Caeden leaned back against the stone pillar, arms folding across his chest, but there was a quiet gleam to his expression—like soone still processing a private victory.
"I tried cultivating," he said, nodding toward the open air above the courtyard. "Just a bit. Couple of breaths. Felt... different."
Mireilla raised a brow. "Different how?"
Caeden exhaled, eyes narrowing in thought. "Like... the mana was watching . Not resisting. Not guiding. Just... aware. I’ve never had that before. Where I’m from, you grip what you can and force it in. Here?" He shook his head. "It’s like it wanted to see what I’d do with it first."
Mireilla let out a thoughtful hum. "That doesn’t sound awful."
Caeden gave a half-smile, more thoughtful than amused. "It’s probably just in my head. I an, mana doesn’t watch. Not really. But even if I’m wrong..." he exhaled slowly, "I could feel the difference. Just a few breaths, and I already felt clearer. Like it was cleaning from the inside out."
Lucavion glanced at him, eyes sharp beneath the low lanternlight. "You’re not wrong."
Caeden blinked. "You’ve felt it too?"
Lucavion didn’t answer directly. "This place isn’t natural. It’s engineered. You don’t live in a place like this—you’re reshaped by it. Slowly. Quietly. Even when you’re not paying attention."
Mireilla let her fingers trail along the edge of the pillar. "Then I should probably stop ignoring the strange hums coming from my wardrobe."
[You’re being rebuilt,] Vitaliara murmured from Lucavion’s shoulder, [like tal in a divine forge. Just don’t crack too early.]
The quiet tension between them shifted again—lighter this ti, almost curious.
Then—
BZZZT—WHAP
A loud snap echoed down the hall to their right.
All three turned just in ti to see a figure stumble out of one of the dorm entrances.
Toren.
Disheveled didn’t quite cover it.
His hair—already a chaotic ss of short, spiky tufts—now looked like it had been struck by lightning again, each strand flicking with residual arcs of static. Sparks crackled between his shoulder blades as if his body hadn’t fully discharged whatever ritual—or disaster—he’d just walked out of.
He blinked blearily at them, one eye twitching from a shock that hadn’t entirely worn off. His robe clung to one side of his body like he’d half-burned it off, and there was a faint sll of ozone trailing behind him.
"Hey," he muttered hoarsely, squinting like the moonlight itself had offended him.
Mireilla blinked. "Toren... why are you walking like every part of your soul has debt?"
Lucavion’s smirk returned, slow and entirely unfair. "Looks like soone tried the bath."
Toren raised one arm halfway—wobbled—then let it drop. "Tried is a strong word. Was lured."
Caeden tilted his head, brows raised. "Are you... injured?"
"Injured?" Toren’s voice cracked on the word. "No. No, no. That would imply there’s sothing left to injure. I think my spine detached itself sowhere around the third pulse. Pretty sure I’ve been operating on faith and residual pride since."
Lucavion chuckled low in his throat, eyes gleaming. "You activated the core weave sequence."
Toren turned slowly, like the motion itself might fracture sothing important, and squinted at Lucavion like he was trying to recognize a war criminal. "You knew about that?!"
"You looked like you needed muscle realignnt," Lucavion replied, utterly unapologetic. "Now you’ve had it. Congratulations."
Mireilla stepped forward, expression flickering between concern and incredulity. "Wait—wait, you’re telling you used the training compression function on the first night?!"
Toren raised both hands, as if surrendering to a force larger than himself. "I didn’t know! The glyph just said sothing about body optimization and restoration! I thought it was a recovery soak! You know—nice heat, mana fizzles, maybe a shoulder massage if I was lucky!"
Lucavion snorted. "Shoulder massage? It reforges your bones."
Mireilla stared at Toren like he’d just confessed to attempting brain surgery with a spoon.
"You didn’t read the full glyph?" she asked, voice rising with the slow, inevitable horror of soone realizing she was surrounded by idiots. "It was literally inscribed above the basin. With pictograms."
Toren tried for a shrug and only managed a grimace. "The glyph shimred in this really welcoming kind of way! It said ’Muscle Restoration’—not muscle annihilation!"
