I stood up and pulled on my jacket, the fabric of which had grown stiff from the damp and the night cold.
[System Status
Overall condition: Stable.
Tissue integrity: 85% (Restoration of critical zones completed).
Right hand functionality: Restored to 70%.
Energy background: Critical turbulence.]
Recovery is going normally, I noted to myself.
At this time, Ephraim was already sitting on a stump by the fire, having laid out stones and mineral shards on his lap. He turned each of them over, testing the edges by touch and studying the chips.
"Early," he pronounced.
"You're not sleeping either?" I asked.
"Yes."
We fell silent.
"Get up. There will be no training today," Ephraim finally said.
"Why?" I froze with a piece of stale bread in my hand. "Did yesterday's 'show' with the Eraser knock us off schedule?"
"Residual tension in the veins," the old man explained, putting aside the scraper. "Any attempt to push energy through the channels today will be impossible. Instead, we will observe."
We lit a small fire in the hearth. While the water in the kettle began to boil, I looked at the small green box on the table. In the dim morning light, the crystal inside barely glowed, resembling an ordinary piece of cloudy, cracked glass.
"How do I keep a conversation going with this old man?" I thought, gnawing on the fat. "I think I'm starting to understand why he lives alone in this hole; his lectures seem even worse than Zeno's."
Outside, the fog began to thin, exposing the black skeletons of trees, soaked and steeped in the memory of past storms.
When the water in the kettle boiled, Ephraim poured us each a mug. We silently drank the plain boiling water. The tea had run out long ago; the metallic aftertaste of rust on the tongue was sharp and sobering.
"You noticed something yesterday," he said quietly, but firmly.
"Possibly," I rested the mug on my knee. "I noticed a discrepancy in your words. You said the crystal is empty."
"I said that it is not filled."
"That's not the same thing. To me, 'emptiness' means an absence of charge. But this stone... it remembers. Not just the power I pour into it, but the method itself. How I distribute the load, where I place safety nodes, how I bypass resistance."
Ephraim smiled barely noticeably.
"You see pure mechanics in magic. I used to be like that once too. This is your main strength, but also your main vulnerability. You are absolutely right. The crystal is an imprint. It records your approach, your personal programming scheme."
"You knew about this. Why didn't you warn me?" I asked, feeling irritation boiling up inside.
"Because you would have refused," the old man answered simply. "I gave you a chance to survive in a critical situation. Understanding of such things always comes in the process."
We fell silent again. Outside, the wind rocked the bare branches of the trees, shedding drops of moisture onto the roof of the hut.
"Convenient to use me, right?" I hissed through my teeth.
"I direct you. I lead you where you yourself would have come. I just want to see if you will hold up."
"And if I don't hold up?"
"Then you will die," he pronounced calmly. "Or, what is even more terrifying, you will return from the swamps different. In a different form. A different, rewritten construct of yourself."
I stood up, stretching my shoulders.
"Alright. I'm continuing," I pronounced. "But on my terms. You answer questions honestly. No riddles."
"Good," the old man nodded. "Ask."
"What was that green glow under the willow roots? And why are Erasers running around these swamps like they're at home?"
Ephraim knocked the ash out of his pipe.
"The green radiance is 'Incident Zero'. Pure, unfiltered life energy driven into the circuits. Many years ago I was one of the architects of the Order's Network. We tried to automate mana extraction, pumping it from the earth itself and living creatures. We wanted to create a perpetual motion machine for the Citadel."
"And something went wrong," I guessed.
"A cascade resonance occurred. The Big Bang. It tore our laboratories apart and turned this region into a magical dump. The radiation distorted everything. And the Erasers..." he smiled bitterly. "They are our antivirus. Autonomous golems programmed to destroy any 'glitches' and anomalies in the Network. And after the explosion, this entire territory became one big anomaly to them."
He raised his heavy gaze to me.
"That crystal, your strange ability to absorb threads—you are digesting this corrupted code. Any mage of the Order would burn out their channels on the spot. But your brain for some reason works as an ideal insulator."
"Architect of the Network."
The words hung on their own in my head. In my head, pictures began to flash one after another: the cold walls of the Citadel, the clank of shackles, deaths, interrogations, the chase in the canyon.
My right hand instinctively rested on my belt. My fingers tightly gripped the rough handle of the knife.
Anger—hit my head. I took a sharp step forward, pulling the blade from its sheath in one motion.
"You created all this," I hissed through my teeth...
Ephraim simply sat, looking at me with his yellowish, tired eyes.
The point of the knife froze an inch from his throat. My breath hitched. I wanted to strike.
But... I stopped.
Instead of killing—I asked a question.
"Tell me why you left," I said hollowly, but firmly.
"The Order went too far," he said calmly. "Killing everyone who gets in the way. Breaking people to suit themselves... it's... wrong, so I left."
I slowly lowered the knife and with a dull click drove it back into the sheath.
"If everything you said is a lie... you're dead."
I turned around, took the green crystal from the table, and walked deep into the hut. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I carefully squeezed the cold stone with my palms. Anger still pulsed in my temples, but I forced myself to breathe more evenly.
I traced the facets of the crystal with my fingers, studying every curve. Watched how the light reflects off the cloudy surface, splitting into infinitely thin lines.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the hum—the quiet vibration coming from us both.
"Mana is not fire, Iron," Zeno's calm voice surfaced in my memory.
Alright, let's begin.
The crystal's vibration pushed—forcing me to be acutely aware of every breath, every heartbeat.
With every minute this feeling deepened. I began to notice slight resonances in the room: the way the firelight trembled on the walls, the quiet hiss of cooling water in the kettle, even the faint, rhythmic creak of the boards under Ephraim's heavy boots. In this quiet state, I understood the main thing: being part of a system is not only control or calculation. It is awareness.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter