The laws of physics are generally considered immutable. Gravity pulls down. Force equals mass times acceleration. If you drop a spoon, it hits the floor.
But when you have the soul of a dead twenty-something consumerist, the body of a genetically engineered Dragon-Djinn hybrid, and a pocket dimension full of rocks stuffed into your own shadow, physics becomes more of a "suggestion."
Seventeen tons.
That was the current load.
Every step I took, every breath I inhaled, every beat of my heart was fighting against seventeen tons of spectral weight pressing down on my soul and skeletal structure. It was a feature—or perhaps a bug—of the Ten Shadows Technique. While I couldn't summon the shikigami yet, the shadow itself was a bottomless inventory. And unlike a spatial ring that negated weight, the Shadow demanded a toll.
I had spent the last two years filling it. Boulders from the Beast Glades, scrap iron from the smithy, dense logs of ironwood.
To the outside world, I was Adam Sterling, the seven-year-old prodigy walking down the hallway to breakfast. To me, I was a man wading through invisible mercury, my muscles constantly micro-tearing and regenerating under the crushing pressure.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
My boots hit the polished wooden floor. I paused by a vase of flowers, taking a slow, measured breath.
"Status," I thought.
The blue window shimmered into existence, overlaying the hallway.
[Race: Djinn/Dragon Hybrid]
[Age: 7]
[Mana Core: Dark Orange (Suppressed to Solid Red)]
[Physical Load: 17,400 kg]
[Yoriichi Tsugikuni Template: 15% (STAGNATED)]
[Fushiguro Megumi Template: 25%]
"Two years and not a single percentage point on Yoriichi," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. The stagnation was infuriating. I had the muscle memory. I had the speed. But the essence was missing.
I adjusted the thick leather bracelet on my left wrist. It was a suppression artifact, a heavy runic band that cost more than a small house. It dampened the ambient mana radiating from my core, masking my true stage—Dark Orange—and projecting a humbler, yet still prodigious, Solid Red.
If the world knew a seven-year-old had reached the Orange stage, let alone Dark Orange, I wouldn't be eating breakfast. I'd be in a glass tube in some Alacryan laboratory.
I pushed open the doors to the dining room.
"Adam! Up! Up!"
Two blurry projectiles launched themselves at me.
My twin sisters, Elena and Sarah. Two years old, blonde, blue-eyed, and possessing the energy of a small nuclear detonation.
I caught them both effortlessly—my strength, honed by the Shadow's weight, made them feel lighter than feathers. I balanced Sarah on my left hip and Elena on my right.
"Careful," I chided, poking Elena's nose. "You'll trip and scuff your knees. Then who will cry? Me, because Mother will yell at me."
"Adam strong!" Sarah declared, patting my cheek with a sticky hand.
"Adam hungry," I corrected, setting them down in their high chairs.
My mother, Lady Elara, smiled from across the table. She looked tired but happy. The twins were a handful, but they secured the Sterling line in a way I—the adopted prodigy—couldn't fully do in the eyes of high society blood purists.
"Good morning, darling," she said. "You're off to the Helsteas today?"
"Yes," I replied, sliding into my seat and piling a mountain of eggs onto my plate. My metabolism was horrific; the dragon blood burned calories like a furnace. "Lilia wants a rematch."
"Be gentle with her," my father, Marcus, mumbled from behind a newspaper. "Vincent says she's been sulking for a week since you beat her with a wooden spoon."
"It was a ladle," I corrected around a mouthful of toast. "And she needs to learn to watch her flanks. Mana shields don't cover your armpits."
I ate with mechanical efficiency. My mind wasn't on the eggs. It was on the spear strapped to my back.
I had ditched the sword six months ago. The sword was Yoriichi's soul. It wasn't mine. Every time I held it, I felt like an impostor wearing a costume. I needed distance. I needed leverage. I needed to see the battlefield from a different angle.
The spear was my answer.
The Helstea estate was grander than ours, situated on a floating landmass that offered a terrifyingly beautiful view of the vertical drop to the Beast Glades below.
Lilia Helstea stood in the center of the training ring. At seven years old, she was already showing the refined elegance of her mother, Tabitha, mixed with the stubbornness of her father. Her auburn hair was tied back in a severe ponytail, and her mana core—a Solid Red—hummed with surprising potency.
For a human, she was a one-in-a-million genius. For me, she was the only person my age I could hit without breaking them.
