After he left, the house felt quieter than usual.

  I returned to my routine—practice in the mornings, reading in the afternoons, assisting where I could—but his words lingered longer than I expected.

  The gatherings he had mentioned.

  He was right.

  I knew that.

  Avoiding them entirely wasn’t an option. Connections mattered—especially when words alone wouldn’t be enough.

  Especially her.

  She would enter the academy the same year as me. And a year after that, she would die.

  Transcendence Syndrome.

  The same condition I carried. The same slow, invisible collapse. There was no known cure. Not in this world. Not in the knowledge recorded so far.

  But I had ideas. Incomplete ones. Risky ones.

  If I approached her as a stranger and told her the truth, she wouldn’t believe me. No one would. Saying the name of a condition that most healers barely understood would only make me sound delusional.

  Trust had to come first.

  Recognition. Familiarity. A reason to listen.

  That meant gatherings. Conversations I didn’t want. Faces I had avoided.

  If I wanted to save her, I couldn’t remain invisible.

  ___

  My thoughts shifted, as they often did, back to myself.

  To my condition.

  Transcendence Syndrome wasn’t something that could be ignored just because time passed. Every month without progress was a month lost. I could feel it even now—the slow accumulation, the imbalance that hadn’t yet crossed into danger but never truly settled either.

  The dungeon had given me something unexpected.

  Dark energy.

  I never forgot about what I had touched back then.

  Not as an element. Not as an attribute in the way most people understood it—but as a behavior. A force that didn’t pull, but pushed.

  Until then, my biggest concern had always been distance.

  A singularity pulls inward. Its influence extends far beyond its center, growing stronger as it accumulates mass. If I formed one inside my soul without restraint, it wouldn’t stay contained. The inward pull would compress everything around it—mana, structure, growth.

  In the worst case, my soul itself would begin to shrink.

  Collapse inward.

  That had always been the risk.

  But dark energy changed the equation.

  Gravity pulls. Dark energy repels.

  In the universe, both coexist. Matter tries to draw everything together, yet the expansion continues because something pushes back. The balance isn’t perfect—but it’s stable enough to persist.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I realized the same principle could apply here.

  If gravity was the singularity’s inward pull, then dark energy could act as a damping system. A counterforce. Not to cancel it—but to confine it.

  A controlled boundary.

  By balancing inward attraction with outward repulsion, I could keep the singularity fixed within a defined area of my soul. Its influence contained. Its growth uninterrupted.

  No collapse.

  No distortion.

  There was still no singularity inside my soul.

  Only dense mana—slowly accumulating, growing heavier with time. But that was precisely why I had to act now.

  Once a singularity formed, gravity would dominate. Its inward pull would already be established, compressing everything around it. Trying to counter that later would require an overwhelming amount of force—far more than my soul could endure.

  So I introduced dark energy early.

  Not to oppose something that didn’t exist yet, but to shape what would. I spread it thin, evenly, letting it settle alongside the growing density of mana. A repulsive framework, laid down before gravity could claim the space entirely.

  When the singularity finally formed—years from now—it wouldn’t be allowed to collapse unchecked. Its pull would be met from the moment it was born.

  This wasn’t about stopping gravity.

  It was about never letting it become absolute.

  ___

  Four months passed.

  I never stopped. Not for a single day. Mana was condensed continuously, layer by layer, while dark energy was introduced alongside it—never after. Gravity was kept in check not by force, but by balance.

  The effort was only partially rewarded.

  At the center of my soul, a dense core had formed. It wasn’t a singularity. Not yet. But it had weight. Mana gathered around it naturally, drawn inward by a pull that hadn’t existed before.

  The dark energy resisted that pull, spreading thinly, preventing collapse without halting accumulation.

  Slow progress—but real.

  I had turned thirteen during that time.

  Birthdays weren’t marked every year in this world. Time was acknowledged in longer spans—once every five years, when age carried meaning rather than sentiment. There was no celebration, no gathering, only a note added to the household records and a subtle shift in how I was addressed by others.

  I noticed the change more in expectation than in words.

  My days followed a steady rhythm. Morning sword practice, afternoons assisting my mother with territory records, evenings buried in documents or theory. Sometimes I accompanied my father to the magic tower, listening more than speaking.

  Life moved on.

  Then one afternoon, a sealed letter arrived.

  The wax bore a silver flower.

  Silver Floret.

  An invitation to a noble gathering—small, deliberate, and selective. A place where children stopped being children and started being evaluated.

  It was a gathering designed for those standing at the threshold—young nobles old enough to be acknowledged, yet young enough that mistakes could still be forgiven.

  Introductions formed its core. Names, houses, attributes, and quiet measurements hidden behind polite smiles. Children met those who would one day become rivals, allies, or burdens they would be forced to carry.

  There were duels, but nothing lethal. Friendly bouts held under strict supervision—tests of talent rather than intent. Magic was restricted, lethal techniques forbidden, victory measured more in composure than strength.

  Conversations mattered just as much as combat. Who spoke confidently. Who avoided eye contact. Who listened more than they talked. The adults observed from a distance, pretending not to interfere while noting everything.

  It was a place to form connections early—before titles hardened into chains, before politics became unforgiving.

  A garden where future power was allowed to grow.

  Silver Floret was held twice a year. I had missed the last two—first due to illness, the second by choice. This would be my first.

  I unfolded the invitation once more and read through the list carefully.

  The invitation wasn’t just a list of attendees.

  It was a list of names that already carried weight.

  Iris Solaris stood at the top.

  The royal princess had made a name for herself early—exceptional control, sharp instincts, and a presence that made even older nobles take notice. People spoke of her not because of her blood alone, but because she justified it.

  Raine Aquilon, daughter of the Duke of Aquilon.

  Born to a house known for water, yet wielding ice with unnatural precision. Calm, efficient, and frighteningly consistent.

  Aria Zephyros, my cousin.

  The wind-borne prodigy of House Zephyros, already praised for her adaptability and refined control. Even among nobles, she was considered “safe talent”—the kind everyone wanted as an ally.

  Kyle Voltrien.

  A lightning attribute user in an age where such affinities were rare. He had drawn attention early, hailed as a genius and burdened with expectations just as heavy as the praise.

  There were many other names—counts, viscounts, heirs whose faces I had never seen—but these were the ones that mattered.

  The ones the world was already watching.

  They were names that would shape the academy.

  Shape factions.

  Shape the future.

  And I had arrived a year late.

  They had already crossed blades in friendly duels, exchanged words, formed first impressions.

  I was an unknown variable stepping into a circle that had already begun to close.

  That was fine.

  I wasn’t here to shine.

  If I wanted to change what was coming, this was where it had to start.