Reviewing the Basics
The room was quiet, the only sound was the soft crackle of the fireplace. Kain sat in a lotus position on the floor, eyes closed, breathing steady as minutes passed. After an hour has passed, there was still silence in the air. Just the sound of the cool air and the distant footsteps of people in the Keep.
‘Nothing. I feel nothing...no warmth, no stirring, no flicker of aura.’
“Just emptiness.” Kain stated. He opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.
The words came out hollow and heavy. He rubbed his face, frustration edging him towards the point of despair.
“Am I really unable to awaken?” he whispered to the empty room.
‘Aura, the gift that defined this world for warriors. It symbolizes strength, status, and in my case...survival and I had none of it. Even after everything I have been doing...the training, the discipline, the pain. I feel nothing beneath my skin felt even remotely close to awakening. My pathway does not feel seal or clogged.’
The despair Kain was feeling was trying to creep in, familiar and suffocating.
‘But I am not the old Kain. I refused to be.’
Kain stood up and took off his shirt.
The mirror reflected a body that barely resembled the one from two weeks ago. Where there had once been softness and uneven lines, there was now definition, muscle shaping his arms and shoulders, giving his frame a sturdier, more balanced look. His posture had changed too, he look taller, as if his body now understood how it was meant to carry itself.
Faint lines had begun to form along his abdomen, subtle but undeniable, the early results of a relentless training regimen finally surfacing. His movements felt different as well, tighter, more controlled. Even at rest, there was a quiet sense of readiness in the way he stood, like a coiled spring that no longer wasted energy. It was a subtle transformation, but it was earned.
For the first time, the reflection looking back at him felt like someone capable of becoming strong, rather than someone pretending to be.
‘Not impressive, but its a start. The healers repairing my torn muscles every night accelerated what should have taken months of effort into two weeks…but even then, without aura, what can I do? This is not for Henry nor the trial itself.’
Kain touched the faint bruises that still remained from the sparring with Eira.
“Is my exile inevitable? Is it written in stone?” he asked the reflection.
The lavender eyes staring back at him looked tired, beaten down, but clear. There was a fire that refuse to give up, burning inside of him.
“Who decided that?” He muttered under his breath.
“This is my life.”
His reflection hardened as resolve cut through fear.
“And I won’t let it end like this. If I die, it will be on my own terms.”
He sat again, legs folding beneath him with his back straighten while closing his eyes. He proceeds to reach inward toward anything, any spark, any hint of power. He did not feel anything so he decided to persist and reach further.
‘Fuck! I feel nothing’
The room stayed silent but he kept going because at this point, there was nothing left to lose.
‘Focus…recall everything you know.’
His mind sharpened and his memories of the webnovel surfaced.
‘Aura, Mana, Aether.’
“Okay,” he whispered. “Let’s go over the basics again…”
‘Aura is power from within. That’s how the novel explained it, born from the body, shaped by discipline, and built up through so much brutal training your muscles felt like they were tearing themselves apart. If you survived all that, you could eventually condense it into something called an aura core.
After that came the long climb: Initiate, Adept, Expert, Ascendant, Lord, Master, Grandmaster…and, if the legends were true, Aura Saint. Most people never made it past Ascendant. Master aura warriors were already monsters by normal standards, and Grandmasters were rare they might as well have been walking disasters like my father.
And Aura Saints? Supposedly there has only ever been one in the entire story so far. A wandering old man who been around since the founding of the Celestria Empire. The novel barely mentioned him for hundreds of chapters. Then, right before I ended up here, the protagonist finally met him.
“Now moving onto mana” he continued.
‘Mana is the power of nature. It existed everywhere, woven through the air, the earth, even the space between breaths. Mages drew it in and shaped it into mana circles, each one a mark of growth and control. The more circles you formed, the stronger your magic.
One circle made you a Novice. Two, an Apprentice. Then Adept, Expert, Master…all the way up to High Mage, Archmage, and finally Grand Archmage at eight. Each step wasn’t just more power, it was finer control, denser spells, longer endurance.
The principal of Eternia Academy was one of the rare Grand Archmages: Ellenore Astravelle, She Who Threads the Stars. She had been introduced way earlier in the story, long before most of the main cast understood how terrifying she actually was. If I made it to the academy, assuming I didn’t die before then, I’ll meet her in there. And after mana and aura…the last one was—‘
“Aether,” Kain muttered. “Not much is known about Aether besides that it was sought after. It was ambiguous at best and a legend at worst.”
