The first few days passed in a haze of sleep, tremors, and stale breath. Kael felt like someone had taken a hot iron to his mana core and then poured salt water over the wound. Maybe there was a reason people paid so much for a proper mage to do their third ring ritual.

  The morning after the ritual, Kael instantly started working on mana suppression immediately. It wasn’t a spell. More like a breathing rhythm paired with mana compression — folding his energy inward, wrapping it around the Spiral in tight, slow coils. The practice left him sweating through shirts, and more than once, he had to sit down halfway through just to keep from blacking out. But it worked.

  Once Kael got his mana under control — cycling his mana through tight, internal loops until he couldn’t any longer — he turned to the real work: casting.

  He began with some acolyte spell— the lowest tier spells. Before trying out any of the Decay spells, Kael tested his newfound power on a few basic spells he’d learned at the academy — starting with Ice Touch, a simple cooling spell that chilled anything he touched. The casting speed was unreal; the spell formed almost instantly. But the mana drain was alarming even with his increased capacity.

  That was the tradeoff. The Third Ring ritual wasn’t just about raw power — it was about alignment.

  The Spiral attuned itself to a specific affinity during the transition, unlocking the potential for immense strength within that path. But in doing so, it made casting outside that affinity far more taxing. Spells beyond one’s attuned element became wildly inefficient, draining mana at an accelerated rate.

  Once he finished testing out his new found power he looked at his scribbled diagrams, clipped from lecture scrolls, reverse-engineered fragments from old arcane manuals. Crude, but usable. And dangerous.

  Rustmark came first.

  On the surface, it was simple: form the circuit, release mana through the hand, and contact metal. The spell would compromise the structural integrity — corrode it, split it, weaken it at the microscopic level.

  Simple in theory. In execution, it was maddening.

  The circuit was deceptively tight — three interior channels, two stabilizing arcs, and a draining spiral that had to pulse at the exact rhythm of the casting surface. Kael spent the better part of a day just sketching it on parchment before he dared push mana through it.

  He practiced on old iron — rusted hinges, broken pipe lengths, cracked nails — stuff no one would notice vanishing. The first five casts did nothing. The sixth made the entire pipe length groan and crumble at the place where he had his hand.

  Until his mana guttered seconds later and he had to brace against a wall to keep from collapsing.

  Rustmark didn’t burn mana on the initial cast — it pulled from him slowly, like pressure bleeding out of a sealed tank. The larger the object, the more complex the metal, the more it drained.

  He logged every attempt in his new spell journal — hand-drawn diagrams beside refined circuit designs. The pages were clean, ordered, ruthlessly annotated.

  He shelved Fraybind for the time being. It was a counterspell — mid-cast unraveling, meant to short out someone else’s working. Without another mage to duel, the circuits couldn’t sync to anything.

  Instead, Kael focused on the spell that fascinated him most: Spiral Fade. Which would be the first real spell he had ever learn as a third ring, an Adept level spell.

  Unlike Rustmark, Spiral Fade wasn't designed for one surface or material. It was aimed at magical constructs. Wards, barriers, glyph arrays. The circuit was longer — more complex — and required the caster to hold it stable for the entire duration.

  No pulse and no burst, just steady degradation of spell matrices.

  Kael started on old delivery tags — glyph-stamped slips used to keep ale crates chilled during transit. Their enchantments were weak, cheap, and mass-produced, and barely even classified as an enchantment, but still worked.

  He laid the first one flat, sketched the circuit beside it, and connected the spell through two fingers pressed to the rune’s edge.

  The glyph shimmered. It didn’t break — but began to unravel from the edges, like thread being pulled loose from fabric.

  He hadn’t been able to destroy it, but it looked as if its structure was compromised.

  It took five minutes to fully disable a glyph no larger than a coin; it was slow, but it worked.

  He leaned back in the chair, closed the journal, and stared at the fading slip.

  If Spiral Fade scaled the way the design implied, he could eventually bypass more than just weak runes. He could soften vault seals, erode magical locks, unpick layered defensive arrays that took days to build — all without throwing a single punch.

  Kael didn't grin. He didn't whisper anything dramatic. He just turned the page in the journal and began drafting the next circuit refinement.

  He had three weeks and a lot more to break.

  The call from Dren came five days into the second week. A quiet knock, a muttered name at the cellar door, and then the briefest of offers. What Anabel had said to him after his ritual stuck in the back of his mind, but Kael couldn’t sit still any longer. His magic worked by destroying things; he was never going to be the hero.

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  “Vault job,” he said. “We aren’t breaking in. Just weakening the security measures. I need it cracked, but no sign of entry or that we were ever even there.”

  Kael didn’t even bother questioning how Dren knew what affinity Kael had gotten; he followed him through three districts by moonlight, avoiding watch patrols and controlled routes until they reached a back-alley wine vault beneath a minor merchant house. The entrance was rune-sealed — three-layered glyphwork, protection wards etched into stone and reinforced with fire-reactive bronze.

  “Don’t destroy it,” Dren said. “Just make it so my men can get in easy later.”

  Kael crouched, pulled his gloves off, and traced the edges of the glyphwork with his eyes. He didn’t cast right away. Spiral Fade wasn’t something you threw at a surface — it required anchoring, layering, and long, slow draining.

  He built the spell in parts: base circuit first, then the secondary resonance lines, then the final draw loop, held tight with steady, slow pulses from his core. The glyph shimmered, flickered— and began to dull.

  Not instantly, but gradually, its color faded from gold to a dusty bronze.

