Sylas sat on his worn-out bed, the musty scent of old wood and damp cloth clinging to the air, his mind drifting through scattered memories… trying to piece together where he was now.
He soon recalled the name of this remote place— Duskwick.
A quiet village nestled at the edge of a dense, fog-laden forest known as the Whispering Hollow. It lay near the border between the Kingdom of Shenzara and the unclaimed wildlands. The people here were reclusive, steeped in superstition.
"This place practically screams poverty," he muttered, his eyes drifting to the letter on the rickety table by the bed—the one Sir Renald had delivered.
"Mother, huh..." he muttered, leaning back with a sigh.
The word stirred a distant memory—his past life, standing in a sunlit kitchen, small hands helping his mother cook, laughter simmering with the scent of home.
He grabbed the letter and unfolded it. His eyes landed on a single name.
Evan.
He stared at it for a long moment, then shut his eyes, sifting through the memories that didn't belong to him.
"Tch. My predecessor sure was a dumb bitch," he murmured, reopening his eyes.
Evan Mortis, his younger stepbrother, son of Ruo Ziyun—his father's third wife.
"Ruo Ziyun," Sylas whispered the name, a trace of bitterness in his voice.
She came from the once-great Ruo clan, a cultivation family that had long since fallen into ruin.
When their power crumbled, they did what desperate clans often do—they traded away their daughters. Ziyun, the most beautiful among them, was offered like a token of survival. And the king—his father—blinded by her beauty, took her in without a second thought.
Sylas sighed, his gaze distant for a moment.
It reminded him of someone from his previous world—a woman down the hall from his childhood apartment.
Her laughter used to echo through the cracked walls, until one day, it didn't.
His mother had simply said, "Some women don't get to choose."
He hadn't understood it then.
But this world had a way of teaching you things—slowly, cruelly, and without asking.
His thoughts drifted, carried by the silence of the room. There were always more pressing things to remember, more pieces to fit into the puzzle of this new world.
"The Kingdom of Shenzara," he muttered, as if saying the name might make it simpler to understand.
The kingdom was divided between two dominant powers—
The noble houses, who wielded mana, and the ancient cultivation sects. Though different in origin—they maintained a fragile alliance... Both had seats on the Kingdom Council.
Of course. Mana and cultivation sects. Sylas thought, sliding the letter into the inner pocket of his coat.
"Like a bad wuxia crossover," he muttered under his breath, dry amusement flickering in his eyes.
Evan—his dear little brother—had awakened the holy power of Eluria, the Light Goddess worshiped throughout the land.
The moment it happened, the council and the king didn't hesitated. They stripped Sylas of his title and named Evan the new Crown Prince in the blink of an eye.
The original Sylas had been enraged. He confronted the king—his own father—but of course, that changed nothing.
So, in a fit of desperation and pride, he did what all fools drunk on entitlement do—he plotted. Gathered a handful of bitter nobles, threw coin at mercenaries, and set a plan in motion to poison the golden boy.
But it fell apart. Some of those noble houses betrayed him before the ink had even dried.
"And now here I am—exiled, cleaning up after a ghost I never asked to wear."
"What a headache," Sylas let out a long, annoyed breath through his nose, like a man handed someone else's mess to clean up.
He stood up and strolled toward the crooked window, the warped frame groaning beneath his touch.
Outside, the view greeted him like a painter's cruel joke—a fog-choked forest with only a sliver of sunlight, rotting fence posts jutting from the earth like broken teeth.
"Charming," he muttered. "If you're fond of plagues and quiet despair."
With a flick of his fingers, he straightened his collar. "Time for a stroll. And perhaps to find a few fools in need of salvation."
The muddy paths of Duskwick squelched beneath his boots, each step sinking slightly into the wet earth.
The village smelled of mildew, smoked fish, and unease. From behind cracked windows and half-latched doors, villagers peered out, whispering behind gnarled fingers. Outsiders were rare in Duskwick—and nobility, even disgraced ones, were rarer still.
Sylas walked calmly, head held high, every step carefully placed. He caught bits of hushed conversation, darting glances, the subtle shift of curtains. The fog seemed to curl around him like an animal sniffing out his scent.
The villagers feared the forest.
Children were pulled away when they neared its edge. Elders spat prayers into the wind. They called it Whispering Hollow—a place said to hum with voices when the night was still enough. Others believed it was cursed. A place where the dead still listened… or spoke.
Lately, people had been disappearing.
Which made Sylas all the more curious.
Eventually, Sylas found himself at a small market. Weather-worn stalls and crooked tables lined the square.
