Chương 3: The Etching

The workroom was a joke dressed up as luxury. Ivan stood in the center of a magnificent chamber that screamed money. White marble floors polished to a mirror shine. Enchanted sconces that adjusted their light based on his position in the room. A desk carved from what looked like petrified dragonbone, because of course it was. Temperature control runes kept the air at a perfect 20° Celsius. And the door locked from the outside. He'd heard the mechanism click into place the moment the enforcers left.

No handle on his side. Just smooth stone and a subtle humming that told him the door was warded six ways to Sunday. A cage for a man Victor knows might die. Ivan walked to the desk. The Corrupted Mythic Scroll sat in its glass case like a museum piece, the warped runes visible even through the enchanted container. Victor wasn't wrong about one thing. If Ivan died here, this would still be the most useful he'd ever been to anyone. And damn it, the scroll was interesting.

Beside it sat the materials Victor had ordered prepared. Three bottles of enchanted Mana Ink, every one worth more than Ivan's annual salary at the guild. A stack of stabilized vellum that felt like silk under his fingers. A row of replacement quills, each one balanced well enough to cost more than anything in his office. And a wooden crate packed with enough Mana Potions and Health Potions to stock a small clinic. He picked up one of the health potions.

It was a glass vial filled with red liquid that glowed faintly. His Status screen flickered. [Store item in Inventory?] The System allowed users to store items in a personal dimensional space, though most people only used it for weapons or emergency supplies. The space was limited, and pulling items out mid-combat took concentration most fighters couldn't spare. But for potions… He focused on the notification and watched the vial vanish from his hand.

A small icon appeared at the edge of his vision, a tiny red bottle with the number "1" beside it. He pulled up the full inventory screen. [Inventory: 6/50 slots occupied] [Health Potion (Minor) x1] Interesting. He grabbed the rest of the potions and started loading them in. Health potions, mana potions, even a few stamina restoratives he found buried in the crate. Within minutes, another notification appeared. [Inventory: 23/50 slots occupied] A second notification appeared.

[Tip: Items in Inventory can be consumed directly. Focus on the icon and mentally command 'Use.'] Does it think I'm a newbie or what? Even he knew he could down a potion without fumbling for a cork or risking a spill. The System had clearly been designed by someone who understood combat logistics. Some people claimed the System had always existed and that nothing had created it. Ivan turned his attention back to the scroll. His [Pattern Recognition] was already active, a constant low hum at the back of his mind.

Just looking at the thing through the glass made the skill flare. He reached for the case. The moment his fingers touched the latch, the runes on the scroll moved. Not like ink spreading on wet paper. They shifted, as if the parchment itself was alive. A line that had curved left suddenly bent right. A circle became a triangle. The geometry twisted and reformed like something trying to escape observation. Ivan's head throbbed. [Pattern Recognition is detecting strange anomalies.] [Warning: Unstable magical construct detected.] [Mental Resistance Check: Passed.] Turns out he was hardheaded enough to pass the resistance check. He opened the case. The scroll sat there, looking ancient and malevolent. The parchment was black with age, the runes written in something that looked like dried blood. Up close, the corruption was worse. The lines bled into each other, forming shapes that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space. His [Pattern Recognition] screamed. He could see the errors now.

This curve violated the basic principles of mana flow. That junction point created a feedback loop that would fry any caster trying to use it. The whole thing was a magical IED waiting to detonate. And I'm supposed to copy this. Fuck me. Ivan sat down and pulled out a piece of vellum. He uncorked one of the enchanted inks and dipped his quill. The first line took him three minutes to trace. His hand shook the entire time, fighting against the wrongness of what he was copying.

The ink resisted, as if it knew it was being forced into an unnatural shape. He finished the stroke. The vellum caught fire.

"Shit!" Ivan dropped the quill and stumbled back. The flames were cold, a blue-white fire that consumed the paper without producing heat. Within seconds, nothing remained but ash. His nose started bleeding. [Mental Integrity: 94%] Ivan wiped the blood away and stared at the notification. The System was tracking his sanity now. That never happened. That was… not good. He tried again. New vellum, fresh ink. This time he got three lines down before the quill snapped in his hand.

