CHAPTER 82: LEVEL UPS (2)

Lucen unlocked the door without looking at the keypad.

The apartment’s lock clicked open with its usual half-second delay. He didn’t wait for it to finish. Just leaned his shoulder into the door and stepped through as it swung in.

The lights didn’t come on.

He didn’t turn them on.

The hallway buzzed faintly behind him as the auto-seal engaged. The outer latch thumped once, sealing the door with a hiss of pressure that was just a little too loud in the silence.

Lucen exhaled.

Long. Slow.

He stood in the entry for three full seconds. No bags. No armor removal. Just stillness.

Then he dropped his coat over the chair by the kitchen and walked barefoot across the tile floor. It was cold underfoot.

Not dead cold, just that high-density chill that old mana insulation left behind.

The windows were half-open from earlier.

Curtains shifted faintly in the city breeze.

Outside, the skyline glowed like it always did, mana towers pulsing slow and clean against the night, distant advertisement glyphs flickering in long-forgotten loops.

From here, the city looked like it was running just fine. Just like it always had.

Lucen crossed to the fridge. Pulled it open.

One bottle left. Citrusy. Unlabeled.

He didn’t read it. Just uncapped it with his thumb and took a long drink, walking back toward the living room.

The couch was still sunk from the last time he’d collapsed there.

The system was already humming.

[Mana: 148 / 148]

[Spell Archive: 8 / 11]

[Recovery Rate: 2.9/sec]

[Level: 16]

[Stat Points Available: +32]

[Titles Available: 1]

[New Thread Detected: Adaptive Invocation Protocol]

[Pending Spell Lock: Null Reversal]

[Suggestion: Archive Sync Recommended]

He stared at the words.

Then flopped sideways onto the couch.

Not collapsed. Just fell into it like gravity worked better here.

’Sixteen,’ he thought.

He was almost twice his level from yesterday.

That wasn’t supposed to be possible.

Not at C-Rank.

Not in a city where most people never cleared Level Ten before giving up or going broke or getting stabbed by something with more legs than rules.

Lucen tilted his head back against the couch and let his eyes close, just for a moment.

’Feels fake. Still real.’

He opened the spell archive again, slower this time.

The new spell, Null Reversal, sat at the bottom of the list like it didn’t care it was new. No fanfare. No "congrats" messages. Just a line of waiting.

[Description: Inverts recent hostile glyph logic within active range. Outcome not guaranteed. Mana deducted on attempt. May cause fragmentation.]

Fragmentation.

That word wasn’t in any system tutorial he’d read.

He sat up slowly, bottle still in hand, and tapped open his stat tree.

He hadn’t placed any points since leveling. Not yet. Not even during the rift.

Now that he was sixteen, the curve looked different.

Mana, Intelligence, Dexterity, they were rising faster than his frame was supposed to support.

He could feel it in his fingers, in the way his blood held glyphs longer now. His tracing speed was too clean. His casting delay too short.

He could fake being average up close.

But on paper?

He wasn’t even C-tier anymore. He wasn’t anything.

He didn’t place the points yet.

Didn’t touch the new title either.

Just sat there.

Let the city buzz behind the window.

Let the system hum.

Let the silence tick.

Then someone knocked.

Three taps.

Lucen froze.

The hallway wasn’t secure. Not from neighbors. But it wasn’t loud either. Nobody just knocked.

He set the bottle down gently, then stood and moved toward the door.

Didn’t unlock it.

Didn’t open it.

Just leaned close, slow.

And listened.

Whoever was out there didn’t knock again.

Didn’t leave.

Just stood.

He checked the hallway cam on his wall display.

It flickered.

No feed.

He whispered, "Great."

His system chimed in the background.

[Proximity Alert: Mana Presence Detected — Unknown Class]

[No Hostile Action Taken]

[Trace Suppressed]

[Flag for Monitoring? Y/N]

Lucen didn’t touch the option.

He backed away from the door. Slow. Measured.

Whoever it was—

They knew where he lived.

And they didn’t care about knocking twice.

—

Lucen stood three steps back from the door, shoulders quiet, breath even.

The knock hadn’t come again.

The hallway outside remained still, no retreating footsteps, no mana surge, no forced entry.

Just the weight of someone being there. Waiting. Watching. Or maybe just proving they could.

His system kept pinging.

[Proximity Presence Sustained]

[No Trace Permission — Suppression in Effect]

[Mana Signature: Unverified]

[Threat Level: Null]

[Observation Flag: Recommended]

Lucen didn’t touch the flag. He just stared at the door another three seconds, then turned back toward the couch and dropped into it again, this time not with exhaustion, but with quiet purpose.

He’d spent the last thirty hours burning through spells, glyphs, field logic, a goddamn rift core.

If someone wanted to stand outside his door and breathe dramatically, they could. He had a spell archive to update.

The interface flickered back into view, crisp and clean.

[Level: 16]

[Stat Points: +32]

[Titles: 1 New]

[Spells: 8 / 11 Slots Used]

[Unlocked: Adaptive Invocation Thread]

[System Note: Title Recognition May Alter Drift Response Behavior]

He clicked into the title list.

Most system-awakened didn’t even earn one.

His old entries were blank.

Now, there was one.

—

[Title Unlocked: UNKNOWN QUANTITY]

-Classification: Hidden

-Trigger: Survived a Core Recognition Event without registered rank

-Effects:

-Drift encounters may treat user as variable tier

-Gain +8% EXP from unaligned enemies

-Automatically resists passive scan and ID tracing

-Title suppresses class detection unless overridden by higher authority

-System Note: "You are no longer evaluated by standard metrics."

Lucen read it twice.

Then a third time.

He didn’t blink.

The implications hit slower than expected. This wasn’t a prestige badge. This wasn’t "You beat a boss" or "Congrats on living through a bloodbath." This was the system itself quietly stepping back and saying, you’re outside the rules now.

He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

’Unknown Quantity,’ he thought. ’That’s one way to say "your entire existence is suspicious."’

He flicked the title active. It didn’t glow. Didn’t even shift his interface color. It just... slotted in. Passive.

He closed the tab and opened the spell again.

[Null Reversal]