CHAPTER 47: NEW SPELLS (1)

The wind smelled like stone dust and drift oil. Somewhere down the line, someone was welding through broken tracks again.

The platform lights made everything too bright and too dull at the same time. Washed-out color. Harsh outlines. The kind of lighting that made sleep-deprived choices feel justified.

He stood still.

Didn’t sit.

Didn’t check the time.

Just stared down the tunnel until the carriage arrived, a long, narrow-bodied model with flickering glyph patterns and a faint hum like someone had jammed a sound crystal into a can.

He got in.

Nobody else did.

The cabin smelled like hot plastic and mana-burnt copper. One of the lights in the back strobed faintly.

Lucen sat in the far left corner, bag at his feet, hands loose in his lap.

The system pinged once.

Faint. Background level.

He didn’t open it.

Not yet.

Not when the last thirty minutes still felt too close to the front of his brain.

The ride took nine stops.

Each one a little worse than the last.

Trash started appearing around stop four. Someone tagging old drift sigils on the back of a maintenance panel.

By stop seven, the automated voice had given up pretending the speakers still worked.

He got off at the eighth.

The neighborhood was old. Not historic. Just... outdated. Functional in the way duct tape is functional.

His building stood at the far end of the block, half a floor shorter than the ones beside it, like someone forgot to finish the blueprint and the city approved it anyway.

Lucen stepped through the outer gate. The lock hadn’t worked in months.

The stairwell still squeaked when you leaned too hard left.

Mrs. Higa’s cat was asleep again in the exact same spot it had been when he left, like it’d looped time out of spite.

Lucen reached his door.

Opened the lock lock. Slight scratch across the bottom like someone once tried to pry it open with a mana pen.

He keyed in with a quiet tap of two fingers.

The door stuck. Then opened.

Inside smelled like cold tea, chalk powder, and the last two mana drafts he’d left unfinished on his desk.

Lucen stepped in.

Kicked the door shut behind him.

Didn’t turn the light on.

The system flicked to life before he asked.

[Status: Level 7 | Class Node – Spellcraft Sovereign]

[Spell Slots Available: 3 / 7]

[Design Tier: Recalibrated – Core Aligned]

Lucen stared at it for a second.

Then flopped backward onto the couch.

Didn’t even drop his bag.

Just stared at the ceiling.

The building creaked around him.

Mana pulse low. Neighborhood quiet. Shoes still on.

His hand twitched once like it wanted to draw a sigil on the ceiling out of habit.

He didn’t stop it.

Just let the motion fade.

Outside, a siren passed two streets away.

Inside, everything finally stayed still.

—

He dropped his bag by the door and stepped around the scattered mana tools still sitting near the wall. A burnt-sigil rod clinked underfoot. He didn’t look down.

The room smelled like cold metal, sealed ink, and the kind of dust you couldn’t sweep away. Old mana. Residual and thin.

He toed off his boots by the desk and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

No frame. Just a pad and a blanket rolled to one side.

The mattress hissed slightly under him. Not air. Just tension. Worn springs with too much spell burn in the lining.

He leaned forward.

Let his hands rest on his knees.

The system didn’t ping. It didn’t have to. He felt it hovering. Threaded through the back of his head like it was watching him breathe.

He opened the interface manually.

[Status – Lucen Ivara]

Level: 7

Class: Spellcraft Sovereign (Hidden)

Public Display: Spell Tracer (C-Rank)

EXP: 172 / 400

Mana: 112 / 112 (Upgraded!)

Recovery Rate: 2.1/sec

Spell Slots: 3 / 7

Current Spells:

• [Ignition Burst]

• [Shockweave Bolt]

• [Frost Spire]

Open Slots: 4

Unspent Attribute Points: 2

The screen pulsed faintly as a new thread blinked at the top.

[Spell Design Recommendation Available]

[Activity Flag: Mana Residue — Recent Sigil Use]

[Would you like to begin spell trace input now?]

Lucen exhaled through his nose. Quiet. Not tired. Just done.

He turned his head toward the window. Still cracked. Still jammed half open.

The wind outside carried damp air and distant spellfire static.

’So someone’s blowing up vending machines again,’ he thought.

He pulled a piece of chalk from the floor, snapped it against the wood beside him, and drew a lazy half-circle in the margin of the desk.

Something tight. Simple.

He wasn’t building a trap this time.

He wanted noise.

No more soft holds or anchor taps. Something that hurt to look at. Something obvious.

He wrote in the margin.

Spell Four. Sound. Burst. Maybe sonic edge?

He tapped the glyph once.

The system caught the idea instantly.

[Design Thread Captured – Begin Configuration?]

Name: [Open]

Type: Sonic

Effect: Rapid concussive blast of directional sound pressure.

Mana Cost Estimate: 8

Cast Delay: 0.5s

Area: Cone (3–5m spread)

Cast Type: Glyph Detonation / Single Use

Lucen smiled faintly.

’Loud and blunt. You’re speaking my language now.’

He started sketching sigil scaffolds directly onto the edge of the desk. Quick strokes. Focused hands. Lines snapped into place with practiced rhythm.

Circle. Arc. Splice vector.

Anchor flare for pulse control.

His mind ran ahead of his fingers. The design took shape before he even finished sketching.

He stopped once. Let the system pulse back.

Then confirmed.

[Spell Four Assigned: Soundlash]

Type: Sonic / Concussive

Mana Cost: 8

Effect: Short-range shockwave with focused sound compression. Stuns light targets. Disorients medium.

Status: Active

Lucen leaned back.

Which in his case meant falling onto a rolled blanket and the world’s flattest pillow.

Above him, the ceiling was cracked in three places. He’d traced sigils into two of them. The third was just natural damage.

’Not my problem,’ he muttered.

He didn’t close the system.

Just dimmed it.

His fingers still twitched in the air, like they wanted to draw something else. A new spell. Something worse. Something fun.

But he didn’t move.

Not yet.

Let the city sleep first.

He’d be the one to wake it later.