The wooden shaft splintered like it had been struck by lightning, and the ink boiled in the bottle. [Mental Integrity: 89%] Again. Four lines this time. The paper didn't burn, but the runes he'd drawn started to writhe like living things. They peeled off the vellum and dissolved into smoke. [Mental Integrity: 84%] Again. [Mental Integrity: 79%] Again. [Mental Integrity: 71%] Somewhere around the eighth attempt, Ivan started hearing whispers.

"You are nothing." He froze, quill hovering over the page.

"A printer. A shadow. A failure." The voice came from nowhere and everywhere. It sounded like his own thoughts, but twisted. Mocking.

"Ten years in a basement and this is how you die. Alone. Forgotten. Useless."

"Hey, stop distracting me," Ivan muttered.

"The others were smarter than you. They quit. They lived. You're going to break yourself trying to prove you matter." His hand trembled. The quill left a black splotch on the vellum.

"You don't." Pain exploded behind his eyes. Ivan gasped and dropped the quill, clutching his head. Blood ran from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes. He fumbled for his inventory and mentally commanded Use on a health potion. Then another Use on a mana potion. The effect was immediate. Warm liquid flooded his system, knitting torn blood vessels and soothing his frayed nerves. The pain receded to a dull ache. [Mana: 310/310] [Mental Integrity: 68%] His Mana returned to full, but the damage was mental.

Health potions couldn't touch it. At least the vials still held several doses apiece. With reserves this small, he might stretch the few dozen potions past a hundred uses. Not that it helped him much. Ivan slumped in his chair and stared at the scroll. The runes stared back, shifting and mocking.

"Fuck." Ivan would probably curse a lot more before this was over. At least he understood the trap now. Flash Replication wouldn't work because the System can't snapshot something that's constantly changing. The thought came to him slowly, fighting through the haze. But Deep Etching forces me to look at it long enough to go insane. The other scribes didn't fail because they were weak. They failed because this scroll is a trap. Victor hadn't given him a job. He'd given him an execution with extra steps.

Ivan laughed. It came out bitter and sharp.

"Fuck you too, bastard." Probably not a good idea to call him that, given the rumor about his Perception stat, but whatever. Ivan passed out on the floor sometime after midnight.

Day two started with a servant sliding food through a slot in the door. Ivan woke to the smell of bread and roasted meat. His body ached like he'd been beaten with hammers, and his Status screen showed his Mental Integrity had recovered to 81% during sleep. Not great, but better than bleeding out through his eyeballs. He ate mechanically, barely tasting the food. His mind was already back on the scroll. Nothing is impossible in this new world, yes, but the question is, am I powerful enough to fall under that rule?

The corrupted runes glowed faintly in the morning light filtering through the enchanted windows. Just looking at them made his head throb, but no notifications appeared. This wasn't going to work… For a few seconds, he had nothing. Then an idea came to him. He needed [Pattern Recognition] at Level 100. Its evolution might give him the edge he needed, but the skill wasn't going to level itself through passive observation. He needed to use it.

[Mana: 63/310] Ivan used another mana potion and brought his reserves back to [310/310]. Each vial cost enough to buy a gold mine, but his life was on the line. He could feel guilty if he survived. Ivan moved to the center of the room and raised his hand. [Lightning Bolt] came first, the spell he'd accidentally cast in his basement office. The one that had started all of this. He traced the pattern in the air with his Mana Ink coated finger, careful not to spend too much.

Mana drained from his core as the geometry took shape, and a crackling arc of blue-white electricity shot from his fingertip, striking the far wall and leaving a scorch mark. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. [Pattern Recognition has leveled up!] [Pattern Recognition - Level 59] [Mana: 49/310] He drank another potion. Then he cast it again. And again.

Each time he felt a strain, his [Pattern Recognition] analyzed the flow, the curves, the junction points. How the mana moved through the invisible framework he was drawing in space. [Pattern Recognition has leveled up!] [Pattern Recognition has leveled up!] [Pattern Recognition - Level 60] His mana pool emptied. Ivan used another mana potion from his inventory and drank it without breaking stride. The cool liquid refilled his reserves, and he kept going.

