Hwan Sung-Gon was frustrated, but stoic. He was always stoic, and he was used to being frustrated. Usually he was frustrated because no matter how much power he gathered, no matter what sacrifices he made, his beloved daughter continued to suffer from the necromantic curse that that plagued the Hwan family for thirteen generations before her birth. Now he was frustrated because the no-name ward expert he'd picked to help hide said daughter when he stepped up operations had somehow cured his daughter completely and even conferred some sort of life-energy blessing in the process. In doing so the man, Wren Black, had put him in such a debt he didn't think he'd ever be able to truly pay it back. He'd stopped the slow death of the heiress to the Hwan family, and in so doing ensured that future generations would not suffer as those before them.
When Wren had accepted protection and limited tuition, he'd seen a way to at least mitigate the debt somewhat by saving the man's life as many times as he could. He and his men had not been necessary for Wren's survival even once before the situation had been resolved, and the help he'd provided to arrange the meeting that ultimately resolves the need for bodyguards and accommodation was still insignificant compared to what was owed. There was no way he'd offer his daughter's hand in marriage unless they fell in love, and so far Wren had only even looked at her when he needed to heal her or for the sake of being polite.
The man himself was also exceptionally odd. He was constantly practicing either magic or martial arts (understandable given the threat to his life), barely spoke to anyone outside of greetings and other such niceties, had shown no interest sexual or romantic in anyone of any gender, and actively practiced life magic in a house full of powerful necromancers without apparent discomfort. He'd seen Wren studying necromancy books a few times, but they always had holy magic or something similar open beside them.
The cleaning staff reported that the man's room was almost barren, always clean with the exception of clothes left in the hamper, and that said clothing was never dirty despite being left in said hamper. The few times there was any sort of mess was when he was practicing one of the esoteric crafts he seemed interested in, and that was cleaned up as soon as he was done. The supplies he used to practice were never seen when they weren't in use, not even the anvil he'd somehow acquired without ordering one or going to any sort of store. It was baffling.
On top of all that was his tendency to zone out at times, sometimes for minutes on end. Sung-Gon knew the man was exceptionally good at sensing magic and had ordered at least one book on both ki and psychic practices, but he'd actually checked and instructed the guards to do the same: they'd never found anything unusual around the house when Wren got that far-away look on his face. He didn't even seem to notice when the guards checked with their comrades via radio to ensure they hadn't missed anything. Some of the staff speculated that he was actually a priest in disguise, and that he'd been targeted as part of a plot to wipe out the worshippers of his god or goddess.
Sung-Gon had seriously entertained the idea, and still wasn't ready to completely dismiss it. The miraculous healing abilities could easily be channeled divine power. They certainly felt like it. It would also explain the man's prodigious mana regeneration if he was actually channeling power rather than using his own at least part of the time. The strange behavior could be a mix of paranoia, post-traumatic stress, and whatever method he used to commune with whatever deity he worshipped. Nobody had ever spotted a recognizable holy symbol, but he himself (and probably a few of the staff and extended family) had offered prayers of thanks to whatever power Wren served. They would probably continue to do so for generations to come.
He could say with some confidence that Sung-Ah was not in love with the man, but she might become so and was definitely obsessed. She'd built a shrine in her room of things the man had made but discarded, including several with odd symbols and magical effects. She also wore a pair of discarded fingerless gloves the man had made and enchanted with the same aura he'd used to heal her and spent an unusually long time whenever she meditated in the room where the energy was first used on the property. She'd actually managed to turn the aura part of the ward back on and off again several times, and was starting to emit a faint silvery-white glow when she meditated or slept. Whatever blessing Wren had placed on her was growing so powerful that other members of the family were coming back to the country to spend time with her. With extended contact their own symptoms retreated or were washed away entirely. If Sung-Ah ever found out the name of Wren's god she would probably become a priestess. It looked like she might do that even without a name.
It was after having spent a great deal of time contemplating all of this that Wren approached him about learning how to protect himself and others from soul magics and other less dangerous forms of necromancy. Being something of an expert on the subject and eager to repay the debt, he'd agreed immediately and began teaching the basics to the resident priest. The youth soaked up knowledge like a sponge, especially practical applications. When introduced to the idea that a soul stone was actually composed of solidified soul fragments he'd been initially horrified, but was mollified with the explanation that souls routinely split as living things grew, reproduced, and died. He'd asked a few pointed questions about the practice of deliberately splitting a soul and was told sternly that such practices were unnatural and unwise in the extreme. They damaged the core of one's soul as opposed to the offshoots that came with natural growth, death, and reproduction. To do such a thing to anyone was truly evil, and he solemnly agreed with an expression of such sadness and understanding that he had to have encountered the practice before.
The first true form of soul magic the young man learned was exorcism. You didn't need to be able to see a soul to know a place was haunted, and there were plenty of places that needed to be cleansed after a ritual went wrong or some idiot summoned a spirit and didn't bother to banish it after. He was remarkably good at it, which only reinforced the idea that he was indeed a priest of some hidden order or other. The fact that his exorcisms tended to come with silver-white holy light and he'd accidentally exorcised a demon he'd mistaken for a poltergeist provided further proof.
The second form of soul magic the priest learned was how to sense and see them. He clearly couldn't tell the difference between a ghost and a demon at first glance, and knowing the difference could be important in the future. After Sung-Gon had described the process, the young man had gotten the technique down in minutes. Clearly he'd been forced to flee his order (or said order had been routed, given he'd been living with this mother and anticipated trouble) before his training was complete, but had a great deal of potential and at least partial training.
