Adrian walked as he gazed at the swirling bands of light around the central planet, the heart of the new capital still in construction. For a fleeting moment, his mind drifted to Earth.

Back to where it all began.

His inscription back then, the one that had saved countless lives.

But it wasn't just the ink that made his scrolls powerful.

The Source didn't merely let him read the Language of Mana, it also translated his understanding of the concepts to the language of mana, producing symbols that did not even exist in the volumes back then.

With those symbols that were perfect than the fragments in the volumes, he created powerful scrolls.

That was what made his scrolls so powerful, not just the ink.

When it came to formations, it was just the formation symbol with instructions and concepts written in the language of mana that shaped the outcome.

When he visited Aethelia's capital, he had seen glimpses of planetary-scale formations. Even though the core symbols were hidden, he grasped the idea of what those planetary formations did.

"The galaxy thinks Lexaria owns the monopoly over the Language of Mana, he thought, eyes narrowing. "But they only own fragments of the true Language. I don't need their help."

They hadn't mastered the Language of Mana. They'd only stumbled upon fragments of it.

The Lexarian monopoly depended on hoarding "symbols." Adrian had no need for them. His Source was the wellspring of language itself.

...

Later that day, inside a metal-walled chamber, Adrian sat at the metal desk cluttered with parchment, brushes, and ink bottles.

This was no special ink, no Source-infused ink, just ordinary mana ink distilled from mana crystals mined across the galaxy.

Adrian rolled up his sleeves and whispered to himself, "It's been too long since I tested this. Let's see if the Source still works the same way."

His eyes glowed faintly as he activated his Source Eyes.

The ink began to flow. He started with simple, basic spatial inscriptions.

Symbols bloomed in neat precision, spiraling outward. Some he recognized, patterns he had seen etched across Nexus portals.

But as his hand moved faster, the brush began to draw symbols he had never seen before.

Yet, he understood them.

They formed naturally, shaped by comprehension rather than memory.

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Each line felt like remembering something he had once known long ago, something from within his Source.

And though some were alien to his eyes, he could read them instantly. He could feel their meanings.

Each curve, each junction, each mirrored line, it was all him. His understanding translated into symbols by the Source.

Adrian set down the brush, studying the completed inscription, "Still works exactly as before."

Next, he wanted to try with formations.

He had never tried one before, not truly. Skill scrolls were simple, one-time spells bound in parchment that burned when spent.

But formations?

A formation was usually anchored to a place, like a planet or large structures, and it stayed intact unless someone broke the core mana flow in the middle of the formation.

He rose from the desk, turning toward the open floor. The chamber's size was perfect, wide, circular, and metallic.

He floated upward, using his essence to control the ink itself. It lifted off the table, splitting into a dozen streams of blue light.

He directed it downward with his will, inscribing directly onto the floor.

First, he drew the Formation symbol that represented the formations, just as he'd seen in the formation of fire back in the hub.

And then he followed it with instructions, weaving in his comprehension of space.

Lines began to weave together, circles within circles, the symbols layering like the beating pulse of a heart.

It wasn't massive. Barely a few meters wide. But it was enough for a test.

Normally, a formation like this required a power core, a void crystal, ideally, to channel and sustain the space concept.

Adrian didn't have one, so he simply extended his hand and fed the formation directly with his own essence.

The symbols flared to life, each one igniting. Then the center of the circle began to compress, folding inward like the space itself was shrinking.

The void within the circle distorted visibly.

He nodded, satisfied. "It works."

No Lexarian formula, no imperial seal. Only his understanding.

He had just proven what the galaxy refused to believe, that the Language of Mana didn't belong to any empire.

But he was far from done.

He spent the next several hours testing.

A fire formation that summoned waves of plasma to burn intruders to ash.

A life formation that replicated his Breath of Life, bathing the area in healing essence.

Each worked. Beautifully. Perfectly.

But soon, the problems began to appear.

When he stepped back into the fire formation, it burned him as well. The life formation healed everything, not distinguishing between friend or foe.

He frowned, deactivating both arrays with a gesture.

"It doesn't differentiate… it just acts."

That was the first problem, no way to make the formation distinguish between allies and enemies.

The second problem came soon after.

These formations needed constant power. Each required an elemental crystal at its center, void crystals for space, fire crystals for flame, life crystals for healing.

He could power one, maybe two small formations at a time, but to sustain a planetary scale…?

Impossible without fuel sources.

Adrian had plenty of fire mana crystals. But void crystals were rare, and life crystals rarer still.

He stood silently, the weight of realization settling over him. Now he understood why even the planetary formations of Aethelia's capital had been purely defensive.

It wasn't that no one wanted formations that could attack, heal, or trap.

It was that no one had solved the problem of control.

It made sense now. Even if someone created formations to attack or heal, it would take unfathomable energy, and worse, those formations couldn't tell friend from enemy.

He leaned back against the cold metal wall, staring up at the flickering mana lamps above.

He didn't know it, but this same problem, the inability to bind awareness or intent into a formation, had haunted even the greatest inscribers of the Lexarian Empire for millennia.

And yet, as his eyes glimmered faintly, he felt like his Source within him was whispering to him.

It can be done.

As his understanding of concepts grew, the more he became closer to the Source, he could sometimes feel it was guiding him.

Adrian straightened slowly, the corner of his lips lifting just slightly.

"Then let's see how far we can go."