he sent a surge of compressed force slicing cleanly through a massive tree. The upper trunk crashed down, leaving a cut so smooth it glistened in the sunlight.
I knew it.
From then on, I borrowed Jon's spare sword whenever he wasn't looking and ventured deep into the woods. Day after day, I hid near the clearing, watching the old man's footwork, breathing, and posture, trying desperately to copy every subtle shift of his weight.
For two weeks, I thought I was being a stealthy ghost.
On the fifteenth day, as I held my breath behind a bush, trying to replicate a diagonal slash, the old man suddenly stopped. Without turning around, he sheathed his blade.
"You've been holding that grip wrong for fourteen days, boy," he said calmly, his voice carrying easily through the quiet woods. He turned, looking straight at my hiding spot with sharp, knowing eyes. "If you keep swinging like that, you'll ruin your wrists before you ever form Mana."
He paused, watching me step out nervously with Jon's oversized sword in hand.
"Well?" the old man asked, a subtle smirk playing on his lips. "Do you actually want to learn how to swing a sword, or do you just enjoy lurking in my bushes?"
I swallowed hard, gripping the hilt tighter. "I want to learn."
Looking back, if I had known what lay ahead, I might have turned around and walked right back to my uncle's wooden swords.
The old man didn't teach me glamorous slashes or high-level mana techniques right away. He broke me down. The "days of hell" began with endless physical conditioning that made corporate crunch weeks look like a vacation. I spent hours swinging heavy logs, running up steep mountain paths carrying rocks, and holding low stances until my legs trembled so violently I couldn't stand.
When my uncle returned from the capital, my double life truly began. By day, I went through the motions in my uncle's courtyard, practicing standard barony footwork alongside my cousin Jon. By early morning and late night, I snuck back into the deep woods to endure the old man's brutal regimen.
For the first few years, while other kids my age were learning simple sword routines, I was learning how to breathe under physical strain. The old man hammered into me that mana wasn't just raw power—it was an extension of life force itself. He forced me to sense the unseen currents of magic while on the brink of total physical collapse, all to forge a perfect Mana Heart and build the physical vessel capable of containing it.
By the time I turned ten, I dropped the knight training with my brother and cousin. Their movements had begun to look painfully slow and unrefined to my eyes. The moment I woke up each morning, my feet took me straight toward the forest.
Years passed, and my body forged itself through continuous training. By the age of sixteen, I had reached the realm of Sword Expert—just one tier below a Sword Master.
Through my training, I learned that knights gather mana through two distinct paths
The Mana Circuit Path: The standard, modern method. It is highly efficient and easy to develop, requiring no innate talent—only the grit to endure the intense pain when the circuits are engraved into the body. As a knight grows stronger, stars are added to their circuits to mark their power.
The Mana Heart Path: A grueling, ancient method not used by the current generation of knights. It takes years of relentless physical discipline to form, but once established, an individual's power multiplies exponentially with further growth. I didn't fully grasp its limits yet, but I believed in my master's words.
Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, while we were training, the old man suddenly collapsed, unconscious from a deeply rooted injury he had sustained decades ago. I brought my father to help, and he tried for three agonizing days to treat him, but eventually failed to save his life.
Before he passed, I made him a promise: I would enter the academy and grow strong enough to fulfill what he couldn't.
I made his grave on the highest peak of the hill, overlooking the forest, and carved his name into stone: Arthur.
That was his name—the name of my master.