The name Ardyn no longer carried weight.
Once, it had been spoken with mild respect in regional halls—not for power or prestige, but for reliability. House Ardyn had been the kind of noble family that endured by being useful. They supplied records, managed logistics, handled coin and contracts for houses that preferred not to dirty their hands with such matters.
They were not warriors.
They were not visionaries.
They were steady.
Their estate reflected that truth. Stone walls built for defense rather than display. No mana-rich land. No towering spires or enchanted halls. Just enough space for a modest noble family and the servants required to maintain appearances.
When war reached Dicathen, the Ardyns did what they always had.
They adapted.
They downsized. Sold luxuries. Took on debts to fulfill obligations to higher-ranking houses. They sent supplies instead of soldiers, coin instead of blades. They survived the first wave while stronger houses bled themselves dry chasing glory.
Then came what no ledger could account for.
Sickness.
It moved quietly through the region, indifferent to status. It took the old first, then the weak, then anyone already strained by stress and hunger. By the time aid was organized, the damage had been done.
The house did not fall in a single night.
It emptied.
Room by room. Voice by voice.
Until only two remained.
Cael learned this not from formal lessons, but from fragments.
From half-spoken memories. From the way Orien paused before certain doors and never opened them. From the dust that lay undisturbed on furniture once meant for guests who would never return.
He was two years old by the calendar of this world.
Inside, he was far older.
And far more cautious.
His life had settled into a rhythm. Wake. Eat. Learn. Observe. Practice restraint.
The helplessness of infancy had faded, replaced by the quiet frustration of limitation. His body was stronger now, coordination slowly improving, speech emerging in simple phrases carefully curated to avoid suspicion.
But his true work happened in silence.
Inside himself.
Mana was not something he could see—not yet. It was a sensation, vague and subtle, like warmth beneath the skin. Every living being possessed it, but only a few ever learned to gather and refine it.
Cael did not rush.
He remembered too well what reckless progress looked like in TBATE.
So he worked patiently, guiding the faint internal motes toward a single point deep in his chest. Not forcing. Never forcing. Just encouraging them to remain, to settle instead of dispersing.
Most days, nothing happened.
Some days, the pressure grew before fading away.
Occasionally, the effort left him dizzy and exhausted, his head aching faintly enough to remind him where the limit lay.
He adjusted. Always adjusted.
Tonight felt different.
Not dramatic. Not obvious.
Just… ready.
Cael sat cross-legged on the floor of his small room, the candlelight flickering softly against stone walls worn smooth by time. The estate was quiet—too quiet—but he had learned to accept that silence.
He closed his eyes and turned inward.
The warmth responded.
Slowly, carefully, he guided it—compressing rather than gathering, stabilizing rather than expanding. The pressure built in controlled increments, his breathing steady, his focus precise.
He closed his eyes and turned inward.
The warmth responded.
Slowly, carefully, he guided it—compressing rather than gathering, stabilizing rather than expanding. The pressure built in controlled increments, his breathing steady, his focus precise.
Orien had learned to sleep lightly.
The estate was old, its bones tired. At night it groaned and shifted, wood contracting with the cold, stone settling under its own weight. Most sounds no longer startled him.
This one did.
A sudden pressure rippled through the air—sharp, unmistakable, and utterly out of place.
Mana.
Raw and uncontrolled.
Orien was out of bed before his mind caught up, heart hammering as instinct dragged him down the corridor. The sensation intensified with every step, thickening the air until it prickled against his skin.
No… it's too soon, he thought, dread coiling tightly in his chest.
Then it happened.
The explosion was muted, contained—but violent all the same.
A shockwave slammed through the estate, rattling doors and shaking dust from the rafters. Orien barely kept his footing as a deep boom echoed through the stone halls, followed by an eerie, unnatural silence.
"Cael!"
He ran.
The boy's door had been blown open, hinges screaming in protest as Orien shoved it wider. Dust hung thick in the air, illuminated by moonlight pouring through the window. The stone floor was cracked in a rough circle, fractures radiating outward like a spiderweb.
At the center stood Cael.
He was still on his feet.
Orien froze.
Mana churned violently around the child, invisible but palpable, pressing down on Orien's senses like a rising tide. Yet Cael himself looked… calm. Too calm.
Then Orien saw his face.
Cael's eyes were clenched shut, his small hands curled at his sides—not in pain, but in tension. And from beneath his eyelids, a faint blue light leaked out, growing brighter by the second.
"Cael—!" Orien took a step forward, then stopped.
The light flared.
Cael's eyes snapped open.
They were no longer the dark, muted blue of childhood.
They burned.
A piercing, crystalline sky-blue—so clear it felt unnatural, as if they reflected something far deeper than the room they stood in. Orien felt exposed beneath that gaze, like every secret and weakness had been laid bare in an instant.
At the same time, Cael's hair began to change.
The black strands at his crown lightened rapidly, color draining away as if washed by moonlight. In the span of a breath, they turned completely white—soft, almost luminous against the dim room.
The mana surged once more—
Then collapsed inward.
Silence returned, heavy and absolute.
Cael swayed slightly, then steadied himself.
No cry of pain.
No collapse.
No sign of injury.
The pressure in the room faded, replaced by something quieter. Denser. Focused.
Orien swallowed hard.
A mana core.
Stable.
Perfectly contained.
"…Impossible," Orien whispered.
Cael looked at him then.
Not like a startled child.
But like someone who understood exactly what had just happened.
The boy blinked once, slowly, and the burning intensity in his eyes softened—though the color remained. The light receded, leaving behind that same piercing sky-blue gaze.
"Orien," Cael said quietly.
His voice was steady.
Too steady.
Orien's knees nearly gave out.
He approached slowly, afraid that sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile balance held the moment together. He searched the boy's face for signs of strain, of backlash—anything.
There was nothing.
Cael stood there, framed by cracked stone and drifting dust, his white hair stark against noble clothes that suddenly looked too small for him.
Orien reached out, hesitated, then rested a trembling hand on Cael's shoulder.
Warm. Solid. Real.
"You've… awakened," Orien said at last, the words tasting strange on his tongue.
Cael nodded once.
That was all.
No excitement. No fear.
Just acknowledgment.
Orien felt something twist painfully in his chest.
Pride.
And terror.
He had served mana-users his entire life. He knew what this meant. A child who awakened this early—one who triggered a mana explosion and emerged unscathed—would not remain unnoticed forever.
This world does not ignore anomalies, he thought grimly.
He glanced at the cracked floor, at the lingering traces of mana that would take days to fully fade. At the boy who should have been ordinary, standing quietly in the ruins of a house that should have ended.
House Ardyn had been forgotten.
But Cael Ardyn would not be.
Orien exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
"If anyone asks," he said carefully, meeting Cael's strange, brilliant eyes, "this was an accident. Old stone. Weak foundations."
Cael studied him for a moment—longer than a child should.
Then he nodded again.
Orien felt the weight of that nod settle heavily on his shoulders.
As he led Cael away from the cracked floor and into safety, one thought repeated itself with quiet certainty:
The house may have fallen…
…but something far more dangerous has taken its place.