Chapter 1

“If I fall, make sure you tell everyone I had a brilliant plan.”

Kaleal stared at Vorn.

“Of course,” he said. “And if you survive?”

“Then you can tell everyone I had a brilliant plan.”

“What if you fall because your brilliant plan was wrong?”

“Then you can tell everyone you distracted me with stupid questions.”

Kaleal laughed.

The wind screamed between the cliffs, tugging at their fur cloaks and biting through the gaps in their clothing. Ahead, the Screaming Abyss split the mountain in two. Its sheer walls plunged into a sea of mist, hiding whatever lay beneath. A deep rumble rose from the gorge, echoing off the stone like the growl of some enormous beast

Vorn crouched near the edge.

He did not look down for long. Instead, he examined the rock beneath his boots, the cracks running along its surface, and the loose gravel scattered across the ledge. He watched how the wind struck the opposite cliff and curled back toward him. He measured the distance to a protruding shelf of stone, then looked toward a narrow ridge farther down.

In the space behind his eyes, blue lines began to form.

A rough outline of the cliff appeared before him. He drew a mark where the ledge ended, another where the rock face narrowed, and several more to represent the gusting wind.

The drawing was incomplete. It always was.

Still, it was better than guessing.

“You're doing it again,” Kaleal said.

“Doing what?”

“Staring at rocks like they owe you something.”

“They're more reliable than you.”

“Rocks don't talk.”

“Exactly.”

Kaleal leaned over the edge.

Vorn immediately grabbed the back of his companion's cloak and pulled him away.

“Are you trying to die before the trial even starts?”

“I wanted to see how far down it was.”

“You could have looked from here.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“I couldn't see the bottom.”

“An excellent discovery. We should tell the Shaman.”

Kaleal grinned.

Vorn, by contrast, looked like a person who had been interrupted halfway through solving a problem. His eyes kept returning to the cliff.

Kaleal looked down again.

"So," he said, "have you figured out how to survive?"

"I have several possibilities."

"How many?"

"Enough to be uncomfortable."

"That sounds promising."

"It isn't."

Kaleal's smile faded slightly.

The wind rose between them, carrying a low, hollow moan from the depths. It sounded almost like a voice calling from beneath the mountain.

The Screaming Abyss.

Even the tribe's oldest hunters lowered their voices when speaking of it. It was a place of sheer cliffs, unstable ledges, and creatures that had adapted to darkness. The tribe's most dangerous trial began at its edge.

And today, Vorn would have to descend into it.

Kaleal turned toward him.

"You always do this."

"Do what?"

"Make everything sound like a problem that can be measured."

Vorn considered the question.

"Most things can be measured."

"Can courage?"

"Not directly."

"Can fear?"

"Not directly."

"Can the feeling you get when you stand at the edge of a cliff?"

Vorn looked at the abyss.

"Probably. Heart rate, muscle tension, breathing, and—"

"Forget it."

"You asked."

"I regret asking."

Vorn almost smiled.

Almost.

Then he looked down one last time.

The mist shifted.

Far below, something moved against the darkness.

He could not make out its shape.

The wind screamed louder.

For a brief moment, Vorn felt the familiar sensation of his thoughts arranging themselves into lines, distances, and possible paths. A mental blueprint began to form around the cliff face.

The height.

The angles.

The broken shelves of stone.

The places where the rock narrowed.

He had spent years learning to use that strange ability. Years learning that a picture in his head was not the same as understanding the thing it represented.

The blueprint could show him where a ledge was.

It could not promise that the ledge would hold his weight.

Kaleal nudged him with an elbow.

"Well?"

Vorn exhaled.

"Well what?"

"Are you going to keep staring until the abyss gets bored and climbs up here?"

"That would be inconvenient."

"Then move."

Vorn took one step forward.

“Whatever happens,” he said, his voice quieter now, “don't freeze.”

Vorn raised an eyebrow.

“That's your advice?”

“It's good advice.”

“You've given me better.”

“I'm saving those for when you need them.”

Then a voice called from behind them.

The trial was about to begin.

Kaleal stepped back from the edge and offered Vorn his hand.

Vorn looked at it for a moment before taking it.

“Try not to die,” Kaleal said.

“You first.”

He turned toward the cliff, bent his knees, and took one final look at the stone.

Then he jumped.

The world vanished beneath his feet.

For one impossible instant, he hung between the sky and the darkness.

Then the wind struck him.

And the abyss swallowed him whole.

The first thing Vorn learned about his new body was that it was terrible at following instructions.

His mind remembered how to move.

His limbs disagreed.

He could form a perfectly clear intention to reach for something, only for his hand to twitch sideways or his fingers to close too early. Turning his head required effort. Sitting upright was an achievement. Standing was an absurd fantasy.

It was deeply humiliating.

Fortunately, nobody seemed to expect much from a baby.

Vorn lay wrapped in thick animal hides inside a vast mountain cave. The stone above him rose into darkness, interrupted by jagged ridges and long mineral veins. Water dripped somewhere beyond the firelight. Cold air slipped through cracks in the rock, carrying the smell of wet granite and distant snow.

The people around him were enormous.

Even while lying down, Vorn could see that their bodies were broader and heavier than those of ordinary humans. Their skin ranged from dark gray to slate, their shoulders were thick, and old scars crossed their arms and faces.

They wore animal hides, bone ornaments, and rough leather bindings. Some carried stone tools. Others had weapons made from materials Vorn could not identify.