"You brought the stick again," Lilia said, eyeing the spear in my hand. It was a training spear, weighted ironwood with a blunt tip, but in my hands, it felt like an extension of my nervous system.
"It's a spear, Lilia," I said, stepping into the ring. The barrier hummed as it sealed us in. "And it has better reach than a sword. Are you ready?"
Lilia didn't answer with words. She answered by stomping her foot.
CRACK.
The ground beneath me exploded. Three jagged spikes of rock, reinforced with mana, shot upward, aiming to skewer me.
Earth Magic. Solid, dependable, and fast.
I didn't dodge. With the seventeen tons pressing on me, 'dodging' was a relative term. Instead, I shifted my weight. I pivoted on my heel, the movement minimal but precise. The spikes whizzed past my nose, close enough to ruffle my hair.
"Too slow," I commented.
Lilia gritted her teeth. She thrust her hands forward, palms open. Conjure: Water Cannon.
A high-pressure jet of water, thick as a tree trunk, blasted toward me. At this range, it would hit like a battering ram.
I spun the spear.
I didn't use mana. I didn't use a technique. I just spun the shaft so fast it became a solid disc of blurring wood. The water jet slammed into the spinning defense and sprayed outward in a mist, creating a rainbow in the morning sun.
"Ice!" Lilia screamed.
The mist around me instantly froze.
My eyes widened slightly. Clever. She used the water to saturate the air around me, then used her Ice deviant magic to flash-freeze it.
Ice crystals rapidly encrusted my arms, my legs, and the spear shaft, locking me in place. A prison of frost.
Lilia grinned triumphantly. She began to chant, gathering a massive amount of mana into her right hand. A boulder, wreathed in blue light, began to form floating above her head.
"I got you!" she yelled. "Yield, Adam!"
I stood frozen in the ice sculpture, looking at her. The cold was biting, trying to sap my stamina. But inside my chest, the dragon's blood burned hot. And deep in my gut, the Cursed Energy swirled like a dark ocean.
"Not bad," I mumbled. The ice muffled my voice. "Using the environment. Combining affinities. You've been studying."
I took a deep breath.
Sound Magic: Resonance.
I didn't shout. I hummed. A low, throat-vibrating frequency that matched the natural resonant frequency of ice. I fed mana into my vocal cords, amplifying the sound until the air inside the ice prison began to vibrate violently.
SCREEEEEEE.
The high-pitched whine was excruciating.
CRASH.
The ice prison didn't melt; it shattered. It exploded outward in a million glittering shards of diamond dust.
I stepped out of the debris, brushing frost off my shoulder. Lilia flinched, her concentration breaking. The boulder above her head wobbled and dissolved into dust.
"Cheater!" she huffed, stomping her foot again. "You always use that weird screaming magic!"
"It's acoustics," I replied, hefting the spear. "And you hesitated. You had me trapped, but you stopped to gloat. If I were a mana beast, you'd be lunch."
"I'm seven!" she argued.
"So am I," I countered, dropping into a low stance. "Again. And this time, don't stop until I'm on the ground."
We went for another hour. I pushed her, forcing her to multitask. I made her erect earth walls while firing water bullets. I made her slide on ice paths to dodge my spear thrusts.
By the end of it, she was panting, lying spread-eagled on the grass, her mana core nearly depleted.
I stood over her, leaning on my spear. I wasn't even out of breath. The 17-ton weight made simple movement a workout, but my stamina reserves were bottomless.
"You're a monster," Lilia wheezed, closing her eyes.
"I'm just… motivated," I said quietly.
I looked at my hand. The spear shaft was warm from the friction.
During the spar, I had tried to slip into the Sun Breathing mindset. I tried to use the First Form: Waltz. But every time I tried to translate the horizontal sword slash to the spear, it felt clunky. The leverage was wrong. The energy dissipated before it reached the tip.
15%. Stagnated.
"Why can't I break through?" I whispered to myself. "What am I not seeing?"
That evening, I retreated to the cliffs behind the Sterling estate.
It was a secluded spot, a jagged outcropping of grey stone that jutted out over the sea of clouds. The wind here was fierce, howling up from the Beast Glades below, carrying the scent of pine and ozone.
I needed to be alone. I needed to take off the limiters.
I stripped off my shirt, tossing it onto a rock. The wind bit at my skin, but I didn't feel the cold. My body was a roadmap of muscle, dense and corded, built to support the crushing weight of the Shadow.
I reached down and touched my shadow.
