Linne didn’t stop after the demonstration, if anything, that little display had only warmed her up. The machine’s keys still clicked faintly beneath her fingers, the glow of mana-light running through the etched sigils on its sides like veins pulsing with life.

  “Now,” she said, tone steady but alive with energy, “everything I’ve shown you so far belongs to known runic families, fire, frost, wind, flow, containment, conduction, and so on. These are languages our ancestors codified, refined, and passed down. Each one has rules, syntax, and tone.”

  The students listened intently; even the most jaded among them sat straighter in their seats. Ludger didn’t move, but his gaze was locked on the Runic Compiler.

  Linne smiled slightly. “But here’s something most of you forget, these languages may be ancient, but they are not complete.”

  That earned a ripple of murmurs. She raised a hand, silencing them.

  “Runic language,” she continued, “is nothing more than mana grammar, the structured expression of thought. And that means there is nothing stopping a person from creating a new one. It’s almost impossible, yes, it takes decades of experimentation, deep mana resonance, and more failures than I care to count, but it can be done. Anyone can start their own runic dialect, if they have the patience to teach mana a new way to listen.”

  She set her hands on the keyboard again. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

  The familiar click-clack filled the air, but this time the runes that appeared above her desk didn’t match any standard forms. They were strange, irregular, asymmetrical, some built from angles that broke normal geometric rules. The characters glowed faintly blue, like they weren’t sure they were supposed to exist.

  “Every language starts in chaos,” Linne said quietly, her eyes intent on the symbols. “You begin by finding a shape that feels right, not one that obeys precedent.”

  The runes trembled. For a moment they just floated there, half-formed, pulsing erratically. Then they began to connect. Thin lines of light joined them together, curves meeting angles until the chaos resolved into order.

  The glow shifted, from pale blue to a sharper, colder tone. The air around the platform stirred.

  With a soft whump, a circular gust erupted around her, sweeping across the hall in a rush of controlled wind. Papers fluttered. Hair swayed.

  “A rudimentary barrier,” Linne said, her tone still calm even as her coat whipped around her. “The equivalent of a wind wall. The grammar is inefficient, but it holds.”

  The students applauded softly, but she wasn’t finished.

  Her fingers blurred across the keys again, new symbols appearing midair. This time, she didn’t let them settle. Instead, she began mixing them, feeding old and new characters into the same weave. Fire glyphs merged with her improvised runes, the two languages fighting for a moment before syncing into a strange, unstable rhythm.

  The glow deepened to orange-red.

  “Now,” she murmured, “fusion syntax. Let’s see if the theory holds.”

  The air trembled. The mixed symbols shuddered, twisted, and then ignited. A compact sphere of flame coalesced above her desk, rotating slowly in place like a miniature star.

  A few students flinched back in their seats. The fireball hovered for several seconds, then dissipated harmlessly into a rain of sparks that left faint scorch marks on the air before fading away.

  Linne exhaled, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “And that,” she said lightly, “is the danger and the thrill of creating your own runic syntax. One misplaced intention, and you’ll rewrite half the room’s temperature, or erase your eyebrows.”

  A few nervous chuckles broke the tension, but Ludger wasn’t laughing.

  He was staring at the fading remnants of the new runes, his mind already breaking down their structure. A person can make their own language, he thought. Their own system.

  That line sat in his head like a seed ready to grow roots.

  If mana could learn new grammar, then maybe he could teach it the language of earth and motion, the logic of geomancy, codified, sharpened, perfected.

  Linne continued speaking, explaining the balance between creativity and stability, but Ludger barely heard her. His thoughts were already spinning, translating her words into possibility.

  The System might’ve given him the Sculptor class, but this… this was the foundation for something else entirely.

  When the lecture ended, the students filed out in quiet excitement, still whispering about Linne’s “custom runes” and the fireball that had almost set someone’s notebook ablaze. Ludger waited until the room emptied, then rose from his seat and followed the last of them into the courtyard.

  Outside, the mist had thinned a little, and the faint hum of the city’s engines rolled through the air like a heartbeat. The sky was pale, the copper towers gleaming dimly under filtered light. He drew in a slow breath, the faint metallic tang of mana smoke familiar by now.

