Emily groggily wipes the crust from her eyes and turns over to bury her fa her pillow.

  Why is my pillow so soft…

  As the haze of sleepiness slowly lifts, memories of spells and knives e rushing back all at once.

  She jerks up, her breath accelerating, as she puts the broken timeline of her yesterday back together.

  “Dad… he… it’s okay, he didn’t end up like…. that!” She shivers and forces back the images of Herber mangled by spikes of rock, or spttered on the floor in a pile of gore, that intrude unwanted on her mind.

  Slow deep breaths.

  Fog on her breathing, she enters a familiar meditative trance, watg the delicate weaving of mana arouo calm her ime slips away and Emily only es back to awareness as she hears a light knog on the door.

  “Haaa.” Letting out a deep breath, her eyes flit open with a glint of steel that fades as she gnces down at her still-naked form.

  “Just a sed!” She springs out of bed and approaches the dresser, grabbing the robe from on top and throwing it around herself.

  “e in!”

  The door swings open and two familiar maids walk in, one carrying a bowl of soup and a pte of bread, and the other ay gss and a jug of water. After a cursnce around the room, the maid with the ptes looks to Emily and asks.

  “Where would you like your food, madam?”

  “Ah, over here please!” Emily quickly turns around and clears the clothes off the top of the dresser, tossing them onto the bed.

  The maids pce the food and drink down, pick up her dirty towel, and then bow and head for the dain.

  “Thank you!” Emily calls out before they leave.

  The maids turn and give one final silent bow before shutting the door on their way out.

  “Wow, they really don’t like talking,” Emily grumbles as dressed before starting her meal.

  The soup is thick with potatoes, chi and a green herb Emily has ried before, reeking of luxury.

  They seem to treat me well for a brainwashed sve and, from their reas to my self-awakening, I’m guessing mages are pretty rare. I should be safe as long as I follow orders for now.

  After finishing her breakfast, Emily quickly heads to the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth, theles down cross-legged on the bed in her robes. Pulling up her status page, she looks down the list to locate a skill she ed to use in frozen time: Spellweave.

  “User gaze into the truth of runes… Sure I’d love to see the truth of runes, but how do I activate it?” Emily mutters to herself and focuses on the skill description h in her vision.

  Something clicks in her mind, and she shifts her breathing pattern a little while willing her mana towards her eyes and cortex.

  She begins to feel the mana flow around her as in her normal meditation, but this time she opens her eyes too ahe world anew.

  The space around her is filled with twisting fractals of colour aure, stantly shifting and tearing at each other, as if in a relentless battle to beat out their petitors and impose their form upoy.

  Fog on one of the siing patterns, Emily’s perspective bends, drawn into the folds to reveal a plex iwining of unknown ruhe runes flicker, never remaining in the same shape for more than a few seds.

  Emily reaches out her hand and watches as the runes part, avoidiouch, and then fall bato pce the obstru is removed. As the runes move, she sees small twists of sharpness and cold bei in their wake.

  These are spells.

  It clicks in her mind then, that these patterns of runes are the matrices mentioned in the skill description. The indescribable folds of mana and nguage before her form the basiagic.

  How do I cast them? Those guys made the runes appear with their mana, maybe I could try that.

  Full of excitement, Emily remembers the feeling of guiding mana around her body to activate the skill and copies it to will her mana into motion. A small tendril of deep, warm blue slowly emerges from her chest, reag out towards the matrix in front of her.

  As the mana leaves her body, she senses something shift in the weave around her and sees each of the flickering runes settle on a single shape.

  So, using mana outside my body stops the weave from moving around?

  Struck by a sudden idea, Emily retracts her mana and then rexes her focus. Her perceptiourns to the inal dizzying mess of information. She wills her mana out of her body again, and the ge is immediately noticeable.

  All the shapes, colours aures within her vision stop as if frozen in time, allowing Emily to take iirety of the weave for the first time. She is mesmerised, only noreciating the beauty of the se id out before her.

  What once looked like a raging battle, she now realises is a delicate dance. Each different aspect dispyed perfectly melds into its neighbours and not a single one domihe se.

  It’s beautiful…

  After gazing in wonder for a few seds, Emily narrows her focus on one of the swirling red patterns and sees another spell matrix appear before her.

  This one has far fewer runes - only a dozen. She pushes her mana tendril towards the closest rune hoping to move it, but instead, her mana is drawn into the rune.

  As her mana follows the shape of the rune, she feels a matg mana flow form in her cortex. A faint rune, identical to the one before her, forms in her mind.

  It’s hazy and hard to perceive, but Emily feel a faint warmth radiating from it along with the cept of ignition.

  She tinues p her mana into the rune, solidifying the one in her mind more and more, until she begins to feel a cold emptiness spreading from her chest.

  Quickly, she interrupts her breathing and breaks herself out of her trance, returning her vision to normal. The room around her is unged as if the mystical experience she just had was a lie.

  The only thing remaining from the experience is the faint after-image of the ruill sitting in the back of her mind. The rune only holds a fra of the crity it did within the weave, and Emily only uand it to be a form of fire element ignition rune.

  I see, so I use the Spellweave to learn runes and maybe ter entire spells, but it uses a lot of mana and I only retain a fra of what I learn each time.

  She knows she has discovered more about the rune, but the memories of what she found have vanished.

  Falling bato her bed, she opens the system and checks her current status.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Health:] 110/115

  [Stamina:] 169/175

  [Mana:] 20/330

  _____

  She frowns, feeling something is off, and checks the time on The Clock. Three hours have passed since she ate breakfast.

