The sky above the deep woods had shifted into a shade of ominous gray by the time Arata reached the riverbank. The once-clear flow now rushed like a beast, swollen by the rain from the previous night. He crouched, hands scooping cold water to his lips, allowing a rare moment of stillness to sink in.
His clothes, though magically reinforced, bore the signs of battle—rips from claws, dark stains from unknown fluids. The fight against the horned beast had taken more out of him than expected. Not just physically. Emotionally, mentally. The beast had bled like a man, roared like something ancient. Arata couldn't shake the haunting resemblance between the monster's expression and that of a terrified child.
He exhaled slowly.
But he had survived.
Again.
His eyes narrowed at the water's reflection—there was something in them now. Something deeper than the blue irises he had known in his past life. A glint of something arcane. Power was changing him.
And yet, power was not enough.
He needed knowledge.
Information.
If there were more monsters like the one he fought, he couldn't rely on raw instinct alone. He needed magic, real magic, not just the crude battle spells and healing pulses he had conjured from desperation.
He rose to his feet and looked at the jagged map he had drawn from memory and guesswork. According to the clues he'd gathered from the ruined stone slab two nights ago, a remnant from some forgotten civilization, a village named Rindale should be no more than a day's walk west.
But something else had caught his attention that night.
The slab had pulsed when he touched it. Not just with magic. With memory.
Or something close to it.
"He who bears the mark shall hear the stone's whisper."
It wasn't written in any language he'd ever seen. And yet... he'd understood it.
That phrase had burned itself into his consciousness like a brand.
That night, when he'd touched the carved symbols, a fragment of knowledge had entered him. He had felt his mana react. Felt a new energy pattern etch itself into his soul.
A Spell Blueprint. One not of his creation.
He hadn't been able to decipher it yet, but it was there. Dormant. Sleeping. Waiting.
"Who carved that message?" he murmured. "And how did it get into my mind?"
No answer came from the woods. Only birdsong and the rustling of trees.
Arata took one last drink, shouldered his pack, and turned toward the west.
By sunset, he stood before a cracked archway partially swallowed by foliage. It was ancient—clearly far older than the village ruins he had seen before. The vines wrapped around it glowed faintly as the moonlight poured through the forest canopy.
Something about it... called to him.
And then he heard it.
A whisper.
No more than a breath.
Yet it was as clear as thought.
"Enter, Heir of Dual Flame."
His breath caught.
"What?"
Again, nothing. Just wind. A trick of his exhausted mind?
But he felt his mana pulse, react, thrum against the carved stones.
"Dual Flame...?"
He had never heard that term before.
He hesitated for only a moment, then stepped beneath the archway.
Immediately, the air changed.
He could feel layers of mana in the space around him. Like overlapping veils, woven tightly into the very soil. This wasn't just a ruin.
It was a sanctum.
The trees here grew unnaturally straight. The grass was untouched, not even insects buzzed in the quiet.
And in the center—an altar.
On it sat a stone.
Small.
Unassuming.
And yet...
It called to him.
He stepped closer. The stone glowed faintly. Blue and red light flickered across its surface. Fire and frost. Dual flame.
The name echoed again inside his skull.
He reached out.
Touched it.
And everything changed.
He was falling.
No.
Floating.
Darkness spun around him, then light, then neither. He couldn't feel his body. Only pressure. Like a force rearranging him, peeling back his mind layer by layer.
"You are not of this world."
A voice. Deep. Neither male nor female.
"Yet you hold its ancient key."
Images flashed—dragons flying over oceans of fire, men wielding swords of pure mana, a kingdom shattering under a purple sky.
A world-ending war.
Then, peace.
Then, silence.
"The world has forgotten us. But you... you will awaken what once was lost."
Arata wanted to speak, but no sound came. Only thought.
Why me?
"Because you are both less... and more than what you appear to be."
A blazing symbol seared across his vision—interlocking rings of fire and ice. And then, abruptly, it all stopped.
He woke gasping, lying beside the altar.
The stone was gone.
No.
It had melted into his palm.
He pulled back his glove and stared.
There, on his skin, a sigil. Red and blue. Pulsing softly.
And in his mind...
A complete spell.
Not just a blueprint.
A full, personalized magic construct. The runes were unlike anything he'd ever seen. The complexity was terrifying, but the essence was elegant. Two opposite elements converging at once.
Spell Gained: Crimson-Frost Lance
He blinked, stunned.
A Tier-3 composite spell.
The kind only Archmages could cast.
And he understood it.
Instinctively.
It wasn't just power—it was like the spell had grown with him. Rooted in his very mana flow.
His stomach twisted.
This was beyond rare. Beyond logic.
And then a realization dawned on him.
He was changing. Fast.
Too fast.
Back at his campfire, Arata finally allowed himself to breathe.
The fire flickered gently.
The whispering stone—if that's what it had been—had left a mark not just on his skin, but on his soul.
He was no longer just a man who had reincarnated into a world of magic.
He was becoming something else.
Someone else.
And he wasn't sure whether that excited or terrified him.
Far to the north, beneath a storm-battered keep, a young woman stood before a mirror. Her silver hair shimmered with starlight, and her eyes—amber like molten glass—narrowed.
She turned to her attendant.
"You said he crossed the sanctum?"
The older man nodded. "Yes, Lady Sylra. The sigil confirmed it. A Dual Flame has awakened."
Her lips curved into a slow smile.
"At last," she whispered. "The one we've waited for."