Daniel

The journey from the Skyglass mine had been long, stretching over a couple of uneventful days. Daniel and the field transport moved steadily across dusty, winding roads that threaded between low hills and forgotten outposts. The terrain was dry and sun-bleached, the air warm but not oppressive, filled with the scent of windblown sage and heated brush.

At night, they stopped at roadside inns—small, timber-framed places that smelled of wood smoke and old lacquer, run by innkeepers too pragmatic to ask questions and too kind to show it. The food, surprisingly, was more than just edible. Some dishes were genuinely delicious: crisp pork dumplings with fire-pepper vinegar, sweet rice buns steamed to perfect fluff, grilled fish seasoned with foraged herbs. It was a welcome reprieve from nutrient paste and ration bars—real food, crafted with intention.

One evening, while refueling near a quiet border village, Daniel ended up assisting a local doctor. A child had collapsed during morning lessons, her mana channels blocked by a crystallized build-up that shimmered faintly beneath her skin. The doctor had seen it before, but not often—an obscure ailment, likely genetic (not the doctor's words), triggered by exposure to a contaminated charm. Daniel, drawing on Ethan’s memories and his own intuition, helped map a pressure release pattern along the girl's forearms and diffused the blockage using a low-pulse resonance of mana.

It was a small thing. It took less than twenty minutes. But the child’s eyes—wide, startled, then grateful—stayed with him.

He had a small shrine of gifts outside his room the morning after. There were also many requests for his contact form for his messaging crystal he politely declined and went on his way. It was a quiet interlude. A soft breath between the weight of what had come before and the unknown waiting ahead. A reminder that, outside the hidden horrors of cursed mines and the machinations of empires, ordinary life still existed. Fields still needed tending. Children still got sick. People still cooked dinner, argued over seasoning, and mended spirit-charms worn thin by affection.

For a little while, the world was small again. And that, Daniel thought, might be reason enough to keep it safe.

They continued their journey and the movement was slow and eventual. Eventually coming to one of the areas very much less traveled by. He hardly noticed when the forest changed, subtly at first, then all at once. Daniel could feel it. The air shifted and so did the mana in the air. Though calling it mana felt wrong. The power in the air. It was hard to describe. It wasn’t louder. Just… heavier. Stickier. Like walking through water when it was knee deep.

“Chaos energy.” Was all that Ethan said, “A lingering wound from the demon invasion.”

“I am going to need an explanation later.” Daniel thought toward Ethan. For the moment he simply observed.

Chaos energy distorted the very landscape. The trees thinned, then thickened again in odd angles, their branches twisting into unnatural contortions, leaning together as if conspiring against the light. The undergrowth darkened, choked by black foliage. The birdsong, once constant, now stuttered, forced into long, eerie pauses between too-perfect notes. Even the light filtering through the canopy had lost its warmth, turning the forest into a perpetually twilight realm where shadows seemed to possess a deeper, more malevolent quality.

“This place is wrong,” Daniel murmured.

“Chaos energy does that,” Ethan said. “Be sharp. This wasn't just a battlefield. It’s a dumping ground for forgotten horrors spanning five thousand years. About ten centuries ago it got really bad and, this region was overwhelmed by chaos magic and its not ever recovered. Now for the last one hundred and fifty years it has been overrun with failed cultivators, rogue bloodlines, duelists without families—they fought, they bled, and they didn’t just die here. They didn’t leave. Their fragmented intent, combined with the raw, untamed chaos, saturated the land.”

Daniel adjusted his pack, feeling the weight of the field tools digging into one shoulder. “And now we’re here to mine what they left behind.”

“Blood-copper’s rare for a reason. It doesn’t just record mana flow. It captures intent drift, emotional resonance, even the ghost of a broken cultivation cycle.”

“And we need it.”

“If you want this thing to work without echoing every fear you’ve ever had, yeah.”

They followed a narrow switchback trail deeper into the ridge. The soil grew redder, clay-like, as if perpetually stained by ancient blood. Flecks of copper glittered in the rocks, but none of it was usable—too weathered, too tainted by the pervasive chaos. They needed vein ore.

After another quarter mile, the unsettling silence of the forest was abruptly shattered. Shouts, the clang of steel, and the desperate cries of a woman cut through the heavy air. Daniel pushed his pace picking up to move a bit faster.

"Movement," Daniel muttered, already shifting his weight, his hand instinctively dropping to Qinglan's Silence.

