Chapter 6: Abnormality.
The night was silent and peaceful.Outside, a pale moon shone over Aldia Village, bathing the world in a thin layer of silver light. The trees moved softly in the wind, their branches brushing against each other like natural melodies. Within one of the small houses at the village's edge, peace lingered but suddenly a sound came from the house.
A deafening boom erupted from the upper floor of the house, a surge of blinding light tearing through the roof like a sun being born in the dead of night.
Jonathan and Sara Scytes woke up instantly.
Jonathan's instincts flared. Years of training as a seasoned dual-attribute mage — one of fire and water — coursed through him. His heart pounded like a drum as he shot out of bed, feet barely touching the ground. He moved with speed and precision; his reflexes were honed, his movements fluid and fierce. He reached the hallway in less than a breath, his body already alight with a faint azure glow as mana surged into his limbs.
Sara, however, was faster.
Her body dissolved into a mist of faint golden particles and vanished. She reappeared instantly in a flicker beside Jonathan as both parents reached the door to their son's room at the same time. A gust of hot air burst out through the cracks, accompanied by a rolling cloud of dust and a faint, sharp smell of burning wood and metal. All they could see was a blinding light.
Jonathan, with a sharp voice, shouted, "Aiden!"
There was no response. Only the faint sound of cracking and burning.
He didn't hesitate. With a forceful push, he burst open through the door — and froze.
The scene that they saw with their eyes left both of them speechless.
The room was gone. Or rather, it was no longer a room. The walls were melted halfway down, wood reduced to blackened ash and slag. The ceiling was torn open, it was completely destroyed, and stars were faintly visible through drifting smoke in the air. Everything within a five-meter radius had been crushed, burned, melted, and erased. The air itself shimmered with heat, twisting like a mirage.
And there — in the center of it all — was Aiden, who was floating in the air.
He was floating several feet above the ground, his small frame enveloped in a glowing radiance. Light poured from his skin in waves of faint green luminescence, forming gentle ripples through the air. His dark hair floated weightlessly around his face, his eyes shut, his breathing shallow but steady.
Sara's breath caught in her throat as she shouted. "Aiden!" she cried, her voice trembling. "Aiden, are you alright?!"
As soon as Aiden heard her words, his mind, which had drifted off, came to reality. Slowly, Aiden's eyelids fluttered open.
What he saw stunned him — the destruction, the blinding glow, and his parents standing below him with horror etched across their faces. For a moment, his mind went blank.
What… happened?
Then he remembered what had happened a few moments ago. As soon as he regained his senses, he lost control of his ability to float, and his body began to fall.
Before he could hit the ground, Jonathan's instincts kicked in. His figure blurred he moved with immense speed, and he caught Aiden midair. The boy's small frame was trembling, his breath ragged.
Jonathan landed softly, eyes narrowing as he surveyed the surrounding environment and destruction. Heat still lingered in the air, radiating off the ruined walls. He raised a hand, summoning a stream of crystalline water. The liquid swirled around through the room, cooling the scorched surfaces and reducing the heat in the atmosphere and settling all the dust in the room, washing away embers until the faint hiss of steam replaced the sound of crackling fire.
Once the temperature settled, Jonathan turned to Aiden. His usual calm was gone, replaced by stern composure and worry that hid beneath the surface.
His tone was grave and serious." What," he asked, "did you just do?"
Aiden flinched. The seriousness in his father's voice was etched deeper into his mind. He lowered his gaze, words tangled in his throat.
"Dad… I—I was—"
"Don't hesitate," Jonathan interrupted, voice low and sharp. "Tell me everything you've done. Leave nothing out."
Aiden's throat tightened. He swallowed hard. His small hands clenched while trembling around the fabric of his shirt. Finally, he said, voice trembling with guilt and fear:
"Father, I'm sorry. I didn't listen to you. I… used the breathing technique to absorb mana."
Jonathan's expression hardened, but he said nothing.
"I—I had planned to be careful," Aiden continued, his words coming out in a rush as he said. "I thought… if anything went wrong, I would stop. I didn't want to wait until I was twelve. I wanted to see if I could really do it. So that night, I used the breathing technique, and… everything went just like the book said it would. So I practiced every day to form the mana veins and pathways. Before today, I'd completed about seventy percent of them."
Sara's hand flew to her mouth in disbelief.
Aiden took a shaky breath, tears gathering in his eyes as he spoke on. "But today, when I used the technique again… it was different. My body—my body started absorbing mana like crazy! It was like a vortex had appeared inside me, pulling everything in. I tried to stop it, but it wouldn't stop. It started to hurt… it hurt so much. My whole body felt like it was breaking apart."
Jonathan's face went pale. Sara's eyes widened with fear.