"That’s not what it said," Mireilla snapped. "It said ’Core Weave: Musculature Optimization via Targeted Mana Compression.’ That is not a bath. That is sothing you use after your bones have already been ground to dust in training."
"I thought it was fancy phrasing!" Toren protested. "Like, ’mana hydration sequence’ or ’personalized essence soak’ or—"
"Oh my stars," Mireilla groaned, pressing her fingers into her temples. "You don’t just guess when activating enchantnts! You read. You verify. You don’t throw your body into sothing because it sounds good."
"There were bubbles!"
"Bubbles?" Mireilla repeated, flat. "That was your litmus test?"
"I was tired! And curious! And I might have had two glasses of banquet wine left in !"
Lucavion, still leaning comfortably against the pillar with Vitaliara curled like a white scarf of superiority around his neck, tilted his head ever so slightly toward Mireilla. "You should comnd him, you know. His decision-making was catastrophically terrible, but look—he lived."
"That is not the point!" Mireilla hissed. "He could’ve ruptured sothing! Those baths are tuned for mid-tier awakened with reinforced nerve matrices. Not... flammable human twigs with delusions of resilience!"
"I’m right here," Toren mumbled.
"And yet sohow still intact," Lucavion added helpfully.
"Barely!" Toren wheezed. "I swear, I felt the tub judge . I’m pretty sure it muttered unworthy at one point."
Mireilla folded her arms, still glaring. "You’re lucky you didn’t implode."
Caeden, trying and failing not to laugh, cleared his throat. "Well... at least now you’ll be the first student in history to start orientation with fully restructured muscle alignnt. That’s... probably worth sothing."
Lucavion gave a low chuckle. "Give it a day. He might grow wings. Or explode."
"Stars forbid," Mireilla muttered.
Toren just slumped down onto the nearby bench like a collapsed prophecy.
"Next ti," he said weakly, "I’m sticking to cold water and regret."
The laughter lingered for a while—warm, genuine, and exhausted. The kind that ca after adrenaline had long since fled and only absurdity remained to fill the gaps.
Toren, now a broken monunt to hubris and unchecked curiosity, slouched deeper into the stone bench, groaning every ti he dared to shift position. Mireilla still threw him the occasional sideways glare, arms crossed as if physically restraining herself from delivering further lectures. Caeden sat beside him, a half-smile on his face and that thoughtful calm in his eyes—already half gone into so internal cultivation reflection, even while present.
Lucavion remained standing, posture lazy but alert, arms draped across the back of the pillar like a cat eyeing the door, not quite ready to return to the cage.
"Stars," Mireilla muttered, rubbing her face, "what a cursed night."
"Depends on your definition," Lucavion murmured.
Caeden stood, stretching slowly. "I’ll take ’not dead’ as a win."
"I’ll take dead if it ans a soft bed," Toren groaned, finally levering himself to his feet like an elderly tree trying to uproot itself.
Mireilla turned toward the dorm archway. "We’ve got orientation first bell. If you stumble in tomorrow morning looking like a freshly exorcised spirit, I’m not helping you walk."
"No help needed," Toren said, half-limping after her. "I’ll just drag myself in on vibes and compressed muscle mory."
"Compressed is the key word," Caeden said, following them with a faint smirk.
They paused just past the arch—then looked back.
Lucavion hadn’t moved.
Mireilla raised a brow. "Aren’t you coming?"
He shook his head, one hand half-lifted in an idle wave. "You all go. I’ll walk a bit. Let the night stretch its legs."
"You’re not going to trigger any more ancient enchantnts, are you?" Caeden asked dryly.
"No promises," Lucavion replied, smirking faintly. "But if I get vaporized by so forgotten hallway rune, feel free to take my books."
Mireilla gave him a look—sowhere between suspicion and mild concern—but didn’t press. "Try not to start anything that’ll drag us into paperwork."
Toren, already halfway up the dorm steps, called over his shoulder, "If you see another glowing glyph, punch it for ."
"Noted," Lucavion said, watching them vanish into the upper halls one by one.
And just like that, the courtyard fell quiet again.
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