As they rounded a bend, the scene unfolded below them. A small, ornate caravan, bearing the distinctive symbol of a stylized wind chime on its side—the mark of the Wind Medicine Family—was surrounded by a dozen figures. These weren't mere thugs; their movements were too coordinated, their blades too expertly wielded. Five of them were clearly too skilled for mere bandits, their aura sharp and predatory, directing the others. They were systematically dismantling the caravan's defenses, pushing its small retinue of guards back with brutal efficiency.

“Bandits,” Ethan’s voice cut through his mind, sharp and cold. “ Probably deserters from some army.”

“Can you tell their level from here?”

“Lower level experts, their mana isn’t that strong, but they seem to use it pretty well. More than we can handle quietly.”

“Probably more than I can handle at all”

“Not going to stop you is it.”

“Yeah I am dumb like that.”

Daniel didn't hesitate. This wasn't about blood-copper anymore. “Let’s do this.”

He dropped into a low, fluid stance, drawing Qinglan's Silence with a whisper of steel. His first movement was Iron Vein: feet flat, knees slightly bent, spine aligned, shoulders low—tension without motion. He moved, a controlled step forward, another to the side, one more back, then right again. The world steadied. Breath in. Breath out. Balanced. He was grounded.

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He was ready.

Gave a rather sloppy application of mana to his joints, his feet and upper legs and took off.

The leader of the expert bandits, a lean man with a pitted blade, saw him first. "Well, well. Look what wandered into the slaughter." He smirked, signaling two of his expert comrades to advance.

Daniel was already on them. The first bandit lunged—a sloppy swing, overcommitted. Daniel’s foot slid an inch, hips rotating on a tight pivot. He executed Piercing Edge: the blade moved once—clean, shallow, and sharp enough to send the attacker stumbling, weapon flying

. But he modified it to hit with the flat verse the edge. Not a killing blow. Just a correction. The bandit screamed and it seemed Qinglan’s Silence broke his collarbone..

The second expert came in harder, two-handed grip, aiming for a shoulder-break. Daniel stepped into the strike and angled his blade upward in a short, inside arc. The force of the blow sent the bandit’s blade off course. His counter moved on the same line. He delivered a swift, single, reverse slash that caught the attacker across the arm, spraying blood. The man shrieked, dropping his weapon as Daniel’s foot slid, rotated, and smacked the man’s boot with the flat of his heel. The man went down hard, bone grinding on stone. Still not dead.

The third expert tried a feint, stepping wide then drawing fast from the hip. Daniel didn’t move. Then—just as the sword came close—he shifted, a quarter turn. He executed Ghost Veil Disarm: He caught the flat with the spine of his blade, rolled his wrist, and flipped the enemy’s weapon cleanly over his shoulder. The man landed face-first in the dirt, a sickening crunch echoing in the clearing. Three down. No wasted motion. No drawn breath. No second strikes.

The remaining two expert bandits exchanged a look, their cocky grins replaced by wary respect. The leader hesitated now. Daniel said nothing. The sword didn’t hum. It didn’t glow. But there was something about the way he held it—tilted slightly forward, edge pulled inward toward the heart—that felt dangerously patient.

"He's good," one of the remaining experts muttered, blood already beginning to pool under the third fallen bandit. "Too good."

The leader snarled, "Take him down! All of you! No witnesses!" The remaining two experts moved, backed by three more common bandits, attempting to flank Daniel. Blades flashed, crude mana pulses rippled towards him.

Daniel knew he couldn't take on five skilled opponents and their underlings with just swordplay, not without mana. He had been practicing his mana manipulation and while his raw empowering, pinpoint use and enforcement were all really good he was still having problems with actual combat or support spells more complex than that. His opponents, however, didn't seem to be at a high enough level where they could BattleCast (his word). He’d seen the weaknesses in their raw, emotional spellcasting. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t stab him in the face given the chance.

So he was going to be one to take that chance. He started building spell effects..

The world seemed to slow, distorting around Daniel as he unleashed a torrent of mana from his core. The mana sharpened everything. His mind, usually so precise, blurred with a primal need to overwhelm. He didn’t meticulously build arrays; he willed them into existence, pushing mana through raw instinct, focusing on pure destructive intent.

He built out the spell at the speed of his thoughts as he fought against two bandits one wielding a long blade another a spear.

* Consideration of the magic: No subtle kinetic pulse this time. He needed raw, immediate impact. A concussive blast. He remembered the diagram of a localized mana detonation, something Ethan had warned him about. He ignored the warnings.

* Establishment of the intent: Pure, unadulterated shockwave. Not to kill, but to incapacitate with extreme force. Break bones. Rupture eardrums. Leave them utterly helpless. His intent was a hammer blow.