  Linne was waiting by the steps, her arms crossed and her expression halfway between pride and exhaustion. “Vice Guildmaster,” she greeted with a tired but genuine smile. “You survived rune theory. That’s more than most first-timers manage.”

  Ludger nodded once. “It was… interesting,” he said truthfully. “More than I expected.”

  Before she could reply, Dalan appeared from around the corner, wiping soot off his hands. “There you are!” he called out. “I heard you attended Linne’s session. Didn’t set anything on fire, I hope?”

  “Not intentionally,” Linne said dryly.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Dalan grinned and turned to Ludger. “So, what do you think? A normal day in Coria’s academies. Not bad, hm?”

  Ludger gave a faint hum, then said, “Interesting. Well-organized. Innovative.” He paused, then added with his usual flat delivery, “Minus the eyes of the students.”

  Both Linne and Dalan froze, their smiles stiffening in perfect sync.

  “Ah,” Linne said after a moment, her tone carefully polite. “That.”

  Dalan cleared his throat. “Yes, well… it’s nothing personal. Coria’s academies are open to everyone, but they’re built on a certain… philosophy.”

  Linne nodded, stepping in smoothly. “Our lessons are free, yes, anyone can attend. But people here grow up believing that knowledge should be earned.”

  “Most students,” Dalan added, “contribute to the city’s research in some way. They design tools, run tests, and assist inventors. It’s a sort of… civic duty. A way to give back to the system that feeds them.”

  Linne’s gaze softened, if only slightly. “So when someone comes from outside and just walks into a lecture, learns, and leaves without adding anything back… it unsettles them. Makes them feel as if their work means less.”

  Ludger’s brow twitched. “They think learning without earning is theft.”

  “Something like that,” Dalan admitted. “It’s not hostility, just discomfort. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t plan to stay long enough to,” Ludger replied evenly, though his voice carried no irritation, only a quiet observation.

  Linne gave a small, rueful smile. “A shame. You actually pay attention, which is rarer than you’d think.”

  “Especially among people who already believe they know everything,” Ludger said dryly.

  That earned a small laugh from Dalan. “You might fit in here better than you think.”

  Ludger didn’t answer right away. He looked past them, at the towers, at the mist, at the threads of glowing light that marked Coria’s constant hum of invention. Every person here lived for discovery, but they’d also built a world that punished curiosity unless it belonged to the system.

  “Maybe,” he said finally. “But I prefer learning in places that don’t ask for permission first.”

  Linne raised an eyebrow. “That attitude would get you arrested in half the academies.”

  Ludger gave a faint, almost invisible smirk. “Good thing I’m not from here.”

  That left them both momentarily silent, then Dalan chuckled, shaking his head. “You really are an outsider.”

  Ludger only shrugged, adjusting his coat and glancing down the street toward the industrial quarter. “That’s what makes the view worth seeing.”

  And with that, he started walking, calm, focused, and quietly weighing every piece of knowledge he’d gathered that day like it was a new weapon to sharpen.

  Ludger paused as they walked along the academy’s main promenade, the mist swirling faintly around the arches of copper and rune-lit glass. He glanced at Linne, then back toward the building they had just left.

  “That tool you used earlier,” he said. “The one that sent the runes into the air when you typed. What exactly was that?”

  Linne blinked, then smiled faintly. “Ah, the Runic Compiler. I mentioned it briefly during the lesson.”

  “I remember,” Ludger said. “But that one seemed… unique.”

  “It is,” Linne admitted with a hint of pride. “That particular model’s custom-made. I designed the core myself, improved energy distribution and more stable glyph projection. Still, the ordinary components aren’t rare. You could find most of them in the artificer market near the central square. I made that one for my lessons with runic theory.”

  Dalan chimed in, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “The standard versions are used mostly by scribes and archivists. They don’t project magic into the air, they’re used to print onto tomes, scrolls, or enchanted paper. Much faster than hand-copying every word.”

