"My Lord, are you sure you’re okay out there?!" Mandy asked from the entrance of the back door, shivering slightly as a gust of cold wind swept into the hallway.

Ren was sitting cross-legged underneath the sprawling, gnarled branches of the big oak tree where the torrential rain didn’t reach.

The volume of water crashing against the cobblestones and the inn’s wooden roof created a deafening roar, but his spot remained perfectly dry.

Ren didn’t look up from his lap. "I’m fine. Call me once dinner is done."

Mandy hesitated for a fraction of a second, intimidated by the focus radiating from the young noble, before giving a rapid nod. He quickly closed the thick wooden door, sealing out the damp night air.

Ren now focused entirely on the scrolls lining his lap.

There were exactly six of them arranged neatly across his thighs. His family had sent a total of six high-tier magical artifacts via the Shadow Bird and he was going to test all the new ones right now.

Ren set the scrolls next to him on the dry roots underneath the tree and then took hold of the first one. The scroll felt warm as it was practically humming with mana.

The instant his fingers brushed the wax seal, a translucent blue tab snapped into existence directly above his face.

『You have received Spell: Thunderclap Step (C)』

『Description: A high-speed mobility spell that channels lightning into the user’s legs, allowing for instantaneous, explosive bursts of linear movement accompanied by a deafening sonic boom to disorient enemies.』

『Would you like to learn this spell, Y / N?』

This was a Spell Scroll. In this world, there were two fundamentally different ways to learn a spell.

The first was the standard, grueling way: practicing the elemental manipulation over and over again, studying tomes and risking severe mana backlash until the body adapted.

However, a Spell Scroll bypassed that entirely. It made things infinitely easier. Upon opening the scroll and accepting the prompt, the exact theoretical knowledge, the muscle memory, and the precise mana pathways required to cast the spell would forcefully project straight into the user’s brain.

The best thing about Spell Scrolls was that they weren’t completely useless after a single activation.

The core spell matrix remained etched into the enchanted parchment, meaning you could sell it to a lesser guild or another adventurer afterward.

However, the more a scroll was used, the more its overall effectiveness degraded, and eventually, the magical ink would fade entirely.

These scrolls sitting on the roots were pristine. The parchment was crisp with the ink glowing vibrantly, which suggested that his mother had recently procured them straight from a Master Enchanter.

Ren pressed ’Y’ on the glowing interface.

Instantly, a sharp painful surge of information flooded his mind. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as the exact feeling of channeling raw electricity through his calves and thighs burned itself into his neural pathways. It faded just as quickly, leaving behind perfect comprehension.

He stood up, rolling his shoulders, and stepped out from beneath the canopy into the pouring rain.

Ren didn’t chant as he just willed the mana downward. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Bright, jagged blue electricity crackled violently around his boots, illuminating the muddy grass as he stepped forward.

BOOM!

A deafening shockwave erupted from his launch point, kicking up a massive spray of mud and water. Ren didn’t just run; he was propelled violently forward, zipping across the enclosed backyard in a blistering blur of motion.

He crossed thirty feet in a fraction of a second and before he slammed into the stone wall of the inn, he channeled the lightning into a sharp pivot ricocheting sideways.

He surged around the yard in a zigzag pattern, small shockwaves exploding with every change of direction. He focused the mana into his soles and jumped straight into the air.

The explosive force pushed him effortlessly upward, clearing fifteen feet in a single bound. He executed a flawless mid-air flip, descending rapidly, and landed squarely in the mud in a crouched position with the residual electricity hissing as it evaporated the rain around his boots.

’That was pretty good,’ Ren thought, wiping a stray raindrop from his eye, the velocity of moving like that was crazy though.

He walked back under the tree, his clothes slightly damp and picked up the second scroll.

『You have received Spell: Voltaic Arc (C)』

『Description: A mid-range crowd control spell that fires a crackling whip of electricity from the user’s free hand, capable of chaining between three nearby targets to paralyze them briefly.』

『Would you like to learn this spell, Y / N?』

Ren read the text hovering in the air.

