Ruvian stood barefoot on the lightly dusted flooring. Across from him, Leon rolled his shoulders with ease, warming up his body.

“All right, before I toss spells at your head,” Leon said with a lopsided grin, “we need to see how your core handles elemental conversion.”

Ruvian heed his guide and closed his eyes.

The world dimmed into silence, he reached inward with no effort, because reaching inward was something he had done every day of his life, long before magic ever became real.

Then, mana answered his call, rising along the invisible channels within him, trailing his breath and his blood.

And then he thought of the wind.

He did not imagine it in symbols or abstract theory.

Only visualize the way it moved through branches. The way it swept along rooftops at night, searching for loose shutters to rattle.

His Spellcore pulsed once, gently, almost like recognition.

And then it changed.

The mana taking on the faint hue of green-tinted light.

He opened his eyes.

Leon, who had been halfway through forming a basic chant with his right hand, froze mid-gesture.

“…You already converted it?” Leon asked.

Ruvian looked down at his palm, there was a sensation of mana humming in alignment with his thoughts.

“Yes,” he said finally.

Leon’s expression folded into something more difficult to describe. Somewhere between cautious admiration and a sudden awareness.

“So your Spellcore just… listened. Amazing.”

Ruvian nodded his head. Leon exhaled and gave a short, helpless laugh.

“You’re not supposed to be able to do that. I mean not this early. Most people spend days trying to convince their core they even have an affinity, let alone getting it to obey.”

Ruvian said nothing, but his thoughts curled around the words. The silence stretched for another few seconds before Leon turned fully toward him again.

“Well, that saves me a lecture. You’re converting already, so I’m skipping the basic theory. We’ll go straight to spellcasting.”

He cracked his knuckles, clearly invigorated now.

…

Leon moved slower this time.

Maybe it was caution, maybe it was respect. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure Ruvian would listen, despite how fast he had already skipped ahead.

Either way, his voice took on a different rhythm now.

“First one’s called Wind Burst,” he began, raising a hand.

“A directional push, focused through the soles or back to move the body. You don’t aim it at the enemy. You use it to move yourself.”

He crouched low, fingertips brushing the floor in a runner’s stance.

“O breath unbound, unshackle form, break tether and bear me forth.”

As the last words left his lips, the air behind him compressed with a low whumph, and he surged forward in a short, sudden dash.

He turned back, smiling faintly.

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“You’ll stumble a bit the first time. Most people do. But you’ve got a sharp instinct for balance, I can tell that you'll get used to it in no time.”

“Next is Gale Veil, it’s defensive, but barely. Think of it as a shrug. A soft, outward swirl that can nudge projectiles and some attack off-course.”

He exhaled, raising both hands now in front of his chest. The chant was more melodic this time.

“Winds of unseen, gather round and veil my form, shape shield from sky’s breath.”

The air moved and compressed into a thin crescent-shape shield.

Leon broke the veil with a breath, flexing his fingers to clear the lingering mana.

“It’s subtle because I’m not that attuned with Wind elements.”

He laughed slightly.

Ruvian’s eyes followed the disappearing shimmer, absorbing the chant.

“Last one. Gale Burst. Simple offensive spell. Fast, clean, low force, but it pushes. Made for speed and impact to push the enemy away.”

He stepped to the side, and with a practiced motion, flicked his hand outward.

“O fleeting wind, sharpen and surge, strike swift and scatter the foe.”

A sliver of compressed wind shot out from his palm. It had been aimed at nothing, but even the floor seemed to be affected.

“Now, your turn.”

…

After a few long hours of practice….

Ruvian returned to his dorm, dragging himself through the narrow hallway with a tired posture.

The door clicked shut behind him with a muted finality, and he stood there for a moment in his room, letting the silence press against his ears.

‘I’m so worked out.’

He hadn’t thought it would be this exhausting.

Magic always seemed so clean in stories. Elegant hand motions, a flicker of power, and reality bent like paper.

But what those stories didn’t show was the mental attrition, the endless precision required to coax raw mana into something coherent.

His arms were sore from holding postures, his head ached faintly from the strain of sustained focus, and his mana channels still felt... raw, as if overused muscle could extend into the soul.

‘I’m starting to get used to it…’ he thought as he peeled off his outer uniform and crossed to the bathing room.

‘How to convert neutral mana into wind-aligned essence. The taste of it is different now, not as coarse.’

That session alone lasted his whole evening. Tracing the invisible pathways of ambient energy and learning the rhythm of his core’s filtration. Then, nudging the alignment slightly until the mana no longer resisted his intentions.

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From what he learned today, conversion and chant alone meant nothing. They were just the fundamentals.

A deep internal blueprint of what the spell was meant to be. Otherwise, the mana just sat there, inert and confused, waiting for orders that never arrived.

Technically, one could use chanting to force the issue, old-fashioned verbal incantations that carried pre-encoded structures, but it was slow, rigid, and almost obsolete now.

Conceptual-based casting was faster, cleaner, and infinitely more adaptive, because it would not wait for mages to recite poetry mid-duel.

By the time he finished his shower, the fatigue had reached a pleasant numbness.

He changed into his sleepwear, and ran a towel through his damp hair before dropping into the edge of his bed with a long exhale that emptied both his lungs and his thoughts.

He would need to get used to the constant repetition of conversion exercises, the foundational work that no one praised but everyone built on.

Wind magic relied on subtlety, on shaping and flow.

If he couldn’t convert essence effortlessly, everything else would crumble, turning into inefficiency.

But that wasn’t the only thing gnawing at the edges of his focus tonight.

There was still the matter of that skill.

[Editorial Pen]

He hadn’t touched it since he earned it, mostly out of caution and, to be honest, was forgotten in the back of his mind.

But now that the chaos of the day had finally quieted, curiosity crawled its way back into his mind.

‘Right, let's at least check it out.’

He summoned it.

The pen appeared, hanging lazily in the air in front of him, gleaming with an odd luster like an abstract made visible.

Ruvian reached out to grasp it, and it twitched away from him.

‘The heck?’

He frowned and tried again. It danced just out of reach like it was mocking him. His brow lowered.

“What the fuck is this supposed to be,” he muttered.

Then, the system responded instantly, its familiar mental interface blooming into view

[What item description and detail do you wish to inspect?]

Ruvian blinked. He hadn’t expected that.

‘Wait, so, this pen could inspect things as well?’

“That means… I can use the Editorial Pen to inspect any item all this time?” he asked aloud, his voice low, more curious than incredulous.

The system, as usual, answered, somehow sounding a bit disappointed.

[Of course. How are you going to edit the details without knowing one?]

He paused, then let out a soft breath that was half amusement, half admiration.

Ruvian sighed.

‘Damn it, if only she told me earlier... I could have used it in the Evermere Plaza.’

Still, he wasn’t about to complain. What was done, was done. He stood up and moved toward his desk.

The drawers were cleanly arranged with empty papers, ink pens and his insignia. He rummaged calmly, putting aside the irrelevant objects.

And reached a small, plain notebook—leather-made. Something he’d bought weeks ago for theoretical notes but hadn’t touched since orientation week.

He held it in his hand, glanced down at the Editorial Pen, which was now orbiting just behind his shoulder like a smug ghost, and spoke clearly.

“Inspect this.”

[Do you wish to use the Editorial Pen to inspect this item?]

“Yes.”

The system’s prompt faded, replaced with new text, and as he looked at the floating window in front of him, the skill’s true potential began to take shape in his mind.

PP= 2450

ME= 172