Chương 9: Nine Years Later

Nine years had passed since I first opened my eyes in this world. I still remembered the moment clearly. The unfamiliar ceiling. The voices around me. The strange sensation of having the memories of an entire lifetime while possessing the body of a newborn child. At the time, I had no idea what my second life would become. Now, at sixteen years old, I could finally say that it had become something I never expected. A real life. Not a continuation of my previous one. Not a second chance to repeat the same mistakes.

A different life. My name was Leo. And for the past sixteen years, that was the name I had lived by. The first few years passed quietly. I grew up in a small household belonging to an ordinary commoner family. We weren't poor enough to struggle for food, nor wealthy enough to purchase expensive magical artifacts. My parents worked hard. Our house was modest. Our meals were simple. And unlike my previous life, nobody expected me to command an army or protect an entire faction.

It took me longer than I expected to become comfortable with that. In my previous life, every morning began with responsibility. As the Heavenly Demon of the Demonic Sect, weakness had consequences. A single mistake could cost hundreds of lives. Here, my greatest problem at five years old was convincing my parents that I was old enough to walk to the market alone. They always said no. I always disagreed. They always won.

Looking back, those arguments were probably the first time I learned that strength wasn't useful for everything. My memories of Park Suho never disappeared. I remembered the Murim. I remembered the Demonic Sect. I remembered the martial artists who followed me. I remembered the battles. I remembered the techniques I had spent decades mastering. And I remembered my death. My wife had been standing behind me. The battlefield had been filled with enemies. The Murim Alliance had surrounded us.

I had been fighting until my body could barely move. Then came the blade. From behind. The woman I trusted had driven it into my back while I was fighting the enemy in front of me. I survived long enough to understand what had happened. Not long enough to ask why. That memory remained with me. But as the years passed, it became less painful. Not because I forgave her. I didn't. I simply stopped allowing my previous death to dictate my new life.

There was no reason to spend my second life hating someone who wasn't even part of it. My first major discovery came when I was seven. Magic existed everywhere. At first, I thought it was simply another form of Internal Energy. I was wrong. Mana behaved differently. Internal Energy was generated and circulated through the body. Mana existed throughout the environment and could be drawn into the body, shaped, and released through magical techniques. The difference fascinated me. I spent years studying it.

My parents hired tutors whenever they could afford them, and I learned everything they were willing to teach me. Basic Mana circulation. Elemental theory. Spell construction. Magical formations. Monster classification. Potion fundamentals. Even the history of the kingdoms. I enjoyed it. Perhaps more than I should have. Because unlike martial arts, magic gave me an entirely new field to explore. I wasn't simply becoming stronger. I was learning an entirely different system of power.

At ten, I took the entrance examination for the Royal Arcane Academy. I passed. My results were good enough that the examiner recommended immediate enrollment. Unfortunately, the academy had regulations. Students could not formally enroll before reaching sixteen. There was nothing I could do about it. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. For once, talent wasn't enough to solve a problem. So I waited.

And those six years became some of the most important years of my life. I continued studying magic through private lessons. At the same time, I trained my body. I trained with a wooden sword. I practiced footwork. I strengthened my muscles. I refined my Internal Energy. But there was one major difference from my previous life. I stopped showing my Internal Energy to other people. Nobody needed to know. In this world, I was a young commoner with a rare magical affinity. That was enough.

I didn't need people asking why a sixteen-year-old mage possessed physical abilities that didn't match his age. So I kept it hidden. My teachers believed my physical ability came from training. They weren't entirely wrong. Magic was where I allowed myself to grow openly. My affinity appeared when I was eight. Darkness. The first spell I successfully cast created a small black sphere above my palm. It wasn't particularly impressive.

My tutor stared at it for several seconds before telling me that Darkness was considered one of the more difficult elements to master. That only made me more interested. I learned that Darkness wasn't simply about destruction. It could obscure vision. Absorb light. Distort perception. Create barriers. Strengthen certain forms of movement. And, with sufficient control, form physical constructs. I experimented constantly. Sometimes my experiments worked. Sometimes they failed spectacularly.

Once, I accidentally covered an entire room in darkness. My tutor spent fifteen minutes trying to find me. I was standing less than two meters away from him. He wasn't amused. I was. At thirteen, something else changed. My family grew. I gained a younger sister. Two years later, another. The house became louder. Much louder. Before them, I had been used to quiet evenings. After them, quiet evenings became rare. One of my sisters loved following me around whenever I trained.

The other had discovered that my books were surprisingly effective toys. Neither understood the concept of personal space. I didn't mind. Actually… I liked having them around. That realization surprised me. In my previous life, I had spent most of my existence surrounded by martial artists. People respected me. People feared me. People followed me. But very few people simply wanted to sit beside me because they enjoyed my company. My family did. That mattered. Mia was already older when I entered the academy.

By then, she was in her third year. She had been studying magic for years and had become considerably stronger. She also seemed to believe that being my older sister gave her the right to criticize everything I did.

"You're training too much."

"You need to sleep."

"Stop reading while eating."

"You shouldn't ignore people when they talk to you."

"Leo, are you listening?" Usually, I wasn't. That only made things worse. Despite the arguments, Mia and I were close. She was probably the person who knew me best in this life. Not completely. There were things she could never know. But she knew Leo. And that was enough. I also made friends. My first was Alice. She was my cousin. Alice had long white hair and crimson eyes, and her magical affinity was Light. She was around my age, though she had always seemed more mature than me. At least until we started arguing.

