Chapter 40 — Beyond My Reach

  Yesterday’s soreness had already faded, erased by steady healing rather than rest.

  The wooden shack over the farm had been finished the day before—not a complex structure, just a simple frame of thick posts with a slanted roof laid across them, open on all sides. Enough to keep snow from settling directly on the soil, enough to let air pass freely beneath it.

  It would protect the ground from the weight of what was coming.

  The crops I had planted earlier were already ready for harvest. Berries hung heavy on their stems. Roots pushed against the soil’s surface, thick and healthy. Vegetables and herbs had grown dense and strong. Only the wheat and oil seeds lagged behind—still fragile, just germinated, their green tips barely breaking through the earth.

  Today, I returned to training.

  I tried to create metal again.

  It took far longer than before. More focus. More restraint. Mana had to be held perfectly—compressed without forcing, shaped without correction. Sweat gathered along my spine as I maintained the pressure, refusing to rush.

  Finally, it formed.

  A fist-sized lump of metal rested in my palm. Smooth. Uniform. Cold.

  I waited.

  It didn’t crack.

  It didn’t crumble.

  It remained.

  Lyra, who had been watching quietly, finally signaled to me.

  “Come,” she said. “It’s time. I won’t be going easy today. You’d better adapt faster.”

  I nodded.

  That was the plan.

  To increase the intensity.

  It began immediately.

  She didn’t give me the luxury of preparation. The moment I stepped into range, the pressure field formed around me—sudden, absolute.

  My body lurched as if the world itself had dropped onto my shoulders.

  Standing alone took everything I had.

  I felt it instantly.

  My weight wasn’t just heavier—it was wrong. Every movement dragged, every breath resisted.

  Five times.

  Five times normal gravity.

  I recognized it without needing to think.

  The air felt dense, pressurized, harder to pull into my lungs. My chest burned as I forced breath after breath, muscles screaming under the strain. My legs shook violently as I fought just to remain upright.

  I didn’t move.

  I couldn’t.

  Adapting became the only goal.

  Minute by minute, I forced my body to adjust—reinforcing my core, my joints, my spine—redistributing strain wherever I could. Slowly, painfully, I straightened.

  That was all.

  For today, simply standing there—enduring the pressure for what must have been nearly an hour—was enough.

  Lyra knew it too.

  When my strength finally gave out, my legs buckled and I collapsed onto the ground.

  The pressure field vanished instantly.

  As always, the sudden lightness followed—my body feeling almost unreal, as if gravity itself had loosened its grip.

  I lay there, breathing hard.

  Lighter than before.

  Today wouldn’t end with gravity or stone.

  Umbra had already made that clear.

  Today, I would be learning something new.

  Something I had never tried before.

  Not shaping. Not reinforcing. Not creating anything at all.

  Just changing mana itself.

  Umbra vanished.

  Then reappeared directly in front of me.

  I stiffened despite myself.

  I had seen him do it countless times. It still caught me off guard.

  “So you can do that too using dark mana?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Umbra replied calmly. “Dark mana allows many things. Hiding presence. Masking aura. Appearing from a chosen point. Creating space to store objects.”

  He paused.

  “But remember this,” he continued. “Dark mana consumes an extreme amount of mana. Even maintaining its form is dangerous. Lose control, and it will drain you dry.”

  That cooled my excitement immediately.

  “So today,” Umbra said, “you will do none of that.”

  I blinked.

  “Today, your only goal is to change your mana—nothing more.”

  …That sounded far cooler than it actually was.

  It was cool—but it was also far too much for my brain to take in all at once.

  Umbra noticed.

  He stopped explaining.

  “Don’t think about what it can do,” he said. “Just watch.”

  He stepped back and closed his eyes.

  Nothing dramatic happened.

  No shadows surged. No space warped. No pressure filled the air.

  But I felt it.

  His mana shifted—subtly, almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t heavier or sharper. It simply… changed direction. Like a current that had found a different path to flow through.

  “Do the same,” Umbra said. “Don’t force it. Don’t imagine an effect.”

  He opened one eye.

  “Just tell your mana where.”

  I swallowed and focused.

  I gathered mana like I always did.

  And then—

  I stopped trying to turn it into anything at all.

  I kept the intent fixed—

  not on creating, not on shaping,

  but on holding the mana inward.

