Black.
The world returned slowly—like a candle relighting itself in a room that had already forgotten warmth. Icariel's eyelids fluttered. Breath scraped through his lungs in ragged bursts as the dizziness faded like fog from a dying dream. His fingers twitched against the earth—cool, damp, metallic with dew and the copper scent of blood.
He groaned, eyes half-lidded. "What… happened? Did I fail?"
"You did not," said the voice in his head—steady as bone, calm as old winter.
Still lying in the womb of the woods, Icariel blinked slowly, then pushed himself upright. His limbs felt sodden, weighed down by invisible chains. But they moved. They obeyed. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, not in panic—just slow, relentless, like war drums echoing from a battlefield long buried.
"Expand your senses. See what changed."
He closed his eyes, tethering breath to stillness. When he looked inward, his brow twitched in quiet shock.
Where once a dull yellow flicker had clung weakly inside him, there now pulsed a blue orb—small but alive. Not hot. Not cold. Just there—a lantern's glow lost in a sea of fog, pulsing beneath his skin near the core of his gut. Gentle, but impossibly clear.
"…It worked," Icariel whispered, voice fragile with awe.
"Of course it worked," the voice said, like a hand brushing dust from ancient truths. "You now carry pure mana within you. And your body is beginning to notice."
He looked down. The patch of dirt beneath him—where the blood circle had been—was bare. No red. No smear. Not even a shadow of what he'd carved.
"It's… gone," he muttered.
"Yes. That circle was the seal on your sanity. It caught the backlash. Without it, you'd be nothing but screams and meat."
A breath. Not shock—respect. "So the blood… takes the hit for me?"
"Exactly. It pays the cost. Until your shell can hold power on its own, your blood must bargain with the storm."
He sat there, quiet, staring at the tremble still left in his fingers.
"I never asked why you made me draw it," he said softly. "But I get it now."
"Why didn't you?"
He exhaled through his nose, voice flickering with dry humor and something else. "Come on. You already know. I trust you."
A pause.
Then the voice made a sound—not quite a sigh, not quite silence. Just... thinner than usual.
"You're too trusting."
Not cold. Not kind. Just true.
He wiped crusted blood from his wrist and flexed his fingers. No more shaking.
"Just with you," Icariel said with a quiet smile. "So… what now?"
"You cut yourself again. Draw the circle once more. We do it again. And again. Until your body holds more mana. And only then… do we move forward."
Icariel laughed under his breath, reaching for the axe.
"Hah… you know I hate you sometimes," he muttered, smiling through grit teeth.
The axe sang through the air.
Pain bloomed anew.
And the boy bled for strength once more.
Icariel sat cross-legged, silent, his breathing shallow and still. His veins hummed faintly, like stringed wires trembling before they snapped.
He searched inward—through the soreness in his bones, through the sting blooming across his forearms—and reached for the orb inside.
It had grown. Not double. But close.
Twice the size of that first glimmer.
"Nice…" he murmured with a crooked smile. "It's working. It's really working."
Then—a flicker.
Not in his body. In the air around him.
His spine stiffened—not from pain. From… intrusion.
A voice—not his. A laugh. Clear as icicles chattering in winter wind.
[Incompetent.]
His body locked. Frozen.
That wasn't the voice.
That wasn't his voice.
A ghost in the mana? A bleed-through from somewhere deeper?
"Did you hear that?" he whispered.
Silence.
Just his pulse.
Then the familiar voice returned—calm… but thinner.
"Hear what? Just concentrate."
But it lied.
He could hear the unease buried beneath its words.
Then his strength collapsed out of him. His spine bowed backward, breath knocked out like a dying bell. He hit the grass, eyes open, watching the orange sky peel across the treetops like bleeding fire.
Below him, the blood circle vanished once again—erased, like a sin the world chose not to remember.
"You've hit your limit," the voice said, as the light drowned behind the hills. "Four times in a day was already reckless. One more, and you'd have lost more than consciousness."
Icariel stared down at his arms. Red lines crisscrossed both forearms like ritual scars—raw, swollen, angry. Each cut whispered back pain with every twitch.
