The midnight sky outside the grand mansion was a deep and flawless black, and the heavy silence of the estate was only broken by the distant, rhythmic footsteps of the patrolling guards.
Fainyx lay in his massive, overly cushioned bed and waited with his eyes wide open, his breathing slow and measured while he listened to the quiet breathing of his brothers from down the hall.
Adam and Liam had finally succumbed to their absolute exhaustion and had been practically dragged to their own rooms by the head butler, leaving Fainyx alone in the dark for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
A soft scraping sound came from the heavy glass window, and a moment later, the latch clicked open without a single trace of mana being felt.
The window swung inward, and Master Yong slipped into the bedroom with the silent, casual grace of a shadow, his boots making absolutely no sound as they touched the thick carpet.
Yong stood up and brushed an invisible speck of dust from his dark coat, his black hair catching the faint moonlight that spilled into the room, and his black eyes immediately locked onto Fainyx, who was sitting up against the pillows with a perfectly flat and unimpressed expression.
"I must say, breaking into my own student's bedroom is not exactly how I envisioned my teaching career," Yong whispered, his voice carrying a rich and deep amusement as he walked over to the edge of the bed.
"But considering you are currently the most heavily guarded three-year-old in the entire kingdom, I suppose I have no choice."
Fainyx reached for his notebook on the nightstand and picked up his charcoal pencil, the faint scratching sound filling the quiet air.
[ You could have used the door. Everyone else does. ]
Yong read the note and let out a quiet, muffled snort of laughter, shaking his head. "And ruin my reputation as a mysterious master? Never. Besides, if your father catches me in here after he explicitly ordered strict bed rest, he might actually try to fight me, and I would hate to ruin the drawing room twice in one day."
Fainyx glared at him internally and thought, 'You are enjoying this entirely too much. My peaceful life is in ruins, and you are treating it like a late-night comedy show.'
"Anyway, I came to keep my promise and also Ruth wont come today since he's busy." Yong said, dropping the playful tone and settling into a slightly more serious demeanor, though the smirk never truly left his lips.
"Ruth's medicine is going to keep violently expelling the dead mana and the illness from your system, which means you are going to be coughing up more blood. If your family sees it again, they might actually die of a collective heart attack. So, I am going to teach you a highly advanced vanishing spell."
Yong raised his hand, and Fainyx felt a sudden, incredibly precise shift in the ambient mana of the room. Yong did not chant, and he did not draw a magic circle. He simply gathered a tiny, condensed bead of wind and water magic at his fingertip, compressing it until it felt sharp and hungry.
"This is not a simple cleaning spell," Yong explained in a low whisper. "A cleaning spell just moves the dirt away. This spell completely breaks down the physical structure of the liquid and erases it from existence. Watch closely."
Yong flicked his finger toward a tiny, forgotten drop of dried blood on the edge of Fainyx's wooden nightstand. The bead of mana hit the stain and silently expanded into a miniature, localized vortex that lasted for only a fraction of a second. When the mana dissipated, the blood was entirely gone, leaving the wood perfectly polished and untouched.
Fainyx watched the demonstration with his crystalline violet eyes, instantly analyzing the flow and the compression of the spell. It was a brilliant and highly efficient use of mana, and he immediately replicated the feeling within his own mana core. He raised his small hand, formed the exact same compressed bead of magic, and flicked it at a speck of dust on his blanket. The dust vanished completely without a sound.
Yong blinked, his black eyes widening just a fraction before he let out a low whistle. "You really are a monster, you know that? It took me three months to master that structural breakdown when I was a young."
[ I am a fast learner. ] Fainyx wrote, his face remaining perfectly neutral. [ That's the only thing you will teach me today? If it is, please leave so I can sleep. ]
"Heartless," Yong chuckled, stepping back toward the window. "Remember, use it the second you feel the cough coming. Good luck with your overprotective guards tomorrow, young master."
With a final, mocking salute, Yong slipped backward out the window, pulling the glass shut behind him and vanishing into the night.
Fainyx let out a long, quiet breath and immediately threw the heavy blankets off his legs. He did not have time to sleep yet, because there was a pressing matter on his windowsill that needed his immediate attention. He walked over to the window and carefully dropped the illusion spell he had maintained all afternoon, revealing the ceramic pot.
The Aetherium apple seed had grown even taller in the past few hours. The thick green stem was now the size of a small sapling, and its leaves were glowing with a bright, magical luminescence that practically screamed for unwanted attention.
Fainyx placed his hands on the sides of the pot and tapped into his deep mana core, pulling the fabric of space apart with a silent and masterful tug. The air rippled like disturbed water, and he stepped through the portal, leaving the dark bedroom behind.
