The year after the failed rift passed quietly.
Not peacefully—quietly.
There was a difference Arav had begun to recognize.
Peace felt light.
Quiet felt watchful.
By nine, his days followed a rhythm carved by repetition rather than urgency. Morning breathing exercises beneath the old banyan tree. Midday lessons in control and theory. Evenings spent walking the perimeter with Vyomar while the estate settled into dusk.
He did not grow stronger in bursts.
He grew steadier.
That, Aaryan insisted, mattered more.
"Power that arrives early is loud," his father said one evening as they observed Arav hold a thin line of flame between two stones. "Power that stays must learn how to be silent."
Arav adjusted his breathing, sweat sliding down his temple. The flame thinned further—no heat bleed, no distortion.
Aaryan nodded. "Good. Release."
The flame vanished.
Not dispersed.
Ended.
Meghala clapped once. "Congratulations. You've officially become boring."
Arav blinked. "Is that… good?"
"It's excellent," she replied cheerfully. "No one dies around boring people."
Isha giggled from the steps, Furbols clutched to her chest. She had grown taller, her laughter sharper, her presence… unchanged in ways that unsettled Arav if he thought too hard about it.
Sometimes she knew things.
Not facts.
Outcomes.
Once, during a light rain, she tugged Arav back by the sleeve just before a stone tile cracked where he would have stepped. Another time, she insisted Vyomar sleep by the door instead of the window—only for a branch to snap loose in the night and crash where the lion usually lay.
No one commented.
Everyone noticed.
The system remained restrained during those years, surfacing mostly in small, almost mischievous ways.
[Daily Sign-In Complete]
Reward: Self-Warming Bowl]
Sharanya had taken one look at it, tested it once, and immediately confiscated it for kitchen use.
"Your system is trying to be helpful," she said mildly. "Just… not to you."
Another time—
[Daily Sign-In Complete]
Reward: Ink That Never Smudges]
Meghala stole that one.
"I'm keeping this," she announced. "For official paperwork. And doodles."
Arav received two medium rewards during that stretch—both subtle, both deeply practical.
One was a breathing refinement that didn't increase capacity, only efficiency. The other was a mental buffer that softened emotional spikes without dulling feeling.
Neither made him stronger.
Both made him safer.
By the end of that year, the estate felt smaller.
Not because it had shrunk—but because Arav had grown into it.
He began accompanying Aaryan on inspections within family territory. Not to fight. Not even to train.
To observe.
They visited watchtowers overlooking managed low-grade rift zones, sealed and monitored by Ashvathar formations. Arav learned how land changed around weak rifts—how plants bent subtly, how animals avoided certain paths, how stone weathered faster where aether thinned.
"These places aren't dangerous," Aaryan explained as they stood atop a ridge overlooking a shallow ravine marked with boundary stones. "But they teach discipline. Carelessness here becomes catastrophe elsewhere."
Arav nodded, committing everything to memory.
At night, he practiced control in increasingly mundane conditions—while tired, while distracted, while listening to Isha chatter endlessly about Furbols' imaginary adventures.
Once, when exhaustion dulled his focus and a spark threatened to slip free, Vyomar bumped his shoulder gently.
Enough.
Arav smiled and stopped.
The system chimed faintly later that night.
[Sign-In Complete]
Reward: Focus Anchor (Minor Enhancement)]
Note: Compatibility detected. Effect slightly improved.]
He felt the difference immediately—not more strength, but quicker recovery from strain.
Outside the estate, the world did not stop moving.
Caravans passed more frequently. Guards doubled patrols near old boundaries. A few distant families quietly relocated their holdings away from known rift lines.
No one announced danger.
Everyone prepared for it.
One afternoon, while watching workers reinforce an old watchpoint, Arav overheard two older guards speaking.
"Two years," one said. "That's the usual preparation window."
"For what?"
The guard shrugged. "Academy. Or war. Depends how the world behaves."
Arav didn't interrupt.
He stored the words away.
That night, he stood at the edge of the courtyard, gazing up at the stars while Vyomar sat beside him, tail wrapped neatly around his paws.
"I'll be ten soon," Arav said quietly.
Vyomar's ear twitched.
"I won't be able to stay inside forever."
The lion rumbled softly—not disagreement, not approval. Acceptance.
Behind them, Sharanya watched from the doorway, expression unreadable. Isha sat beside her, humming tunelessly as she traced patterns in the air with her finger—patterns that vanished a heartbeat after forming.
Aaryan joined them moments later.
"It's almost time," he said.
"For what?" Isha asked.
"For him," Aaryan replied, eyes on Arav's back. "To learn how the outside pushes back."
Arav didn't turn.
He already knew.
The years had done their work.
They had given him balance.
They had given him patience.
They had given him control without cruelty.
Soon, they would give him something else entirely.
Not yet.
But close enough now that the world had begun to lean in again.
And this time—
Arav intended to meet it standing.