The woods behind the village were not forbidden—but most villagers treated them as if they were.
They were too quiet.
Too still.
Birdsong vanished once you passed the first line of trees. The light dimmed, even on bright days. And the wind... it whispered, in ways no one liked to describe.
Ji-hyeon was drawn to that place.
Not because of curiosity.
But because something there called to him.
---
It began the day he found the book.
A worn, leather-bound thing, hidden beneath a broken floorboard in Teacher Gwan's house. He hadn't meant to find it—it was simply there, as if it had been waiting.
No title. No author.
But the first page shimmered faintly under his fingers. Not with ink. With something older. Rune-magic.
He could not read it, not yet. But when he touched the page, the symbols pulsed softly—like a heartbeat.
That night, he couldn't sleep.
Something told him: Take it into the woods.
---
The next morning, he rose before dawn.
He wrapped the book in cloth, tucked it under his shirt, and slipped past his still-sleeping mother. The village was quiet. Cold dew kissed his bare feet as he crossed the fields. And then—into the trees.
At first, the path was easy. Roots underfoot. Shadows dancing between trunks.
But the deeper he went, the more the air changed.
It grew thicker.
Denser.
Older.
As if the forest itself remembered something he had forgotten.
Ji-hyeon stopped at a small clearing where the sunlight barely touched the ground. He knelt, slowly, and unwrapped the book.
He opened it.
And this time… the runes glowed.
---
Words formed in his mind. Not spoken. Not written. But understood.
> "To awaken what once was buried… the vessel must remember the shape of power."
His heartbeat quickened.
The trees around him didn't move. But the silence deepened.
Ji-hyeon placed both hands on the page, and for the first time in this life—he felt it.
Mana.
Raw. Dormant. Heavy, like a mountain resting under his skin.
His eyes widened.
He remembered pain. Glory. Fire that could bend mountains. Ice that silenced cities. It was distant… but real.
He stumbled back, breathless.
Not from fear.
But awe.
---
For a long time, he sat there, staring at his hands. Small. Human. Fragile.
But inside?
He was waking up.
---
Back in the village, a girl saw him return from the woods and whispered to her brother.
"That boy… he was glowing."
And so, the rumors began.