Wisps of smoke curled lazily from the chimney of the Oakhaven shack, yet the warmth inside felt hollow, thick with an unresolved tension. Three days had passed since the night the Shadow Wolves struck. The corpse of the giant beast Rian slew had been dragged deep into the forest by Mark under the cover of night, done at Elena’s frantic insistence.

To the villagers, a monster's corpse was big news—but to Elena and Mark, it was an existential threat. In a world where dark mages and practitioners of forbidden arts were hunted down and burned at the stake by the Church’s Inquisition, possessing a three-year-old child capable of slaying a mana-infused beast with a single precise strike was no blessed miracle. It was a curse.

"Never... use that power in front of anyone else, Rian," Elena had whispered in a trembling voice as she gathered her son into a tight, warm embrace the following morning, her tears falling onto his hair. "Promise me... you will live as a normal child."

Rian merely offered a small nod against his mother’s shoulder. Beneath his innocent toddler facade, his mind calculated with cold rationality. He knew his parents' fears were well-founded. This world was not built on justice, but on power and secrecy. His mother's pity and shock did not alter the fundamental truth: weakness was a ticket to the grave.

Their safety is my priority, Rian thought coldly. To protect them from this ruthless world, I need power that far surpasses normal human limits.

From that day on, the dynamics within the small family shifted quietly. Mark remained bedridden, weakened by a cold-infected claw wound and severe exhaustion, while Elena busied herself caring for her husband and scavenging for remaining rye in their nearly empty barn. The situation granted Rian greater freedom to begin his true training regime.

A bleak morning enveloped Oakhaven Village as heavy snow fell once more, burying the forest behind the shack in a knee-deep blanket of white. Temperatures dipped well below freezing—cold enough to freeze the blood of anyone reckless enough to venture out unprepared.

Yet, among the dense, silent rows of pine trees, a tiny figure moved with unnatural speed.

Hah... hah...

Rian stood in the center of a snowy clearing, his breath puffing into white mist against the frigid air. His three-year-old body was being forced past its biological limits through a combination of mercenary breathing techniques from his past life and the refined mana circulation he had gleaned from the forbidden grimoire.

Dressed in nothing but thin clothes—deliberately exposing his skin to adapt to the biting cold—Rian executed his brutal training routine.

One... Two... Three...

He dropped to the snow-covered ground, pushing himself up with a single hand on the jagged ice surface. Every time his tiny muscles screamed in agony, he forced a thin stream of purple mana through his veins, burning away the pain and replacing it with cellular regeneration that forcibly reinforced his muscle fibers.

Not enough! My speed is still far too slow against higher-tier beasts!

Rian sprang upward, spinning in midair before driving a roundhouse kick into the trunk of a thick pine tree.

BOOM!

The impact of his toddler foot produced a surprisingly heavy thud. The layer of ice coating the bark shattered, leaving a small indentation surrounded by a faint purplish shadow aura. The training was merciless; every inch of his body felt as though it were being shredded by a thousand ice blades, and sheer exhaustion battered his nervous system.

This extreme montage continued for hours without pause. Rian sprinted up the snowy slopes carrying heavy chunks of ice strapped to his small back, honed his dodging reflexes against falling pine branches snapped by gale-force winds, and perfected the precise control of his shadow magic to ensure it made no sound at all.

Toward late afternoon, his young body's physical ceiling was finally reached.

Rian’s legs gave out, his vision blurred, and his heart hammered wildly against his ribs. The mana reserves within his body were drained down to the absolute bottom.

Damn it... this body is my greatest bottleneck... he thought as his mind drifted.

Before he could reach the outer wall of the shack or grab onto the pile of wood where he usually hid, his consciousness collapsed. Rian’s small frame keeled over into the deep snow, lying completely helpless in the dead silence of the frozen woods.

Silence descended. Only the whistle of the winter wind echoed through the pine trees.

Yet, amidst the eerie quiet, the air surrounding Rian’s unconscious body suddenly turned suffocatingly heavy. The temperature plummeted further, causing the ice crystals on the ground to quiver softly.

From behind a massive pine trunk roughly ten paces from where Rian lay, a pitch-black shadow slowly detached itself from the forest's darkness. The entity possessed no clear physical shape, yet a pair of burning crimson eyes—far brighter and infinitely more terrifying than those of the Shadow Wolves—locked sharply onto Rian's motionless form.

The shadow drifted closer, leaning down to sniff the scent of blood and lingering forbidden mana rising from the boy. A raspy, heavy voice resonated directly within the silent depth of the forest:

"A truly fascinating talent... The blood and soul of this tiny human have awakened something that should have remained fast asleep in the dark depths of these woods..."