I decided to start with the basics.
Not aura. Not cores. Not dreams too big to hold.
Swordsmanship.
I didn't know how to channel Aura. I couldn't feel Mana or Ether or anything else people spoke about in hushed, reverent tones. But a sword—steel or wood—was honest. It obeyed weight, balance, repetition. It didn't care who you were or where you came from.
And I didn't need permission to swing one.
I wasn't a craftsman. I didn't have tools worth naming. What I had was a piece of scrap wood I scavenged from behind a collapsed storage shed—warped, splintered, barely straight. I shaved it down slowly with a dull knife until my fingers blistered and bled. The result was laughable by any real standard.
Uneven. Too light. Off-balance.
But it was mine.
Every morning, before the sun crawled its way over the slums and Ignis shook itself awake, I slipped out of the orphanage. I avoided the main streets and followed narrow paths between ruined buildings until I reached a forgotten stretch of ground where no one bothered to go.
There, surrounded by cracked stone and weeds that refused to die, I trained.
I swung the wooden sword again and again until my arms screamed. Not wildly—never wildly—but with intention. Basic cuts. Repetition. Forward step, downward strike. Reset. Repeat.
Over and over.
Sweat soaked through my shirt. My hands burned. My breath came ragged and uneven, but I kept going. There was a strange quiet in it—a moment where the filth, the noise, the shouting of Okrith faded away.
When I held the blade, I could pretend.
Pretend the world was simpler. Pretend effort mattered more than birth. Pretend the sword and I were one.
At least… that's what I told myself.
Weeks passed like that.
The routine hardened into habit. My body adjusted; my mind sharpened. I could feel when a swing was wrong, when my balance slipped, when my stance collapsed under itself. I corrected those mistakes quietly, obsessively, as if each adjustment shaved away a piece of the weakness I hated.
Then reality reminded me where I stood.
On my three-hundredth swing that morning, my arms trembling and lungs burning, the sword jerked.
A sharp crack tore through the air.
The sound was wrong—too clean, too final. I stopped mid-motion as a thin fracture crawled along the length of the blade, splitting the wood like a snapped bone.
I stared at it.
My breath came heavy. Sweat dripped from my chin and darkened the dirt below.
"…Great."
Even the sword I made couldn't withstand me.
I lowered it slowly. The blade sagged under its own damage, mocking the idea that it had ever been anything more than pretend.
It was a terrible imitation anyway.
That's when I heard it.
A heavy thud behind me.
Footsteps.
Not quick. Not careless.
Each step pressed into the earth with undeniable weight.
"Your stance is worse than a toddler's."
I froze.
That wasn't a brat from the orphanage. Not a drunk wandering the alleys at dawn.
This voice carried authority—earned, not demanded.
I turned.
A man stood near the remains of a crumbling building, arms crossed, posture relaxed in a way that screamed confidence. He wore silver armor engraved with a lion crest, polished so clean it seemed to reject the dirt around it. Even in the dim morning light, it gleamed.
A knight.
A Lionhearth knight.
My heart stuttered.
This was Ignis—not Lionhearth territory. Knights like him had no reason to be here.
So why was he here?
Let alone watching me?
He stepped forward, eyes raking over me with clinical disinterest, like one might examine a broken tool.
"If you swing like that," he said evenly, "a real opponent would cut you in two before your first step."
I swallowed hard, tightening my grip around the cracked sword. Splinters bit into my palm, but I didn't loosen my hold.
Hearing the truth spoken aloud hurt more than I expected.
He sighed.
"And that weapon…" His gaze dropped to the blade. "…gods, boy. What are you even doing?"
There was no cruelty in his voice—but no kindness either. His expression hovered somewhere between disgust and something almost resembling disappointment.
I opened my mouth—
"OI! Look at this!"
The shout shattered the moment.
Perfect.
Three older boys emerged from behind a ruined wall—Ray, Yuen, and Zen. Faces I knew. Smirks I hated. Their cores had already awakened; faint flickers of life force crawled around their fists and shoulders.
Even that weak energy was more than I had.
One of them laughed. "Rain's playing knight again. Look at him!"
Another sneered. "With that broken sword? What—planning to bash someone to death?"
They didn't notice the knight at first.
Or maybe they did—and didn't care.
Their eyes were on me.
Because the weak are easy.
I clenched my jaw.
"Leave me alone."
They laughed louder.
One stepped forward, Aura flickering around his knuckles. "What, you gonna poke us with that toothpick?"
The knight remained silent.
Just watched.
Maybe I should've backed down. Maybe I should've turned away.
But something hot twisted in my chest—humiliation, anger, defiance. Years of being shoved aside boiled up all at once.
I was tired.
I moved first.
The cracked blade snapped forward and struck the closest boy's wrist before he could fully raise his glowing fist. The wood shattered completely, exploding apart with a hollow thwack. He screamed and stumbled back, clutching his arm.
The other two froze.
And for a single breath—
Something flickered.
Deep inside me.
A twitch. A pulse. A spark searching for something—anything—to answer it.
Then it vanished.
They backed away, cursing, pride bruised. I stood there breathing hard, staring at the hilt still clenched in my hand.
Splinters dug into my skin.
I didn't let go.
The knight finally approached.
Not to praise.Not to punish.
Just to look.
"Reckless," he said quietly. "Sloppy. And foolish."
He paused.
"…But you didn't hesitate."
Then he turned away, cloak shifting with his step.
"Fix your stance. Fix your weapon," he said over his shoulder."Come back tomorrow. If you're serious."
And just like that—he was gone.
I stared at the broken pieces in my hand.
Weak. Cheap. Brittle.
Just like everyone thought I was.
But for the first time…
I wasn't sure they were right.
Because that spark—no matter how small—
Felt like the beginning of something.
Something I wasn't ready to let go of.