Daphne woke when the afternoon heat was fading and the first cool breeze of evening crept through the cracks in their shack. She blinked, rubbing her eyes, and glanced around.
No Leo.
She assumed he'd gone to the market to find work. Maybe cleaning glass vials or scrubbing down equipment for a few Starcoins, like he usually did.
So she waited.
She was too weak to leave the shack. Her body still ached from the illness that had plagued her for over a week, and even sitting upright for too long made her dizzy. All she could do was sit on her thin mat and stare at the door.
By sunset, apprehension started to creep in.
Leo never took jobs that kept him out this long. His work was always quick — a Starcoin here, a Starcoin there. Enough to survive. He'd be back before dark, always.
But the sky outside their crumbling walls had turned deep orange, then purple.
And still no Leo.
Daphne's stomach twisted with worry. She pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the door, willing it to open.
---
Two hours after sunset, the door finally creaked open.
Leo stepped inside. He had a basket in his hand.
Daphne looked up immediately, her wide eyes betraying every minute of worry she'd endured. Then she noticed his clothes — or what was left of them. His trousers were shredded. His shirt was practically unwearable, hanging off him in tatters like he'd been mauled by something.
She shot to her feet and rushed forward.
Her arms wrapped around him tightly before he could even speak.
"I was worried," she said softly, her voice muffled against his ruined shirt.
He smiled and hugged her back, resting his chin on top of her head.
"I was earning us the best dinner we've ever had," he said. He lifted the basket in his hand so she could see it.
Daphne pulled back and peered inside.
Chicken breasts. Potato fries. Actual, proper food — not scraps, not half-eaten leftovers tossed at them out of pity.
Her eyes went wide with confusion.
She let go of him and took a step back.
"What did you do?" she asked, her tone sharp with suspicion.
Leo told her about the job Trevor had given him. He explained the Glimmer root collection, the trip to Valkyr's Forest, and the dangers of the outskirts.
But he gave her an altered version of the day.
He left out the wolf. He left out the lake and the crocodile. He definitely left out the hidden cave, the magical barrier, the ancient chamber, the skeleton on the throne, and the tome that had branded itself into his wrist.
She didn't need to know any of that. Knowing meant worrying.
So Daphne remained oblivious.
When he finished his story, she grabbed the basket from his hand and turned away without a word. She set it down and started arranging the food for dinner, her movements stiff and deliberate.
"Don't do that again," she said. Her voice was low. Angry. "It's too dangerous to be in the forest. It's also really late. I was very worried."
Leo smiled at her back.
"I hopefully won't have to do it again anytime soon."
---
After dinner, Leo spread his threadbare blanket on the floor and prepared to sleep.
Daphne was already out. The meal and her lingering sickness had pulled her under fast. Her breathing was slow and even, her small frame curled up on her thin mat.
Leo lay on his back in the darkness, staring at the ceiling.
Then he lifted his wrist.
The tattoo was there — faintly visible even in the dim light. The mark left by the Arcane Emperor's tome. He traced its edges with his finger, feeling the subtle warmth beneath his skin.
He didn't know what to do about it.
The tome was a mystery. He was completely clueless about magic, about ancient artifacts, about any of it. And he couldn't exactly walk up to someone and ask for guidance. Not without drawing the kind of attention that got people like him killed.
He turned the problem over in his mind for a while, staring at the tattoo until his eyes grew heavy.
Eventually, he gave up thinking and let sleep take him.
---
The moment his consciousness faded, he found himself somewhere else.
A room.
Completely white. Every surface — walls, floor, ceiling — painted in blinding, pure white light. It was incredibly bright, almost overwhelmingly so.
Leo was sitting in a chair.
He blinked, disoriented. His body felt real. The chair beneath him felt solid.
*Where am I?*
Above and in front of him, a series of scribbles floated in the air, formed entirely from strands of golden light. They hung there, shimmering, rotating slowly — like living text suspended in space.
He squinted at them.
He couldn't understand a single thing. The symbols were alien, incomprehensible. They looked like letters, but from no language he'd ever seen.
Then the pain hit.
A splitting headache erupted behind his eyes like a spike being driven through his skull. Leo gasped and doubled over, gripping the sides of the chair with white-knuckled hands. He pressed his forehead into his knees and squeezed, teeth clenched, a low groan escaping his throat.
It felt like something was being carved into his brain.
Ten agonizing minutes passed before the pain finally ebbed.
Slowly, trembling, Leo lifted his head.
His eyes felt... different. Strange. Like they'd been adjusted, recalibrated for something they weren't designed to see before.
The golden scribbles were dancing now — swirling and rearranging before his eyes. They spun and shifted, faster and faster, and then—
They stopped.
