Orin's world was shattered by the storm of knowledge that tore through the fragile walls of his mind. His body remained unharmed, but inside it was as if a blast had detonated. The information poured in like violent waves, and with it came the voices of a thousand masters, each forcing their secrets into him until there was no room left for his own.
A scream ripped from his throat, but the storm swallowed it whole. It felt like a drum ringing loudly inside his skull. He twitched on the burnt earth, desperately trying to escape the suffering. His brain cells protested against the invasion.
The first lessons were on weapons. Steel, wood, and stone. None of it mattered. Orin was made to see how joints and muscles aligned for the killing strike and how the smallest shift could turn defense into attack. What had once been a clumsy swing became a cut meant to kill. He felt the weight of a longsword, the snap of a dagger's flick, and the crushing descent of a hammer against bone and nerve. They were preparing him for slaughter.
Then came the shadows. The silent craft of slipping past men and ending them without a sound. He learned to move like smoke against walls, to hold every tendon still until even his breath would not betray him. He saw how fear spread in silence, how dread hollowed men long before a blade touched their flesh.
But the darkest knowledge was pain. The deliberate breaking of a soul piece by piece. He was shown where to press, where to cut, and how to twist agony until it scarred the mind long before it scarred the body.
Each lesson tore and reshaped him, breaking and hardening with every flood of knowledge. Thoughts of his old life scattered beneath the weight of alien instincts that clawed for dominance. Slowly, his mind was bent to their will. The boy who once flinched at death was stripped away. What rose in his place was raw metal beaten into an edge.
Orin was dragged from innocence and buried in the craft of death. Not as a student, but as something forged and sharpened. A weapon bound in flesh, breathing vengeance.
A short distance away, Valerius watched Orin's convulsing form with a faint smile playing on his lips. He was not bothered by the boy's suffering; what he was more focused on was the outcome. Uncle Moe stood beside him with an expression of concern and bewilderment.
"You were surprised, weren't you, Uncle?" Valerius murmured, his voice barely audible above the storm's roar, "When I gave him the last orb?"
Uncle Moe's brow furrowed. "Surprised? Master, I'm still horrified. You, of all people, know best about the fragility of these mortal shells. We have already experimented with a few people from this dimension, but every time we have failed. If this one perishes, we lose our only candidate to even attempt to break your seal. We should have probed him further and assessed his true endurance. What if he dies right now? What then? Who will unlock your chains?" Uncle Moe's expression kept getting worse with every word he spoke.
Valerius chuckled. "Oh, Uncle Moe, why are you always so grumpy?"
Valerius, as usual, was chuckling and joking, but Uncle Moe wasn't amused at all. His concern cut deep, and his gaze remained fixed on Orin's trembling form.
Valerius, knowing the mood of Uncle Moe, stopped joking and spoke in an artificially serious tone. "I have probed him enough. This boy carries a murderous demon suppressed deep inside him, a raw fury waiting to erupt. What he has faced may seem trivial to us, because our heavens are filled with betrayal and endless bloodbath. But try to step into his pathetic shoes, Uncle; try to understand his journey, his sheer vulnerability." Valerius finally looked deep into Uncle Moe's eyes, this time with genuine seriousness. "We both saw what he went through, didn't we? That kind of despair and loss forges people a lot."
Uncle Moe sighed. "Yes, Master, his willpower is formidable, but willpower alone is not the sole criteria for endurance. The soul orb doesn't merely impart knowledge. It refines the essence of the soul. It is a furnace, not simply a library." He gestured toward Orin.
"Chill out, Uncle! He's grasping the knowledge properly for now," Valerius said with satisfaction. His eyes, still fixed on Orin, burned with a new purpose.
"It'll take some time for him to awake; meanwhile, shall we tamper his body?" Valerius rubbed his right index finger, and a few herbs and fruits appeared out of nowhere. With those herbs in his palm, he signaled Uncle Moe.
Uncle Moe tactically walked towards him and took those herbs and fruits from Valerius' hands.
"These chains make me feel like a cripple. I can't even walk properly." Valerius chuckled, masking his frustration and anger. Uncle Moe kept silent, walked towards Orin, and stood next to him.
For an experienced veteran like Uncle Moe, tempering a mortal body was no more difficult than breathing. With a careless flick of his hand, the cloth wrapped around Orin disintegrated into dust. Then he crushed the herbs between his fingers and let their juices run across Orin's skin. At times he squeezed an entire fruit until the liquid streamed over bone and muscle; at other times only a drop was pressed into the right place. Some mixtures sank into Orin's joints, others seeped into the fibers of his muscles, each applied with deliberate precision.
Though Orin's mind was sealed in darkness, his body reacted to the tempering. His muscles quivered as the juices sank into his flesh, nerves sparking as if scorched from within. His fingers curled and uncurled against the floor, shoulders jerking in sudden spasms whenever the liquid touched a vital point. His back arched sharply, and his veins rose beneath the skin as though trying to break free. A low growl escaped his throat, neither word nor cry, only the raw sound of a body resisting the fire being poured into it.
After a full day of constant physical tempering and miraculous restoration, Orin's body underwent a profound transformation. The boy lying on the ground was no longer the starving boy who had been chased inside the forest. His skin, once bruised and bloodied, was now impossibly pure, radiating a faint, almost imperceptible energy that shimmered in the gloom. His thin frame had filled out, muscles now clearly defined. Every cell of his body seemed to hum with strength.
More astounding were the invisible changes. Deep within, his white bones had turned into a luminous, silver hue. They resonated with an inner strength, now hundreds of times denser and more durable than any normal mortal bones could ever be.
A satisfied smile lit up Valerius' face. Uncle Moe, too, had a rare smile on his face.
"He withstood it," Uncle Moe breathed, a tremor of relief in his voice. He gazed at Orin's transformed body. "I truly thought his fragile shell would simply blast apart. The risks were immense, Master."
"Immensely worthwhile, Uncle," Valerius corrected, his gaze still fixed on Orin with a predatory possessiveness. "Such potential! He broke through the foundation stage of Silver Physique. And here you were, doubting his caliber?"
Uncle Moe chuckled. "Doubt is a luxury we could ill afford, Master. His determination is undeniable. He's a tougher sapling than he appeared."
Valerius' smile remained, but his eyes sharpened. "The easy part is done. His body has been tempered. Now, let's wait for the soul tempering to begin. It's the hardest part. Let's see if he can withstand it."
Uncle Moe's face clouded with fresh worry, his earlier relief vanishing. "Soul tempering is perilous even for the children born in our heavens, Master," he cautioned, his voice low and serious. "To put a boy from this wasteland through all this is an immense gamble. The slightest error, the smallest crack in his will, and his soul could shatter into fragments."
Valerius, with his eyes half closed, waved casually. "If he dies, he is not worthy."
"And your seal, Master?" Uncle Moe pressed, his voice taut. "The millennia of waiting? All for nothing?"
Valerius' gaze turned back to the storm-lashed sky, a flicker of something ancient and terrible in his eyes. He momentarily closed them. A faint image of golden chains, even thicker and more numerous than his own, flashed across the inside of his mind, followed by the distant echo of his mother's broken scream. A shiver, imperceptible to anyone but perhaps Uncle Moe, rippled through his chained form.
"Patience, Uncle. Patience. We have waited for centuries. A little longer will not break me." His voice held an almost frightening certainty. He looked back at Orin, a cruel joy in his eyes. He felt the subtle, ethereal hum emanating from Orin's prone form, a faint spiritual resonance that pulsed in sync with the storm itself.
They fell silent, watching Orin, who lay motionless now. The true battle now raged unseen, deep within his soul.