Two more years passed in a blur, carrying Caelen to his tenth birthday. For a noble child in this empire, ten was no ordinary age. It was the year fate declared itself—the year of the Magic Awakening Day, when a child's nature as a mage was determined once and for all.
Over those two years, alongside his grueling sword training with Sir Keith, Caelen had also begun studying the fundamentals of mana theory. His adult soul gave him a decisive edge: the analytical habits of a modern mind let him absorb the library's thick volumes far faster than any ordinary child could manage.
The day the entire castle had been waiting for finally arrived. Before the sun had even crested the horizon, a quiet tension had already settled over House Vaelith like a held breath. Every servant moved with their head bowed, acutely aware of what this day meant for the future of the northern territories.
The Awakening ritual was not held in an open courtyard or a common hall. Caelen was escorted deep into the castle's innermost reaches, to the legendary Ancestral Hall of House Vaelith. The chamber was enormous and perfectly circular, ringed by towering granite pillars carved with ancient inscriptions.
Those pillars were far more than decoration. Embedded within each one were high-grade protective magic stones designed to isolate massive fluctuations in mana. At the center of the hall, a hexagonal stone altar supported an enormous Awakening Crystal that pulsed with a faint, steady white light.
Only a handful of people were permitted inside. Grand Duke Vaelith and the Duchess stood side by side near the altar. At the threshold, Sir Keith and several blood-sworn senior guardian knights held their posts with quiet vigilance.
Caelen walked forward across the cold marble floor of the hall. His small footsteps echoed in measured rhythm through the silence. His adult soul registered a strange flutter in his chest—a blend of genuine curiosity about real magic and sharp anticipation of what was coming.
Before approaching the altar, he glanced toward his mother. The Duchess watched him with both hands clasped tightly against her chest. Her beautiful face was openly anxious, yet her eyes were full of prayer and deep, unguarded love.
Caelen offered her a small, sincere smile—enough to reassure her. Then he turned to face the Grand Duke, who stood as immovable as a mountain of stone.
"Be calm, Caelen. Whatever attribute awakens within you, you remain my son and the rightful heir of House Vaelith," the Grand Duke said in his deep, commanding voice, his support absolute and unshakeable.
"Yes, Father. I'm going," Caelen replied, his tone polite but steady.
Caelen took his final step and stood directly before the Awakening Crystal. He exhaled slowly, steadying his heartbeat. With a deliberate, unhurried motion, he raised his right hand and pressed his palm flat against the crystal's ice-cold surface.
The instant he made contact, a staggeringly massive surge of energy erupted from within the crystal, piercing his skin and racing through every mana channel in his body. A freezing cold seized him for a moment—then, a heartbeat later, the crystal reacted with tremendous force.
A rush of displaced air swept through the hall as the crystal blazed to life with a deep, saturated blood-red. In the next instant, a wave of heat detonated from the center of the altar. Pure fire roared into existence, wild and alive, coiling in a vortex that spiraled up Caelen's arm and over his shoulder.
The fire radiated devastating destructive force, banishing the hall's chill in an instant. The crimson blaze spun several times before finally settling and gathering into Caelen's palm. The first attribute to awaken within him was Fire.
But the ritual was not finished. Just as the fire's intensity began to stabilize, the Awakening Crystal shuddered violently again. This time, its surface shimmered with a transparent, rippling luminescence that moved like the surface of disturbed water.
A fierce wind tore through the sealed hall from no discernible source. It spun at tremendous speed, producing a sharp, piercing whistle that rang off the stone walls.
The current moved with fluid dynamism, merging with the remnants of the fire still burning at Caelen's hand. The two elements clashed and intertwined, conjuring a miniature fire-storm that howled beautifully before slowly being drawn back into the young master's small body.
Watching that pure, unmistakable vortex of wind, the Duchess went still where she stood. Her hands rose slowly to cover her slightly parted lips. Her eyes went wide—then filled with a radiant, overwhelming joy and relief.
"Wind magic…" the Duchess whispered, her voice trembling as she fought back tears. "Caelen… he has the wind attribute!"
The Vaelith family had been renowned for generations for their ice and blizzard magic. The presence of a wind attribute in Caelen's body was extraordinarily rare for a clan of the north—yet it was a personal blessing for the Duchess, who was herself a true wind mage.
Caelen turned toward his mother. He let his face settle into the expression of a ten-year-old caught between surprise and delight, mirroring her reaction perfectly.
"Look, Mother! I can control the wind just like you!" he called out, his eyes wide and guileless—a confirmation that went straight to the Duchess's heart.
The Duchess nodded quickly, and the tears she had been holding back finally spilled down her cheeks. For her, having a child who had inherited the same magic attribute was an enormous emotional validation—a warmth that cut through the perpetual cold of the northern lands.
But the joy inside the hall did not last.
