Five Years Later
The training hall of Ravenhold was sealed.
Layers of silencing wards and anti-scrying barriers hummed against the stone walls. In the centre of the room, five-year-old Kael sat cross-legged, his small face pale and beaded with sweat.
He wasn't alone.
To his left stood Grandfather Arthur, his massive arms crossed, his beard bristling with frustration. To his right stood Grandmother Helena, holding a diagram of human mana circuits, her sharp eyes scanning Kael's trembling form.
And sitting against the far wall, watching with a mixture of boredom and intensity, was Kael's elder sister, Aurelia.
At ten years old, Aurelia was already terrifying. She had the Raven black hair and the family's piercing Silver eyes, but unlike Kael, her mana coiled around her like a whip. She was the First Daughter, a prodigy who had awakened at age eight.
"It's not working," Helena said, throwing the diagram onto a floating table. "His meridians are perfect. His focus is perfect. But every time he gathers mana, the parasite swallows it before it can settle in his core."
"We need to force it," Arthur grunted. "Flood him with high-density mana crystals. Overload the drain."
"You'll kill him, you old fool," Helena snapped. "The boy isn't a cannon; he's a child. If we force more mana into a clogged pipe, the pipe bursts."
Aurelia stepped forward, her voice calm. "Maybe we should just cut the parasite out?"
"If you cut it out," Kael wheezed, opening one eye, "I die. Our souls are fused."
"Inconvenient," Aurelia noted, though she walked over and wiped the sweat from Kael's forehead with a surprising gentleness.
Suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped.
The shadows behind Kael stretched, defying the light from the mana lamps. They pooled together, rising like black smoke until they formed the vague outline of a dragon's head.
"The girl is right. It is inconvenient," a voice rasped.
Arthur and Helena didn't flinch. They were Emperors. They simply shifted their stances, their auras flaring to protect Aurelia and Kael.
"Put away your killing intent," the shadow hissed. "If I wanted the boy dead, he would be dead. We have a problem. I am hungry, and your primitive human cultivation techniques are like trying to fill an ocean with a spoon."
Arthur glared at the shadow. "You must be the 'Guest' inside my grandson."
"I am Klaus," the dragon replied, his voice echoing in their minds. "And I am tired of starving. The boy is failing because he is trying to breathe like a human while housing a Dragon's soul. It is... incompatible."
Helena stepped forward, her eyes narrowing analytically. "Incompatible? Explain."
"Humans filter mana," Klaus explained, the shadow swirling around Kael. "You pull it in, clean it, circulate it, and store it. It is gentle. It is slow."
Klaus's glowing purple eyes narrowed.
"Dragons do not filter. We devour. We take the raw chaos of the world and burn it inside our furnace. The boy needs to stop filtering. He needs to burn."
Helena looked at Arthur, then back at the Dragon. The gears in her mind were turning. She was a grandmaster of magical theory.
"If he burns raw mana without a Dragon's heart," Helena said slowly, "his blood will boil."
"Not if we reinforce his meridians with my aura while he circulates it with your control," Klaus countered. "A hybrid cycle. Human structure. Dragon engine."
Silence descended on the room.
It was madness. A technique created by an Ancient Dragon and two Human Emperors? It defied every law of magic in the Empire.
"Show me," Helena commanded.
For the next ten hours, the room became a laboratory of impossible magic.
Helena drew complex rune structures in the air. Klaus corrected them, growling about "inefficient mana flow." Arthur tested the pressure on Kael's body, acting as the safety valve.
Aurelia watched from the corner, her eyes wide. She was witnessing history.
"Lower the intake valve on the heart," Helena ordered. "He needs to cycle it three times before it hits the core."
"Too slow!" Klaus argued. "Direct injection. I will shield the heart."
"If you miss, he dies!"
"I never miss."
"You died four hundred years ago!"
"That was a tactical error!"
"Quiet!" Arthur said. "It's ready. Kael, assume the position."
Kael straightened his back. He was exhausted, but his eyes were burning with focus. He trusted his family. He trusted Klaus.
"Begin," Aleric's voice came from the doorway. He had been watching silently for the last hour.
Kael closed his eyes.
He didn't pull the mana gently this time. He visualised his chest as a furnace. He visualised Klaus's jaws snapping open.
Inhale.
The mana in the room didn't flow; it rushed. The silencing wards shuddered.
"Burn it," Klaus commanded.
Kael didn't filter the energy. He let the raw, jagged mana slam into his core. It hurt. It felt like swallowing fire. But before it could tear him apart, Helena's technique kicked in a complex lattice of mana control that guided the fire into a perfect spiral.
Exhale.
Grey smoke poured from Kael's mouth.
"He... he's retaining it," Aurelia whispered.
For the first time in five years, the mana didn't vanish. The "Leaking Bucket" had been sealed. The Dragon ate his share, yes, but the surplus? The surplus was being hammered into Kael's bones, dense and heavy as lead.
[Rank Up: E III-Rank]
The pressure in the room stabilised.
Kael opened his eyes. They were no longer just violet. For a split second, the pupils were vertical slits.
"It worked," Kael breathed. He felt heavy. Strong.
Helena slumped against the table, wiping sweat from her brow. She looked at the shadow of the dragon with a newfound respect.
"We need a name for it," Helena panted. "This isn't the Raven Family breathing technique anymore."
Arthur looked at the smoke still drifting from his grandson's lips. He looked at the Dragon fading back into Kael's chest.
"The World-Eater Technique?" Arthur suggested.
"Too dramatic," Aleric said, stepping into the light. "And too obvious. If anyone finds out he uses Dragon techniques, the Outer God Church will hunt him down."
Klaus's voice drifted out one last time, sounding sleepy and satisfied.
"The Star-Breathing Sutra. It sounds... poetic. And it fits. We do not just breathe air, little humans. We breathe the sky."
"Star-Breathing," Kael tested the word. "I like it."
Aleric nodded. He looked at his Second Son—the boy who had been 'cursed' with a parasite, now wielding a technique forged by the strongest beings of two eras.
"Two years until the Awakening," Aleric said. "Aurelia, train with him. He needs to learn how to hide that heavy mana, or he'll crush the testing crystal."
Aurelia grinned, cracking her knuckles. "With pleasure, Father."