The morning air still carried the softness of dawn as my father led me out into the field behind our home. Dew clung to the blades of grass beneath our feet like tears yet to fall. Without a word, he handed me a polished wooden stick—nothing more than a training rod worn smooth by years of calloused hands. “Swing straight,” he instructed, his voice even and patient, demonstrating the basic motion as if to guide a child still learning to walk.

But as my small fingers closed around the stick, something ancient stirred beneath my skin. The weight, though light, was familiar, not because I had wielded it before in this life, but because I had carved these movements into my very soul long ago. My muscles responded as if pulled by invisible threads of memory. The first swing cut cleanly through the air. The second followed without hesitation. A third, without flaw. I didn’t need to think; my body remembered what this world had yet to teach me.

When I dared to glance at my father, his reaction almost made me laugh. His black brows shot up beneath his messy hair, eyes widening until the whites threatened to swallow the blue of his irises. His mouth hung open, disbelief freezing him mid-thought. “How… how did you do that without a single mistake?” His voice carried pride, yes—but beneath it, a tremor of confusion, as if he questioned the very reality before him. “You really are a genius, just like your mother says.”

If only he knew. If only he could see beyond this child’s fragile frame to the countless corpses that haunted the sword swings I now executed with such ease. In my previous life, I’d bled for perfection. I had killed for it. What he called genius was nothing more than old habits refusing to die.

Yet even with all that knowledge coiled inside me, this body was a prison of soft limbs and slow strength. It couldn’t keep up with the sharp instincts screaming to push harder, to leap further, to wield something sharper than wood. The frustration settled deep, burning quietly like embers beneath my skin. Mana and aura—those were the keys to unlocking more. Aura was close enough to my old world’s ki that adaptation seemed inevitable, but mana… mana was a mystery wrapped in promise. Waiting until seven to access it felt like a cruel joke from the heavens.

Feigning innocence, I tilted my head and asked with a playful giggle, “Dad, can you show me aura? Please?” I let the childish tone coat my words like sugar, hiding the hunger beneath.

Suspicion flickered in his gaze. “How do you even know about aura?”

“The books in the storage room,” I answered smoothly. It wasn’t entirely a lie. I had read about it there, even if the knowledge I truly leaned on came from a life far more brutal.

For a long breath, he hesitated. His eyes shifted toward the house where my mother worked, unaware of our conversation. “Just once,” he whispered, as if confiding a terrible secret between us.

His stance settled naturally, a soldier slipping into familiarity. Feet shoulder-width apart. Sword in hand. The air shifted around him, energy gathering like unseen smoke curling beneath his skin. It wasn’t ki, but it felt close. A cousin of the force I once knew. He moved in a cross pattern, left then right, and blue light bled from the blade’s edge like liquid fire. The tree before us—a sturdy oak marked for winter’s axe—shuddered. A breath later, it fell with a hollow thud, the cut so clean it gleamed as sunlight kissed the wound. So this was aura. Different name, same principle. Relief stirred within me. I could adapt my techniques. I could grow stronger.

Before I could relish the moment, pounding footsteps scattered my thoughts. My mother’s expression blended fear and fury as she took in the fallen tree, the sword, and her too-small son standing at its heart. “What happened?!” Her eyes flashed from me to my father, piecing together the story faster than words could catch up. Father froze, shoulders hunching as if already feeling the weight of her scolding. And now, I understood why he’d said “just once.” When she grabbed his ear and dragged him toward the house like a misbehaving child, I followed at a safe distance, suppressing my laughter as their argument echoed through the walls.

“He’s barely three!” she snapped, fury sharpened by fear. “What possessed you to show him combat techniques?”

“But you should have seen him, dear! His form—perfect! Like he’s been training for years!”

Their words danced between anger and admiration until exhaustion softened them. By dinner, it was as if nothing had happened, their laughter returning like sunlight after rain. In my old life, arguments often ended in blood or silence. Here… people forgave. They laughed. They moved forward together. This warmth, this fragile peace, was something I had never known before.

Morning returned us to routine—Mom baking bread, Dad working out in the yard, and me sneaking off to the storage room where another book awaited. This one detailed aura theory, and as I curled into my favored corner, the words unfolded like scripture. Low-level users struggled even to coat their weapons; mid-level maintained steady flow. High-level projected aura. Swordmasters shaped it into forms, grandmasters commanded constructs. And beyond them stood the Transcendents, whose mastery defied comprehension, bending aura’s nature itself.

But it wasn’t aura that made my heart quicken. It was magic. Something entirely foreign, untouched by my old world. Mana—this was new ground. I devoured the fundamentals like a starved man, my mind burning with possibilities.

Mana, the book said, slept beneath the heart, a core unseen but vital. All races held potential—humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen. The breathing methods, the channels, the core colors marking progress… it was all there. A meticulous guide. Beginners bore dark red, experts claimed silver, legends wielded cores translucent as glass.

“Come eat your lunch!” Mom’s voice dragged me from the pages just as the text teased its most crucial secrets. I ate quickly, my mind already racing back to where I left off. Cross-legged on the floor, I placed my hands on my knees and focused. Beneath my heart, I searched for something that had not yet awakened. The book warned that most couldn’t sense their cores until seven—but I was not most. I was the Death Reaper, reborn. Then, like a whisper slipping through cracked stone, a voice touched my thoughts—the same voice that had pulled me from death, the god who had set this new fate upon me. “Now you will learn the mana breathing technique—a method unknown to humans, taught only to supreme beings like dragons. This is part of my gift to you.”

My breath hitched, heart racing. Finally. Finally, something beyond the reach of my past life. A power meant for creatures that ruled from the skies, now offered to me. The instructions came like poetry, weaving through my consciousness with precision. Inhale, draw the ambient mana through the skin, guide it, let it flow. Not through force, but through harmony. Not through demand, but through invitation. This was why I had been reborn. Not to relive old glories or to carry forward my title of Death Reaper. No… this time, I would reach beyond mortality itself. I would break the limits that once bound me. I would become something more.

Not a weapon. Not a monster. Something greater.