The smell of burning parchment was the last thing Elias remembered.
It wasn't the heroic scent of a dragon's breath or the ozone tang of a high-tier lightning spell. It was just dusty, dry paper curling into black flakes. The Great Library of Aethelgard was burning, and Elias, a thirty-year-old assistant archivist with zero mana capacity and a bad back, was dying under a fallen bookshelf.
Pathetic, he thought, the air leaving his crushed lungs in a wheezing whistle. I spent my entire life memorizing the theory of magic. I know the thirteen geometric variants of a Fireball. I know the chant required to suppress a Demon Lord. And here I am, being charbroiled like a cheap steak because I couldn't cast a simple Levitate to lift a piece of wood.
Heat licked at his face. The smoke was a suffocating blanket. Above him, the stained-glass ceiling shattered, raining colorful shards of death. He saw the cover of the book he had been trying to save—The Theory of Void and Entropy. A forbidden text. He hadn't even opened it yet.
If I had another chance, Elias thought, his vision tunneling into darkness. Just one more chance. I wouldn't be the scholar in the shadows. I wouldn't be the coward who watched the heroes from the sidelines. I would burn brighter than this damn fire.
The darkness swallowed him.
Then, the silence broke.
It wasn't a choir of angels. It was a sound like a grand clock tower grinding its gears, mechanical and cold, echoing inside his skull.
[Synchronization Complete.]
[Soul Compatibility: 98.7%.]
[Error: Mana Circuits Atrophied. Compensating with Soul Energy.]
[Welcome, Host. The Forbidden Arcanum System is online.]
Kiril Drakenhof-Ashenwald woke up tasting copper and snow.
The transition from burning to freezing was so violent his body spasmed, arching off the cold stone floor. He tried to scream, but his throat was constricted, swollen and raw. Instead of a scream, a pathetic, wet gurgle escaped his lips.
"Look at him. He's actually crying."
The voice was haughty, dripping with the specific kind of aristocratic disdain that usually preceded a boot to the ribs.
Kiril—no, Elias—forced his eyes open. The world was a blur of grays and whites. He wasn't in a library. He was outside, kneeling in slushy, gray mud. The architecture looming around him was severe and gothic spires of black stone piercing a perpetually overcast sky. It looked like a vampire's fever dream.
He looked down at his hands. They were pale, almost translucent, and trembling. They were also small. These weren't the ink-stained hands of a thirty-year-old archivist. These were the hands of a teenager.
Reincarnation? his mind raced, the shock dampened by a strange, icy calm that washed over his brain. Isekai? Is that what this is?
A sharp pain exploded in his side.
Kiril collapsed into the mud, clutching his ribs. He rolled over to see three figures standing over him. They wore high-collared military uniforms, midnight blue with silver trim the attire of noble cadets.
The leader, a boy with slicked-back blonde hair and eyes like chips of flint, lowered his leg. His boot was covered in mud—mud that was now on Kiril's uniform.
"Did you hear me, Ashenblood?" the blonde boy sneered. "I said, get up. The entrance exam for the Imperial Arcanum Academy is in three days. If you die here in the courtyard, House Strykov will be fined for littering."
Ashenblood?
The name triggered a headache that felt like a spike being driven through his frontal lobe. Memories that weren't his flooded in.
Kiril Drakenhof-Ashenwald. 16 years old. Scion of the Fallen House Ashenblood. Once the executioners of the Valdroska Empire, now political pariahs. Father dead. Mother exiled. Kiril is the last heir. Mana aptitude: F-Rank. Known colloquially as ' The Ghost of the Academy'. Bullied. Isolated. Weak.
And this boy kicking him? Viktor Strykov. Heir to a rising military house that wanted the Ashenblood lands.
Great, Kiril thought, wiping blood from his lip. I didn't just get reincarnated. I got reincarnated into the tragic backstory character who dies in the prologue to motivate the protagonist. I'm the trash mob.
"He's not moving, Lord Viktor," one of the lackeys snickered, a portly boy holding a wooden practice staff. "Maybe you finally cracked his mana core. Not that there was much there to crack."
Viktor laughed, a cruel, barking sound. He raised his hand. The air around his palm distorted, shimmering with heat. A small, condensed ball of fire materialized, rotating rapidly.
Tier 1 Spell: Ignis Dart, Kiril's mind supplied instantly. Poor compression. Wasteful mana leakage at the peripheral edges. He's prioritizing visual flair over thermal efficiency.