’I can’t actually use the chaining ability right now since I don’t have multiple targets standing around...’ He thought. ’but the whip itself is what I can really get behind.’

Ren tapped ’Y’.

Another rush of knowledge pierced his skull. He raised his left hand, spreading his fingers. He pulled on his mana core, converting the raw energy into a focused electrical current.

Instantly, a jagged wildly crackling whip of solid lightning materialized from his palm. It illuminated the dark space under the tree with a harsh, strobing blue light. With a flick of his wrist, he whipped it forward into the torrential downpour.

The tip of the electrical cord collided with a cluster of falling raindrops mid-air.

CRACK!

It brought a vicious, blinding flash and a sharp lashing sound exactly like thunder, instantly vaporizing the water into a cloud of steam. Ren smirked, letting the mana dissipate as the whip vanished.

He reached down and grabbed the next scroll.

『You have received Spell: Static Discharge (C)』

『Description: A defensive counter-spell. Upon taking a physical hit, the user’s body instinctively releases a violent shockwave of raw static electricity, repelling attackers and numbing their muscles.』

『Would you like to learn this spell, Y / N?』

He looked at this one and paused.

Testing a counter-spell required taking a hit. He briefly thought about calling Eternia or even Mandy out into the rain to strike him, but that wouldn’t be ideal at all.

This kind of skill would only be truly useful if it triggered reliably against genuine enemies, and having his subordinates hold back wouldn’t give him accurate data.

’Punching myself could probably work...’ Ren muttered aloud.

He clicked ’Y’. The defensive pathways mapped themselves across his skin, leaving a tingling sensation.

Once he fully digested the skill, Ren tightened his right hand into a solid fist, pulled his arm back, and immediately punched himself squarely in the jaw.

Smack!

The impact was hard enough to make his head snap to the side as he staggered backward a step, tasting a bloom of copper in his mouth. He stood there, waiting for the massive eruption of lightning to blast outward from his pores but nothing happened as the rain just kept falling.

"Fuck," Ren sighed, rubbing his sore jaw. The spell clearly required actual hostile intent or a specific damage threshold from a foreign mana signature to trigger automatically.

It was a smart failsafe, preventing the user from accidentally electrocuting themselves when bumping into a wall, but it was incredibly annoying for field testing.

He shook off the sting and went for the next one.

『You have received Spell: Stormbreaker Strike (B)』

『Description: A massive area-of-effect spell. The user calls down a concentrated pillar of lightning directly onto the tip of their sword as they strike the ground, creating a devastating shockwave crater or a singular slash of lightning that can cut through enemies.』

『Would you like to learn this spell, Y / N?』

He clicked ’Y’ and braced for the B-Rank knowledge transfer. It hit much harder than the previous ones with a searing ache settling behind his eyes for several seconds as the complex devastating magical formulas imprinted into his memory.

He learned this one completely, perfectly grasping the sheer destructive output it commanded. However, as much as he desperately wanted to draw his sword and try it out, he couldn’t risk the destruction at all.

This inn wasn’t his personal property; it was a rented space in the middle of a populated adventurer town.

Dropping a concentrated pillar of lightning into the backyard would undoubtedly blast a crater into the earth, shatter every window in the building and summon the town guard within minutes.

He set the scroll aside with a regretful sigh and immediately turned to the two remaining scrolls.

These were the main prizes of tonight... as they were the scrolls containing the Starfire Spells.

This secondary element known as Starfire was the exact reason the Crowhurst family was so incredibly influential, second only to the Royal Family themselves.

By its other, more terrifying name, it was the Flame of Eradication. It was a uniquely mutated magic that could literally burn through souls. It was entirely unique to the Crowhurst bloodline.

However, wielding it came with a steep cost.

Using Starfire itself severely drained the mental power of the user, causing severe migraines, nosebleeds, or even temporary insanity if pushed beyond the body’s natural limits but the raw strength it provided made the risk entirely worthwhile.

