The Heavenly Heart

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Garen stood across from me without a word.

The cold air settled quietly around us.

It was nothing like the warmth of the room I'd just left with Luce. My head was clear and cold, but my body still burned in a strange way, and my heart hadn't settled down.

Garen spoke in a low voice.

"For a swordsman, Aura begins with sensing the energy inside your body and circulating it through your entire being."

I held my breath and answered with nothing more than a nod.

"The paths that energy flows through are called meridians. If a mage has mana circuits, a swordsman has meridians."

Garen's eyes locked straight onto mine.

"Aura is not an easy power."

"..."

"Some take days just to achieve Aura resonance. Others grind for months and walk away with nothing but a thread of a clue. Without talent, you can hold a sword for years and never feel a thing."

I swallowed without meaning to.

"Resonance isn't the end. Aura circulation, core formation, Aura manifestation. Every one of them is a separate wall you have to climb."

"..."

"Don't try to seize the energy inside you—feel it. That's all you need to do today."

"...Yes, sir."

I drew in a long breath.

I should have felt lost. I didn't.

Meridians. Circulation. Resonance.

Words I was hearing for the first time—but not concepts I'd never seen. I'd watched them play out endlessly in novels, webtoons, and games. This didn't feel like learning something new. It felt like taking something I already knew and putting it into my body.

I closed my eyes as I was.

The sound of my breathing. The beat of my heart. The chill of the floor. Cold air sliding over my skin.

That was all.

For the first ten minutes, I felt nothing.

...Is this even working? There's nothing here.

The thought flickered past.

Garen had said it wasn't strange if you never even managed resonance and that was the end of it.

I slowed my breathing a little more.

I had no idea how much longer passed after that.

A minute. Ten minutes. An hour. I couldn't tell.

I only did one thing: lowered my awareness deeper into my body.

And then, at some point, I caught it. Somewhere behind my solar plexus—something so small that if I lost it for even a second, it would vanish completely.

Instinctively, I held on.

...!

I felt it.

It was there.

Something.

Is this... mana?

At first it was only a point. Something my eyes could never see, brushing thinly through the inside of my body. The more I focused, the more it stretched into a long thread and grew clearer.

Below the solar plexus. Along my flanks. Following my spine out through my shoulders to the tips of my arms.

A faint heat flowing from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head.

This is... Aura resonance.

I held my breath and followed the flow.

But from there, something began to change.

While I held onto the current inside me, I started to feel the outside as well.

At first I thought it was just that the training hall air was cold. It wasn't. The cold was temperature. What I was sensing now was something deeper than that.

Even with my eyes shut, I could feel the space itself. The particle-like presence of mana filling the entire hall seemed to seep in through my skin.

...What is this?

Garen had told me to feel what was inside my body.

It didn't break. If anything, it grew sharper. The tighter I held the flow within me, the closer the outside became.

Normally, this would have been where everything fell apart.

They didn't collide.

The current inside me turned as it should inside, and the current outside turned as it should outside. But the moment they touched, they neither shattered nor recoiled. As if they had always been one body, they slowly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meshed together.

Something began to flow over my skin.

Not heat. Not pressure. Formless—simply gathering. The feeling that once a center called me took shape, the surroundings came of their own accord.

My heart thudded hard.

And at the same time, a familiar window rose out of the dark.

I was startled—and at the same time I already knew it was too late.

The Dimensional Archive was moving ahead of me.

I could go either way: toward a core, or toward circles. I had to choose one, and I couldn't settle on either.

I was supposed to be a swordsman.

The role I'd taken in Roy's party. The power I'd need from now on. Everything I'd built so far.

All of it pointed that way.

But with the path to circles lying open this clearly in front of me—could I really pretend not to see it?

Ah... damn it. There's no way I can take both, right...?

I cut the thought off and tried to gather the power inside me into a single point—

And something opened in a way that had nothing to do with either path.

A low hum.

It was too small. No—even "small" wasn't enough. So faint I couldn't tell whether it was there or not.

I couldn't grasp its color or its shape. Opening my eyes wouldn't have helped. It wasn't absent—it was compressed so tightly that it simply couldn't be seen.

But its presence was absurdly vast.

It had formed inside my body, yet the pressure felt as if something larger than my body itself had taken up residence within me.

For a moment, my breath caught hard in my throat.

It wasn't my chest. It felt as if the very center of my existence had been swapped out for something else.

It wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a core. It wasn't what I'd imagined, and it wasn't what Garen had described.

This was an entirely different structure.

With that center as its axis, the flow inside my body realigned all at once.

Just outside the Heavenly Heart, the first layer formed. A force that wound and spun, binding my entire body together with raw, rough strength. Aura.

And beyond that, a thinner, more delicate layer unfurled. Settling into place like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rings, like orbits stacked one over another. Circles.

With every window that appeared, the inside of my body followed suit.

But there was no collision. That was the strange part.