The analysis was automatic, born of a lifetime of reading theory. But realizing the flaw didn't change the fact that Kiril had no way to stop it.
"Let's warm him up," Viktor grinned. "Ashenbloods are supposed to be resistant to magic, right? Let's test that ancient bloodline."
He flicked his wrist.
The fireball hissed through the air.
Kiril flinched, throwing his hands up in a futile gesture of defense. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the burn.
[Alert: Hostile Magic Detected.]
[System Protocol: Survival Instinct Activated.]
[Analyzing Spell Structure... Tier 1 Thermal Projection.]
[Countermeasure: Absorption.]
Time seemed to slow. The air turned viscous.
Kiril opened his eyes. Floating in front of his face was a semi-transparent blue window, glowing with a soft, ethereal light. Text scrolled across it rapidly.
[Quest Generated: The First Spark]
[Objective: Survive Viktor Strykov's assault without losing consciousness.]
[Reward: System Full Unlock + Novice Mana Breathing Technique.]
[Failure Penalty: Death.]
Subtle, Kiril thought dryly.
The fireball was inches from his face. He didn't think; he just reacted, guided by a force that felt like cold water running through his veins. He didn't try to block the fire. He reached out with his will, visualizing the fire not as a threat, but as energy. Just equations. Just mana.
Deconstruct, he commanded silently.
His pale hand made contact with the flames.
It didn't burn.
For a split second, the fire flared green, then gray. It swirled around his fingers like water going down a drain, sucked into his palm. The heat vanished, replaced by a sudden, sickening jolt of energy that shot up his arm and settled in his chest.
[Mana Absorbed: +5 Points.]
[Warning: Vessel Capacity Exceeded. Venting recommended.]
Silence descended on the courtyard.
Viktor Strykov stood frozen, his hand still extended, his mouth slightly open. The two lackeys looked like they'd seen a ghost.
Kiril stared at his own hand. Smoke curled from his fingertips, but the skin was unmarred. It was cold. Everything was so cold.
"What..." Viktor stammered, his composure cracking. "What did you do? That was a direct hit. You... you're a Null! You can't cast Shield spells!"
Kiril slowly pushed himself up from the mud. His body screamed in protest—bruised ribs, a likely concussion, malnutrition—but the surge of stolen mana was acting like a crude adrenaline shot. He stood straighter than the old Kiril ever had.
He looked Viktor in the eye. The timid, cowed gaze of the previous owner was gone. In its place was the sharp, calculating look of a man who had died once and found the experience highly overrated.
"Your compression is sloppy, Strykov," Kiril rasped, his voice rough but steady. "You're bleeding mana from the dorsal weave. If you cast that in a real duel, you'd be dead before the incantation finished."
Viktor's face turned a shade of crimson that matched the Ashenblood banner. "You dare lecture me? You trash! You mana-less freak!"
Viktor reached for the saber at his hip—a duel-grade magitech blade.
Okay, pushed him too far, Kiril noted, his heart hammering against his ribs. Magic I can maybe eat. Cold steel? That's going to kill me.
[Alert: Threat Level Increased.]
[Recommendation: Flee.]
"Enough."
The command cracked through the air like a whip.
The temperature in the courtyard dropped ten degrees in an instant. Frost bloomed rapidly across the mud, creeping up Viktor's boots.
A woman stepped out from the shadows of the academy archway. She was tall, wearing the silver-and-white robes of the Imperial Faculty. Her hair was tied in a severe bun, and her eyes were glowing with a faint, blue luminescence.
Magister Vanya. The Instructor of Evocation.
Viktor froze, his hand hovering over his sword hilt. He snapped to attention immediately, the fear in his eyes genuine. "Magister! I—we were just—"
"Sparring?" Vanya suggested, her voice dangerously soft. She walked forward, the snow crunching beneath her heels. She glanced at the bruised Kiril, then at the smoking mud where the fireball had vanished. "It looked more like an execution, Cadet Strykov. Unauthorized use of offensive magic outside the dueling rings is a Class B violation. Five demerits."
"But—"
"Ten demerits," Vanya cut him off, her eyes narrowing. "Leave. Now."
Viktor shot a look of pure venom at Kiril. "This isn't over, Ashenblood," he hissed. " The Selection is in three days. You won't have a teacher to hide behind in the Wilds."
He spun on his heel and marched away, his lackeys scrambling to follow.
Kiril let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and slumped against the cold stone wall. His legs felt like jelly.
