Summer in the North was nothing like summer on the rest of the continent.
When warm sunlight lit the world, the snowpack that had grown over winter would shrink, and streams would trickle—only to freeze again come nightfall. More than summer, it was something between early spring and early winter.
But to northerners accustomed to piercing blizzards, it was summer in its warmest form, and the streets of the North buzzed with life.
Children laughing and playing. Merchants hawking their wares in the market, passersby haggling over prices. Traders hauling dried meats. Everyone was bustling about, seizing the gap of summer.
However.
There were also places far removed from such vitality.
A sinister underground chamber. Dark red bloodstains were crusted everywhere, and echoes of pain, screams, and pleas for mercy seemed to linger in the walls. In that chamber, a man drove a red-hot iron needle into another man's shoulder.
SIZZLE—
"GAAAAAH!"
A hideous scream echoed through the chamber. The man writhed in agony, twisting his entire body. But the chains binding his hands and feet held firm, and no amount of thrashing made any difference.
"I-I told you everything. Please, please just kill me."
One of the lowlifes from Drunken Dream Wildflower. He pleaded with the man before him in a wretched voice. He wasn't begging for his life. He was pleading to escape the pain—even if that exit was eternal death.
The man left the needle where it was and cocked his head.
"Hard to believe. Sion Karsen—that half-wit—really killed my brother?"
Just then, a woman in a black suit spoke in a honeyed voice.
"That is what they said, Master Yan Hashman."
Yan Hashman. Yoen Hashman's older brother, and a wanted man with a bounty of 100 million zeni on his head.
"......Even so, I did not think my brother would fall to someone like him."
"He must have been dead drunk."
Yan recalled his brother Yoen's habits and sighed.
"......Fair enough."
Yan Hashman picked up a heavy iron hammer. He walked over to the man bound before him, his movements stripped of anything unnecessary. He regarded the man with dry, emotionless eyes, and the man let his head hang limp without expression.
CRACK!
He brought it down on the man's head.
A thick scent of blood spread through the underground chamber. Yan Hashman's eyes caught the blood running down the wall. He spoke flatly.
"Even so, I must have my revenge."
***
A month had passed.
What had I been doing?
Feeding the flame dragon vein to my Star Ring and Core, refining mana into magical power, expelling waste, making a weighted vest filled with rocks to run, squat, and do push-ups without rest.
Physical training is always right. Of all investments, training is the one that betrays you the least. But that wasn't all I'd done.
I'm a Magic Swordsman, but I'm better with magic. I had no intention of neglecting swordsmanship for the sake of personal survival, but it was ultimately for self-defense.
The fact that magic would be the greatest asset in the coming great war remained unchanged.
So there was one thing I needed to do.
Ascend the Star Ring.
A 1-Star Mage expends the mana stored in the Star Ring to manifest an element matching their affinity. For me, that meant creating fire in the air.
But a 2-Star Mage goes beyond "manifestation" to create "form." In other words, Star Ring ascension was an expansion of magical consciousness.
Does the expansion just happen on its own? No. I had to etch a "mana circuit" into my body—one capable of creating form. More precisely, I was carving it into the blood vessels inside my body, but the important thing was that it hurt like hell.
"Preparations are done."
Having absorbed a large amount of the flame dragon vein, I had more than enough flame domain mana. I took one deep breath. Then began constructing the mana circuit.
"......Ugh."
As if my flesh were being pinched and torn off. Extreme agony crashed over me. Naturally so—it was the equivalent of tattooing the inside of my blood vessels with a needle.
But if I didn't push through this process in one burst, it could take years, so I gritted my teeth. Embrace the pain, Sion Karsen!
I'd built circuits before.
Push through in one shot!
CRUNCH—
I clenched my teeth so hard against the agony that they felt like they'd shatter. Sweat poured off me like rain, soaking my entire body.
How much time passed?
PING—
Another star rose on the Star Ring.
At last, I had become a 2-Star Mage.
"Hah, hah...... not done yet."
The stage of infusing "will" on top of "form."
I went straight for 3-Star.
PING—
Another star rose on the Star Ring.
'3-Star!'
Not done yet.
The stage where, on top of "form" and "will," "structure" becomes possible.
I went straight for 4-Star.
PING—
Another star rose on the Star Ring.
The highest level I could reach right now.
"It's done. I did it."
FLOP—
I collapsed to the floor.
'He'll probably start making his move soon. I should head out, but......'
My consciousness faded.
***
If you asked where magic was most advanced on the Valhalla Continent, everyone would point to the heart of the continent.
And if you asked where in the heart of the continent held the highest magical authority, everyone would name the Black Tower.
The tower that every mage in the world looked up to. A place where all the world's mysteries converged. The holy ground of the wise.
At the very top of that Black Tower.
Five elders, hooded in black robes pulled up over their heads, had gathered in one place. Each and every one was a 7-Star Archmage.
They convened around the [Oracle].
The masterpiece of the Great Sage—who, two thousand years ago, was said to have been able to peer into every dimensional realm of all creation.
The Great Sage was long dead, but the Oracle he created remained as the world's chronicler. And one of the things the Oracle recorded was the "Ranking System."
An elder with deeply wrinkled hands rapped his fingers on the table.
