Lan leaned against a stack of dusty crates in the shade of the old stables, arms crossed and posture casual—but his eyes tracked everything.
The sun was barely cresting the eastern wall of the Solaris estate, masking the courtyard in burnt gold, but already the servants were sweating as they scrambled to prepare his envoy.
Horses were fed, wheels were checked, enchantments re-inscribed with shaky fingers under the oversight of a nervous steward.
Before him, a narrow procession was beginning to take shape.
At the head of the envoy was a single utilitarian carriage—square, iron-reinforced, warded with fading runes carved into the lacquer. It would carry three guards, hand-picked by the palace for this journey to the Imperial City.
Not to protect him, not truly. Their real duty was surveillance and control. Three mage-knights of the Second Circle.
Lan's eyes lingered on them with cool disinterest.
Second Circle.
It was the bare minimum.
They stood at parade rest now, polished breastplates reflecting the morning sun, robes stitched with pale blue thread to indicate their station. Their mana signatures shimmered faintly in the air—tight, disciplined, like a candle behind glass.
Soldiers, yes. Professionals, maybe. But weapons? No.
Certainly not weapons that could matter if the world decided to turn.
Behind them waited his carriage, the one meant to deliver him in state to the capital. Compared to the first, it was positively decadent—lacquered midnight wood with silver filigree curling like vines along the sides, curtains of moonweave silk tied in place to flutter dramatically at every gust of wind.
A crest had been emblazoned on the doors just yesterday: the Royal Seal of House Solaris, still barely remembered.
A princeling's chariot.
Or a caged bird's.
Lan uncrossed his arms and let out a slow breath, feeling the silence between his ribs like it were omen.
He watched the guards as they gave orders to the stablehands, rechecked saddles, and postured just enough to remind everyone present of who held authority.
Second Circle.
It still grated.
In this world, power came not from cultivation, nor spirit, nor the ravaging energy of qi—but from mana.
Raw, elemental, chaotic. Every living being had some—an ember of potential smoldering inside the soul—but few ever stoked it to fire.
Magic was governed by a Circle System, a codified hierarchy developed over centuries by scholars and warlords alike. The higher one's circle, the more intricate their control over the Weave—the invisible web of mana that underpinned the world.
Mastery meant control. Control meant creation... or destruction.
First and Second Circle Mages were the footsoldiers of the arcane world. Most were taught at basic academies or battlefield training grounds, their spells no more complex than firebolts, kinetic blasts, minor shields, or basic healing wards.
They were dangerous to peasants, deadly in numbers—but ultimately tools.
Replaceable.
The Third and Fourth Circles marked a significant jump in power. These mages had honed their mana into more stable constructs—summoning storms, shaping illusions, freezing rivers.
They were battlefield commanders, siege-breakers, and elite bodyguards. Few were permitted to rise beyond this level without scrutiny.
The Fifth to Seventh Circles were considered Arcane Elites. These were the ones whose names carried weight—Magisters, Battle-Masters, Witch-Knights.
Capable of razing fortresses with a gesture or binding the will of lesser mages with a glance.
Their spells rewrote the rules of physics in as many ways as one could comprehend. Time slowed. Gravity fractured. Flame sang.
But the Eighth through Tenth Circles were a league apart—World-Tier Mages. Kingdoms bowed to them. Empires feared them.
A single spellcaster of the Ninth Circle had once ended a continental war by unleashing a rain of black fire that burned for nine days.
Magic at this level was no longer merely cast—it was authored. Realities rewritten. Time made to bend. An Eighth Circle Archmage could alter weather across an entire region.
A Tenth Circle Magus could make history forget you ever lived.
Then came the Eleventh to Thirteenth Circles, the so-called Mythics.
These were not individuals so much as disasters with stories. Sightings were rare, records often erased or classified. Some ruled hidden fortresses at the poles or beneath oceans.
Some whispered from towers between dimensions. Their magic was said to be recursive, feeding off itself, alive. With a single invocation, they could erase cities from memory, not just existence.
And above them?
There were only few recorded beings in history who had achieved what the Arcanum classified as Fourteenth to Sixteenth Circle Ascension.
They had no names. Only titles.
The Black mark. The masked Empress. Architect of the End.
Deities in all but truth. Their magic defied measurement. It broke scrying. Bled into dreams. One had once silenced an entire continent with a thought. Another had spoken a word that made the sun stutter.
No mortal could hope to resist them.
No mortal except one who had begun to walk a different path entirely.
---
Lan's fingers curled slightly against the edge of the crate.
The three guards—all Second Circle—were little more than delay mechanisms. They could slow down a mob. Maybe survive a Fourth Circle assassin. But if anyone powerful truly wanted him dead, they'd be decoration.
Three flashes of light and they'd be ash on the road.
But then again… Lan wasn't truly concerned.
He no longer thought in Circles.
He no longer needed to.
He didn't rely on the Weave. His power didn't come from carefully layered rituals or years of rote memorization. His strength came from something far older. Something heretical. Something this world was yet to understand.
But he would make sure they will.
He watched the last of the crates being lashed down, the envoy drawing into final formation. The morning wind carried the scent of metal and lilac, mixed with dust and the faint ozone trace of residual mana.
One of the guards glanced toward him, uncertain. Lan didn't blink.
They couldn't see it, of course.
They couldn't sense the hollow gravity pulsing faintly in his dantian, the hunger of the void he now carried.
They didn't know what had been broken—or what had awakened—when he tore the Law of Cultivation from his soul and let the sutra mark him.
It was better that way.
He prefered they thought him a crippled prince, because there is no easier man to kill, than one who underestimates his enemy.
"Prince Lanard," the steward called, wiping sweat from his brow, "your envoy is ready. We await your command."
Lan stood straight and dusted off his sleeves. His gaze flicked once more to the guards, the carriage, the path ahead.
The Imperial City would not be kind.
But then again—
Neither was he.
"Let's ride."