Chapter 6

The next morning, Jin went to the hole the twins had dug.

Sure enough, the twins had shoveled diligently without skimping on the job. The yellowed stone wall exposed itself on one end of the deep hole.

There were seven guardian knights, two nannies and a dozen servants in the castle, and of course, the twins.

But it was unlikely they would come to see Jin out here or suspect him of anything.

I’m sure they bought the excuse when I told them I’m coming here to grieve for the bird.

The members of the Runcandel clan who resided in the Storm Castle were starting to be concerned about Jin lately, as it was nearly impossible to notice any childlike behavior in him.

In fact, there were many who went beyond feeling concerned. They feared him. The servants gossiped over how Jin was an identical copy of the Patriarch, and the guardian knights already regarded him superior to their chain of command.

So when Jin told them he wished to grieve the bird he buried, they all let out a sigh of relief. It relieved them to think that a child was still a child, regardless of his maturity.

I bid you meet a better fate in your next life. He did feel sympathy for the dead bird, so it wasn’t entirely a lie.

After relocating the bird’s grave to the base of the hole, Jin closed in on the wall. He could see scratches on the surface formed by the twins’ shoveling.

It was not a particularly strong wall. The rocks used didn’t seem very strong, and he felt like he could pound the wall down with shadows in his fists.

But the noise would be heard from outside the hole if he did such a thing.

Untrained laymen wouldn’t be able to hear it over the rain, but certainly, the guardian knights who were all seven-stars and above would not miss the pounding noise from the hole.

“Hahaha,” Jin broke into a laugh all of a sudden, unable to contain the excitement. He spread both his palms wide and planted them on the wall. The stone wall started to make minute vibrations.

Rrrrr!

This was the result of a one-star earth magic spell called earth resonance.

It was a spell used by sorcerers when camping or sleeping outside during their travels. Its lethality was non-existent.

“I was dying to use magic all this time!”

The convenience and the feeling of achievement one got from using magic was delightful!

He had completely missed out on such feelings for the past seven years. Since Jin retained his full consciousness and memory from the moment of his rebirth, repressing his magic for all that time was as good as a sentence for him.

Magic. The power given to sorcerers.

Jin worried how he should start learning magic again at the time of his rebirth.

But the worries were uncalled for. Just as the powers granted by Solderet still flowed in him, the mana he had built up from his past life was still valid.

It seems that there is a limited amount of mana I can tap into, in this small body, but I can’t complain!

Jin was on the brink of becoming a six-star sorcerer after the three years since he started learning to wield magic.

The magic Jin could currently muster was only that of a one-star sorcerer, but it grew every year.

He could feel his magical powers increase as he gained every year of age, even when he wasn’t making any effort to increase his mana.

The capacity for mana he had built in his past life was coming back to him.

That’s how he explained this mysterious phenomenon.

One-star magical abilities at seven years of age! This is a prodigious growth rate worthy of the history books. At this rate, I could easily reach six-stars before the age of twenty.

Everything in this life was so much easier compared to the previous one, by a wide margin.

He was having a sweet time. He could employ both spiritual and magical powers at the age of seven, and held three-star swordsmanship and five-star sorcery knowledge stowed away in his head.

He could even master the secret tomes of warrior clans around the world that the Runcandels had pillaged. Every day was filled with something to fire up his eagerness and knowledge.

Tsk, I guess I am a sorcerer through and through. I had no idea I’d feel this happy from using that little earth resonance spell.

The chance to deploy magic amidst the other Runcandels were extremely rare.

In fact, saying that they were non-existent would be closer to the truth. Jin never found any moment to be truly by himself at all.

Gilly was at his side most of the time, and in her absence, the guardian knights or the servants were around. If none of them was nearby, it was the Tona twins who pestered him.

This was the reason he was never free to use magic, not that he ever found a reason to.

Jin now used the twins to do his bidding, but that didn’t mean he could use magic around them.

The moment his parents got word of the fact that he’d been using magic, would be the very day this sweet life he was now enjoying came to an end.

I need to seal my magic away once again after today is over. I promise I’ll use your power to no end once nobody’s looking, my dear mana.

Tsk.

Jin smacked his lips and focused his mind on his palms that he’d placed on the wall. The sensation of his mana flowing from his fingers to the stone wall was mesmerizing.

Grrrrrt...

After about ten minutes had passed, the vibrations from earth resonance created dozens of tiny cracks on the stone wall. The wall was close to crumbling, with dirt and sand spewing from its cracks.

Crrrack!

The central part of the wall crumpled like a castle made of sand. There was now a tiny hole that Jin could barely squeeze into, and he stood staring into it for some time.

There was a long hallway akin to an abandoned ruin, at the end of which was an immense iron gate. This was the first thing he saw the moment he managed to bore a hole into the wall.

If anyone assumed that the hidden halls of the Runcandels could be breached so easily, they would be severely mistaken.

To begin with, the Storm Castle was impossible to penetrate, even with the most elite strike force of the Zeifl clan.

So this is what the dungeons of the Storm Castle look like. The first place pure-blood Runcandels visit the moment they are made flag bearers.

Flag bearers. The one who stands afront every rank and holds the flag of the clan on every occasion.

