Cael sat at the corner of the guild hall, scribbling absently into a battered notebook. The pages were filled with scattered thoughts, half-formed ideas, and doodles of things he didn't fully understand yet—strange symbols, fragments of devices, abstract mechanisms. He wasn't building anything, not yet. But the thoughts were always there, simmering.
Across the hall, Natsu and Gray were in the middle of a shouting match that was rapidly escalating. A tankard flew across the room and shattered against the wall, but Cael didn't even look up.
"You really know how to ignore chaos," Mira Jane said, smiling as she walked over with a drink in hand.
Cael blinked at her. "Chaos is familiar. I just don't join in."
She placed the mug on the table and leaned slightly forward, studying the strange symbols in his notebook. "You've got a lot going on in there, huh?"
"I think better when I'm distracted," he said. Then, after a pause: "The noise helps."
Mira tilted her head. "You've been quiet since you joined. People are curious about you, you know."
"I don't mind," Cael replied. "Being watched is better than being forgotten."
Her smile softened. "That's kind of sad."
Cael gave a small shrug and closed the notebook. "Maybe. But I'm not sad."
She studied him for a moment, as if trying to read behind his calm expression, then said, "Well, if you need help settling in, let me know. I know how weird this place can be at first."
"I appreciate that." He hesitated, then added, "Really."
That night, Cael wandered the city alone. Magnolia had an energy unlike anything he'd known. The streets pulsed with life, the air buzzed with magic. Everything felt larger than it should be—as if possibility hung in the air, waiting to be shaped.
He sat on the edge of a rooftop, knees drawn up, staring at the stars. He still didn't know what kind of magic he had. Power coursed through him, yes—but without shape, without form. Everyone else in the guild had spells, techniques, names for what they could do. He had none of that.
He sighed. "It's like having a toolbox but no instructions."
His mind sometimes flickered with strange images—of limbs made of metal, of engines that breathed, of circuits that pulsed with mana. They were just ideas, fragments. Not creations.
Not yet.
He opened his notebook and scribbled something down. A note. A sketch. A fleeting thought.
"One day," he said to the wind.
The page glowed faintly for a moment, then dimmed.
The next morning at the guild, Mira waved him over. "Master wants everyone to check the job board. We've got a few new requests. Might be a good chance to test the waters."
Cael stared at the board for a long while. Most of the missions were group-oriented. Capture runaway beasts. Escort someone important. Find a missing artifact.
He stepped back. "Not yet."
He wasn't ready to act like he fit in. Not until he understood what he could do.
For now, he'd observe. Learn. Adapt.
That was what he did best.