* Building of the array: Instinctively, he wove rapidly connecting glyphs, twisting basic control runes into explosive triggers. It was messy, chaotic, reflecting the ambient energy of the forest itself. A dangerous dance between control and wild output.

* Filing the array with mana coupled with the intent: He ripped mana from his core, pulling it fast and hard, faster than he ever should. The energy roared through his meridians, burning hot, close to overload. He shoved it into the array, feeling the raw power surge.

* Carrying the precise activation sequence into the array with the intended mana: His mental command was a violent snap. Explode. Now. He unleashed the mana with a furious release, not caring about elegance, only impact.

A series of guttural thumps erupted from Daniel’s position, not discrete spells, but a rapid-fire sequence of kinetic detonations. The air before him cracked. The nearest bandits were hit by invisible hammers; their bodies contorted, snapped backwards, and slammed against trees with wet, sickening thuds. Bones fractured. Blood splattered across the dark undergrowth. The expert leader screamed, thrown backwards into the dirt, his nose already gushing crimson.

Daniel stood, trembling, mana still singing wildly in his veins, the raw power leaving him dizzy. He’d done it. But the mana felt… wrong. It was sticky, almost cloying.

And his face was bleeding.

“What the hell was that?” Ethan’s voice was a ragged whisper in his mind, filled with a rare panic. “You nearly blew your own face off! That wasn’t a spell. That was a tantrum of pure force! What were you thinking?”

Why is it so difficult? Daniel thought, his vision blurring slightly. Why can’t I just make it work? It’s just energy. It should be simple. His chest burned with frustration. Why is it so damned hard to control? I just want it to do what I tell it to, but it fights me. It fights back.

“It’s not a machine, Daniel!” Ethan snapped, his voice ringing with exasperation and fear. “It’s life! It’s will! It’s intent! Its magic!. The literal ability to change the world at will. Every fragment of mana in this world is tied to the raw essence of something. Intent isn’t just a trigger; it’s the fuel, the filter, and the very structure. You bloody well know this. Intent with raw emotion is a bad thing. It was your bloody theory! When you try to force it, when you ignore the natural flow, when you let your own emotions—especially raw frustration or rage—bleed into the cast, it corrupts the sequence. You used chaos to fight chaos, and you almost burned yourself down doing it!”

Daniel clenched his jaw, the taste of burnt mana on his tongue. But if it’s so unstable, if it needs so much… emotion… how does anyone do anything consistently? How does the Empire even run its basic systems? Every piece of magic I’ve seen is a bespoke, handcrafted piece of guesswork. No two spells are ever truly identical even from the same caster. There’s no repeatability. No scalability.

“That’s the problem, Daniel!” Ethan almost shouted. “That’s what I spent my life trying to fix! Masters magic works because they’re trained to suppress everything but a single, pure intent. They spent most of their time perfecting, intent, array formation and mana control! They build their entire lives around ritual and discipline just to maintain basic functionality. It’s why the Empire’s communication network is a disaster. It’s why grand masters remain in seclusion for years. It’s why it all collapses when the stakes get high, when real emotions—fear, panic, pain—start to bleed through!”

Ethan paused there. It was an interested to hear someone breathing heavy in your head when it wasn’t you. Daniel heard Ethan try to calm himself.

“You said it yourself, Daniel. It’s a system designed by poets and mystics, not engineers! And it’s why no one can survive the True Demon War! Because you can’t fight chaos with a perfectly curated emotion! You need logic. You need structure. You need… us.”

Daniel stood, breathing deeply, mana still singing wildly in his veins, but with a new, chilling clarity. The expert leader and his remaining scattered bandits were either unconscious, fleeing, or groaning in various states of brokenness amongst the trees. The Wind Family Medicine caravan members stared at him, faces pale with horror and awe.

He’d done it. He’d showcased power. But at what cost? He looked at his shaking hands, at the faint glow still clinging to the tips of his fingers.

He needed the Framework. More than ever. He couldn't fight a demon war by nearly incinerating himself with every spell.

A middle-aged woman, her face etched with worry but now shining with relief, stepped forward from the caravan, clutching a small, wind-chime amulet. "You... you saved us," she whispered, her voice thick with gratitude. "Thank you, Young Master. The Wind Medicine Family is in your debt."

Daniel offered a small, polite nod. He hadn't just proven his prowess in combat. He had just confronted the raw, chaotic nature of magic itself.

And he realized, with a chill, that he was just getting started.

He shook it off. He had blood copper to find.