They were not humans wearing unusual costumes.

Their bodies were different.

Their proportions were different.

Their strength was different.

And the world around them was different.

Vorn could not yet speak, but his thoughts were painfully clear.

All right.

New body.

New environment.

Unknown biological differences.

Unknown language.

Unknown social structure.

Unknown source of the blue lines floating in my vision.

He paused.

The last item deserved more attention.

A thin blue line hovered above his field of vision.

It was straight, precise, and impossibly clear.

He blinked.

It remained.

He moved his eyes.

The line moved with his attention, though not exactly as an ordinary object would.

Vorn concentrated.

A second line appeared.

Then a third.

They intersected at a precise angle.

For one startled moment, he thought he was hallucinating.

Then he realized he could manipulate them.

Not with his hands.

Not with his eyes.

With thought.

He imagined a square.

The blue lines shifted, forming four connected edges.

He imagined a circle.

The square disappeared, replaced by a curved outline that was not quite smooth but close enough to be recognizable.

Vorn went still.

What?

He tried again.

A triangle appeared.

He rotated it mentally.

It turned.

He enlarged it.

It grew.

He divided it into smaller shapes, then erased the entire thing with a deliberate thought.

Nothing outside his mind had changed.

The cave remained the cave. A woman nearby spoke in a language he did not understand.

But inside his head, something had opened.

A workspace.

A drawing surface.

A blueprint without paper.

Vorn stared at the floating lines.

For the first time since his apparent reincarnation, he felt something approaching excitement.

Now we're getting somewhere.

He tried to draw a more complicated object.

A cube.

The first attempt was crooked.

The second was worse.

The third looked like a box that had been stepped on.

Vorn concentrated harder, trying to correct the angles.

The lines shifted.

The cube became a cube.

He could rotate it, inspect its faces, and change its proportions. He could imagine a hole passing through its center, then alter the hole's position.

It was not a physical object. He could not reach into it or pull it apart with his fingers.

It existed as an image, but the image obeyed his thoughts.

A mental drafting table.

Vorn had spent much of his previous life learning how to turn complicated objects into manageable drawings. He knew how useful a clean representation could be when the real thing was difficult to inspect.

This ability was not the same as his old CAD software.

It was more immediate.

More intimate.

And far less reliable than he wanted.

The blueprint could organize what he knew.

It could not fill in what he did not.

That limitation was important.

Vorn understood it instinctively.

A drawing was only as good as the information behind it.

He would have to learn this world before he could understand it.

For now, he had a square, a cube, and an extraordinary number of questions.

A large hand reached down and adjusted the hide covering his chest.

Vorn looked up.

A giant woman peered at him. Her hair was dark, threaded with a few pale strands, and tied back with a strip of leather. Her face was stern, but her movements were careful

Mother.

She was the woman who had held him after his birth.

Whether he could understand her language or not, he was beginning to recognize the sounds associated with particular people.

Mother touched his forehead.

Vorn tried to say something.

What emerged was a noise somewhere between a grunt and a squeak.

She stared.

Then she laughed.

It was a low, rough sound, more surprising than frightening.

Vorn looked away.

Excellent. My first social interaction, and I've contributed absolutely nothing.

The blue lines appeared again.

Without thinking, he drew a tiny square in the corner of his mental workspace.

Then another.

He began to organize the shapes into a grid.

It was comforting.

The world might be unfamiliar, but lines still had directions. Shapes still had relationships. Space still had dimensions.

And if he could understand those relationships, perhaps he could eventually understand the world.

For the moment, however, he needed to learn how to control his own fingers.

That proved more difficult than any drawing.

Vorn's first years passed in fragments.

Sounds became words.

Words became sentences.

Sentences became arguments.

His limbs grew longer. His hands grew stronger. The cave stopped being an overwhelming maze and became a place he could navigate without assistance.

He learned where the hunters stored their equipment, where the children slept, and which passages were too narrow for adults carrying large bundles.

He learned that the tribe called itself the Barbarians.

The name was not an insult to them. It was an identity shaped by the mountains, by their ancestry, and by the harshness of the land.

They hunted dangerous animals, gathered what the mountain provided, and fought to protect their territory. Their bodies were adapted to cold, steep terrain, and the demands of physical labor.

Strength mattered.

Endurance mattered.

A person who could not move through the mountains was a person who might not return from them.

Children were therefore taught to use their bodies long before they were expected to wield serious weapons.

Vorn discovered this when he was old enough to walk.

He had assumed that learning to walk would be the beginning of a peaceful childhood.

He had been wrong.

“Again!”

Vorn stared down the slope.

It was not particularly tall by mountain standards, but it was steep enough that loose stones rolled beneath his feet. Patches of grass clung to the dirt between exposed rocks, and a narrow trail wound between two clusters of boulders before descending toward a broad, sunlit clearing.

Several children were already running.

They did not run cautiously.

They charged downhill with the confidence of people who had been doing it since they could stand. Some leaped over rocks. Others slid across loose earth, recovered their balance, and continued without slowing. One child stumbled so badly that he rolled twice before scrambling upright, laughing as though he had done it deliberately.

At the bottom, a group of adults watched.

One of them shouted something approving.

Vorn looked at the slope again.

Then he looked at the enormous man standing beside him.

The man was broad enough to block the morning sun.

“Why?” Vorn asked.

