The darkness wasn't silent.
It was a dense, viscous ocean, where consciousness floated like a piece of driftwood. There was no sharp pain, just a deep, gravitational exhaustion, as if every cell in my body weighed a ton.
My magic core felt like a hollow hole in my chest, sore and empty, pulsing with the phantom memory of being drained to absolute zero.
The first sense to return was hearing.
Voices arrived muffled, distorted, but the tension in them was unmistakable.
"...look at him, Marcus! Look at the state of him!"
The voice was female, trembling with anger and fear. Alice.
My mother never screamed. Hearing her tone raised like that made my stomach churn more than the magical nausea.
"His skin is grey! The core went into systemic collapse. If the emergency rune had delayed a millisecond, his heart would have stopped!"
"But it didn't."
The answer came deep, calm, and irritatingly pragmatic. Marcus.
"His heart is beating. The rune worked exactly as I designed it. He is alive, Alice. And stronger."
"Stronger?!"
Alice let out an incredulous laugh. I heard the sound of glass hitting wood—probably her slamming a medicine bottle onto the coffee table.
"He almost died facing a Level Four Dust Construct! You knew the Dark Mage was in town. You knew he was operating at the school! Why didn't you hunt that bastard down before he got anywhere near Nathan?"
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt glued shut with cement.
My mind, however, sharpened.
I was at home. On the living room couch. The smell of healing herbs and burnt ozone was strong.
"Because hunting Halloway for him wouldn't teach him anything," Marcus retorted. The sound of heavy footsteps indicated he was pacing.
"Nathan has potential, but potential without pressure is just theory. Combat Mages don't evolve by reading grimoires in the comfort of their bedrooms, Alice. Magic is like a muscle. It only grows when the fiber tears. He needed to be pushed to the limit for his core to expand."
"That wasn't a push, it was attempted murder."
A third voice intervened. Calm. Clinical. Enigmatic.
Alan Deaton.
My heart skipped a beat.
The Druid was in my living room.
"Alice is right, Marcus," Deaton continued, in the neutral tone of someone used to mediating supernatural conflicts. "There is a difference between exercise and execution. What that boy faced in the locker room—sonic entropy, vacuum, necromancy—was a war scenario. Throwing a novice against that without prior warning is irresponsible, even by your standards."
There was a short, heavy silence.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.
"Irresponsible?" Marcus repeated, his voice lowering to a dangerous pitch. "Watch the glass house, Alan."
"I am just pointing out facts. The boy wasn't ready."
"Don't come playing the moral saint in my house," Marcus cut in, harsh and sharp as a blade. "I am only doing with my son what you do with your 'protege' every week. Or do you think I don't see it? You throw Scott McCall against Hunters, Alphas, and monsters he doesn't even understand, without giving him half the information he needs, hoping that 'instinct' solves everything."
I heard Deaton take a deep breath, but he didn't retort.
His silence confirmed the hit.
"At least I gave Nathan the tools to survive," Marcus continued, relentless. "I gave him the ring. The grimoire. The emergency rune. You give Scott riddles and hope he doesn't die. So don't talk to me about teaching methods."
"Looks like I missed the parent-teacher conference," I tried to say.
My voice came out as a hoarse, scratchy whisper.
The argument stopped instantly.
"Nathan!"
Alice was at my side in a second. I felt her cool hand on my forehead, checking my temperature.
"Don't strain yourself, honey. You're exhausted."
I forced my eyelids open.
The lamp light hurt my retinas, but I focused on the scene.
I was lying on the sofa, covered by heavy blankets. Alice kneeling beside me, eyes red. Marcus standing near the cold fireplace, arms crossed, an illegible expression of stone. And, leaning against the bookshelf, in his impeccable white coat, Deaton—looking slightly uncomfortable with the scolding he had just received.
"Water..." I asked, feeling my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.
Alice helped me drink from a cup with a straw. The cold water went down tearing, but relieved the dryness.
I looked at Marcus.
He didn't look away.
There was no regret in his eyes. Just a cold assessment of damage and results.
