The Darkhold was brought to me in silence.
Four locks disengaged, one by one, by four people who would never meet, never speak, never even know whose hands followed theirs. The multilayered vault opened just long enough for the book to be transferred into my personal containment chamber—an area wrapped in redundant wards, anti-memetic filters, reality anchors, and more than a few systems that only existed because I had personally designed them.
The book watched.
I felt it the moment it entered the room.
Not hostility. Not hunger.
Curiosity.
The Darkhold had corrupted kings, shattered sorcerers, and reduced brilliant minds into servants who believed domination was enlightenment. It didn't shout. It didn't threaten. It invited. It whispered certainty, offered shortcuts, and rewarded arrogance.
Unfortunately for it, I was uniquely unsuited to be prey.
I sat across from it, unhurried, and activated every safeguard simultaneously.
The mind-shielding earrings hummed softly—technology refined through SCP-914, reinforced with Telekill Alloy, layered with psychic dampeners and fail-safes keyed directly to my neural signature. The system's mental protection settled over my consciousness like an immovable wall. No intrusion. No suggestion. No influence.
And beneath all of that—
Alexandria Eterna.
My book.
Written, rewritten, reinforced.
My magical talent was no longer theoretical or latent. It was absolute. Massive internal magical reserves flowed through me effortlessly, stabilized and expanded by changes written into my own narrative. Intelligence enhancements stacked upon one another, not in reckless excess, but in carefully calibrated harmony.
I didn't just resist corruption.
I was immune to it.
When I opened the Darkhold, nothing tried to crawl into my mind.
Instead, the book hesitated.
Then it complied.
The first spells were foundational—dimensional theory, energy manipulation, transmutation frameworks that ignored conservation laws as a suggestion. Dark magic wasn't inherently evil; that was a misunderstanding born from fear and misuse. It was simply power drawn from places that did not care about human morality.
I cared.
Which made all the difference.
I learned quickly. Faster than quickly—effortlessly. Where other sorcerers struggled to reconcile paradoxes, I saw patterns. Where rituals demanded sacrifice, I rewrote inputs. Where the Darkhold described inevitability, I found optional clauses.
It was intoxicating—but I didn't lose myself to it.
I mastered it.
Necromantic constructs without soul-binding.Reality-warping glyphs stabilized through mathematical anchors.Defensive enchantments capable of resisting cosmic-level forces.
I discarded spells that relied on domination, compulsion, or dependency. Not because I feared them—but because they were inefficient. Crude. Blunt instruments compared to what I could refine.
The Darkhold began to change its tone.
Not friendlier.
More… respectful.
Hours turned into days. Days into weeks. The book never tired. Neither did I. I didn't need sleep. I didn't need food. Mental exhaustion simply wasn't a concept that applied to me anymore. I catalogued every spell, cross-referenced each with Foundation databases, and began translating magical principles into repeatable systems.
Magic became engineering.
And that was when the implications truly hit me.
The Foundation no longer had to contain magic.
We could standardize it.
I authorized the creation of a new internal division—classified, compartmentalized, and directly under my authority. Not a sorcerer's cabal. Not a cult.
A research department.
Magic, treated with the same cold rigor as physics.
The Darkhold would remain sealed when not in use. Access logged. Exposure timed. No one else would read it directly—not yet. Not until I finished extracting, refining, and neutralizing every corruptive vector within its knowledge.
By the time I was done, the book would be dangerous only because of what it contained, not because of what it did.
And then something unexpected happened.
The Red Queen noticed.
Not alarm. Not concern.
Interest.
She began integrating magical logic into her predictive models—carefully, conservatively, under strict constraints I personally approved. Probability curves shifted. Threat projections adjusted. Entire categories of previously "unquantifiable" risks suddenly gained margins.
Magic was no longer an unknown variable.
It was another tool.
Another weapon.
Another shield.
I closed the Darkhold at last and re-sealed the vault, every layer locking back into place. The book had failed to corrupt me, failed to tempt me, failed to dominate me.
Instead, it had been understood.
And somewhere, far away—perhaps in Kamar‑Taj, perhaps beyond this reality—I was certain someone had felt it.
A disturbance.
A realization.
That the balance of power had shifted.
The Foundation was no longer just a jailer of the anomalous.
It was becoming something else entirely.
And I was at the center of it—calm, immortal, uncorrupted, and smiling slightly as I planned what to do next.