The days following the heavy and tearful revelation in the drawing room were, to put it simply, completely suffocating. Fainyx sat on the edge of his large plush bed, seriously considering whether a terminal illness was truly worse than the absolute lack of personal space he was currently experiencing.
Ever since the Duke had confessed the truth about the Hollow Constitution Syndrome, Adam and Liam had practically refused to leave his side.
They skipped their usual training sessions, bringing their heavy textbooks directly into his bedroom so they could watch him like he was a fragile piece of glass resting on the edge of a table.
Liam was currently sitting on the thick carpet right next to Fainyx's feet, randomly getting teary-eyed every time Fainyx made even the slightest movement.
Adam was sitting in the corner chair with a book in his lap, his blue crystal eyes constantly flicking upward to check Fainyx's breathing with a heavy and paranoid intensity.
Fainyx looked at them with his usual neutral mask, his crystalline violet eyes perfectly still, but inside his head, he was letting out a long and deeply exhausted sigh.
'I just wanted to have a peaceful day...'
he thought as he watched Liam dramatically sniffle. 'Now I have two personal guards who act as if a strong gust of wind is going to shatter my bones. This is the exact opposite of a peaceful life.'
He reached for his cup of warm milk, and Liam immediately shot up to support the bottom of the cup, acting as if Fainyx didn't have the strength to lift a few ounces of liquid.
Fainyx stared at his brother's desperately helpful face and slowly took a sip, deciding it was easier to just accept the ridiculous treatment rather than try to fight it.
Setting the cup down, his attention shifted to a piece of parchment resting on his bedside table.
It was a letter his father had handed him just before leaving the room earlier that morning. It was from the boy he had met in the carriage during his first time going outside months ago ago.
Fainyx had assumed the boy would have forgotten all about him by now. Yet, here was a letter from the future Main Character himself. Fainyx carefully broke the wax seal and unfolded the thick parchment.
[To the Esteemed Fainyx von Nocte,]
[Good day to you. I am truly honored to consider someone of your standing a friend. You might not remember me from the carriage, but I am Orion De Sterling. Unfortunately, my parents will not permit me to travel to your estate to play at this time... However, I would greatly appreciate it if we could correspond through letters, if it pleases you.]
[Sincerely yours,Orion De Sterling]
Fainyx stared at the page. The vocabulary and phrasing were incredibly dignified, clearly the result of a strict and demanding noble upbringing. However, the physical handwriting was an absolute disaster. The letters were clumsy, jagged, and unevenly sized, complete with a massive, smeared inkblot right next to his grand signature.
Even though this boy was destined to become the overpowered hero who would eventually save the world, right now, he was just a six-year-old kid trying his absolute best to sound like a sophisticated adult.
'It is actually quite cute,' Fainyx thought, a very faint, almost invisible smile touching his lips.
He pulled one of his oaper that is clean onto his lap and spent the next few minutes carefully drafting a polite, written reply to Orion. When he finished signing it and took some wax to seal it. The wax seal was hidden in one of his drawers as this was given by his father this morning too, so that he can reply a letter whenever he wants and give it to his Butler Weinhart, his gaze drifted past Liam's shoulder toward the window, and his heart gave a sudden, sharp jump in his chest.
The ceramic pot where he had planted the large seed from the Aetherium apple was sitting in the sunlight. Because it had been exposed to his incredibly rich and dense mana, it was currently sprouting at a completely unnatural and alarming speed.
The dark soil was visibly shifting. A thick, vibrant green stem with glowing leaves was stretching upward right before his eyes, emitting a faint and magical light that absolutely did not belong to a normal potted plant.
If Adam or Liam saw it, there would be endless, panicked questions about where he got a magical, fast-growing plant, and his secret dimension would be at massive risk of exposure.
Fainyx did not panic, and his face remained perfectly blank. He tapped into his mana core without moving a single muscle, threading the energy upward without chanting or drawing a magic circle.
He cast a precise and delicate illusion spell over the windowsill, bending the light and the air around the pot so that anyone looking at it would simply see a normal, boring pile of dirt with a tiny, ordinary green sprout sticking out of it.
He finished the spell just as Adam looked up from his book and followed Fainyx's gaze toward the window.
"Is the sunlight too bright?" Adam asked, his voice full of an immediate and serious concern, and he began to stand up to close the heavy curtains.
Fainyx quickly shook his head. He tore the reply for Orion out of his notebook and held it out, writing a quick line on the next page.
[ I like the sun, please leave it. Can I ask for this to be sent to Butler Weinhart and says that this needs to be send to my friend please? ]
Adam read the note, hesitated for a long moment, and then slowly took the sealed letter. His eyes lingered suspiciously on the illusion-covered pot for a second before he finally nodded and left the room to hand the letter to a servant.
Fainyx let out a quiet internal breath of relief, realizing he was going to have to move that magical apple plant into his Aetherium the very first chance he got.
******
Hours passed with an agonizing slowness, and the sky finally darkened into a deep and starry night. His brothers eventually succumbed to their own exhaustion and were escorted back to their rooms by Weinhart, and the mansion settled into the quiet, heavy silence that Fainyx had been waiting for all day.
He waited until the midnight bells chimed faintly in the distance before slipping out of bed. He cast his perfect concealment magic over his small body, the familiar veil of mana making him completely undetectable to the patrolling guards, and walked silently through the long corridors until he reached the hidden corner of the sprawling estate garden.
Yong and Ruth were already waiting for him under the heavy branches of the old trees.