"You used me as bait," I accused, weak but direct.
"I used you as a catalyst," Marcus corrected, unfazed. "And it worked. Your core survived the total drain. When it recovers, your maximum capacity will have increased by at least twenty percent. You leveled up, Nathan. The price was high, but the result is permanent."
"The price was almost his life!" Alice hissed.
"But he is alive," Marcus ended the subject, turning to Deaton. "And now that the family meeting is over... Alan, tell him what you did with the mess in the locker room. Because I cleaned up the magic, but you were left with the witnesses."
Deaton adjusted his glasses, recovering his wise mentor posture.
"Scott and Stiles woke up about ten minutes after you left," he said, looking at me. "They are physically fine. But mentally... they saw things they can't explain. Mostly about you."
I tried to sit up, ignoring the dizziness.
"What did you tell them?"
"The truth would be too dangerous right now," Deaton replied. "I said that 'Elias's' collapse caused a sonic hallucination wave. That what they saw—you glowing, your father appearing out of nowhere—was a distortion of the senses caused by trauma to the eardrums."
"And they believed it?"
Deaton gave an enigmatic half-smile.
"Scott wants to believe. He needs normality. But Stiles..."
He shook his head.
"Stiles is a skeptic by nature. He knows he saw something real. And he won't stop until he finds out what the Salt family really is."
I sighed, resting my head back on the pillow.
"Great. One more problem."
"The least of your problems," Marcus warned, voice grim. "The dust clone was destroyed. The real Elias Halloway knows he lost his puppet. And he knows who cut the strings."
He paused briefly, eyes fixed on mine, unblinking.
"The cold war is over, Nathan. Now, he comes after you personally."
I swallowed hard, feeling the metallic taste of residual blood in my mouth. The threat wasn't empty. I had destroyed a magical sociopath's favorite toy. Elias's ego wouldn't let that slide.
"So now what?" I asked. My voice came out firmer than I expected, driven by a pang of irritation. "Are you going to hunt him? Are you going to come out of 'retirement' and turn the real Elias into dust before he decides to blow my head off while I sleep? Or is that also part of your teaching plan?"
Marcus let out a short sigh—almost a scoff—and uncrossed his arms.
He walked to the living room window, looking out into the darkness, before turning back to me.
"You think I'm harsh?" he asked, voice calm, professorial. "Do you know how mages like you—the Awakened who don't have the privilege of going to a Tower or a formal Magic School—are trained by other ancient families?"
I stayed silent.
Alice looked away, fiddling nervously with the hem of her apron, as if she already knew the answer and hated hearing it.
"They don't get reserve rings," Marcus continued, coldly. "They don't get translated grimoires at the breakfast table. As soon as a child awakens their core, the family takes them to an Exclusion Zone. A cursed forest. An ancient ruin. A vampire nest."
He paused slightly.
"And then they abandon them there."
I felt a chill run down my spine.
"They leave the kid alone?"
"They give them a knife and a canteen of water. And they say: 'Come home if you survive'. If the child returns, they are a Mage. If they don't... it was just a waste of bloodline."
Marcus walked back near the sofa. His shadow fell over me.
"I didn't abandon you in a forest, Nathan. But I put you in a controlled War Zone. Because it's the only way."
He pointed to my chest, where the core pulsed weak and sore.
"For most mediocre mages who come out of schools, having two thousand mana points is the peak. It's the ceiling. They spend their whole lives stagnant, casting the same basic spells, serving coffee for the Council."
His eyes shone with that fanatical intensity I saw when he talked about Magic Theory.
"I said you had potential. But potential is like an atrophied muscle. Increasing your Mana Reserve... expanding the fuel tank of your soul... is something that demands visceral sacrifice."
He took another step toward me.
"You don't expand a core with meditation and incense, Nathan. Only through near-death experiences, total drain, and collapse can you achieve that."
He leaned in, his face inches from mine.
"If you hadn't fought him alone, if I had intervened in the first minute and killed the clone for you... you would still be stuck at your 2,100 points forever. No matter how many different spells you learned, how many books you read. You would be a mage of tricks, not a mage of power."
