The quiet stillness of the small inn room was broken only by the steady tapping of rain against the window.
Each drop struck the glass with a soft, repetitive rhythm, filling the darkness with a sound that was almost comforting.
Almost.
The boy sat on the edge of the narrow wooden bed, his shoulders slightly hunched as he stared at his pale hands.
Candlelight trembled across his face, making his features appear older than they truly were.
There were no visible wounds on his fingers, yet they carried the faint tremor of someone who had spent too long fighting to survive.
Deep inside his chest, an old ache began to stir.
It was not the sharp pain of an injury or the hunger of an empty stomach, though he knew both intimately.
This was something deeper—a hollow, nameless longing that had followed him for as long as he could remember.
He had never been able to explain it.
Even when he was a child, before the wilderness had hardened his body and sharpened his instincts, he had felt that something was missing.
The feeling had never left him.
It had only grown stronger as he grew older.
What he possessed was not an ordinary desire for comfort or wealth.
It was a fierce, boundless ambition that burned through him like a hidden fever.
He wanted to rise above the mud, above the weak and powerless life that had been forced upon him, and reach a place where no one could ever dictate his existence again.
But if someone had asked him what that place looked like, he would have been unable to answer.
He did not know whether he wanted absolute power, complete freedom, or revenge against everyone who ruled over the world.
Perhaps he wanted all three.
The uncertainty frustrated him.
He could feel the fire inside his chest, consuming him from within and driving him forward, yet he could not see the road ahead.
His destination remained hidden behind a thick fog, and every step he took seemed to lead him deeper into the unknown.
“Ambitious thoughts without a foundation are nothing more than hallucinations, young one.” Mammon’s deep voice echoed inside his mind, dragging him away from the dark depths of his thoughts.
Even without seeing the demon, the boy could imagine the ancient creature’s expression—calm, faintly amused, and completely certain of his own wisdom.
“If you intend to survive the upcoming academy trials,” Mammon continued, “we must first secure a more suitable base of operations.
This tavern is far too noisy, and far too many eyes pass through its halls.” The boy closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose.
He forced the vague longings in his chest back into the deepest corners of his mind, where they could not distract him.
“Where do you suggest we go?” he asked silently.
“To the outer fringes of the western district,” Mammon replied.
“The alleyways are narrow, the rent is cheap, and the landlords ask no questions.” That was enough to convince him.
He rose from the bed and adjusted the worn cloak hanging from his shoulders.
The cloth was faded, patched in several places, and still carried the faint smell of rain and wilderness.
By mid-afternoon, the boy had already made his way through the maze-like streets of the lower district.
The roads became narrower and dirtier as he moved farther from the central market, and the tall buildings leaned toward one another as if conspiring to block out the sky.
He passed crowded food stalls, broken carts, and children who watched him from doorways with sharp, suspicious eyes.
Nobody paid him much attention for long.
In the western district, poverty was common enough that another thin, tired-looking traveler barely stood out.
At the end of a quiet cobbled lane, they found what Mammon had been searching for.
A weathered stone building stood beneath the shadow of a leaning warehouse, its walls stained by years of rain and soot.
A faded wooden sign hung above the entrance, though most of the painted letters had long since disappeared.
The landlord was an old man with a stiff back and a cloudy eye.
He examined the boy without interest, then named a price that was low enough to be suspicious.
Mammon assured him that the room was suitable, and after a brief negotiation, the boy paid with nearly every copper coin in his possession.
The room was small and plain.
It contained a narrow bed, a heavy oak table, a crooked chair, and a single glass window overlooking the uneven rooftops of the city.
The plaster had cracked in several places, and the floorboards creaked whenever the boy moved.
Still, the room offered something the inn never could: privacy.
No drunken merchants would stumble past his door, and no curious strangers would hear him speaking to the voice inside his head.
The boy shut the door behind him and slid the bolt into place.
For the first time in several days, the silence around him felt complete.
“Now then,” Mammon said, his tone becoming sharper and more instructive, “it is time to deal with your financial limitations.
A pauper cannot purchase the respect, equipment, or materials required for what comes next.” The boy looked down at his empty leather pouch.