‘A power no one understood, mentioned only in the latest chapters. Even the protagonist hadn’t unlocked it by the time Kain transmigrated. It had no form, no structure, no known method. And he who was still struggling with the basics. Even if I knew what Aether was, there is no one who used it. However, this is a living world now...maybe someone out there is using Aether, I just have no idea...its a problem for another time. Lets focus on what we can control...my training, my skills and hopefully aura is at the end of it.’
He sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Seventeen years old, unawakened. Meanwhile Eira and Sophia are both peak adept-level…and Henry’s mid-level adept. I’m so behind it’s almost funny.”
He shook his head.
“Whatever, I can laugh later...lets do this”
He straightened his back, breathed deep, and focused.
“Lets give it everything tonight.”
He closed his eyes and plunged into meditation once more with hope that somewhere, somehow, something would finally spark.
----
As morning came, Kain stepped into the hallway, rubbing the exhaustion from under his eyes. He barely slept as he spent most of the time in meditation, which had done nothing for him. No aura, no awakening, not even a flicker. But his jog came first as routine mattered.
As he rounded the corner, he spotted Henry.
‘Of course’ Kain thought.
Henry stood in the center of the corridor, his entourage of five young knights gathered tightly around him like vultures circling a carcass. They ranged from peak novice to low adept, each one watching him with eagerness, ready to laugh, sneer, or nod on command. Their voices carried harshly in the stone passage, brittle laughter scraping along the walls.
Henry basked in it, chin slightly raised, eyes half-lidded with smug satisfaction as if the hallway itself belonged to him.
Kain did not break stride nor did his expression shift, his pace was consistent. He walked straight toward them, boots striking stone in a steady rhythm that cut through their noise. The air between them tightened with every step, the distance shrinking, tension coiling like a drawn wire waiting to snap.
Henry noticed him immediately, lips pulling into that familiar, poisonous smile.
“Well, well,” he spoke, stepping forward, “if it isn’t the young master himself. Off to run again?”
Kain did not rise to it. He just nodded once and continued forward. But Henry could not leave it at that, he never could.
“I heard Eira and even Princess Sophia are training you,” Henry said loudly, making sure his knights heard every word. “But tell me…do you honestly think it’ll help?”
Soft chuckles followed behind him.
“It’s not training,” Henry added with a shrug, “more like…dragging out the inevitable.”
Kain stopped as he slowly turned to face Henry and as always, he stood a head taller, casting a long shadow across the hall. Henry’s smile twitched as he looked up at him.
“I won’t know until I try,” Kain said calmly. “Nothing is set in stone.”
Henry’s eyes flicked downward, quietly assessing Kain’s form. He caught the subtle shifts immediately, the way his posture had changed, how his frame now filled his clothes with a solid, grounded presence that had not been there just two weeks ago. There was new strength in the lines of his body with broader shoulders, toned forearms, steadier breathing, the quiet stillness of someone who felt no need to prove he was not afraid.
Then there were the eyes, lavender and unflinching, they met Henry’s gaze with a clarity that felt almost invasive, as if they could see straight through bluster, through rank, through pride. This was not borrowed confidence or empty bravado. It was strength carved out the hard way, earned in silence, not handed down with a name.
Henry hated it. For a brief, unguarded moment, something brittle and ugly cracked through his composure, a flash of resentment edged with something far less comfortable. Then, just as quickly, he forced it down, the familiar smile stretching back into place, tight and rehearsed.
‘Those fucking eyes,’ he thought, a twist settling in his chest. ‘Always looking at me like I’m lacking...like he is better than me.’
“Some things are inevitable,” Henry said. “And trash will always be trash. No matter what training, no matter what pathetic effort you make…an unawakened like you will never reach me.”
He stepped back, giving a mocking bow.
“Oh sorry, I meant Young Master.”
Behind him, one of his knights muttered under his breath:
“Pathetic trash.”
Henry smirked.
Kain did not respond, he simply held Henry’s gaze for a long, measured second, long enough for the silence to settle heavy between them, before turning and walking away.
He could feel it at his back, Henry’s killing intent, sharp and suffocating. However, Kain did not look back.
‘Ignoring him is easy,’ he told himself, his thoughts steady despite the tension coiling in the air. ‘There’s nothing to gain by fighting him here… but there will be soon.’
Without breaking stride, he pushed open the heavy doors. A rush of cold morning air met him, sharp and bracing, and he stepped into it without hesitation, beginning his run as if he had not just walked away from a storm waiting to break.