Magister Vanya watched the bullies leave, then turned her gaze to Kiril. It was a dissecting look, stripping him down to his soul.
"Kiril Drakenhof-Ashenwald," she said. It wasn't a question. "You absorbed that spell."
Kiril swallowed. He had to be careful. In the Valdroska Empire, strange magic got you dissected in a lab, not praised. "I... I don't know what happened, Magister. I just put my hand up."
Vanya studied him for a long moment. "The Ashenblood line has been dormant for fifty years. Some say it's cursed. Others say it's simply... empty." She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Be careful, boy. The Academy tolerates weakness, but it destroys anomalies. Fix your uniform."
She turned and swept away, the frost receding with her.
Kiril waited until she was gone before sliding down the wall to sit in the slush.
Safe. For now.
[Quest Complete: The First Spark.]
[Rewards Distributed.]
A tingling sensation washed over his brain. It felt like a library organizing itself—shelves sliding into place, books opening.
[Status Window Unlocked]
Name: Kiril Drakenhof-Ashenwald
Race: Human (Ashenblood Lineage)
Class: None (Civilian)
Rank: F (Mana Capacity)
Stats:
Strength: 4 (Malnourished)Agility: 6Vitality: 5Intelligence: 18 (Exceptional - Soul Carryover)Spirit: 22 (Abnormal - Two Souls Merged)Mana: 10/100 (Contaminated)
Unique Trait:
[Ashen Conduit (Locked)]: The ability to convert external mana into raw entropy. Currently limited to Tier 1 spells. Warning: Excessive use leads to Mana Poisoning.
Kiril stared at the glowing blue screen floating in the gloomy twilight.
Intelligence 18, he noted with a grim smile. Average adult is 10. At least my hours in the archives weren't wasted. But that Strength... I'm a twig.
He tapped the [Ashen Conduit] text.
Entropy. Not Fire, not Ice, not Lightning. I destroy magic.
It was the ultimate counter-mage ability. In a world governed by elemental hierarchy, where nobles measured their worth by how big of an explosion they could make, Kiril was a walking nullification field.
But he was weak. Pathetically weak.
He looked up at the sky. The twin moons of Valdroska were beginning to rise—one pale white, the other a bruised purple.
Three days until the Entrance Exam. The "Selection."
In the game—or novel, or whatever this world was—the Selection was a brutal survival exercise in the monster-infested forest surrounding the Academy. It was where the noble heirs thinned the herd of commoners and weaker houses.
Viktor Strykov would be hunting him. And he wasn't the only one. The Ashenblood name carried a legacy of blood and terror that the other High Houses hadn't forgotten. Kiril was a target just by existing.
I died once because I was powerless, Kiril thought, clenching his small, pale fist. The gray residue of the absorbed fireball swirled faintly around his knuckles. I died holding a book I couldn't read.
He pushed himself to his feet. The pain in his ribs was sharp, grounding.
This time, I'm not just reading the book. I'm writing it.
[New Quest Available: The Forbidden Legacy]
[Objective: Locate the hidden Ashenblood Vault within the Academy foundations before the Selection begins.]
[Hint: "Where the light of the empire fades, the ash begins."]
[Time Limit: 72 Hours.]
[Accept?]
Kiril smirked, a jagged, unfamiliar expression on his boyish face.
"Accept."
The dormitory of the 'Lesser Nobility' was a drafty, stone barracks that smelled of wet wool and unwashed bodies. It was a far cry from the opulent spires where the likes of House Strykov or House Von Rothvaal slept.
Kiril navigated the hallways with his head down, ignoring the glares and the whispers.
"Is that the Ghost?"
"Heard Strykov used him for target practice."
"Why doesn't he just drop out? It's embarrassing."
Kiril ignored them. He was busy mapping the building in his head, cross-referencing it with the fragmented memories of the original Kiril.
His room was at the end of the hall—a closet, really. A single cot, a desk with a wobbly leg, and a narrow window overlooking the waste disposal chutes.
He locked the door and collapsed onto the bed.
He needed a plan.
Condition: Critical.
Assets: High intelligence, a System that eats magic, and a sinister reputation I haven't earned yet.
Threats: Everyone.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the [Novice Mana Breathing Technique] the System had rewarded him with.
Knowledge flooded his mind. It wasn't the standard breathing method taught in the Empire, which focused on drawing mana from the atmosphere (the "Aether"). This technique was... darker.