After a few more [Lightning Bolt] casts, the levels stopped coming. He'd hit some kind of threshold at Level 60; half a dozen more attempts gave him nothing. He decided to try another spell then. His goal was to reach Level 100, after all. He tried [Fireball] next. Another spell he'd copied hundreds of times for adventurers. He'd never cast it, but he knew the structure by heart. His finger traced the sigil. A sphere of flame erupted and splashed against the wall. [Pattern Recognition has leveled up!] [Pattern Recognition has leveled up!] [Pattern Recognition - Level 61] [Pattern Recognition - Level 62] He whistled under his breath.

"Nice." The levels were coming slowly, but different spells solved that. He followed it with [Minor Shield]. A defensive barrier he'd etched onto scrolls for nervous newbies. He drew the circle in the air and a translucent disc of force shimmered into existence in front of him. [Pattern Recognition - Level 63] [Swift Step]. [Lesser Heal]. [Frost Touch]. [Stone Skin]. Every spell he'd memorized over ten years of copying scrolls, he cast them now. One after another.

His fingers moved in patterns he could draw in his sleep, but this time he felt them. Understood them. The room filled with flashes of light and sound. Lightning crackled. Fire bloomed. Ice crystals formed and shattered. The air shimmered with barriers and enhancement spells. [Pattern Recognition - Level 68] [Pattern Recognition - Level 69] [Arcane Scribe has leveled up!] [Arcane Scribe - Level 32] His mana ran dry again. He drank another potion. Then another.

The crate of potions was half-empty now, but he didn't stop. [Acid Splash]. [Wind Blade]. [Earth Spike]. Spells he'd copied so many times they'd lost all meaning. Now they were tools. Data points for his skill to process and learn from. [Pattern Recognition - Level 74] [Pattern Recognition - Level 75] [Human (F) has leveled up!] [Human (F) has reached Level 31.] His maximum Mana increased too. [Mana: 330/330] Sweat dripped down his face. His hands trembled from the constant casting. How many… hours has it been?

But the notifications kept coming, and that was all that mattered. He'd even gained an overall Level! Somewhere around Level 78, between a failed [Water Whip] and a successful [Light Orb], he had an idea. Wait, what if I don't copy the corrupted scroll? He stopped mid-cast. The marble floor was cold under his bare feet as he started pacing. What if I fix it first, then copy the fixed version? It was insane.

To "fix" the scroll, he'd have to hold the entire broken pattern in his mind, identify every error, and mentally rewrite the spell structure. All while the corrupted mana tried to fry his brain… But what other choice did he have? The traditional method was killing him. Literally. Every attempt dropped his Mental Integrity further, and he'd run out of health potions eventually. Victor expected him to fail. The other scribes had failed. But they weren't me. His evolution plan aligned better with this.

If he could push [Pattern Recognition] to Level 100 first, it could give him the edge he needed. Ivan went back to casting, pushing harder but paying closer attention. He layered [Lightning Bolt] over a maintained [Minor Shield], then drew three spell circles at once. [Pattern Recognition - Level 81] [Pattern Recognition - Level 88] [Arcane Scribe has leveled up!] [Arcane Scribe has leveled up!] [Arcane Scribe - Level 34] His mana pool kept turning over. He emptied it, refilled it, and emptied it again.

He lost count of how many potions he'd drunk. His stomach sloshed with liquid, but he kept going. [Flame Lance]. [Ice Wall]. [Chain Lightning]. More complex spells. Ones he'd only copied a handful of times. The patterns fought him, resisted his inexperienced casting, but his memory and [Deep Etching] guided his hands and his [Pattern Recognition] corrected his mistakes. [Pattern Recognition - Level 94] [Pattern Recognition - Level 95] [Human (F) has leveled up!] [Human (F) has reached Level 32.] [Mana: 330/330] Blood dripped from his nose. He wiped it away and kept casting. [Pattern Recognition - Level 99] One more. Ivan raised both hands. He visualized the most complex spell he'd ever copied. It was a destructive spell, [Meteor Strike]. A Tier 4 combat spell that took him three days to etch properly when an S-rank adventurer had commissioned it. Casting it in an enclosed room was stupid, even one this large. But he needed one more level…

