The first rays of sunlight crept over the distant horizon, a gradient of gold and orange.

The colors reflected on the face of the sleeping girl, waking her slowly as if the light were inviting her back to life.

Vierenna opened her eyes—her clear, ash-gray obsidian eyes reflected the newborn daylight. Her white hair, scattered across the pillow, resembled silk threads glowing silver under the soft sunlight.

Gently, Vierenna extended her hands to prop herself up into a sitting position, stretching to shake off the remnants of sleep.

But before her mind regained full clarity, a surge of raw mana registered in her senses. It came directly from the floor below her room.

‘Deon's room?!’

She had an idea of what was happening, but her body was already moving toward Deon's room downstairs to confirm it with her own eyes and intervene if necessary.

With every step she took closer to his room, her theory solidified.

Although the mana was raw, it was under control.

‘Could it be that he’s reached the first step in this short time? It took me about four days!’

Vierenna opened Deon's door and was surprised—pleasantly surprised—by what she saw.

“Look at this! My baby brother has learned how to use his legs on his own.”

Of course, she spoke softly so as not to disturb him.

Despite her teasing, her happy smile didn’t betrayed her pride and joy.

She closed the door and approached his cross-legged figure on the bed for a closer look.

The blue cube rested in his hands, its black patterns slowly transforming into blue, forming intricate and varied pathways. However, the blue patterns were only just beginning to progress.

‘He’s just started! Impressive!’

Satisfied with the situation’s stability and safety, Vierenna climbed onto the bed and lay on her stomach in front of Deon, who hadn’t moved.

She could skip her morning training for today.

Lazily, Vierenna stretched her body and buried her face in the damp blanket.

‘So soft!’

...

After nearly half an hour, the raw mana surrounding Deon began to recede, and slowly, he opened his eyes.

Initially, he was startled by Vierenna’s form, lying on her stomach in front of him and gazing at him with a bright smile.

But he quickly recovered; he was starting to get used to her strange antics.

“Good morning, baby brother,”

she greeted him as she adjusted her nightwear to cover herself while sitting upright across from him in the same position.

“Good morning to you too,” he replied.

“Well, it’s truly impressive that you’ve begun introducing your body to mana so quickly. I’m proud of you.”

Vierenna's words were genuine, and she expressed them with both her words and her demeanor.

Deon was aware that his achievement with the cube was unusual, but he couldn’t stop himself from appearing nonchalant.

If he had the capability, Deon would exploit it without hesitation.

“How long did it take you? And what’s the average time for a normal person to achieve what I did?”

he asked, wanting to gauge his achievement compared to others.

Vierenna seemed almost upset by his question.

She responded with exaggerated frustration in her body language.

“Ahh… so quickly, arrogance has gone to your head. Siblings shouldn’t compare themselves… And here I thought… mm... mm... mmm…”

Deon grabbed Vierenna and covered her mouth. She’d never stop chattering if he let her.

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“I just want to understand how I compare to others. I’m calm and won’t become arrogant this early,” he said.

Though Vierenna playfully resisted his gentle hold, she didn’t truly fight back. If this had been a real fight, he would’ve turned to icy dust in mere moments. He knew how strong she was.

When he released her mouth, she sat back slightly, looking at him with a mix of curiosity and bemusement.

“You… You’re so bosing and domineering... If you keep this up, I might even stop calling you baby brother.”

She tilted her head toward her chest, placing a hand over it.

“You even made my heart skip a beat. What will you do next?”

Oh, no!’

But it was already too late...

‘No, it’s never too late…!’

Before she could say more, Deon grabbed her again and covered her mouth even tighter than before.

This time, Vierenna was genuinely shocked. She didn’t even pretend to resist. She simply stared at Deon’s serious, worried expression as if silencing her was a national duty.

“Don’t make it weird. Not like that!”

‘Not like that?’

Vierenna was confused by Deon’s words, but when she considered her position, her attire, and what she was about to say just to see her baby brother’s embarrassed expression, she understood his point.

‘Maybe… I went a bit too far?’

She grabbed Deon’s hands to signal him to release her, which he did upon noticing her calm gaze.

Vierenna immediately observed her baby brother’s expression relax. Still, she felt like something was missing.

‘But what?’

She didn’t have to think long to find the answer. Slowly and steadily, her smile widened as Deon’s expression crumbled before her.

‘No, I have to say something. This isn’t me!’