He looked down at the final two scrolls.

『You have received Spell: Starfire Crescent (B)』

『Description: Allows the user to channel condensed Starfire into their blade and launch it as a massive, superheated projectile slash. The crescent wave incinerates everything in its path and leaves a trail of molten slag.』

『Would you like to learn this spell, Y / N?』

『You have received Spell: Starfire Ignition (B)』

『Description: A terrifying internal-combustion spell. The user plants a seed of Starfire mana inside a target through physical contact or a deep cut. At the snap of the user’s fingers, the seed detonates, burning the enemy from the inside out.』

『Would you like to learn this spell, Y / N?』

It was a brilliantly destructive arsenal.

Not only did Starfire burn the very souls of those it touched, drastically restricting a healer’s ability to regenerate the wounds, but it could also easily burn through the strongest enchanted metals the kingdom had to offer.

He clicked ’Y’ on the first prompt, then immediately clicked ’Y’ on the second.

A brutal dual wave of knowledge violently forced its way into his mind. Ren dropped to one knee, gripping the side of his head as a sharp spike of pain drilled into his temples.

He gritted his teeth, forcing his breathing to remain steady as the superheated mana pathways carved themselves into his core.

When the pain finally subsided, he let go of the scrolls and he stood up with his eyes glowing with a dangerous white light.

With a flick of his intent, he pulled out his main sword from his spatial ring and the steel hissed as it hit the cold air.

’I think I can do it...’

Ren gripped the hilt tightly as he bypassed his lightning affinity entirely and reached deeper into his core, finding that terrifying, slumbering well of heat inherited from his father.

He pulled a fraction of it upward.

Instantly, pure, blindingly white flames erupted, covering the tip of the steel blade completely. It didn’t crackle or smoke like normal fire. Instead it burned with a pristine intensity that was deeply unnatural.

He was going to use Starfire Crescent.

Ren swung his arm and he sliced into the empty air in front of him.

The Starfire left his blade, detaching and instantly transmuting into a massive, concentrated crescent of pure blinding heat. The projectile shot into the rain-soaked air.

He hadn’t poured much mana into it, deliberately limiting the scope so the terrifying wave only traveled about twenty feet before it dispersed but the effect it had on the environment was staggering.

The heat radiating from the white crescent was so intense that the torrential rain didn’t even have a chance to touch it.

The raindrops falling within a ten-foot radius of the projectile instantly flash-boiled into steam. For a brief, beautiful moment, the raging storm violently parted, creating a massive completely dry vacuum in the air where the heat had incinerated the moisture.

Ren watched the steam rise, feeling the suffocating wave of hot air wash over his face.

A second later, the crescent faded entirely, and the cold rain immediately resumed falling, crashing back down to fill the void.

’Terrifying...’ Ren thought with a satisfied smirk crossing his face.

Before he could pull out another spell, the heavy wooden door of the inn creaked open again.

Mandy peeked his head out, doing his best to shield his eyes from the pouring rain. "My Lord! Dinner is ready!"

Ren let the white flames die out, the steel of his sword glowing a dull red as it rapidly cooled. He smoothly sucked the weapon and the spent scrolls back into his spatial ring.

"Alright, alright," Ren called back, walking out of the rain and toward the warmth of the hallway. "I’m coming."

...

The nightmare was suffocating.

It wasn’t a memory of a dark cage... It wasn’t the feeling of a slaver’s whip tearing the scales from her back.

It was a small, cramped room with dirt floors. She was looking through the eyes of a young, terrified blond-haired boy.

The boy was hiding under a splintered wooden table, his small hands clamped over his mouth to muffle his own sobbing.

Through the boy’s eyes, she watched the horror unfold.

A massive shadowy figure of a man stood over another body on the floor. It was the boy’s father.

The father’s throat had been brutally slit with a massive jagged chasm of flesh pouring crimson blood onto the packed dirt.