Marcus straightened up, adjusting his shirt collar as if he had just given a simple math lesson.
"Today, you broke your ceiling. When your core recovers, it will scar bigger. Denser. You will thank me for this when you face the real Elias and have enough mana to crush him, instead of just surviving him."
I looked at Deaton.
The Druid was silent, watching Marcus with an undecipherable expression. He didn't agree with the methods, but seemed unable to refute the brutal logic of the results.
"So..." I murmured, feeling exhaustion return with full force. "I suppose I won't get a 'congratulations' for not dying."
"Your 'congratulations' is breathing," Marcus replied, heading toward the kitchen. "And dinner. Your mother made soup. Eat. Tomorrow we start rehabilitation training. You have a new capacity to fill."
Marcus disappeared down the hallway leading to the kitchen, leaving a heavy, electric silence in the room. His oppressive aura dissipated, but the tension remained in the air like the smell of gunpowder.
Deaton sighed, pushing off the bookshelf. He adjusted his coat, that enigmatic mentor air returning to place, though I could see a new layer of respect—or perhaps caution—in his eyes when he looked at me.
"Your father has a peculiar way of showing affection," Deaton commented, low enough so the voice wouldn't reach the kitchen.
"Yeah," I replied, closing my eyes for a moment, headache throbbing. "He calls it 'war pedagogy'. I call it insanity."
Deaton walked to the door but stopped with his hand on the knob, turning to me one last time.
"Nathan, about the boys... I did what I could to contain the damage. I took Scott and Stiles to the clinic as soon as you left. I treated Stiles's perforated eardrums and Scott's shock."
"And the hallucination story?" I asked.
"Scott accepted it," Deaton confirmed. "He wants to believe it was just a side effect of the sonic attack. The wolf in him seeks a physical, tangible explanation. He wants to go back to normality, or the closest thing he has to it."
The Druid paused, his gaze growing more serious.
"But Stiles... Stiles is different. While I was doing the bandages, he wouldn't stop asking questions. He saw the silver glow on you, Nathan. And he saw your father tear through space without a magic circle. I told him it was a delirium caused by pressure on the brain, but he didn't buy it. He went silent, and Stiles's silence is more dangerous than his talking."
I swallowed hard. Having Stiles investigating my family was the last thing I needed.
"I bought you time," Deaton concluded, opening the door. "But be careful. That boy's mind doesn't accept gaps. He will keep digging. Rest now. You survived the impossible today."
With that, the Druid left, closing the door softly behind him and vanishing into the night.
I was left alone in the silence of the room, hearing only the clinking of dishes in the kitchen. Seconds later, Alice returned carrying a tray. The smell of the soup was rich and earthy—beef broth, vegetables, and that unmistakable touch of sage and fortifying roots she used in her potions.
She placed the tray on my lap and sat on the edge of the sofa. Her eyes were still watery, but she smiled, stroking my sweaty hair.
"Eat," she ordered, softly. "I put valerian root and ground dragon bone powder in the broth. It will help calcify the core faster."
"Powder of what?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, though I was already bringing the spoon to my mouth.
"Don't ask the ingredients, Nathan. Just eat."
I obeyed. The soup was hot and went down my body like a liquid hug. With every spoonful, I felt the numbness in my limbs diminish, replaced by a constant tingling, as if my nerves were being rewired.
Alice stayed with me until I finished the last drop. She took the tray, kissed my forehead, and whispered a "sleep well" before turning off the lamp and going to her room, leaving me in the dim light of the living room.
I waited until I heard their bedroom door close upstairs.
The silence of the house was absolute now. But inside me, anxiety vibrated. The adrenaline of the battle, the terror of the drain, the revelation of Elias... it all spun in my head.
I turned to my side and, for the first time since arriving in Beacon Hills, slept without the constant fear of not having enough mana to wake up.
Morning light streamed through the kitchen windows, bathing the oak table in deceptively peaceful gold. The smell of fresh coffee, bacon, and scrambled eggs filled the air, a domestic normality that contrasted violently with the magical war we had waged the night before.