Before Deon could reach her to silence her again, she managed to voice her thoughts.

“You’re at that age already… It’s natural to feel strange when you touch—mm... mm... mm…”

:How refreshing!’

Although Vierenna didn’t finish her comment, she felt accomplished.

‘I’ll let his mind fill in the gaps. But how far will his imagination go? I hope not too far… Oh, no!’

She raised her hands to block the pillow that smacked directly into her face. The intent was clear—suffocation.

‘Maybe his imagination is a little too active?!’

Vierenna managed to slip away from his grasp, darting off the bed.

“Calm down, baby brother… As long as I call you baby brother, you haven’t ascended to the rank you’re thinking of in your mind right now.”

Deon didn’t respond. He simply watched her with disappointment from his seat on the bed.

‘Why is he so disappointed? Did I overdo it?’

SIGH

Vierenna sighed in defeat and returned to sit on the edge of the bed.

“It took me four days, with guidance from Mother. You did it in less than a day, which is an extraordinary and rare talent. For a normal noble with high talent, it might take about a month at least. As for commoners, it usually takes three to six months, which is one reason they’re always behind in the academy.”

This was Vierenna’s way of reconciling with Deon and easing his anger toward her.

It seemed to work.

“It wasn’t that hard, was it?”

Deon asked with a small smile.

‘It, very much, was.’

Vierenna didn’t say that. She didn’t like it when Deon was angry at her, so she refrained from provoking him further. Maybe next time.

“I have a few more questions,” Deon said.

“If you can’t ask your kind big sis, who will you ask?”

He gave her an odd look but asked his questions anyway.

“This morning, I woke up unusually early. Normally, I’d be too tired to even move at that time, but all I felt was energy and refreshment. Could that have something to do with the cube and my connection to it?”

“Oh, that?”

“I can explain that to my baby brother. First, you don’t connect with the cube; your mana signature does. And the cube, while impressive, isn’t something that would make you feel as refreshed as you described. Mana does that.”

“This hasn’t happened to you before because your body hadn’t yet made any attempts to communicate with or use the mana awakened within you during your awakening ritual.”

“The cube is just like a book teaching you how to use mana. So when you linked it to your mana signature yesterday, you took the first step in introducing your body to mana.”

“Now your body recognizes and acknowledges the mana within it. One of mana’s benefits is accelerated healing compared to normal people. That’s why you feel energized and refreshed. Mana even enhances intelligence and memory as you progress. Body specialists experience significant improvement in all bodily functions.”

Vierenna observed her brother’s contemplative expression. Although all these basics would be explained at the academy, she enjoyed playing the role of teacher and was good at it.

“What is mana?”

Vierenna was caught off guard by the unusual question.

‘What is mana?’

She had never thought to ask such a question herself, simply accepting it as a natural part of her reality.

Of course, the academy would cover this topic, and she could give Deon a summary of what she’d learned in her first year. Still, Vierenna felt curious about why her brother would ask such a question.

“Mana is a persistent energy that spreads throughout the world. It has a tremendous capacity to adapt and change… Why are you curious about such a topic? You’re supposed to already know!”

Once again, Deon’s expression turned thoughtful. After a moment of silence, he answered her question.

“I just thought about it and felt that mana is unfair, that’s all.”

‘Unfair? True… in a way! But how does someone even ask such a question? And why?’

Vierina's curiosity grew, but she quickly dismissed it. Her brother had always asked the strangest questions, so what's the different now?

She got up from the bed and picked up the cube that had rolled off during their wrestling.

The shape of the cube hadn't changed much, only the blue patterns that had started to replace the black ones. Even so, her younger brother still had some time to go before making real progress.

“Good work for one session. You might finish about 75% of it before it's time to go to the academy. I'm proud of you, little brother,”

she said as she placed the cube back in his hands.

“I'm heading back to my room to change now. You should rest a bit until breakfast. Your body needs to replenish the mana you used during training.”

Deon nodded, his gaze fixed on the blue lines on the cube as if seeing them for the first time.

Vierina left him to his thoughts and headed toward the door.

She opened it. yet before leaving, she called back to him.

“baby brother…”

A wide, unsettling smile spread across her face.

“Don’t have any devious thoughts, okay?”

With that, she quickly left the room, closing the door behind her.

Left alone in the room, Deon stared at the door, his expression blank.

‘And here I thought I was capable of handling her.’

‘She's a force of nature, a truly devious force.’