The collection of (new) books on my desk was looking more daunting than ever.
Elena's rage over my self-inflicted coma was, instead of burning like a fire, directed into forcing me to educate myself.
Regardless of my mental age, I was still an eight-year-old with dopamine needs—needs which were definitely not met by never-ending equations.
But on the other hand, I did need to update myself more on the magical prowess of today, seeing as the version of me seemingly stuck two millennia in the past—I wasn't sure if he even followed the laws of time anymore—was somehow more up-to-date than I was.
Thinking about Prime, I really didn't know anything important about him.
Obviously he had fought The Demon King longer than I had, and he had said he had done paperwork after it. But how long did he exist after the Demon King?
When had he first utilised the subspace? How? Why?
If he was strong enough to defeat the Demon King, there's no reason he should've had to hide away in the subspace.
There shouldn't have been any creature stronger than him, right?
Was he even hiding?
I could already feel my frontal lobe warning me to stop.
Thinking about this wasn't going to help.
"Moommmm!" I shouted out Elena, wanting to bargain for my freedom.
"No. You're finishing the textbook. Actually, no, you're finishing both."
That... wasn't remotely fair. But to defy Elena would be tantamount to suicide. So for now, I didn't have much choice.
I glanced back down. It was something about mana flow. The explanations were less than optimal, but they could manage.
If you tried flowing mana parallel to your ulnar artery like that, you would more than likely injure the nerves in your wrist.
And if you tried to power the palmar carpal ligament by running mana through it horizontally, like the book was trying to show? You would just snap your wrist entirely, straight through the bone.
You might even burn the root of the ligament, making it effectively unhealable for most of the rest of your life.
This really looked more like a plan to get kids injured rather than help them.
Then again, how many kids were really reading this?
I flipped to the front of the book, only to see that instead of a child's textbook, to nobody's surprise, I was looking at the support material for a university course.
Eh, complaining isn't going to help.
I turned the book back over, the cool, satiny glide of the clay-coated paper made a satisfying 'slirk' sound as I did.
Back to work for me I guess.
Woohoo.
***
The sun was starting to set, my eyes were struggling to stay with me, and my legs felt like they had been disconnected from my body about 6 hours ago.
When was the last time I stood up?
Yeah... that makes sense.
Just as I was about to stand up to go for a walk, Elena walked in.
She leaned herself against the doorframe, not making eye contact with me. A devilish grin infiltrated her face.
"What's the most efficient metal for the absorption and storage of mana!" She seemed gleeful when she said this, itching for a reason to extend my torment.
"Aethlegard," I responded, not even needing to think about it.
My answer was instantaneous. I was both the example, and primary use of aethlegard.
It had been developed by me, as the secondary blacksmith for our team.
The primary one had been out looking for other mana insulators when.
It was one of the things I made that I was truly proud of, and so I spread the recipe (although the slightly more inefficient) one to a few merchants, swordsmen, and mages.
It should've become easily world-renowned over the last two thousand years.
As I was thinking about this, a smirk appeared on my face. My greatness truly scared me at times.
I waited for the praise. I expected her to be shocked that an eight-year-old knew the name of the legendary "God-Metal." Maybe she'd ask me how I knew a recipe that should be the backbone of every modern empire.
Instead, the room went bone-chillingly quiet.
Elena didn't look impressed. She looked... concerned. She walked over, placed a cool hand on my forehead, and sighed.
"Aren, honey... are you still feeling the effects of the coma? Do I need to call the healer back?"
My smirk faltered. "What? No. I'm fine. Aethelgard. You asked for the most efficient metal for absorption and storage."
"I asked for a metal, not a fairy tale," she said, pulling the university textbook toward her and flipping it to the back index. "I know you like those old legends Elias tells you, but 'Aethelgard' is a myth from the period of The Restoration. There's no proof it ever existed, and even if it did, the magical theory behind it—'Infinite Compression'—is physically impossible according to modern thermodynamics."
