The early morning air was crisp and heavy with the scent of wet soil as it had rained last night.

  Kaelen stood in the middle of a vast, barren training ground behind the mage’s tower.

  The sun barely crept over the horizon, painting the sky in vibrant hues of orange and yellow. It cast shadows across the jagged stones and trees that surrounded the training ground.

  Kaelen’s muscles ached from the previous day but he couldn’t complain since the old mage had threatened to turn him into a frog.

  ‘I am sure he will turn me into one if I don’t do as he says.’ He thought, ‘Complaints are a luxury I can’t afford.’

  The old mage stood a few feet away from him. With his arms folded behind his back, he kept an eye on Kaelen, observing his form.

  Kaelen glanced at the old mage and thought, ‘Why does this old bastard have an eerie smile on his face today? Does he have something up his sleeve for me?’

  “If you have had enough of staring at me, then you may begin.”, The old mage said knowingly.

  Kaelen coughed in embarrasement and averted his eyes while replying, “O-Of course!”

  He narrowed his eyes at the huge boulder before him and gulped nervously.

  “Your task for now is to lift this boulder.”, The old mage ordered him, “You won’t stop until you successfully complete the task.”

  “W-What?! Lift the boulder?!”, Kaelen murmured in shock and thought, ‘It’s impossible! I have never even been able to lift a sack of potatoes and this old fool wants me to lift this giant boulder.’

  “What are you gawking at, boy?”

  The old mage’s voice shook Kaelen out of his reverie and he hesitantly grabbed the boulder. It was so big and wide that he seemed like a small boy before it.

  “Now, lift!”

  Kaelen closed his eyes and pressed his palms on the boulder. Using whatever strength he had left inside him, he tried to do as the old mage ordered him.

  A few seconds passed but the stone remained firmly in place.

  Kaelen let go of the boulder and stepped back, panting in exhaustion.

  “Again.”, The old mage said monotonously.

  Kaelen took a deep breath and tried to lift the boulder again only to fail… again.

  “Again.”

  Once more, he tried and failed.

  “Again.”

  Fail.

  “Again.”

  Fail.

  “Again.”

  Fail.

  This continued quite a few more times until Kaelen finally had enough and plopped on the wet soil.

  The old mage shook his head in disappointment and said, “You’re not trying.”

  Kaelen shot him a glare and replied, “I am trying!”

  “Trying? You call this- trying?”, The old mage laughed sarcastically and continued, “I’ve seen drunks putting more effect into standing upright than you trying to lift this rock.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Is that so?”, Kaelen said angrily and got up. He grabbed the boulder and shouted in anger as he tried to lift the boulder, “Aaaaaah!”

  The wind around him stirred and for a flicker of a moment, the stone trembled but just as quickly, the sensation faded.

  “Pathetic!”, The old mage commented.

  The word pierced through Kaelen like a knife. He let go of the boulder, spun around and shouted at the old mage in anger, “You think it’s easy, don’t you? It must be fun with you just standing there, watching me fail over and over again.”

  “I never said it would be easy.” The old mage said as he stepped closer to him. With a sharp tone in his voice, he continued, “Power—real power—requires more than blind effort. It demands will. Focus. And you have neither.”

  “Wha-?”, Kaelen stepped back as the weight of the mage’s words pressed against his chest.

  “I-I… I’m not like you. I’m not like the others. I’m… nothing. I’m weak.”, Kaelen muttered as tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

  With a disgusted look on the old mage’s face, he said, “What did you call yourself? Weak? Is this what you whisper to yourself when no one is listening? Do you wallow in it? Tell me—when you stare into the dark, does calling yourself weak make the pain easier to bear?”

  Kaelen clenched his fists and he murmured in a low voice, “I’ve been weak my whole life. No over has ever given me a chance—not my village, not the world.”

  He continued as his voice cracked filled with years of resentment and loneliness, “And now you want me to believe I’m something more? Like my whole life has been nothing but a lie? Why? What’s the point?”

  The old mage took another step forward and asked coldly, “Why? You dare to ask me why? Do you have the slightest clue of who you truly are?!”

  “U-Uh… a human?”, Kaelen asked in confusion.

  “Haha!”, The old mage laughed and asked, “You? You think you’re human?”

  Kaelen blinked, momentarily stunned and asked, “I—what else would I be?”

  “Hahaha!”, The old mage laughed even harder.

  After he had his fill of laughter, the old mage pointed at his horns and said, “Are you an idiot? You say that to yourself every night when you go to sleep? That you’re ‘just’ human? With those horns on your head? With the demon blood that runs in your veins?”

  Kaelen’s hands trembled as anger fought with confusion and he murmured. “I-I don’t know what I am.”

  The old mage jabbed a finger at his chest and shouted angrily, “Then stop lying to yourself! You are stronger than a human! Faster! More resilient! You survived things whhere others would have killed themselves. Do you think that’s mere chance?”

  Kaelen’s breath hitched as those words crashed against his carefully built defenses and he thought, ‘H-He’s not wrong… isn’t he?

  The old mage didn’t relent and continued, “What I see before me is a coward—a boy who would rather cling to the scraps of his ‘humanity’ than embrace the power running through his veins. You could burn cities to ash, split apart the heavens, and yet you crawl like a worm.”

  Tears rolled down Kaelen’s cheeks as he shouted back at the old man, “Why do you even care? Why don’t you just give up on me like everyone else?”

  The old mage’s expression softened—just barely and he sighed. He tapped Kaelen’s shoulders and said, “Because I see what you could become.”

  Kaelen stared at him as he thought, ‘W-What does he mean?’

  “So? You think you’re nothing? That you’re broken beyond repair?” The old mage shook his head. “No! You are potential unfulfilled! A spark waiting to ignite!”

  Kaelen swallowed the lump in his throat and thought, ‘A potential? Me?’

  The old mage smiled slightly as he took a step back and said, “Pain is your teacher. Rage is your fuel. But if you let them define you—if you let fear hold you back—you will remain nothing. Or…”

  He gestured toward the stone and said, “You rise. You claim your birthright.”

  Kaelen’s heart pounded in his chest, torn between the truth he had accepted for years and the impossible hope the old mage offered. He stared at the wet soil for a long moment until… he asked, “W-What if I fail again?”

  The old mage smiled—a glimmer of warmth in his sharp features and he said, “Then you fail. And you try again. You don’t stop. Not until the world trembles before you.”

  Kaelen exhaled slowly and turned back to the huge boulder.

  He closed his eyes and reached—not just with anger, but with everything he had buried deep inside.

  The pain of being cast out. The nights spent cold and alone. The endless hunger clawing at his gut.

  And beneath it all—the need to be more.

  A pulse surged through his veins. Heat coiled in his chest, like an ember catching flame.

  The ground trembled beneath his feet.

  Kaelen’s eyes snapped open, glowing faintly red as his fingers dug into the boulder.

  The boulder rose, slowly, steadily until it floated a feet above the ground.

  “Aaah!”, Kaelen roared in triumph as he slammed the boulder back onto the ground.

  With a huge boom, the boulder landed on the ground.

  Kaelen staggered back and before he could fall, the old mage caught him by his shoulders with a wide smile on his face, “There you go! Good job, Kaelen!”

  Kaelen smiled happily and thought, ‘I… did it.’