TAP— TAP—
All eyes turned to him, and beneath his black robe, a red gleam flashed from his eyes. It was an eerie gleam, unsettling regardless of one's age. He opened his parched lips.
"The 4-Star record has been updated."
The reason the elders had gathered was as follows.
The Oracle records every mage's "Star Ring ascension." And it ranks how quickly each ascension was achieved.
Covering 1 through 9-Star.
Measured by age and time.
The first-place record, unchanged for three hundred years since Archmage Brillis Arkadin, had changed once twenty years ago—and now, it had been broken again.
【 Age 22. 1-Star → 4-Star. 37 days. 】
With numbers that should have been impossible.
The time from mana awakening to 1-Star typically took three to ten years. Even the innately gifted took over a year.
Naturally, the path from 1-Star to 2-Star was even harder, and 3-Star and 4-Star went without saying.
Some never reached them in their entire lives, and even mages called geniuses took a minimum of twenty years.
And yet. Someone had reached 4-Star in thirty-seven days.
"The first since Hashvalt of the Imperial Academy broke the record twenty years ago?"
"What was his record?"
"Five years."
Five years.
Hashvalt had cut the process that geniuses took twenty years to complete down to a quarter. A truly staggering number.
But.
"Thirty-seven days? Does that even make sense?"
"If it were within the realm of common sense, we would not have gathered."
"Even seeing it, I find it hard to believe."
"Is there a possibility the Oracle misjudged?"
"None. The Oracle's Ranking System is precise. It has not erred once in two thousand years."
The pinnacle of the continent's magical world—the Black Tower.
The elders who existed at the very top of the Black Tower.
They were old monsters who had obtained long lifespans through various means. All had lived for over three hundred years. Yet even they could not easily comprehend what had occurred.
"Twenty years since Hashvalt reached 4-Star. He has already become a 6-Star Mage. One more step and he reaches our level."
"And a talent surpassing even his has appeared?"
"We cannot be certain yet."
"Has the one who broke the record been identified?"
"No. It appears they are not from the Tower or the Imperial Academy, at the very least."
"An individual with no connection to the highest institutions of magic?"
"So it would seem."
The elders did not take this lightly. These beings, who had existed in lofty solitude for eons, did not welcome sudden currents of change.
"This may send ripples through the magical world."
"It would be best to keep this matter classified until we identify who it is."
"Send people to find the one who broke the record."
"Agreed."
The other elders nodded.
It was unanimous.
And so, without Sion's knowledge, he had drawn the attention of the Black Tower. His great achievement sealed away as a top secret.
***
My eyes snapped open.
"Grrrrgh."
I clutched my head in the grip of a splitting headache. The sudden leap in power had overloaded my brain.
"Damn, I never get used to this no matter how many times it happens."
INHALE—
EXHALE—
I maintained my breathing and steadied my body and mind. Fortunately, thanks to all the physical training, my body hadn't collapsed entirely.
Before the regression, the pain had felt like my muscles were tearing apart, and I couldn't move for days.
One more piece of good news: with the Star Ring's ascension, the mana stored in the Core had also grown more robust.
How much time had passed?
I dusted myself off and stood.
"Time to test it out."
I extended my hand and drew mana from the Star Ring.
WHOOOOSH—
Flames sprang to life in my hand, and I infused the fire with "form." The fire abandoned its nature of spreading and began to condense. [Flame Sword].
HUFF— HUFF—
The condensed fire became a sword. I gripped the Flame Sword and ran through my swordplay.
SWISH—! WHOOOOSH—
"2-Star magic, no problem."
Next, I tossed the [Flame Sword] into the air. Then I breathed "will" into the "form." [Fire Eagle].
WHOOOOSH—
The flames shaped a head, and from the head a beak sprouted. Wings spread wide. It had truly transformed into a hawk. And it soared powerfully.
WHOOSH— WHOOSH—
The sound of its wingbeats was magnificent. A [Fire Eagle], complete with form and will, had been born. It shot through the air of the underground cavern.
3-Star magic also functioned without issue.
Then.
CLAP!
I clapped my hands, and the [Fire Eagle] split into four. Four fire hawks circled above me.
CLAP!
They plummeted to the ground like lightning.
WHOOSH— BOOOM—!
"[Eagle Plant]."
With a massive explosion, four pillars of fire rose. A blazing hole opened in the center of each pillar.
SNAP!
I snapped my fingers, and small firebirds burst out from the pillars. It was "structured"—like a factory producing fire birds.
"4-Star magic, perfect."
INHALE—
EXHALE—
As I breathed slowly, the endlessly spinning Star Ring drank in the surrounding mana. The absorbed mana converted into flame domain mana, and my magical power recovered at an astonishing rate.
"Recovery's good too."
A thrill ran through me. Ascending the Star Ring required an enormous amount of flame domain mana, but once the Star Ring was formed, it could recover even without flame domain mana.
In other words, I had become a Mage who breathed fire in the bitter cold. Of course, I had no intention of revealing I was a Mage for the time being.
Revealing my magic would have to wait until "that expedition."
So what I needed to train right now wasn't magic, but swordsmanship. My own sword style, devised through exchanging blows with the Resistance's finest swordsmen before the regression.
Karsen-style Classical Swordplay, Revised.
I gripped my sword. Until the time came to bare my true fangs, this sword would protect me and cut down my enemies.