The walk to the cave was slow. Each step dragged. His muscles screamed like doors pulled off rusted hinges. When he reached the stone shelter, he collapsed against the wall, pulling out the only food he had left—dried deer meat.
Tough. Dry. But it filled the silence in his mouth.
"How long do I have to keep doing this?" he asked.
"As long as the blood is still needed. As long as you pass out. Until you can hold the mana without it eating you alive, this is the only way."
He slumped lower, chewing with dull effort. "It's not like I want to pass out."
Another silence. Sharper.
Then a new thought.
"…What if I used someone else's blood? Animals?"
"No." The voice was steel now. "It must be yours. That circle is more than ink. It's an offering. You want something your flesh can't contain, so you give it something real in return. Blood. Pain. Will."
"I get it," Icariel muttered. "But at this rate, it'll take forever."
A breath. Then the voice asked: "Why are you so impatient?"
He bit the meat harder. Swallowed.
"Because… what if another dungeon appears? Like last time. But closer. What then? I'll be a corpse before I even run."
Silence.
Then, softly:
"You're safe. No dungeon will rise here. Not yet."
Icariel blinked. "Huh? How do you know that?"
Silence again.
"Tch. You're always like this—dodging questions."
The cave dimmed, breath by breath. Night came slow and suffocating.
"How much more blood can I lose before I die?"
"You're at the edge. Four circles. That's your wall. Push past that, and your body will shut down for good."
"Yeah… I feel it."
He leaned back, eyes slipping shut.
The pain was still there. But far away now—like thunder rolling behind distant mountains.
"Rest," the voice murmured.
No reply.
He was already asleep.
Seven days.
Twenty-eight cuts.
Four circles a day—except the third, when he collapsed early, woke up vomiting and blind, shaking and soaked in bile. The backlash almost killed him. Almost.
Now, on the seventh day, sitting within another freshly drawn circle, he breathed in.
As if it were his last breath.
And let his senses expand.
Mana came.
Blue sparks drifted toward him, soft as fireflies, drawn in with every breath, every heartbeat. Each pulse tugged them closer.
Inside him, the mana had swelled. No longer pebble, nor coin. It had grown into something new—like a crystalized heart. The size of a clenched fist. Quietly radiant. Alive.
"It increased again," Icariel said, his voice low—awed. Proud.
"Of course it did," the voice replied. "And your tolerance has grown with it."
He blinked.
Then realized—he was still upright.
Still breathing. Still here.
"You mean… I didn't pass out?"
"That's right."
A grin split his lips. Not wide. But real.
"Finally. Thank the gods… I was going mad, cutting myself every day. My arms look like they lost a war."
He exhaled slowly. The relief hit like warm water after frostbite.
"Alright. What now?"
"Now… your body's ready to hold mana. But you're not a mage. Not yet."
"The next step begins now."
"All that pure mana you've stockpiled? You're going to feed it into your brain. Your eyes. Your senses."
Icariel blinked. "What? That doesn't even make sense—how?"
"You've trained your body to survive mana. Now it must learn to use it. You'll breathe it in every moment—even while sleeping. Your sense of mana must stay active. Always."
His eyes widened. "Won't that… exhaust me?"
"You've hunted your whole life. When you track a deer, your senses heighten. One mistake—and it's gone. You're sharp. A predator."
"Then you eat. You rest. Then you hunt again."
"Mana is the same. You inhale it. Use it. Rest. And start over. Again. Again. Until the rhythm carves itself into your bones."
Icariel nodded, slowly.
It clicked. Too well.
"…So if I master this," he whispered, "I'll be able to sense mana around me. People. Creatures. Like Galien's Third Eye."
"Exactly. But unlike him, you won't be vulnerable while doing it. You'll be a walking sensor. No one will sneak up on you. Ever."
"You'll breathe awareness. Like survival itself."
Icariel looked at the scabs crawling over his skin. Then out at the still forest beyond the cave's mouth.
The world was quiet.
For now.
"That's perfect," he muttered.
"That's exactly what I need."
[End of Chapter 11]