Almost... Almost!

[Act 1: Coronation of the Sovereign has begun.]

He fixed his blank gaze at the ceiling. There were no stars on it. There was no face of a beautiful woman. There was nothing but just a normal ceiling. Still, he didn't remove his gaze for seven minutes.

But he wasn't actually staring at it, but recalling the words of the system in his mind. A full day had already passed, but he could still recall them vividly.

"Coronation…"

Slowly, he sat cross-legged on his bed and tapped his fingers against his knee with a rhythmic beat. 

Closing his eyes, he recalled the original content of the novel.

[Chapter 77: The Seventh Continent]

It was the official start of the first arc. The protagonist, Ciae Arventis, met his first ally, one of the prophesied figures destined to guide and protect him in the most clichéd way imaginable.

He was a boy, barely old enough to bear the weight of destiny, crossed paths with a woman shrouded in blood and frost who rose from the ashes of her own ruin.

Eden Hart.

She had been freshly banished and casted out like a blemish on their perfect legacy. The Hart family, infamous across the Seventh Continent as a lineage forged by sword.

Magic was heresy.

It wasn't just unnecessary. It was vile, an unforgivable stain on the purity of their bloodline. The mere suggestion of sorcery was enough to bring disgrace upon the family name.

But Eden wasn't just a swordsman. 

Though her talent in swordsmanship was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, and a miracle that should've solidified her place as the family's brightest star, it became her downfall.

Because she was also a frost mage.

"Begone, Eden Hart. The family does not shelter filth."

Weeks later after her banishment, she wandered the North wastelands with no purpose. 

She lost her dearest young brother. 

She lost the meaning of Hart in her name. 

She lost all reasons to wield her sword.

But then, her thoughts were interrupted by the faint scent of smoke. She froze and squinted her eyes as she scanned the pale horizon. A thin ribbon of black smoke coiled upward, cutting through the sky like a wound.

Her hand instinctively gripped the hilt of her sword. Before she realized it, her feet were already moving forward.

The village came into view not long after.

Or what used to be a village.

It was engulfed in flames. The fire devoured everything—timber, thatch, lives—as the smoke thickened and blotted out the weak sunlight. Dead bodies lay strewn across the ground. Blood seeped into the pure-white snow and spread like ink across parchment.

At the heart of it all, a boy stood. His back pressed hard against a crumbling wall, and his body riddled with wounds that painted him in streaks of red. Yet, he remained upright.

His gaze lifted and found Eden.

Seven could still remember the exact words the author used to describe that moment:

[As Ciae stood amidst the corpses, his eyes blazed with golden light. The winds of the North howled as he raised his hand, and the power of the Crowned Sovereign surged and claimed the world as his dominion.]

[The boy's lips parted, his voice hoarse and thin but carrying the weight of something far greater:]

["Are you one of them?"]

[And in that moment, Eden felt it—the overwhelming pressure, the crushing weight that only one person in the world had ever made her feel before. Her father.]

[She tightened her grip on her sword and answered, "I am not one of them."]

[The boy's gaze lingered for a beat longer, searching her face, before his legs gave way. He fell to the ground like a broken marionette.]

[The air shifted. A golden light began to twist above him, rising and forming into something. It condensed, and at last, the shape emerged.]

[A crown.]

[It hung above his head, resplendent and terrible, as if the world itself bowed to his presence.]

Seven frowned.

"That was the start of the first arc…"

The memory weighed on him. The story was already shifting, and its threads unraveled in ways he couldn't predict. If Eden wasn't cast out, would she even meet Ciae the same way? 

It all began with the head's grief—the loss of his precious seventh child, the original Seven. That loss had shattered him, warped his decisions, and drove him to cast Eden aside.

But now?

Now he was here. Seojin, the outsider. Seojin, who was now Seven. Alive and well.

"Will Father still banish her…?"

The question lingered. He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes to steady himself. Speculating would only pull him into useless spirals.

What mattered was preparation.

"I'm just a glorified extra tryna be a protagonist."

The bitter truth sat on his tongue. He couldn't let it end there. If Eden's path was shifting, then his was too. And if he wanted to survive—if he wanted to be more than a footnote in someone else's story—he couldn't stay weak.

He glanced at the system window.

[Protagonist's Progression: 1.7% / 100%]

"Still so far…"

Seven shifted into a meditative position.

Theia's Eye.

The skill activated, and the world rippled around him and shifted like water disturbed by a single stone. The flow of energy in his body sharpened into focus as a map of glowing veins and currents appeared.

At the core of it all, his first aura gate blazed faintly in his soles. It was steady and calm like a candle in the dark. But just beyond that…

There it was.

