Chapter 1: A Fracture in a Perfect World
Giovanni Rosenthal was four years old when space first betrayed him.
In the vast courtyard of House Rosenthal, where polished marble reflected the afternoon sun and noble children practiced their magic under careful supervision, silence fell the moment Giovanni raised his hand.
A servant had placed a simple wooden orb before him.
"Sever the orb," his instructor said calmly. "A basic exercise. Even at your age, with your spatial magic it should not be difficult for a Rosenthal."
It should not be difficult.
Giovanni's small fingers trembled.
He could feel it—mana, vast and overwhelming, surging within him like a storm trapped in too small a vessel. It pressed against his skin, his veins, his very thoughts. Too much. Always too much.
"I… understand," he said softly.
He extended his hand.
Space warped.
Not gently. Not precisely.
The air twisted violently, distorting the shape of the orb—but instead of compressing, it folded. The orb stretched unnaturally, splitting into overlapping images of itself before snapping back into place and rolling away.
A crack echoed through the courtyard.
The marble beneath it fractured.
Silence.
Then—
A whisper.
"Again unstable…"
"Such power, yet no control…"
"A flaw?"
Giovanni lowered his hand slowly, his chest tightening.
He didn't look at them. He didn't need to.
He already knew what they were thinking.
That night, Giovanni sat alone in his room.
The Rosenthal estate was quiet, bathed in moonlight that slipped through tall windows and painted silver lines across the floor. Everything was perfect. Ordered. Refined.
Everything except him.
His gaze fell to his hand.
It looked small. Harmless.
But it wasn't.
"I have more mana than all of them…" he murmured.
That was what they said.
A prodigy. A genius. A future pillar of nobility.
So why—
Why couldn't he control it?
His fingers curled.
The memory of the warped space replayed in his mind again and again.
Distortion.
Failure.
His jaw tightened.
"I need to improve," he whispered. "I have to."
**Not tomorrow. **
Right here.
Right now.
He stepped out onto the balcony, the cold air brushing against his skin.
The night sky stretched endlessly above him.
Giovanni stared into the darkness, his young mind racing far beyond his years.
What is space?
Just distance?
Not emptiness?
Something that I can… manipulate?
His breathing slowed. His memories went back to several weeks ago when the instructor used a water jet and cut down several trees.
If simple severence didn't work… then he would go deeper.
More precise.
More absolute.
"I, Giovanni, will compress space itself," he said with newfound confidence.
Not an object within space.
Space.
Mana surged.
This time, he didn't release it wildly.
He forced it inward.
Condensing.
Refining.
Crushing it into a single point before him.
The air trembled.
Then bent.
A faint distortion appeared—barely visible, like heat rising from flames.
Giovanni's eyes widened.
"It's working…"
His heart pounded.
More.
He pushed more mana into it.
The distortion deepened, folding inward, collapsing into something darker… something wrong.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Then—
Something pushed back.
Pain exploded through his mind.
Giovanni gasped, stumbling forward as the distortion shattered—not outward, but inward.
Into him.
Images flooded his vision.
Not memories.
Not his.
A boy.
A different world.
Towering structures of glass and steel.
Voices speaking unfamiliar words.
And then—
Magic.
No… not magic.
A story.
A world he recognized—
—his world.
**He saw a boy with messy gray hair shouting endlessly about becoming the Wizard King. Then proposing to a nun. **
**What? He's crazy. **
Clergy do not get married.
He saw another, calm and distant.
Battles & destruction.
Victory & loss.
Fragments. Broken. Incomplete.
They crashed into him without order, without mercy and merged with his spirit.
"Stop—!" Giovanni cried, clutching his head.
But the memories didn't stop.
They couldn't.
Because at this moment the thread of fate had already begun to rupture.
Then—
Silence.
Giovanni collapsed onto the cold stone of the balcony, his breathing uneven, his body trembling.
The distortion was gone.
The night was quiet again.
But something had changed.
Slowly… carefully… he opened his eyes.
"…What… was that…?"
His voice was barely a whisper.
Images lingered in his mind.
Not clear.
Not complete.
But enough.
Enough to understand one terrifying truth.
"I saw…"
His fingers dug into the stone beneath him.
"The ...the future?"
His thoughts raced.
That boy—
No magic.
Yet he fought.
He rose.
That shouldn't be possible.
That wasn't possible.
Not in his world.
Not in the world Giovanni knew.
"Nobles are superior…" he muttered.
That was the truth.
That was what he had been taught.
What he had always believed.
But—
The memories said otherwise.
Effort.
Determination.
Defying status.
Defying fate.
His chest tightened.
"…Then what is right?"
For the first time in his life, Giovanni Rosenthal did not have an answer.
He pushed himself up slowly, his gaze lifting to the night sky once more.
It looked the same.
But it wasn't.
Because now he knew—
There was more beyond it.
More beyond this world.
And somehow…
He had touched it.
"If this is the future…"
His voice was quiet. Unsteady.
"…Then I can change it."
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
Because alongside it came another.
Should I?
If he followed what he had seen, he could become stronger.
He could avoid failure.
Avoid danger.
Become perfect.
Just as expected of a noble.
But—
If he changed even one thing…
Would everything else change too?
Would things get better?
Or worse?
Giovanni closed his eyes.
The voices of the courtyard echoed in his mind.
"Unstable."
"Flawed."
"Failure."
His hand tightened into a fist.
"I won't stay like this."
His voice was no longer uncertain.
No longer weak.
When he opened his eyes again, something had changed.
Not just in his magic.
But in him.
"I'll get stronger."
Not as a noble.
Not as a prodigy.
But as himself.
The night remained silent.
But four year old Giovanni Rosenthal without realizing it—
had already stepped beyond the boundaries of his world.