Not everyone heard the mana.
Some goblins spent days sitting with their eyes closed, meditating in silence, waiting to open their veins. Most achieved nothing, not even opening half of a single one. Others, through excessive effort, ruptured their own veins during the process and ended up convulsing, feverish, their screams burned into memory.
César watched without intervening.
'This world is not fair,' he thought. 'Not everyone is born with the ability to use mana.'
By the third dawn, those who had failed to open even a single mana vein began gathering separately, away from the warm wooden houses. Little by little, they returned to the dark caves where they had always lived. Yet that brief time above the mana vein had been enough to make the return bitter and difficult.
The goblins who failed felt lost. Their future seemed dark and shapeless.
But among them were those who refused to give up.
One stepped forward.
"If we cannot use mana," he said, his voice hoarse yet filled with determination, "what else can we do to move forward?"
César looked down from the top of an improvised wooden platform.
He observed the goblin who had dared to ask and smiled inwardly. 'Those who do not give up are the most valuable. They are the ones worth supporting.'
"The body," he replied. "And the will."
He pointed toward the clearing north of the settlement, a stretch of trampled, barren land.
"That is where the army will be trained."
A murmur rippled through the group.
"Those who choose to join the army will not need mana," César continued. "The path you will walk is the path of Aura. But you must understand this now. It is far slower, more painful, and far bloodier."
He paused.
"You will not reach the same ranks as those who cultivate mana."
His words were blunt and deliberate.
"But aura allows ascension for those who were not born to be mages."
The silence grew heavy. Then, one by one, the goblins began to nod.
César was not lying.
In this world, Aura was considered the path of commoners. Unlike mana, it did not extend lifespan. Its destructive power was inferior, and its ranks always fell below those of mages at the same level. And in the future, the creation of the Ether Core would render Aura nearly obsolete, allowing others to cultivate both magic and aura simultaneously.
Only much later, one of the villain protagonist's heroines, lacking talent for mana, would walk the path of Aura with César's help, becoming one of the furthest to ever advance along that road.
That very afternoon, training began.
There were no refined techniques. Only blows, endurance, and repetition. Running until collapse. Lifting stones until arms trembled. Crashing bodies together until they learned to remain standing.
César watched from a distance.
And then he saw him.
Goby separated himself from the mana aspirants who had managed to partially open their veins and walked toward the army's clearing.
"What are you doing?" César asked, startled, as he saw his brother approaching. He stepped down from the platform quickly.
Goby stopped in front of him.
"I can open my veins," he said. "Not as many as you, but they are there."
"Then stay, meditate, and keep opening them," César replied. "The faster you advance, the higher your rank will be."
Goby clenched his fists.
"I also want aura."
César narrowed his eyes.
"The dual path is not easy. It breaks bodies. You could end up with neither."
"I know."
"Cultivating aura will not make you superior to mana refiners."
César spoke the truth. Only by uniting both cores and creating Ether could that limitation be surpassed, something that still belonged to the future.
Goby raised his gaze, unwavering.
"But it will make me harder to kill."
For a moment, César said nothing.
In his mind, the calculation was clear. Mana created power. Aura created soldiers. The dual path was dangerous, unnecessary, and brutal.
But Goby's determination shattered that cold logic.
'He is not a number,' César thought. 'He is my brother.'
For the first time since his reincarnation, he did not feel completely alone. Without anyone knowing, he too was determined to walk that path, even if he knew its dangers through foresight.
Seeing Goby's eyes, he no longer tried to stop him. Even so, he gave one final warning.
"If you fail, you may lose the ability to use mana altogether."
Goby smiled, baring his fangs.
"I will never give up. I am decided."
That night, the clearing echoed with shouts, impacts, and ragged breathing. Future soldiers trained beneath the moon, pushing their bodies beyond the limit, seeking that desperate instant when aura would awaken.
César watched from atop the mana vein.
'Mana users will be the pillar.'
'Aura users will defend.'
That would be the structure.
But as he watched Goby train until he bled, his own determination grew.
He would give everything as well.
He would walk that path.
The path of Ether.