More time slipped past, measured not by calendars the Lodge lacked, but by the turning of the leaves outside Malrik's window and the subtle shifts in the forest's scent. Summer had peaked and begun its slow, melancholic descent into autumn. Malrik's routine remained unchanged in the eyes of his keepers: quiet observation by day, hidden work by night. Yet, the nature of that work grew increasingly complex, delving into territories even the most daring mages of this world wouldn't consider, precisely because he lacked the one thing they deemed essential for power.
His focus narrowed, drawn to the core of magical practice itself: mana. In this world, the prevailing understanding dictated that significant mana manipulation required an 'awakened' mana core – a spiritual organ that processed and channeled the ambient energy into spells and effects. Malrik's core was, according to all tests performed on him since childhood, stubbornly dormant, a fact the Duke lamented as his son's most significant 'flaw', a fundamental barrier to any meaningful magical ability in their eyes.
They were fools. Utter, provincial fools, limited by their own narrow definitions and incomplete understanding.
(Internal Monologue: An awakened core is merely a specialized tool, a convenient conduit designed by the inherent rules of this reality. It is not the sole means of interacting with mana. This world's magic is akin to believing one can only breathe air through a specifically shaped, approved filter, blind to the possibility of simply inhaling.)
His knowledge, sharp and devastatingly comprehensive, stemmed from a life lived before this one. A life where the fundamental laws of reality, including the manipulation of energies, were understood on a far deeper, more primal level. Mana, or whatever it was called in that existence, was a ubiquitous force, accessible directly by those with the knowledge and discipline, regardless of whether they possessed a specific, naturally formed 'core' organ. He knew techniques that predated or bypassed the need for such things entirely.
And Malrik possessed both the knowledge of these techniques and the discipline to master them.
His nightly excursions now focused on the very ground beneath the Lodge, near the ancient stones that hinted at forgotten purposes. Here, the mana felt thickest, humming with an almost palpable energy. He would sit cross-legged on the damp earth, ignoring the chill that would send shivers through the servants, and begin his alternative practice.
The technique was simple in principle, agonizing in execution specifically because he didn't have a dedicated core to facilitate it. It wasn't about channeling mana through a core to perform a spell. It was about bypassing the conventional channels entirely, using sheer force of will and focused intent, guided by his past life's understanding, to draw the raw energy directly into the non-magical tissues of his body. He wasn't casting; he was absorbing. He'd start by extending his senses, not through sight or sound, but a sort of ethereal touch, feeling the threads of mana woven through the soil, the trees, the very air, then attempting to draw them in, like a plant drawing nutrients from the earth.
(Internal: Feel it. Don't just perceive it; ingest it. It's like trying to eat stone – impossible by conventional means, but achievable if you know how to break it down at its energetic level and pull the essence into you. Ignore the resistance, the physical pain, the inherent wrongness this world's localized laws scream at you. This bypass, this direct interaction, is the key.)
The initial attempts were frustrating, yielding only faint tingles, a subtle pressure behind his eyes, or a deep, bone-weary exhaustion as his body's natural systems resisted this unconventional intake. It felt like trying to breathe water, a constant fight against his own physical limitations in this reality. But he persisted, night after night, driven by a cold fury and an absolute certainty born of past experience that this method worked, even if this world hadn't discovered it.
He learned to locate nodes where the mana gathered, drawing from them not with the pull of an awakened core, but with a focused, demanding internal suction. He practiced pulling the energy into his limbs, his chest, his head, feeling it pool and swirl within him, a chaotic, untamed current that he had to struggle to prevent from causing internal damage. Control was the next, even harder step. He couldn't channel it outward into spells – that required the structured output of a core. But he could learn to hold it within, to guide its flow internally, to prevent it from dissipating uselessly or causing him harm. He was learning to store the raw energy inside his physical form.
(Internal: This uncontrolled influx would shatter a lesser mind, burn out untrained tissues designed only for blood and bone, not raw energy. But my mind is a fortress, my body a tool to be reforged by knowledge from beyond this simple plane. Every pulse of pain is merely the steel being hammered into shape by an alien hammer. This is the true crucible, a forging outside the known laws of this land.)
He discovered he could, with immense concentration, move the absorbed mana within him – coaxing it from his legs to his arms, gathering it in his chest. It was a slow, meticulous internal dance, guided by principles unknown in this era. He wasn't using magic, not in the way anyone here would understand the term. He was becoming a temporary, makeshift container, a living battery capable of absorbing and retaining raw magical power through sheer, informed will.
The physical cost was high. By dawn, his small frame would be wracked with exhaustion, his muscles trembling, his head pounding. But he would clean himself meticulously, change into his simple clothes, and present the same picture to the waking household: a pale, quiet boy, perhaps a little more drawn than yesterday, reinforcing their belief in his delicate health.
Sir Kaelen would observe him impassively during the sparse breakfast. "Sleep well, Lord Malrik?" he'd ask, the question purely rhetorical, expecting no answer.
Malrik would meet his gaze with a vacant stare, offering only a slow, silent nod, his fingers subtly tracing the outline of a hidden knot of stored mana beneath his tunic – a knot that shouldn't exist in someone without an awakened core.
(Internal: Sleep? Sir Kaelen, I have been wrestling with the fundamental forces of this world, bypassing the very mechanism you believe necessary for power, while you snored. You see frailty. You see silence. You see a problem child exiled to the periphery, incapable of magic. You are correct on the location. You are catastrophically wrong on everything else. My lack of an awakened core is not a weakness; it is the very reason they will never see this coming.)
He was building something within himself, something invisible and powerful, brick by painstaking brick of absorbed mana, using techniques from a world that understood energy far better than this one. This unconventional path was slower, more painful than utilizing an awakened core, but it had one crucial advantage: it was entirely undetectable by the conventional methods of this world's magic-users. No magical sensors designed to detect spellcasting or core activity would flare; no mages trained in their limited arts would sense a surge of power because he wasn't using power in the way they understood it.
They had exiled him, stripped him of his title's privileges, placed him under guard, certain his lack of a core rendered him harmless. They believed they had rendered him powerless. They did not know he was systematically dismantling their understanding of power itself, absorbing the very essence of the world around him, breath by silent, determined, unconventional breath. His true strength was not dormant; it was merely taking root in the shadows, using forbidden, foreign techniques, far from their unsuspecting eyes.