  Weird, I thought Spellweave was only meant to use 80 mana per hour, but it drained 310 instead. It must only give the basic cost to keep the vision of the weave active, and not at for any mana used manually to learn about runes. Also, why did I take damage? Was the pain when looking at the moving weave actually bad enough to cause mental damage?

  Emily shivers and raises a hand to rub her chest, but the ag cold is ued. Sighing, she sits back up as into a lotus pose again.

  Being drained of mana feels disgusting. At least I test how fast my meditation works.

  As she meditates, the cold in her chest slowly thaws, uo withstand the warm waves of mana being cycled through her circle once again.

  Three hours ter, her meditation is interrupted by a polite kno the door. Emily opens her eyes and g the door.

  “e in.”

  It opens and the two familiar maids walk in again, carrying a pte of food and more water. They deposit the items on the dresser and take the empty dishes from breakfast before leaving without a word.

  Huh, I wonder if those two will be the only ones bringiuff while I’m here.

  With her curiosity piqued, Emily climbs off her bed and leaves the room. She creeps to the open end of the corridor and peeks around the er. Other thawo retreating maids, the hallway she gazes into is devoid of life.

  A little disappointed, she pulls back from the jun and closes her eyes, listening carefully to the building around her. She hears creaking floorboards, several sets of footsteps and a few doors opening and closing. Emily waits and listens for ten minutes but doesn’t hear a single person speak.

  Creepy.

  Feeling slightly uled, she returns to her room and sits at the dresser to eat her food while cheg her status.

  My mana is back up to 260 after three hours, so meditation must refill 80 an hour. Oh, my stamina is also full, I’ll have to test how fast that regees ter.

  After eating, Emily meditates for an hour more to finish filling her mana, then dives bato the Spellweave.

  She finds a simple fire spell again, but all the runes she sees are different to the one she began learning in the m. She checks a few other red folds in the weave, but ’t find the same ignition rune again so instead she decides to learn an ice element ruhe rune she chooses gives off a feeling of slowness.

  Emily remains irance for ahree hours, dropping it the moment she feels a familiar emptiness at her core. Instantly, she switches to meditation, which she stays in for a while before opening her eyes and pulling out The Clock to check it: 8:15.

  Dad died at 8:16.

  She sits in silence, sadness swirling in her gaze as the seds tick down.

  Tick! Tick! Tick!

  8:16.

  Her chest tightens and her hand starts to shake as fshes of Herber dripping with blood, or drenched in it, fill her mind.

  Tick! Tick! Tick!

  She resists the urge to press the button. To see his faore time.

  Tick! Tick! Tick!

  8:17.

  A string in Emily’s heart snaps, as she is ed by panic.

  Should I have reset again? Could I have saved him? Was there something I didn’t think of? Something I didn’t try?

  Then she remembers the Patriard the overwhelming power he wields.

  Dad’s fate was already sealed the moment I stole those magic crystals. It was already too te by the time I made The Clock. The only choice I had was who else died too.

  Hoping that’s true, she feels a siear roll down her cheek as ice washes through her veins, the memories of Herber’s demise sinking into the depths of her mind. She sits perfectly still, staring at the tig pocket watch for three more minutes before she hears a knock at her door. She shuts her eyes and takes a slow breath, before turning to the door and calling for the maids to enter.

  This time they are carrying another set of pin clothes and a fresh towel, along with her dinner. Emily thanks them as they leave, dropping The Clock bato her pocket before f herself to chew her meal, barely aware of what she is eating. She turns her mind to magic to distract from the chilling void withiermio learn enough magic to exact her revenge.

  It looks like I won’t be able to learn enough ruo form a spell quickly. I don’t know how many different ruhere are, and the stant movement of the weave makes it too hard to find the same one again. If only I had some finished spells, I bet I could work out what the runes mean quickly with a little help from the weave.

  Sighing in frustration, she finishes off her food as up, deg to do some exercise to test her meditation’s stamina regeion rate. She removes her robe and drapes it over the back of the chair before dropping to the floor and starting to do push-ups, following the short exercise routine she has often do home. She quickly beats her previous record of fifteen, not feeling her arms give way until she reaches thirty.

  Woah, I doubled my record. Did awakening affect my body that much?

  After a short break tain her breath, she moves on to squats, ches, jumping jacks and a pnk, finding herself able to beat all her previous records by a sizeable margin. Colpsing on the floor in a pool of sweat, she looks at her status page.

  I’m so much stronger, and my stamina has only dropped by 80 after all that. Now to test stamina regeion.

  She sits up, not moving to the bed this time, due to her sweaty state, aates for an hour.

  After finishing, she stands up and stretches her muscles, finding a rge portion of the fatigue pletely gone.

  40 stamina in an hour of meditation? Do I eveo sleep anymore? It seems far more effit to just meditate instead, though I didn’t notice my stamina going down normally throughout the day so it may not be reted to general fatigue… It also doesn’t seem to drop much from mental strain since experimenting with the Spellweave only cost 6 stamina even though it was so inte caused mental damage. I think my cortex is to thank for that.

  Emily yawns and checks the time: 10:14.

  Never mind, that ahat question.

  She grabs the towel and moves to the bathroom to take a nice long shorepare for bed.

  After finishing up and heading back to her room, it’s already 10:55. She falls bato the soft embrace of sleep, her mind filled with the wonders of magic.