The second gate. 

His mind flashed to Eden. The sparring session. The way she moved with effortless precision, and the way her aura surged and pulsed. 

"Four gates…"

He could still feel it, the sheer pressure radiating from her. Her power was undeniable. A prodigy among prodigies. To achieve four gates by twenty-one was unheard of, even among the greatest talents.

And yet here he was, struggling just to reach his second gate.

"Can I achieve it too…?"

The doubt crept in.

Seven exhaled sharply, shaking his head to clear it. Now wasn't the time for questions.

With a steady breath, Seven picked up his wooden sword and stood up. Training ground. That's where he needed to go.

It was time to break through.

A day passed, another, and another. It was now three days of Seven doing nothing but sleep, train, and repeat. 

He knelt in the training ground. Thankfully, there were no knights that trained for three days. They were busy patrolling the estate. So for three days, he pushed himself to the brink. His muscles screamed, and his bones felt like they might splinter, but he endured. 

Aura gates do not open easily.

The novel says one must brush against death—a near-fatal battle, a gut-wrenching trauma, or a single moment of clarity that splits the gate open like lightning striking a tree. Others unlock them through relentless training too. 

He opened his first gate through the first method, and he can't just experience a near-death experience occasionally and so, he trained.

He trained endlessly.

His sword was a blur in his hands from dawn till nightfall. The servants who passed by whispered in disbelief. The knights paused in their rounds to watch, flabbergasted.

To then, Seven, the boy who once swung his sword no more than seven times a day was now slashing endlessly. They watch each of his slash shatter the limits he placed on himself.

He remembered the past of the boy whose name he carried. He broke the bow, the symbol of his old self. He snapped it as though to sever ties with his weakness. 

"Childish vow…"

But in its place, he also made a new vow.

"Never to strike an opponent more than seven times."

Seven strikes to end a battle, that was his goal.

So here, in the courtyard, there was no limit for his strikes. Against the empty air, against himself, he could swing his sword as many times as it took.

Swing.

His blade cut through the silence.

Swing.

His arms ached, but the motion became instinctive like breathing.

Swing.

The world around him shrank until there was nothing but the hiss of wooden sword and the thunder of his heartbeat.

One more.

Swing.

The ground beneath him seemed to tremble as he swung again. 

Swing.

The sword whistled through the air once more—

And then he stopped.

The courtyard was silent. Slowly, he steadied his blade. He could feel it now—the faint glow at the base of his spine. It wasn't open yet, but he was close. 

So close.

But until then…

Swing.

He swung again.

And then, another three days passed.

Theia's Eye flickered to life as he centered himself in his room, seated in perfect stillness. His breathing slowed, and the world fell away, leaving only the beat of his heart and the faint hum of energy coursing through his body. 

He already swung his sword enough to attempt a breakthrough.

Beyond flesh and bone, he could now see the intricate rivers of aura flowing within him. There it was—the second gate. Just beyond reach.

He grit his teeth as he tightened his jaw. He gathered every ounce of strength and every shred of focus he had left.

From the first gate, the soles of his feet, the energy surged upward like dragging molten metal up through his body.

The resistance was like a tidal wave. It was like going up against a waterfall. The harder he pushed, the more the energy seemed to churn and crash back down. But…

"Giving up is not my forte…"

Pain flared in his chest. His muscles trembled. Sweat slicked his skin. His fingers curled into fists so tight his nails dug deep into his palms. Blood trickled down, but he didn't feel it. 

All that mattered was the gate.

The energy quivered at the base of his spine, flickering weakly like a dying flame. He seized it. He forced it upward. He pushed it with everything he had.

"Almost… Almost!"

The energy trembled. Still, he pushed harder, far too hard, as desperation blinded him to the warning signs. For a moment, it felt like the gate would break. But the energy recoiled and surged backward, snapping like a taut wire released all at once.

CRACK!

A sound like thunder echoed through his body as pain exploded from the base of his spine.

"Gah—!"

His scream tore through the silent room. His body convulsed, and his back arched violently before he collapsed to the floor. His vision swam. Black spots crept into the edges of his sight. His limbs trembled as if his muscles were on the verge of tearing apart.

For several long moments, he couldn't move.

"Damn it…"

The energy that had once felt alive was now scattered like ash. 

He failed.

He lay there, feeling the cold floor press against his sweat-slick skin. 

"I was… so close—" 

Creak.

The door creaked open, and Iria stepped inside.

"Young lord, the Archduke is asking for—"

Her words were caught in her throat as she looked at Seven lying on the floor.

"Young lord!"

She rushed forward, and quickly dropped to her knees beside him.

"What happened?!"