The walk to the Hall of Ancestors was a gauntlet of smug glances and murmured anticipation. News of the Greywarden's visit had spread through Blackstone Keep like wildfire. For the noble children under ten, it was a prelude to their future, a chance to catch the eye of a powerful, system-attuned figure. For Damian, it was a potential unmasking.
He kept his head slightly bowed, playing the part of a frail, nervous child. But behind the facade, his mind was a fortress of ice. The Monarch of Darkness System hummed with silent activity.
[Active Shielding Protocol Engaged.]
[Soul Fractures configured as reflective lattice...]
[Shadow Spark suppressed to quantum resonance...]
[Presenting Mana Signature: 'Dormant – Null' – Common Human Variant.]
He had to trust it. His personal system was an unknown entity, born of a shattered soul and a desperate escape. Would its shielding hold against the scrutiny of a functionary of the Akashi Records, the very universal law that governed magic in this reality?
The Hall of Ancestors was the heart of Ashbourne lineage. Stained glass windows depicting past lords and their deeds cast colored light upon a floor of polished black marble. The air smelled of incense, old parchment, and ozone—the scent of maintained warding stones. At the far end, under a colossal tapestry of the family raven, stood two men.
Lord Aldric Ashbourne stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a statue of lordly authority. Beside him was the Greywarden.
The man was everything his title suggested and less. He wore simple, undyed robes of rough wool, cinched at the waist with a plain rope. He was of average height, with a lean, weathered face that could have belonged to a farmer or a scribe. His hair was iron-gray, cropped short. There was no visible aura, no pressure of power. He looked… ordinary. But his eyes—a pale, watery gray—held a depth that made Damian's skin prickle. They were eyes that saw not faces, but data; not souls, but status screens.
This was not a 7th Order Sovereign or a 6th Order Monarch. This man was likely a specialized 4th or 5th Order, his power not in raw destruction, but in observation, analysis, and enforcement of the System's protocols. A living diagnostic tool.
A line of children, Damian's half-siblings and cousins, snaked toward the Greywarden. One by one, they stepped forward, placed a hand on a smooth, milky-white Observation Stone set on a pedestal, and waited.
The Greywarden would place a finger on the child's temple, his eyes glazing over with a faint silver sheen. After a moment, he'd speak in a toneless voice that carried in the silent hall.
"Soren Ashbourne. Age nine. Physical Constitution: C-. Mana Sensitivity: Low. Affinity Potential: Unlikely. Prognosis: Non-Awakening probable."
The boy, Soren, deflated and shuffled away, his mother's hopeful smile crumbling.
"Elara Ashbourne." (Named for Damian's mother, a daughter of the Fourth Wife). "Age eight. Physical Constitution: B. Mana Sensitivity: Moderate. Affinity Potential: Water/Wind detected. Prognosis: Probable Awakening. Monitor."
A pleased murmur from that branch of the family.
So it went. The Akashi Records, through its Greywarden, offered no false hope. It was a brutal, impartial census of potential. Damian watched, absorbing the data. Physical Constitution, Mana Sensitivity, Affinity Potential. These were the metrics. His own body, after weeks of grueling training, was perhaps a D+ at best. His Mana Sensitivity, to any external scan, needed to read as abysmal.
Finally, it was his turn. He could feel Kaelen's mocking stare burning into his back.
"Approach," the Greywarden said, his voice devoid of inflection.
Damian stepped forward, his small hand looking pale against the dark marble of the pedestal. He placed it on the Observation Stone. It was cool, inert.
The Greywarden's calloused finger touched his temple. It was dry and warm. The moment it made contact, Damian felt it.
A presence. Vast, cold, and utterly indifferent. It was like a glacier sliding through his mind, a force of nature with no malice, no curiosity—only purpose. It was the Akashi Records, or a minuscule tendril of it.
[EXTERNAL SCAN DETECTED. ORIGIN: AKASHI RECORDS (LOCAL NODE – GREYWARDEN PROXY).]
