CHAPTER 373: GOING HOME

He turned, looking at the office filled with parchments and some small trinkets before looking out of the window. "Good work, Magi. Heaven looks like it belongs at the heart of the district now."

Magi bowed his head slightly, "As long as you don’t forget your promise."

Orion slightly smiled, "Don’t worry, I won’t forget what I promised you. You just need to ask for it."

Magi nodded his head as Orion turned while lifting a hand in a lazy wave as he headed for the stairs, "I’ll come back later for the protection fees. Keep it ready, haha."

"Just kill me already," Magi nearly cried out.

"Now how can I do that to my dear debt collector?" Orion laughingly replied back over his shoulder.

Edgar followed, chuckling under his breath. Behind them, Magi exhaled, the sound turning into a low, helpless laugh.

He sank back into his chair, scooped Luna into the crook of his arm, and reclaimed his bottle.

The rabbit settled like a tiny, judgmental scarf as he stared at the map again, pins, routes, cities.

"Every city, huh?" he murmured to Luna, lifting the mug in a toast to impossible timetables and a ridiculous boss. "Alright, little lady. Let’s build an empire."

Luna’s ears flicked like a rubber stamp of approval. Magi took a gulp of his wine and set the mug down because calm was fleeting in this line of work. He once again picked up his quill and began drafting plans.

***

The two of them, Orion and Edgar, took the broad stair down from the third floor, voices and clinking glassware from the shop below rising to meet them.

At the foot of the stairs, sunlight cut a bright stripe across the entry, and beyond the doors the carriage lane gleamed like a ribbon.

Lucan was slumped on the driver’s bench, a random hat over his face, reins looped lazily around one wrist. A soft snore leaked out from his mouth.

Edgar came to stand beside the wheel, arms crossed, wearing the exact expression of a man trying not to laugh. "Exemplary vigilance I must say," he murmured, then rapped the carriage rail with two knuckles.

Lucan jerked upright, hat flying. "I was resting my eyes—!"

"On duty," Edgar said, deadpan. "In broad daylight."

Lucan cleared his throat and attempted dignity. "I was keeping watch from my dreams." He blinked at Orion, caught the young master’s helpless shake of the head, and surrendered with a sheepish grin. "Alright, alright. Back to work."

They boarded the carriage as it rolled toward the Second Ring, wheels humming, city smell shifting from the spice-and-smoke of the Fourth Ring market to the lilac gardens and slate fountains of the noble districts.

By the time the high, ironwood gates of Helstorm Estate came into view, the sun had climbed to the top of their heads.

The moment the carriage stopped outside the mansion, Orion stepped down. "Uncle Edgar, Brother Lucan," he said, turning to them both, "I’ll skip drills for now. Picked up a few things at the academy I need to read before I start breaking bones again."

Edgar’s eyes softened with approval. "That’s good as well. That’s the diligence someone who aspires for great things should have." He thumped Lucan on the shoulder. "You, on the other hand, nap when we’re not in public at least."

Lucan raised a hand in solemn oath. "I will dream responsibly."

Edgar just helplessly shook his head at his words.

Orion entered the mansion doors and headed inside. A maid bowed as he passed the gallery, another whisked aside a vase taller than a grown man. He reached his room and closed the door.

"Alright, let’s see now." He drew the Silent Hall Cube from his inventory and set it in the center of the room.

Mana crystals chimed softly as he fed them into their receptacles; the cube pulsed, and reality... shifted.

A pressureless sense of self spread outward, sealing the space. From the corridor, anyone peeking in would see a tidy room, sunlight on a neatly made bed, a perfectly folded throw, with Orion at the center of the room meditating.

Orion cleared a space on the low table and placed the three memory crystals in a neat triangle:

-One faintly gold (Light Element treatise)

-One clear shot through with slender white filaments (Tier 9 spell: Heavenly Radiance: Divine Purification)

-And one the pale blue of winter glass, filled with tiny runic lines (Runic & Mana Circuit Theory)

Lumi popped into a small, translucent projection above the table, hovering in front of him,

[Study time~ (๑˃ᴗ˂)و]

Her gaze flicked between the crystals like a woman choosing what makeup to put. [Which first, Master? The Light compendium is juicy... but the circuits will make your future spells cleaner.]

Orion tapped the blue crystal. "First the foundations. I won’t be able to use Light Element right away and I need to learn more about Runic and Mana Circuit Theory. If I can break down the light spell with them then I can create many Light Affinity spells and then I will bully my Light Element into casting offensive spells."

[Oooh. "Bully the Light." Villain arc unlocked? (¬‿¬ )]

"No no, what do you take me as? A villain? I’m just helping Light reach its full potential." He said with a playful chuckle, then settled cross-legged on the rug.

He pressed two fingers to the Runic & Mana Circuit crystal and funneled a thread of mana into it.

The stone warmed. Lines lit inside like a city seen from the sky—avenues, loops, junctions—and then the room fell away.

Information unfolded in clean, layered panes: basic definitions first, then diagrams. He saw old runes, Flow, Disperse, Drain, combined into various mixed runes: Flow-Weave, Oscillation Lattice, Rosette Key.

Mana circuit theory stepped in alongside: there were warnings about "dirty flow" impurities introduced by mismatched elements, about resonance collapse when a circuit’s natural frequency was abused by brute-force power.

Orion’s brows drew together. A memory flashed of the 30th-step puzzle: the jumbled formation he’d wrestled with for eighty-one days.

Now, with the framework under his hands, he recognized shapes he’d intuited, all the things he had brute-forced in the puzzle coming together.

"Hah," he breathed, half a laugh. "So I wasn’t just guessing."

[You never guess, Master, you "aim intuitively,"]

Lumi teased, but her tone was warm.

[Look at the subChapter on "elemental bias correction." That might help for your dual wielding or when you try to fuse multiple elements later.]

He slid the pane. The author of the book described the details in a funny way. He read it with relish. He could almost feel his future spell creation becoming easier due to this.

Time, inside the cube’s false afternoon, softened. And he eventually stepped from theory to practice: taking out a parchment and his quill, he began as common mistakes were drawn like crime scenes, he then corrected them while thinking about the things he read in the memory crystal.

He did three, then five. On the seventh, he paused, seeing again the 40th step’s sky-rending hand, and smoothed his impatience into the linework. He continued practising the new rune combination he was learning.

Time continued to pass as evening came closer. Finally, he stopped practicing and put down the quill.