"Inventory," I whispered.
I pulled out a new weapon. Not the wooden training spear.
This was a custom commission I had forged in secret using the dwarven smiths in the lower districts. A spear made of cold iron and diffrent types of alloy, seven feet long, with a blade that gleamed with a predatory dark light. It was heavy—too heavy for a normal human to lift—but perfect for me.
I held it horizontally.
"Okay," I muttered, closing my eyes. "Let's analyze this. Gamer's Mind, help me out."
I visualized the technique. Sun Breathing, First Form: Waltz.
In the original manga, Yoriichi delivers a single, high-powered horizontal slash. It is simple. It is perfection. It cuts through the neck of a demon before the demon realizes it has been cut.
I swung the spear.
Whoosh.
Powerful? Yes. The wind pressure carved a groove in the dirt. But it wasn't Waltz. It was just a heavy swing.
"The sword is an extension of the arm," I lectured myself, pacing the cliff edge. "The center of gravity is near the hilt. But a spear... the center of gravity is further out. It's a lever."
I stopped.
"A lever amplifies force. But it delays the delivery. If I try to slash like a sword, the tip lags behind the handle. I'm fighting the physics of the weapon."
I looked out at the clouds.
"Yoriichi didn't fight physics. He breathed with the universe. He saw the world as transparent."
Transparent.
The word echoed in my mind.
The See-Through World. The ultimate ability of the Demon Slayers. The ability to see the muscles, blood flow, and joint movements of opponents—and oneself—to predict and react with godlike speed.
I had been trying to unlock it by straining my eyes. By looking harder.
"Wrong," I realized. "It's not about eyes. It's about sensation. It's about proprioception."
I closed my eyes. I didn't look outward. I looked inward.
I focused on the blood rushing through my veins. The roar of it. The thump-thump of my heart.
Wait.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The rhythm was chaotic. It wasn't a single beat. It was a complex, syncopated percussion.
I frowned, concentrating harder. I pushed mana into my optic nerves, not to enhance sight, but to invert it. I wanted to see the source of the sound.
[System Alert: High Concentration Detected. Yoriichi Template Resonating.]
The blackness behind my eyelids began to shift. It turned grey. Then white.
Then, I saw it.
I opened my eyes, but the world didn't look like the world anymore. The rocks weren't grey stones; they were dense clusters of mineral lattice. The tree nearby wasn't wood; it was a highway of flowing sap and cellulose fibers.
I looked down at my chest.
I screamed.
Or I tried to. But the breath caught in my throat as I stared through my own skin.
I could see my ribs. White, dense, reinforced with something metallic—likely the dragon heritage. But beneath the ribs…
My heart. No. Hearts.
There was one on the left, large and powerful, pumping bright red, oxygenated blood. But on the right, there was another, slightly smaller, pumping a darker, viscous fluid that seemed to absorb mana frol my core though verry slightly? And nestled deep in the center, behind the sternum, was a third organ, pulsating with a rhythmic purple glow. A heart that radiated a substance akain to mana yet meeting the needs of mt body? A core pump?
And the lungs…
I didn't have two lungs. I had six. Three pairs, overlapping like the gills of a shark, filling the entire thoracic cavity. They weren't just processing air; they were processing mana from the atmosphere, filtering it directly into my blood.
"What… am I?" I whispered.
The view was terrifying, grotesque, and beautiful.
[Insight Gained: Physiological Awareness.]
[Yoriichi Tsugikuni Template: 15% -> 20%]
[Ability Unlocked: Transparent World (Self/External)]
The world snapped into hyper-focus.
The fear vanished, replaced by a cold, clinical understanding.
I wasn't human. I knew that. But seeing the machinery of my existence changed everything. I wasn't just a boy with a strong body. I was a biological engine designed for war.
"Three hearts," I breathed, watching them beat in a mesmerizing triplet rhythm. "That's why I don't tire. That's why I can mix mana and Cursed Energy. I have separate pumps."
I looked at my arm holding the spear.
In the Transparent World, I could see the muscle fibers twitching. I could see the stress points in the bone. I could see exactly where I was wasting energy.
When I held the spear before, I was gripping it too tight. My deltoid was over-engaged, creating a micro-tremor in the tip.
I relaxed my grip. The muscles smoothed out. The flow of blood aligned.
"The spear isn't a sword," I said, my voice sounding distant, echoing in the expanded sensory realm. "You don't slash with it. You cast the tip, and the shaft follows."
