The sun-dappled breeze of Skycloud Academy swept gently through the open-air atrium, gliding across polished white stone and lacquered pillars etched with flowing golden script. It was quiet now, a stillness that rarely visited the academy's heart, broken only by the distant hum of lectures echoing through marble halls. Amid this serenity sat a young man, poised at a carved wooden desk that looked out onto a blooming garden of starlily and moongrass.
Neo.
His hair was a cascade of silver-gray, seemingly kissed by starlight, and his eyes matched the ashen hue—gray like smoldering clouds before a storm. The sunlight caught faint glimmers in his irises as he stared forward, unmoving, his fingers absently brushing the jade pendant at his chest. It was smooth, cold, and green as forested dusk—a keepsake he never removed. Today, as every day, the weight of it was not physical, but emotional. A fragment of a past wrapped in shadows.
As his thumb circled the surface of the pendant, memory overtook him.
---
He was twelve, standing just outside the orphanage gate. The air had been thick with summer dust. Elra, the orphanage headmistress and the closest thing he'd ever known to a parent, had leaned against the doorway, arms folded. Her dark robes fluttered faintly, her eyes glassy with unspoken sorrow.
"You're leaving for the academy soon," she had said, her voice a mixture of pride and sadness. "You deserve this chance, Neo. You've earned it ten times over."
He had nodded, his face unreadable. "Before I go, please… one more time. Tell me about them."
Elra's gaze lowered, then drifted to the jade pendant. "I've told you all I know," she said, more softly now. "You were only a baby. Left on our steps, bundled in linen, this pendant clutched in your fist so tightly we couldn't pry it out for a day. No name. No note. Just that."
Neo had looked down at the stone resting against his collarbone. "But someone must've left me for a reason."
"There are always reasons," she said, her eyes welling, "but not all of them are fair. Some are cruel. Some are cowardly. But I'll tell you this—" she gripped his shoulders gently "—whatever they took from you, you've more than filled that space with your own strength."
"Strength isn't enough," he murmured.
"It never is," she agreed. "That's why you must learn what to do with it."
That was the last they had spoken before he left for Skycloud.
---
The memory faded, and Neo returned to the present. His hand remained over the pendant. His other hand lifted to shield his eyes as he looked skyward, through the open archways that crowned the academy's ceilings.
There, like eternal gods watching from on high, burned the Three Suns.
Martial Sun, crimson and surging like a warrior's heartbeat. Mystic Sun, sapphire and cold like a hidden river beneath ice. Mega Sun, golden and slow, heavy with ancient wisdom.
All three shone above in perfect synchrony, locked in eternal rotation across the heavens. From each, trails of esoteric script streamed downward—visible only to those born under their light. These were the Heavenly Texts: semi-visible lattices of arcane meaning that laced the skies in endless formation. To most, they were like riddles half-spoken, always shifting, dancing on the edge of comprehension. Yet to Neo, they had always made a strange kind of sense.
He blinked as the light of the suns momentarily blinded him, a blinding flash that anyone in the realm would flinch from. But as his eyes adjusted, he saw the texts begin to form again. The volumes shimmered across the air like flowing rivers of script:
Martial Sky. Mystic Sky. Mega Sky.
Each title pulsed with invisible weight, speaking of boundless martial force, spiritual depth, and conceptual enormity.
But then came the anomaly.
Crimson veined patterns began to pulse at the edges of the script. Unnatural, foreign, tendrils of red that twisted and coiled like something alive. They weaved through the sacred volumes, not disrupting the words but staining their meaning. To most, such a sight would be madness. But Neo did not flinch.
He simply observed, just as he had for five long years since the age of twelve—when he had first seen the script take shape and the red patterns emerge. Back then, the sight had left him screaming, delirious for days. Now, it was different.
He understood it, not in logic or language, but in feeling. Like a man chasing the edge of a dream he could not name. He did not give in to the fevered whispers it conjured in the back of his mind. Instead, he sat straighter. He breathed slowly. He held himself in restraint—
A restraint he had built deliberately.
Bit by bit, he had learned to lock away the manic clarity that would surface when the Heavenly Texts revealed their depth. It was brilliance, yes—but laced with something unhinged, something that threatened to consume him. So he had built a wall around it, meditated daily to tighten the lock, and held to reason with sheer will.
And once again, as the patterns coiled and tried to seep deeper into his mind, Neo forced himself to look away. He exhaled. He closed his eyes. He meditated. The ritual was his own, crafted from countless nights of trial and error. Anchor yourself. Be still. Remember who you are.
When he stood, his body moved with graceful composure, his Academy uniform pristine, the symbol of a scholarship student on his sleeve. As he stepped through the grand halls of Skycloud, a few passing students raised their hands in greeting.
"Morning, Scholar Neo."
"Did you finish the Stellar Theorem revision already?"
"You really aced that lecture yesterday. I couldn't follow half of it."
He smiled politely, offered soft nods. They respected him—not for brute strength or bloodline, but for what he had built with his mind. Yet their admiration was casual. Friendly. Neo had no illusions that he was beloved by all. He was sharp, relentless in his work, and often too quiet for most to fully understand. But they knew where he belonged.
Still, not everyone had welcomed his rise.
As he passed the marble threshold toward the eastern spire, Neo's eyes lifted once again to the sky, the afterimage of those sacred volumes still lingering in his vision.
Unbeknownst to most, his arrival at Skycloud had stirred envy. Not everyone rejoiced when an orphan boy from the provinces rose through sheer will and intellect. Among those who smiled at him, some held daggers behind their teeth.