The moment the door shut, Rex vaulted over the table.
Not climbed.
Not walked around.
Vaulted.
Books scattered. A chair tipped. Pages fluttered as he landed in a crouch, already yanking the Mistica Arcanum toward himself like it might vanish if he hesitated.
"Okay," Rex muttered, flipping it open. "Let's see what you actually are."
The pages didn't feel old.
They felt aware.
Rex froze almost immediately.
"…Why do I know all this?"
The first chapters weren't secrets.
They were his knowledge.
Gauntlet schematics—his design.
Focus theory—exactly how he understood it.
Runes—etched, memorized, internalized.
Everything he had learned was already there.
"…It's a memory storage?" Rex asked slowly.
Sage: Not exactly.
Rex flipped faster, scanning.
Sage: Look at that chapter. Elemental Crystals.
Rex stopped.
The chapter wasn't there before.
He was sure of it.
He turned to the page.
The book unfolded a detailed, almost obsessive explanation of how elemental crystals formed—deep underground, saturated ley zones, places where raw elemental mana condensed over decades or centuries. Growth cycles. Instability points. Preferred environments.
"This is… way more detailed than anything I've seen," Rex muttered.
He finished the chapter.
The page turned itself.
A new section appeared.
Rex's breath caught.
"…That wasn't there."
Noir: Probably sentient.
Sage: Or reactive. Or adaptive.
Noir: Mind-reading book.
Sage: Possibly.
Sage (after a pause): Either way, read it.
The title glowed faintly.
Combining Elements and Runes
Rex read.
And the world got bigger.
The chapter explained that focuses didn't have to be neutral.
A fire spell could use a fire-aligned focus.
An earth spell, an earth-aligned one.
Elemental focuses enhanced control or power, but never both.
More power meant less stability.
More control meant weaker output.
A sliding scale.
"…So," Rex said slowly, "elemental focus equals specialization tradeoff."
Sage: Compared to a pure focus.
"Of course compared to a pure focus," Rex nodded.
There were recipes.
Actual instructions.
Miniature rituals involving reinforced iron, runic alignment, and crystal harmonics.
Rex's eyes sparkled.
"Can we make these?"
Sage: Absolutely not.
Rex blinked. "Why not? It doesn't look that complicated."
Sage: You peanut-brain can't even see the complexity.
Rex frowned. "That sounds like a you problem."
Sage: My brain is superior.
"Sure it is."
They stared at the page.
"…We're still trying," Rex said.
Sage: Obviously.
Rex leaned back, then leaned forward again.
"Okay. Next step."
He flipped to the rune index.
"We need another spell."
Sage: Specify.
"The redirect spell," Rex said. "We made it mid-battle. It works, but it's sloppy. We need to rebuild it properly."
Sage: Agreed.
"And we need one more," Rex continued. "Support or ranged."
Sage: Both?
Rex shook his head. "One."
He scanned the list of runes.
Fire. Earth. Force. Stability.
Then—
He stopped.
"…Air."
Sage: Air?
Rex didn't answer immediately.
He just stared at the page.
Thinking.
Thinking deeply.
Wind. Pressure. Motion. Redirection. Speed. Distance.
Control without impact.
Mobility. Range. Utility.
He leaned back slowly, a smile forming.
Sage: …I see it.
Noir: I don't.
Rex's eyes sharpened.
"Exactly."
The book remained open.
Waiting.
And somewhere in the city, unseen eyes were still watching—
while Rex quietly planned how to move faster, hit farther, and never be cornered again.