Kael had always been strange.

  In the vilge of Elmsreach, nestled between quiet forests and slow rivers, children grew up with dreams of swords, glory, and adventure. But not Kael.

  Every morning, when his father sent him to train with the guards, Kael yawned, stretched, and spent more time watching clouds than swinging a sword.

  "Focus!" barked Instructor Darnel. “Feet apart—stance wide! Again!”

  Kael sighed. He moved through the motions, almost mechanically. His grip was fwless. His footwork perfect. His swings held an eerie grace.

  Too perfect.

  “You’ve done this before?” Darnel asked, suspicious.

  Kael just shrugged.

  How could he expin?

  In his other life, before this rebirth, Kael wasn’t just a swordsman—he was a grandmaster. A warrior who had climbed through blood and fme, mastering the ancient energy known as Ki. His bde once sang in battlefields where kings knelt and demons wept.

  But here? In this peaceful vilge? Swordpy felt like asking a bird to learn how to fp its wings again.

  So he stopped trying.

  “Lazy good-for-nothing,” muttered the vilge boys.

  Kael didn’t mind. They didn’t understand. How could they?

  He wasn’t arrogant. Just… bored.

  Until the day his world shifted.

  ---

  It happened under the orange light of dusk.

  Kael had wandered into the vilge square, drawn by the murmur of a crowd. An old man y groaning near the well, his leg twisted unnaturally, blood pooling beneath.

  “Clear the way!”

  Kael’s mother, Lady Elira, pushed through.

  She knelt by the wounded man, eyes glowing faintly blue. Her hands hovered over the wound, her voice calm as she whispered ancient sylbles.

  Then—light.

  A soft, radiant glow wrapped around her fingers, seeping into the man's leg. The twisted flesh untangled. The bleeding stopped. Bone cracked back into pce with a sound both strange and miraculous.

  Kael stared, frozen.

  Not at the wound.

  Not even at the miracle.

  But at the energy.

  He could feel it—gentle, warm, flowing like a river of light. His soul stirred. A whisper echoed in his bones.

  Ki? No… not quite. But simir. Familiar.

  After all these quiet, dull years—Kael felt something again.

  Something real.

  Something new.

  ---

  That night, he sat outside, staring at his palm as the stars blinked overhead.

  Magic, he thought. So this world has its own energy. Different from Ki, but with the same rhythm. Same breath. Same life.

  He clenched his fist.

  He wanted to learn it.

  Not because someone told him to—but because for the first time since his reincarnation… he was curious.

  ---

  The next morning, Kael sought out his mother.

  “Teach me,” he said.

  Elira blinked. “Sword again?”

  He shook his head. “Magic.”

  She smiled gently. “You’ve never shown interest in anything. Why now?”

  Kael hesitated. “It’s hard to expin. But when you healed that man… I felt something. It reminded me of something I once knew.”

  Elira stared at him, curious—but said nothing.

  Instead, she took his hand and led him inside.

  ---

  Thus began Kael’s true journey.

  His mother started with the basics—understanding mana, the essence of life in this world. Unlike Ki, which was cultivated through breath, spirit, and combat meditation, mana flowed through nature, woven into the air, the earth, and even the stars.

  “It’s not just energy,” Elira expined. “It’s emotion. Intent. Will.”

  Kael listened. Studied. Practiced.

  It was clumsy at first—he reached for mana as he once reached for Ki, but the two weren’t quite the same. Mana was softer, freer, and more votile.

  But it responded to him.

  Quickly.

  Almost too quickly.

  Elira was amazed. “Your connection… it's like you've done this before.”

  Kael only smiled.

  ---

  Two weeks ter, while studying the difference between healing and elemental mana, he met her.

  A girl with short dark auburn hair, a stubborn chin, and a wild spark in her green eyes.

  She came barreling through the garden, chased by a flock of squawking chickens.

  Kael raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

  She grinned, out of breath. “Totally. Chickens just hate me.”

  Elira ughed behind him. “Kael, this is Arin. Her family moved here from the northern isles. She’s got spirit.”

  Arin stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you. You always look this serious?”

  Kael took her hand slowly. “Only when I’m trying to survive poultry attacks.”

  She burst into ughter. “Okay, I like you.”

  And just like that, she was part of his days.

  ---

  Arin was chaos.

  She climbed trees like a squirrel, asked questions faster than he could answer, and poked at his magic studies like they were puzzles to be solved with brute force.

  Kael was calm, focused. She was a whirlwind.

  But they banced each other.

  “Why don’t you train with the sword like the other boys?” she asked one day.

  He gave her a zy shrug. “I know how already.”

  “Oh? A master, huh?” she teased.

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “Thanks.”

  She ughed again.

  ---

  The peace didn’t st long.

  One afternoon, Kael and Arin wandered to the edge of the forest. She wanted to find wild berries. He just didn’t want to read another chapter on spell circles.

  They found the berries.

  And something else.

  A massive beast burst from the trees—ten feet tall, its body covered in jagged fur and bck stone-like ptes. A twisted boar, mutated, its eyes glowing red with rage.

  It roared, shaking the leaves.

  Arin froze, her basket tumbling.

  Kael stepped in front of her instantly, arm out.

  The beast charged.

  Arin screamed, “Run!”

  But Kael didn’t move.

  He wasn’t afraid.

  He was curious.

  The creature’s power was raw, untrained. Nothing like the horrors he once faced. But this was his first true opponent in this life.

  And… it thrilled him.

  The beast lunged. Kael ducked under the tusks, his body moving with old instincts. He leapt back, channeling a thin stream of mana into his hand. It crackled—unstable, but enough.

  He smiled.

  Then dodged again.

  And again.

  Each time the beast charged, Kael danced around it. Testing. Studying.

  “Kael! What are you doing?!” Arin cried.

  “Pying,” he replied calmly.

  She stared in horror. “You’re insane!”

  He grinned. “You haven’t seen insane yet.”

  Finally, when the fun wore off, Kael exhaled.

  In a single fluid motion, he reached down, picked up a stick—no, a broken training sword someone must’ve dropped long ago—and infused it with mana.

  Then he moved.

  One ssh.

  Fast as lightning.

  Precise as death.

  The beast’s head fell to the side, its body crashing into the earth like a felled tree.

  Silence.

  Arin blinked. “You… killed it. Just like that.”

  Kael stood there, quiet. Then turned to her with a faint smile.

  “That was refreshing.”

  She walked over slowly, jaw hanging. “You’re not normal.”

  “I know.”

  “And you like that thing? That was horrifying!”

  “Better than chickens.”

  She ughed despite herself.

  ---

  When they returned to the vilge, the elders were in awe. The beast had been troubling the forest for weeks.

  Kael, however, just went back to studying.

  Because for the first time in a long while, he had found something that made his blood stir.

  Not the bde.

  But the energy behind it.

  Mana.

  Magic.

  The path was different now. No longer one of war and Ki alone—but something broader. Something more beautiful.

  He

  wasn’t just reborn.

  He was reawakened.

  ---

  End of Chapter 2