[SHIELDING ACTIVE. DECEPTION PROTOCOL: 'DORMANT' IN EFFECT.]
The presence swept through him. He felt it catalog his bones, his muscle density, his neural pathways. It probed the spaces where his mana channels should be. His Monarch System, like a master forger, had constructed a perfect, pathetic facade. It presented the 93% corroded channels as naturally "unformed," the norm for a pre-adolescent human. It wrapped his soul fractures in a buffer that read as "spiritual inertness," a common trait in those who would never awaken.
The Greywarden's eyes glowed silver. Seconds stretched into an eternity.
Then, the presence receded. The Greywarden blinked, the silver fading from his eyes. He looked at Damian with the same detached interest he'd shown a piece of furniture.
"Damian Ashbourne. Age eight. Physical Constitution: D+. Mana Sensitivity: Negligible. Affinity Potential: Null. Spiritual Inertia: High." He paused, the only hint of something beyond rote recitation. "Signs of recent somatic trauma and minor neural fatigue detected. Consistent with reported accident. Prognosis: Non-Awakening. Certain."
The final word hung in the hall, a death knell for any noble aspiration.
A ripple went through the assembled family. Not surprise, but confirmation. Some looks held pity. Most held dismissal. Kaelen couldn't hide a smirk.
Lord Aldric's stern face showed a flicker of something—not disappointment, but a final, administrative closure. A file put away. He gave a single, slow nod to the Greywarden. "Thank you for your clarity."
Damian withdrew his hand, making it tremble slightly. He kept his eyes downcast, the picture of a boy receiving a life sentence of mediocrity. Inside, a torrent of conflicting emotions raged. Relief so profound it made him weak-kneed—the shield had held. Fury at being declared a null, a certain non-entity by this cosmic bureaucracy. And a cold, sharp resolve. They had seen only the forgery. The truth—the Shadow Spark, the Monarch System, the soul of a warrior who had faced the end of a world—was his alone.
"You may go," Aldric said, his attention already shifting to the Greywarden for their private discourse.
Damian turned and walked back through the gauntlet. The stares now were different. Before, he was a question mark, however faint. Now, he was answered. He was nothing. In the brutal hierarchy of a magical noble house, a confirmed non-Awakened was destined for a life of administrative drudgery, a political marriage to another low-potential scion, or outright obscurity.
It was, he realized as he left the hall, the greatest gift he could have received.
---
The days that followed saw a subtle shift in Damian's world. The polite neglect became benign oblivion. His stipend for clothes and toys remained, but the household's attention drifted. Tutors who might have been scheduled in a year or two were no longer mentioned. The martial training yard, once a place he'd watched with feigned curiosity, was now openly barred to him—a waste of resources on one with "no future in the art."
It was liberation.
His room was his kingdom. His nightly training intensified. With the threat of immediate System scan gone (Greywarden visits were annual at best), he could focus on the Soul Reconstruction Path.
Objective 1: Stabilize the Shadow Spark. Each night, he meditated, not just perceiving mana, but communing with that infinitesimal point of inner darkness. He fed it not with external energy, but with his own will, his memories of shadow, his acceptance of the void. Slowly, the Spark grew steadier, its cold presence becoming a constant in his spiritual center. It was not yet an Ember, but it was no longer fragile.
Objective 2: Map the shadow geography. With Dark Sense (Level 1) active, Damian began to explore. Not with his body, but with his perception. He sat on his floor and sent his awareness out like sonar pulses through the shadows. He learned the patterns.
The keep was a labyrinth of darkness. The deep, cold pools in the unused dungeon cells. The long, thin shadows cast by the arrow slits in the guard towers. The complex, ever-shifting tapestry of shadows in the Grand Library, created by shelves and candlelight. He found hidden passages—not magical, but structural, used by servants centuries ago—their entrances concealed in shadowy alcoves. He mapped routes that were perpetually in gloom, paths of perfect secrecy.
