Kairo wakes up convinced his skull has been lightly rearranged overnight.
Not shattered. Not broken.
Just… adjusted.
He opens one eye, then the other, and immediately regrets both decisions.
'Yep,' he thinks groggily. 'That's the price tag.'
From the outside, he looks like a kid who fell asleep on a workshop floor after a long day of chores. Hair messy. Clothes rumpled. One arm flung awkwardly over a pile of papers.
From the inside, his mind feels like it ran a marathon while solving equations.
He pushes himself upright slowly, careful not to anger whatever fragile balance exists behind his eyes. The headache isn't sharp anymore—it's deep and dull, like pressure behind the thoughts themselves.
'Mental energy depletion,' he notes automatically. 'Distinct from mana exhaustion.'
That distinction matters.
Mana exhaustion makes you tired. Weak. Hollow.
This—
This makes thinking expensive.
He washes his face at the basin, cold water biting into his skin. The shock helps. A little. Enough to bring clarity back in fragments.
'So yesterday wasn't free.'
He stares at his reflection.
'Nothing worth doing ever is.'
He doesn't go back to the alley immediately.
That's deliberate.
Instead, he sits at the low table in the workshop and rewrites yesterday's notes. Slowly. Carefully. No activation. No mana usage. Just transcription.
From the outside, it looks boring. Pointless even.
From the inside, it's damage control.
He notices something interesting as he writes.
Even thinking about the syllable—about its meaning, its intent—causes a faint pressure to return.
'So cognition itself is part of the cost,' he realizes.
That's… bad.
And fascinating.
By the time the sun climbs higher, the headache has receded to something manageable. Not gone. Just quiet enough to ignore responsibly.
Kairo exhales and stands.
'Alright,' he thinks. 'Round two. Smarter this time.'
Back in the alley, he chooses a fresh slate.
No broken edges. No lingering mana residue.
Baseline testing.
He draws the reinforcement rune exactly as taught. Perfect proportions. Correct stroke order. No syllables. No intent manipulation.
Activate.
The rune glows weakly and fades.
He repeats it.
Same result.
Again Same.
He times it. Measures the drain by feel. Notes the duration.
'Okay,' he thinks. 'This is "normal."'
From the third-person view, the rune behaves precisely as expected. Stable. Predictable. Unremarkable.
That's the point.
Kairo redraws the rune beside it.
Same shape.Same size.
This time, before activating, he steadies his breathing and whispers softly:
"Sa."
The rune responds instantly.
Not brighter.
Better.
The mana flow tightens, smoother and more cohesive, like a sentence spoken clearly instead of mumbled.
Kairo watches closely.
The glow lasts longer. The drain feels lighter.
He doesn't smile.
He frowns.
'That's too consistent.'
Consistency means this isn't coincidence. It isn't luck. It's a rule—one no one bothered to write down.
He tests it again.
Same result.
Again.Same.
From the outside, it looks like he's obsessing over trivial differences. From the inside, something clicks into place.
'Magic gives feedback,' he realizes. 'Constantly.'
He lets that idea sit.
'People just don't listen.'
He pushes further—but carefully.
This time, he alters only intent.
Same rune. Same syllable.
Instead of imagining reinforcement as hardness, he imagines it as persistence. Continuity over time.
"Sa."
The mana reacts differently.
The rune stretches—not physically, but conceptually. It resists decay rather than impact.
Kairo's eyes widen.
'That's not a stronger shield.'
He swallows.
'That's a longer-lasting one.'
His head throbs faintly in warning.
He stops immediately.
From the third-person view, his aura flickers—subtle, but noticeable if you're looking for it. Mana levels remain healthy. Mental strain does not.
That confirms it.
'The bottleneck isn't mana,' he thinks. 'It's cognition.'
That realization chills him more than any backlash.
As the day wears on, Kairo falls into a rhythm.
Test.
Observe.
Rest.
Document.
Failures still outnumber successes, but the successes are repeatable now. Predictable. They behave the same way every time.
That matters more than power.
A pair of older apprentices pass by at one point, glancing at the scattered slates and endless runes.
One scoffs quietly.
"Still drawing the same thing?"
Kairo doesn't respond.
From the outside, he looks like he didn't hear.
From the inside, he's too busy mapping correlations to care.
'Shape is syntax,' he thinks.
'Sound is command.'
'Intent is modifier.'
He pauses, charcoal hovering mid-air.
'That's… actually dangerous.'
Because if that's true—
Then magic isn't just flexible.
It's hackable.
A sharp pulse of pain lances behind his eyes, as if reality itself objects to the conclusion.
Kairo drops the charcoal and hisses, gripping his head.
'Okay, okay,' he thinks quickly. 'Message received.'
He sinks back against the wall, breathing slowly until the pressure fades.
'So even conceptual leaps have a cost.'
Uncomfortable.
Fair.
That night, he doesn't experiment at all.
He documents.Meticulously.
He redraws diagrams. Labels failures. Writes hypotheses he doesn't yet have the strength to test. He even records when the headaches occur—not during activation, but during abstraction.
That detail stands out.
'Magic doesn't mind being used,' he realizes. 'It minds being understood.'
The thought lingers as he lies back, exhausted in a way sleep alone won't fix.
A faint flicker appears at the edge of his vision—gentler this time.
More stable.
[Genesis System — Observational Log]
[Pattern recognition confirmed]
[Cognitive alignment increasing]
[Advisory:]
[Excessive iteration detected]
Recommendation — rest.
Kairo snorts softly."Oh now you give advice."
The interface fades.
He closes his eyes, smiling despite himself.
From the outside, he's just another tired kid.
From the inside—
'—I'm not learning spells,' he thinks.
'I'm learning how magic reacts to being questioned.'
Sleep takes him before the headache can return.
Author's Note:
Today's update:
Magic gives feedback.
Magic does not appreciate being psychoanalyze.