  Nothing opened.

  No distortion. No rupture. No sensation of anything responding.

  And yet—

  the mana around me shifted.

  I couldn’t see it, but I felt it clearly. The flow changed direction, pulling inward instead of outward. It didn’t form anything. It didn’t act.

  It simply drained.

  A sharp weakness tore through my core as the mana vanished far faster than I expected. My legs gave out, strength abandoning me all at once, and I hit the ground hard.

  My vision blurred.

  But even as I lay there, gasping, one thing was unmistakable.

  The mana had changed.

  I hadn’t accessed anything.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  But whatever I had done… the mana itself was no longer the same.

  “That doesn’t seem like something I should be learning this early,” I muttered, breath unsteady.

  Umbra didn’t deny it.

  “Absolutely,” he said calmly. “It is one of the more difficult ones. No beginner should be using it.”

  “Then wh—”

  “To get you used to the concept,” Kael cut in.

  I looked up. He was already there, arms folded, gaze steady.

  “So that when you encounter it again in the future,” he continued, “it won’t be unfamiliar. But that is enough.”

  His voice hardened slightly.

  “Do not use it again today.”

  I nodded weakly.

  “Let your core rest and recover,” Kael said. “The nausea you’re feeling will fade once it absorbs enough ambient mana. Until then—rest.”

  “Got it,” I replied, closing my eyes.

  I agreed to what Kael said.

  But before I could do anything else—

  something happened.

  My body wouldn’t move.

  I was still breathing. Still aware. But the world around me slipped out of reach, as if something had gently but firmly pulled my attention elsewhere.

  A dream.

  No—

  not a dream.

  The same kind as before.

  The same one that had surfaced when I first created metal.

  This wasn’t something I could wake up from.

  It wasn’t something I could skip.

  I was watching.

  I saw human hands.

  They were unfamiliar, yet unmistakably human—rough, scarred, steady as they pressed together in reverence. The ground beneath them was smooth stone. Cold. Clean.

  Before me stood a statue.

  White stone, towering, carved with impossible precision. Its surface was adorned with jewelry—gold, gems, symbols I didn’t recognize but felt carried weight far older than language. Standing there, it felt as if I was the one before the god.

  Not observing.

  Participating.

  The sensation was too vivid. Too grounded. Too intentional to be a dream.

  This was a memory.

  And unlike the last one, there was no pain.

  No tearing sensation. No force dragging it out of me.

  That alone unsettled me.

  I couldn’t understand the language being spoken. The words passed through my ears without meaning—but the intent was clear. Clearer than speech ever could be.

  The man was praying.

  Asking.

  Not for power.

  Not for glory.

  For tools.

  I expected nothing to happen.

  Then—

  Space folded.

  Two objects appeared in front of the statue as if they had always been there, waiting to be acknowledged.

  Dark mana.

  I felt it instantly.

  That was the trigger this time.

  Not metal.

  Not force.

  Dark mana.

  The realization hit me mid-memory, sharp and undeniable.

  The man stepped forward.

  He received the first object.

  A sword.

  Beautiful wasn’t a strong enough word. Its blade was flawless, balanced in a way that made my chest tighten instinctively. The hilt was wrapped in gold, not decorative, but purposeful—etched with patterns meant to last centuries.

  As someone who loved weapons, I knew immediately—

  This was a masterpiece.

  Then the second object.

  A bag.

  Plain at first glance. Too plain.

  But I felt it.

  Dark mana flowed through it constantly, silently, holding something far greater than its shape suggested.

  The man reached for his old sword—the one he had carried before coming here—and placed it inside the bag.

  It vanished.

  No resistance.

  No distortion.

  Despite its size.

  My breath caught.

  I never saw the man’s face.

  Never saw his companions.

  But I didn’t need to.

  This confirmed it.

  Humans had been here.

  My eyes snapped open.

  I was back.

  The forest returned. The air. The weight of my body on the ground. Kael stood nearby. Umbra hadn’t moved.

  I sat up slowly and told them everything I had seen.

  Every detail.

  Every object.

  Every certainty.

  Kael was quiet for a long moment after I finished.

  “I can’t be certain,” he said finally. “I have never known humans like you before. But what you saw was likely the memory of another human—one who came here many moon cycles ago.”

  He paused.

