[Current Location: The Banks of the Silver Stream, Border of Hastina]
[Time until the Great War: 28 Years]
The basket didn't sink. Despite being woven from simple reeds and lined with only a thin, tear-soaked silk shawl, it bobbed atop the violent currents of the Ganga like a divine vessel. Inside, the infant didn't cry. He watched the swirling grey clouds with eyes the color of molten copper, his tiny chest rising and falling in a rhythmic, mechanical perfection.
Aadheer, a lead charioteer of the Royal Stables, waded into the freezing water. He had spent his life taming thunderous stallions, but as his hands brushed the wicker basket, a jolt of pure static electricity hissed through his nerves.
[Warning: Divine Static Detected!]
[Neutralizing Tier-Class shock... Success.]
"Radha, come quickly!" Aadheer gasped, pulling the basket to the muddy shore.
His wife, Radha, knelt in the silt, her breath hitching. As they peeled back the silk, they didn't find a soft, pink infant. They found a miracle—and a terrifying mystery.
The child was breathtakingly beautiful, his skin possessing a faint, metallic luster like polished bronze. But it was the [Solar Mantle] that froze their hearts. Fused seamlessly into his torso was a chestplate of intricate, overlapping golden scales. It wasn't worn over his skin; it emerged from it, pulsing with a low, rhythmic amber light that matched his heartbeat. Hanging from his small lobes were two heavy, ornate golden hoops—the [Vajra Earrings]—that seemed to drink in the morning's dim light, glowing brighter as the sun rose.
"He is a child of the Heavens," Aadheer whispered, his hand trembling. "We must take him to the Temple. This is a Royal omen."
"No," Radha snapped, her voice thick with a decade of unfulfilled prayers. She reached out, and to Aadheer's horror, she touched the glowing golden armor. Instead of burning her, the metal softened, the sharp edges of the scales smoothing into a texture like warm silk. "The Heavens threw him away, Aadheer. The 'Royals' gave him to the river. If we give him back, they will turn him into a tool or a corpse. He is mine. He is Kiran."
The Weight of the Name
As Kiran grew, the "System" of the world seemed to constantly glitch in his presence. By age seven, he was already the size of a twelve-year-old. His hair was a thick, unruly mane of raven-black that shimmered with blue highlights under the sun. His most striking feature, however, remained his eyes—sharp, predatory, and filled with a strange melancholy that no child should possess.
He grew up in the Suta Quarters, a place of dust, horse manure, and the constant creak of wooden wheels. While other children played with sticks, Kiran worked.
[Daily Task: Clean 50 Royal Chariots – Progress: 100%]
[Reward: +1 Strength, +50 EXP]
He felt the weight of his status every day. He was a "Suta"—a lower-tier citizen destined to serve the warrior elite. He wore the coarse, brown tunics of a servant, but they could never fully hide the bulge of the golden armor beneath. He felt like a god trapped in a cage made of social expectations.
His feelings were a turbulent sea. He loved Radha with a fierce, protective loyalty—to him, she was the only "True North" in a world of lies. But when he looked at the Sun, he felt a painful, magnetic pull. He felt an agonizing loneliness, a sense that he was a displaced piece of a much larger puzzle.
"Father," a ten-year-old Kiran asked one evening while greasing the axle of a heavy war-chariot. "Why do the Princes get to carry swords of light, while I am told to never touch anything sharper than a grooming brush?"
Aadheer sighed, his face lined with the weariness of a man who knew his place. "Because, Kiran, their 'Stats' are written in the Great Records. Ours are written in the dust. Don't look at the palace, son. It only makes the eyes burn."
But Kiran's eyes were already burning.
One afternoon, a group of minor Noble children wandered into the stables. They saw Kiran heaving a massive, iron-bound wheel that usually required four grown men to lift.
"Look at the freak!" one boy laughed, throwing a stone. It struck Kiran's back.
Clang.
The sound wasn't the dull thud of stone on flesh. It was the ring of high-grade celestial bronze. The stone shattered into powder.
Kiran turned slowly. His internal "System" flared red.
[Threat Detected: Low-Level Nobles.]
[Passive Skill 'Patience of the Sun' is failing...]
[Warning: Mana Leakage detected!]
"Pick it up," Kiran said, his voice low and vibrating with a power that made the horses in their stalls whinny in terror.
"What did you say, slave?" the Noble boy sneered, drawing a practice dagger.
Kiran didn't move fast; he moved efficiently. In a blur of bronze light, he was suddenly standing inches from the boy. He didn't strike him. He simply gripped the boy's practice dagger by the blade. Under the heat of Kiran's palm, the steel began to glow orange, then yellow, before melting into droplets of slag that hissed in the dirt.
The Noble children fled, screaming about "demons" and "cursed blood."
Kiran stood in the silence of the stables, his hand unscarred, his golden armor pulsing beneath his tunic. He felt a deep, hollow ache in his chest. He was stronger than all of them, yet he was the one who had to hide.
That night, he sat on the roof of the stables, looking at the distant, glittering spires of the Royal Academy. He reached into his tunic and felt the cold, indestructible scales of his chestplate.
I am not a demon, he thought, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. And I am not a slave. If this world has no place for me, I will burn a hole into the map and make one.
[Hidden Condition Met: 'Awakened Ambition']
[Sub-Quest Triggered: The First Bow.]
[Objective: Obtain a weapon that can withstand your Mana.]