I walked down the stairs feeling my body strange. The pain in my bones was gone, replaced by a constant vibration, a hum of energy that made my fingertips tingle. I didn't just feel recovered; I felt dense.
I entered the kitchen. Alice was near the stove, flipping pancakes with unnecessary violence. With every movement of the spatula, she let out an irritated sigh.
Marcus was sitting at the head of the table, reading the local newspaper with the tranquility of a sociopath, sipping his black coffee.
"Good morning," I murmured, pulling out my usual chair.
"Good morning, honey," Alice replied, softening her voice instantly as she looked at me, but hardening again as she placed the frying pan on the counter with a loud clang of metal against granite. She served a mountainous plate for me and placed it on the table.
Then, she turned to Marcus, hands on her hips.
"Did you see the bruises on his back, Marcus? The scar tissue on his shoulder?" she fired off, unable to hold the silence any longer. "You almost broke the boy. If his recovery had failed, we would be planning a funeral today, not breakfast."
Marcus folded the newspaper calmly and set it aside. He looked at Alice with that unshakeable patience that made her even more furious.
"But it didn't fail, Alice. Muscle tissue tears to grow. Bone breaks to calcify stronger. Magic is no different."
"He isn't a lab experiment!" she retorted, pointing the spatula at him. "He is your son!"
"Exactly. And because he is my son, he needs to be capable of surviving what is coming," Marcus replied, voice grave. He then looked away from her and focused on me.
I had my fork stopped midway, watching the interaction. Marcus analyzed me for a long moment, as if reading a barcode on my forehead.
"Tell her, Nathan," Marcus ordered. "How do you feel?"
"Different," I admitted, dropping the fork. I opened and closed my hand, feeling the pressure in the air. "Heavy. But a good heavy. Like I'm anchored."
Marcus gave a half-smile, the first I'd seen in days. He leaned over the table, resting his chin on his clasped hands.
"You have this annoying habit of structuring your mind like one of those video games of yours," he commented, a glint of challenge in his eyes. "A mental crutch to process the abstract, I suppose. But useful for measuring quantitative results."
He pointed to my chest.
"So tell me... Do you still see your magic like those game pages? And what does it say now?"
I took a deep breath. The "interface" wasn't real, I knew that. It was the way my 21st-century teenage brain translated the sensory perception of ancient magic. But Marcus was right. It was my ruler.
The mental structure formed in front of me. The translucent blue rectangle glowed over the breakfast table, overlaying the image of my parents.
My eyes darted to the Mana line. And then, I gasped. Air tore into my lungs and my eyes widened, staring at the floating number.
[MP: 5,500 / 5,000]
"Five thousand..." I whispered, voice failing. "Five thousand, five hundred."
Alice's coffee spoon stopped in mid-air. Marcus just nodded, unsurprised.
"You were at two thousand, one hundred," Marcus said, taking another sip of coffee. "You more than doubled your capacity. The ring gives you another five hundred. But now do you understand, Nathan? The abyss didn't just look back at you. It filled you."
But I was barely listening. Because right below the mana bar, a new notification window blinked in gold, demanding my attention.
[Magic Vision: Level 4 ➔ Level 5]
The text glowed and vanished, integrating into my mind.
I blinked, deactivating the interface, and looked at my parents with my normal vision.
"Dad..." I began, heart pounding against my ribs. "My vision... it evolved."
Marcus paused his cup in the air. For the first time, I saw a shadow of genuine surprise cross his face.
"Yeah... I can feel it," Marcus replied, voice low but vibrating with a new gravity. He wasn't looking at my face, but into my eyes, analyzing the refraction of light in my iris. "The density of your gaze has changed. The structure is more complex. How many times has your visual perception reconfigured since you awakened?"
I swallowed hard, still processing the mental notification hovering in my peripheral vision.
"Five," I replied. "It just hit level five."
Marcus lowered the cup slowly to the table. The click of porcelain against wood sounded loud in the sudden silence. His smile widened. It wasn't his usual arrogant smile. It was something predatory. Proud. Almost scary.