Snapped into place.
And all at once, he could read every single word.
---
Empyrean Magic System
*Condense your magic into stars in your mind. The mind is limitless.*
---
Leo stared at the glowing words, his heart hammering.
But the words weren't the only new thing.
Something else had been deposited into his mind — knowledge he had never learned, information he had never read. It was just *there*, as if it had always been part of him.
An entire mage training method.
The technique to practice the Empyrean Magic System.
He closed his eyes and let the knowledge settle. It unfolded in his mind like a scroll being unrolled, page after page of precise instructions and principles.
The Empyrean System was fundamentally different from the normal magical framework — the Imperial Magic System — in two critical ways.
First: **where magic was stored.**
Normal mages condensed their magic into circles around their hearts. It was easier. Safer. The heart was a natural reservoir, and generations of mages had refined this method into the standard practice across the empire.
The Empyrean System rejected that entirely.
Instead, it required mages to condense their magic into stars — and store them in the mind. The reasoning was elegant and terrifying in its ambition.
*The heart has limits. The mind does not.*
But the cost of that ambition was steep. The Empyrean System required extraordinary talent. Condensing magic in the mind was infinitely harder, more dangerous, and more demanding than doing so around the heart.
Second: **how strength was measured.**
The Imperial System defined mages by the number of circles they'd formed. One was the lowest. Nine was the highest. Leo knew — everyone in the empire knew — that the emperor himself was a 7th circle mage, one of the most powerful beings alive.
Before a mage formed their first circle, they were considered an apprentice — someone who could gather mana but hadn't yet shaped it into anything permanent.
The Empyrean System used stars instead of circles.
Twelve stars, total. Each star was equivalent in power to a single circle.
Twelve stars versus nine circles.
And here was the part that made Leo's pulse quicken with excitement: because mages assessed magical strength by examining the circles around a person's heart, they would look at him and see... nothing. No circles. No magic. Just an ordinary boy.
They'd never think to look in his mind.
This was a massive advantage. The kind of advantage that could keep him alive in a world where power painted targets on people's backs.
*If no one knows I have magic, no one can come after me for it.*
He sat with that thought for a long moment.
Then curiosity got the better of him.
*I want to try it.*
According to the method now imprinted in his memory, the first step was simple in concept but brutal in practice. He needed to calm his mind to absolute stillness — a perfect, empty silence — so that he could sense the ambient magic around him.
Leo took a deep breath.
He exhaled slowly.
He tried to think about nothing.
His mind immediately wandered. He thought about Daphne. About the chicken they'd eaten for dinner. About the wolf in the forest. About the crocodile. About the skeleton on the throne. About the tattoo on his wrist.
He pulled himself back and tried again.
Stillness.
*Nothing. Think about nothing.*
Three seconds later, his thoughts scattered in a dozen different directions.
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
Attempt after attempt ended in failure. Each time he came close to something resembling quiet, a stray thought would intrude and shatter his concentration like a stone thrown into still water.
---
The entire night passed like that.
When Leo opened his eyes to the dim morning light filtering through the shack's walls, his face couldn't hide the disappointment.
He'd been so excited. When the Empyrean System had revealed itself to him, he thought he was on the verge of something incredible. He thought he'd feel magic, touch it, shape it.
Instead, he'd spent the whole night failing to quiet his own mind.
*Pathetic.*
He clenched his jaw and stared at the cracked ceiling.
Part of him wanted to stay right where he was and keep trying. Just lie there and focus on nothing else but learning magic until he broke through.
But Daphne was still sick.
She needed meals. She needed care. And that came first. It always came first.
The silver lining was the money. He'd earned 230 Starcoins the day before — more than they'd ever had at once. He wouldn't need to work for an entire week, maybe longer. He could bring meals for the whole day in one trip, then dedicate the rest of his time to practicing.
That was the plan.
"What do you want to eat today?" Leo asked, turning his head. "What should I bring?"
Daphne had woken at the same time but hadn't moved from her sheets. She lay on her side, eyes half-open, still visibly drained.
She looked at him.
"Whatever can fill my stomach," she said. "We can't waste too much money on food."
Leo smiled.
Both of them were the same in that regard. Neither of them was accustomed to having money. The concept of abundance felt foreign and fragile, like it could vanish at any moment. Their instinct was to hoard every Starcoin, stretch every meal, prepare for the worst.
But as that thought settled in, Leo's smile faded.
He looked down at his wrist. At the tattoo hidden beneath the ragged sleeve.
If he became a mage — a real mage — all of that would change. The poverty. The hunger. The desperation. The days spent begging for scraps and cleaning vials for a single coin.
All of it.
His eyes hardened with resolve.
*I will learn magic. No matter how long it takes.*