The adult frowned.

“Why what?”

“Why do we run down the hill?”

The man looked at him as if he had asked why the mountain was made of stone.

“Because you must learn to run.”

“I know how to run.”

“Then run.”

“Down the hill?”

The man folded his arms.

“Do you intend to spend your life walking around every slope you meet?”

Vorn considered this.

“No.”

“Then run.”

Vorn took another look at the ground.

He had enough balance to stand, enough strength to move, and enough experience to understand that running downhill was more complicated than running across flat ground.

He could already see several potential problems. Loose gravel near the left side. A protruding rock near the center. A shallow depression where rainwater had washed away some of the soil.

He pictured the slope in his mind.

A floating arrangement of blue lines appeared.

[Mind Blueprint]

It was not a voice, nor a window containing instructions. It was a space inside his consciousness, a place where he could draw and arrange things as naturally as he could think.

Vorn sketched the hillside.

He added the larger rocks, marked the loose gravel, and traced a route that avoided the worst obstacles. The path curved gradually toward the bottom, allowing him to reduce his speed before reaching the flatter ground.

It looked reasonable.

He stepped forward.

Then he began to run.

For the first few strides, everything went well. His feet landed where he intended, and the mental drawing helped him remember the position of each obstacle.

Then he reached the loose gravel.

His foot slid.

His balance shifted.

The perfect route inside his head suddenly became irrelevant.

Vorn's legs tangled beneath him. He tried to correct his posture, overcompensated, and rolled down the remaining distance in a shower of dirt and stones.

He stopped at the bottom on his back.

The sky above him was very blue.

Somewhere nearby, a child laughed.

Vorn closed his eyes.

The plan was sound.

The execution was unacceptable.

An enormous shadow fell across him.

The adult looked down.

“Again.”

Vorn opened one eye.

“Would it be possible to discuss the results first?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven't learned anything yet.”

Vorn stared at him.

The man pointed back toward the slope.

“Again.”

Vorn sat up.

His entire body hurt.

He brushed dirt from his clothes, stood, and climbed back to the top.

The next attempt was better.

Not good.

Better.

He shortened his steps before the gravel, adjusted his weight, and kept his body positioned over his feet. He still stumbled near the bottom, but he managed to stay upright.

The adult grunted.

“Better.”

Vorn looked at the slope again.

He revised the route in his blueprint.

The next run was better still.

By the end of the morning, he had learned three things.

First, downhill running was a skill.

Second, understanding a movement and performing it were two different tasks.

Third, the Barbarians were perfectly comfortable solving a child's problem by making the child repeat it until the problem disappeared.

Vorn suspected he was going to have a very active childhood.

He was correct.

The downhill runs became a regular part of his life.

As he grew, the slopes became steeper and the trails more difficult. The adults began with manageable descents and gradually introduced rougher terrain, narrow paths, and sections where the children had to judge their footing before committing to a step.

Nobody expected a toddler to run down a sheer cliff.

But falling was part of learning, and getting back up was part of the lesson.

His blueprint became more useful as his observations accumulated.

He could sketch a slope, compare routes, and mark the places where he needed to slow down. After a bad run, he could replay the sequence in his mind and examine the movement that had caused him to stumble.

But the blueprint could not give him the coordination he lacked.

There were mornings when he visualized a perfect descent and still fell because his ankle twisted at the wrong moment.

There were afternoons when a younger child passed him simply because that child had better instincts.

Vorn hated those afternoons.

Not because he expected to be the best.

Because they reminded him that knowledge alone did not guarantee ability.

He had spent his previous life learning complicated subjects through relentless study and practice. Mathematics, mechanics, technical software, and engineering had not become intuitive because he had been born understanding them. He had struggled, reread books, made mistakes, and repeated exercises until the principles finally made sense.

He knew how to learn.

He simply had to learn this body, too.

Over time, the calculations he once performed deliberately became instincts. His eyes began picking out dangerous footing without requiring him to stop and analyze it.

One morning, he reached the bottom without drawing a single line in his mental blueprint.

He had seen the route.

His body had followed it.

The knowledge had become movement.

Vorn stood in the clearing, breathing hard. He looked back up at the slope, then brought up the blueprint and traced the route he had taken.

The drawing was unnecessary.

He knew that.

But it helped him understand what had changed.

His ability was becoming part of how he learned.

Not a replacement for effort.

A tool for making effort more effective.

He erased the lines and climbed back to the top.

Kaleal was already waiting there.

-

Kaleal was the same age as Vorn, though the difference seemed larger whenever they stood beside each other.

Unlike most Barbarian children, who tended toward broad shoulders and heavy builds even at a young age, Kaleal was comparatively lean. His limbs were long and athletic, his movements quick and economical. He did not possess the thickest arms or the widest shoulders among the children.

He rarely needed them.

Kaleal had exceptional coordination, speed, and balance. He could adjust to uneven ground without appearing to think about it, and he learned physical techniques with an ease that made the adults take notice.

The tribe had noticed his talent years ago.

When Kaleal completed a difficult descent, people gathered to hear how he had done it. When he learned a new weapon technique, other children tried to imitate him. When he won a duel, his victory became a topic of conversation long after the training ended.

He was the tribe's prodigy.

Everyone knew it.

Vorn knew it, too.

He had no reason to deny what he could observe.

Kaleal was good.

Annoyingly good.

“So,” Kaleal said, glancing at him. “How many times did you fall?”