The father was gurgling, twitching as the life rapidly drained from his eyes.

The shadowy man didn’t stop there.

He was holding a woman up by her hair...The boy’s mother... She was thrashing, crying hysterically, begging for her husband’s life, completely unaware he was already dead.

With a cruel, jagged flick of his rusted blade, the shadowy man slit the woman’s throat too.

The blood sprayed, hot and vivid. The woman’s body went limp, dropping to the floor right next to her husband.

From underneath the table, the blond boy stared at the cooling corpses of his parents. His mind shattered as he could only force a single devastated syllable past his trembling lips.

"Ma..."

The nightmare abruptly collapsed into darkness.

"...ma?"

The word stopped entirely in her mouth as Eternia snapped awake.

Her golden eyes flew open and became wide with terror. She bolted upright in her bed, the coarse linen sheets tangled around her legs.

She was drenched in cold sweat, her chest heaving as she rapidly hyperventilated desperately sucking air into her lungs.

She gripped the fabric of her shirt, right over her heart. The terror wasn’t fading... The horrific, vivid image of the woman’s slit throat was burned into her retinas... She could smell the iron of the blood... She could feel the boy’s crippling, world-ending grief tearing her chest apart...

She was having a massive panic attack, her entire body shaking violently, and for reasons she couldn’t entirely comprehend, her mind was fracturing under the weight of an emotion that wasn’t hers.

Eternia couldn’t stay in the dark, she felt like she was drowning.

The Snakekin threw the blankets off, practically falling out of the bed. She stumbled to the door of her small room, ripping it open, and ran frantically across the quiet dimly lit halls of the inn. Her bare feet slapped against the wooden floorboards.

She reached the largest door at the end of the hall. Her Master’s room and Eternia raised a trembling fist and knocked on the wood.

A few seconds of agonizing silence passed then, his calm even voice came from the inside.

"You can open it."

Eternia twisted the brass handle and shoved the door open.

The room was bathed in the warm ambient glow of a single magical lamp resting on the bedside table. Ren was sitting up on the large, plush bed, his legs crossed comfortably beneath the covers.

He was wearing a simple, dark sleeping shirt, holding a thick leather-bound book in one hand. Resting on the bridge of his nose was a pair of sleek, silver-rimmed reading glasses.

He lowered the book slightly, peering over the top of the lenses to look at her trembling, sweat-soaked form standing in his doorway.

Eternia took a step into the room. She immediately tried to explain the horror, the blood, the crushing grief of the little boy, but her throat was completely locked tight.

"I–" Eternia gasped with tears violently pricking the corners of her eyes. "I– I..."

She couldn’t form the words as the panic was consuming her entirely.

Ren closed the book, setting it aside on the mattress. He removed the reading glasses, folding them neatly before placing them on the nightstand.

He didn’t look annoyed by the sudden intrusion.

"Calm down," Ren instructed, then he shifted his posture slightly and patted his lap.

Eternia didn’t hesitate.

Her body moved on pure instinct. She stumbled forward, climbing onto the edge of the mattress. She obliged his silent command, curling her body inward as she laid down resting her cheek directly on his lap.

Her heart still kept beating frantically, hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird then, Ren moved his hand. He slowly, deliberately ran his fingers through her messy hair, untangling the damp strands.

The moment his hand touched her, a wave of profound relief washed over her entire being. The violent images of the slit throats shattered were replaced by the steady rhythmic rise and fall of her Master’s breathing.

The cold terror vanished, completely banished by the warm presence of her Master.

Her breathing leveled out as the tension melted from her muscles. Within seconds, her eyes fluttered shut, and she fell deeply, peacefully asleep, perfectly safe against his leg.

Ren stopped stroking her hair.

He analyzed her sudden panic attack, comparing it to the brutal execution she had performed just an hour ago in the alleyway.

A girl who could casually cut a man in half without blinking wouldn’t wake up crying from a normal nightmare.

’Did she have a dream about one of the soul’s memories?’