The courtyard of House Valemont had never known silence. It was a place where steel sang and boots crushed gravel with purpose, where the air itself trembled beneath sharpened intent. Generations of warriors had carved their legacy into the pale marble tiles, and faint scars etched across the stone bore witness to sword aura that had once slipped control and split the earth. Today, those scars seemed to watch.
Fourteen year old Lucian Valemont stood alone at the center of the training yard, his hands slick with sweat. Before him rested the ceremonial blade, a slender longsword forged from sky iron, its edge faintly shimmering with dormant mana. It was not meant to cut flesh. It was meant to judge blood.
Around the courtyard stood the elite knights of House Valemont, cloaked in silver and midnight blue, their expressions stern and expectant. They had all stood where he stood now. They had all felt the surge of mana answering their call.
At the highest step overlooking the yard stood two figures. The first was broad shouldered and imposing, dressed in a dark ducal coat embroidered with the silver blade crest of their house. Duke Darius Valemont, High Swordmaster, a man whose blade could cleave a fortress gate in a single strike. Beside him stood an older man leaning on a black cane, his hair white as frost, his back still straight despite the years.
Aldric Valemont, the retired Sword Saint, the man who had once split a thunderstorm with a single swing.
Lucian swallowed.
Today was his Manifestation Day, the day he would awaken his sword affinity and circulate mana for the first time. Every noble child in the kingdom underwent such a ritual. For House Valemont, it was sacred.
"Pick it up," his father said, his voice calm yet carrying across the courtyard with effortless authority.
Lucian bent and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. It felt wrong, heavier than it should have been, distant in a way he could not explain. He had trained since he could walk, memorized every stance, every breathing technique, every form. He knew them all.
But knowing was not the same as feeling.
He lifted the blade. The air waited.
"Channel your mana," Darius commanded.
Lucian closed his eyes and reached inward, just as his tutors had taught him. Feel the warmth in your core, guide it to your arm, let it flow through the steel.
He searched.
Cold emptiness answered him.
A murmur rippled through the watching knights.
His heart pounded harder. He forced himself to breathe slower, deeper, trying again. He reached inward once more.
Nothing.
No spark, no current, no whisper of power.
Desperation tightened his grip. He swung.
The blade wobbled mid arc, lacking any trace of intent. His footing faltered and the tip scraped harmlessly across the marble. The sound was painfully loud.
Someone coughed.
Lucian's ears burned.
He shifted into the second stance, Rising Crescent, his arm trembling before he even began. He swung harder this time. Pain jolted through his shoulder and the sword nearly flew from his hand.
Whispers spread among the younger knights.
"Impossible," someone muttered under their breath.
Lucian heard it. He heard everything.
His father's silence was worse than anger.
"Focus," Darius said, though there was an edge beneath the word.
Lucian bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. He would not cry. He swung a third time.
The sword slipped entirely from his grasp and clattered against the stone.
The sound echoed across the courtyard, then silence swallowed everything.
Lucian froze, staring at the fallen blade.
A sharp crack split the air as Aldric's cane struck the ground.
"Enough."
The single word carried weight, authority, finality.
Lucian did not dare look up as the retired Sword Saint descended the steps. Each tap of his cane seemed louder than the last. He stopped before his grandson.
Lucian felt those ancient eyes upon him.
"There is no sword in this boy," Aldric said quietly.
The words cut deeper than any blade.
A collective exhale moved through the courtyard.
Darius stepped forward after a long pause. "Lucian," he said, his voice measured, "this house does not discard its own. Talent can be cultivated."
Lucian nodded faintly, but he saw it in his father's eyes, the fracture in expectation, the disappointment carefully restrained.
Aldric studied him for a moment longer, then turned away. "Blood does not guarantee steel," he murmured.
The two greatest swordsmen of their generation left him alone in the courtyard.
Lucian stared at the sword lying at his feet.
Something inside him cracked.
The world tilted. Pain exploded behind his eyes and memories not his own surged forward. Blinding lights, a city skyline, a name that was not Lucian, a life that was not this one. An office desk, late nights, exhaustion, regret.
Then darkness.
Lucian collapsed to his knees, gasping as foreign thoughts tangled with his own.
Reincarnation.
The word surfaced with terrifying clarity.
He had lived before. On another world. And he had died.
The shock should have broken him.
Instead, a cold voice echoed in his mind.
Clear. Mechanical. Emotionless.
Heavenly Tyrant Body System initializing.
Lucian froze, his breath caught in his throat.
Host identified, Lucian Valemont.
Sword aptitude, zero.
He flinched.
Physical potential, SSS grade.
His heart skipped.
Ancient martial compatibility confirmed.
A burning heat ignited deep within his chest. He cried out as pain flooded his limbs. His muscles tightened violently and his bones felt as though they were being compressed, reforged under invisible pressure. He fell fully onto the stone, clutching at the ground.
Beginning body tempering, stage one.
It felt as though molten iron had been poured into his veins. He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming. Images flashed through his mind, towering warriors shattering mountains with bare fists, figures standing unarmed before storms and punching them aside.
An ancient path. Forgotten. Erased.
The Martial Sovereigns.
His body convulsed once more, then the pain receded as abruptly as it had come.
Lucian lay on his back staring at the sky. The air felt different. He flexed his fingers and strength coiled beneath his skin.
Not mana.
Not sword intent.
Something denser. Something his own.
He pushed himself upright slowly. His breathing was steady now, his heartbeat calm. He looked at the fallen sword.
For the first time in his life, he felt nothing toward it.
No longing. No shame.
He stood and walked past the blade.
His hand clenched into a fist.
The air around it trembled faintly. A subtle pulse rippled outward and a thin crack spread across the marble tile beneath his feet.
Lucian stared at the fracture, stunned.
He had not used mana. He knew what mana was supposed to feel like. This was different.
This was him.
Body tempering, one percent complete.
He exhaled slowly.
A path without swords, in House Valemont.
If discovered, he would be ridiculed, perhaps worse.
Yet a strange calm settled over him. For the first time in both his lives, he felt aligned. Not chasing expectation. Not pretending.
He rolled his shoulders. His body felt lighter, sharper, alive.
Footsteps echoed from the archway.
Lucian turned.
Aldric stood there once more, his gaze dropping to the cracked tile, then to Lucian's clenched fist.
A long silence stretched between them.
"Boy," Aldric said quietly, "what did you just do?"
Lucian hesitated. He did not know how much the old man had seen. He unclenched his fist and the trembling in the air vanished.
"I do not know," he answered honestly.
Aldric stepped closer. The pressure of a Sword Saint's presence bore down like a mountain. Normally, Lucian would have buckled beneath it.
This time, he endured.
Not easily, but he did not fall.
A flicker of something unreadable crossed Aldric's face.
"Come see me tomorrow at dawn," the old man said at last.
Then he turned and left without another word.
Lucian remained alone in the quiet courtyard.
He was no longer merely the talentless heir of a sword dynasty.
He was something else.
Something the world had forgotten.
He looked down at his fist and a slow smile formed.
"If I cannot hold a sword," he whispered, "then I will break them."
High above, clouds drifted lazily across the sky. Far beyond the estate grounds, deep beneath ancient ruins buried by time, something stirred.
An old presence awakening.
Recognizing a long lost signature.
And in the silent courtyard of House Valemont, the first step toward a new Martial Sovereign had been taken.