A few sellers called out, offering root vegetables and dried meats. One old woman sold hard candies from a chipped glass jar. Children ran past holding wooden toys carved to resemble beasts and birds.
And then, tucked between a fishmonger and a smithy that reeked of iron and sweat, he saw a small, tent-like stall stitched together from mismatched cloth.
Inside, among scrolls and dusty trinkets, sat a worn-out book.
The shopkeeper—a lean, wiry man with a crooked smile and eyes like polished coal—looked up with interest as Sylas entered.
"Ah, good eye, sir. That one's special. Low mortal-rank cultivation manual," he said, voice slick with charm. "Can't find anything like that in these parts. Fifty gold coins, a real bargain."
Sylas crouched in front of the manual, brushing off a film of dust with deliberate slowness. His touch was almost affectionate. The cover was cracked, the ink faded, but the title remained:
Three-Petal Qi Condensation Method.
He repeated the name under his breath, voice laced with the faintest awe. "A core foundation manual…"
Then he looked up, and whatever warmth had been in his tone was gone. His gaze pierced through the shopkeeper like a scalpel. "Five gold."
The shopkeeper blinked. "Five? My good sir, this manual is rare even among—"
"—Traders who've been sitting on it for years with no buyers," Sylas said, voice soft, almost sympathetic. "You've had this on the shelf for how long? Judging by the dust pattern and sun-faded ink... two, maybe three years?"
The shopkeeper's smile twitched. "Still, I—"
"You've marked it at fifty not because it's worth that, but because you think it sounds rare enough to justify it. You don't even know if it works."
Sylas rose to his feet, brushing his coat sleeve. "Eight gold."
The shopkeeper frowned. He was silent for a moment, calculating. Something about the young man unsettled him.
"I can do twenty," he said, attempting to regain control. "That's as low as I can go."
Sylas didn't even blink. "Do you have a son? A family?"
The question landed like a blade. The shopkeeper's jaw tensed. "What?"
Sylas smiled faintly, gaze never leaving his. "Thirteen."
After a pause.
"...Alright," the shopkeeper said quietly. "Thirteen it is."
Sylas laid down fifteen gold coins with surgical precision. "Keep the change. Buy your son something sweet."
He tucked the manual under his arm and left without another word, the shopkeeper stared after him, unsure if he'd just made a sale… or lost something else entirely.
By nightfall, Sylas sat inside a small tavern tucked between the butcher's and a moss-covered chapel. The scent of smoke, damp wood, and stale ale clung to the air like a second skin. The place was dimly lit by flickering oil lamps.
The owner—a stout man with a permanent scowl—polished mugs behind the counter, while his wife, a thin woman with sharp eyes and a scar along her cheek, served the few patrons who dared venture out after dusk.
Sylas nursed a mug of weak ale, its taste more sour than bitter, like someone had tried to stretch the last good batch too far with swamp water and hope.
"So I have both a dantian and a mana core?" he muttered into his drink, voice low enough to disappear beneath the murmur of the tavern.
It was there in the fragments of inherited memory.
Noble heirs were typically born with mana affinity, their bloodlines steeped in generations of magical refinement. Cultivators, by contrast, tempered their bodies and souls through the dantian, the spiritual core.
But Sylas—he had both.
It was rare, even whispered about. Those who had both a core and a dantian were called bridgers—theoretical links between two great traditions.
And yet, pride and politics made sure no such bridge was ever allowed to stand.
The previous Sylas had noticed the same potential. But instead of walking the untrodden path, he'd fixated on power the court respected—mana. He pushed and pushed until he'd forged not one, but three cores by the age of seventeen. A prodigy. A storm in human skin. And, fittingly, his affinity?
Darkness.
Sylas chuckled softly to himself, swirling the ale in his mug.
"Why do I feel like I'm the villain?"
Just then, from the table ahead, voices rose in hushed concern.
"Mathew's son gone missin' in the forest. Said he heard singing."
Sylas's ears perked.
"Bah, the forest always sings," another grumbled.
"Despite bein' warned by his father, he still went."
"He was a fool then."
The conversation faded into background murmur once more. Sylas gestured toward the female bartender. She glanced over, and he left three gold coins on the table—far more than the ale was worth.
Her eyes followed him as he stood.
Outside, the fog clung tighter now, curling around lamp posts like a living thing. His boots crunched softly over gravel as he walked, slow and deliberate, back toward the crooked little inn where he stayed.
He paused beneath a broken sign swaying in the wind and glanced toward the looming treeline in the distance.
"The Whispering Hollow, huh?" he murmured, voice almost lost to the night. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"That'll do."
And then he walked—into the dark, as if it had been waiting just for him.