"Level five in months..." he murmured, shaking his head as if seeing a fascinating mathematical anomaly. "The talent gap is truly screaming."
He stood up, chair scraping the floor, and began to gesture, tracing invisible lines in the air with his fingers, as if calculating the impossible.
"A normal Salt, trained from the cradle with the best tutors, would take two years of intense meditation to evolve their vision once. You did it five times in weeks. The trauma didn't just break you, Nathan. It forged you."
He stopped and leaned both hands on the table, inclining toward me, invading my personal space.
"Stop looking at that imaginary screen and look at me. Because this means one thing: you finally passed."
I blinked, confused, adrenaline still running.
"Passed?"
"Graduated from kindergarten," Marcus declared, voice firm and absolute. "Or, to use your language... you finally finished the Tutorial."
Alice stopped cooking and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. She didn't interfere this time. Her gaze was serious, recognizing that the moment of maternal protection was over.
Marcus raised his right hand over the center of the table, pushing the plate of pancakes aside with a gesture of disdain. The air over the oak wood shimmered, distorting with the sudden heat of a high-level spatial invocation.
"If you passed the basic level, you can't fight like an amateur anymore," he said, voice hardening. "You have five thousand mana now, Nathan. Do you know how long it took me to reach five thousand? If you keep using just raw Kinetic Blasts and improvised shields, it's like trying to move a war tank with your legs like the Flintstones. You need specialization."
With a deep snap of atmospheric pressure that made the windows vibrate, three heavy, ancient books materialized on the table, making the wood groan under the supernatural weight.
They weren't ordinary books. Dust of centuries covered the covers, and the mana exuding from them was so dense I could taste metal in the back of my throat.
The first grimoire, on the left, was bound in dark red leather, almost black, with rough, rusted iron corners. It exuded a faint smell of ozone, gunpowder, and dry blood. Its aura was aggressive, pulsing like a nervous heart.
The second, in the center, was made of a grey material, similar to polished stone or slate, with silver geometric glyphs carved deeply into the cover. It seemed immovable, indestructible, radiating a stable and defensive coldness.
The third, on the right, was the strangest. The cover looked made of frosted glass or liquid crystal, and the pages inside seemed to change color depending on the angle of the light. Its energy was fluid, hard to focus on, slippery like mercury.
"Choose," Marcus ordered.
I looked at him, hand hovering over the table. "Can't I read all three?"
"No. Not now," he cut in, ruthless. "Your core expanded, but your neural channels are still adapting. If you try to learn three doctrines of High Magic at the same time, you'll fry your brain before lunch. You need to anchor your mana in a primary style to shape your core's growth."
He pointed to the red iron book.
"The Path of Ruin, for war mages. It is my specialty. Pure War Magic. Focused on kinetic destruction, mass acceleration, and direct combat. It is brutal, efficient, and takes no prisoners. It turns your mana into an impact weapon. If you choose this one, you will be the spear."
He moved his finger to the stone book in the center.
"The Path of the Architect, for zone mages. Focused on complex barriers, sealing, and environmental alteration. You control the battlefield. Create fortresses where there is nothing, alter gravity, shape the terrain. It is the magic you used instinctively with the vacuum, but raised to the tenth power. If you choose this one, you will be the shield and the board."
Finally, he pointed to the fluid crystal book.
"The Path of Flux, for counter-mages. Counter-magic, advanced sensory perception, and vector manipulation. It isn't about hitting hard, it's about using the enemy's strength against them. Redirecting, nullifying, dismantling spells in mid-air. It is subtle, technical, and requires a level of Magic Vision few possess. If you choose this one, you will be the mirror."
Marcus crossed his arms, staring at me expectantly.
"You have the mana to sustain any of them now. The question is: what kind of monster do you want to be, Nathan?"
I looked at the three books, feeling the weight of the choice.
Destruction (DPS).
Terrain Control (Tank/Support).
Technique and Counter (Skill-based).
My hand hovered over the table. It was a definitive choice. The way I would fight against Elias—and against everything that came after—would be defined now.