The foundational history book had given me the grand map, the scale of the board. Now, I needed to understand the pieces and the rules. The world was not just big; it was dense with power, ancient hatreds, and invisible forces. I need to know about Aether and magic spells. The primer had teased the theory; now I needed the manual.
The risk was immense, but the alternative—remaining ignorant in a world of active, lethal magic—was a slower, more certain death. I need to head to the shed once again.
And so, a new, perilous routine began. Sporadic, careful, dictated by the moon phases and the deep-house silence. My midnight descents became expeditions. The shed's hidden archive was no longer just a source of history; it was my academy.
Since then I started reading the important books and fighting styles and Aether related. I was a predator in a library of ghosts, hunting specific prey. I left the epic poems and genealogical scrolls. I sought the practical, the technical. Leather-bound grimoires with cracked spines. Military treatises on squad-level Aether tactics. Anatomical diagrams tracing "Aetheric Channels."
The first, most critical lesson was fundamental. There is flowing Aether and still Aether.
Flowing Aether existed as a wave. It enters the body through a wave and can exit a body through a wave. It was the ambient energy, the cosmic background radiation of this reality. It wasn't uniform; it had currents, tides, concentrations—the "Ley Lines" hinted at in those complicated diagrams. Drawing it in was the first step of any magic, like breathing.
Every person has a unique capability to absorb and release Aether. For some it's really high and some are low. Like a fingerprint. This was the core of talent. My "noble blood" likely meant a high capacity, a wide channel. But capacity was useless without control.
Still Aether exists in our bodies. After using Aether as a magic spell, Still Aether becomes Flowing. This was the key insight. The body was a capacitor. It stored Still Aether, processed from the Flowing kind. Spellcasting discharged it, converting Still back into directed Flowing energy—a fireball, a shield, a burst of speed—which then dissipated back into the environment. Stamina in magic wasn't just mental; it was the depletion of a finite, internal battery.
Aether can be made into fireballs if you have fire as your main kin. "Kin." Affinity. The texts spoke of elemental kins—fire, water, earth, air—and more abstract ones like light, shadow, force, or mind. Your kin dictated the "flavor" of your magic, the path of least resistance. A fire-kin could conjure flame with minimal effort but might struggle to create a water shield. Your kin was supposedly innate, revealed during the "Awakening" ritual.
I devoured it all, the pages photographing themselves into my mind. Basic channeling exercises. Simple shaping forms for elemental bolts. Meditation techniques to improve Aether absorption rate. I read of "Aether Poisoning"—what happened when you drew in too much, too fast, or of a conflicting type, and your channels burned out or your mind unraveled. I read of "Still-Lock," a condition where one's internal Aether stagnated, making magic impossible.
Alongside the magic, I studied fighting.
But a hard limit was approaching. My physical strength has reached its limits. I am 4 now. Even if I train, my physical strength will not increase because it's already at the top for my age. My body, for all its superb genetics, was still a child's body. I had maxed out its natural potential through fanatical training. More push-ups wouldn't make me stronger; they'd just maintain. The next frontier of power wasn't muscle; it was magic.
I don't have time for doing nothing. This is an extreme nightmare difficulty. I cannot choose to rest.
For one year I decided to learn magic from the books in the library… But I couldn't practice it. Not without the Awakening, which supposedly "opened" one's internal channels to safely interact with Flowing Aether. To try before then, the books sternly warned, was to risk Aether Poisoning or Still-Lock. The church's taboo had a brutal, practical foundation.
So I learned theory. I memorized every beginner spell form, every channeling pathway, every meditation mantra. I built the entire theoretical framework in my mind, a perfect schematic of a machine I was forbidden to turn on.
In that I learned a lot about our current position of house Theodore from the books. History gave way to contemporary politics. I found ledgers, intelligence summaries, genealogical analyses. The human continent's 49% was a fractious place.
Our house existed in a 4-way power struggle.
House Theodore. This was the house that had rising power and protected the empire from the expansion of The Ashenveil Forest. So we were the militarized border lords. We were the dam holding it back. Our power was born from constant, low-grade war. It explained the armory, the stern maids, the pervasive air of readiness.
The church- This entity was independent and managed the awakening of Aether inside nobles when they were 9. They held the monopoly on a rite of passage. They were the gatekeepers of magical adulthood. Their independence was suspicious—how did an institution with no armies maintain autonomy from houses like mine? Faith? Or something else?