I assumed the stance again.
But this time, I adjusted. I shifted my feet to align my hips with the secondary heart on my right side. I rotated my wrist to open the channel for the mana lung on my left.
I didn't try to copy Yoriichi's sword swing.
I imagined a mirror. A sword draws a circle close to the body. A spear draws a circle reflected at a distance.
"Sun Breathing," I exhaled. Steam curled from my lips, visible in the twilight. "Modified First Form."
I didn't slash across. I thrust the spear butt forward, using it as a fulcrum, and whipped the blade around in a massive, shimmering arc. The movement utilized the elasticity of the mithril shaft.
"Mirror Dance."
SNAP.
There was no sound of wind. Just a sharp, instantaneous crack, like a whip breaking the sound barrier.
A line of fire, pure and white, erupted from the spear tip. It didn't fade instantly. It hung in the air, a perfect crescent moon of superheated plasma.
Twenty feet away, the top half of a granite boulder slowly, agonizingly, slid off the bottom half. The cut was mirror-smooth. Molten rock dripped from the edge.
I stood frozen, the spear extended.
My lungs—all six of them—heaved in unison. The mana drain was significant. The physical strain was immense. But the feeling…
It was right.
It wasn't a sword technique forced onto a spear. It was a spear technique born from the principles of the Sun.
[Yoriichi Tsugikuni Template: 21%]
"I did it," I panted, dropping out of the Transparent World. The X-ray vision faded, returning the world to its normal, opaque state.
The exhaustion hit me like a truck. The 17-ton weight in my shadow suddenly felt like 100 tons. My knees buckled, and I sat down heavily on the grass.
I looked at the sliced boulder.
"Mirror Dance," I chuckled, wiping sweat from my forehead. "Eat your heart out, Tanjiro."
I lay back on the grass, staring up at the darkening sky. The stars were coming out.
"Status."
[Yoriichi Tsugikuni Template: 21%]
[Fushiguro Megumi Template: 26%]
One percent jump in Megumi's template too? Must have been the Cursed Energy usage during the Transparent World state.
"Thirty-five percent," I murmured. "That's the goal. At thirty-five percent, I get the dogs."
I raised my hand, blocking out the moon.
My shadow stretched long across the grass. It felt deeper now. Hungrier.
"Soon," I promised the darkness. "I'll let you out soon."
I closed my eyes, listening to the triple rhythm of my hearts. For the first time in two years, the stagnation was gone. The path was clear.
I just hoped the world was ready for what was walking down it.
The next morning, the breakfast table was chaos again. Sarah had managed to get oatmeal in her hair, and Elena was crying because her spoon was the 'wrong color.'
"Adam," my father said, putting down his coffee. "A letter arrived for you."
I paused, a piece of bacon halfway to my mouth. "For me? From Lilia?"
"No," Father said, his face grave. "From the Royal Palace. The Glayder family invites the Sterling heir to a 'gathering of youth' next month."
The room went quiet.
The Glayders. The Royal Family of the Human Kingdom. Curtis and Kathyln Glayder.
"They are inviting all the noble children with awakened cores," my mother added, her voice trembling slightly. "It's… it's a showcase, Adam. They want to see the next generation."
I lowered my fork.
A showcase. Politics. Posturing. The Greysrunders would be there. The flamesworths would be there.
And me. The boy with the purple eyes, the three hearts, and the shadow full of rocks.
"Do I have to go?" I asked, though I knew the answer.
"To refuse the Royal Family is social suicide," Father said gently. "We have to go."
I looked at the twins, who were oblivious to the tension. I looked at my parents, who were terrified that their adopted son's secret power would be exposed.
I smiled, a sharp, confident smile that didn't quite reach my eyes.
"Don't worry, Father," I said. "I'll behave. I'll be the perfect, mediocre Red Core mage they expect."
I clenched my fist under the table.
But if they push me, I thought, the image of the sliced boulder flashing in my mind. If they push me, they might cut themselves.
"Pass the milk, please," I said aloud.
The game was escalating. The tutorial was over.
[Time until Tower Challenge: 2 Years]
I had two years before I entered the Tower. Two years to master the Mirror Dance. Two years to summon the Dogs.
"I need more rocks," I muttered to myself.
"What was that, dear?" Mother asked.
"Nothing, Mother. Just... planning my workout."
I took a sip of juice. The three hearts in my chest beat a steady drum of war.
Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.
Let them come.