The problem with a six-year-old hangover is that your body has absolutely no infrastructure to handle it.
My head felt like a construction site where the workers had gone on strike and decided to dismantle the scaffolding with sledgehammers. My mouth tasted like sawdust and regret. I was curled into a tight ball of misery, the blanket pulled over my head, praying to whatever deity oversaw bad decision to just just let me sleep for another decade.
Just five more minutes, I bargained-more so begged- with the universe. I promise I'll never steal ale again. Or at least, not the cheap stuff.
Then, the roof was ripped off my world.
Literally.
Sunlight stabbed my eyes as the tent flap was torn open with violent efficiency. A hand the size of a bear trap clamped onto my ankle.
"Up," a metallic voice barked.
"No," I groaned, clutching the dirt. "I have the plague. It's very contagious. Tell my mother I loved her stew."
"You don't have the plague. You have a headache. And you have training."
I was yanked out of the bedroll. I hit the dirt with a thud that rattled my teeth and sent a fresh wave of nausea rolling through my stomach. Before I could organize a proper curse, I was dragged-literally dragged by the leg- out of the recruit's tent and across the gravel of the training ground.
"Marcus!" I yelled, clawing uselessly at the grass. "This is abuse! I'm a child! I have rights!"
"You're a drunk," Marcus grunted, not slowing down. "And drunks run laps."
He didn't stop until we reached the center of the sparring ring. He tossed me forward like a sack of dirty clothes. I scrambled up, swaying slightly, blinking against the morning sun that felt like a physical assault made of burning particles.
Marcus stood there, his aura a terrifying, solid block of white light. It wasn't vibrating with amusement like Henry's. It was static. Cold. Hard.
He tossed a real, blunted iron sword at my feet. It landed with a heavy clang.
"Pick it up."
I stared at it. "I prefer the stick. It's lighter. And less likely to kill me."
I sighed and bent down. The moment my fingers touched the hilt, the weight suprised me. It wasn't just heavy; it was unbalanced. It smelt of oil and old rust. I lifted it, my forearm straining.
"Good," Marcus said. He settled into a stance, his aura tightening. "Now, defend yourself."
He didn't wait. He didn't signal. He simply launched a kick at my chest.
My mind-sharpened by the 'Understanding'-saw it instantly. I saw the white particles in his thigh bunch up. I saw the trajectory of his boot. I saw the exact point of impact on my sternum.
Dodge left, my brain screamed.
But my body, heavy with exhaustion and ale, moved like it was underwater.
Thud.
The kick connected. The air left my lungs in a rush. I flew backward, landing hard in the dirt, the iron sword skittering away.
"Too slow," Marcus said, looming over me. "Your senses are fast, Aaron. But your body is trash. Get up."
The next two weeks were a blur of pain, sweat, and iron.
Marcus didn't train me like a recruit. He trained me like an enemy he was trying to break. He stripped away the arrogance I'd built up sparring with Brian.
"Listen, kid," Marcus grunted one afternoon. We were taking what amounted to a water break, which mostly involved me lying on the ground trying not to vomit while he lectured. "There's a reason you can beat the recruits. They're soft. But if you fight a real soldier, you'll die."
He pointed his sword at me. "Swordsmanship isn't just swinging metal. It's Cultivation. You refine the vessel."
He tapped his own forearm. It sounded like he was tapping wood, not flesh.
"Rank 1 is Copper Skin. It's about weaving the muscle fibers until they're tough enough to turn a blade."
"I know," I panted. "I've seen it."
"You've seen the Initial stage," Marcus corrected. "That's where you barely are. Your skin is just starting to toughen. A sharp knife still cuts you deep. Then comes Mid, then High. By the time you reach Peak Rank 1, your skin is like cured leather. You can take a lash from a whip and not even bleed."
He raised a second finger.
"Rank 2 is Iron Bone," Marcus continued. "That's Ben, Edgar and Elias. Once the skin is full, the Vitality goes deeper. It soaks into the skeleton. Initial Rank 2 means your knuckles don't break when you punch a helmet. Peak Rank 2? You can catch a warhammer on your forearm and only bruise the bone."
"And you?" I asked, wiping grit from my eye.
"Rank 3. Steel Viscera." Marcus tapped his chest. "This is the final stage of Body Refinement. The vitality hardens the organs. Early Rank 3 means you can run for a day without stopping. Peak Rank 3-where I am-means I can take a punch to the liver that would break a buildings wall, and I'd just be annoyed."
