Arin Vale left the courtyard slowly, his hands buried deep in his pockets. The laughter from earlier still lingered in his ears like a sound that refused to fade. It felt as if the whole academy had silently agreed on something—that he did not belong.
The thought followed him through the long hallways.
For the first time since joining Helios Academy, Arin didn't know where to go. Training fields were full of students practicing their abilities. Classrooms felt suffocating. Even the courtyard seemed like a stage where people waited to watch him fail again.
Without thinking much, his steps carried him toward the quietest building on campus.
The library.
Inside, the world slowed down.
Tall shelves stretched endlessly in neat rows, filled with books older than the academy itself. The soft smell of paper and dust hung in the air, and sunlight filtered through large windows, laying golden rectangles across the wooden floor.
Arin walked between the shelves until he reached the history section.
He pulled out a thick book titled Origins of the Gift and sat down at a lonely table in the corner.
For a moment, he simply stared at the cover.
"Let's see," he muttered softly, "how this ridiculous world started."
The book opened with a story almost every child had heard, but reading it here felt different.
A thousand years ago, before powers shaped society, the sky burned one night.
Arin leaned closer.
Witnesses described a star tearing through the darkness before crashing into the northern mountains. When explorers reached the crater, they discovered a strange stone glowing faintly beneath the ashes.
The Stone of Aether, the book called it.
At first, the people who found it didn't understand what it was. But those who touched it began to change. Their bodies adapted to the strange energy within the stone.
Some could control fire.
Others could bend wind.
One could even move objects without touching them.
The power spread slowly through their descendants, generation after generation, until abilities became part of humanity itself.
Arin turned the page thoughtfully.
"So everything," he murmured, "comes from that one stone."
Another chapter described how the world eventually divided into ten powerful regions, each ruled by a leader called an Archon. Their names sounded ancient, almost mythological. And in all of the ancient character the
Aetherion was the one who controls and realm of time .
Others master was having other different nature balancing powers.
Every five years, challengers competed in a global contest. Strength, intelligence, and mastery of power decided who would rule each region.
Arin leaned back in his chair.
"So the whole world is run by tournaments."
He laughed quietly.
"And I can't even win a hallway fight."
But as he closed the book halfway, something strange caught his eye.
A small note written at the bottom of the page.
Some historians believe the Stone of Aether did not give powers.
It only awakened what already existed.
Arin frowned.
"What does that even mean?"
The library remained silent.
But somewhere deep in the old pages of history, the truth seemed far more mysterious than anyone had ever admitted.