The training yard of the Ashen House was a patch of muddy, rock-strewn ground.
Aris watched from the shadow of a half-rotten beam. He was invisible, as he always was. All eyes were on the "Awakened," the children who had passed the trial, as they received their first lesson from the Hall Master.
His half-brother, Varus, stood trembling in the mud. Varus was ten, three years older than Aris, and had "Awakened" with a "Blood" attunement.
"No, you fool!" the Hall Master roared, his bone-plated arm cracking the air as he gestured. "You're just angry! That's a child's tantrum! Your Dantian is a filter, not a faucet! You are pouring raw, useless rage into it. Master it. Find the cold intent beneath the anger. Now, again!"
Varus, his face pale with exertion and fear, squeezed his eyes shut. He was breathing hard, forcing his mind into that specific state of "cold rage."
Aris watched. "So this is their 'Emotional Mastery.' It's so... inefficient. They're trying to build a 'state' of mind, a "Method Actor's" trick, just to cast a single spell."
Suddenly, Varus screamed. A spike of blackish-red, coagulated blood the size of a dagger erupted from the mud at his feet. It was misshapen, crude, and sputtered into nothing after a second. But it worked.
The Hall Master grunted. "Barely a success. But it is one. You are dismissed. All of you. Practice. Do not rest until you can call that intent as easily as you breathe."
Varus, high on his first "success" and feeling powerful, staggered away from the group. He saw Aris in the shadows. A cruel sneer split his face.
"What are you looking at, defective bastard?" Varus spat, walking over. "Did you see that? That is power. Something a 'Shattered' little bug like you will never have."
Aris remained silent, his "empty" eyes staring forward. His First Heart Circle was, as always, running its silent [NAS] + [ILI] rune program, caging the storm.
"They should have just drowned you," Varus muttered. To show off, he channeled that "cold rage" he was still clumsily holding onto. It wasn't a spell, just a dark mana-enhanced punch that he threw at Aris's head. "Pathetic—"
Aris's head moved.
It wasn't a conscious dodge. His "sanity cage" had an unintended side effect: after seven years of caging the "intent" of Rage, Fear, and Hysteria, he was hypersensitive to it in others. Varus's "intent" screamed at him a millisecond before his fist moved.
Varus's punch, meant to crack Aris's skull, missed entirely.
The half-brother froze. He missed. In front of the other students. He, a true-born, had been dodged by the "defective."
The "cold rage" vanished, replaced by a hot, childish fury. "So you can dodge?" Varus snarled. "Dodge this!"
This time, there was no magic. No "intent." Just a fast, brutal, physical kick.
Aris's "premonition" failed him. The boot slammed into his small stomach, lifting him off the ground. He crashed into the mud, the air forced from his lungs. His "sanity cage" [NAS] rune flickered as the "pain" from the chaotic storm surged, but it held.
Varus laughed, a high, cruel sound. "In the end, you're just a bug."
He spat in the mud near Aris's head and walked away.
...
Aris limped back to his tiny, cold room, his ribs a constellation of pain. He sat on his cot.
His "sanity cage" was intact. But his body was weak.
"I was wrong," he thought. "Useless' doesn't mean 'safe.' It means 'defenseless.' My 'cage' keeps my mind from breaking, but it won't stop a boot. I'm just a practice dummy for their 'Emotional Mastery'."
He analyzed the problem. "I can't use 'Dark' magic without a dantian core. I can't show my Rune magic either."
He thought back 300 years. He thought of Sir Kaelen.
"But... I saw how the Royal Knights used their magic. Kaelen coated himself in fire. Inefficient. He was just 'wearing' magic. And Varus... he filled his body with 'mastered' emotional magic. They are both just 'wearing' their power."
A new, radical idea sparked.
"I don't need to 'wear' it. My Heart Circle is already filtering Corrupted Mana for my mind. What if I use my runes to channel that filtered, neutral energy directly into my muscles? What if I don't 'coat' the body, but build it? Use the runes to reinforce the foundation itself?"
He sat on his cot. He didn't need charcoal. The "lab" was his mind. He began to design a new rune program, a "sub-routine" for his First Heart Circle. He called it [AUGMENTUM-PHYS] (Augment-Physical), a new rune syntax written in elven language.
His First Heart Circle thrummed. He "ran" the new program.
He felt a tiny, invisible surge of neutral power flow from his heart into his right arm. It wasn't "hot" like fire or "cold" like ice. It was just... energy. He reached down to his heavy, waterlogged cot.
With one, 7-year-old hand, he lifted it.
The cot, which must have weighed twice as much as he did, rose a foot into the air.
It worked.
He held it for three seconds, and then—
His vision blurred. A spike of pure, system-shock pain lanced through his chest. He dropped the cot with a crash.
He collapsed, gasping. His First Heart Circle was screaming in protest.
He clutched his chest, a cold, sharp, triumphant smile spreading across his face.
"It works," he thought, his body aching. "But the cost... My First Heart Circle was only built to be a 'mental cage.' It's a flawed, prototype 'engine.' It cannot run the 'cage' and this new 'power' at the same time."
He looked at his small, trembling, powerful hand.
"I have my weapon. But I don't have the engine to power it. ...I need to build the Second Heart Circle."