He paused, ripping a a piece of dried from his rations and chewing thoughtfully.
"And that's the key, Aaron. Vitality. It's not just fuel. It's the pure life force your stomach distills from what you eat. When you train, you tear the body down. Vitality is the stuff that builds it back up denser."
"And Rank 4? The Captain?"
Marcus's face darkened slightly. His aura flickered- a rare sign of frustration.
"Rank 4 is the Wall. It's the Overflow. When the body is at Peak Rank 3, it's full. Saturated. The Vitality has nowhere else to go, so it floods the gut- the Dantian. It's a spiritual container that acts as a reservoir."
He clenched his fist, the white light around him vibrating but staying contained.
"That condensed vitality becomes Aura. That's when you stop keeping the power inside and start pushing it out. You coat the blade. You extend your reach." He looked at his hands. "I'm close. I can feel the pressure building. But I haven't broken the dam yet."
He looked back at me. "Get up. We're doing formation breaking."
For the rest of the session, Marcus didn't spar one-on-one. He made me fight three recruits at once.
"Don't look at their swords!" He barked as I parried a clumsy strike. "Look at the space between them!"
I focused. My 'Understanding' shifted gears. I stopped looking at the weapons and started looking at the structure.
The recruits were a wall of white mist. But as they moved, the wall cracked.
The one on the left favors his right leg. The one in the middle leaves a gap in the particles under his armpit when he raises his shield.
I saw the geometry of their failure.
I didn't block the incoming strike. I stepped into the gap. I used the hilt of my sword to check the middle recruit's elbow, disrupting his balance. He stumbled into the recruit on the left. The formation collapsed like a house of cards.
"Good," Marcus nodded, a rare smile touching his lips. "You're not strong enough to break the wall, Aaron. So you have to find a loose brick."
The days belonged to the sword, but the nights belonged to the mystery.
Every evening, after my limbs stopped shaking from Marcus's torture, I snuck out to Henry's tent.
"Sit," Henry commanded.
We weren't drinking ale tonight. The atmosphere was serious. Henry sat cross-legged on the ground, his massive Blue Sun rotating slowly within his chest, casting a heavy pressure on the room.
"Marcus is teaching you to harden the body," Henry said, his voice low. "That's the path of the Swordsman. They use pain and repetition to force the body to evolve."
He leaned forward, his eyes sharp. "But that's not what Valen does. And that's not what I do."
"You're Magic Swordsmen," I said.
"Aye. And do you know the difference?"
I shook my head.
"A Swordsman generates power from the inside out. They eat, they train, they turn food into Aura. But a Magic Swordsman?" Henry gestured to the air around us. "We use the world."
He tapped his chest. "We don't just train the body. We scour it. We pull Mana - the energy of the world- into our veins. We use it to burn away the impurities of the muscle and bone. It's faster. It's stronger. But you have to build the engine first."
Henry held up one calloused finger.
"It starts with Red. The Spark," he explained. "This is the combustion stage. It's raw mana, volatile and unstable. It acts like gunpowder in your blood. It gives you explosive bursts of speed and strength, but it burns dirty. You can't sustain it for long, or it'll cook you from the inside out."
He raised a second finger.
"Next is Orange. The Ember. This is where the fire stabilizes. You learn to control the burn. Instead of just exploding, you can shape the mana. This is where you can start to project it just outside your skin-hardening your knuckles for a punch or deflecting a blow. It's about structure."
He raised a third finger, his blue eyes boring into mine.
"Then comes Yellow. The Dawn. The gas becomes liquid. The mana gets dense, heavy. It flows through you like mercury. A Yellow Core Swordsman doesn't just hit you with a sword; they hit you with the weight of a collapsing building. It's no longer just energy; it's mass."
I nodded slowly. Explosion. Shape. Density. It made sense.
"To make a Core, you don't generate it," Henry said. "You take it."
He placed a hand on my shoulder. "Reach out, Aaron. The air is full of it. Don't think. Just feel. Try to pull the warmth from the air into your chest."
I sat there, breathing.
I didn't need to "feel" for a whisper. I was staring at a blizzard.
The tent was filled with drifting white particles. They were raw, unrefined mana. They floated lazily, bumping into me, waiting for a command.
Pull it in, I thought.
I didn't meditate. I simply... inhaled.
I used the 'Understanding' to grab the particles. I visualized them entering my nose, traveling down my throat, and settling into the empty space near my heart.
It wasn't like breathing air. It was like breathing spicy pepper.
Hot.
I coughed, my chest burning.
