The wind howled through the mountains, sweeping through the jagged cliffs and curling around the ancient stone formations that had withstood the passage of centuries. The sky was painted in deep shades of twilight, the sun barely clinging to the horizon, casting a golden glow over the rugged terrain.

And in the midst of it all—

Aeliana sat atop a small, weathered boulder, perfectly still, her legs crossed, her hands resting against her lap. Her amber eyes were shut, her breathing slow, measured.

But she wasn’t just meditating.

She was accumulating.

The mana around her was thick, heavy—alive. It pulsed in the air, invisible threads of energy weaving through her veins, coiling deep within her core. She could feel it—like a slow, powerful current, drawn in with every breath, refined with every exhale. It settled inside her, layered upon itself, growing denser, more controlled.

The process was delicate.

If she was too hasty, if she tried to force it—she could disrupt the natural flow, strain her core, and undo weeks of progress in an instant.

But she had long since learned patience.

Her thoughts drifted—back to her father’s study, to that night when she had been dragged away without so much as a farewell.

Months.

It had been months since she last saw Lucavion.

Since she last heard his infuriatingly smooth voice. Since she last felt the warmth of his presence, the ridiculous arrogance in his words, the way he always somehow managed to get under her skin—only to soothe her irritation a moment later.

Is he at the Academy now?

The thought pressed at the edges of her mind, but she pushed it away.

Focus.

She needed to focus.

She inhaled deeply, allowing the mana to settle further, to sink deeper into the foundation of her being—

“You are doing really well.”

Aeliana’s eyes snapped open.

A voice—faintly amused, utterly at ease—drifted from her left.

Her gaze flickered toward the source, and sure enough—

There he was.

An elderly man.

Draped in robes that had clearly seen better days, his graying beard reaching down to his chest, wild strands of silver hair sticking out in random directions as if he had forgotten what a comb was. His wrinkled hands were tucked lazily into his sleeves, and his eyes—clouded with age, yet sharp as ever—held the glint of a man who was far more alive than his years suggested.

Aeliana sighed.

Tch.

“You.”

The old man grinned. “Me.”

Aeliana exhaled through her nose. “What do you want?”

“Ah, such hostility.” The man tilted his head, stroking his beard with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Shouldn’t you be more respectful to your esteemed teacher?”

Aeliana gave him a look. “I would be, if my esteemed teacher wasn’t so irritating.”

The old man cackled, completely unfazed. “Hah! That’s the spirit!”

Aeliana fought the urge to roll her eyes.

This man.

This eccentric, impossible old man—

For months, he had been the one guiding her training, instructing her on the finer details of mana refinement, of core expansion, of pushing her limits while maintaining control. And while she could begrudgingly admit that his methods were effective—

He was also an absolute menace to deal with.

One moment, he was an insightful master, offering precise guidance and wisdom. The next, he was making terrible jokes, dodging serious conversations, or deliberately making her life harder just to amuse himself.

Aeliana pressed a hand to her temple. “If you have something to say, say it.”

The old man hummed, shifting his weight onto one foot. “Impatient as ever.”

Aeliana exhaled sharply. “You’re the one who interrupted my training.”

“True, true,” he mused. Then, without warning, he flicked his fingers—

And a sudden burst of mana struck the boulder beneath her.

Aeliana’s instincts flared.

With a sharp inhale, she gathered her mana in an instant, steadying herself even as the rock beneath her shook.

But she didn’t fall.

Didn’t even waver.

The old man grinned.

“Not bad.”

Aeliana’s eye twitched.

“Do you enjoy testing my patience?”

The old man cackled again. “You’re finally catching on!”

Aeliana sighed.

Though she was not the only one.

The old man also let out a heavy sigh, stretching his arms with an exaggerated groan before plopping down onto the rocky ground beside her. His robes crumpled around him like a pile of discarded cloth, and for a brief moment, he looked less like a revered master and more like some homeless wanderer who had mistakenly found himself on a mountain peak.

Aeliana closed her eyes for a second, inhaling deeply. Patience. Breathe. If she let herself get irritated by every one of his antics, she wouldn’t get anything done.

The old man, for his part, studied her with that ever-present twinkle in his sharp, aging eyes.

“Let’s talk about your little… condition.”

Aeliana cracked one eye open. “Condition?”

He stroked his beard, nodding sagely as if he were some profound philosopher. “Yes, yes. The strange case of Aeliana Thaddeus. Quite the anomaly, you are.”

Aeliana sighed. “What now?”

“Well,” the old man drawled, “it’s not every day that someone wakes up from a lifelong illness and suddenly finds themselves at the peak of 1-star cultivation.”

Aeliana stilled.

That again.

It wasn’t the first time he had brought this up. And truth be told—she had noticed.