Aiden continued, voice breaking slightly, as he said, "Then… just when I thought I was going to die, all the remaining veins in my body were completed. The pain disappeared. The mana started flowing toward my heart. But then… this light vortex appeared around me out of nowhere, and it kept getting bigger, brighter, and faster. I tried to stop it, but… I couldn't. Then suddenly, everything exploded."
As Sara and Jonathan listened, they were completely silent even after Aiden told them everything; they remained silent.
For a long moment, neither parent spoke. The only sound was the faint dripping of condensed water from the ceiling, falling softly to the ground.
Jonathan and Sara exchanged a look — one filled with disbelief and dread. They could hardly process what they'd just heard. Their son had been cultivating mana — right under their noses — without them sensing even a trace of it.
That alone was terrifying.
They were both seasoned high-sequence mana cultivators, sensitive enough to detect a single shift of mana across several meters. And yet, through all those weeks… neither had noticed a single thing.
How was that even possible?
Jonathan exhaled slowly, his mind racing. "He was doing this right here, every night," he muttered under his breath. "And we didn't sense anything unusual, not even the change of mana in the atmosphere…"
Sara snapped back to the moment. Fear overwhelmed logic. She rushed to Aiden's side, kneeling and taking his small hands into hers. Her palms glowed with a faint, soft light — the one she had used multiple times to heal Jonathan's wounds when he came back from hunting — Aiden felt a warm and gentle sensation flowing into his skin.
Her voice shook. "Aiden, are you hurt anywhere? Tell me, quickly!"
Aiden blinked, still frightened by the explosion, and he said clearly. "I'm not hurt anywhere, Mom…"
"Don't lie to me," Sara said, scanning his face. "How can you not be injured after such a—" Before she could complete her sentence, she stopped as she sensed something abnormal.
Her healing mana flowed through him freely — unimpeded, clear, pure. There were no blockages, no wounds, no internal damage. Nothing.
Her expression changed into one of perplexity.
She examined him again, this time slower, deeper — searching for even the faintest trace of harm. But she still found nothing.
Finally, she looked up at Jonathan, her face pale and bewildered. "He's completely fine," she whispered. "There are no injuries… no abnormalities within him."
Jonathan's brows furrowed as he said. "That's impossible."
His voice carried a tone of disbelief — he felt like a man faced with a truth that he could not accept. "He was at the center of that explosion. Even with mana protection, a grown mage would have suffered serious backlash and wounds… How can a child come out unharmed?"
No one had an answer for this question.
For a while, they simply stared at Aiden — this small boy sitting amidst the wreckage, faint traces of green light still around his body. He could not believe what he had seen. His son, who was just 7 years old, had survived the explosion, and there wasn't even a single scratch on him.
He felt suspicious. Sara was also confused about what had happened.
But before either could speak, Aiden looked up at them, guilt written across his small, pale face. His voice was timid and fragile as he said."I'm sorry, Dad… Mom… I didn't mean to cause trouble. I just wanted to be strong like you."
The room fell quiet. Jonathan exhaled, his anger softening into exhaustion. He crouched down, placing his large hand gently on Aiden's head. His voice, though stern, carried warmth beneath its weight.
"I'm glad you're safe, son. But now you see why I told you not to cultivate and absorb mana." He looked him straight in the eye. "Mana isn't a toy. It's dangerous — unpredictable. It almost killed you tonight. Promise me you won't try it again. Ever. Do you understand?"
Sara knelt beside them, brushing Aiden's hair back with trembling fingers as she said. "Listen to your father," she said softly. "You'll have plenty of time to learn when you're older. Don't rush it, my love. You only have one life — don't risk it for power. When the time comes, you can also become a mana cultivator."
There was a brief silence. The room felt heavy, filled with both relief and the lingering fear of what could have happened.
And then, with a faint, uncertain voice, Aiden said something that brought terror in the hearts of Sara and Jonathan.
"But Mom, Dad… I have already created a mana heart."
Just as Sara and Jonathan heard this, the world around them stopped.
Jonathan's eyes widened. Sara's breathing became ragged. Both of them looked at Aiden with disbelief in their eyes as if they could not believe what they had heard.
For a moment, neither spoke. Words seemed to have come to a stop, unmoving and completely frozen.
Jonathan finally whispered, voice trembling despite himself, "You… what did you just say?"
Aiden blinked innocently, oblivious to the weight of his words. "I said… I already created a mana heart. I can feel it inside me; it has a light green color."
As he said that, a long silence followed.
Sara's eyes filled with tears, torn between disbelief and fear. Jonathan could only stare, stunned beyond measure. In his mind, the words of his son echoed again and again, but he could still not believe it — a seven-year-old child… has formed a mana heart.
Something that had never been achieved in history had been achieved by their son.
Outside, the night wind blew gently through the broken walls and ceiling , carrying with it the scent of burning and the faint echo of the explosion that had shaken their lives forever.