"Steady," Henry's voice rumbled, sounding surprised. "You found it? Already?"
I didn't answer. I gritted my teeth. I grabbed another mote. Then another. Then a handful.
I pulled the white light into my body. But I didn't just let it sit there. I remembered Henry's explanation of the Red Core. Combustion. Gunpowder.
I forced the burning dust into my meridians-mana pathways. I pushed it into the walls of my heart, using the mana to scour the tissue, to ignite it.
Compact. Ignite. Compact. Ignite.
The pain spiked, sharp and sudden, like a needle piercing my heart.
And then- Snap.
A sound like a twig breaking echoed inside my ribcage.
The burning stopped.
In its place, a warm, rhythmic thrumming began. I "looked" down at my own chest.
There, right in the center of the darkness of my own body, was a light.
It was small. It was jagged. It was barely the size of a marble. But it was there.
A swirling, angry Red Star.
I gasped, falling back onto my hands, sweating profusely. The world felt sharper. My own blood felt hotter, pumping with a new, aggressive rhythm.
Henry leaned forward. The Blue Sun in his chest illuminated his face. He looked at my chest, and though he couldn't see the Red Star, he could feel the shift in the air. He could feel the heat coming off me.
"Well, I'll be damned," Henry whispered.
He clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, rare motes of shock bouncing around him.
"You didn't just sense it. You grabbed it." He shook his head, chuckling softly. "A Red Core on the first try. You're a little monster, aren't you?"
I looked down at my chest, feeling the hum of the magic.
"Congratulations, Aaron," Henry said. "You're officially a Rank 1 Magic Swordsman."
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, panting. "Does this mean I can have a drink now?"
Henry laughed. "No. It means the real work begins."
Henry's smile faded slightly. He poked a finger hard into my chest, right over the new heart.
"But listen to me, Aaron. You have a Red Core. That's an engine meant for a racehorse. But your body?" He squeezed my shoulder, his grip bruising. "Your body is still a pony. You are Initial Rank 1. Your veins are like wet paper."
He leaned in close, the Blue Sun casting long shadows.
"If you try to draw too much power from that Core before you temper your body... you won't cast a spell. You'll blow your own heart out your back. Do you understand? Do not push it."
But the victory of the Red Core was short-lived.
Three days before we were set to leave, reality came crashing down.
I was walking past the command tent when I heard screaming. Not the screaming of a drill sergeant, but the screaming of a mother.
I pushed aside the flap aside and froze.
My mother, Elara, was standing over Valen. Her aura, usually a warm, protective blue, was spiking with jagged violet sparks of fury. She looked like a storm about to break.
Valen sat on his stool, looking smaller than I had ever seen him. His aura seemingly indicating he wanted to defend himself, but he didn't argue.
"He is SIX, Valen! Six!" Elara screamed, her voice cracking. "I don't care what Henry says! I don't care about the Magistrate! You are not taking my baby to hunt a mage!"
"He fights better than the men, Elara," Valen said calmly, though i could see the exhaustion in his particles. "He sees things that we can't."
" I don't care if he fights like a god! He is a child!" She slammed her hand on the table. You promised me we would keep him safe! This isn't safe! This is suicide!"
I stood at the entrance, feeling the weight of the silence that followed. My mother turned, sensing me.
Her aura swirled with a heartbreaking mix of fear and love. She rushed over, dropping to her knees to cup my face. Her hands were trembling.
"Telll him, Aaron," she begged, tears streaming down her face. "Tell him you're scared. Tell him you want to stay with me. Please."
I looked at her. I couldn't see her features, but I could feel the desperate vibration of her soul. She was terrified. Not for herself, but for me.
I looked at Valen. He wasn't looking at me like a father. He was looking at me like a Captain waiting for a soldier to report.
I swallowed hard.
"I want to go, Mom," I lied softly.
Elara froze. Her hands went slack on my cheeks.
"I... I can see things," I whispered to her, leaning in close. "I can see the bad men coming before they get here. If I stay, I can't help. If i go... I can keep Dad safe."
It was a cheap shot. Manipulation 101. But it was the only card I had.
Elara's aura crumpled. The violet anger drained away, replaced by a heavy, weeping sorrow. She pulled me into a hug that squeezed the air out of my lungs. She buried her face in my neck, sobbing quietly.
"You come back," she whispered fiercely into my ear. "If you get a scratch on you, Valen dies. Do you hear me?"
I hugged her back, feeling the Red Core in my chest hum against her warmth.
"Loud and clear."