The air in the Great Hall of House Varrus was thick with the scent of burning incense and the heavy, metallic tang of dormant mana. At ten years old, Kael stood at the center of a runic circle, his small frame dwarfed by the high stone arches of his ancestral home. To the witnesses gathered, he was merely the youngest son of a minor noble house. To Kael, he was a man who had already lived—and died—once before.
The journey to this moment had been a decade-long exercise in silence.
As an infant, Kael had been unnervingly quiet. While other babies wailed, he had spent his hours staring at the ceiling, mentally mapping the invisible currents of mana that drifted through the nursery like slow-moving smoke. He had the mind of a veteran trapped in a body that couldn't even hold a spoon. It was his first lesson in this new world: humility. He watched his older siblings, Marcus and Lysandra, from his cradle with eyes that were too old, making a silent vow that in this life, he would not be the one left behind.
By age seven, he was a ghost in his own home. While Marcus practiced wooden sword forms in the courtyard, Kael disappeared into the family library. He became obsessed with the history of Aalkaria and the intricate laws of the Kingdom of Aethelgard. Yet, the "tragedy" of his past life followed him. He often woke at dawn from night terrors—flashes of his heroic, lonely death on Earth—only to sit by the window and watch the stars. His mother called it a "melancholy spirit," but Kael knew it was simply the weight of an apology he hadn't yet delivered to the world.
Between the ages of eight and nine, he began secret training. Knowing that a noble's worth was measured in magic, he didn't wait for teachers. He practiced mana circulation in the dead of night, treating his young body like a vessel that needed to be reinforced before it could ever be filled.
Now, on his tenth birthday, the "Coming of Age" ceremony had arrived.
"Kael Varrus," the court mage intoned, holding a crystalline orb that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic violet light. "You have reached the age of discernment. The mana of Aalkaria flows through all, but today, we see how it chooses to manifest in you."
Unlike the private tests of his early childhood, today there were witnesses. His father stood on the high dais, arms crossed, his expression a mask of noble stoicism. Marcus watched with a smirk of practiced superiority, while Lysandra bit her lip in nervous anticipation.
Kael stepped forward. His heart hammered against his ribs—not out of fear, but because of the pressure. If he was weak, he would remain a bystander. If he was strong, he could finally begin to atone.
"Place your hand upon the stone, young lord," the mage commanded.
As Kael's palm touched the cold surface of the Affinity Stone, the silence in the hall became absolute. For a heartbeat, the violet light inside the crystal vanished entirely, turning the orb into a hollow, obsidian vacuum. A collective gasp rippled through the gathered nobles.
Then, the pulse hit.
A shockwave of pure, colorless mana rippled outward, not as a blast of fire, but as a heavy, grounding pressure. Deep within the stone, three distinct sparks began to swirl: a deep, magma-like crimson for the Varrus fire, a shimmering silver for Spatial Mana, and a swirling, dark void at the center that seemed to consume the light around it.
The Stone began to hairline-fracture under the strain.
"Spatial... and something else," the mage whispered, his voice trembling. "Lord Varrus, your son... he is not just an elementalist. He is a Singularity."
Kael didn't look at the shocked faces of his family or the trembling mage. He looked at his own hands. For the first time in ten years, the internal "noise" of his two lives had fallen silent. The apology had been heard. The real journey had finally begun.