Before the Duchess could step forward to embrace her son, the atmosphere in the stone chamber shifted with terrifying abruptness.
The Awakening Crystal, which had been blazing with the rippling signatures of fire and wind, suddenly dimmed—forcibly, as though something were smothering it. Its pure white light was slowly swallowed from the base upward by a darkness that was dense and absolute.
A sharp crackling sound split the air.
Every remaining trace of light in the room seemed to be inhaled into the crystal and extinguished. In its place, a surge of mysterious energy in deep midnight-blue light erupted outward with a cold, hissing resonance.
The dark energy expanded at a terrifying speed, forming a massive ancient magic circle that rotated slowly behind Caelen's body. The pattern of the circle was deeply strange—it resembled the shape of a total eclipse, vast and unsettling.
The temperature inside the hall plummeted to an extreme freeze in an instant. A thin layer of ice began to creep across the marble floor surrounding the altar. The rows of candles lining the walls dimmed under an invisible pressure, leaving the hall in a tense, suffocating half-darkness.
This was the manifestation of Dark Magic—a taboo attribute, vanishingly rare, and widely regarded throughout the empire as an omen of catastrophe. The hidden power that had once protected him when he was an abandoned infant in the Forbidden Forest had now awakened, and it was demanding its place within Caelen's body.
Faced with this dangerous anomaly, Grand Duke Vaelith moved with a speed the naked eye could not follow. As the empire's supreme military commander, his tactical instincts engaged before his shock could.
If this dense dark energy breached the hall's protective barriers and was detected by the empire's magic towers in the capital, Caelen's standing would be in immediate danger. Rival noble factions would seize on the charge of "heretical magic" to eliminate the heir to the throne.
A deep concussive force rolled through the hall as the Grand Duke released his own mana without hesitation. His ice magic—a cool, pale blue—surged from his body and formed a layered protective dome that sealed the entire Ancestral Hall. The move was calculated to contain and isolate Caelen's dark magic manifestation so that not a single trace of it could leak beyond the castle walls.
"Keith! Lock every outer door and make certain not one servant or outsider comes within range of this hall!" the Grand Duke commanded, his tone cold, absolute, and carrying the full weight of his authority.
Sir Keith, standing guard at the threshold, snapped his fist against his silver-plated chest armor in a sharp salute. He moved like a storm, leading the chosen knights to seal the outer perimeter.
Within the enclosure of his father's ice mana, Caelen remained standing calmly before the altar. He slowly withdrew his hand from the crystal. The moment physical contact broke, the black eclipse-shaped magic circle behind him began to fade, dissolving back into his mana channels like smoke. The oppressive chill in the room gradually lifted.
Grand Duke Vaelith crossed the hall toward his son. The northern lord's stern face was grave, but the sharp eyes beneath his brow held no anger—only the quick, precise gleam of a tactician already building a strategy.
He studied Caelen for a long moment, then turned to his wife, who had by now recovered her composure after the brief shock.
"The presence of this wind magic is an invaluable hidden blessing for all of us," the Grand Duke said, breaking the hall's silence with his measured, heavy voice. "From this day forward, we will announce to the public and to the empire that Caelen was born a prodigy mage with two attributes: Fire and Wind."
He placed one large, calloused hand on Caelen's small shoulder, gripping it with firm steadiness.
"Because your mother's reputation as a formidable wind mage is well established in the capital, the shared attribute will serve as irrefutable genetic proof in the eyes of the empire's nobility. It is the perfect alibi to silence every whisper from the rival noble factions that has questioned your bloodline," the Duke continued, his political analysis precise and unhurried.
Caelen studied his father carefully, then shifted his gaze to his mother, who was already nodding in full agreement, her expression one of complete support. His adult mind immediately mapped the strategic trajectory of the Grand Duke's decision.
The wind attribute was not merely a power. It was a legitimate political shield—one that would legally anchor his identity as the rightful son of House Vaelith before the empire's law.
"I understand, Father. From now on, I will only show fire and wind magic in public," Caelen answered calmly. "I'll make sure the dark magic stays completely hidden."
Grand Duke Vaelith smiled—a rare expression of genuine satisfaction that he showed almost no one. He was visibly impressed that the ten-year-old standing before him had grasped the direction of high-level political maneuvering without needing a single word of elaboration.
"Smart boy. You were born to lead House Vaelith," the Grand Duke said, giving Caelen's shoulder a quiet pat. "As for your taboo dark magic—I will order the discreet construction of a secret underground chamber beneath this castle. Starting tomorrow, you are to train and develop that power only there, under my direct supervision."
Caelen nodded in compliance. Inwardly, he felt a deep wave of relief—his position and his existence were fully supported by both of his adoptive parents.
With the wind magic alibi now officially in place, House Vaelith had built a formidable political fortress to weather whatever noble political intrigue might be waiting for them in the capital.