Aura and magic were different. They were supposed to clash. Yet the moment the Heavenly Heart locked into the center, both found their places as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They didn't push each other away. They meshed as if this was how they had always been meant to turn.

Mana was flowing in. I didn't know when it had started—only that it hadn't stopped.

The moment the Heavenly Heart settled, the surrounding mana was drawn toward it on its own.

I wasn't dizzy. Nothing felt like it was about to tear. The more mana came in, the more solid and stable the structure became.

...If mana can pour in like this.

A thought followed at the end of that. Once the structure stabilized and the circles climbed higher—how far could a spell's output go?

Nuclear-level magic.

The idea that it might actually be possible flickered through me.

It wasn't some vague fantasy. It was a gut sense that came from feeling the sheer volume of mana flowing into me right now.

...I'll check that later.

I set the thought aside and opened my eyes.

Garen was still standing there.

But the face looking back at me was not the Garen I knew.

The man who was always flat and sharp had, for the first time, lost his words entirely.

Something had flickered across his expression—and then locked solid.

Garen wasn't standing there in a daze. The moment the silence broke, the verification began.

"Siyun."

"...Yes."

"Load Aura into it. Onto the wooden sword."

I picked up the wooden sword.

Centering on the Heavenly Heart, I took hold of the Aura Ring turning outside it.

It came far more naturally than I'd expected.

The energy flowed. Something grey and thin wrapped itself over the wooden blade.

Garen's eyes narrowed—then slowly shifted to me.

"Good."

I withdrew the Aura. The grey light peeled off the wooden sword.

"...Can you do the other one, too."

"I'll try."

I lowered my awareness through my left hand.

I reached for the circles above the Heavenly Heart. Built the structure. Imagined the result.

A small flame.

Just enough to rise at my fingertips, the way Mari did it.

The circles turned. Mana pushed toward my fingers—from the inside out.

Something formless taking form. That was the sensation.

The feeling of something blooming over my palm.

Fwoosh!

A flame rose from my fingertips. Small—barely enough to cover a single finger.

The fire wavered unsteadily. My output control was still rough.

But Garen's face went rigid at the sight of it.

"Do both at once."

"...Sir?"

"I said do them together."

I hesitated—but he told me to, so I did.

Aura in my right hand. Magic in my left.

It worked. It simply... worked.

No collision. My head was fine. My body was fine. If anything, it felt natural.

With the Heavenly Heart at the center, the two of them found their places on their own.

Garen shut his mouth. Longer this time.

"Raise the output."

I pulled a little more.

"More."

I raised it again.

Before long, a fireball-scale spell sat in my left hand, and a clear grey light rode the blade in my right.

"Breathing."

"I'm fine."

"Head ringing?"

"...No."

I checked myself over. Nothing wrong.

"Anything aching inside."

"No."

"Hands shaking."

I looked down at both hands. They weren't trembling.

"Nothing."

Garen kept asking, and kept watching.

Aura output. Magic maintenance. Simultaneous use. Breathing. Tremors. Backflow. Collision.

He checked every single one. And still, he couldn't find my limit.

His hand clenched and released by a fraction.

In that moment, I heard someone at the entrance to the training hall.

"......Siyun?"

Roy.

I turned my head. Roy, Mari, and Kaya were standing there. Luce had come up behind them as well. And other parties who'd been on their way out for requests were stopping one by one at the entrance.

Roy started to take a step forward, then halted. Only his eyes had already gone sharp.

"...What the hell is this right now."

Mari's brow tightened the instant she saw whatever was clinging around my body.

"Is he using magic and Aura? Both of them?"

Kaya came half a step toward me. Her eyes were checking whether I was hurt.

"...Siyun."

Luce looked at me first—before the surprise. A face asking if I was all right.

I slowly lowered my hands. I glanced over the four of them once each, then let out a short breath.

"Uh... I don't really know either."

I meant it.

"What even is that?"

"I've never seen Garen make that face."

"Hey—don't get close."

Even the murmuring only made the weight of the situation heavier.

Garen turned his head slowly.

"All of you, listen carefully."

With that single line, the air in the training hall went dead still.

"What you saw here today—do not speak a word of it outside."

No one could answer.

"Not as a joke. Not over drinks. Do not run your mouths."

His voice was low. That only made it more frightening.

"The moment this reaches the ears of the demonkin or the Demon King's army, Bresen is finished."

"......"

"This entire town could be wiped out overnight."

At those words, every adventurer's face went rigid at once.

It didn't sound like exaggeration. When Garen said things like that, it was always real.

His gaze came back to me.

"Baek Siyun."

"...Yes, sir."

"You will not leave Bresen."

I looked up at him with my breath held.

"Until I find you again... no. Until the ones coming to find you arrive—you stay here. No exceptions."

"......"

"If you move carelessly, this only gets bigger."

I couldn't find an answer. I only nodded.

Garen stared at me for a long time. Not the face of a man teaching the sword—the face of a man looking at a different kind of problem entirely.

Then, low, almost to himself, he muttered:

"Hah...... this isn't something that ends in Bresen."