[Method: Void Respiration]
[Instruction: Do not inhale the light. Inhale the shadow between the light. The waste mana. The decay.]
It's a scavenging technique, Kiril realized. It recycles the dirty mana other mages discard.
It was perfect for him.
He sat up, crossed his legs, and began to breathe.
At first, nothing happened. Then, he felt it. The ambient mana in the room—the residue of spells cast by students in the other rooms, the enchantment on the lights, the very magic that held the castle together.
He pulled at the frayed edges of that energy.
The room darkened. The magitech lamp on his desk flickered and died. The temperature plummeted.
A black, oily mist began to seep from his pores. It wasn't evil; it was just... empty. It was the color of a burned library.
[Mana +1]
[Mana +1]
[Mana +1]
He was drinking the room dry.
Suddenly, a sharp ping from the System broke his concentration.
[Alert: Anomaly Detected in Inventory.]
Kiril frowned. Inventory? I don't have an inventory.
He opened the System interface. Under the [Items] tab, there was a single entry.
[Item: The Ashen Key (Dormant)]
[Description: A heavy iron key worn around the host's neck. Passed down through generations. It is cold to the touch.]
Kiril's hand went to his chest. Under his shirt, resting against his sternum, was a dull, black iron key on a leather thong. He had assumed it was just a keepsake. The original Kiril had worn it since birth, told by his mother never to take it off.
He pulled it out. As soon as the air hit the metal, the key pulsed.
Not a heartbeat. A throb of hunger.
The shadows in the room seemed to bend toward it.
[System Analysis: Key matches signature of Quest Objective "The Forbidden Legacy".]
[Proximity Alert: The Vault is near.]
Kiril stared at the key, then at the floorboards beneath his feet. The System was indicating down.
The Academy is built on ruins, Kiril remembered from his history books (both past and present). The Valdroska Empire conquered the Old Kingdoms to build this place.
And the Ashenbloods were the ones who did the conquering.
He heard a noise outside his door. A scratch.
Kiril froze. He extinguished his mana flow instantly, plunging the room into total darkness.
"Kiril..."
A voice whispered through the keyhole. It wasn't Strykov. It was deeper, raspy, like dry leaves skittering on pavement.
"We know you woke up, little heir."
Kiril's blood ran cold. He scrambled off the bed, backing against the window.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice steady despite his fear.
"Friends of the Ash," the voice hissed. "Open the door. The Shadow Council sends its regards."
Shadow Council? That wasn't in the memories. That sounded like end-game conspiracy nonsense.
[Warning: High-Level Threat Detected outside door.]
[Threat Level: Skull.]
[Combat Probability: 0%.]
"I'm tired," Kiril lied. "Come back in the morning."
A low chuckle vibrated through the wood. The doorknob began to turn. The lock clicked—not unlocked by a key, but dissolved by acid. Green smoke curled from the mechanism.
Kiril looked at the window. It was a three-story drop into a garbage heap.
System, can I survive a three-story fall with 5 Vitality?
[Calculation: 40% chance of death. 60% chance of crippling injury.]
Better odds than the Skull-level threat at the door.
The door creaked open.
Kiril didn't hesitate. He grabbed the heavy iron lamp from his desk and hurled it at the opening door, shattering it against the frame to create a distraction.
"Try the window!" he shouted—to no one—and then threw himself through the glass.
Ideally, he would have tucked and rolled. Instead, he flailed.
The cold night air rushed past him. Glass shards twinkled around him like diamonds.
As he fell, the iron key around his neck flared with an intense, gray light.
[Emergency Protocol: Featherfall (Corrupted) Activated.]
[Cost: 20 Mana.]
His descent slowed abruptly, jerking him in mid-air. He didn't float down gracefully; he fell like a stone that had suddenly decided to be a leaf.
He crashed into the pile of refuse below—mostly alchemy byproducts and food waste. It was soft, disgusting, and saved his life.
Kiril groaned, rolling out of the trash. He looked up.
A silhouette stood in his shattered window, backlit by the hallway light. It looked down, paused, and then melted away into the shadows.
They weren't pursuing. Not yet.
Kiril lay in the filth, panting, his heart racing like a trapped bird.
He clutched the key in his hand.
Three days until the exam, he thought hysterically. And I have assassins in the dorms, a rival who shoots fireballs, and a System that runs on entropy.
He wiped a banana peel off his shoulder and stood up, his eyes glowing with a faint, gray light.
Welcome to the academy, Kiril. Try not to die.