Daniel
Daniel reclined on the cushioned stone bench beneath the open-air canopy, one leg stretched out, arms folded behind his head. The night air was cool, tinged with lotus and charged silence. Soft lanterns glowed overhead, painting the walls in shifting gold.
He should've felt on edge.
His bride had just left to visit another man on their wedding night. No warning. No apology. Just a nod and a conflicted look she couldn't quite hide.
Daniel wasn't bothered.
He was thinking through the scene like a screenwriter.
Let's see: a girl with ice in her voice and pressure in her blood goes to visit the one man who's always "understood" her—most likely in some off-the-books healing clinic. The white moonlight, frail and gentle, says something poetic about how she deserves more. Maybe how he almost died when he heard the news.
Then he reaches for her hand.
They share a moment. How lovely. How tender.
And Daniel?
He sits here and lets her go.
Because that's what rattles the pattern. That's what she won't expect.
No protest? No jealousy? No speech about honor?
He could almost hear her thinking it.
"She expected the wounded husband routine," he muttered. "For me to clamp down. Be jealous and possessive."
"And you gave her nothing," Ethan added dryly. "Which I'm still not sure was the smartest play."
Daniel smiled without opening his eyes. "It was the honest one. She needs to see I'm aiming for a different dynamic."
"That's definitely one way to make your marriage start off on a strange foot."
"Strange, yes," Daniel said. "And unpredictable."
He let the silence settle again, breathing deep. The air was charged in this estate. Not just with mana—though that was thick here, woven through every support beam and terrace tile—but with tension. Watching. Waiting. Everyone wondering what kind of man the Li heir had just married.
He opened his eyes slowly and stared up at the moonlight rippling through the dome above.
"Back in my world," he said, "marrying into your spouse's family came with a long list of expectations. And usually, it was the wife who made the return visit. Served tea. Showed respect. Played the part."
"It's not that different here," Ethan said. "Except when it is."
Daniel gave a soft laugh. "Helpful."
"It's not unheard of for men to marry into the wife's house," Ethan added. "Especially for political alliances. But let's not pretend it's exactly respected."
Daniel nodded slowly.
"So what's expected of me?"
"Depends on the house," Ethan said. "Smaller clans stick to imperial tradition. Bigger ones—like the Lis—make their own rules. And this house?"
Daniel already knew the answer.
"Second only to the imperial family."
"And just as proud."
Daniel glanced toward the outer corridor.
"If I were the bride, I'd be kneeling right now. Pouring tea. Making polite conversation. Proving I knew my place."
"But you're the husband."
Daniel's mouth twisted. "Which means I sit here and wait. Quietly. Dignified. Like I'm not just guessing how this works."
Ethan paused, voice low.
"They won't say anything."
"Because they don't care?"
"Because they're watching to see if you figure it out."
Daniel sat up, rolled his shoulders, and let his gaze drift toward the rack of ceremonial objects against the far wall—robes, scrolls, incense tools. All unused.
"Any guesses?" he asked.
"You married into a warrior family," Ethan said plainly. "They're going to expect you to fight."
Daniel blinked. Then grinned.
"Really?" he said. "Now that... I can work with."
He stood and walked barefoot across the smooth stone floor to the open training platform just beyond the doors. It was wide, unlit except by moonlight and the faint hum of mana channels carved into the tiles. The wind up here was steady, cooling. Familiar in a way he hadn't expected.
He dropped to a seated position in the center, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply.
It was time to figure out what this body could do.
He wasn't starting from scratch.
Back home—back in his world—he'd trained for most of his life. Martial arts, yes, but more than that. Meditation. Breathwork. Control. A lifetime of sharpening awareness until movement became instinct and stillness became power.
And now... that instinct met something new.
Mana.
It wasn't subtle.
It was there, pulsing just beneath the surface of his skin like a slow-burning current. Not aggressive. Not wild. But powerful in the way of an ocean—quiet, heavy, and impossibly vast.
He focused on it.
Listened.
And felt it move.
Like light filtering through a closed eyelid, it threaded through his core, down his arms, into the soles of his feet. Every part of him hummed with potential—not foreign, not borrowed. Just... waiting.
