?Silence was absolute. It was all that remained. No pain, no rain, not even the sound of my ragged breathing that had fought against death in that freezing Tokyo alley. I thought the void would be my final sanctuary, a pce where my family could no longer haunt me with their venomous words.

  ?But then, a blinding fsh pierced the stillness, followed by an immense pressure crushing my entire being. Suddenly… I gasped violently, inhaling air so pure it burned my dormant lungs.

  ?"He's breathing! Look, Garret, he's opening his eyes!"

  ?I forced my eyes open. My vision was blurred, but the first thing my senses registered wasn't the biting cold of loneliness, but an overwhelming warmth. Arms held me with a tenderness I had never known. I found myself looking up at a woman whose face overflowed with affection, her eyes shimmering with tears I had never seen in my previous life—tears of joy for my existence.

  ?(Where am I? Is this… reincarnation?)

  ?I tried to move my limbs, but they were heavy and useless. I was an infant. An adult mind imprisoned in a vessel that couldn't even lift its own head. But the difference this time y in the "essence" I felt coursing through my veins. In Japan, my body had felt hollow and withered. Here… I felt something akin to an electric pulse humming beneath my skin.

  ?Six Years Later…

  ?Deep within the Ren Forest, bordering the vilge, dawn had not yet broken. There stood a small child with raven hair and eyes that held a depth far beyond his six years. That was me, Zef.

  ?From the moment I could crawl, I dedicated myself to exploring this "thing" flowing inside me. I discovered that this world is governed by "Mana," a raw cosmic energy that can be shaped. In this world, one typically needs to reach the age of eighteen to gain the consciousness required to form a "Mana Core"—what they call the "First Stage."

  ?But me? I possessed an advantage no one else had: the absolute focus of a man who had already lived a full life.

  ?I sat in a meditative lotus position, eyes closed. I began pulling invisible blue threads from the ether around me. Intense heat pooled in the center of my chest. The pain was excruciating; my six-year-old body trembled, and my pores wept cold sweat.

  ?(Stronger… I must be stronger… I will never let myself be a nobody again!)

  ?CRACK!

  ?The sound of shattering gss echoed inside my mind. Suddenly, the energy exploded from my chest, flooding into my limbs. I felt my senses sharpen and expand. I could hear the fp of an owl's wing a kilometer away and see the movement of ants beneath the grass in the pitch bck.

  ?I had done it. The Second Stage.

  At six years old, I had reached a level that elite knights of the Empire spent years of grueling training to achieve.

  ?"Zef? Are you here?"

  ?My eyes snapped open. It was Kai. My inseparable friend, the vilge guard's son. He was running towards me clutching a wooden sword, a wide grin pstered on his face.

  ?"You're te, Zef! Your dad is looking for you at the smithy. You told me we’d start training today!"

  ?I looked at his outstretched hand. Kai represented the honesty and innocence I had cked in Tokyo. I smiled at him genuinely, expertly suppressing the terrifying aura that had cloaked my body just seconds ago.

  ?"I'm coming, Kai. Let's see who drops who today."

  ?We ran together towards the vilge. But while I ughed with him, the analytical part of my brain was watching everything cold calcution. I was happy, but I was cautious. The power I had just awakened wasn't merely a means of protection.