"Ugh, fuck it." His fingers moved. The pattern formed in the air above him into a massive web of interconnected nodes and mana channels. It was incomplete, he didn't have enough mana to finish it, but he pushed anyway. The spell structure collapsed. The backlash hit him like a hammer. But the notification appeared. [Deep Etching has leveled up!] [Deep Etching has leveled up!] [Deep Etching has leveled up!] [Deep Etching has - Level 52!] [Pattern Recognition has leveled up!] [Pattern Recognition - Level 100] [Arcane Scribe has leveled up!] [Arcane Scribe has leveled up!] [Arcane Scribe has leveled up!] … [Arcane Scribe - Level 40] [Human (F) has leveled up!] [Human (F) has reached Level 33.] [Pattern Recognition has reached maximum proficiency.] [Skill Evolution Available.] The notification burned across his vision in gold letters. Ivan dropped to the floor, panting and grinning like a fool.

He shut his eyes until the room steadied, then opened them and looked straight at the scroll. If I'm dying anyway, I'm going out swinging. He accepted the evolution. [Evolution: Architecture of Mana] [New Function: Full three-dimensional spatial visualization of magical constructs. All nodes, pathways, and mana flows are visible simultaneously.] The world exploded. Ivan screamed. His [Pattern Recognition] hadn't just leveled up. It had transformed.

Now he could see the corrupted scroll and every enchantment around it: the wards on the door, the temperature-control runes, the preservation spell on the glass case. All of them overlapped in crystalline detail, like a thousand pieces of sheet music played at once. And in the center of it all, the spell. Oh. It wasn't a combat spell. It wasn't utility magic. It was code. System code. A spell built to read the System's architecture and rewrite local functions. No Earth Mage had made this. A Primordial, maybe…?

Ivan couldn't tell how much of the original spell had survived. Maybe thirty percent. Even that was enough to chill him. This was why Victor wanted it. Why his Primordial Sponsor wanted a copy. Even this broken portion could tamper with reality itself. He activated [Architecture of Mana] at full power and dove into the corrupted scroll's structure. The geometry filled his mind as a three-dimensional construction he could turn and enter. Lines and curves joined at mana nodes.

Pathways folded through angles that should not fit on parchment. It was a four-dimensional spell compressed into two dimensions, and every part of it was wrong. Ivan was pretty sure this wasn't meant for a mind like his to read. His breathing quickened. Pain ground behind his eyes like broken glass. [Mental Integrity: 79%] The corruption went far beyond a few damaged lines. Underneath it, the original structure was still elegant. Someone had sabotaged a masterwork and left it to rot for centuries.

I can't copy this. That's impossible… But maybe I can rebuild it? Modify it just a little… He started with the simplest rune, even though a part of him said it was suicide. But the [Scribe] in him was more excited than ever. A basic mana node at the spell's foundation. In the corrupted version, it looped back on itself like an ouroboros. He mentally traced the line, following it until he found where it diverged from proper form. There. A tiny deviation, barely noticeable.

He mentally "erased" the error and redrew the line correctly. The rune stabilized so easily that Ivan stared at it. Huh…? Regardless, one error went down. Three hundred and forty-seven to go. Ivan lost track of time. The room faded away. The marble floor, the enchanted lights, the locked door, all of it vanished. There was only the spell. Only the geometry. He worked line by line, curve by curve. Every correction cost mana.

He burned through his natural reserves in the first hour and started chugging mana potions from his inventory without even opening his eyes. [Mental Integrity: 71%] The whispers grew louder. They weren't mocking anymore. They were screaming.

"STOP. YOU CANNOT. YOU WILL BREAK." Blood dripped from his nose. He didn't care. [Mental Integrity: 64%] His hands started shaking. He pressed them flat against the floor to stop the tremors. [Mental Integrity: 54%] Halfway through the reconstruction, something changed. The spell structure stopped fighting him. He didn't know what caused the change. It was subtle at first. A line that snapped into place without resistance.

