Vernon did not sleep that night.
Nor the next.
When he closed Alice's notes, his hands were trembling - not from fear, but from recognition. The diagrams were incomplete, not because they were rushed, but because they assumed understanding. His mother had never written for beginners.
She had written for someone who already felt mana.
He sat on the cave floor and did not move.
At first, Derek thought he was simply studying.
Then hours passed.
Then a day.
"Is he-" Bruce started.
"Meditating," Melian said quietly. She hovered near the cave wall, her glow dimmed, restrained. "But not safely."
Derek frowned. "Explain."
She hesitated. "He's not drawing mana I'm sure. He's letting it gather on its own i think."
Derek's jaw tightened. "Is that reckless?"
"I can see a lot but not that much" she replied. "if i were to guess its gathering naturally because it feels drawn towards him."
By the second day, the air around Vernon felt wrong.
Not heavy. Not dense.
Still.
Mana drifted toward him like dust settling in an abandoned room, slow and deliberate. It did not surge. It did not obey. It simply was.
Inside Vernon's chest, something stirred.
Then recoiled.
The pressure he had grown used to - subtle, constant - began to loosen, like a clenched fist slowly relaxing. Vernon's breath hitched, sweat beading along his brow.
His head throbbed.
Not pain like injury.
Pain like overload.
Sound bled into him.
The drip of water from the cave ceiling became deafening. Bruce's breathing echoed like wind through a valley. The distant forest expanded outward, layered and vast—leaves shifting miles away, insects crawling beneath bark, the slow movement of life he had never known existed.
Vernon clenched his jaw.
Too much.
But he did not stop.
On the third day, the circle formed.
Not visibly.
Not dramatically.
It was simply there - a rotation of mana inside him, hesitant and incomplete, but stable. The gathered energy settled into it naturally, as water finds a basin.
And the thing in his chest-
Slept.
The relief was immediate.
Vernon exhaled shakily, nearly collapsing forward. The headaches hit seconds later, sharp and blinding, as if his skull were too small for what his senses now carried.
He gasped, hands clawing at the stone.
Derek was beside him instantly. "Enough."
Vernon shook his head weakly. "No-if I stop now""
"You'll break," Derek snapped.
Melian hovered closer, eyes wide. "The pressure is gone," she whispered. "But he paid for it. I'm guessing his body was regenerating from all the strain the gathering process made, in short meaning that he traded off stamina for a safer experience."
Vernon laughed softly, delirious. "That... sounds fair."
He slept for two days afterward.
When he woke, the world felt quieter.
Not dull.
Focused.
He could still hear more than before - far more - but the sounds no longer crushed him. They layered instead, waiting for attention rather than demanding it.
Bruce sat beside his bed. "You scared us."
Vernon blinked. "I'm good at that."
Bruce huffed. "You meditated for three days. Dad nearly lost his mind."
Vernon turned his head slowly. "Did it work?"
Bruce hesitated. "…I think so."
Derek didn't yell.
That scared Vernon more.
"You stabilized something I don't understand," Derek said that evening, staring into the fire. "That doesn't mean you're safe."
Vernon nodded. "I know."
"Mana circles aren't meant to be forced like that."
"I didn't force it."
Derek looked at him sharply.
"I let it happen," Vernon said. "The way Mom wrote it."
Silence followed.
Finally, Derek exhaled. "You're walking a path I can't guide."
Vernon met his gaze. "Then I'll walk it carefully."
Derek almost smiled.
Outside, Melian watched the moon rise.
"The thing inside him sleeps," she murmured. "For now."
Bruce frowned. "Is that good?"
She smiled faintly. "It's a beginning."
Before meetings the day's sunset Vernon opened Alice's notes one more time, He flipped to the page after the page that helped him surpass his issues. "Congratulations." at the top of the page written in the same ink that once stood upon Alice's desk, Vernon felt proud-he felt himself move forward in the footsteps that his mother had taken previously.
Vernon giggled to himself quietly.
"Next.. ill learn to handle Mana with care," he muttered.
To know if you have formed a circle and successfully achieved a stable build, you will have one of your senses enhanced meaning-that if you can suddenly taste things that are not near you, your sense of taste has gotten enhanced-the same goes for your hearing or eyesight, but most importantly of all if you awaken the...
The writing cut off, Vernon had taken it as a riddle or something that he will find out in the future.
However this marked the end of the day, after all the sun has already set.