He guided it.
Not with force, but with thought.
Breathe in. Gather. Breathe out. Direct.
His mana responded—slowly at first, then eagerly—like a long-unused instrument being tuned to the right pitch. It moved through his meridians, subtle channels buried deep in muscle and bone, shaped by generations of inheritance and instinct.
There. A tangle in his left shoulder. He pulsed mana into it gently, scraping through like a current through sand. The blockage broke. Energy flowed.
There. A sluggish line near his diaphragm. He thinned the mana, pulled it taut, and threaded it through with precision. The line cleared. His breath deepened.
He smiled.
This body was new, but the mind behind it had decades of training.
And now?
It was all coming together. Daniel let the mana move through him, his breath deepening as the tension melted from his shoulders, his spine aligning naturally. Every breath was a wave; every exhale, a draw of power moving into stillness. The body hummed with quiet readiness—not bloated strength, but finely tuned responsiveness.
He shifted focus downward.
His legs—longer now, leaner—carried stored tension from hours of formality and posture. With a precise push, he guided mana through his calves, into the soles of his feet. Heat bloomed there—not burning, but alive.
Then came the awareness.
Muscle by muscle, fiber by fiber.
He could feel it all.
Not just blood flow and breath and posture, but how mana nested into connective tissue, how it coiled behind joints and pooled in the lower dantian just beneath his navel. It was… extraordinary. Like discovering you'd always been walking with a limp and suddenly learning what balance really was.
Ethan's voice crept in, cautious. "You're adjusting faster than I expected."
Daniel didn't answer immediately. He brought his hands together—one palm hovering just above the other, suspended in air—and began rotating them slowly, letting mana spiral between them. It formed into a tight helix, pure and dense, hovering like a spinning coin of heat and light.
"I've done breathwork and muscle tuning since I was a teenager," he said calmly. "Now I've got a superconductor feeding it."
He expanded the helix. Let it hover. Then compressed it into a ball, then a needle. Then nothing.
The control came easily now.
Not because the body remembered.
But because he did.
"Let's see what you can do with movement," Ethan murmured.
Daniel stood fluidly. Not a motion wasted.
He stepped into a wide stance, one palm up, the other down, and began shifting weight across his center line, testing responsiveness. Every movement rippled with refined strength—his limbs were lighter, but not weaker. Mana amplified them from beneath the skin, enhancing output without sacrificing control.
He kicked.
Just once.
A sharp, low arc that ended with his foot cracking the edge of a training post embedded into the far side of the platform. The stone splintered down the middle.
Daniel blinked.
"That wasn't full strength," he murmured.
"No," Ethan replied. "That was just... awareness."
He dropped into a lower stance, turning slowly through a familiar martial form—one he hadn't performed in years. His body adapted with him, joints aligning without resistance, core rotating like an engine of flesh and light.
Strike. Spiral. Shift. Block.
He moved as if he'd trained in this form for decades.
And maybe, now, he had.
Mana streamed through his tendons like liquid glass—clear, efficient, charged.
He was cleaning as he moved, refining. The impurities in his meridians scraped away with every pass of flow. No explosions, no dramatic breakthroughs. Just clarity. Layer by layer.
And with every step, every breath, every beat of internal rhythm—
He owned it more.
Not just the body.
The threat it posed.
He came to stillness half an hour later, pulse steady, lungs calm, skin faintly luminescent with internal mana glow.
He didn't collapse. Didn't even sweat.
The air shimmered faintly around him—not from heat, but from ambient pressure.
Like the world had adjusted its opinion of him without being told to.
Daniel sat down again and let the stillness settle.
"Alright," he whispered to himself. "So they expect a test."
"They expect you to fail," Ethan said.
Daniel smiled faintly.
"Then they're going to be disappointed."
His mind wandered for a moment—to the morning. To the ceremonial expectations. To whatever weapon they might place in his hand just to see him struggle. And then he remembered Vivian.
Not her leaving.
But how she looked back.
She didn't expect him to pass, either.
And now... a very quiet part of him hoped she would be watching.
Because he was about to show her just how badly they'd miscalculated.