“We have no coins left.” “Coins are merely shaped metal,” Mammon replied with a low chuckle.
There was a trace of ancient malice in his voice.
“And metal is subject to energy.
Pull the rusted iron nails from those broken floorboards in the corner.” The boy glanced toward the far side of the room.
Several floorboards had splintered near the wall, leaving a dark gap beneath them.
He knelt down, pried out the loose nails, and gathered the pieces of rust-covered iron in his palm.
There were only a dozen of them.
Some were bent, while others had been eaten away by years of moisture.
They looked worthless, but Mammon had never cared about appearances.
The boy placed the nails on the oak table.
“What am I supposed to do with them?” “Place your hand over the pile,” Mammon instructed.
“Invoke the energy we practiced channeling in the woods.
Do not force it forward like a battering ram.
That method is crude, wasteful, and likely to destroy the material.” The boy lifted his right hand above the rusted nails.
“Then what should I do?” “Weave the energy into the structure of the iron.
Strip away the rust.
Alter its mass.
Separate the impurities and compress what remains.
You are not breaking the metal.
You are persuading it to become something more useful.” That explanation sounded simple.
The task itself was anything but.
The boy closed his eyes and slowed his breathing until each breath became almost inaudible.
He focused on the power buried deep within his core, searching for the dark energy that answered only to his will.
At first, nothing happened.
Then a faint pressure began to gather beneath his ribs.
The sensation moved through his chest and down his arm, reaching his fingertips like cold water flowing through narrow channels.
Thin threads of translucent darkness seeped from his fingers.
They were so faint that they might have been mistaken for shadows cast by the candlelight.
Slowly, the threads spread across the table and wrapped themselves around the crude iron nails like living cobwebs.
The moment the energy touched the metal, resistance surged through him.
The nails were not truly alive, yet they possessed a stubborn density that pushed back against his will.
Every particle seemed to resist being altered.
Sweat appeared along his forehead.
He could feel the rust, the iron, and the hidden impurities within the material as if they were separate layers beneath his fingertips.
The sensation was overwhelming, like trying to read thousands of books at once.
“Steady,” Mammon warned.
“Your control is slipping.” The boy tightened his focus.
He imagined the rust separating from the iron, not violently but gradually, layer by layer.
He pictured the impurities being forced outward and the iron itself becoming denser, cleaner, and more refined.
A sudden pulse of energy escaped his control.
One of the nails cracked loudly, splitting down the center.
The boy nearly lost his concentration, but Mammon’s voice struck through his panic.
“Do not react emotionally.
Continue.” He clenched his jaw and steadied the flow.
The dark threads tightened around the nails, drawing them together.
His internal reserves began to drain rapidly, leaving a growing emptiness inside his chest.
The rust started to flake away.
At first, only a few particles fell onto the table.
Then the corrosion dissolved into a fine black ash that gathered around the pile like dust.
Beneath the ruined surface, the iron began to change.
Its dull gray color deepened, then softened into a faint golden glow.
The boy’s breathing became strained as he poured more energy into the process.
The nails trembled against the tabletop.
One by one, they began to bend toward the center of the pile.
Their edges melted without producing smoke, flowing together in a slow, controlled mass.
The boy felt as though he were holding a collapsing building in place with his bare hands.
His vision blurred, and his arm began to shake violently.
Every instinct told him to release the energy, but he knew that doing so would ruin the material.
“Compress it,” Mammon ordered.
“The impurities are almost gone.
Do not waste the final stage.” The boy pushed his will into the metal.
The golden mass contracted, becoming smaller and heavier.
The glow brightened until it illuminated the room more strongly than the candle.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the transformation ended.
A smooth ingot of pure gold rested on the dark oak table.
It was compact, heavy, and completely free of impurities.
The surface reflected the candlelight with a soft, brilliant shine that seemed almost impossible in the miserable little room.
For several seconds, the boy simply stared at it.
He had begun with a handful of rusted nails pulled from a broken floor.
Now he possessed enough wealth to change the course of his immediate future.
The strength left his body all at once.
He collapsed into the chair, breathing heavily as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
His fingers trembled from the immense mental strain, and his heartbeat thudded painfully against his ribs.
