Why We Are Afraid of Our Master

He was thirty years old, a mathematician, and very good at solving problems. Then he died in his sleep and woke up in a crib. The goddess who moved him is bored, honest, and gone. She leaves him five abilities, a System nobody explains, and a body that cannot lift its own head. She does not mention the eyes. Black irises, too large, whites threaded red. The servants flinch. His mother will not hold him longer than she must. In a house with five older sons and no use for a sixth, he is not hated — he is overlooked, and he learns very quickly that being overlooked is the most valuable thing he owns. So he does what he has always done. He observes. He learns. He conceals. By the time anyone understands what has been sitting quietly at the end of their table, it is far too late for anything but an accident. A long road. A mountain pass. An escort nobody in the family recognizes. They should have made certain of the body. Act 1 is complete. Act 2 is posting now — a walled city with laws and prices, a Guild that will register anyone who can produce a name, and the first person alive to look directly at what he is and decide to stand behind it. A cold, methodical progression fantasy. Slow-burn power growth, a genuinely amoral protagonist, magic with a documented cost, and recurring chapters told by the people who are afraid of him. Updates 3 × per week on Sun/Tue/Thu. This is posted by its author on Royal Road and Scribble Hub. Both are genuinely me. If you found it elsewhere, something took it without permission — which, given the subject matter, at least shows consistency.