  “As for the statue,” he continued, “I do not know what it was.”

  The thought had already begun to take shape in my mind. The memory replayed itself—the reverence, the offering, the way the objects had appeared without effort or resistance.

  “Maybe it was a god,” I said slowly. “The one that human worshipped.”

  Umbra’s ears flicked.

  “A god?” he asked. “What is that?”

  “They are beings believed to watch over the world,” I replied. “Not unlike how the Primordials are regarded here.”

  Kael glanced at me.

  “For us,” he said, “the only beings that ever watched over the world were the Primordials.”

  I nodded. “Then it’s similar. The way you respect and revere them—humans did the same with gods. That belief shaped how they understood the world.”

  Umbra frowned. “How do you know this?” he asked. “Did humans worship gods in your world too?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Though no one had ever truly seen one. They were believed to exist—watching, judging, guiding.”

  I hesitated.

  “But in this world… I didn’t think they could interact with humans. Not directly. Not by giving them weapons.”

  Kael’s expression darkened.

  “That is the part that troubles me,” he said. “If such beings are powerful enough to grant weapons like that, why give them to humans at all?”

  He looked toward the trees, his voice low.

  “If they are so strong, why do they not destroy the Voidborns themselves? Just as the Primordials once did?”

  Silence followed.

  “Humans could never reach them,” Kael continued. “They would fall long before ever encountering a Voidborn. Weaker creatures. Devourers. The world itself would end them first.”

  “They must have had a reason,” I said.

  No one answered.

  The absence of answers settled over us—heavy, unresolved, and far more unsettling than certainty.

  My next task was to clear—or at least drive off—a creature that had begun challenging the territory.

  It was a Vorshyn.

  A creature that resembled a panther at first glance, but only if you didn’t look too closely. Its body was lower and broader, built close to the ground, with dense layers of muscle rolling beneath dark, water-slick hide. Faint blue lines pulsed along its spine, flowing and shifting like currents trapped beneath flesh—never still, never fully at rest.

  I found it before it found me.

  The moment our auras brushed, the Vorshyn moved.

  Not toward me.

  Around me.

  Water surged at its feet, compressing into a spiraling current that launched it sideways faster than any beast its size should have been able to move. I twisted just in time—stone shards tore from the ground where I’d been standing a heartbeat earlier.

  I answered instantly.

  Mana ripped jagged rocks free and hurled them forward in a tight spread. Sharp. Dense. Fast.

  The Vorshyn snapped its head aside.

  Water around its body reacted as if alive—currents snapping outward, intersecting and colliding. The stone was deflected, shattered, or driven into the earth with explosive force.

  It didn’t just block.

  It controlled.

  The counterattack came immediately.

  Water compressed in front of it—then detonated.

  The impact hit like a hammer. I threw myself behind a nearby boulder as the blast struck.

  The stone shattered.

  Fragments ripped into my side. Pain flared hot and sharp as I hit the ground, breath torn from my lungs.

  Healing surged instinctively.

  I was already moving as the wound closed.

  A thin metal blade formed along my forearm. Crude. Sharp. I lunged.

  The Vorshyn twisted, letting the strike glance across its hide.

  Metal scraped—

  and did nothing.

  Its tail snapped around, water reinforcing the motion. The impact crushed into my ribs, snapping bone and sending me skidding across the forest floor.

  Pain.

  Then healing.

  I forced myself upright as it closed in, paws hammering the ground. Water wrapped tightly around its claws, each swipe cutting like a blade.

  One tore across my shoulder.

  Another opened my thigh.

  I countered mid-impact.

  As its paw slammed into me, I formed metal again—longer, heavier—and drove it forward as I was thrown back.

  The blade punched into its side.

  This time, the hide gave.

  Dark blood splattered the ground as the Vorshyn snarled and staggered half a step.

  I hit the ground, already healing.

  That was the opening.

  Through the link, Cira’s voice cut in—sharp, controlled, and unmistakably alarmed.

  “What is that recklessness?”

  Another burst of compressed water tore past me, gouging a trench through the soil where my head had been a moment earlier.

  “I thought you would use one of your tricks,” she continued, tension bleeding through her restraint.

  “Like you did against the Spinner. Like the Gnarlhog. You had options.”

  I rolled, forcing myself upright as blood steamed off my skin.