  Ludger tilted his head slightly. “Print? With… ink?”

  Both of them stopped walking and stared at him.

  Linne blinked first. “Of course with ink,” she said slowly, as though testing whether he was joking.

  Dalan gave him a baffled grin. “What else would it use? Blood?”

  Ludger raised an eyebrow. “You’re telling me a runic machine powered by mana can use ink.”

  “Exactly,” Linne said matter-of-factly. “It’s cleaner, more consistent, and the rune shapes remain perfectly uniform. Ink retains the trace of mana conduction long enough for copying and storage. Besides, the older masters insist that written runes on paper are more stable for long-term study.”

  Dalan chuckled. “Though don’t think you can bring one into a class. It’s forbidden during lessons.”

  Ludger frowned. “Why?”

  Linne sighed, crossing her arms. “The instructors believe that writing by hand helps students internalize the structure and flow of the symbols. Using a compiler is seen as lazy. If you don’t feel the stroke, you don’t understand the rune, or so they say.”

  “Even though half the city uses them daily,” Dalan added with a shrug.

  Ludger nodded slowly, thinking it over. “So it’s efficient, standardized… but culturally resisted in education.”

  Linne smiled faintly. “Exactly. Some call that hypocrisy. We call it tradition.”

  Ludger glanced down the street, already filing away the thought. “Where can I buy one?”

  Dalan’s grin widened. “Eager to start typing spells already?”

  “Something like that,” Ludger said, tone flat. “If it writes books, it’s worth studying.”

  Linne tilted her head, curious. “You plan to record your own runic notes?”

  He didn’t answer directly, just gave a faint nod. “Maybe?”

  As they continued walking, Ludger’s gaze lingered on the glowing signs of the shops ahead. The city’s hum was everywhere, a blend of gears, voices, and faint mana vibration.

  Not everything here runs on magic, he thought. Some of it runs on ingenuity.

  When Ludger returned to the inn, the lamps in the hallway were already dimmed to a lazy amber glow, the hum of Coria’s night engines faint through the walls. The smell of metal and smoke had given way to something sharper — alcohol.

  Kharnek was the source.

  The northerner sat slumped in front of his room door, one leg stretched out, the other bent at an awkward angle. His massive arms hung limp over his knees, and a half-empty bottle rolled lazily beside him, leaving a trail of spilled liquor on the wooden floor. He smelled like he’d tried to wrestle a brewery and lost.

  “Evening,” Ludger muttered, stepping over him.

  Kharnek gave a low, contented grunt — not quite a snore, not quite a word — and went still again.

  A few steps farther, Kaela’s door stood ajar. Ludger sighed before even looking inside.

  She’d made it to her room — barely. Her coat was halfway off, one boot still on, the other missing entirely. She had collapsed in front of her bed, knees on the floor, arms sprawled forward like she’d tried to crawl the last half meter and failed. Her face was buried against the edge of the mattress, cheek pressed into the blanket, breathing slow and deep.

  “At least she’s… halfway there,” Ludger muttered.

  He pushed the door open the rest of the way and quietly closed it behind him, just enough to give her privacy. Then he turned and found Maurien leaning against the wall at the end of the hall, arms crossed, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth.

  “She made it farther than Kharnek,” Maurien said dryly.

  Ludger gave him a flat look. “You could’ve done something about it.”

  “I did,” Maurien replied. “I made sure they didn’t pick a fight on the way back.”

  Ludger raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

  Maurien shrugged. “They were loud, but happy. I’m not in the habit of saving people from their own hangovers.”

  Ludger exhaled through his nose, half in annoyance, half amusement. “Fine. Tomorrow morning will handle them for us.”

  “Natural consequences,” Maurien said with a faint grin.

  Ludger gave one last glance down the hallway, Kharnek asleep like a felled tree, Kaela unconscious halfway onto her bed, then shook his head and stepped into his own room.

  He closed the door softly behind him. The hum of the city returned, faint, even, and constant.

  “Professionals,” he muttered to himself, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “All of them.”

  From down the hall came a distant, triumphant snore that sounded suspiciously like Kharnek.