I stared at her. Physically impossible? I literally had a scar on my left thigh from a shard of Aethelgard that had shattered during a resonance test.
"The answer," she said, tapping a thick, highlighted paragraph, "is Tantalum."
I blinked. "Tantalum? You mean the shielding slag? The stuff we use to... wait."
I looked at the book.
'Tantalum (Ta): Commonly classified as a Grade-A Mana Insulator. Due to its unique atomic density, it possesses the highest 'Hunger' of any known element, effectively swallowing mana and preventing it from passing through. In modern engineering, it is used exclusively for containment units and mage-prison shackles to neutralize magical output.'
My stomach did a slow, nauseous roll.
"It's an insulator," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow.
"Exactly!" Elena chirped, oblivious to the fact that she was destroying my soul. "It absorbs and stores so much mana that it refuses to let any out. That makes it the perfect insulator. To actually make it conduct, you'd need a mana pressure level that would turn a human body into a red mist. Since that's impossible, it's just a very expensive way to build a wall."
I looked down at my hands.
To this era, Tantalum was a "wall" because they were trying to push it with the equivalent of a light breeze. They didn't have the Mana Lattice. They didn't have the pressure. They were looking at a high-performance supercar and calling it a "heavy paperweight" because they didn't have the key to the ignition.
"Right," I muttered, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "Tantalum. The... pinnacle of insulation."
"Good boy," she said, ruffling my hair. "See? Science is much more useful than legends. One more chapter on 'Silver-Ion Conductivity' and you can have dinner."
As she walked out, I didn't reach for the pen.
I stared at the word Tantalum on the page. They were using the most potent energy-storage metal in history to line the walls of prisons. They were sitting on a gold mine and using the gold to pave the streets because they thought it was "too heavy" to be jewelry.
A slow, dangerous grin started to replace the shock on my face.
If the world thought Tantalum was "useless" shielding... then Tantalum was going to be very, very cheap to buy.
Even better than that, would be earlier work on the crafting of aethlegard.
I was going to need four things: 1. Tantalum itself 2. Caelum. 3. Vitriol 4. Baritium
Where could I find a smithy?
"Ele-"
I stopped myself from before I could finish calling her name.
I really didn't want to incur the wrath of an angry parent. At all.
Instead I would have to go find Elias.
I moved my chair back, scraping against the floor.
Dragging myself off the chair, I placed the first foot on the floor in about 12 hours.
THUNK!
I immediately collapsed.
My leg was far, far, far too weak to hold my weight after not moving for so long. I also just couldn't feel it attached to my body because it had gone numb and disappeared a while ago.
"Are you okay?" Elena shouted from downstairs, she didn't come to actually help me in any meaningful way, but she asked regardless.
"I'm fine." I was not fine. Everything hurt and I hit my shin on the side of my bed.
"Good." She closed the door again, and returned to whatever she had been doing.
I limped down the hallway, dragging my "dead" leg behind me like a club. I found Elias in the mudroom, cleaning a pair of riding boots.
"Father," I said, trying to sound like a normal, curious child and not a man planning to build a super-weapon. "Does the estate have a forge? I was... reading about thermal conductivity and wanted to see a real bellows."
Elias looked up, a slow smile spreading. "A bellows? Most boys your age want to see the swords, Aren. But yes, we have two. Old Hrolf is down by the north stables. Just stay out of his way—he's got a temper shorter than a dagger blade. There's also an abandoned one up the river, but I wouldn't recommend going there."
Why would you even tell me about the abandoned one if you didn't want me to go there? Eh, doesn't matter to me.
Old Hrolf. I liked the sound of that. Grumpy blacksmiths were the same in every century. They were easy to bribe with "theoretical" efficiency.
"Could I have some money?"
"What do you need money for, you're eight?"
"I plan business ventures." There was no shot he was going to buy this.
"Oh alright. He dropped a small bag of gold coins into my hands. Do good things, little man."
