The young boy lay motionless upon the wide oak bed, his small frame almost swallowed by the heavy linens and embroidered blankets meant for nobility.
His skin was pale—too pale. A faint chill clung to his flesh despite the roaring hearth at the far end of the chamber. The room itself was large, befitting a duke's son, its stone walls adorned with banners bearing the sigil of House Ainsworth: a silver stag upon a field of deep blue. Candles burned low, their flames flickering uneasily, as though aware that death had taken residence within the room.
Standing beside the bed was a slender man in muted gray robes.
His name was Jan.
Jan was a healer—one of the few permitted within the inner halls of the ducal castle. His light-colored hair was thin and sparse, pulled back loosely, and dark circles hung beneath tired eyes that had seen too many broken bodies and too many futile prayers.
Two fingers rested gently against the boy's neck.
One breath passed.
Then another.
Nothing.
Jan closed his eyes.
"He's gone," he said quietly.
The words carried no drama, no shock—only a weary resignation born of experience. He withdrew his hand and straightened, letting out a slow breath through his nose.
"If I had arrived even a minute earlier…" Jan murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "This could have been avoided."
But time did not bend for regret.
Around the room stood several servants, their backs rigid, eyes lowered. None dared speak. The dead boy before them was no common child—he was Cassian Ainsworth, fourth son of the Grand Duke of Scotland. Even in death, his name carried weight.
Jan turned to them, his expression already shifting into professional detachment.
"Go," he said. "Inform His Grace."
The servants stiffened.
"Tell Duke Ainsworth that his son is dead."
A faint tremor ran through one of the younger servants, but all bowed deeply in obedience. One stepped forward, turned, and reached for the chamber door.
His hand had barely brushed the handle—
When the corpse twitched.
It was small at first. Barely noticeable. A subtle jerk of the fingers.
Then the body convulsed violently.
The boy's back arched off the bed as a ragged scream tore from his throat—raw, hoarse, and filled with agony far beyond what a living body should be able to express. His eyes flew open, pupils dilated wildly, his fingers clawing into the sheets as if trying to anchor himself to reality.
The servants cried out and stumbled backward.
Jan's breath caught in his throat.
"No—this is—"
Before he could finish, before he could cast even the simplest stabilizing spell, the impossible began to unfold before his eyes.
The shattered bones within the boy's body shifted.
There was an audible crunch as fractured ribs slid back into alignment, vertebrae snapping cleanly into place. Torn muscle fibers rewove themselves, sinew knitting together with terrifying precision. Open wounds sealed shut as blood was drawn back beneath the skin, leaving nothing behind but faint, vanishing scars.
Mana flooded the room.
Not the thin, wavering flow of a normal healing spell—but something vast, dense, and overwhelming. It pressed against Jan's senses like a physical force, making his skin prickle and his heart pound.
This was not external healing.
There was no incantation. No guiding hand.
The body was repairing itself.
The servants collapsed to their knees, some whispering prayers, others frozen in sheer terror. Jan staggered back a step, his healer's instincts screaming at him that what he was witnessing violated every rule he understood.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the healing stopped.
The mana receded.
Silence reclaimed the chamber.
The boy lay still once more, chest rising and falling in a steady, natural rhythm. His face was calm, almost peaceful, as though he had simply awakened from a deep sleep.
Jan stared at him for a long moment, his mind racing.
Finally, he stepped forward, lowered himself into a deep bow, and spoke with reverence carefully layered over disbelief.
"Welcome back," he said.
"Lord Cassian."
But the one who lay upon that bed was not Cassian Ainsworth.
Not truly.
Behind those reopened eyes was not a frightened fourteen-year-old noble boy—but a man. A grown man. A scientist. An engineer.
A man who had lived in another world.
So this is what comes after death, he thought distantly.
His last memory was of crushing darkness—of concrete and steel collapsing during an earthquake, of pain flaring briefly before everything went silent. He had expected oblivion.
Instead, he had awakened here.
Stone walls. Firelight. Medieval furnishings. A world that felt familiar and alien all at once.
This isn't Earth, he realized calmly. Or at least… not my Earth.
Before he could analyze further, pain exploded behind his eyes.
Memories—foreign, invasive—flooded into his consciousness.
A childhood spent in vast, echoing halls.
Cold stares from armored brothers who trained with sword and spell while he was left behind. Tutors who spoke politely but never lingered. Servants who bowed deeply but avoided eye contact.
Whispers followed him wherever he went.
"What a pity…"
"The son of the great Duke Ainsworth…"
"…awakening as a healer."
Another memory surfaced, sharper than the rest.
A voice filled with fury and contempt.
"Haven't you done enough?"
"You killed our mother by your birth."
"And now you disgrace us further by awakening as a healer of all things."
The boy's shame had been suffocating.
In a house of warriors—where strength was measured in destruction and conquest—healing was seen as weakness. A tool. A support role unworthy of pride.
The memories rushed onward, unstoppable.
Loneliness. Isolation. The weight of expectation twisted into disdain.
And finally—
The cold night air.
The stone battlements beneath trembling hands.
The sickening drop as the world vanished beneath his feet.
The memories ended.
The man in the boy's body opened his eyes again, this time without screaming.
He didn't jump because he was weak, the man realized. He jumped because this world had already killed him.
Cassian Ainsworth—the original—had been crushed by a system that valued only violence and power.
The man felt no guilt.
Only clarity.
Slowly, deliberately, he flexed his fingers. His movements were smooth. Precise. Perfectly responsive. His body—once shattered beyond survival—was now flawless.
Beneath the calm surface of his flesh, something stirred.
Mana.
Not the thin trickle described in the memories of lesser healers, but a vast internal reservoir, deep and heavy, responding effortlessly to his intent.
An engineer's mind engaged instinctively.
Healing isn't divine, he thought. It's a repair function.
A system.
And every system could be optimized.
Healing restored tissue. Reinforced structure. Corrected damage. It did not simply return the body to its original state—it improved it to functional stability.
Which meant…
This world doesn't understand what healing truly is.
If healers were treated as tools, it was not because they were weak—but because the world was ignorant.
Cassian Ainsworth slowly sat up in bed, ignoring the startled gasps around him.
Healers were despised by warriors. Used by nobles. Worshipped by commoners.
All contradictions.
All inefficiencies.
And inefficiencies demanded correction.
The boy had died believing himself a disgrace.
The man who remained would become something else entirely.
Not a hero.
Not a savior.
But an architect of flesh, bone, and society itself.
By any means necessary.