In a grand estate, an old mansion stood majestically surrounded by a vast garden that bloomed with a plethora of vibrant flowers such as lilies that drifted lazily across the ponds and roses that tinged the garden with a vibrant shade of red.
As always, the maids and guards were busy milling around the estate performing their duties, but strangely all had looks of worry and anxiety written clearly on their faces.
This was also the case for acertain guard who immediately slumped down on a chair inside of the guard quarters.
Sweat rolled down his face in long streams as he grabbed a bottle of wine and poured himself a cup, to relieve the headache that was partly fatigue and partly from the same anxiety that gripped almost all residents of the mansion. His slick blonde hair clung to his scalp as he struggled to maintain a firm grip on the bottle.
A fellow guard walked into the room, startling him as he dropped the bottle, shattering it.
"Hey Rian, went for a morning run, did you?"
"You- just shut up, Brad, you know damn well why I'm sweating." Rian pointed at his fellow red haired guard who entered the room.
"The young master, I suppose." 'Brad' said with a trace of sly humor.
"Damn that kid, where the hell did he run off to now? Sigh, Lady Esme's gonna kill me."
He continued complaining, totally unaware that the certain boy in question sat cross-legged on the roof of the mansion with his eyes trained on him.
"Tsk, tsk, giving up so soon, only ten laps and he's sweating buckets. Guards these days are way too fragile." He shook his head as if genuinely disappointed as he deactivated his skill [Hacker's eye].
[He actually quit chasing you after the fifth lap, you're the weird one, but I have to admit, he's the weakest person in the entire estate.] A voice echoed in his head.
"Hehe, that's why I picked him to be my 'playmate'."
[Quite sadist of you.]
As expected, this boy was Neo who was having a conversation with Celeste.
He had grown incredibly handsome over the years , although he still faintly resembled his old self, only far more eye-catching. His hair had grown a peculiar shade of crimson with the occasional gold strand hung lazily across his face. He wore a loose fitting red and black track suit which concealed his toned body.
Although his body was still underdeveloped, he still pushed his bodily limit to the very edge as he enjoyed the thrill of getting stronger, something he didn't have the luxury of doing in his past life.
Over the years, he and Celeste had gotten closer to the point that they had practically become siblings. It helped that they were naturally alike.
[Hey Neo.]
"What's up."
[It's been almost six years already. You've been adapting surprisingly quickly considering how you first reacted to mana.]
"Yeah, it has."
Neo smiled faintly, remembering how Annovelle used to do magic tricks to get him to smile, ever since five years ago when he had reincarnated into this world, he had grown closer to his family, which basically consisted of only his mother, Adrian and also Esme, as she was basically like an aunt to him as she was always by his mother's side.
Although tough and strict on the outside, she was also deeply caring, unfortunately that didn't make her any less scary.
"Neo." a low yet form voice echoed softly within the house.
[Heh, you're screwed.]
Suddenly, as sure as day, Esme suddenly appeared behind him.
"Young master Neo, your mother is waiting for you in the study."
Then, she casually walked off the edge of the roof and floated a few steps from the edge.
"Um, Aunt Esme, you know I can't float like you."
"You got yourself up here, get yourself back down." She replied casually with a calm shrug.
"And for your own good— in five minutes."
Then in the blink of an eye, she vanished.
Neo rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Damn, even with Hacker's Eye, I still can't follow her movements."
[I'm not surprised, she's at the Master rank while you haven't even awakened your mana core.]
"Yeah, that's not really a problem."
[Hacker's Eye]
Suddenly, hundreds of tiny magic circles appeared in his eyes layering atop each other as they revolved in perfect sequence, ten runes suddenly appeared orbiting his irises, with five distinct runes in in each eye, tinting them with a godly golden color.
Immediately, his kinetic vision skyrocketed, with him being able to observe every detail, every speck of dust within a hundred meter radius with breathtaking clarity, barriers became irrelevant, distance became no more than figures, the world dissolved into a flowing stream of arcane code as he observed the entire mansion from an omniscient perspective.
Thanks to the diverse energies in his body, he could sense the ambient mana, soul and chaos energies.
He peered at the faint spacial ripples in the air from where Esme has vanished.
"Space element huh" Neo murmured softly "Seems handy."
He cancelled Hacker's Eye and climbed down the building quickly rushing down to the study.
There he met Miss Sylvester, his tutor, waiting for him.
*Young master Neo, you really can't keep skipping your lessons like this or the lady will have both our heads."
"Sorry Miss Sylvester, I got caught up in training."
"You this boy, you realize you're still only five." She replied exasperated at his antics.
"I like to start important things early."
"Yeah right, excluding lessons."
He scratched his neck awkwardly at that.
"Very well, let's start our lesson for today."
For the couple of hours, Miss Sylvester drilled Neo mercilessly in math, english (fortunately the same as on earth), noble etiquette, history and more history.
A bit after noon, Neo finally walked out of the study with a mischievous smile on his face and a spring in his step.
[Damn, your skill really is handy]
During the five years, Celeste had not remained idle either, as she had all her skills removed when she became a guardian, she dedicated most of her time to relearning them, the first of which was the skill [Absolute Mental Mastery].
Although not combat-oriented, it allowed her to perfectly arrange knowledge and information, increasing her mental capacity. An added effect was the ability to switch or share their consciousness.
"Hmmm, we finally got to the part of world history."
[Yes, humanity has really fallen in this world. It's hard to believe that over ten thousand years ago, this world was just like your's.]
Neo closed his eyes, using [Absolute Mental Mastery] to extract the knowledge of the day's lesson.
The name of the world he was on was called Novarion, over ten thousand years ago, what was later to be known as the First Reaping occurred, mana was discovered but with it came demons, monsters and several anomalies which began to appear all over the world.
Classic cliche fantasy world.
With the world on the brink of ruin, many heroes arose to fight the tide of darkness. Among these heroes were eight individuals who stood at the apex of humanity. When the world fell into despair, that was when the eight legendary Great Paladins appeared.