“Not bad for your first attempt at true alchemy,” Mammon said.
His approval sounded genuine, which was rare enough to be noteworthy.
“Your control was acceptable.
That ingot will be more than enough to purchase proper clothing and support us for several weeks.” The boy looked at the gold again.
“And after that?” “After that, you will find more.” There was no comfort in Mammon’s answer, but there was certainty.
The boy wrapped the ingot in a piece of cloth and tucked it beneath his cloak before leaving the room.
By the time he reached the market district, evening had begun to settle over the capital.
The streets were filled with merchants closing their stalls, messengers rushing between buildings, and wealthy customers returning from their afternoon visits.
Mammon directed him away from the main commercial strip and toward a quieter street lined with expensive workshops.
At the end of the road stood a high-end tailor shop with dark windows and a brass handle polished to a mirror shine.
The tailor was an elderly man with narrow eyes and a measuring tape draped around his neck.
He looked the boy up and down, clearly unimpressed by his worn cloak and weather-beaten appearance.
That changed when the boy placed the gold ingot on the counter.
The tailor examined it carefully, testing its weight and scraping a small corner with a tool.
He did not ask where the gold had come from.
In the capital, money was often more persuasive than an explanation.
Under Mammon’s surprisingly refined guidance, the boy selected three sets of clothing.
Each was tailored to fit his lean frame and designed to give him the appearance of someone who belonged in a world of scholars, nobles, and dangerous secrets.
The primary outfit was intended for the academy.
It consisted of a fitted ash-gray vest worn over a high-collared black silk shirt.
A knee-length coat in a deep violet-blue shade completed the ensemble, its cuffs and lapels decorated with subtle silver stitching.
The coat was structured enough to make him appear disciplined and respectable, yet flexible enough for movement.
Its dark inner lining had also been altered to conceal his iron dagger without making the weapon obvious.
The other two sets were designed for travel and nighttime operations.
They included durable black leather trousers, reinforced shirts made from dark fabric, and heavy charcoal-gray cloaks with deep hoods.
When pulled forward, the hoods could swallow his face entirely in shadow.
The clothes were practical rather than decorative, made for climbing, running, and disappearing into the darkness before anyone realized he had been there.
He returned to the rented room after sunset.
The city had changed in the short time he had been gone.
Lanterns glowed along the streets below, their light reflected in puddles left behind by the rain.
Inside the room, the boy changed into one of the new outfits.
The fabric felt smooth against his skin, almost unfamiliar in its softness.
It was a stark contrast to the rough, blood-stained rags he had worn while surviving in the wilderness.
He stood before the small, cracked mirror hanging on the wall.
The reflection seemed to belong to someone else.
The feral child who had crawled through the woods was gone.
In his place stood a composed young man dressed like a scholar, though there was nothing scholarly in the coldness of his eyes.
He looked as if he had stepped onto the edge of civilization without any intention of becoming part of it.
The exhaustion of the day finally caught up with him.
He extinguished the oil lamp, plunging the room into cool darkness, and lowered himself onto the narrow bed.
Outside the window, the distant hum of the city gradually faded.
Voices disappeared one by one, carts stopped rattling over the stones, and the streets settled into the quiet rhythm of night.
The boy rested his head against the thin pillow.
His body was heavy, but his mind remained alert for several minutes.
Then he noticed movement beyond the glass.
On a sturdy wooden beam beneath the neighboring roof, a mother crow sat beside a small nest woven from twigs, feathers, and scraps of cloth.
She held a piece of food in her beak and carefully lowered it into the open mouth of one of her chicks.
Several hungry beaks rose toward her.
The mother crow shifted her wings, shielding the nest from the cold evening air while the chicks fought over the food.
The boy watched the scene without moving.
His face remained calm and unreadable, offering no sign of envy, tenderness, or longing.
For a brief moment, the image reminded him of something he could not name.
A distant memory, perhaps, or simply a possibility that had never belonged to him.
He continued watching until the mother crow settled over her young, covering them completely beneath her dark wings.
Then he slowly turned away from the window.
Facing the cold wall, he closed his eyes.
The room grew silent again, and before another thought could take shape, the boy drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.