After finishing the morning audience, Ars walked with heavy steps toward the palace library. Regret gnawed at him, the clumsy excuse about tripping over a tree root had frozen the air in the audience chamber and invited mockery. Had hiding what happened in the cave been the right choice? That anxiety mingled with an urgent desire to uncover the truth, driving him forward.
The crystal's light, the power that had flowed into his body, the mysterious characters carved on the walls, he couldn't rest until he understood what they meant. Pushing open the library's heavy doors, he was greeted by countless books. Ancient leather-bound histories, parchment scrolls, dust-covered treatises on tactics. Checking titles one by one along the shelves, Ars began pulling out every book that seemed even remotely relevant.
The dusty air tickled his nose, and occasional shafts of sunlight illuminated the spines as one hour passed, then two, yet he found no description that matched. After a break for lunch, he returned and shut himself in the library again. Several more hours later, in a dim back shelf, a tattered history book caught his eye.
Flipping through the pages, he found characters strikingly similar to those on the cave wall. His heart pounded like a bell. "This is it!" he exclaimed involuntarily, sinking to the floor and immersing himself in the book. It was a record of the great empire of Phanikia, which had dominated the continent seven hundred years ago. With each turned page, faded ink whispered tales from a distant past.
What particularly drew his attention was the section on mana. Mana was something everyone in this world knew, present in the air, in people's bodies, an indispensable power for physical enhancement and combat. Farmers carrying heavy loads, soldiers swinging swords, all drew on mana to exert strength. On the battlefield especially, mastery of mana could decide victory or defeat.
According to the text, Phanikia seven hundred years ago possessed advanced technology to crystallize mana. That gigantic crystal in the cave, could it have been a mana crystal? Ars caught his breath. Had the vast mana sealed within it poured into *his* body?
Reading further, he learned that crystallized mana was embedded as inscription stones in weapons and tools, dramatically increasing durability and performance; it had even been used in agriculture. But the details cut off abruptly. The account shifted to how internal strife among Phanikia's royal family had destroyed the nation. As a result, the technology for mana crystallization was lost, and some royals were said to have hidden crystals somewhere on the continent. Shockingly, the text stated that only descendants of Phanikia could release those crystals.
Ars swallowed hard. Had the crystal glowed and reacted to him because Lorentz carried Phanikia's bloodline? But the book offered no further clues. If he could decipher the characters on the wall, perhaps more would become clear. With fresh resolve, Ars keenly felt the need to find books on decoding ancient scripts.
Starting the next day, while searching the library for ancient character deciphering guides, Ars also began experimenting with the mana now inside him. To manipulate mana, one had to visualize it flowing through the body and consciously direct it. Using mana dramatically boosted physical abilities, but the average duration was about twenty minutes.
Overuse would deplete mana, risking unconsciousness. Recovery took time, during which enhancement was impossible. Innate mana capacity was fixed at birth and couldn't be increased through training, that was common knowledge in this world. But the moment Ars circulated mana through his body, something abnormal happened. His physical abilities surged so explosively that his mind couldn't keep up with the changes.
The instant he started running, his legs moved at unbelievable speed; he couldn't time his landings and tumbled. It felt as though his body belonged to someone else. Before, even when Ars used enhancement, it had only granted a slight increase in strength.
Now, channeling mana made his body dozens of times lighter, stronger, faster. His senses couldn't catch up, his feet tangled, and he flailed and fell repeatedly. Even more astonishing, no matter how long he used mana, there was no sign of depletion. It felt like an inexhaustible wellspring rose from within him, this was impossible by any common sense. Ars was stunned.
In this world, extremely rare individuals were born with vast mana reserves. They became heroes and legends passed down through the ages. On the other hand, some were born with almost none. And that had once been Ars himself.
"The mana-less prince… a disgrace to our kingdom… How His Majesty must lament…"
At ten years old, Ars had entered a swordsmanship exhibition match before the court. He'd started strong in the first bout, but the moment his enhancement ran out, he couldn't keep up with his opponent. That opponent had been a boy two years younger, only eight. The crowd's jeers and the king's aides' cold remarks pierced Ars's chest.
After that, Ars never again wielded a sword in public. Each time humiliation struck, memories from his previous life assaulted him like a storm.
"Run away, just run, die and be at peace," a voice whispered.
At the same time, another voice scolded: "Don't run, don't run, are you running again?"
And always, at the end, his mother's weary, forced smile floated up, pasted onto her exhausted face, creeping toward him eerily.
"I don't want to run anymore! I'm sick of it! No more running!"
Half-threatening himself, Ars stood up. As if possessed, days of obsessive training began. He still didn't know the full potential of the new power dwelling within him, the possibility brought by the mana crystal. He could never have imagined that this strength would one day change Lorentz's future, and perhaps the history of the entire continent.