Apparently there was a shot he was going to buy this.
"Don't tell Elena. Please." I pleaded with him.
"Yeah, no we're accomplices now" He did a shushing motion with his lips, a slow smile spreading.
It was the kind of smile that probably made the local Baronesses "accidentally" trip over their own hems at garden parties.
Elias stood up, the light from the mudroom window catching the sharp, symmetrical lines of a face that hadn't aged a day since I'd woken up.
He had that effortless, rugged grace that usually required a century of noble breeding or a lifetime of dodging broadswords.
Looking at him was like looking at a finished masterpiece while I was still a rough sketch in a notebook. At least I knew my jawline was going to be a weapon of its own in a decade.
I needed Caelum. In the old world, it was the "Breath of the Sky," but here? I found it in the back of a traveling jeweler's cart, sitting in a jar labeled 'Sun-Glass Slag.'
It was a haunting, pale cream color, not quite white, but couldn't be referred to as anything but a kind, soft, light yellow.
"I need the sparkly sky-dust! The yellow one that doesn't weigh anything!" If I was going to be an eight-year-old, I was going to sell the bit. Hard.
"That?" the jeweler scoffed when he saw me staring. "Just some decorative foil from the southern mines. It's too soft for jewelry and it won't take an enchantment. I use it to wrap cheap candies for the village kids."
I handed him one of Elias's gold coins with a trembling hand—not from the weight, but from the sheer, staggering stupidity of a man selling the "Heavenly Catalyst" to wrap taffy.
"A gold coin? For that? I mean, thank you for your purchase kind sir, I'm selling you this stuff dirt cheap, next time it'll be ten gold coins." He donned your usual scammer's grin as I walked away
"Hmph."
I didn't quite care enough about this guy but I would watch out for him. Carefully.
I walked away from the jeweler's cart, the box of Caelum tucked under my arm like a treasure chest. The box in and of itself, was probably heavier than the metal that it was filled with. It felt more like I was holding a cup than a full cube of pure metal.
He probably felt like he just robbed a child blind, but in reality he was step one to the renewal of the greatest material ever made.
It was getting late, the sun had already started setting and if I wasn't home in the next 5 minutes, when dinner would've been finished, Elena was going to sentence me to eternal textbooks.
I checked the sun's position.
I had maybe twenty minutes before Elena finished her tea and came to check if I'd "digested" the chapter on Silver-Ions.
Three minutes there. Ten minutes to scout the forge. Three minutes back.
I kicked off, my boots digging into the soft loam of the manor's forest. Thirty-five meters per second—a "respectful" jog for a hero, but a nightmare for anyone trying to track me. The estate blurred. The wind whipped my hair back, a constant, roaring pressure that tasted like pine needles and ozone.
The air resistance formed tiny micro-abrasions on my face with every step I took, I opted to cover my eyes with mana, solely for the sake of not blinding myself. Again.
I wasn't a missile anymore; I was a shadow. I vaulted the stone perimeter wall without losing a beat of momentum, my feet barely kissing the granite before I dived into the deep green of the North Woods.
Maybe doing a few flips over the wall was unnecessary, but the style points were worth it. Even if nobody was watching.
Three minutes. That was all I needed to see if the "Abandoned Forge" was a ruin or a sanctuary.
The forest was a green smear, the individual trees losing their identity to become a singular, rushing wall. My lungs were a furnace, and the micro-abrasions on my face stung like a thousand needle pricks, making my skin look physically sunburnt, but the three-minute mark was approaching.
I began the deceleration process—which, in this body, was less of a graceful stop and more of a controlled skid that tore a twenty-foot furrow into the damp earth.
I came to a halt in a small clearing by the river.
The "Abandoned Forge" wasn't a ruin. It was a tomb. Thick, heavy vines of iron-ivy had strangled the stone chimney, and the roof had partially surrendered to the elements, but the foundation? The foundation was made of deep-set basalt. It was built to withstand the kind of thermal tantrums only a Master Smith—or a Vanguard—could throw.