One night, his Dark Sense brushed against something different. In the private solarium of the Fourth Wife, Lady Seraphina, amidst the shadows of exotic plants, there was a patch of darkness that felt… hungry. It absorbed his sensing pulse rather than reflecting it. A hidden artifact? A forbidden charm? He marked it mentally and withdrew. Knowledge is territory.
Objective 3: Procure a Low-Grade Spirit Herb. This was the first real hurdle. He couldn't just walk into the family's alchemical storeroom. As a non-Awakened, he had no legitimate need, and requesting one would raise catastrophic suspicion.
His solution came from his mapping. There was an old, disused postern gate in the lowest levels, its lock rusted shut, its corridor perpetually drowned in the deep shadow of the cliff face. Beyond it lay a narrow, treacherous path down to the base of the cliffs and the wilds of the Verdant Vale forest. It was a forgotten escape route.
He would need to go outside.
Preparations took a week. He used his modest allowance to bribe a friendly, dim-witted kitchen boy for a worn leather satchel, a small tinderbox, and a rusty but serviceable digging dagger. He practiced moving silently through the shadow-routes he'd mapped, avoiding the nocturnal patrols of the guards (whose predictable routes were now etched in his mind as patterns of light and dark).
Finally, on a moonless night when the clouds swallowed the stars, he enacted his plan.
Wearing dark, simple clothes, he slipped from his room. Dark Sense turned the keep into a blueprint of black and gray. He was a ghost, flowing from one pool of darkness to the next, his breathing controlled, his footfalls silent on the ancient stone. He passed within ten feet of a yawning guard, hidden in the absolute black of a recessed doorway.
The old postern gate was as he'd sensed. The lock was a lump of corrosion. Using principles of leverage and pressure he'd learned breaking Void-Stalker carapaces, he wedged the digging dagger into the mechanism and, with a straining heave that made his child's muscles burn, snapped it. The sound was a dull crunch, lost in the sigh of the wind against the cliff.
The door groaned open a foot, revealing the sheer drop and the path beyond. The smell of damp earth, pine, and wild magic rushed in. He squeezed through.
The path was a nightmare of loose scree and thorny brush, invisible in the physical dark. But to Dark Sense, the world was defined by the contrast between the solid black of the rock face and the slightly less profound black of the open air. He navigated by the shape of the emptiness beside him.
An hour of careful descent brought him to the forest floor. Here, the mana was even thicker, a vibrant, chaotic symphony. His Shadow Spark pulsed with a strange avarice. The System provided guidance.
[Dark Sense Enhanced by Natural Environment. Scanning for Shadow-Aligned Botanical Signatures.]
[Searching…]
[Signature Detected: 300 paces North-Northwest. Weak, but congruent. Likely: Shadewort.]
Damian moved into the woods. This was a new kind of danger. The forest at night was alive with predators, both mundane and magical. He heard the hoot of owls, the rustle of unseen things in the undergrowth. Once, he froze as Dark Sense picked up a large, warm-bodied creature moving parallel to him—a forest wolf. He pressed himself against a tree, becoming part of its shadow, and held his breath until it passed.
He found the Shadewort in a small clearing where moonlight never reached. It was a small, unassuming plant with velvety, black-purple leaves that seemed to drink the surrounding gloom. According to the system's implanted knowledge, it was a common ingredient in low-tier potions for night vision, but when processed with a specific dark-aligned intent, it could soothe spiritual fractures.
He carefully dug it up, roots and all, placing it in his satchel.
[Objective 3 Complete: Low-Grade Spirit Herb (Shadewort) obtained.]
[Warning: Detection of minor spiritual contamination on herb. Natural defense mechanism. Purification required before use.]
He turned to leave, but Dark Sense flared a sudden, intense warning.
Something was in the clearing with him. Something his senses hadn't noticed because it wasn't just in the shadow—it was the shadow.
