Jack dragged in a shuddering breath, and the air of the ruined hall rushed back into his lungs like it had been waiting for him.
Sweat ran down his temples in thin trails, and his chest heaved as if he had been running for miles. The void was gone. Gordlock was gone. But the pressure of that voice, that weight of three hundred years, still sat heavy on his shoulders.
"Jack!"
His mother was already at his side before he could even lift his head. Healing light, soft and green, washed over him in waves. Her hands trembled as she pressed them to his shoulders, and her eyes searched his face with a fear he had never seen from her before.
"What happened, dear? What did you see?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Neyney said you hadn't moved in two hours. You didn't answer me."
Jack let the healing magic settle into him. His breathing slowed. His heart, which had been hammering against his ribs in that endless dark, finally began to quiet.
He looked at her. Really looked at her. The worry in her eyes, the faint lines at the corners that had deepened over the years, the way her fingers still clutched at his sleeve like she was afraid he would disappear again.
"A lot," Jack said. His voice was hoarse. "And I think you should know about it."
Neyney hovered a few steps back, arms crossed, pretending she wasn't listening. But her eyes were sharp and her mouth was pressed into a thin line.
Without waiting for her to ask again, Jack pushed himself to his feet. His legs felt weak, but he was steady enough.
"Come with me," he said to his mother.
She didn't question it. She simply nodded and followed him out of the hall, past the quiet courtyard, and toward the place where the old tree stood. The same tree Minny always used for meditation and training. Its wide branches spread out overhead like a canopy, filtering the late afternoon light into soft patches of gold on the grass.
His mother sat first. Jack sat across from her, close enough that he could see the way her hands rested in her lap, steady now, but tense.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The wind moved through the leaves above them.
Then Jack broke the silence.
"The necklace," he said. "Where did you get it?"
His mother stilled. Her gaze flickered to his chest, even though the necklace was not there. He had taken it off weeks ago after the breakthrough, because the purple light would not stop bleeding out of it when he wore it.
She exhaled slowly, as if she had been holding that question in for years.
"Your father gave it to me," she said at last. "He told me to protect it. To keep it safe, and to give it to you when you were grown."
Jack frowned. "But where did _he_ get it from?"
"I don't know," she admitted. Her eyes finally met his, and there was something old and tired in them. "He never told me the whole truth. Only that it mattered more than anything else we owned."
She paused, and her fingers curled slightly in her lap.
"But I do know why he had it," she continued. "Because he made a deal. With the Lord of the Shadow Knights."
The name struck Jack like a blow. He remembered Gordlock's words.'The Old Shadow King.'
'Hmm, it's best if I keep Gordlock a secret if not she would just worry much'. But what connection deos both of these two events has. I guess I would have to ask Gordlock the next time I see him...if only he would let me know.' Jack thought whiles he listened to the full story.
"Years ago, the beasts from the southern kingdom were tearing through the border villages," his mother went on. Her voice was low now, like she was telling a story she had tried to forget. "Your father went to the Shadow Knights for help. In exchange for their protection over our people, he swore an oath to them."
Jack leaned forward slightly.
"But they didn't save everyone," she said. "And when your father saw what they were willing to leave behind, he broke the deal. He said it wasn't protection if it came at the cost of innocent lives."
Her voice shook on the last words.
"Because of that necklace," she said. "I never understood why it meant so much to him that he would risk everything, but he did. He fought them. All of them. By himself."
Jack's throat went dry.
"He told me to run," she whispered. "At the time, you were not even born yet. I was carrying you. I had to use teleportation magic to escape. It nearly killed me. By the time I reached the other side, I was so weak, so exhausted, that I collapsed on the banks outside Neyney's village. That is how we ended up here. That is how we survived."
The words hung between them, heavy in the quiet beneath the tree.
Jack stared at his hands. Inside him, beneath his skin, he could feel it. The Qi pool, calm and steady. And beside it, the dark core. Wild. Destructive. Pulsing once, as if it had heard every word his mother said.