I stepped inside, the air heavy with the smell of wet soot and ancient iron. In the corner, the old anvil sat like a silent sentry. It was rusted, pitted, and neglected, but underneath that grime was a solid block of high-density steel.
"Sanctuary," I whispered, my voice raspy from the wind.
I set the box of Caelum down on the workbench. It felt unnervingly light, a light yellow phantom sitting in a world of heavy, dark dust. I didn't have time to start the fire—Elena's tea would be hitting the dregs of the cup by now—but I had seen enough.
Hrolf's forge was for the public. This forge? This was for the rebirth of aethelgard.
I looked towards the sky, I had 3 more materials to get but this was all I had time for today, the sun was nearly set.
I turned on my heel, ignoring the protest of my shins, and kicked off back toward the manor. I had two minutes to get home, wash the "wind" off my face, and pretend I'd spent the last hour pondering the nuances of Silver-Ion conductivity.
I dashed through, barely managing to open the door mid-sprint instead of running into it and leaving a me-shaped crater through it.
The house, with the exception of the 8 year old moving faster than an actual cheetah, was entirely silent. Too silent. I couldn't hear Elena muttering something to herself over the sink, or Elias and his consistent property damage. Good thing he was the one paying for the house or Elena might've actually killed him. Multiple times over.
I walked back into my room, ready to collapse into the university textbooks, only to find a massive, violet-black slab of metal sitting directly on top of my "Silver-Ion Conductivity" notes.
It was my old sword. Astrum
It looked exactly as it had the day I "died"—matte black, swirling with nebulae of pale Caelum yellow. The sword was destroyed, exactly in the ruin it was when I flung my shattered arms towards the Demon King for the final time.
Instead of that, I looked the sword up and down more carefully, and something glowed in the corner of my eye.
A small, neon-pink sticky note (where did he even get neon paper?) was slapped onto the crossguard.
"Payment for the books. Needs a recharge. Good luck, kid. P.S. Elena says you missed a chapter. Don't be a slacker.'
How... wasn't the sword going through the table? It should weigh far more than 100kg due to the baritium.
I squinted at the crossguard. Tucked under the primary fuller was a tiny, shimmering sigil I hadn't noticed before.
A Mass-Inertia Anchor.
I flipped the sticky note over, starting to think that this guy would probably make some intricate nonsense like this.
'P.P.S. Don't take it out of the room unless you've finished your squats. The anchor has a six-foot leash. Love, Prime.'
I stared at the door. My bed was exactly seven feet from the hallway.
"He's a sadist," I groaned, barely above a whisper.. "He's literally timing my disaster."
I placed the weapon back onto the table.
This was insanity. How was this presumably 2,000 year old being enjoying torturing the 8 year old?
And why did it make perfect sense. If I were him I would do the exact same thing. Sadly he's me after all.
I stared at the shining grey metal. We had called it Astrum, a name for the sword of a boy chasing a sun that had set two millennia ago.
In today's era, I had become that sun. If I had nothing else, I would make it my duty to become the pinnacle of humanity, so if a creature like the Demon King ever arose again, I would be there.
The sword's cracks and dents were a shallow reminder of my past. My real one.
While looking at it, the severity of my situation landed on me. They were gone.
Well and truly gone. This was all I had left of them.
I moved my hand towards the sword once more.
I wanted to to place my hands on it again, to feel the cold dark metal against my flesh, my final remnant of the few people I had met worth more than life.
At the last moment I recoiled, as if I had been burnt.
I couldn't.
I couldn't do this.
I didn't want to face those memories again. At least not now, and hopefully not ever.
I turned back towards my bed, leaving Astrum behind me.
I just wanted to sleep, and so, ignoring the shadow I had just seen, creeping past my window in the dead of night, I placed myself into bed, and just went to sleep.