All children of the Runcandel became flag bearers when their time was right, with the exception of those falling particularly short of the mark, such as Jin had in his previous life.

Therefore, the sight of the dungeon that lay before him was one that he’d only glimpsed through the stories of his siblings and his own imagination. To see it in person made him choke with emotion.

I never thought I’d feel so emotional, but it does feel quite different to see it for myself.

Phew. He let out a long breath and squeezed himself into the gap.

He could still hear the downpour from inside the hole, but everything fell silent as he stepped into the hall of the dungeon. Jin took off his shoes in solemnity.

Also, the mud on his shoes would leave traces behind.

The inner halls were dimly lit with torches, wax, and flints placed sparsely along the hallway.

Jin thought about conjuring a flare to light his way, but opted to take a torch instead. Walking barefoot down this ancient path with a torch in his hand made him feel like a monk.

According to what mother had told me, one had to prove that they were a pure-blood Runcandel before reaching that door.

He recalled a memory from when he was sixteen.

At the time, Rosa still believed that her youngest son would one day become a proud member of the clan.

One could call it a distorted hope of a mother unwilling to accept her son’s shortcomings.

Rosa craftily bent rules of the clan to leak various information to him. She knew Jin would never become renowned as the prodigies of his time as his siblings did.

But she had hoped he’d at least become a six-star knight one day, to be eligible for holding the flag.

Rosa Runcandel, the black panther who had few equals in the world, was blinded and disabled from assessing Jin objectively due to the fact that she was, indeed, his mother.

Although she, too, came to accept the reality of things eventually.

Jin snapped out of his flashback and came to a halt.

He stood at about the midpoint of the hallway. There were about fifty steps between him and the gate.

Runcandel and magic, you say...

Ha.

He had to laugh at the sight of the faint magic circle on the floor.

It was quite large, but it was a simple magic circle even the most novice of sorcerers could comprehend.

The magic circle of blood and bounds.

It was a common magic circle found in vaults of rich men who wished to be fancy, or at the gates of every kingdom, or at the headquarters of prestigious mercenary groups.

# # #

It came with a fancy name, but that was all it was worth.

This magic circle was nothing more than a simple security mechanism that gauged the threat posed by the target, through their blood.

How could they draw a magic circle in the hidden hall of the clan when they despise magic so much? And such a pathetic magic circle, too!

Jin bit hard on the inside of his cheek. A streak of warm blood flowed down his lips, which he collected in his hand.

A few drops were sufficient to trigger the magic circle of blood and bounds. As he sprayed the blood he’d collected onto the magic circle, a blue aura began to form around him.

Pure-blood? You must be joking.

Prove your pure-blood lineage.

Jin began to wonder which stupid ancestor had first come up with this magic circle.

The circle was nowhere powerful enough to confirm the lineage of its target, and he wasn’t sure if such a spell existed to begin with.

There were only a number of things that this particular spell could determine.

Was the blood that of a monster or a human—or that of a plague-ridden human?

If one did enter the underground hall, blood from any ordinary human could activate the magic circle, even if it had not come from a pure-blood Runcandel.

It certainly gave off a mysterious vibe along with the ancient halls surrounding it, but it really was a pathetic spell.

To believe in superstitions like the ritual of choice and trusting this magic circle to work only for pure-blood Runcandels, my clan certainly is quite peculiar, to say the least.

Crrt! Click! Creak...

He could hear moving gears and various mechanical noises ringing beneath the hallway once he activated the magic circle.

It was the sound of different traps deactivating, which would’ve sprung to life had the magic circle not been activated. Jin stood still and waited until the sounds subsided.

There were quite a number of traps. I’m not sure what they were, but I suppose they’d be deadlier than the hidden traps in most kingdoms.

The light from the magic spell faded. It meant that all traps had been deactivated, and Jin walked toward the giant gate.

He was able to neutralize one of the two mechanisms protecting the hidden chamber of the Storm Castle. Now, all that was left to do was to open this gate.

And this was easier than the magic circle had been.

“A child of the Runcandel has come to console Murakhan.”

Crreak!

The gates opened at the mere utterance of the code phrase.

This was a form of boundary magic, similar to the magic circle he just passed, but of a different class altogether. This was a spell cast by an ancient dragon who was now dormant.

What made this boundary magic so extraordinary was the fact that all one needed was a code phrase. But without the phrase, it was impossible to get past it.

One would at least have to be a nine-star knight to break this spell by force.

My second brother was the one who told me the code phrase in my past life. Although he meant to mock me by saying I would never find use for the phrase.

The Storm Castle was situated at the peak of Mt. Murakhan. But the name Murakhan was not referring to the mountain per se, but the dragon that had reigned over it for millennia.

Murakhan was defeated by the First Patriarch of the Runcandels a thousand years ago and fell into a long slumber after relinquishing the Storm Castle.

This was one of the most famed tales of the Runcandels around the world.

The first thing that caught Jin’s eye once the gate had opened wasn’t shelves of tomes as he had expected, but a glass coffin.

And inside the glass coffin was Murakhan, sleeping in his human form.

No one ever told me about this.

Thump. Thump. His heart raced. He shuddered at the sight of something he had not anticipated. Jin snapped out of his stupor and slowly approached the glass coffin.