From the pool of darkness beneath a giant fir tree, a shape coalesced. It was roughly the size of a large dog, but fluid and asymmetrical, made of solidified gloom. Two pinpricks of sickly violet light ignited where eyes might be. A low, grating hum, like stone grinding on stone, emanated from it.
[Alert: Entity Detected.]
[Classification: Shadow Stalker (Juvenile).]
[Threat Assessment: Low-Medium (to awakened adult). High (to current host).]
[Note: Attracted to concentrated shadow alignment and unbound spirit herb.]
Damian's blood turned to ice. A magical beast. On Aethel, he would have vaporized it with a thought. Here, he was an eight-year-old with a digging dagger and a spark of darkness.
The Shadow Stalker flowed toward him, silent and swift. Instinct took over. Damian didn't run—running from a predator in the dark was suicide. He dropped into a low stance, the digging dagger held reverse-grip in his right hand. His left hand was empty, but he focused on the Shadow Spark within him.
The creature lunged, a pseudopod of darkness whipping toward his face. Damian moved. Not with his old speed, but with the perfected, efficient footwork of the Dance of the Twin Moons. He sidestepped, the darkness missing him by an inch. He could feel the chill of its passage.
He couldn't cut darkness. But he could interact with what anchored it. His Dark Sense showed him a slight condensation, a core of denser energy, within the fluid form.
The Stalker reformed and struck again, this time with multiple tendrils. Damian weaved and ducked, the wooden sword drills translating to life-and-death evasion. A tendril grazed his arm, and a paralyzing cold seeped through the cloth, numbing his skin. He gritted his teeth.
It's testing me. Playing.
He needed to end this, now. He feigned a stumble, leaving his right side open. The Stalker took the bait, surging forward to envelop him. At the last second, Damian dropped fully to the ground, rolled under the flowing mass, and came up behind its vague center of mass. With all the strength in his small body, fueled by desperation and decades of combat memory, he drove the rusty digging dagger into that condensed core of energy.
There was no sound, but a violent shudder went through the creature. The violet eyes flared brightly, then winked out. The solidified shadow lost its cohesion, dissolving into harmless, drifting wisks of dark mist that were swallowed by the natural night.
Damian collapsed to his knees, gasping, his heart hammering against his ribs. The numbness in his arm was spreading. He looked at the dagger in his hand. It was stained with a viscous, fading purple substance.
[Combat Concluded. Experience allocated.]
[Skill Level Up: Swordsmanship (Dual Blades) – (F) Rank.]
[Skill Developed: Battle Instinct – (F-) Rank.]
[Alert: Shadow Affinity Contamination detected in host. Purging…]
A warmth spread from his Shadow Spark, flowing down his arm. It met the invading cold and consumed it, leaving only a tingling fatigue. The herb in his satchel seemed to pulse in resonance.
He had won. It was the hardest fight of his new life, and the most validating.
He staggered back to the cliff path and the keep, his body screaming in protest, but his spirit alight with a fierce, quiet flame. He had mapped territory, secured a resource, and survived a magical beast. He had taken his first, true step on the path back to power.
As he slipped back through the postern gate, sealing it as best he could, a final system notification glowed in the darkness of his mind.
[Soul Reconstruction Path I: Foundation of Shadow – ALL OBJECTIVES COMPLETE.]
[Rewards Claimed:]
- Soul Integrity: +3% (Now 15%).
- Shadow Manipulation (Basic) – UNLOCKED.
Damian lay on his bed in the pre-dawn gloom, exhausted to his very bones. He held up a hand, and with a thought that cost him the last of his mental energy, he willed the shadow on his wall to tremble.
It did. It quivered, then stretched an inch toward his fingertips before snapping back.
A smile, genuine and fierce, touched his lips. It was a tiny thing. But it was his. The shadow had answered.
The non-Awakened, spirit-null boy known as Damian Ashbourne was a lie. And the truth was beginning to stir in the darkness.