Kaelan returned to the desk with the orb still in hand. The Jester card lay face-up beside the cube, right where he'd placed it earlier. Its grin was unchanged, its painted eyes locked in perpetual mischief as if it had been waiting.
He placed the orb down with care, letting it rest beside the other items. The air near the card always felt strange—charged, like the moment before a spark—but this time, something felt... expectant.
He didn't stare at it for long. Instead, he opened Catalysts and Vessels: A Study of Mana Storage and began flipping through the fragile, ink-heavy pages, searching for even a whisper of familiarity. Diagrams. Notes. Margin scrawls in different hands. Some of the texts were in old dialects, some in a cleaner script. He skimmed a passage about containment capacity and magical conduits when a faint shift in the room made him pause.
The orb pulsed once. Then again—quieter.
He glanced at it.
It hadn't moved.
But something had changed.
Threads of faint blue light—so thin they were almost invisible—rose from the orb's surface and curled across the wooden desk like smoke.
Kaelan didn't move. He watched.
The threads drifted.
Not aimless. Not random.
They slid across the surface, quiet as thought, and began to sink into the Jester card.
He barely breathed. The card didn't shimmer, didn't twitch. It simply took. The colors grew richer, deeper—barely—but he saw it. A darker edge on the reds. A fuller shadow beneath the ink lines.
Kaelan's brow furrowed. He hadn't activated anything. He hadn't even touched the card. And yet…
It drinks on its own?
The orb grew smaller—almost unnoticeably at first. But then the pulsing dimmed. The glow softened.
Kaelan shifted slightly, the edge of wariness curling beneath his ribs. He resisted the urge to pull the orb away.
He wanted to see how far it would go.
The book hung open in his hand, forgotten. His gaze fixed now on the quiet transaction.
Within a minute, the orb had lost a third of its size. Its hum was almost silent. The room didn't change, but something in him did.
This card—whatever it was—wasn't just reactive.
It was alive in its own way.
And hungry.
Kaelan slowly reached out and placed his fingers on the orb again. It was colder now. Light still lived inside it, but faint and reserved.
Then he looked at the Jester card.
Same smile. Same look. As if it hadn't moved at all.
As if it hadn't done anything at all.
He sat down slowly, a quiet breath slipping from between his teeth. He didn't touch the card. Didn't say a word.
But in his mind, one thought echoed louder than the silence around him:
I need to learn what you are.
Kaelan stared at the reduced mana orb, the size of a walnut now, its once-lustrous glow dulled. The Jester card sat quiet on the desk, motionless—but not dead.
His fingers hovered over it.
There was something in the air around it—subtle, like the tension before a storm. No light, no sound. But the pressure... it pushed gently at his skin.
He reached down and, almost without thinking, picked up the card.
The moment it touched his hand, something shifted.
The room didn't brighten, but the corners felt sharper. Edges clearer. The card pulsed, once—like it was breathing in.
Then it exhaled.
A burst of mana erupted from it—not a blast, not even wind, but a wave. Invisible and sharp. Kaelan staggered, the card vibrating in his grip. His other hand caught the edge of the desk to steady himself.
But the card shimmered. Its painted grin twisted ever so slightly, warping under the thin flare of magic that bled from its surface. Symbols shimmered faintly at the edges, dancing in the corner of his eye.
Kaelan's heart pounded. Not from fear—but from a strange sensation crawling up his arm, like heat moving under his skin.
It was too much.
The pulse intensified—and the card slipped from his grasp.
It flipped once in the air, a glint of gold and violet—
—and dropped squarely into the cube's center.
The cube, resting silently on the desk, responded instantly.
Its symbols ignited like a clock springing to life. Etchings spun across its sides, rotating smoothly with a soft mechanical hum. The light wasn't violent—it was precise. Purposeful. A system activating.
The card sank halfway into the top face, almost drawn in.
Then—click.
Everything stopped.
No light. No movement. The room fell still.
Kaelan held his breath.
The cube now sat motionless, its symbols glowing faintly—but steadily. The Jester card was back on the surface, lying flat. Its color returned to normal. No shimmer. No ripple. Quiet again.
He reached out and picked it up.
Cold. Inert. As if nothing had happened.
But the weight in the cube… that was different. He could feel it. Heavier now. As though the cube had taken in the raw mana the card had unleashed—and locked it down.
A containment tool. Not just for mana, but for magic in motion.
Kaelan leaned back in the chair, the cube in one hand, the card in the other.
"You burn wild," he whispered to the card.
"And you… you store it."
He wasn't sure if they were meant to be used together. But clearly, they worked together.
He set both down, eyes narrowing.
And this time, he didn't feel like an outsider touching magic.
Kaelan didn't move for a while.
The room was still. The air tasted different now—thinner, sharper, as though something had shifted just beneath reality.
His eyes drifted to the mana orb, still pulsing faintly on the desk. It had shrunk, but it wasn't empty. Not yet.
He reached for it with his left hand.
Cool. Steady.
In his right hand, he lifted the Jester card once more. Flat, quiet—but heavier now. Like it was waiting.
The moment both were in his grip, something deep inside him stirred. Not in his thoughts, not in his limbs—but further in. At the core.
A warmth. Faint, then growing. Not just warmth—motion. Something rising. A thread pulled loose.
His breath caught. He didn't know what to call it, but he knew—this was mana.
It wasn't his, not truly. But it was within him now, channeled through these strange tools. Carried by the orb, focused by the card.
Slowly, he raised his right hand—the Jester card held between his fingers—and made a simple motion. A diagonal cut through the air, instinctive and smooth.
And something responded.
A gleaming arc flared into existence—thin, sharp, wavering like heat haze but pulsing with light. A blade of pure, focused mana.
Kaelan gasped.
It hovered for only a second before vanishing like mist, but the weight of it lingered in his bones. His hand trembled. His pulse echoed in his ears.
He had never cast a spell. Never been able to.
This wasn't a spell. This was… will, given shape.
A line crossed. A first step.
Kaelan lowered the card, staring at the empty space where the blade had shimmered. For the first time, he understood what magic could feel like.
Alive. Responsive. Terrifying.
He glanced at the cube. Its surface had changed again—one symbol now faintly glowing in soft blue, echoing the color of the mana orb. Like it had absorbed what the card could not hold.
A safety. A container. Maybe even a reset.
Kaelan let out a slow breath, hands still tingling.
"This… this is the start," he murmured.
He wasn't just studying the principal's legacy anymore.
He was stepping into it.