“Four.”

“Five.”

“The last one was a controlled slide.”

“You rolled.”

“I controlled the direction of the roll.”

Kaleal snorted.

“You landed on your back.”

“Which prevented me from landing on my face.”

“That doesn't make it better.”

“It makes it different.”

Kaleal shook his head and looked down the slope.

“You're still taking the left route.”

“It has fewer unstable rocks.”

“It also has a longer curve.”

“Which reduces the speed I need to control.”

“You could just run faster.”

“I could also jump into the Screaming Abyss. Neither action is automatically a good idea.”

Kaleal gave him a sideways look.

“You're scared of falling.”

“I'm opposed to unnecessary falling.”

“Same thing.”

“No.”

Kaleal turned toward the slope.

“Watch.”

He ran.

His first steps were measured. Then his speed increased, and his body seemed to flow with the terrain. He stepped across a protruding rock, shifted his weight over loose dirt, and adjusted his stride without losing momentum.

He reached the bottom faster than Vorn had managed.

The children cheered.

An adult called out his time.

Kaleal raised a hand, acknowledging the praise as casually as someone accepting the weather.

Then he looked up.

“Your turn.”

Vorn stared down the slope.

He had studied the route. He understood its shape. He knew where to accelerate and where to slow down.

He also knew that Kaleal had used a movement he could not yet reproduce reliably.

That was the important part.

Vorn pictured the movement in his blueprint: the placement of the foot, the shift of the hips, the angle of the body. He adjusted the imagined sequence and considered how the same movement might work with his own proportions.

Then he began his descent.

He moved faster than before.

For several seconds, he matched the rhythm he had observed. He crossed the first patch of gravel without slipping and made the turn around the central rock.

Then his foot caught an uneven edge.

He stumbled, recovered, and continued, but the interruption cost him speed.

He reached the bottom behind Kaleal.

The difference was not enormous.

It was enough.

Kaleal smirked.

“Still slower.”

“Your conclusion is correct.”

“You don't have to sound so pleased about losing.”

“I'm pleased that I've identified another weakness.”

Kaleal looked at him as if he had discovered a new species of idiot.

“You're strange.”

“So I've heard.”

“Do you ever get tired of studying everything?”

“Do you ever get tired of winning?”

Kaleal's expression sharpened.

For a moment, the two boys simply looked at each other.

Then Kaleal smiled.

“No.”

“Then I suppose we both have problems.”

Kaleal turned away.

Vorn watched him go before looking back at the slope.

They were rivals, not friends.

There was no reason for Kaleal to treat him as an equal, and Vorn had no intention of asking for special consideration.

If he wanted to close the gap, he would have to improve.

That was a familiar problem.

And familiar problems could be worked on.

-

The children did not spend their days only running downhill.

The mountain was their training ground.

Once the morning's running exercises were finished, the children gathered in an open clearing where the ground was broad enough for them to move without tripping over one another. Natural stone, packed earth, and scattered grass made the surface uneven, but the adults cleared away the worst hazards.

Wooden weapons waited in racks beside the clearing.

Short swords. Clubs. Training spears. Blunt wooden axes.

They were sized for young hands but heavy enough to demand proper control. The weapons were not toys. They were tools for teaching children how to move, defend themselves, and understand the distance between their bodies and another person's.

The adults divided the children into pairs.

“Vorn. Darek.”

A boy stepped forward.

Darek was slightly taller than Vorn and considerably more enthusiastic about hitting him.

“Try not to fall over,” Darek said.

“I'll do my best.”

“That wasn't a compliment.”

“I didn't take it as one.”

The instructor raised a hand.

“Begin!”

Darek attacked immediately.

Vorn raised his wooden sword.

The weapons collided with a sharp crack.

The impact jarred his wrists.

Darek followed with another strike, then another. Vorn retreated, blocking as best he could. His opponent was not especially sophisticated, but he was aggressive. He kept pressing forward, forcing Vorn to react rather than giving him time to observe.

Vorn blocked a strike aimed at his shoulder.

Darek changed direction and struck his side.

The impact stung.

Vorn stumbled.

Darek stepped forward to finish the exchange.

Vorn noticed that his opponent's weight had shifted too far onto his front foot.

He moved sideways.

Darek's next strike passed close to his shoulder.

Vorn brought his wooden sword around and struck Darek's arm.

The blow landed cleanly.

A few children shouted in surprise.

Darek stared at his arm.

Vorn stepped back.

He had not won the duel, but he had found an opening.

That mattered.

The instructor called for them to reset.

This time, Vorn paid closer attention to Darek's shoulders and feet. He watched for the moment when his opponent committed to an attack.

The next exchange lasted longer.

Vorn blocked two strikes, avoided a third, and managed to tap Darek's chest before being struck in return.

The instructor finally ended the duel.

“Darek wins.”

Darek raised his sword triumphantly.

Vorn lowered his weapon. He was breathing hard, and his wrists hurt, but his mind was already reviewing the fight.

He had identified the timing of Darek's attacks. He had learned how far he could retreat before losing his balance. He had discovered that Darek's aggressive style left openings whenever his weight shifted too far forward.

He could work with that.

“Again?” Darek asked.

Vorn looked at him.

“Not immediately.”

“Afraid?”

“My wrists hurt.”

Darek laughed.

Vorn flexed his fingers.

There was a difference between refusing to practice and recognizing when fatigue would make practice ineffective.

He had learned that lesson the hard way in his previous life.

The instructor moved on to the next pair.

Vorn sat on a flat rock at the edge of the clearing and reconstructed the duel in his blueprint. Two figures appeared, with arrows marking the direction of their attacks. He drew a line to represent the distance between them and marked the moment Darek's weight shifted forward.

What if he had stepped farther to the side?

What if he had moved earlier?

What if he had used the moment of imbalance to redirect Darek's weapon instead of striking his arm?

He considered the possibilities.

A shadow fell across the drawing.

Vorn looked up.

Kaleal stood nearby, holding a wooden sword.

“You're drawing again.”

“Observing.”

“With your eyes closed?”

“I'm remembering.”

Kaleal glanced toward the clearing.

“Darek beat you.”

“Yes.”

“You hit him, though.”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you sitting here?”

“Because I want to understand why I lost.”

Kaleal frowned.

“You lost because he hit you more times.”

“That's the result. I'm interested in the reason.”

Kaleal stared at him for a moment.

Then he shook his head.

“You're going to get hit a lot if you keep thinking like that.”

“Probably.”

“You're not even going to argue?”

“Would that make you feel better?”

Kaleal gave him a flat look.

“You're annoying.”

He walked away.

Vorn watched him return to the clearing, where several children immediately gathered around him.

They wanted to see him fight. They wanted to learn his techniques. They wanted to know how he made difficult movements look so easy.

Kaleal picked up his practice sword and joined the next duel.

His opponent attacked with a high strike. Kaleal shifted aside, tapped the boy's wrist, and stepped out of range before the return swing could reach him.

The exchange was short.

The instructor nodded approvingly.

“Again.”

Kaleal's next opponent lasted longer, but not by much.

Vorn watched from his rock.

Kaleal did not merely possess strength. His body seemed to recognize the relationships between movement, balance, and timing without requiring the same deliberate analysis.

He could feel how a technique should flow.

Vorn had to study the technique, break it into pieces, and practice each part until the pieces became a whole.

It was slower.

It was also the method he had.

He picked up his wooden sword and returned to the clearing.

He did not ask Kaleal to teach him. He did not expect the other boy to slow down so that he could keep up.

He simply joined the next round.

And when he lost, he paid attention.

-

The routine did not end when the children put away their wooden weapons.

On certain days, after the running and dueling, children accompanied their parents on hunts.

They were not expected to hunt independently. At their age, most could barely carry the equipment an adult needed. Their purpose was to watch, listen, and learn the mountain beyond the paths they used for training.

For the youngest children, the journey often began on a parent's back.

Vorn remembered the sensation of being carried through cold morning air, his small hands gripping the rough hide wrapped around his father's shoulders. The world moved beneath him: pine branches, gray stone, narrow paths, and distant ridges disappearing into the clouds.

He had once found the experience comforting.

Then he discovered that being carried did not mean being allowed to sleep.

“Look ahead,” his father told him.

Vorn lifted his head.

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything that doesn't belong.”

“That is not specific.”

His father laughed.

“Good. Then you have to learn what belongs.”

It was a frustrating answer.

It was also the sort of answer that made sense once Vorn thought about it.

A broken branch might indicate an animal had passed. A patch of disturbed soil could reveal tracks. Birds suddenly going quiet might mean a predator was nearby—or simply that something had startled them.

One sign rarely proved anything by itself.

Vorn began to watch for patterns.

He noticed where the hunters slowed down, where they stepped over stones rather than on them, and where they stopped to examine the ground. He watched them move around the windward side of a ridge and saw how they used the terrain to keep their scent away from the animals they were tracking.

When his father dismounted him to inspect a set of tracks, Vorn crouched beside him.

The marks were shallow and partly obscured by dry soil.

“What made them?” Vorn asked.

His father pointed to the shape of one impression.

“Look at the toes.”

Vorn studied it.

He could identify the rough outline, but the differences between one animal and another were still beyond him.

“Something with claws?”

“Many things have claws.”

“A beast?”

“Many things are beasts.”

Vorn looked up.

His father grinned.

“Keep looking.”

Vorn brought up his blueprint and sketched the tracks as accurately as he could. He marked their spacing and direction, then compared them with the surrounding terrain.

The drawing did not tell him what animal had passed.

It helped him remember what he had seen.

His father watched him work.

“What is that?”

“I'm recording the tracks.”

“Inside your head?”

“Yes.”

His father considered this for a moment.

“Can you do it while walking?”

“I can try.”

“Then keep up.”

The lesson continued.

As he grew older, he spent more of the journey on his own feet. He learned how to move quietly, how to recognize the safest route through broken ground, and how to notice the difference between an animal trail and a path made by people.

The hunts also taught him something that his diagrams could not.

The mountains were not a collection of obstacles waiting to be mapped.

They were a living environment.

Weather changed the trails. Rain erased tracks. Animals reacted to sounds he could barely hear. A route that had been safe in the morning could become dangerous when fog rolled over the ridge.

His drawings could organize observations.

They could not replace experience.

Vorn found that irritating.

He also found it fascinating.

Sometimes he tried to predict where an animal would go based on the terrain. Sometimes he guessed correctly. Other times, the animal chose a path that made no sense to him until his father pointed out a patch of vegetation or a hidden stream he had failed to notice.

Each mistake became another thing to remember.

The same was true of hunting itself.

