The largest mansion in the province of Valrin was not famous for its wealth or its soldiers.
It was famous for its gardens.
Fields filled with lilies and white roses stretched so far that the land itself seemed draped in a robe of colors, and there was one woman who spent most of her days among those flowers.
"Maria."
She was neither a noblewoman of influence nor a great sorceress.
She was an ordinary woman.
She believed that every flower had a soul, and that if a person learned how to care for something fragile, they would never become a monster.
That was why she spent hours pruning branches, watering plants, and smiling at every flower that bloomed before her.
But her husband...
Was nothing like her.
Edward.
A former military commander who had fought through dozens of wars.
His face carried more scars than wrinkles, and his voice alone was enough to silence an entire hall.
He did not believe in mercy.
He always said:
"The weak do not need someone to love them... they need someone to exploit them."
The couple was blessed with four sons.
The three eldest resembled their mother.
Calm.
Kind.
They preferred books over swords, and gardens over training grounds.
But the fourth son...
Was different.
His long black hair had reached his shoulders since childhood, and his eyes were strangely still.
His name was...
Alji.
He was not a child who talked much.
He observed more than he spoke.
Asked fewer questions than the thoughts he carried.
And he possessed no extraordinary talent.
When he underwent the internal energy aptitude tests, the results were average.
Lower than many noble children.
One of the instructors scoffed:
"He'll become an average knight... if he works hard."
As for his father...
He merely looked at him.
Then smiled.
A faint smile that no one understood.
The following morning...
Alji woke before sunrise.
He stepped into the training yard.
Raised his wooden sword.
Swung it once.
Then a second time.
Then a third.
By the time the servants came out to prepare breakfast...
He had already surpassed a thousand swings.
It continued for a day.
Then a week.
Then a month.
Everyone thought he would eventually stop.
But he never did.
If the instructor told him,
"Repeat the movement a hundred times."
He repeated it a thousand.
If he was ordered to run ten kilometers...
He returned to run twenty.
His body began to crack.
His hands became covered in blisters.
His feet bled.
Yet he never complained.
His father noticed.
One night, he sat before him.
He asked calmly:
"Do you know why I favor you over your brothers?"
Alji raised his head.
He did not answer.
The man continued:
"Because they resemble their mother."
He fell silent for a moment.
Then said:
"But you... there's something in you that resembles me."
It was the first time he had ever heard words of praise from his father.
He did not feel happy.
Instead...
He felt that even more was now expected of him.
On the other side of the mansion...
Maria watched her son with sorrow.
Whenever he finished training, she would call him into the garden.
She would show him a new flower.
And say:
"Look at it."
He would sit silently.
Then she would continue:
"This flower is so fragile... and yet it survives because it harms no one."
He listened to her.
But something inside him...
Could never believe those words.
At the age of eight...
The first strange incident occurred.
One of the maids disappeared.
Everyone said she had run away.
They searched for her for days.
Then they stopped.
A week later...
Another maid disappeared.
Then a third.
Rumors began spreading throughout the mansion.
Some claimed there was a monster lurking in the forest.
Others believed a gang was kidnapping women throughout the region.
But the truth...
Was far closer than anyone imagined.
In the abandoned basement...
Where the old storage rooms lay forgotten...
Alji sat in the darkness.
Before him...
A corpse.
His hands were covered in blood.
He stared at it for several long minutes.
Then whispered:
"Nothing."
He closed his eyes.
He tried to feel fear.
Regret.
Guilt.
But...
He felt nothing.
The next day...
He ate breakfast with his family as usual.
His mother smiled at him.
His brothers talked about flowers and books.
As for him...
He could only think about...
How quickly the maid had died.
He had not killed her out of anger.
Nor revenge.
Nor self-defense.
He killed her...
Out of curiosity.
He simply wanted to know...
How it felt for one human being to take another person's life.
And the answer...
Was that he felt nothing.
Months later...
He did it again.
Then again.
Each time he concealed the evidence more skillfully than before.
Until it became a secret known by no one.
Not even his father.
Years passed.
At the age of twelve...
His true talent finally revealed itself.
It was neither physical strength.
Nor speed.
Nor a conventional offensive element.
Instead...
It was the Sound Element.
When he released his first vibration, the windows of the hall trembled violently.
Every instructor turned toward him.
One of them exclaimed in astonishment:
"A rare element..."
His father merely said:
"Then... I wasn't mistaken."
From that day onward...
Alji doubled his training.
He was not the most talented.
But he was the most disciplined.
He believed in only one thing.
Talent is born with limits.
Training...
Has none.
And so...
He began to polish himself with madness.
Every day.
Every hour.
Every minute.
Until even the instructors begged him to stop, fearing that his body would collapse.
But he always answered them with the same sentence:
"The body breaks...
Then it becomes stronger."
On a quiet evening...
His mother picked a white flower.
She walked over to him.
Placed the flower in his hand.
And said with her usual smile:
"Keep it."
He looked at her for a long time.
Then accepted it.
That night...
He placed the flower upon the grave of one of the maids he had killed with his own hands.
Not out of respect for her...
But because he wanted to know...
Whether a beautiful flower could change the appearance of blood.
And when he saw it resting upon the earth...
He realized something.
Even the most beautiful flowers...
Cannot hide the smell of death.
The years passed slowly, but Alji's mind changed faster than his body.
At the age of thirteen, he no longer stood in the training yard like a child who wanted to become strong.
But like a hunter studying his prey.
He observed every strike the instructors made, every mistake the knights committed, and even the expressions on their faces during combat.
