Chapter 1: The Silver Legacy
The beeping of the heart monitor was the only soundtrack to my death.
In the year 2020, on Earth, I was a man who had everything—and nothing. At forty years old, I sat at the peak of a global food empire. I had negotiated multi-million dollar investments in glass-walled boardrooms and owned real estate from the rolling hills of Tuscany to the skyscrapers of New York. But cancer doesn't care about your net worth.
As I lay in that sterile hospital bed, a classic medieval movie played on the television. I watched a knight charge into battle, his armor gleaming, and felt a pang of envy. He was fighting for honor; I was fighting for one more breath. Before the credits rolled, my eyes grew heavy. The boardrooms, the bank accounts, and the pain faded into a cold, black silence.
Then, I opened my eyes—and screamed with lungs that felt brand new.
I wasn't in a hospital. I was in a room made of rough-hewn stone and smelling of lavender and woodsmoke. My hands were tiny, soft, and unblemished. For months, I lived in a daze, trapped in the body of a five-year-old boy named Fendric Sylvrwynn. My CEO mind struggled to process the impossible: I had been reborn.
Eldpiire was nothing like Earth. There were no cars, no internet, and no stock markets. It was a world of rigid hierarchies and ancient steel. I soon learned that the Sylvrwynn name carried a heavy burden. Seven hundred years ago, my ancestors were Dukes—Cadet branches of the Celestia Imperial Family. Now? We were a Minor Noble House, barely clinging to our "Lord" status, serving a Count and struggling to keep our heads above water.
My father, Lord Cyrus Sylvrwynn, was a man of iron. A Bronze Knight—the tenth tier of the great Knight Cultivation System—he served as a Company Captain. My mother, Diana, came from a Baronet household, a woman of grace who held the rank of an Ordinary Knight. Then there was Osmund Steellay.
Osmund was more than a Guardian Knight; he was a shadow. As my father's Chief Adjutant and closest friend, he was a permanent fixture in our lives. Even then, as a child, I watched them with my old eyes. I saw the way they whispered about the "old days" and the "old blood." The CEO in me knew one thing for certain: they were hiding from something.
As I grew, I realized that in Eldpiire, power wasn't just money—it was cultivation. The Knight system was a ladder of fifteen tiers, starting from the lowly Warriors and climbing toward the legendary Paladin status. I didn't want to be a Low Tier Warrior. I wanted to be the man at the top.
By the age of ten, while other children played with wooden hoops, I was bleeding on the training field. I pushed my young body through the Sylver Knight Technique, a secret family breathing method. "Again, Fendric!" Osmund would roar, his wooden practice sword blurred with speed. I was a High Tier Warrior by ten. In the eyes of a commoner, I was a prodigy. But I knew the truth. I had the resources of a noble family and the mental discipline of a forty-year-old executive. I didn't just practice; I optimized. I treated my training like a business plan.
By fifteen, I broke through. The energy in my veins solidified. I became an Enlisted Knight, then an Apprentice Knight. I felt invincible.
Then, the world broke.
The news came on a rainy Tuesday. Osmund returned alone. His armor was dented, his cloak soaked in mud and blood. My father was gone. A "mission," they called it. My mother didn't just cry; she shattered. I stood in the hallway, holding my ten-year-old brother, Foalan. He sobbed into my tunic, his small body shaking. I didn't cry. My CEO mind was already calculating the risks. A fallen house without a leader was a target.
"We are leaving," my mother said weeks later, her eyes cold and hollow. She sold everything. The land, the heirloom furniture, the ancestral tapestries. We fled the Celestia Empire, crossing the borders into the Orenthal Empire. We settled in Marrowport, a coastal city that smelled of salt and desperation.
With the remaining gold, we didn't buy a new title. We bought a future. We founded the Silver Mercenary Group.
Our roster was small but elite:
Osmund Steellay: Now an Elite Knight (Tier 8).Mother & Karl: Ordinary Knights.Cedric: An Ordinary Hunter we recruited from the docks.The Loyal Sixteen: A mix of Squires, Apprentices, and Warriors who had served my father.
My mother spent a fortune to secure a Knight-tier title from a local Count, a move that nearly bankrupted us. We lived in a crumbling mansion, masquerading as minor gentry while working as swords-for-hire.
For the next five years, my life was a blur of steel and ledgers. I trained Foalan during the day, practiced the Sylver Technique at night, and sat with my mother in the evenings, learning how to run a company. Except, I wasn't just learning. I was secretly applying Earth's management strategies—logistics, supply chain management, and psychological warfare.
I am twenty now. I am a Squire Knight. My family has fallen, my father is dead, and we are surrounded by enemies. But they forgot one thing.
I've run empires before. And I'm going to build a new one.