Chapter 3 Threads of Fire and Starlight

Zane

The morning sun cast a pale glow over the worn rooftops of the Lower Verge, where the city's hum was a constant backdrop to daily life. I stepped out of our modest apartment, the door creaking softly behind me. The scent of brewed herbs and toasted bread wafted from the neighboring windows, mingling with the crisp air.

"Zane!" Elara, my childhood friend, called out from across the street, waving as she tended to her family's shop.

I offered a brief smile and a nod, my mind already racing through the day's tasks. The city's pulse quickened as I moved, the familiar streets blurring into a tapestry of motion. I didn’t just walk through the city; I moved through it.

I focused on my core, feeling the familiar resonance.

[Mana channels cleaning at 1% - sequence clear. Empowerment enabled. Morning Zane.]

I rolled my eyes. “Morning Eva. You sound awfully chipper this morning”

[I missed you.]

I rolled my eyes.

Then having a thought, I pulled out my book and made a note. “Style Seven - Manifest?”

[Thats a terrible name. Zane.]

I snorted. “its a work in progress Eva.”

My core hummed as I put away my note book, and the sweet rush of mana infused every fiber of my being.

I leaned and then I took off.

Flush with power, I vaulted a low railing, pivoting on a rain-slicked wall. I flowed down the narrow spine of Verge Sector like the city itself had shaped a path just for me. My boots kissed stone. My gloves caught pipe. One leap blurred into the next.

Storm Flow circled my mana unciouneslly now.

Just a cloak of mana tight to my skin that empowered everything while I remained controlled, silent, efficient.

My core didn’t flare like most mages. It glowed. Smooth and even, like glass catching firelight. A resonance that whispered, not roared.

I took in small amounts of Worldveil (Another stupid name for natural occuring mana.) This was something I had been practicing for some time. It was foolish but it wasn’t the first time I had done something foolish.

A fruit vendor blinked as I passed—first on the roof, then the awning, then gone.

In slow motion I saw a transport mod drop what looked like a building brick from high in the air.

That wasn’t good. I reached for my system skill Mana Blade and activied it with a thought.

[Mana blade formed]

It looked like a throwing knife roughly thirty centimeters long with not handle. I charged the blade with extra mana.

[Skill use: Blade charge.]

I tossed the blade and it connected with the brick and burst. People were going to get dusted, but that was better than someone dying in the dumbest way possible.

A little girl by a café turned just in time to catch a blur of black and silver above her head. She gasped. Her father looked up, squinting at empty air.

“Did you see that?” she whispered.

I was already three rooftops away.

The Verge was still asleep, mostly—steam rising from heat grates, couriers yawning as they loaded spell-slick packages into hover carts. Arc-lamps buzzed with stored pulse charge from the night shift. Delivery drones hummed low overhead.

[Eva: the System is trying to give another update.]

“Did this one fix the patch from last time?”

I could feel Eva’s annoyance which was interesting because was an Ai and not supporsed to have feelings.

[Eva: No from what I can they just made it worst.]

The Kindgom had to make it difficult. Everyone connected to the world through The System—personal interfaces that wired to their core, syncing thought to spell, body to device.

A lift of the hand summoned light.

A blink triggered route-mapping.

A silent whisper loaded spells into defense glyphs.

Magic was the world pulsing through its streets, powering its tech, lighting its homes.

I dropped onto a service balcony, crossed it in two steps, and jumped.

A three-story gap. Clean. Precise.

I hit the far edge with a thump that never echoed.

My hood caught the wind, the seal at my neck flaring faintly to keep it secure.

Another alley. Another wall.

I ran up it like it owed me something.

By the time I reached the old tram lines—barely active at this hour—my heart rate hadn’t even spiked. Mana cooled in my veins like tempered steel.

A notice flashed across my vision, faint and clean:

[Assignment Confirmed. 1 Delivery. Sub-District F: Class-2 Gate Access. You were 15 seconds faster yesterday. I am so disappointed in you.]

I smiled—just barely. Eva. She was so cheeky.

More creds. More grind. Less attention.

That’s all I wanted. My siblings and Jordan’s medical bills were a constant hum beneath every thought.

I landed hard, knees flexing as I absorbed the shock atop a flat, weathered rooftop on the city’s outer edge. I’d been running for nearly twenty minutes—vaulting walls, dashing along rails, slipping through mana-barriers like smoke in a bottle. Now, as I crouched in the shadow of a rusting ventilation spire, I finally exhaled.

The cloak of suppression fell from my body like mist.

Mana bloomed.

It didn’t explode outward—didn’t roar, didn’t spark—but expanded—quiet, steady, potent. My aura didn’t scream look at me, but the moment I let it breathe, every nearby sensor flickered, every ambient thread of magic bent just slightly toward me.

Even from this distance, the inner city shimmered with layered enchantments and elegant power.

Skytrams zipped above me, gliding on humming leyrails—glowing, elevated paths of stabilized mana that ran like veins through the capital’s twin spine: New Liora City and the Academy District.

Most people didn’t walk anymore. They didn’t have to. Mana-tuned travel was too efficient, too ingrained. Especially in Upper Crown Ward, where nobles and officials flowed like silk through their elevated lives.

I preferred the rooftops and to train my mana control because the power in the world wasn’t worth a damn if you couldn’t control it. That was one of the last lessons my father ever taught me before he died.

I tried not to think about that night five years ago.

I simply remembered my father’s lessons. Power was worthless without control.

The sprawl beneath me glittered with glasswalks, hovering platforms, and floating districts tied together by shimmering bridges and veils of warded air. Monolithic towers reached toward the clouds, each one trimmed in their house’s signature golds, blacks, silvers, and greens—each a declaration of wealth, lineage, or power.

At the city’s center—higher than the government citadel, higher even than the sky court halls of the noble houses—floated the crown jewel of eastern academia:

Corvalis Arx - The Academy of Nine Pillars.

The most elite magical university in the known world. (At least according to the Empire.)

Its towers were made of crystal-forged mana glass and ancient bonded stone, designed to both conduct and resist magic. Different schools existed within its structure—Sword, Spell, Mind, Mana, World, Law, Alchemy, Inscripture, and Form—but it was more than an academic haven.

It was a crucible.

A proving ground for the future archmages, swordmasters, generals, tacticians, and heirs of the Empire.

And I had gotten in on a combat scholarship.

I didn’t come from a noble line.

I didn’t have a sponsor.

I won a tournament under a false name and was able to convince the judges to transfer it.

Still not sure how I pulled that off.

Move now. Think later. Cannot be late on the first day. I was racing against time, blood humming, breath steady—as the university's upper wards recognized my mana signature and peeled open the inner barriers to let me through.

Students from all walks of life passed through those gates: sons of noble houses draped in silk and arrogance, mercenary-scholars dragging arcane gear behind them, prodigies with bloodline tags glowing over their hearts. Some walked, some glided in on mana skates, others arrived with heralds and glowing hover rigs.

I landed in a crouch, coat snapping behind me, hood up. No crest. No entourage. No announcement.

Just a core so pure the mana sensors had to shiver before registering me.

[You made it 33 seconds faster than on your practice run last week. My Zane is finally growing up.]

I exhaled through my nose.

“Eva. Shut up.”

[Rude. But I’ll allow it. You looked cool.]

“How kind of you. We are around people. People that are very insentive. Rmemeber what we talked about. Lock it down. I don’t want to have answer any questions.”

[I am not sure why you should have to pretend.]

“Please Eva.”

[Fine but this is dumb.]

Eva did what she was asked. Locking away his secret.

“Thanks.”

[Shut up. I am mad at you.]

Zane gave smiled at that.