Chapter 28: A Shift
The soft click of the door echoed faintly in the stillness of the room.
Lucien exhaled slowly, leaning back against the stack of pillows propped behind him.
The quiet left in Vaelira’s wake was almost jarring.
She had been hovering over him like a paranoid hawk since yesterday, nagging, fussing, adjusting his blankets even when they didn’t need adjusting.
And though a part of him had found it oddly comforting, he was glad to finally breathe without being assessed like a fragile teacup.
He turned to the bedside table where she’d left him a neat little stack of books.
Three, to be precise.
All thick, all weighty, all suspiciously dull-looking.
He reached for the top one with a hopeful flicker in his chest.
‘Maybe she left a novel. Something light. A story. Gods, even a bad romance plot would do.’
His fingers brushed over the cover.
“Foundations of Mana: Circuits, Channels, and Core Stability.”
His brow twitched.
The second book: “Transmutation and Alchemical Boundaries: A Historical Approach.”
The hopeful flicker was starting to sputter.
The third: “A Practical Guide to Mana Infusion and Control.”
He stared at the titles.
Then leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Vaelira, I love you, but you read like a textbook wrote your personality,” he muttered to the empty room.
Still, he wasn’t exactly spoiled for options.
He was too sore to get out of bed, too tired to plot revenge, and too wired from the previous night’s chaos to fall asleep.
That left… educational reading.
He eyed the third book again.
Out of the three, at least that one had practical in the title.
He sighed and picked it up, the cover firm and cold in his hand.
“…Alright, let’s see if you’re even slightly more tolerable than you look.”
He flipped to the first page.
And began to read.
***
Lucien blinked, stared at the page, then blinked again.
He hadn’t expected much when he cracked open the book, maybe some dense academic droning or an overly self-serious preface filled with runes and footnotes.
But to his genuine surprise, the book read like something from a well-illustrated school primer.
The tone was casual, almost playful, as though it was designed to walk a slow reader by the hand rather than beat them over the head with arcane terminology.
“Mana,” the book began, “is the breath of the world. Every living thing carries it. Some just breathe deeper.”
Lucien tilted his head slightly.
“Huh. Alright, that’s… kinda poetic.”
The text went on to explain that nearly all living beings possess mana, even if most are unaware of it.
Mana was a base element of life, present in beasts, plants, and even fungi to varying degrees, but sentient beings were defined, at least in part, by how they interacted with mana.
The more conscious a species was of its own mana and how to wield it, the more complex its society and behavior could be.
“Of course,” the book added, “this theory is heavily debated. For a broader look at the philosophical and biological frameworks behind sentience, please refer to Essays on Magical Taxonomy, Volumes I through IV, which are not recommended for bedside reading unless you enjoy dreams about slime mold debating ethics.”
Lucien chuckled.
The author had a bite to them.
The next few pages delved into what it called 'mana nature' the individual essence or tendency of a person’s mana, often shaped by personality, experience, and even biological quirks.
“Some people have mana that flows like a river-quick, smooth, reactive. These individuals often take naturally to water magic, illusion, or healing. Others have mana that resists movement, dense and compact, like packed earth. These people may find themselves gifted in reinforcement, barrier crafting, or even direct physical enhancement.”
Lucien rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“So… mana has personality?”
But the book was quick to stress that having a certain nature didn’t mean one was trapped in a magical niche.
“Just because a door opens easily doesn’t mean it’s the only way in,” it said.
“Through mana neutralization techniques, often taught in formal magical institutions, students can ‘flatten’ the quirks of their mana, allowing them to access schools of magic they wouldn’t naturally gravitate toward.”
Lucien paused there, eyes narrowing just a bit in thought.
“This… this wasn’t in the game at all.”
He leaned back again, eyes fixed on the ceiling as he processed the realization.
In the original visual novel, magic had been more of a soft system, a flashy, aesthetic background element that was occasionally relevant for plot convenience.
The player never got a deep breakdown of the world’s magical infrastructure, much less the philosophy behind it.
Yet here he was, reading about mana natures, cross-discipline training, and academic debates on the consciousness of magical creatures.
“This book’s actually… pretty damn interesting,” Lucien muttered, turning the page with new curiosity.
“And Vaelira just left this here like it was a pillow weight.”
He pulled the blanket up a little, eyes moving smoothly over the text.
For the first time since waking up sore and battered, something tugged at him that wasn’t pain or frustration.
Something like… fascination.
***
The estate grounds were quiet now, save for the occasional barked order from a town guard or the distant clang of armor.
Most of the blood had been washed away by now, save the faintest rust-red stains caught in the mortar between stones.
Vaelira found Sir Richardson seated alone on one of the weathered benches beneath the old cedar tree.
His posture was as upright as ever, but even she could tell, he looked older today.
“Sir Richardson,” she greeted softly.
He glanced up, and for a brief moment, his eyes relaxed. “Lady Vaelira. I expected you to be resting.”
She sat beside him without waiting for permission.
Sir Richardson hummed, neither approving nor rebuking.
“He’s lucky to have you by his side. Not many would’ve acted with such resolve.”