Before she had fallen ill, back when she had been just a child, her mana core had barely touched the threshold of 1-star. She had been progressing at a standard rate—nothing extraordinary, nothing out of the ordinary. Then the sickness took over, and everything stopped.

She had spent years bedridden, weak, unable to advance, unable to so much as lift a training sword.

And then—

She was cured.

And not only had she regained her strength—her mana had already reached the very peak of 1-star, like it had been growing somewhere else while she had been trapped in her body.

The old man tapped his fingers against his knee. “You didn’t notice?”

Aeliana scoffed. “Of course I did.”

He grinned. “Good. That means you’re not completely dull.”

Aeliana exhaled through her nose. “Are you actually going to explain something, or are you just going to sit there enjoying your own voice?”

The old man cackled. “A little of both, honestly.”

Aeliana resisted the urge to shove him off the cliff.

He leaned back against his elbows, glancing up at the sky. “Here’s what I think, girl. That mana—your core—it’s not new. It’s old. Ancient, even.” He tapped his temple. “Something was growing inside of you all those years, even while your body was wasting away.”

Aeliana frowned. “That’s impossible. If I was cultivating mana while I was sick, I should have felt it.”

“Should you have?” the old man mused. “Or were you simply not able to perceive it?”

Aeliana’s fingers twitched.

The idea was unsettling. That something had been building inside her without her knowing, without her being aware.

But she pushed the thought away.

“So?” she asked, tilting her head. “What does that mean for my training?”

The old man smirked. “It means we have a foundation. A very strong one. And if you stop being so stiff, we can actually start working on refining that monstrous core of yours.”

Aeliana huffed. “Fine.”

The old man clapped his hands together, sitting up straighter. “Since you’re a Thaddeus, naturally, you’ve been practicing the [Storm Sovereign’s Dominion], yes?”

Aeliana nodded.

The [Storm Sovereign’s Dominion].

A quasi-legendary cultivation method passed through generations of the Thaddeus bloodline. It was not merely a technique—it was a bond, a command over the ocean itself. The sea bent to its practitioners, the storms yielded to them. It was what had allowed the Thaddeus family to dominate the empire’s naval forces, to rule the waters as if they were an extension of their own bodies.

The technique itself was brutal. Unlike other elemental cultivation paths, which relied on harmony and slow mastery, the [Storm Sovereign’s Dominion] was sheer, unrelenting willpower.

There was no ‘guiding’ the mana like a gentle stream.

There was only dominance.

The practitioner had to seize the mana like a raging tide, wrestle it into submission, bend it beneath their control. They had to command the elements, not simply coexist with them.

And if they failed?

Then the mana would consume them instead.

Aeliana had spent months breaking herself against this method, forcing her body to withstand the sheer weight of it, strengthening her core to endure the raw force of the storms.

The old man grinned, as if sensing her thoughts. “Good, good. Then let’s see how much you’ve improved.”

Aeliana exhaled, closing her eyes once more.

She reached inside herself, into the deep, roiling depths of her core—

The moment Aeliana reached into her core, she felt it.

A tide of power—roiling, waiting. The mana within her was vast, a deep reservoir that had been lying dormant for years, growing in silence.

She exhaled slowly, commanding it to move.

And it obeyed.

A soft, electric hum filled the air as mana surged outward, coating her skin. It wrapped around her like a second layer of existence, a tangible force that clung to every fiber of her being.

Her body tingled, the power thrumming beneath her skin, resonating with the very rhythm of her breath. It was controlled, contained—exactly what a 1-star Awakened was supposed to achieve.

But then—

Something else stirred.

Deep beneath the surface of her core, a ripple.

A force older than her, older than the illness that had plagued her, older than the mere human limits she had once believed in.

Aeliana inhaled sharply as a pulse of mana—ancient, untamed—lashed against her consciousness. It wasn’t wild in the way a storm raged or how the sea roared. It was something different. Something she did not yet fully understand.

Her breath stilled.

‘Submit.’

Once again she started trying.

The same process.

She did not beg.

She commanded.

The mana bucked, resisting—like a beast unaccustomed to a master’s hand.

In this part she had been failing for the whole past days.

“Remember, what I taught you, Aeliana.”

But this time she knew.

She was close.

TOK!

Just then she felt it.

A sharp wind kicked up around her as the force inside her folded, merging with her core, intertwining with her like a current finally given direction.

She gasped.

For a moment, it was like she could feel everything.

The moisture in the air, the weight of the clouds above, the way the distant wind tugged at the trees along the mountain path.

It was intoxicating.

Power surged through her limbs, her breath syncing with the rhythm of the mana inside her, until—

A crackling sound echoed around her.

The old man, who had been silently observing, let out a low whistle.

“Oooooh…”

A wide, knowing grin stretched across his face, eyes glinting with unmistakable amusement.

“Such a talent.”