Currently Solstice was sat down being interrogated by Bela and Ariel.

“What do you mean you heard Victor? You shouldn’t be able to sustain him yet.” Said Ariel while examining Solstice.

“I don’t know what to tell you, after Bela did what she did I could see him after I woke up. He didn’t stay long but I can still hear him.” Shrugged Solstice, he couldn’t see the issue right now.

“Son, that means you have mana. Which shouldn’t be possible.” Exclaimed Ariel.

“Bela, repeat to me what you did when you infused Victor with him.”

Bela proceeded to explain what she did, none of it seemed out of the ordinary, many people send mana to kids and nothing like this happens. Not many people could affect souls though. Bela arguably had the best understanding of souls in Aevis so something like this could happen.

“I bet that idiot Victor knew something like this would happen. I think by damaging his soul and infusing mana at the same time, we did something to his physiology that advanced his body to allow this. But as far as the seal goes, I have no idea.” Said Bela. If what she said was true, Solstice would become the first 10-year-old to ever have mana. Many people liked the train mana as much as they could before 21 because the years prior to it were the years you could see the most improvement. Essentially Solstice just got a bonus for a few years to grow his potential. When Ariel thought of this, she could only smirk. Her son had done something never before seen, again. She looked at her son and could only smile, with these extra years he could be the strongest in his generation and it wouldn’t come even close. He had the physique of a dragon which was pure and unadulterated power, and the agility of an Elf. Not to mention both races are especially gifted with mana. If Tyrion and his son thought Solstice was a monstrosity back when they met him then, they would puke blood now.

“Solstice, I need you to sit still for a minute and let me inspect your body.” Said Ariel. So, Solstice sat still and let his mom check his body. Ariel began to probe his body and after a few minutes stopped touching him and sat down.

“Okay so I can see you have a mana heart, albeit incredibly weak right now, but you still have one. I guess I’m going to have to get your dad here and explain what happened. We can discuss the seal on your other eye later. Let me do this alone, it may not be easy for him to understand the soul thing with Victor.” Ariel could only weakly smile at Bela and Solstice before making her way into the mountain range to find her husband.

——-2 hours later

All Solstice heard was a loud explosion. When he went outside, he saw one of the mountains that used to tower over the rest had completely vanished from existence. Seeing this sent shivers down his spine but shortly after he could hear a bellowing laughter coming from the remnants of the mountain which sounded an awful lot like his father.

—-1 hour later

Telarion arrived back at home with his wife and began to inspect his son. Telarion was initially mad that his friend couldn’t be put to rest after his hard work. But after hearing more he calmed down and realized it didn’t really affect Victor, the dude was a complete bum at heart and now all he gets to do is still experienced the world while lazing around. It’s a win-win situation for him so he got over it.

“Alright son, it’s time for the real training. You can’t tell anyone what’s happened here today, because if you do? You’re going to have a huge target on your back, even bigger than now. Are you ready to become a god damn prodigy?” Telarion said this while giving a smile that was many times bigger than the day Solstice was born. Ariel could only smile at this and walk away. Today was the day she had to go pick up the other mentor for her son since the dwarf decided to go search for special materials. She could tell the dwarf was going to go all out-teaching Solstice since it was a part of the favor, he owed Ariel and Telarion. While Telarion was dumping information on Solstice, Ariel opened a portal and disappeared.

Dragons and elves have a stronger sensitivity to mana, making them better innately at magic than other races. Because of this innate advantage though, the birth rates and number of elves and dragons was far fewer in number then let’s say humans. The ratio was almost 50 to 1 for humans to elves and around 50,000 to 1 for humans to dragons. The birth of Solstice was a miracle itself. There had been half breeds in the history of Aevis, but never a breed crossed with a dragon.

Dragons were one of the strongest existences in Aevis, and the thing that made them so strong was how they were able to essentially upgrade mana to something called aether. Aether is basically mana but has a way higher purity. The purity of mana affects how strong something is, so if a person made a fireball while a dragon made a fireball, and both used the same amount of mana and aether, the dragon would win every single time. The differences between a mana heart and an aether heart were like heaven and earth.

What made Solstice such a disgusting existence was the fact that he had two hearts, one for aether and one for mana. He hasn’t awakened his aether heart yet, but he had a mana heart currently.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Alright son, it’s time to take a step up with your training. Only rule is you can’t tell anyone you have mana yet, or the big ass target on your back is going to get even bigger. Got it?” Said Telarion with a thumbs up.

Little did Solstice know; his father was more excited for this than he was. He hated holding back so much all this time, so he could finally slowly start to let loose on his son, safely of course…

“Your mom said something about Victor, so can I inspect your eye?” Asked Telarion curiously, he had a rough understanding of his best friend's ability, but that's something Victor himself is going to have to teach him.

