### **Chapter 4: The Silent Ascension**
The physician's hands shook as he unrolled his scroll in the Valen family solar. The normally fragrant chamber, perfumed with lavender and privilege, now stank of fear and spilled bergamot tea.
"Sprained wrist," the physician announced, his voice cracking like dry parchment. "Three cracked ribs—clean breaks, almost surgical in their precision."
Lady Elira's porcelain teacup slipped from her fingers, exploding against the marble floor in a shower of jagged fragments. The sound echoed through the suddenly silent room.
Across the solar, Darius lay sprawled across silk cushions like a broken marionette, his normally ruddy complexion bleached to the color of sour milk. The court mage's earlier examination still hung in the air like an executioner's blade:
Ethan Walker Valen had achieved **Mana Condensation Realm – Level 2**.
"Impossible." Seris paced before the hearth, her velvet slippers grinding porcelain shards into the Persian rug. "He couldn't even *feel* mana until yesterday! He's defective!"
Lady Maerin's lacquered nails tapped an ominous rhythm against her wineglass. *One. Two. Three.* The ruby pendant at her throat caught the firelight as she murmured, "Unless our... defective son has been hiding more than his clever little books."
A log exploded in the fireplace, sending embers dancing across the rug like fleeing spirits.
---
### *COURT YARD**
Earlier that day, The Frost still glittered on the courtyard stones when the court mage pressed his gnarled finger to Ethan's wrist the next dawn. The ancient cultivator smelled of dried grave herbs and suspicion, his gray robes whispering across the flagstones as he circled like a vulture eyeing carrion.
"Show me your meridians," he commanded, his breath reeking of medicinal liquor.
Ethan allowed precisely **3.7%** of his energy to surface—just enough to confirm Level 2, nowhere near the churning ocean of power beneath his skin. The controlled trickle burned through his channels like molten silver.
The mage's yellowed fingernail twitched. "Fascinating. Your channels are... grotesquely wide." His milky eyes narrowed. "Almost as if—"
"Enough." Lord Arion's shadow fell across them like a shroud. The Viscount's signet ring gleamed dully as he gripped his wolf-headed cane. "Can he advance further?"
The mage hesitated, his wrinkled face contorting. "Perhaps. But his absorption rate defies natural law." He leaned closer, his sour breath hot on Ethan's face. "How long did this breakthrough take?"
Ethan met his gaze without blinking. "Six months of secret training in the old hall."
A lie smoother than the silk draping Lady Maerin's shoulders.
---
### **Forest*
Moonlight painted the forest in shades of mercury and ink when Ethan faced his first real test.
The **Thunderclaw Badger** emerged from the undergrowth like a storm given flesh—200 pounds of muscle and rage, its electrified fur crackling with each step. **Level 4 Mana Condensation equivalent.**
Ethan's borrowed dagger felt pitifully small.
The beast charged.
Claws sheared through his tunic, parting flesh with surgical precision. White-hot pain blossomed across his ribs as electricity seared his nerves. The badger's thunderous roar shook dew from the leaves, sending nightbirds screaming into the sky.
Ethan fought without technique, without finesse—only raw instinct and that **hunger** coiling in his gut. His body learned mid-combat:
- *Dodge left when the right paw twitches*
- *Roll under the second lunge*
- *Strike when the hackles rise*
Twelve brutal minutes later, Ethan drove his dagger through the beast's eye socket with a wet crunch. The badger's death throes uprooted a young oak before it finally stilled.
The core burned like a branding iron when he crushed it between his palms. Energy **flooded** his meridians, scouring pathways wider, deeper. He collapsed to his knees as his **bones sang** with transformation, tendons snapping and reforming like overtightened harp strings.
**Level 3.**
Somewhere in the dark forest, twigs snapped.
Ethan was gone before the scavengers arrived, his new wounds already knitting shut.
---
### **The Next Day###
Lady Maerin's plot unfolded with the precision of a master playwright.
A servant's shriek pierced the midday calm: "The Viscountess's ruby pendant is gone!"
Ethan watched from the shadowed colonnade as guards ransacked the servants' quarters. He didn't need enhanced hearing to catch Lady Maerin's stage-whispered aside to her loyal guard.
"Check the **east tower**." Her fingers brushed the empty space at her throat meaningfully.
The pendant appeared exactly where she'd planted it—wrapped in Ethan's spare tunic, nestled between stolen cultivation manuals like a poisonous gem.
---
### LORD ARION'S OFFICE**
Lord Arion's study smelled of ink and betrayal.
"You **dare** steal from this family?" The Viscount's cane struck the mahogany desk hard enough to split the polished wood. The ruby pendant glittered accusingly between them, catching the light like a drop of fresh blood.
Darius leaned against the doorway, his bandaged wrist cradled to his chest. "Should've thrown him out years ago," he muttered around a mouthful of stolen honey cake.
Seris's fingers danced along her dagger hilt, her eyes bright with vicious anticipation.
Lady Elira stood statue-still, her face a mask of frozen disgust. "Disgraceful," she whispered, though her fingers kept straying to the empty space at her throat.
