The years following the Proctor's visit were the most difficult of my new life. Four years of living a terrifying duality: by day, I was "Kaelos," the young prodigy and pride of the Lord of the Edges of Nihility, training under the castle's finest duelists and showing peerless skill in shaping elemental fire. By night, I was "The Engineer," the entity remapping its power in the dark, attempting to repair the fissures that the Essence of the Void had carved into its tender body.
The black blood I had coughed up on the night of the test was no mere accident. It was an alarm. My human body, no matter how much I reinforced it, was like a clay vessel trying to contain volcanic magma. I had to find a solution, or I wouldn't live to see my eighth birthday.
In the dead of night, within the abandoned castle cellar I had converted into a secret laboratory, I sat surrounded by magic circles drawn in my own blood, infused with Essence. My solution lay in "Partitioning."
Instead of trying to contain the Raw Void Essence within my central core, I began creating microscopic "Sub-Cores" distributed across my body's major joints. It was an indescribably painful process, like stabbing oneself with thousands of rabid needles simultaneously. I compressed the gray energy into tiny points, then encapsulated them in layers of "Spatial Magic" that I had begun to master.
This space wasn't a physical location, but a small "pocket" outside the usual fabric of reality. By storing my true power there, I relieved the pressure on my vital organs.
'Now,' I thought, drenched in a cold sweat, 'I do not carry the power... I am merely linked to it through microscopic wormholes.'
Once the sub-cores stabilized, the coughing of blood stopped. I hadn't just become stronger; my senses had sharpened to a frightening degree. I could hear the heartbeat of a guard standing behind three stone walls, and I could smell the rust on the swords resting in the distant armory.
At age six, the unexpected happened. I went on a brief hunting trip with my father and a small group of guards. The atmosphere was calm until we entered the "Whispering Woods," a region known for unstable Essence activity.
Suddenly, without warning, we were ambushed. They weren't beasts, but "Shadow Mercenaries"—hirelings wearing enchanted garments that hid them from ordinary eyes. The target was clear: the head of the little "Echo."
"Protect Kaelos!" my father roared, drawing his greatsword, which ignited with terrifying blue flames.
The clearing exploded with blood and sparks. My father was a formidable warrior, but the assassins were many and utilized magical toxins that paralyzed movement. I saw a soldier fall before me, and I saw a poisoned blade lunging toward my throat from the shadows.
In that moment, time stopped. It wasn't a true halt, but my mind, augmented by Spatial Magic, was processing information faster than light.
'If I use ordinary fire, I'll reveal my position and struggle to kill them. But if I use the "Rift"...'
My instinct for survival outweighed my desire to stay hidden. I pointed my pinky finger toward the assassin approaching from the right. I didn't release fire; instead, I "folded" the small space between my fingertip and the assassin's heart.
A muffled tearing sound followed.
Without a flash or a bang, a small hole appeared in the mercenary's chest. No blood sprayed out, for his heart was no longer there; it had been instantaneously displaced ten meters behind him, hitting the ground like a piece of dead meat.
I repeated the process with the three others closing in on me. To my father and the guards fighting for their lives, it appeared as though the mercenaries were simply dropping dead from sudden heart failure.
When the battle ended, my father was panting, a wound on his shoulder. He looked at the bodies of the mercenaries surrounding his young child, then looked at me. I stood there, clutching a small bow I pretended to have been using, my face flooded with feigned innocence and manufactured terror.
"Kaelos... are you alright?" he asked, his steps unsteady.
"I'm scared, Father... they just fell down," I said in a trembling voice, while internally I was scrubbing every trace of Spatial Essence from the surrounding air.
My father inspected the bodies. He found no puncture wounds, no burn marks. He found only microscopic "voids" where vital organs should have been. His eyes gleamed with a dark realization; he knew his son had done something, but he chose silence. Silence was the only shield we had left.
The next two years passed in intensive combat training. My father, realizing I was no ordinary child even by the standards of an "Echo," began treating me like a soldier. He taught me how to read an opponent's intent from the shift of a shoulder and how to use geography to my advantage.
More importantly, he began providing me with scrolls smuggled from the black market—books detailing "The Lost Essence" and the history preceding the "Law of Encryption."
On the night before my eighth birthday—the day the Imperial Academy carriage would arrive—we sat together in his private study. A small box sat on the table.
"This is for you," he said, pushing it toward me.
I opened the box to find a simple ring of dull silver, set with a black stone that reflected no light.
"This is a 'Spirit Suppression' ring," my father explained gravely. "It cost me a fortune to bring from smugglers across the seas. It will absorb any leak of your Raw Essence and mask it as ordinary Fire-element mana. Even the 'Eye of Truth' will not easily pierce it."
I slipped the ring onto my finger and immediately felt an invisible film enveloping my magical identity.
"Thank you... Father," I said, this time with sincerity. Despite his coldness, this man was trying to protect me from a world that would surely try to devour me.
"Kaelos," he said, looking me directly in the eye. "At the Academy, you will find monsters in human form. There, intelligence is more dangerous than a sword. Trust no one, and never show your full strength unless you are certain no witnesses will remain."
The next morning, fog draped the castle like a gray shroud. The luxurious Imperial Academy carriage, adorned with the golden dragon emblem, stood before the Great Gate.
There was no long farewell. My small bag contained a few clothes, my favorite books, and a dagger hidden in my boot. I climbed into the carriage and sat on the plush leather seat.
As the carriage pulled away from the "Edges of Nihility," I looked out the window at the castle that had been my prison and my playground for eight years. I didn't feel sadness; I felt liberation.
'Now, the real game begins,' I thought, touching the silver ring. 'The Imperial Academy claims to be the fountain of knowledge... but to me, it is merely a resource mine and the stage upon which I will perform my grand play.'
I closed my eyes and began reviewing the Fire Magic code I would use in my first entrance exam. While deep within my nervous system, the "Rift" waited for the right moment to tear the reality of this world apart once again.