Solstice walked forward and showed his eye that had a white ring around it. Telarion looked at it and saw it kind of resembled Victors, but his eye was almost pure white from all the rings he had.

“It looks like the eye can evolve down the line, which I'm assuming Victor worked hard on. Only thing he ever worked hard on I bet.” Said Telarion as he remembered how fast his friend picked up on weapon styles and martial arts.

“Soooooo, did Victor leave a manual for that eye or what?”

All Solstice could do was shrug, then inside his head he heard Victor, “Just start fighting.”

“Victor said to fight, so I guess we’ll find out?” Shrugged Solstice.

“What type of weapon do you want to focus on today?

“I was really hoping on my custom weapon Darius was going to make bu-” Before Solstice could finish his sentence, he saw his mother accompanied by a dwarf with a long white beard and short hair braided in the back.

“Darius is back finally!” Yelled Solstice.

“Of course, I am, I had to go to some special places to get the materials for a potion and your weapon. I got to say, this weapon was a pain in the ass to make but it's worth it. I'm going to need some blood to bind it though.” Said Darius as he revealed the weapon from his storage ring.

It was something in the shape of a longbow, around 4 feet long, only the middle had a grip to hold though, the grip was big enough to fit both hands side by side while the rest was an incredibly sharp metal. It was basically a war glaive that doubled as a bow.

Solstice wanted to use a bow initially since he had elven blood inside him but with his power having dragon blood flowing through him, he felt it would be a waste, and because of these two conflicts, this custom-made war glaive was born.

“That weapon of yours is pretty special, probably the second-best thing I've ever made honestly. Next to Victor's great sword that is.” Said Darius pulling out a great sword that had seen better days. The blade itself was pure black and had many chips in it, and the handle was incredibly worn, you could see the grooves in the handle from Victor using it in his final battle.

Both of these weapons were the best of his work. Darius used to be the king of dwarves but after the massacre he stepped down to focus on his passion of crafting, leaving his son to take over his kingdom. Darius was a true craftsman at heart, he had dabbled in everything, alchemy, blacksmithing, leatherworking, artisan, and most recently rune smithing. He was at a very high level in each profession making him an important asset to the world itself.

“So, I heard Victor is fused with ya? Take this and let's see what happens.” Darius said while handing the great sword over.

As Solstice grabbed it, the weapon began to grow smaller and become a perfect fit for Solstice. Weapons like this are soul bound, which means it'll only function within the hands of someone who is bound to it, soulbound weapons can only have one owner, and that one owner can summon it at will wherever they’re, and it’ll resize itself to fit its host.

When Solstice began to swing it around, it felt like it had always been a part of him, and the weight felt perfect for him, for it being a great sword that is.

“Can’t believe my baby is going to be used by your inexperienced hands, i might throw up seeing you swing her around.” Victor was lazy, but when it came to martial arts. He cared a great deal about it, and refused to accept anything other than perfection, internally seeing Solstice hold his baby? It pained him greatly to say the least.

“Personally speaking, I think you should train with the great sword first, whatever the hell you plan to do with that war glaive is something that’ll take time to create a style that works for you. Short term it isn’t a good idea, you have me and Victor to teach you about the great sword.” Said Telarion, he knew a good deal about great swords after fighting Victor for years. Maybe with his experience and Victors combined, Solstice could top the two of them.

Solstice couldn't really argue with his father, so he nodded and had Darius put his weapon away so he could focus on this huge great sword. While they all were conversing in the yard, Shael finally returned from the dimension she had been tasked to watch over.

This was the very dimension the leftover people from the invading army years back were trapped in. Shael had appointed a handful of people to help manage it since it was too big for one person. For her, she was gone for a few years, but for Solstice and the others. It had only been a few months, time moved much faster in the sealed dimension thanks to Ariel, she had hoped that by increasing time in the dimension, the sealed soldiers would hopefully die out before it began to wane and allow some soldiers to escape back into Aevis. Little was known about the invaders, but one thing they all knew was each had a deep understanding of their weapons, and the technology they had was something Aevis couldn't hope to compete with. The biggest flaw with the invaders? Only an incredibly small percentage of them had mana from what interactions they had. They only met two with mana during the invasion, one was the main who slaughtered thousands of people while only losing his arm, while the other was unlucky and was sealed away in the dimension. The thought of two people being at the same level as the swordsman who killed Victor. It would send shivers down anyone's spine, but the worst was barely avoided thanks to another sacrifice before the invasion even started. This sacrifice was none other than the 3rd sister of Ariel and Shael, Estel. But the story behind is for another day.