The Aetherium greeted him with a wave of rich, pure energy that made his skin tingle and his lungs expand. He looked around and noticed immediately that the dimension had changed again.
The air felt significantly thicker, buzzing with a vibrant life force, and the boundaries of the pocket world seemed to have pushed even further back into the hazy distance.
He walked across the soft, glowing grass until he reached the patch of rich soil near his small cottage where the Kalmia flowers were planted.
He set the ceramic pot down, carefully dug a hole in the earth, and transferred the magical apple sapling from the pot into the ground of the Aetherium.
The moment the roots touched the deep soil of the dimension, the sapling shuddered, and a wave of pure mana pulsed outward from its leaves. Fainyx realized then that his private world was reacting directly to the magical plants he was introducing to it.
The Kalmia and the apple tree were not just surviving, they were actively enriching the Aetherium, feeding the environment with their own unique energies and accelerating the growth of the entire dimension.
'This place is becoming too real,' Fainyx thought, looking out over the winding river and the vast, expanding lands. 'If I am not careful, I might accidentally create an entire new continent.'
He stood there in the peaceful silence for a long time, simply breathing in the clean air and admiring the glowing plants, before he finally turned around and stepped back through the portal, sealing it shut behind him.
He climbed back into his bed, pulled the covers up to his chin, and finally let himself drift into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The peace, of course, did not last.
****
The moment the sun began to peek over the horizon, painting the sky in soft shades of pink and gold, the heavy oak door to his bedroom swung open, and Adam and Liam marched inside with the determined expressions of soldiers going into battle.
"Good morning, Fainyx," Adam said, his voice completely devoid of its usual calm as he carried a stack of fresh, warm towels and a basin of water to the bedside.
"Did you sleep well? Are you in any pain? Do you need the physician?"
"I brought your breakfast!" Liam announced, carefully carrying a large silver tray loaded with soft bread, warm porridge, and a cup of expensive tea.
He set the tray down on Fainyx's lap and immediately sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes scanning Fainyx's face for any sign of discomfort or bleeding.
Fainyx sat up and looked at his brothers, his face a perfect mask of neutrality, but inside, a massive and exhausted headache was already beginning to form behind his eyes. It was barely dawn, and he was already suffocating under the weight of their desperate attention.
He picked up his spoon and ate a few bites of the porridge, the warm food tasting like ash in his mouth because of the sheer intensity of Liam's staring. Every time Fainyx swallowed, Liam leaned forward as if expecting Fainyx to suddenly collapse. Adam, meanwhile, was standing by the window, adjusting the curtains perfectly so that the light would not be too harsh on Fainyx's eyes.
'I cannot live like this,' Fainyx thought, his internal sigh feeling heavier than ever. 'They love me, and I understand they are terrified because of the secret, but if they hover over me every single second of the day, I am going to lose my mind.'
He put his spoon down on the silver tray and reached for his notebook. He needed to establish boundaries, and he needed to do it immediately, before his entire life became a supervised prison sentence.
He picked up his charcoal pencil and wrote carefully, making sure his handwriting was neat and clear.
[ Thank you for the food. But I am very tired from all the fussing. ]
He held the notebook up. Adam stopped adjusting the curtains and turned around, and Liam leaned in to read the words, his face instantly falling into a mask of pure guilt.
Fainyx didn't let them speak.
He flipped the page and wrote another line, tapping the paper firmly with his small finger.
[ I need quiet reading time. Please just sit and read with me. No more hovering. ]
Liam looked at Adam, his lower lip trembling slightly, completely unsure of what to do. Adam looked at the notebook, and then he looked at Fainyx's clear, violet eyes, and he slowly let out a long breath, the tension in his shoulders finally dropping just a fraction.
"He is right, Liam," Adam said softly, walking over and resting a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. "The physician said he needs to rest, and our constant worrying is only going to exhaust him more. We need to be calm and composed for him."
Liam sniffled softly and nodded, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "Okay! Quiet reading time."
Adam pulled a chair over to the side of the room, and Liam sat cross-legged on the carpet at the foot of the bed. They both opened their books, the room finally settling into a soft and heavy silence, broken only by the sound of turning pages.
Fainyx leaned back against his mountain of pillows, his face perfectly composed and blank, but internally he was doing a quiet victory lap.
He picked up his own book and opened it, letting the peaceful atmosphere wash over him, and he thought that perhaps, with enough firm boundaries and a few well-timed vanishing spells, he could still manage to carve out a lazy life in the middle of all this chaos.