The next morning, I woke to rain—again.
In Arinvale, the sky seemed to mourn endlessly, weeping over a city too tired to care. Water leaked from the eaves, pooled in alleys, soaked into my boots as I walked the streets with purpose.
I wasn't just another slum rat anymore. I had Veilstep. I had shadow magic pulsing through my veins. And that made me a problem.
I just didn't know for whom yet.
---
It started with a pair of cloaked men at the bakery stall.
They weren't buying bread.
They were watching.
One had the rigid posture of a soldier trying to act relaxed. The other kept glancing at me from beneath his hood.
As I passed, they whispered into stones embedded in their wrists—Mage Relay Crystals.
They were Guild.
I didn't stop. I didn't look back.
But the message was clear: I was being hunted.
---
Mira was gone that day—no trace at her usual alley, no soup pot, no fire. Just a scrap of parchment nailed to the wall, stained with blood and rain.
> "Don't come back here. They're watching. —M"
I stood there, unmoving, for a long time.
She had warned me from the beginning.
And now she was gone.
Because of me.
I clenched my fists.
If the Guild wanted a war, they'd get one.
But I wouldn't fight alone.
---
That evening, I found Lira again—standing under the overhang of the upper quarter's outer wall, where mages watched from towers and children of nobles trained in controlled environments far above the grime of the slums.
She looked immaculate, as always. Her cloak shimmered like midnight. Her eyes held a quiet calculation.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said.
"I saw something worse," I replied. "The Guild has eyes on me. Mira's gone."
She didn't react at first. Just nodded, slowly.
"Then it's begun."
"What's begun?"
She stepped closer, her voice barely a whisper. "You've crossed a line, Elias. You've awakened a system that hasn't seen daylight in centuries. The nobles want control. And you?" She smirked. "You're control's enemy."
"I never asked for this," I muttered.
"No one does," she said. "But we don't get to choose the system that claims us."
Lira studied me with those icy eyes.
Then she extended her staff toward me.
"You need training."
"I thought I wasn't allowed near the Guild."
She smirked. "I'm not the Guild. Not anymore."
---
For the next several nights, we met in secret—beneath bridges, in crumbling ruins, inside hollow towers long abandoned by the Arcanum.
She taught me how to shape my mana, not just unleash it.
I learned how to channel spells through movement, how to focus my shadow affinity to cast without words.
We sparred with illusions. She showed me how to blend my Veilstep with real-world footwork. At one point, I blinked across three meters and slammed into her.
She dropped me with a finger and a smirk.
"You're fast," she said, standing over me. "But you're still predictable."
I coughed. "You're terrifying."
Her smile widened. "Flattery won't save you, Elias."
---
After one particularly brutal session, she sat beside me in the ruins, watching the moon cut through the clouds.
"You're not like them," she said.
"The nobles?"
"The reborn. Most of them break. Or they become addicted to power."
I looked at her. "Which one am I?"
She didn't answer right away.
Then: "You don't care about the fame. Or the girls." Her voice dropped slightly. "They fawn over you already, you know."
I groaned. "Why do people keep saying that?"
"Because it's true. Half the Guild apprentices are whispering your name. Even that shopkeeper's daughter keeps trying to 'accidentally' trip near you."
I shrugged. "Not interested."
She looked at me for a long time. "That's what makes you dangerous."
I frowned. "Because I'm not interested?"
"No," she said softly. "Because you don't need anyone's approval. Not even mine."
---
The next day, everything changed.
It started with a notice board flare.
A pulsing red sigil appeared across every city notice screen at once.
---
> [WANTED: Elias Black — Unmarked Mage / Shadowroot Contamination Suspected]
Reward: 1 Gold Coin. Dead or Alive.
---
I stared at the glowing symbol.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Around me, people whispered.
A few pointed.
I turned and walked away.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
---
By sundown, the slums were in chaos.
Mercenaries prowled the alleys. Bounty hunters sniffed through the streets like bloodhounds. I Veilstepped three times to avoid being spotted, each time feeling the tug of the system's deeper root pull tighter around my soul.
That night, I didn't sleep.
I returned to the sewers—my ground—and waited.
A group of bounty hunters came at midnight.
They had armor. Runes. Light.
I had darkness.
They never left.
---
By dawn, my hands were stained red and my mana was spent.
But I stood over their corpses with a new system message.
---
[You have unlocked Shadowroot Affinity Level 5%]
New Title: The Unmarked Mage
Effect: +5% evasion, +10% damage to marked enemies, +2 Shadow Control
---
I was no longer just a commoner.
No longer just a glitch in their system.
I was something new.
Something dangerous.
And I wasn't running anymore.