The third form of soul magic the priest learned was warding, which again seemed to come naturally. That may have been because he already knew a fair bit about magic anchored to a location, but he'd picked it up so quickly it was almost like he already knew how to prevent spirits of entering or leaving a given location. This accomplishment lead to the prize the young man wanted: how to anchor a soul in place. While normally done with dark magic, there were historical versions available in the family's private library that were based on holy magic and druidic practices. He combined them with his holy light in such a way that his soul was saturated with the protection, not even wisps of growth going unprotected. It looked almost exactly like what had happened to Sung-Ah, which only left Sung-Gon even more grateful that this young man had been able to heal and bless her so. The expression he'd made coupled with a several minute long zone-out when he completed the technique on himself would have been odd for anyone else, but was pretty much normal for him.
With the development of both a ward against soul magic and a soul-deep protection against necromancy in general, Wren's mastery of life magic escalated from miraculous to indescribable. He altered the ward in the clinic to actually stave off death by holding the souls of those near death in place and bathing them in healing light. The light itself was still uncomfortable for the members of the Hwan family with stabilized Black Souls resulting from the family curse, but with exposure it was becoming less so. He banished malevolent spirits with a look, and demons without even that. The Hwan family had been renowned for its services related to necromancy before Wren Black's arrival, but they were actually gaining a reputation for cleansing and life magic the longer the man stayed and accepted jobs as training.
Sung-Gon became both concerned and hopeful when his daughter Sung-Ah finally confronted the young man and asked to be inducted into his order. When they closed themselves into a hastily warded room together for over an hour his concern grew, and it did so again when his daughter emerged starry-eyed and reverent. She denied anything indecent had happened, and said she now understood the secrecy of their guest. She was also able to wield the holy light consciously, and the shrine in her room finally gained a hand-painted symbol two weeks later. It depicted an island dominated by a cherry tree in full blossom. At the base of the tree a pure-black cat curled around an unusually colored hedgehog, both of them large enough that they were easily visible through the branches of the tree. He'd never seen such a thing, and asking his daughter about it revealed that it was actually a symbol of two demi-gods: lovers, long separated but striving for the power to return.
"Demi-gods? Not gods?" He asked his daughter carefully. She nodded at him solemnly and gestured to the cat.
"I will tell only you, father. I believe this is our guest, locked in his current form by forces greater than he while he strives to ascend fully. He would not admit to it, only telling me a story and showing me the image with his magic, but I now know the power I wield comes from him. I have seen it: when I summon the divine light it flows from him. When I pray it grows subtly stronger. He will never be my husband, but he will always be my god."
Sung-Gon was understandably shocked by this revelation, and not a little skeptical. He decided to see for himself where this energy came from by more carefully observing his guest. It made no sense that the young man's soul hadn't already been saturated in such energy before he arrived if he was indeed descended from divinity, but his soul had looked very strange even the first time they'd met. It was unlikely, but possible that the young man was indeed a demigod just coming into his powers. Either way the he'd brought light and life into their home where all others had failed, and he hadn't outright claimed divine ancestry. Somewhere undefinable, a Washu smiled widely. It had begun. After all: in a world where the planet itself was sentient and the combined cultural experiences of a nation could give rise to godlike entities with a little push from magic, what would happen if an actual god gave a push?
It took Sung-Gon nearly two weeks of observation to come to the conclusion that his daughter was at least partially correct, and maybe fully so. When observed very closely, Wren's holy energy seemed to come from within and had outgoing trails leading off in the direction of Sung-Ah and a few of the staff without him noticing. They faded when they got more than a few feet from the young man, but the people who triggered these events were always introspective or grateful to Wren just before his aura changed. The holy aura around the young man himself grew ever-so-slightly brighter in these moments and at other seemingly random times, but the change always seemed to come from within.
It was still possible the increasingly power holy aura and the effects on his staff and daughter were the result of an ongoing spell effect, but he didn't think so. Wren had never come in direct contact with some of the staff, and it appeared to spread more with the rumors of the man's priesthood than anything else. It also affected staff that hadn't been to the house or in contact with others that exhibited "symptoms" of the holy energy. Just in case, he'd checked the wards and called in a few favors to have them checked again. There was nothing to indicate another source for the energy expect the deactivated holy ward in the medical room, and Wren had created that in front of him.
When the young man wasn't studying or practicing, he was crafting. Sometimes the results were ordinary and sometimes they were supernatural in nature, but the quality of the items was consistently getting better at a pace that suggested suggested at least somewhat accelerated learning and a great deal of natural talent. That would explain a bit more of why he seemed to learn magic so quickly during tutoring, but not enough to shake Sung-Gon's feeling that he'd already known some of what was being taught.
The day Wren started wearing a pair of fingerless gloves like those his daughter had found was interesting to say the least. Every spell the young man cast was more efficient when channeled through them, and his tutors at the Cheon Bu compound reported that he seemed to have started using ki to enhance his speed, strength, and endurance subconsciously. Sung-Gon wasn't sure how the two things could be related so he brushed it off as coincidence, but that very same day he heard mad laughter outside and found an illusion barrier. When he entered, Wren was flying around bouncing a spell off both the gloves and some sort of free-moving barrier spell like it was a ball.
A few days later a set of combat boots and a wristwatch were added to Wren's new equipment, the boots radiating magic like the gloves while the watch seemed ever so slightly wrong to Sung-Gon's senses. Both boots and gloves were studded with small spots of silvery and smoky gray metal in alternating patterns, while the gloves acquired a set of complementary bracers that also radiated magic. Somehow all of the items suddenly stopped feeling like anything other than regular clothing and accessories two weeks after that.