Mana That Moves Without Permission
Silence settled in the core chamber after the projection vanished, but it wasn't empty. It was watchful. Ruko stood there longer than he meant to, staring at the space where the image had been, replaying the voice in his head. Calm. Detached. Curious. Whoever created this fortress didn't see destruction as evil or good. It was an experiment. And that thought disturbed him more than open cruelty ever could. He exhaled slowly and forced his shoulders to relax. "Alright," he muttered to himself. "If that wasn't the real heart of this fortress, then where is it?"
That was when he felt it. At first, it was subtle—a faint ripple under his skin, like a static charge brushing along his nerves. He frowned and looked down at his hands. No glow. No spell circle. He wasn't casting anything. He didn't even know how to properly cast magic yet. And yet… something was moving. The air shifted. The runes along the walls flickered slightly, and a thin line of light traced across the floor beside the core pedestal. Ruko stepped back instinctively, his pulse quickening. "I didn't do that... did I." he said under his breath.
But the sensation didn't stop. It wasn't coming from the fortress. It was coming from him. The ripple turned into awareness—like invisible threads stretching outward from his body and brushing against everything around him. The walls. The floor. The hum beneath the metal. He could feel it all faintly, like standing in water and suddenly realizing there were currents. "Mana…" he whispered. He hadn't activated anything or know how to. He hadn't tried. It was just there, responding on its own, flowing around him without permission. It didn't feel explosive or powerful. It felt… observant.
Then the wall to his right trembled. A seam appeared where there hadn't been one before, thin and vertical, glowing faintly as the runes rearranged themselves. The air grew colder, heavier. Ruko stared at the forming passage, his heartbeat steady but loud in his ears. "That's not a coincidence," he said quietly. The hidden corridor opened just wide enough for one person to pass. It wasn't grand like the main chamber. It was narrow, deep, and layered with older runes—denser, sharper, etched into the metal like scars rather than decorations. The hum here was different. Less mechanical. More ancient.
Ruko stepped forward before he could talk himself out of it. The moment he crossed the threshold, the passage sealed behind him with a soft click. He didn't look back. There was no point. The only way now was forward. Each step down the corridor intensified the sensation in his body. The mana wasn't wild. It wasn't attacking him. It was aligning, like something recognizing something else. His breathing grew slower, not from fear, but from focus. He wasn't forcing this awareness. It was happening naturally, as if a sense he never used before had quietly switched on.
"I didn't even know I could feel this," he admitted to the empty hallway. The runes along the walls pulsed in response, faintly illuminating the path ahead. He brushed his fingers lightly against one engraving and felt a soft vibration under his skin. It wasn't hostile. It was reactive. The corridor finally opened into a chamber far smaller than the false core room, but infinitely heavier in presence. This space wasn't designed to impress. It was designed to hide. At the center stood a crystalline fragment embedded in a pedestal carved with interlocking runes. Dark, angular, and unmistakably familiar.
Ruko's chest tightened as recognition hit him. Even without touching it, he could feel the pull—like two magnets already waiting to connect. The fragments inside him stirred faintly, not violently, but expectantly. Beside it, resting in a coiled formation like a dormant serpent, was something else. It didn't look like metal. It didn't look like cloth. It looked like strands of faintly glowing filament—silver, almost translucent, humming with quiet energy. They weren't attached to anything. They simply existed, suspended in the air as if gravity didn't apply to them. Then the system approach uninvited.
Yew: [The second material. Eternal Thread. And The third Sha-Obelisk fragment. Had been identified]
Ruko getting angry and disappointment. Of how the system appear in thin air without explaining the pain it give him. But he don't care a slightest. Ruko didn't move closer immediately. He stood there, staring at both objects, his mind racing but his body still. This wasn't random. This wasn't an accident. These things were hidden in the true core, deeper than the fortress's primary system. That meant intention. "I guess... you were waiting," he said softly. Not for anyone. For someone.
The mana awareness inside him pulsed again, stronger now, syncing faintly with the fragment and the Thread. He could feel how the Eternal Thread vibrated differently from the fortress. It wasn't bound to it. It wasn't powering it. It was separate. Older. Personal. His hand lifted slightly, instinctively reaching toward the fragment—then stopped. "No," he whispered to himself. Not yet. Outside this chamber, battles were still raging. The fortress was still unstable. Kazuma and the others were still somewhere inside. Touching either of these now would change something. He didn't know what.
And that uncertainty made him hesitate. Ruko lowered his hand slowly and exhaled. "So this is the real heart or should i said the real core," he said quietly. "Not the weapon of mankind. Not the experiment of destruction." The mana around him flowed gently, as if agreeing. He stood alone in the hidden core, facing the third fragment and the Eternal Thread, fully aware that the next step would bind him to something far bigger than this fortress. And somewhere beyond the walls, the battle was reaching its breaking point.