Warmth spread faintly around my clenched fist.
Mana.
A natural energy that could enhance the body.
It could turn an ordinary human into a superhuman.
But that couldn't be all it offered.
I lowered my hand and searched my memory.
Everything I knew about mana came from fragments.
From Lucien's lessons.
From my observation.
From things knights mentioned without thinking.
Pieces of information I had gathered over time.
Lucien had called it the Path of Mana.
A path every person in this world follows.
The first stage was called Dormant.
The stage everyone was born in. A mana core that existed but did nothing.
The second stage was called Flowing.
My current stage.
The core liquified, allowing mana to flow through the body. This was what made body enhancement possible.
From here on, mana represented strength.
But that was as far as my information went.
I didn't know how many stages there would be.
Five?
Maybe ten?
Or even more?
There was another piece of information, though—one I wasn't sure was the truth or not.
A faint memory resurfaced.
From when I was younger.
Mother lying in bed in her nightgown. Theodora and I curled up beside her. And in her hands was a book.
Bedtime stories.
Fairytales.
Stories about heroes and knights.
The things every child loved.
I hadn't been any different.
I had wanted to be a hero too.
In this life.
And in my past one.
I wanted to save people.
To brighten their world with a smile.
Maybe even rescuing a princess and marrying her to have my own—
—and they lived happily ever after.
But life wasn't a fairytale.
There were no heroes.
No knights.
No princesses waiting to be saved.
And now—
I had been reborn into one.
A fairytale-like world.
The stories' mother read to us spoke of knights whose blades cut the air itself.
Heroes whose burning fists defeated dragons.
Warriors who summoned rain with a single gesture and watered dry lands.
Were they really fairy tales?
Were they just stories you would tell children to make them sleep?
I didn't know.
But I knew one thing.
This world wasn't normal.
And what I once thought impossible might very well be normal here.
Every story had one thing in common, no matter how fairytale-like they sounded.
Its core came from an actual story.
It was like that on Earth and shouldn't be any different here.
As if answering my thoughts, another memory surfaced.
It wasn't anything grand.
Just something my sword instructor had once mentioned.
Weapon Arts.
He hadn't explained them in detail, only that they were fighting techniques passed down through families, schools, or masters.
The Ashspire family had one too.
A Weapon Art that focused on the sword.
Its name was—
Cineris.
Favian and Lucien had learned it.
I hadn't.
I had been told I was too young.
But now I was thinking about it a bit differently.
Was I really too young?
Or did they not want me to learn it?
Either way—
I didn't have a Weapon Art.
But I had something else.
From Earth.
Two years of military training, where I learned close-quarters combat.
And—
The time I spend in the gym.
I learned the basics of boxing and grappling, not enough to go pro, but good enough to defend myself.
Good enough to survive.
This world favored weapons.
Which meant hand-to-hand combat was likely underdeveloped.
That was an advantage.
A small one.
But one I could use.
For now, though, my priority was something else.
What I needed most—
Weren't techniques.
It was mana control.
If I couldn't use mana reliably, nothing else mattered. Enhancing my muscles was the foundation of everything.
Creak.
The bed gave off a sound as I sat up, legs hanging off the edge.
Haah.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
Then focused.
I guided mana toward my fingers.
Slowly.
Warmth flowed from my core to my shoulder, down my arm, and into my hand.
I felt it immediately.
The strength.
The tingle in my fingers.
Like I could crush stone without effort.
I flexed my fingers and clenched my fist.
The mana dispersed a moment later.
Haah.
I tried again.
I focused on holding it longer.
Then, I added small movements.
Then both hands.
The difficulty increased sharply.
My concentration slipped.
The mana scattered.
Haah.
Again.
And again.
Then I changed my target. Not my hands, but my legs.
I focused on creating a path from my core down through my waist, thighs, and into my feet.
Warmth followed, enveloping my toes.
I curled them and moved them around.
I held it—
And it broke apart.
Again.
Haah.
And again.
I tried it over and over.
I enhanced my feet, then switched to my hands, then back to my feet again.
Gradually, something changed.
Leading mana into my limbs felt easier.
It was still hard, but the process—the path.
It felt familiar the more often I tried it.
I then practiced simple movements.
Punching the air.
Kicking slightly forward.
The added motion made the enhancement even more difficult.
The mana scattered.
Again and again.
Frustration built.
But I didn't stop.
Time passed.
And eventually—
After enough tries.
Something clicked.
I had gotten the hang of it.
It wasn't anything grand.
I couldn't control it fully.
But—
Swoosh.
I punched the air.
Mana surged briefly, then faded.
That was enough, at least for now.
I stopped.
Not because I couldn't continue—
But I felt some aftereffects from the training.
A small headache bloomed behind my eyes.
I knew I was slowly reaching my limit. So without knowing much about the dangers of mana usage, I stopped for now.
Haah.
I leaned my back against the wall, breathing hard.
Haah.
Exhausted.
My body wasn't exhausted, but my mind was.
The constant focus on the enhancement took more out of me than I thought.
Then—
Click.
My head turned.
The cell door opened.
A guard stood there.
And behind him—
A line of teens.
New arrivals.