[Current Location: The Outskirts of the Iron Citadel – The Hidden Ravine]
[Status: Training (Self-Taught)]
[Mana Saturation: 88% - Warning: Physical Vessel straining]
At sixteen, Kiran was a walking contradiction. To the citizens of the Iron Citadel, he was merely the tall, quiet Suta who could haul three times the weight of a standard ox. He wore a heavy, high-collared tunic of rough hemp, specifically designed to hide the permanent, ethereal glow of his [Solar Mantle].
But in the dead of night, when the moon hung like a silver sickle over the world, Kiran wasn't a servant. He was a force of nature.
"Again," he whispered to himself, his voice cracking with exhaustion.
He stood in a secluded ravine, five miles from the stable. In his hands was a high-tier military longbow he had "borrowed" from the Royal Armory's scrap heap. It was made of reinforced mountain oak and tipped with iron. To a normal soldier, it was a weapon of war.
To Kiran, it was a toy.
He notched a heavy practice arrow. He didn't just pull the string; he channeled his [Solar Core]. The air around his hands began to shimmer as if viewed through a desert heat haze. The golden scales beneath his tunic pulsed, sending surges of raw, unrefined mana into his arms.
[Warning: Weapon Durability Critical!]
[Current Output: 400 Tera-Joules of Mana]
Snap.
The mountain oak didn't just break; it exploded. Shards of wood peppered Kiran's face, drawing thin lines of blood that glowed gold before instantly cauterizing. The iron tips of the bow melted into slag before they even hit the ground.
Kiran looked at the wreckage in his hands and let out a frustrated growl. His copper eyes burned with a literal fire.
"It's no use," he muttered, wiping ash from his brow. "The Tier-System is rigged. The world builds bows for men, but it hasn't built anything for... whatever I am."
He felt a deep, gnawing hunger in his soul. It wasn't for food, but for expression. He was like a master musician gifted with the greatest symphony in history, but forced to play it on a broken flute. His power was a burden, a secret that felt like swallowing hot coals.
The Quest for the Sun-Struck Ash
[Hidden Quest: The First Bow – Objective Update]
[Locate a material with 'High Mana Conductance']
Kiran remembered a story Aadheer had told him about the Lightning-Scrub, a ridge where the atmosphere was so thin that the Sun's rays and the sky's lightning fought for dominance. Legend said a single tree stood there—an Ash tree that had survived a thousand strikes.
He traveled for two days, moving with a speed that blurred the landscape. His [Agility] stat was so high that he didn't run; he seemed to skip across the surface of the earth.
When he found it, he gasped. The tree wasn't green. It was white—bleached by the sun and charred by lightning into a petrified, metallic substance.
Kiran approached the tree. As his hand touched the bark, his [Solar Mantle] reacted violently. A pillar of golden light erupted from his chest, connecting with the tree. The ravine lit up as if a second sun had fallen to earth.
[Compatibility Confirmed: 99.8%]
[Material: Sun-Struck Heartwood (Rank: Epic)]
He spent the next eighteen hours carving. He didn't use a knife; he used his own mana, shaping the wood with beams of concentrated heat. He worked with a focus that bordered on madness, his raven hair soaked in sweat, his eyes never blinking. He felt a strange connection to the wood—it was an outcast, just like him. Struck, burned, and hardened by a power it never asked for.
By dawn, he held it. A bow as black as a starless night, but with veins of gold running through its center like a nervous system.
"I'll call you Vajra-Hridaya," he whispered. "The Heart of the Thunderbolt."
The First Shot
Kiran stood on the edge of the ridge. Five miles away, a massive, jagged rock formation stood out against the horizon.
He took a deep breath. For the first time, he didn't hold back. He opened the floodgates of his [Solar Core].
The golden scales on his chest turned blindingly bright, visible even through his clothes. His copper eyes became two solid orbs of light. He pulled the string of the black bow. This time, the weapon didn't groan. It sang. A high-pitched, harmonic vibration that shook the very air.
[Skill Unlocked: Solar Flare Arrow (Level 1)]
[Mana Consumption: 5,000 units]
He released.
There was no sound of a bowstring. There was only a crack like the world splitting open. A beam of pure, golden white light lanced across the sky. It didn't arc; it defied gravity, traveling in a perfectly straight line.
When it hit the rock formation five miles away, there was no explosion. There was simply a hole. A perfect, molten circle bored through three hundred feet of solid granite.
Kiran dropped to one knee, gasping for air. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but for the first time in his life, the ache in his chest was gone. He looked at his hands, which were still smoking.
"I am ready," he whispered.
[Quest Complete: The First Bow]
[Reward: Title 'The Hidden Archer' Acquired]
[New Main Quest: The Academy Entrance]
[Description: The Princes of Kuru are gathering. It is time to show the 'Chosen' what a Suta can do.]
Kiran stood up, slinging the black bow over his shoulder. He looked toward the Iron Citadel, his gaze piercing through the morning mist. He knew that by entering the Academy, he was declaring war on the very foundations of the world. He was a Suta with the weapon of a God.
And he was done hiding.