A junction that corrected itself the moment he touched it, as if the spell wanted to be fixed. Was it alive…? The idea should have been ridiculous, but Primordials still chose Champions during every Integration despite being older and stronger than anything Ivan could imagine. No one knew what they gained from helping creatures this weak. Maybe even Primordials wanted a hand in what came next. Maybe none of them wanted to be forgotten. Maybe the spell didn't either.

It was probably nonsense, his mind trying to make sense of nothing, but the thought helped him focus. [Mental Integrity: 39%] Ivan pushed harder. His vision was blurring, red creeping in at the edges. But he could see the end now. The final form of the spell, shining like a star through the corruption. Just a little further. [Mental Integrity: 21%] Ivan's body was shutting down. He could feel it. Blood ran from his ears. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. But he was so close. He reached for the final rune.

Ivan rewrote it. The spell sang. [Mental Integrity: 12%] The corrected structure held. Every line and junction sat exactly where it belonged. Ivan grabbed his quill with trembling fingers and dipped it in enchanted ink. He'd cracked the spell, but he didn't trust himself to remember the final structure in this state. He had to write it down despite the risk. His [Deep Etching] activated automatically, guiding his hand. The quill moved across the vellum like it was alive.

Lines of gold formed in its wake, every stroke precise and flawless. The spell flowed from his mind onto the page, a perfect translation of the corrected structure. He finished the final character. The original scroll inside the glass case collapsed into ash before he could blink. Ivan stared at it. What? Why? He had copied the corrected structure onto fresh vellum. Nothing he had done should have touched the source. Why would it randomly burn away?

The vellum on Ivan's desk flashed gold, then the ink hissed free of the page. Then something shocking happened. The characters rose and slammed into his forehead, sinking beneath his skin before he could move. And then the pain hit. [You have successfully deciphered a Corrupted Mythic Spell.] [Achievement Unlocked: Sourcebreaker!] [Title: He Who Sees The Source] [You're the first to achieve this in the 106th Universe.] [Recalculating your existence, calculating rewards...] [System Tip: First‑time achievements in a given Universe grant disproportionate experience and structural rewards. Subsequent attempts will be judged against the precedent you just set.] [Class Evolution Initiated...] [Unprecedented evolution detected. Constructing new Class framework...] [Warning: Insufficient energy for reconstruction.] [Consuming accumulated Class and Race Levels as fuel...] Ivan's Status screen split into two columns. Both began to drain.

CLASS LEVEL [Arcane Scribe - Level 40] [Arcane Scribe - Level 37] [Arcane Scribe - Level 31] [Arcane Scribe - Level 22] … [Arcane Scribe - Level 1] … RACE LEVEL [Human (F) Level 33] [Human (F) Level 24] [Human (F) Level 15] [Human (F) Level 10] … [Human (F) Level 1] Pain hooked through his soul and pulled. On the Status screen, his levels vanished one after another, burned as fuel for something he couldn't see or understand. He tried to scream but his throat wouldn't work.

[Arcane Scribe - 40 levels have been consumed.] [Human (F) - 33 Levels have been consumed.] [Class Evolution Complete!] [You've unlocked (Unique) Class - Inscriber of Principles.] [Human (F) - Level 1] [Inscriber of Principles - Level 1] The world went black.

The door unsealed with a hiss as the wards released. Hana burst through first, two enforcers at her back. Her eyes swept the room and landed on Ivan's body, crumpled on the floor next to the desk.

"Is he–" one of the enforcers started.

"He's breathing," Hana said quickly. She knelt beside him, fingers glowing with diagnostic magic.

"Barely." The enforcer walked to the glass case and saw the pile of ash inside. His face went pale.

"Well, that's not good. The scroll…"

"Check his Status, if he's sane or not," the other enforcer said. Hana's spell flared. Her eyes widened.

"Has he gone insane?"

"No… but he's Level 1. He lost all his levels."

"Victor's going to kill him," the first enforcer muttered. Hana's jaw tightened. She looked down at Ivan's unconscious face, then at the ash in the glass case and the scorched, empty vellum on the desk. You absolute madman.

"Get a healer," she said.

"Quick."