Vorn watched how his parents approached prey, how they waited for a clear opportunity instead of rushing, and how they used their weapons. He learned that strength mattered, but timing and positioning could matter just as much.

He saw how the hunters worked together without needing to explain every movement.

A hand lifted.

Someone stopped.

Another hunter shifted to the left.

The group adjusted.

It was coordination built through years of shared experience.

Vorn understood the practical value of it.

For now, he was content to learn.

-

As the children grew older, their outdoor routine expanded to include more deliberate mana training.

The instructors taught them to recognize the pressure within their bodies, guide it through their limbs, and release it without losing control. Lessons often took place in the same clearings where the children practiced with wooden weapons, allowing them to apply what they learned directly to movement.

The descriptions varied.

Some adults compared mana to heat.

Others described it as a current moving beneath the skin.

One instructor said it was like holding a powerful animal by a leash.

Vorn found the metaphors interesting but imprecise.

He tried to understand the sensation directly.

When he concentrated, he could feel something heavy and fluid moving through his body. It did not resemble electricity exactly, nor did it behave like a simple muscle contraction.

It felt more like pressure building inside a closed system.

The sensation changed when he shifted his attention. When he tried to force it, control became difficult. When he relaxed and followed its movement, he could guide it more smoothly.

He did not know whether his interpretation was correct.

It was only a working model.

He would need more observations.

The instructors showed the children how to reinforce a movement with mana. They began with simple actions, such as tightening a grip or stabilizing a stance, before moving on to strikes and defensive techniques.

Some children managed it almost immediately.

Others struggled.

Kaleal was among the quickest learners.

He could reinforce his arms during a strike and maintain his balance through the impact. His mana control was not merely strong; it was consistent.

The instructors praised him.

One elder remarked that the boy's instincts were exceptional. Another said Kaleal would likely become a great warrior if he continued at his current pace.

The children listened.

Vorn listened, too.

He tried to reproduce the technique.

His first attempt failed.

The second produced a brief sensation of pressure that disappeared before he could use it.

The third made his grip stronger but disrupted his balance.

He stopped.

Something was wrong with his approach.

Vorn drew a simple figure in his blueprint, representing his arm and the direction of force. He added another line to represent the mana he was trying to guide.

The diagram did not explain how mana worked.

It did, however, help him think about what he was doing.

He had been concentrating too much on his hand and not enough on the movement of his entire arm.

He tried again.

This time, the pressure moved more smoothly.

His grip tightened.

The wooden sword felt slightly more stable.

The effect lasted less than a second.

Vorn stared at his hand.

Then he smiled.

It was a small success.

Nobody noticed.

Kaleal was demonstrating a stronger technique to the instructor, and the other children were watching.

Vorn did not call attention to himself.

He simply repeated the exercise.

Once.

Twice.

Ten times.

He had made progress.

Not enough to impress the tribe.

Enough to know what to practice tomorrow.

-

Years passed.

Vorn grew taller and stronger. The wooden weapons became more familiar in his hands, and the downhill runs stopped feeling like attempts to survive a natural disaster.

His childhood settled into a rhythm.

Run down the mountain.

Meet the other children in the clearing.

Duel until the adults called an end to practice.

On hunting days, accompany the adults into the wilderness, observing their work and learning how to move through the terrain.

Then return home, eat, rest, and prepare to do it all again.

The routine changed with age, but its foundations remained the same.

The runs became more difficult. The duels became more demanding. The hunts took the children farther from the settlement.

Vorn learned to recognize his opponents' habits. He learned that a strong strike could be useless if it left the attacker off balance. He learned that a small adjustment in footwork could matter more than a large increase in strength.

He also learned that the best route through a mountain was not always the shortest one, that the easiest trail could be dangerous under the wrong conditions, and that a hunter who ignored the wind could lose an entire morning's work.

His [Mind Blueprint] remained a floating workspace inside his mind.

It did not gain new powers.

There were no sudden revelations, mysterious messages, or voices explaining how to become stronger.

Vorn could draw on it, rearrange his sketches, and use the images to organize his observations. As his knowledge grew, his drawings became more detailed. As his spatial understanding improved, he became better at representing movement.

He could make guesses and compare possibilities, but the blueprint did not transform guesses into facts.

A tool that gave him false certainty would be worse than useless.

He preferred one that helped him recognize what he did not know.

By the time he reached eight years old, the blue lines were as familiar as his own thoughts. He used them when planning a route, studying an unfamiliar object, or remembering the sequence of a difficult movement.

He did not need to activate them for every ordinary task.

Sometimes, the answer was obvious without a drawing.

Sometimes, the problem was too simple to justify one.

And sometimes, he drew anyway because he enjoyed the process.

It reminded him of the work he had done in his previous life.

The world had changed.

His tools had changed.

But the satisfaction of understanding something remained.

Kaleal's reputation had grown alongside him.

By eight, the adults treated Kaleal as a promising future warrior rather than simply a talented child. He won most of his duels, learned new techniques quickly, and maintained mana reinforcement longer than most children his age.

His lean build never seemed to hinder him. If anything, his speed and precision made him harder to hit.

The elders praised his progress openly.

Kaleal had become the standard against which the other children were measured.

Vorn was measured against him more often than he liked.

“Why can't you move like Kaleal?”

“Look how quickly he learned that technique.”

“If you practiced as much as he does, perhaps you could catch up.”