  Fifteen minutes later, Kael stood up and wiped sweat from his brow. Before Kael could even ask for a break, Dren handed him a mana potion. The process continued for over an hour and a half, but

  Kael finally took a deep breath.

  “God damn, well I appreciate the practice” he said. “Won’t break, but it’ll be brittle. Should give when your team shows up.”

  Dren nodded once. “Well, I’ll be. Already paying dividends, and it hasn’t even been a month. Looks like it was the right decision not to just kill you.”

  Two nights later, Dren handed him a sealed scroll in a glass case, it had a noble crest embedded enchantment along the signature line.

  “Official court statement,” Dren said. “I don’t want it gone, I want it questioned. Use yours decay shit to make it look like somethings not right. Small signs like ink breakdown or the paper being brittle. Just make it enough to make it look like it’s been tampered with.”

  Kael took it back to his room. Lit a candle. Sat in silence for five minutes, Rustmark unfortunately seemed to only work on metal, leaving Kael without a spell that could perform the task Dren wanted. Instead, he just released his mana without any real structure, dozens of near-microscopic mana filaments laced through the air, drifting over the scroll like smoke.

  Kael layered them along the ink lines, the wax seal, and the edge of the parchment. Then he passed a warming glyph nearby — not touching, just close enough to imply proximity heat.

  When it was done, the ink bled in just two corners. One sigil was smudged slightly, and the seal warped by less than a millimeter.

  Even Kael was surprised by how perfect it looked, and it better have been because the process had taken hours and his entire mana pool was empty. Inefficient casting was the death of mages in combat, but his lack of spells limited him heavily. He returned it to Dren the next night, who held it under the lamplight for a full minute.

  “You’re dangerous,” he said finally.

  Kael nodded. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

  Dren didn’t smile. He just walked away — a little slower than usual.

  The nights got longer, and the work got easier. His new third-ring was completely under control. The spells felt like tools now, not tricks. He wasn’t just practicing anymore, he became operational.

  But he hadn’t made a decision, and Wade’s words haunted him.

  He could join the Guild. Work job to job, making good money but also facing equal danger. It was a body count path — the kind of life that didn’t let you fade out when you got old.

  He could stay in the underground, let Dren pull him into deeper contracts, tighter circles. There was power in that, and his magic would be highly valued in the criminal underground. Not only would rot him from the inside, slow and subtle, it was also just as dangerous, if not more so, than being an adventurer, except at least the dangers in the Guild were visible.

  Or he could go solo, build something small, then grow it. Trade in artifacts, curse-work, and magical cleanup. Not over the top, maybe just a name whispered in the right rooms. And his noble stature would definitely help him get in the right places.

  He didn’t know yet. That thought followed him up to his room, where Anabel had left a plate near the bed. A piece of dried meat. Two slices of hard bread. And a fruit — crimson-skinned, still cool.

  He sat down with it, tore a chunk off the bread, and chewed in silence. Then picked up the fruit and bit once.

  Then paused.

  The skin had softened, just slightly. The edge near his thumb had browned.

  He frowned.

  The bite hadn’t done that.

  He watched it carefully, and it aged more. Gently. It was strange, and despite it bothering him that he didn’t have as good control of his mana as he had thought, Kael was most interested in the fruit.

  His mana had touched the fruit, it had passed from him to the fruit. Out of curiosity, Kael tried the bit of brown fruit, which left his mouth with a sour taste.

  His mind clicked.

  What if he could control that? Cause decay in certain parts of an object. Or possibly delay it in one and accelerate it in another.

  That wasn’t just simple decay magic .That was something else, something well beyond his capabilities.

  Kael found Dren in the office early the next evening. Pushed open the door without knocking.

  Dren looked up from a parchment stamped with sigils Kael didn’t recognize.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Kael said. “I know I said I wanted to work out a new deal with you but I’m not staying.”

  Dren said nothing.

  “I’m not joining anyone either, not yet at least. But I’m going independent, and if possible, I’ll still work with you. I want access to your buyers and your handlers — just not on contract.”

  Dren leaned back, watching him.

  “And what am I getting?”

  Kael stepped closer, releasing his aura slightly.

  “You’ve seen me in action. I don’t plan on spending my life working as a bartender. I’ll need someone to move goods I acquire through….certain means. You say your organization is older than this kingdom and reaches all over the continent, then I plan to use your resources. I know it’s a risk, but think of it as an investment.”

  Dren looked at the papers on his desk for a moment longer than felt necessary, then at Kael.

  “You weren’t really going to push powders forever, huh?”

  Kael gave a small shrug. “I’m just changing markets.”

  Dren offered a hand. Kael took it and something fell into his palm.

  “It’s our token. It’ll get you in no questions asked anywhere you find a branch of the Red Clover. I believe we will have a prosperous future, but let me make one thing clear: every deal you make will be considered mine. I brought you in, I reap the rewards, and face any punishment. The more you do, the more benefits I receive, so I’m willing to help you out, but know that the moment I find this investment not worth my time, I will cut my losses. And I don’t leave loose ends.”

  Kael eyed the coin warily. “I appreciate the gesture, but let me be clear — I don’t work for you. You don’t get to tell me what to do, or what not to do. If that’s acceptable… I’ll take the token.”

  Dren didn’t flinch. He exhaled a thin stream of smoke and gave a half-smile, more amused than offended.

  “Relax, kid,” he said. “No chains come with it. Just means the door’s open, if you decide to walk through it. We are in the money-making business, you make us money, that’s good enough. That’s all.”