Zephyr thought he was just an ordinary child from an ordinary single-parent family.
In this age, when mages were everywhere, his neighbors were nothing more than ordinary blacksmiths, masons, and wandering physicians. His widowed father was simply a farmer who watered flowers and grew vegetables every day.
Until one day, his grandfather came to the door with a group of people.
His farmer father conjured a staff out of thin air and cast countless advanced spells that had only ever existed in rumors. His kind, amiable neighbors also revealed their true identities: undead, puppets, alchemical creations...
Only then did Zephyr learn that his father was a member of the ancient mage family, House Abraham, and a top-tier genius at that.
After his grandfather took him back to House Abraham, Zephyr was treated with disdain by his peers as an "inferior breed" with only half ordinary-human blood.
His talent for spirit magic, directly tied to the family's legacy, was pitifully weak. His grandfather sighed over it, while his peers, who competed with him for resources, took glee in his misfortune.
Zephyr couldn't bring himself to care.
As far back as he could remember, there had always been a strange voice in his head. Day and night, it whispered in his ear, tempting him to seek out things far more mysterious, and far more dangerous.
Those secrets might overturn the entire world. No one would be spared: not House Abraham, not Zephyr, and not the mage lords.
A few notes:
1. This is a prequel to The Eight Gates. The protagonist is born in the early-to-middle period of the Mage Era, before the birth of the "Great Sage" of House Abraham. The system of House Abraham differs considerably from that of the National Era. That said, you don't need to read the other book to enjoy this one. I'll reintroduce anything that needs explaining.
2. Why I started this book: The Eight Gates has gotten pretty long, but if I follow the original plot through to the end of Chris's story, there will still be a lot of loose ends. And after opening the project folder, I realized I had explained less than 10% of the worldbuilding as a whole, so I've come back to write a prequel. This book will consolidate some of the more scattered details from the other one and correct a few errors in its portrayal of the mystical traditions of the National Era.
3. Broadly speaking, this should still be a coming-of-age story in the style of the previous book, but this protagonist's personality will be very different. Readers looking for power-trip fiction, or readers with lots of dealbreakers, may want to skip it.
4. My writing skills are limited, and I don't have an IQ over 200. The protagonist's intelligence is limited by mine, and his sense of morality is limited by mine (given that he has mild emotional impairment, his morals may be much worse than my own). Readers who demand extremely airtight logic or very high moral standards may also want to give this a miss.
5. I didn't want to end on item four, so here's a fifth. Am I really going to spend my whole life grinding away at this worldbuilding?
[Blurb archived on 2025.9.13]
Theme: Prosperity, democracy, civilization, and harmony.