Then her maturity disappeared remarkably quickly. We spent years studying and training together. She was competitive. I was competitive. Neither of us liked losing. That made training interesting. It also meant that our families eventually stopped asking why we were arguing. They had accepted that it was simply normal. Alice also had a habit of staying near me whenever we were with other people. I noticed it. I never mentioned it. I cared about her too much to make her uncomfortable.

Perhaps I understood what she felt. Perhaps I was simply slow to acknowledge my own feelings. Either way, I was happy whenever she was around. Amon joined us later. He was almost impossible to ignore. Blond hair. Blue eyes. A muscular build. And enough confidence to fill an entire room. His element was Fire. Our friendship began with a training match. He challenged me. I accepted. He lost. He requested another match. I accepted. He lost again. He claimed that the sunlight had been distracting him.

I pointed out that we had been fighting indoors. He didn't speak to me for nearly an hour. Then he asked for a third match. That was Amon. He was stubborn, competitive, loud, and surprisingly reliable. If he considered someone a friend, he would stand beside them without hesitation. I respected that. Masha was the last of us. She had medium-length pink hair and pink eyes. Her affinity was Earth. Unlike Amon, she rarely raised her voice. Unlike Alice, she didn't enjoy arguing with me.

Unlike both of them, she possessed an impressive ability to recognize when something was about to go wrong. Unfortunately, she couldn't always stop it. Especially when Amon was involved. The four of us gradually became close. We studied together. Trained together. Ate together. Explored the town together. Sometimes we simply sat around talking about what we wanted to do after graduation. Amon wanted to become a powerful battle mage. Masha was interested in magical engineering and defensive formations.

Alice wanted to become an accomplished Light Mage. As for me… I wasn't sure. I only knew that I wanted to become stronger. But this time, I didn't want strength for the sake of ruling others. I wanted strength because I enjoyed the process of becoming stronger. There was a difference. A very important one. By sixteen, my progress had reached a level that surprised my instructors. My Darkness Magic was considerably more refined than it had been six years earlier. My physical abilities had improved even more.

My Internal Energy had surpassed what I possessed at the same age in my previous life. The combination of Mana and Internal Energy was particularly interesting. They were different systems, but they could complement one another. Mana strengthened my magical abilities. Internal Energy strengthened my body. With enough concentration, I could use both without interfering with the other. I called the technique Dual Circulation. It was still incomplete. But it had potential.

I intended to continue developing it at the academy. Nobody knew about it. And I intended to keep it that way. There was another reason I wanted to keep Internal Energy hidden. My previous identity. The Heavenly Demon. That name belonged to Park Suho. Not Leo. I had no intention of bringing that identity into my new life. At least, not publicly. If circumstances ever forced me to use my martial arts seriously, I had prepared another identity. A black Murim outfit. Red lines running across the fabric.

A black fox mask covering the upper half of my face. The mask had narrow eye openings, with red markings extending downward from them. When wearing it, I wouldn't be Leo. I would become the person I had once been. The sword would return to my hand. Internal Energy would replace Mana. And the Demonic Martial Arts I had mastered in my previous life would become my weapons once again. But that identity would remain separate. Leo was a mage. The Heavenly Demon was a martial artist.

As far as the world was concerned, they would be two completely different people. That was the plan. The morning of my sixteenth birthday arrived quietly. I woke before sunrise. For several seconds, I stared at the ceiling. Then I remembered. Today was the day. Today, I could finally enter the Royal Arcane Academy. I got dressed and left my room. The house was already awake. My mother was preparing breakfast. My father was sitting at the table. Mia was drinking tea while reading something.

My younger sisters were arguing over a piece of bread. A normal morning. I sat down. My mother placed a plate in front of me.

"Eat."

"I will." My father looked at me.

"So." I raised an eyebrow.

"So?"

"Your first day."

"Yes." He smiled.

"You've been waiting for this for six years."

"Seven, actually." Mia lowered her book.

"He's been talking about the academy since he was ten."

"I have not."

"You absolutely have."

"I discussed it."

"You made a schedule."

"I like being prepared." Mia laughed. My father shook his head.

"You'll do well." I looked at him.

"Thank you." My mother placed another piece of bread on my plate.

"And don't forget to eat properly."

"I won't."

"And sleep."

"Yes."

"And don't get involved in unnecessary fights." I paused. Amon's face immediately came to mind.

"I'll try." Mia laughed.

"That's the most honest answer you've given today." After breakfast, I left the house. Alice was waiting outside. Her white hair moved gently in the morning breeze.

"You took your time."

"I was eating."

"Your mother probably wouldn't let you leave without eating."

"Correct." She smiled. Amon arrived a moment later. He was carrying his bag over one shoulder.

"Finally!" Masha followed behind him.

"You are five minutes early." Amon looked proud.

"Exactly." Masha sighed.

"I'm beginning to understand why people say you should never praise him." We started walking. The four of us headed toward the academy. The streets were already busy. Merchants were opening their shops. Carriages moved along the main road. Students wearing academy uniforms walked in groups. Some were accompanied by parents. Others, like us, came alone. After several minutes, the academy finally appeared beyond the buildings. Its towers rose above the city. The Royal Arcane Academy was larger than I had imagined.

Not because it was particularly beautiful. Because it looked alive. Students filled the entrance. Professors crossed the courtyard. Magical training grounds occupied the eastern side. A library tower stood at the western end. And above the main entrance was the academy's crest. I stopped for a moment. Six years of waiting had led to this. Amon looked at me.

"Well?" I smiled.

"Let's go." Alice walked beside me. Masha followed. Amon pushed through the crowd with absolutely no patience. We entered together. I had spent nine years preparing for the day I would begin my second life properly. Today, it finally started. Not as Park Suho. Not as the Heavenly Demon. But as Leo. End of Chapter 9.