So it wasn't just an heirloom. It wasn't just a gift.
It was the reason his father was gone. The reason they were here. The reason a guardian from three hundred years ago had knelt before him and called him _My Lord_.
His mother reached out and took his hand. Her grip was warm, and for the first time in a long while, Jack didn't pull away.
"I don't know what's happening to you," she said softly. "But whatever it is… you are not alone in it."
Jack didn't answer right away. He looked up through the branches of the tree, to the sky beyond.
"No," he said quietly. "I'm not."
_ _ _
Five days had passed since the unexpected event Jack had with Gordlock.
Five days of silence in the village. Five days of Jack slipping away into meditation the moment the sun dipped low, and five days of waking up with his body aching like he had been beaten and rebuilt all over again.
And it was only left with three days until the recruitment of the future academy Knights and mages.
Jack had been preparing with a kind of focus he had never allowed himself before. Since his breakthrough, the wild energy inside him no longer felt like a storm threatening to tear him apart. With Gordlock's remarkable instructions, he had learned to permanently stabilize his dark core. The destructive mana that once tried to devour his Qi pool now sat beside it, coiled and obedient, like a beast that had finally accepted its leash.
It was as if Gordlock knew everything about the dark energy. Not just how to contain it, but how to shape it, how to breathe with it, how to make it an extension of Jack's own will.
And not only that — the guardian was also knowledgeable in the Qi pool energy. During every meditation session, the moment Jack sank into the darkness, Gordlock would already be waiting. They did not talk much. There was no time for it.
Instead, they trained.
Hand to hand. Step for step. Strike for strike.
In that endless dark space, there were no weapons, no auras, no techniques. Only Jack and Gordlock, moving against each other until Jack's limbs trembled and his lungs burned. Gordlock never held back. If Jack dropped his guard for even a second, the shadow of the guardian's fist would catch him across the ribs and send him sprawling.
"You fight like someone who is afraid of his own strength," Gordlock had said on the third day, his voice echoing in the void. "Stop hesitating. The dark core does not hesitate. The Qi pool does not hesitate. So why do you?"
Jack didn't answer. He just got up and came at him again.
By the fifth day, something had changed. Jack was faring well. His movements were cleaner. His balance was steadier. When Gordlock struck, Jack could see it coming now, and sometimes, just sometimes, he could answer it with a strike of his own.
After one particularly brutal session, Jack lay on the dark ground, breathing hard, while Gordlock stood over him, arms folded.
"You are improving," the guardian said. There was no praise in his tone. Only fact. "But raw strength and stability will not be enough for what comes next."
Jack pushed himself up on his elbows. "What do you mean?"
"The academy," Gordlock said. "In three days, you will stand before people who have been trained since childhood. Who have techniques, forms, and arts passed down for generations. If you walk in there with only instinct, you will be torn apart."
Jack wiped the sweat from his brow. "So what are you saying?"
Gordlock's glowing eyes narrowed.
"I am saying that if you make it into the academy, I will begin to teach you a technique. One that belongs to the Shadow Knights. One that was made to be wielded by someone who carries both darkness and light within them."
Jack stared. "A technique? What kind?"
"That," Gordlock said, "depends on whether you survive the recruitment."
The void around them shifted, and Jack felt himself being pulled back, dragged toward the surface of his own body. Before he vanished completely, Gordlock's voice followed him.
"Rest. Train your body. Sharpen your mind. Because in three days, My Lord, the world will finally see what the necklace has chosen."
And then Jack was back.
The ruined hall was quiet. The night air was cool against his skin. Outside, Neyney's lantern flickered, and from somewhere in the village he could hear Minny moving through her forms under the old tree.she was training hard for what was to come.
Jack sat up slowly. His muscles ached, but his mind was clear. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't afraid of what was inside him.
Three days.
Three days until the academy.
Three days until he would have to prove that he was worthy of the name the Old Shadow King had left behind.