Vaelira didn’t respond immediately.
The breeze carried the faint scent of lavender.
“I saw it,” she finally said, voice quieter now.
“What you did last night. That... slash. It cut clean through the intruders, like they were made of paper, but Lucien was right there, between you and them. I watched it go through him.”
Sir Richardson stilled.
Vaelira turned toward him, eyes unreadable.
“But he wasn’t harmed. Not a scratch. Just... light. Like it passed through him.”
A beat of silence passed.
Then another.
Finally, the old knight sighed, deep and long.
“You really do see everything,” he said with a half-smile.
“Not much gets past you, does it?”
Vaelira gave a faint shrug.
“I have learned not to miss details. Especially when people’s lives depend on them.”
He nodded, letting that linger.
“What you saw,” he said slowly, “was a technique I learned in the war. In those days, when the battlefield was chaos, we were taught how to strike with precision even when surrounded by friend and foe alike.”
He looked down at the ivory pen now placed neatly in his coat pocket, its golden clip glinting in the dying light.
“It’s called True Slash. Not just a swing of steel, but the will to strike only what you mean to. The blade moves where the intent does. A thin margin, sometimes as narrow as a heartbeat... but if mastered, it cuts only what the soul commands it to.”
Vaelira’s eyes widened, faint awe flickering in her usually guarded expression.
“That’s... remarkable.”
Sir Richardson chuckled softly, almost wistfully.
“A lot of men never learned it. Took too much discipline. Too much faith in the blade. But for all my other failures... that technique, I mastered.”
Vaelira hesitated.
“Can you teach me?”
He turned to look at her properly now.
She wasn’t just asking out of curiosity, there was something sharper in her tone.
A need.
And he saw it etched across her face: exhaustion, guilt, and the shadow of helplessness from the night before.
“You never stop, do you?” he said, a faint warmth in his voice.
“Carrying the weight, even when you’re breaking under it.”
She didn’t reply.
Sir Richardson let out a breath.
“Yes. I would be honored to teach you, Lady Vaelira. But not tonight. Not with shadows under your eyes and your shoulders hunched from worry.”
He stood slowly, stretching out his spine with a small grunt.
“You rest first,” he said gently but firmly.
“When you're ready... we'll begin.”
Vaelira looked down at her hands for a long moment.
“…Alright.”
But her fingers, even now, curled slightly, like she was already gripping the hilt of an unseen sword.
***
The soft rustle of pages was the only sound in the quiet bedroom.
Lucien lay propped against a nest of pillows, the book open across his lap.
The lamplight glowed warmly on the pages, flickering slightly as the breeze from the cracked window stirred the curtains.
His expression was furrowed, not in pain anymore, but in deep concentration.
“…Mana neutralization is a learned process, more meditation than manipulation. By detaching from one’s natural flow, a practitioner may realign their conduit to emulate a different nature entirely…”
Lucien blinked.
“This is way more interesting than it has any right to be.”
He glanced at the cover again, still half-disbelieving.
“This thing reads like a storybook for magically inclined children,” he muttered, turning another page, “but I’m not mad about it.”
Without realizing it, his fingers flexed slightly.
A faint tingle pricked under his skin, harmless, subtle.
Like the first fizz of soda against your tongue.
It hummed low in his chest and behind his eyes.
His breathing adjusted, ever so slightly.
Not deeper, not faster… just aligned.
Somewhere deep within him, mana stirred, quiet, curious, and drawn forward like a cat following a beam of light.
Lucien didn’t notice.
He turned another page.
And yet elsewhere…
Far removed from hearth and bed, beyond the veil of stars and the crawl of time, something shifted.
It was not asleep, for it did not sleep.
Nor was it awake, because such states were beneath its nature.
But still… it noticed.
The faintest ripple.
Like a drop of ink in a basin of clear water.
Something ancient stirred in response.
“Oh?”
A voice, if it could be called that, rippled across the unseen space like oil across black silk.
“So… the boy stirs at last.”
The world around it pulsed in dull hues of violet and void.
An unseen wind laughed across impossible geometry.
“Crowley blood… dormant, but not yet broken.”
The voice chuckled, low and mirthful, like the grind of old clockwork or the purring of something too large to fit inside the room you just left.
‘Reading fairy tales and primers, are we?’
It mused.
‘Adorable. Still… promising. So very few in that wretched line even make it this far.’
A dozen unseen eyes blinked open.
Not in anger.
Not in fear.
Just… interest.
The presence stilled.
Observing.
Amused.
It would wait.
It always waited.
But for the first time in a long, long while, something had its attention.
Back in Lucien’s Room…
“…‘But those with irregular mana signatures often develop alternate conduits in the body, such as bone, sinew, or even blood vessels, allowing for rare but potent variation in technique.’ Huh…”
Lucien blinked, then reread the sentence.
“That’s… kinda metal.”
He scratched the back of his head, then leaned further into the pillow.
The sensation in his chest faded slightly.
The mana, like a cat finished toying with a feather, curled back into rest.
Lucien yawned and turned another page, oblivious.
***
