Morning came without light.
The crystals embedded in the shelter's walls remained dim, their glow subdued as if reluctant to announce the passage of time. The air was still, dense in a way that made sound feel intrusive. Even breathing seemed too loud.
The boy woke without moving.
His eyes opened, but his body remained perfectly still, as though motion itself required permission. There was a pressure behind his eyes—not pain, not discomfort, but a sensation like being observed from within. He did not reach for it. Instinct told him that doing so would change something irrevocably.
Across the room, the frame waited.
It rested on its stand of interlocking pylons, dark metal swallowing the ambient glow. The empty slots carved into its surface no longer felt empty. They felt expectant.
"You feel it," the mage said.
He had not announced his presence. He never did anymore.
The boy nodded once.
"It hasn't done anything," he said.
"That is precisely the problem," the mage replied.
They did not begin with mana.
The mage dismissed every ritual he had once taught—no circles, no incantations, no grounding techniques. Instead, he instructed the boy to stand before the frame and do nothing at all.
"No intention," the mage said. "No resistance either. Just… remain."
Minutes passed.
Then more.
The pressure behind the boy's eyes deepened, spreading slowly through his skull like water seeping into stone. His perception sharpened—not outward, but inward. He became acutely aware of his own existence: the rhythm of his heartbeat, the weight of his breath, the simple fact that he was still here.
The frame responded.
One slot shifted.
It was not dramatic. No light, no sound. Just a minute adjustment of depth and angle, as if the frame had reconsidered its shape.
The mage inhaled sharply.
"…It's aligning," he murmured. "Not to power. To persistence."
The boy swallowed.
"To me?"
The mage hesitated.
"No," he said at last. "To the assumption that you will not stop."
The first manifestation occurred without warning.
The pressure crested, and the boy instinctively stepped back.
The air folded.
There was a faint metallic resonance—steel settling into place after a long fall. Space warped in front of him, as if something had briefly occupied it and then reconsidered its own existence.
A blade appeared.
Or rather, the idea of one.
Its length was uneven, its surface unfinished, its edge blunt despite the clear intention behind it. It hovered, trembling, held together by something less stable than mana.
The boy stared.
The mage extended a cautious thread of energy toward it.
The moment it touched—
The blade collapsed.
The air snapped back into place with a sharp crack, and the mage recoiled, clutching his wrist as though burned.
"…It rejected me," he whispered.
The boy looked at his own hands.
They were steady.
They tried again.
This time, the mage gave a different instruction.
"Do not look at it as a tool," he said. "Acknowledge it as something that exists alongside you."
The pressure returned, heavier now, undeniable. The boy's breath slowed of its own accord. His awareness stretched outward—not toward the room, but toward something vast and unfinished.
For a fleeting moment, the shelter vanished.
He stood on a boundless plain.
Steel lay scattered across it.
Not swords.
Not weapons.
Fragments.
Broken attempts. Abandoned shapes. Blades that had failed to become anything more.
The boy staggered.
The projection formed again—clearer this time. Shorter, heavier. Still imperfect, but undeniably real. It dropped to the stone floor with a muted clang.
It did not vanish.
The mage did not speak.
The boy crouched and picked it up.
The blade was warm.
Not hot—alive in a way metal should never be.
It fit his hand not because it was designed for him, but because it expected to be used.
They ended the session early.
Not because the process was complete, but because neither of them trusted what would happen if they continued.
That night, the mage finally spoke without calculation.
"The seven cards I created," he said, seated across from the boy, "were built on records. On legends already complete."
He stared into his cup, the liquid untouched.
"This one," he continued, "is being built on an assumption."
The boy waited.
"It assumes battles you have not yet fought," the mage said quietly. "Blades you have not yet broken. Endings you have not yet survived."
He looked up.
"And it will continue to assume… as long as you do."
The boy considered that.
"What happens when it finishes?" he asked.
The mage's expression tightened.
"It won't," he said. "Not unless you do."
Sleep came slowly.
When the dream returned, the plain of steel was clearer than before. The fragments were sharper. More numerous.
And somewhere in the distance—far beyond where his sight could reach—something waited.
Unmoving.
Patient.
Certain that he would arrive.