Mareux Noble family- They were said as the "rivals of the Theodore family". But everybody knows who's stronger. The footnote was pure Theodore. The Mareux were our internal rivals, competing for influence, land, and the king's favor.
The king that manages all there and balance between them. A figurehead, perhaps, but a necessary one—the circuit breaker, the mediator. The one who ostensibly served the greater stability of the human realm.
There were a lot of empires in the human continent but I kept it in my mind not reading it, it was not necessary now. The macro-politics could wait. My survival depended on understanding the micro—my own house.
House Theodore existed for a long time. I found its founding chronicle. I also found the texts about the First head of the house Theodore. The first head lost family due to the monsters of Ashenveil Forest. That's why he made a family just to stop Ashenveil Forest from expanding.
A origin story born of vengeance and defense. Noble, in a grim way. We were born from loss, forged to prevent it for others. A house of warriors with a cause.
But… something is missing….
The thought nagged as I cross-referenced dates, power summaries, and the cold, assessing gaze of my father. If my house existed for a long time… who stopped it from expanding and conquering the church and other powers. We had the army. We had the justification of a perpetual external threat. We had, presumably, powerful Aether-users. We were described as having "rising power." So why were we still just one of four? Why hadn't a previous Head, or the current one, simply taken over?
What's stopping him… The current head… He should have enough power to conquer the whole empire and take over.
The answer wasn't in the ledgers. It was in the silence of the house, in the hidden library, in Lyra's throwing star aimed at an invisible watcher. There was a constraint. A check on Theodore ambition. Something more powerful than armies. The Church's monopoly on Awakening was a clue. The King's balancing role was another. And the Ashenveil itself… was it just an enemy, or also a leash? If we conquered the human lands, who would guard the border? Would the other powers ally against us? Or was there something in the Forest itself that demanded our constant, full attention?
I don't know but this is something big.
The final, most pressing mystery was the Church's law itself. Also the church stopped Aether use for children below the age of 9. Why is that? They say it's taboo or some shit like that. But it's highly likely that what they say it's false.
The medical reasons in the books were clear: early channeling could break a developing body and mind. But institutions rarely act purely out of benevolence. What did the Church gain? Control. By mandating the Awakening rite, they ensured every noble's first, most formative experience of power was mediated by them. They could assess talent, assign Kins, perhaps even install loyalties or… limitations. They owned the doorway.
I have only 5 years. If I waste these years I cannot ensure I would survive or not. Because every second matters. I need to have a head start.
The clock in my head, which had been ticking since the white chamber, grew louder.
Five years before the Church would "allow" me to touch magic. But in an Extreme Nightmare, following the rules was a sure path to falling behind. My father, with his calculating eyes, would not value a son who waited for permission to become strong. My siblings, especially Alistair and Lyra, were undoubtedly powerful already. To be the weak, obedient eighth child was to be a pawn, or worse, a sacrifice.
The theory was in my head. The body was prepped. The will was there. But the final variable was the most dangerous.
But does my father follow the church?
I thought of his smile. The empty perfection of our estate. The hidden, contraband knowledge in the shed. The utter lack of religious iconography in my nursery or the halls I'd roamed.
Lord Theodore did not strike me as a man who bowed to anyone's rules but his own. The Church was a piece on his board, a power to be managed, not a authority to be obeyed.
A terrifying, electrifying possibility crystallized. The Church said Awakening at nine. The books said attempting magic before then was dangerous.
But my father… he might not care about the danger. He might only care about the result. He might see the Church's rule not as protection, but as a hindrance—a way to keep the next generation docile and dependent until they could be safely catalogued.
What if the true test of a Theodore heir wasn't obedience, but the initiative to seize power early, regardless of the cost?
I lay in the dark, the stolen knowledge a cold fire in my mind. I had five years according to the world. But I might have far less according to my father. The path of safety was an illusion. The path of risk—of attempting to channel Aether, to force my own Awakening using stolen, untested theory—was a gamble with my sanity and life.
But in an Extreme Nightmare, the safe path was the one that led off the cliff. The only way forward was through the fire.
The decision was made. I would not wait for the Church. I would not wait for my father's approval or another cryptic test. Using the stolen schematics in my mind, I would try to open the door myself. Tonight.