Ethan said nothing.
Let them believe their fiction.
The punishment came swift as a headsman's axe:
*"Confined to the estate. No training. No visitors. Until I decide otherwise."*
Perfect.
Now they'd never notice his nightly absences.
---
### **EVENING TIME**
Ethan was preparing to ho on his nightly hunt bug he was interrupted by an unexpected to call to his Father's office . " This is the second time today, more than I've ever visited his office in the past 10 years"
In the office, Lord Arion didn't look up from his ledgers as Ethan entered.
"Sit," he commanded.
Ethan sat.
At the side, Darius smirked . "Father's finally getting rid of you."
A sealed parchment slid toward Ethan.
**"Silverpine City Garrison—Enlistment Papers."**
Lady Maerin's smile was poison. "A soldier's life will temper that… unnatural strength of yours."
Ethan kept his face blank. They wanted to bury him in some backwater barracks. No academy. No future.
"Thank you," he lied.
He'd burn the papers later on his way to the forest to hunt
---
Three hours before dawn, Ethan stood over the corpse of a **Sableback Wolf (Level 6)**, his chest heaving. Five nights ago, this fight would have killed him. Now, his dagger found its heart on the first strike.
The beast core burned like liquid fire as he absorbed it. All of a sudden he felt himself become stronger. #Level 4#
He spat blood onto the moss-covered rocks. Not fast enough. The provincial tournament began in **three days**—he needed to be stronger.
A twig snapped in the darkness.
Ethan spun, dagger raised—
Only to freeze at the sight of **amber eyes** glowing in the undergrowth. Not a beast. Something taller. Something that watched with **intelligence**.
Then it was gone.
"What the hell was that!!!" Ethan appeared shocked, that brief encounter had sent a shiver down his spine.Even his father who was more than an entire realm stronger than him could make him feel like this, at least not now that he had awakened. There was only one conclusion he could draw from this encounter,'That Monster is STRONG' . "maybe it's time I returned, I've gone too far into this forest". Saying this , Ethan turned around and began making his way home but before he moved more than 10 feet away he felt an intense danger right behind him and his instincts took over bending his body at an unnatural angle to dodge an attack that would have left him badly injured.
Ethan looked up to see his attacker and that's when he saw it tracked a **Blazetusk Stag (Level 9 Mana Condensation Realm)**—a full **five levels** above him. He knew this beast from the hundreds of books he had read In the Valen library. It was a magical beast that specialized in speed despite its large size . Immediately after seeing it, Ethan threw all thoughts of running out of his mind, the beast would easily catch up to him and he would be exposing his back to an attack from it. But Ethan remembered one weakness of the Stag, although it is faster than any beast in the mana condensation realm, It wasn't agile during a fight, if you can make the fight a close combat fight you can greatly diminish its speed advantage.
The Blazetusk Stag's hooves **shattered** stone as it charged.
**Level 9 Mana Condensation equivalent.**
**Five levels** beyond him.
Fire erupted from its antlers in a roaring conflagration, searing Ethan's flesh. The stench of burning hair filled his nostrils as he barely rolled away. A kick caught him mid-dodge, sending him crashing through saplings—ribs snapping like kindling.
Blood filled his mouth as he scrambled behind an oak—
*Too slow.*
Tusks gouged his thigh, spraying crimson across the ferns.
Ethan **laughed** through the pain, his teeth red with blood.
For seventeen brutal minutes, he danced with death:
-Minute 3, Learned to predict fire bursts by the twitch of its ears -
-Minute 7; Adapted his reflexes to dodge the right-side hoof strike -
-Minute 12; Discovered the blind spot when it reared -
When his dagger finally found the stag's eye, the beast's death throes flattened a circle of trees. The core burned his palm black as he absorbed it through the wound, screaming as energy **detonated** through his meridians.
**Level 5.**
As consciousness faded, he glimpsed those same **amber eyes** watching from the treeline—
Then darkness.
---
The scent of burning pine resin filled the night air as Ethan crouched atop the Valen estate's eastern wall, watching the guards make their final rounds. His knuckles whitened around the strap of his makeshift pack—stolen rations, a waterskin, and three beast cores wrapped in oilcloth. Everything he owned now weighed less than a hunting bow. After that fight, he awakened schocked that it was very close to dawn, although he was suprised that no magical beast had attacked him after he passed out, but he decided not to think too much about it. He sneaked back home and spebt the rest of the day healing and preparing himself mentally because that night he had decided to leave this home as he had no intention of being sent off to a military barrack.
Three items rode in Ethan's stolen pack when he fled:
1. A waterskin filled with Lord Arion's finest wine (stolen)
2. A small sacrifice of a 100 gold (stolen)
3. The court mage's personal cultivation notes (definitely stolen)
The eastern wall was unguarded—the sentries drunk on Lady Maerin's bribes. As he dropped into the freedom of darkness, a servant's voice echoed from memory:
*"The provincial tournament begins in Aslaug City tomorrow. Commoners only."*
Ethan melted into the forest, his new scars itching as they healed.
Let them think they'd won.