THE VEILED MASTER

CHAPTER ONE: THE BOY IN THE ALLEY

The rain fell hard over Nyron City, slicking the pavement in a cold shimmer as neon signs flickered overhead. Beneath one of them, a broken red cross that once marked a local pharmacy. Kael Vale crouched beside a dumpster, clutching a cloth wrapped bundle of herbs to his chest.

His shift at the clinic had ended hours ago. Not that anyone cared. The other apprentices treated him like a shadow good for scrubbing floors and fetching medicines, but nothing more.

He was "the charity case," the "orphan with no aura," the boy who'd failed every basic Qi detection test since he was seven. But tonight...something felt off.

The wind whistled down the alleyway, pushing Kael’s soaked hoodie tight against his skin. His breath misted. Lightning cracked once, then again. A deep thrum pulsed under the concrete like a heartbeat slow, rhythmic, unnatural. That was when he saw him.

A man lay sprawled in the alley, half submerged in garbage bags, chest rising faintly. His robes were tattered but strange stitched with metallic thread and humming with a faint light.

A sword lay beside him, too elegant to belong in this part of the city. Kael’s eyes widened. He hesitated, instinct screaming to run. But then the man coughed wet, blood soaked. Kael moved.

He pressed his hands against the man’s chest. No heartbeat. Shallow breathing. But what caught his eye wasn’t the wound, it was the swirling black aura leaking from the man’s chest like smoke, Qi so dense and corrupted it twisted the air.

"You're dying," Kael whispered. "But your Qi..." "Help... me..." the man rasped, eyes fluttering open. One hand shot out, gripping Kael’s wrist with terrifying strength.

And then the vision came. A burst of images exploded behind Kael’s eyes. Mountains made of fire. Storms trapped in crystal. A tree with roots in the stars. A beast made of thunder, chained and roaring. And a flame a hollow blue flame, burning in total silence. Then darkness.

Kael gasped, pulling back, nearly vomiting. His vision spun. "Wh-What did you". The man let go. His body trembled violently, and a strange seal glowed over his heart, pulsing once... then again... before flashing toward Kael’s chest.

A searing heat pierced Kael’s sternum like a blade. He screamed. The world spun sideways. He collapsed. When Kael woke, it was still raining.

But the man was gone. Only the sword remained lodged into the ground, its hilt faintly glowing. Kael's chest throbbed. He pulled his shirt aside and stared. A faint seal, glowing with blue fire, now burned over his heart.

Later That Night...

Kael sat alone in the backroom of the clinic, shirt off, breathing shallow. The seal hadn’t faded. And when he touched the sword, it vanished. Not disappeared, but entered him. Like it had become part of his blood.

He tried to ignore it, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Until the herbs he'd carried all day began to glow. Faint, but real. Kael picked one up and held it to a cut on his arm. The moment it touched his skin, the wound closed.

He stumbled back, staring at his palm. That was when the door creaked open. An old man with hollow eyes and tattered robes stepped inside. His presence warped the air, like a void swallowing noise.

He looked Kael up and down. “So,” he said, voice like dry leaves. “The Flame chose you.”

Kael backed up. “Who are you?” The man didn’t blink. “Your master. If you survive.” Kael unknowingly inherits a seal meant for a powerful martial healer. But the seal is incomplete… and cursed. His life is now the target of those who want it back.