The transition was not a graceful slide into a new life; it was a violent collision with reality.
One moment, I was a god among men, standing amidst the ruins of the greatest library ever built, surrounded by the scent of ozone and dying dreams. The next, I was drowning. My lungs, once capable of chanting ten-syllable incantations without a break, were now two tiny, searing bellows that couldn't even process a full gulp of air.
I tried to scream—a curse, a challenge, anything to the gods who had forced my hand. But my vocal cords were underdeveloped ribbons. What emerged was a thin, pathetic wail.
Focus, Kaelen, I told myself. The Chronos Core... did it hold?
I tried to open my eyes. The world was a smear of terrifying, oversaturated colors. Light hit my retinas like a physical blow. I had forgotten how much the world hurt when you didn't have a Layer-7 Mana Barrier protecting your senses.
"Oh, look! He's a fighter, Silas! Listen to those lungs!"
A voice. High-pitched, melodic, and vibrating with an emotion I hadn't felt in decades: unconditional love. A pair of hands—massive, warm, and terrifyingly soft—scooped me up. I was pressed against a heartbeat that sounded like a war drum. I looked up, squinting through the blur. A woman. She looked young, her hair matted with sweat, her eyes shining with a light that no Seraph could ever replicate.
"Welcome home, little Kael," she whispered.
Home? I looked past her. This wasn't a palace. The walls were made of rough-hewn timber and mud-brick. The air smelled of woodsmoke, dried herbs, and... pigs. I had traded the pinnacle of civilization for a peasant's hovel.
I felt a sudden, sharp pressure in my stomach. Hunger. Not the spiritual hunger for mana I was used to, but a raw, biological demand that consumed my entire consciousness. Before I could stop myself, my body took over. I began to cry again—not out of grief for my fallen kingdom, but because I wanted milk.
The indignity, I thought, even as I greedily accepted the nourishment. The Grand Mage of the Silver Spire, reduced to a biological reflex.
The First Inventory
Hours later, when the woman—Elara, I learned—finally placed me in a cradle made of hollowed-out pine, I found my first moment of peace.
I closed my eyes and turned my gaze inward. This was the moment of truth. If the Chronos Core had failed to preserve my soul's "shape," I was nothing more than a smart child.
I dived into my Inner Sea.
In my old life, my Inner Sea was a vast, glittering ocean of violet mana, deep enough to drown continents. Now... I stood before a puddle. It was a pathetic, shallow pool of murky gray energy, barely enough to light a candle.
But in the center of that puddle, something was glowing.
It was a shard of obsidian, vibrating with a familiar rhythm. The Chronos Core. It had survived. It had hitched a ride on my soul, acting as a bridge between my past and my future. As I touched it with my consciousness, a flood of data surged into my mind.
[Soul Synthesis Complete] Attribute Retained: Mana Purity (98%) Current Vessel Capacity: 0.0001% of previous peak. Warning: Physical body is currently incompatible with High-Tier Logic. Attempting to cast will result in spontaneous combustion.
I laughed—or rather, I made a soft gurgling sound.
The gods had thought they had won. They thought the "Cycle" was a closed loop. But I had brought the cheat code with me. I looked at my tiny, wrinkled hands. They were weak now. They were useless.
But these hands had twelve years to learn how to hold a sword. These eyes had twelve years to learn how to read the stars again. And this heart? This heart had twelve years to turn into a furnace.
"Sleep well, Kael," a man's voice—Silas—muttered from the doorway. He blew out the tallow candle, plunging the room into darkness.
I didn't sleep. Instead, I focused on the tiny puddle of mana at my core. Very slowly, I began to pull a single thread of energy from the air, weaving it into the first layer of a Mana-Tempering Circuit.
It was going to be a very long twelve years.