Yong was sitting cross-legged on the grass, his black hair catching the moonlight and a relaxed smirk on his face, while Ruth stood nearby with his arms crossed, his golden eyes sharp and observant.
"You're late," Yong said casually, his black eyes tracking Fainyx as the concealment spell dropped. "Did your new bodyguards refuse to go to sleep?"
Fainyx gave him a flat stare and wrote in his notebook.
[ They are very dedicated to my survival. ]
Yong let out a short laugh. Ruth simply sighed and stepped forward, getting straight to the point with the unhurried gravity of a dragon.
"Did you bring it?" Ruth asked, his voice low and heavy in the quiet garden.
Fainyx nodded. He reached into his bag pulling out one of the Kalmia flowers in a vase that he had freshly picked from the cluster near his cottage a week before.
The pale ivory petals were practically dripping with pure, saturated mana, glowing with a brilliant and healthy light that made the surrounding night feel dim in comparison.
Ruth's golden eyes widened in genuine, undeniable shock. He took the flower from Fainyx's small hands with a rare kind of reverence.
"This..." Ruth murmured, his voice losing its usual flat edge. "The purity of the mana in these petals is absolute. Where did you find soil rich enough to cultivate something of this quality? Even the soil near the World Tree does not yield Kalmia this vibrant."
Fainyx kept his face perfectly neutral and offered no explanation at all, simply watching as Ruth carefully inspected the glowing plant. Yong watched Fainyx with a knowing smirk, clearly amused by the mysteries his small disciple refused to explain, but he didn't push the subject.
"I will brew it now," Ruth said, his focus entirely consumed by the rare ingredient.
He pulled a set of small, enchanted vials and tools from his own spatial pocket.
He mixed the dried roots of the World Tree with the crushed, glowing petals of the Kalmia, his mana guiding the process with an ancient and flawless precision.
A few minutes later, Ruth held out a small glass vial filled with a dark, thick liquid that bubbled slightly at the edges.
"Drink," Ruth commanded. "It will taste terrible, but the cure will begin working immediately.
Remember what I told you about the side effects. The Hollow Constitution Syndrome will be violently expelled from your system over time, maybe around 20 or 30 years or more."
Fainyx nodded and took the vial, unstopped the cork, and drank it in one swift motion.
The taste was worse than death. It tasted like ash, bitter herbs, and stagnant mud all blended together into a thick sludge that burned the back of his throat.
His perfectly stoic face actually cracked for a fraction of a second, his nose wrinkling in sheer disgust, which made Yong burst into quiet laughter.
"It works," Ruth said, watching the color return to Fainyx's cheeks almost instantly. "But be prepared. The blood will come randomly, and it will look far worse than it feels."
Fainyx nodded slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He thought to himself that as long as he stayed in his room, he could handle a little bit of blood without causing a massive family crisis.
***
The next afternoon, the drawing room was filled with the warm scent of expensive tea and sweet pastries. Fainyx was sitting on the most comfortable sofa in the room, wrapped in a thick, white wool blanket that Liam had insisted on bringing him.
The Duke was sitting in the armchair across from him, reading estate documents but constantly stealing soft, guilty glances at his youngest son.
Adam and Liam were sitting on the floor nearby, playing a quiet game of chess just so they could stay close to him.
It was peaceful. It was calm. It was exactly the kind of quiet afternoon Fainyx had always wanted.
And then, a sharp, sudden tickle flared in the back of his throat.
Fainyx paused, his violet eyes widening just slightly. He felt a sudden pressure build in his chest, rising upward with an unnatural speed. He didn't feel any pain at all, just a strange, heavy sensation of liquid rushing up his windpipe.
He didn't even have time to reach for a handkerchief.
Fainyx leaned forward and coughed.
A violent, wet sound echoed through the quiet drawing room. A massive splatter of bright, crimson blood erupted from his mouth, staining the pristine white wool blanket in his lap and painting his pale hands red.
The silence that followed was absolute and completely terrifying.
Liam dropped his chess piece, his face going completely white as he stared at the blood. Adam froze in place, his blue crystal eyes blown wide with sheer, unadulterated horror.
The Duke dropped his heavy stack of documents. The papers scattered everywhere as he shot up with such force that his heavy armchair crashed backward onto the carpet.
"FAINYX!" Liam screamed, his voice cracking with pure panic as tears instantly flooded his eyes.
"Someone call physician! Now!" Adam yelled, his usual composed demeanor completely shattering as he scrambled to his feet.
The Duke was at Fainyx's side in a fraction of a second, his large hands trembling violently as he reached out, too terrified to even touch his son for fear of breaking him further. "Hold on, Fainyx, just hold on, the physician is coming! Please don't close your eyes!" the Duke pleaded, his voice thick with a desperate, agonizing fear.
'Im not closing my eyes though...'
Fainyx sat perfectly still amidst the absolute chaos, his face smeared with red blood. He blinked his violet eyes slowly at the screaming, panicking family surrounding him.
He felt entirely fine. He actually felt better than he had in years, the heavy lethargy in his bones seemingly washed away by the terrible medicine. He looked at his crying brother, his shouting older brother, and his terrified, trembling father, and he couldn't help but let out a long, dry sigh inside his head.
'It doesn't even hurt,' Fainyx thought, looking at the blood on his hands with a neutral, unimpressed expression. 'Why is everyone screaming as if the world is ending? I suppose my peaceful afternoon is officially ruined.'