  “This?” she pressed.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  The Vorshyn reared back, water spiraling upward around its body, condensing into rotating blades that screamed outward in a wide arc.

  I raised stone.

  Too slow.

  The cutters tore straight through it, carving across my arm and chest. Pain flared—then vanished as healing surged again.

  “I know,” I answered through the link, breath ragged but steady.

  “But it only opens itself when it commits. When it attacks—that’s the moment I can hurt it.”

  A brief silence.

  Then Cira’s voice again—lower now. Sharper in a different way.

  “…Tell me something.”

  “Is the second core affecting you?”

  My movement stuttered for half a heartbeat.

  “Are you losing your sense of danger?” she asked.

  “Your instinct to preserve yourself?”

  Before I could respond, Kael’s voice entered the link—calm, firm, immovable.

  “Healing was the first true skill he mastered in this world,” he said.

  “Relying on it under pressure is not madness. It is adaptation.”

  Cira clicked her tongue softly, frustration unmistakable.

  “Adaptation that will get him killed if he carries it forward.”

  I was already moving again, forcing distance as the Vorshyn turned.

  “I won’t make this my way of fighting,” I said.

  “But against this creature—this is the only opening it gives.”

  Another pause.

  “…Do as you please,” Cira replied at last.

  But the tension in the link didn’t fade.

  I reinforced my legs with stone and stepped into the next charge.

  Its paw crushed into my side. Ribs cracked.

  I ignored it.

  I pivoted and drove a stone-reinforced kick into the side of its skull, just behind the ear.

  The impact echoed—stone crushing into bone.

  The Vorshyn staggered, water around it destabilizing for the first time.

  It recovered instantly.

  Water surged beneath it as it twisted mid-air and slammed down, sending a shockwave rippling outward.

  I was thrown back again.

  I healed again.

  Breathing hard, I retreated deliberately, drawing it deeper toward the massive trees at the edge of the clearing.

  It followed.

  I forced mana into the ground.

  Roots erupted upward, thick and knotted, wrapping around its legs.

  For a heartbeat—

  Then the water surged.

  The roots snapped like twigs. The Vorshyn tore free, barely slowed.

  Still not enough control.

  The fight dragged on.

  Stone-reinforced strikes. Metal blades forming and shattering. Water attacks cutting deep. Each time I fell, I forced myself back up.

  My body burned.

  My mana reserves dipped dangerously low.

  The Vorshyn was breathing harder now—but its movements were still precise.

  Mine weren’t.

  It circled.

  Water rolled tightly along its limbs, pressure gathering with deliberate restraint.

  The next attack came too fast.

  I twisted, raised stone—and still took the hit.

  I skidded across the ground, my body refusing to respond immediately when I tried to rise.

  For the first time—

  I hesitated.

  A presence crashed down on the clearing.

  Kael’s aura surged outward—ancient, overwhelming, absolute. The air itself buckled under the pressure.

  The Vorshyn froze.

  Its pupils contracted. The water around its body destabilized, currents breaking apart as survival instinct overwhelmed aggression.

  It turned and fled—vanishing into the forest in a burst of retreating water and shadow.

  I collapsed.

  Kael was beside me moments later, his aura already withdrawn.

  “It was too strong,” I said, staring at the torn ground. “It healed faster than me. Its attacks were stronger. More precise.”

  I clenched my fist weakly.

  “It dodged every main attack I used. It was faster. Smarter.”

  I exhaled slowly.

  “I need far more improvement.”

  “Yet you kept fighting,” Kael said evenly. “You knew it was stronger. And you didn’t retreat.”

  I looked up.

  “Healing and standing again,” he continued. “That is not weakness. That is what makes someone strong.”

  I swallowed.

  “This was good training for you. You survived an opponent beyond your current level.”

  I let out a short, humorless breath.

  “That’s because I knew you’d intervene if it got out of hand.”

  Kael didn’t deny it.

  “That confidence kept you alive.”

  I forced one last wave of healing—enough to walk—and pushed myself to my feet.

  We returned to the den in silence.

  The loss settled deep in my chest.

  Defeat.

  I wasn’t angry at the Vorshyn.

  I was angry at myself.

  As I stepped back toward the house, jaw tight, I made myself a promise.

  Next time, I won’t be the one collapsing.

  Next time—

  I’ll defeat it.