The day Mizu was born, it rained for seven days. Not the heavy rain of the holy books, but a steady, damp, cold rain like the tired breaths of the earth and sky.

  He was not the child of a normal person. Nor was he the "product" of an ancient ritual or a secret laboratory. He was "conceived" - as the Watr scholars called it - in an old, reused biological incubator from the Second Mana War. A substation deep under Mount Pein in the Southern Watr Peninsula. No one had really expected him. Mizu was just Bio-Sample 047-??, a low-level Mana Thermostat Project - a failed project.

  He was born without mana power. Or more accurately: unable to store mana like a normal person. The researchers intended to put him on the "destruction" list, but a young assistant named Avel secretly changed his biometric card and kept him, raising him as an adopted son.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  As a child, Mizu was very weak. He was prone to fevers when the weather changed, his eyesight was poor, and his legs were uneven. In the “elemental harmony” tests, his stats were 0%. But... he was very smart. And curious to an alarming degree.

  At the age of eight, while other children were learning elementary magic, Mizu fumbled around taking apart a small mana condenser and reassembling it into a water oscillation analyzer – something no one thought was useful. At the age of twelve, he snuck into the central academy’s closed library, stole secret documents on the Theory of Water Delay – and was expelled.

  No one taught him magic, because “he couldn’t use it.” No one trained him in combat, because “without mana, how can you fight?”

  But at the age of fifteen, a small event occurred: One cold night, in the middle of a muddy mining area, Mizu… froze a puddle of water right under his feet. No formula, no incantation. Just… reflex.

  That’s when things started to change.