The incident with the candle flame became a quiet, unspoken bond between Elara and Kaelen. They never discussed it outright, yet it lingered between them—an unshakable testament to the extraordinary nature of their son. Velian was not merely gifted; he was touched by something beyond their comprehension, a force steadily revealing itself through the delicate veil of his childhood.
By the time Velian turned five, he had become a portrait of subtle contrasts. Physically, he retained his ethereal beauty: a cascade of snow-white hair, now often tied back by Elara with a simple leather thong to keep it from his eyes, and piercing sky-blue irises that seemed to drink in the world with insatiable curiosity. He moved with an uncanny grace, whether navigating the uneven cobblestones of the keep's courtyard or climbing the ancient oak near the cliffs—a feat no other child dared attempt.
His speech, once a patchwork of eerily precise runes and haunting melodies, had matured into fluent, articulate language. Still, he remained a child of few words, more attuned to observation than idle talk. But when he did speak, his words often left his parents momentarily stunned.
"The wind is sad today, Mama," he might say, gazing out over the churning grey sea. "It misses the sun." And Elara, glancing at the oppressive clouds, would feel that same melancholy echo in her heart. Or he would ask Kaelen, "Papa, why do the stones of the keep sing when it rains?" Kaelen—ever the man of steel and strategy—would begin to explain acoustics, only to realize Velian wasn't asking about sound, but something deeper, something beyond his grasp.
Educating Velian quickly proved to be a singular challenge. Elara, a scholar in her own right, first attempted to teach him his letters and numbers through conventional methods. Velian mastered them effortlessly. Yet his curiosity bypassed memorization—he wanted the why behind everything. Why did this symbol mean that sound? Why did numbers, when arranged just so, trace the arc of a stone in flight? He wasn't absorbing facts—he was unraveling patterns.
One afternoon, Elara discovered him in the library. Not with the colorful picture books she'd left for him, but with one of Kaelen's dense tomes on battlefield strategy. The text was archaic, its script intricate and obscure. Surely he wasn't actually reading it. Yet there he sat, engrossed, tracing a diagram of troop formations with his small finger.
"Velian, sweetling, what are you doing with Papa's serious book?" Elara asked, her voice gently amused yet tinged with awe.
He looked up, brow furrowed in that now-familiar expression of focused thought. "The red lines want to go here," he said, pointing to a flanking maneuver, "but the blue lines are sleeping. They don't see."
Elara leaned over. The diagram depicted a historic battle, one she had studied long ago—where a numerically inferior force had lost due to precisely that: a lapse in awareness. Velian, with no instruction, had grasped the vulnerability in mere moments.
"How… how do you know that, Velian?" she whispered.
He shrugged, a child's gesture at odds with the gravity of his insight. "It just… feels right. The lines are telling me."
That intuitive knowing became a defining trait of Velian's abilities. He didn't learn in a linear progression; knowledge seemed to settle upon him, like memories surfacing rather than lessons absorbed.
Kaelen, quietly observing his son's uncanny development, began including him in his routines. Under the guise of walks for fresh air, he'd point out defensive structures, describe the flow of a skirmish, emphasize vigilance. Velian listened intently, his questions infrequent but disarming in their depth.
"If the bad men come from the sea, Papa," he asked once, pointing toward the cliffs, "why is the wall strongest toward the land?"
Kaelen, long convinced the landward approach was the primary threat, found himself reconsidering ancient assumptions. He explained the historical threats, the traditions. Velian nodded, then said, "But the sea is bigger. And it hides more."
It was during one such walk, on a crisp autumn morning scented with salt and fallen leaves, that the first unmistakable sign of the "System" emerged.
They stood near the disused watchtower at the northernmost edge of Azuris lands. Kaelen was explaining how the wind could carry the scent of ships. But Velian wasn't listening—his gaze was fixed on a cluster of plain grey stones near the tower's base.
"Velian? Are you listening?" Kaelen asked, a hint of reproof in his tone.
Velian didn't respond right away. His eyes—normally so clear—held a faint, flickering silver light. He reached out, not touching the stones, fingers splayed.
Then Kaelen felt it—a subtle vibration in the air, faintly reminiscent of the hum from the birthing chamber. Velian's lips moved, whispering silent syllables.
A shimmer appeared in the air before him—like heat haze, but slowly coalescing into translucent glyphs. Not written in any language Kaelen recognized, but brimming with meaning.
[Energy Signature Detected: Dormant Earth Attunement Node (Minor)]
The glyphs lingered for barely a second, then vanished as if they had never been.
Velian blinked, surprised, as though he hadn't expected it either. He looked at the stones, then up at Kaelen. "Papa," he said, wonder in his voice, "the stones… they have a quiet song. And… and I saw words in the air."
Kaelen's heart lurched. Words in the air. This was it. The beginning. Legends and ancient texts spoke of such things—System notifications. The interface between a gifted soul and the hidden framework of magic.
He knelt, placing his hands on Velian's shoulders, voice steady despite the storm inside. "What kind of words, son? What did they say?"
Velian tilted his head thoughtfully. "They were… shiny. They said the stones were sleeping magic. Earth magic." He paused. "What is an 'attunement node,' Papa?"
Kaelen stared at his son, a tempest of pride, awe, fear, and responsibility swirling in his chest. He didn't truly know the answer. His understanding of deep magical theory was superficial—gleaned from stories and rare scrolls.
"I… I'm not sure, Velian," he admitted, rare uncertainty in his voice. "But I think… you're beginning to see the world's real secrets."
He understood, then, that shielding Velian completely was a fantasy. A force like this could not be hidden forever. The real question was how to guide him, how to prepare him for a world that might not understand—or worse, might covet—his power.
That night, with Velian asleep and his silver-white hair fanned across the pillow like a halo, Kaelen and Elara had their most serious conversation yet.
"He saw it," Kaelen said, voice hushed and urgent. "A System notification. Just like the old stories. He sensed earth energy."
Elara pressed her hand to her heart. "Already? He's still so young."
"Young, yes," Kaelen replied, "but we can't change who he is. We can only prepare him." He hesitated. "The old ways—the cultivation techniques in your scrolls… it might be time. If this System is waking, he'll need to understand it. Before it defines him—or draws attention."
Elara glanced toward Velian's room, her expression a blend of maternal love and quiet dread. "Our bloodline always had a faint elemental sensitivity, but never anything close to this. The texts speak of 'Celestial Meridians,' 'Star-Forged Cores.' Dangerous paths, Kaelen. They demand a guide."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "And where do we find such a guide here, in this forgotten corner of the world? The Academies are distant, and they'd see him as an experiment—or a threat."
"Maybe," Elara said slowly, her mind turning. "Maybe the mentor doesn't come from an Academy. Maybe his path is already written—in the stars he was born under, in the blood that flows through him."
She recalled the strange omens surrounding his birth, the celestial alignments, the lingering hum of power. Velian wasn't merely awakening to a system—he was awakening to his system, uniquely tied to his origins.
The road ahead was shrouded in uncertainty and potential danger. But as Kaelen and Elara looked into each other's eyes, a shared resolve took shape. Velian was no ordinary child, and his destiny would be far from ordinary. Their role was not to shield him from it, but to arm him—forged in knowledge, love, and the strength to meet what lay ahead.
The whispers of wonder were hardening into a singular, inescapable truth. Velian Azuris stood at the threshold of a vast and unknown path. The spark of knowing had been lit—and soon, it would blaze.