Vorn heard these remarks frequently enough to recognize their pattern.

They assumed the difference between the two boys was effort.

It was not that simple.

Vorn practiced.

He studied.

He repeated exercises long after other children had grown bored.

But Kaleal could often accomplish in a few attempts what took Vorn many more.

That was the difference between natural talent and hard-earned competence.

Vorn did not believe talent was worthless. It would have been foolish to deny the advantage Kaleal possessed.

But talent did not make effort unnecessary.

And a lack of talent did not make improvement impossible.

He continued training.

When he lost, he studied the duel.

When he succeeded, he examined why.

When he encountered a technique he could not perform, he broke it into smaller movements and practiced them individually.

For now  that was enough.

 The day on training ground began like any other.

Cold air swept across the mountain clearing. The children gathered with their wooden weapons, stamping their feet against the chill while an instructor arranged them into pairs.

They had already completed their morning descent. Vorn's knees were sore from a rough landing, and dust clung to his clothes. He had intended to review the route before beginning his duel, but the instructor was impatient.

“Vorn. Darek.”

Darek stepped forward, wooden sword in hand.

They had fought several times before.

Darek was stronger in direct exchanges and preferred to overwhelm his opponents with repeated attacks. Vorn had learned to watch his shoulders and avoid retreating in a straight line.

The instructor raised his hand.

“Begin!”

Darek advanced.

Vorn blocked the first strike and shifted to his left.

The second came lower.

Vorn stepped back, allowing the wooden blade to pass in front of him. He moved forward before Darek could fully recover and tapped his opponent's shoulder.

Darek twisted away and struck Vorn across the ribs.

The impact stung.

Vorn retreated two steps.

“Better,” Darek said.

“Thank you.”

“I wasn't praising you.”

“I know.”

They resumed their positions.

Darek attacked again.

Vorn watched his feet, waiting for the familiar shift in weight.

He saw it.

He moved.

For an instant, the exchange unfolded exactly as he had expected. Darek's strike passed beside him, and Vorn began his counterattack.

Then a heavy sound came from behind them.

Something struck the ground.

The instructor shouted.

The duel stopped.

Vorn turned.

An adult tribesman had collapsed near the edge of the training area.

He was a hunter with dark scars across his arms. Vorn recognized him from the cave settlement, though he did not know him well.

The man was on his knees, one hand pressed against the ground.

His other hand clutched his stomach.

A moment later, he fell onto his side.

Several adults rushed toward him.

"Move!"

"Get the Shaman!"

"Bring water!"

The children backed away.

Darek lowered his weapon.

"What happened?"

Vorn did not answer.

He watched the fallen man.

The hunter was sweating despite the cold. His face had lost much of its color, and his breathing was rapid and shallow. He tried to sit up, but his arms trembled beneath him.

Then he vomited.

An adult knelt beside him and called his name.

The hunter responded with a weak sound.

Another wave of pain seemed to seize him. He curled inward, clutching his abdomen..

The instructor ordered the children away from the area.

"Training is finished. Go back to the main chamber."

Nobody argued.

As the adults lifted the hunter, Vorn noticed something else.

One of the men helping carry him had a stained strip of cloth tied around his waist. He looked exhausted. His eyes were sunken, and he moved with the stiffness of someone who had not slept properly.

Vorn had seen him before.

Two days earlier, the man had been sitting near the communal fire while another adult brought him a bowl.

He had been ill then, too.

Vorn looked toward the cave entrance.

Beyond it, the tribe's water source lay somewhere among the mountain rocks.

He remembered seeing people collecting water there.

Children.

Hunters.

Elders.

Everyone.

A cold sensation settled in his stomach.

The tribe had a place for people who could not work or hunt..

It was not a hospital.

The tribe had no such word.

It was simply the shelter where the injured and sick were brought until they recovered.

Vorn followed the other children as far as the passage allowed.

Adults stood outside the entrance, speaking in low voices.

Inside, the hunter lay on a bed of hides. Another sick tribesman rested against the wall, a third was being helped to drink from a wooden cup.

Vorn counted them.

Three.

He remembered hearing about two others who had been sick earlier in the week.

Five.

Possibly more.

He did not know how many had recovered or whether all the cases were connected.

But the number was increasing.

A woman hurried past carrying folded hides. Another adult emerged from the shelter with an empty bowl.

The atmosphere was different from the usual bustle of the cave.

People were worried.

They were trying not to show it, but Vorn could see it in the way they spoke, the way they watched the shelter, and the way some avoided looking at the people inside.

An elder approached the entrance.

"Where is the Shaman?"

"Coming."

"Then prepare the chamber."

Vorn watched.

He wanted to enter and ask questions, but he knew that nobody would welcome an eight-year-old interrogating the sick.

He would need to learn what he could from observation.

A low chant echoed through the passage.

The Shaman arrived carrying a bundle of herbs, small bones, and strips of dyed hide. Their body was leaner than that of most warriors, but their movements were deliberate and steady. Patterns of sacred tattoos crossed their arms.

The adults made way.

The Shaman entered the shelter.

"Bring the lamps closer."

Someone obeyed.

The Shaman examined the sick hunter, touched his forehead, and listened to his breathing. They asked the adults several questions about when the illness began and whether the man had eaten anything unusual.

Then the ritual began.

It would have been foolish to assume that everything the Shaman did was useless merely because the ritual did not resemble medicine from Vorn's previous life.

