The morning wind was like a gentle kiss on ajax's cheek as he stepped beyond the last familiar ridge. Behind him, the ruins of his home were hidden by distance, but not memory. Smoke no longer marked the sky, but he still felt its trace in his chest—heavy, burning, resolved.
His pack bounced lightly against his shoulders. A single glyph, drawn carefully at dawn, shimmered faintly along the fabric—one of the first Ajax had ever applied intentionally. A simple weight-reduction rune, structured and tight. A gift from his past life's logic, now merged with the raw mana of this world. It made his journey easier, but more importantly, it was proof. Proof that he could still use what he'd once known, and bend it to this new world.
The grasslands of Cairn stretched before him in vast, undulating gold. The path to Kaelridge would take a month—longer, if the roads grew treacherous. But Ajax welcomed the time. He needed the space to think. To train. To grieve.
The first few days passed slowly, the sky wide and cloudless above. He passed no travelers. Only the wind and his own thoughts for company.
The nights were cold and restless as ajax couldn't help but recall why he was on this journey alone. Only the stary night sky to keep watch over him.
It was late on the third day when he came upon a river, narrow and swift. He knelt beside it, cupping the cold water in his palms, and splashed it against his face. The cold grounded him.
He stared at his reflection. The boy looking back at him didn't seem four years old. Not really. Mossy-tinged eyes, like Jasmine's. A jaw too still for someone so young. A weight that belonged to someone older. Someone who'd lost more than most people ever would.
He took a breath.
He hadn't cried again since that night. Since he'd held their empty hands in the burning ruin of their home. Since he'd whispered a promise to the smoke and the stars.
"I'll get stronger," he murmured to the water. "No matter what it takes."
His hands trembled slightly, but he didn't flinch from the feeling. He focused instead—on everything he'd been through. Two lives' worth of memory and pain. Two systems of magic: one precise, built on glyphs and structure. The other wild, driven by feeling. He thought on their culmination.
The Spiral.
He'd always treated them as separate things.
But what if they weren't?
What if the chaos of this world could be shaped by the clarity of the last?
He sat back, fingers curling into the grass. Closed his eyes.
And then he imagined something.
A blade—not forged, not tempered by flame or metal. But willed into being. A sword made not of steel, but of mana. A manifestation of his desire to protect. Of his grief. His memory. His purpose.
He extended his palm and reached inside himself—into both worlds. Into both kinds of power.
Mana surged up his arm.
"Create."
Light bloomed.
A blade of deep blue, transparent like tinted glass, flickered into existence in his hand. It shimmered, humming faintly, alive with energy. Threads of lightning arced along its edge, then cooled into frost. It responded to his will—elemental, fluid, unreal.
Ajax gasped.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the sword faltered. Flickered. And vanished.
His hand dropped to his knee, chest heaving.
But he laughed.
It had worked.
Not perfectly. Not yet. But it was real. This wasn't just manipulation of mana and it wasn't glyph-casting from his old world. This was something entirely new. His magic. A fusion of both systems—emotion guided by structure.
Creation magic.
No one in Cairn had this.
And it was only the beginning.
That night, he didn't sleep much. Instead, he tried again. And again. Small things first. The shape of a dagger. A shard of ice. A crackling bow that dissolved before he could draw it. Every attempt took focus, more emotion than he was used to letting out.
But the more he practiced, the longer they held.
By the end of the week, his steps had found rhythm. The backpack glyph still glowed faintly. He refined it during rest stops, tweaking the sigils, learning how this world's Spiral reacted to structured intent. Sometimes the results were unstable. Sometimes they clicked.
His mana sword, when it formed now, stayed longer. And it could cut—not wood, not stone, but other spells. Loose energy. Attacks made from magic, both glyph based and mana based. He would have to test it more, but even now, he could feel its potential.
Each night he camped beneath open sky, he imagined their voices. Jasmine calling him in from the garden. His father humming as he repaired the old wooden fence.
And each night, he trained harder.
Not for vengeance. Not even just to find them.
But to make sure that when he did, he'd be worthy of them.
By the twelfth day, the terrain began to shift. Trees clustered in scattered copses. The roads grew busier. Travelers passed—merchants, monks, even a few soldiers. None looked twice at the quiet boy with forest eyes and steady steps.
They didn't see the magic behind his calm. They didn't feel the power forming, subtle and unfinished, at his fingertips.
They would.
One day.