He believed that a sword was never defeated because it was weak...
But because of the one who wielded it.
That was why he did not train only to strike.
He trained to think.
During one training session, the instructor gathered the noble children for a group battle.
Twenty boys stood in the arena, each carrying a wooden sword.
The instructor said:
"The winner is the last one left standing."
Everyone charged at the same moment.
As for Alji...
He did not move.
He stood where he was, watching.
He saw the strongest attacking one another, while the weakest fled toward the edges.
After a few minutes...
Only five remained.
Only then...
He moved.
He was frighteningly calm.
One step.
Then another.
A single strike to the first opponent's knee.
The second received a blow to the wrist, causing his sword to fall.
The third attacked him from behind.
But Alji had already anticipated it.
He turned before the strike could reach him and slammed the hilt of his sword into the boy's throat.
All three fell within seconds.
The instructor looked at him in astonishment.
He was not the fastest.
Nor was he the strongest.
But he had not wasted a single movement.
That night...
His father summoned him.
The man sat in a spacious room whose walls were decorated with ancient weapons.
Without looking at him, he asked:
"How did you win?"
Alji answered:
"I let them weaken one another."
His father raised his head.
"And what if they were smarter than you?"
Silence filled the room.
Then Alji said:
"Then I'll be more ruthless than they are."
For the first time, his father smiled a genuine smile.
He said:
"Remember this well...
The mind grants you victory once.
Ruthlessness...
Ensures your opponent never stands up again."
Those words...
Were the first true lesson he had learned from his father.
As for his mother...
She watched him from afar.
She could feel that something inside him was changing.
His eyes no longer looked at people the way they once had.
Now they looked at them...
The way a blacksmith looks at a piece of iron.
Something that could be shaped.
Or broken.
One day, she stopped her son at the entrance to the garden.
She handed him a red flower.
And said:
"Alji..."
He looked at her silently.
"I'm afraid you'll lose your heart."
He did not answer.
He took the flower.
Then walked away.
After he left...
Maria sighed.
And whispered to herself:
"I hope I'm wrong."
At the age of fourteen...
Point-collecting competitions among the noble children began to appear.
Their rules were simple.
Defeat your opponent.
You earn their points.
But the rules did not forbid violence.
Nor did they forbid breaking bones.
Nor did they forbid leaving an opponent permanently crippled.
From the very first day...
Alji understood something.
The more people feared you...
The less you needed to fight.
That was why...
He deliberately brutalized his opponents.
Winning was never enough.
He would break an arm.
Or a leg.
Or leave them unable to stand.
Little by little...
Everyone began avoiding him.
But that did not bother him.
He liked it.
Months later...
A rumor reached him.
There was a young man who held first place.
He had never lost a single match.
Alji went to him.
Stood before him.
And calmly said:
"Fight me."
The young man laughed.
"You?"
That was the last word he spoke while standing.
The battle lasted less than a minute.
When it ended...
The young man lay unconscious, his jaw shattered and his right leg twisted at a horrifying angle.
As for Alji...
He was staring at the scoreboard.
He smiled.
Not because he had won.
But because his name now stood at the very top.
That evening...
One of his brothers asked him:
"Wasn't defeating him enough?"
Alji looked at him.
Then said coldly:
"If I'd left him able to stand...
He would've challenged someone else tomorrow."
His brother froze where he stood.
For the first time...
He felt fear toward his younger brother.
The following year...
His Sound Element became far more stable.
At first, it had been nothing more than waves colliding with the air.
But Alji was not satisfied with that.
He kept experimenting.
Failing.
And trying again.
For months.
Until he discovered something strange.
Sound...
Was not merely what others heard.
It was vibration.
And if he could control vibration...
Then perhaps he could control his own body.
He began conducting secret experiments.
He concentrated energy within his veins.
Then released tiny vibrations through his muscles.
At first...
His muscle fibers tore apart.
He coughed blood.
And nearly died more than once.
But...
Every failure brought him closer to the answer.
After hundreds of attempts...
He finally succeeded.
In a single instant...
The flow of internal energy throughout his body increased dramatically.
He felt every muscle become lighter.
Faster.
Stronger.
But after only five seconds...
He collapsed to the ground.
He remained unconscious for two full days.
When he awoke...
He felt no regret.
Only satisfaction.
He had created a technique of his own.
A technique that no one before him had ever possessed.
Internal Energy Reinforcement.
Only five seconds.
But during those five seconds...
He could unleash power that surpassed his opponent's by twice as much.
It was a gamble.
If he failed to finish the battle within that time...
His body would become completely exhausted.
But Alji had never intended to fight long battles in the first place.
He believed that the perfect battle...
Was one that ended before the opponent even understood what had happened.
At the end of that year...
His father stood before him in the training yard.
He said:
"Attack me."
Alji raised his sword.
Then...
He disappeared.
In less than a second...
The tip of his blade had reached his father's throat.
But the man stopped it with only two fingers.
Silence filled the air.
Then his father smiled.
"Finally..."
Alji lowered his sword.
"What do you think?"
His father looked at him for a long moment.
Then said:
"You've become stronger than every child in this province."
He paused briefly.
Then continued in a cold voice:
"But don't think you've become strong."
Alji frowned.
His father said:
"Beyond these walls...
There are real monsters."
Then he turned around and left.
As for Alji...
He remained gazing at the sky.
For the first time...
He felt that the mansion had become too small for him.
And that the world beyond...
Might be the only place worthy of testing his strength.