But Vorn also knew something the tribe might not.

An illness could spread without an evil spirit.

A ritual might provide comfort without stopping the cause.

And if several people were becoming sick for the same physical reason, repeating the same ceremony would not necessarily make them better.

The Shaman completed the first part of the ritual.

They placed a small bundle of herbs beside the hunter's bedding and pressed two fingers against his wrist.

The hunter groaned.

"Will he recover?" an elder asked.

The Shaman did not answer immediately.

"We will keep the darkness away," they said at last. "His body must fight the weakness."

It was an honest answer, as far as Vorn could tell.

The Shaman had not promised a cure.

The elder nodded.

Outside, people began whispering.

Another adult approached the entrance and spoke quietly to someone standing there.

Vorn caught fragments of the conversation.

Another sick person.

Another household.

The symptoms had started several days ago.

The number of cases was growing.

Vorn's thoughts became very still.

He had heard enough.

This was not one isolated collapse.

Something was happening to the tribe.

Something that might be affecting many people at once.

He turned away from the shelter.

He needed to think.

Vorn returned to the main chamber.

The tribe's settlement was built around a broad area of relatively level stone. Sleeping spaces occupied the sheltered edges, while the central area served as a gathering place, work area, and training ground.

Several narrow passages connected the chamber to smaller caves.

The water source was farther inside the mountain.

It was a natural spring that emerged between layers of rock, gathering in a shallow basin before flowing through a narrow channel. The tribe collected drinking water there and carried it back in wooden vessels, and animal skin.

Vorn had seen the spring countless times.

He had never paid much attention to it.

Water was simply water.

Until people began collapsing.

He found a relatively quiet corner and closed his eyes.

The blue lines appeared.

[Mind Blueprint] unfolded in his mental field of view.

He started with the settlement.

A rough outline of the main chamber appeared. He added the passages he knew, the training ground, the sick shelter, and the places where different families slept.

He did not need an exact architectural drawing.

He needed a map of relationships.

He marked the sick hunter's usual sleeping area.

Then the place where the second sick man lived.

He added the location of another person he had heard was ill.

The marks were scattered.

Different families.

Different sleeping spaces.

Different daily routines.

He tried to recall what they had in common.

Some worked as hunters. Others gathered materials or maintained the settlement. They did not all eat the same meals, and they did not spend every day together.

But they all lived within the tribe.

They all relied on its shared resources.

Vorn drew a line from the settlement to the spring.

Then he stopped.

The line was obvious.

Too obvious, perhaps.

He needed to be careful.

A shared resource could explain why people from different households became ill, but it did not prove the source was contaminated.

They might have shared food.

They might have encountered the same animal.

They might have been exposed to something else.

He needed more information.

Vorn opened his eyes.

He would start with the water.

The spring was cold enough to numb his fingers.

Vorn knelt beside the basin and watched the water emerge between two slabs of granite. It was clear. The bottom was visible through the shallow pool, and small stones lay undisturbed beneath the surface.

Nothing looked wrong.

He crouched lower.

The water smelled like water.

He dipped his fingers into the stream.

Cold.

Clean-looking.

Apparently ordinary.

That meant very little.

In his previous life, he had known that water could carry contaminants invisible to the naked eye. Some dangers announced themselves through color, odor, or taste. Others did not.

If the outbreak was cholera, the water could appear completely normal.

Cholera spread primarily through water or food contaminated with infected feces.

The disease could cause severe watery diarrhea and vomiting. A person could lose enormous amounts of fluid and electrolytes in a short time.

Without proper rehydration, dehydration could become fatal.

Vorn knew the broad principles.

He did not know the condition of this spring.

He could only examine the situation and form a hypothesis.

He looked around the basin.

The spring emerged from the mountain, but the surrounding area was not completely isolated. There were narrow openings in the rock above it, and the terrain beyond the basin sloped downward toward the water.

Animals lived in the mountains.

Hunters moved through the area.

Rain and runoff could carry material from higher ground.

The spring might be protected.

It might not.

Vorn drew the surrounding terrain in his blueprint.

He marked the spring, the slope, and several possible routes by which surface water could reach the basin.

He did not know which route, if any, was relevant.

The drawing only helped him organize the possibilities.

He examined the water again.

Then he remembered something from earlier in the week.

An adult had complained about having to collect water after heavy rain. Someone else had mentioned that the spring was running faster than usual.

That might mean nothing.

Or it might matter.

Vorn stood.

He needed to ask more questions.

He also needed to consider what could be done even without identifying the precise source.

If the water might be contaminated, then boiling drinking water would be a sensible precaution. The tribe would also need to keep clean water separate from anything that might recontaminate it.

That would require containers.

Reliable containers.

Containers that could withstand heating without cracking apart.

His mind began assembling a list.

Water.

Heat.

Containers.

Storage.

Rehydration.

Sanitation.

He stopped himself.

One problem at a time.

He was eight years old.

He did not have authority over the tribe's water supply. He did not know how the elders would react to his suspicions, and he could not force people to abandon a source they had relied on for generations.

For the first time since arriving in this world, Vorn faced a problem whose consequences extended beyond his own body, his own training, or his own future.

People were getting sick.

He would have to make the tribe listen.

His tribe was drinking from a source that might be contaminated.

And the mountain, which had sheltered his people for generations, might now be helping to kill them.

Vorn quickened his pace.

He have a problem to solve.