NOVEL NEXT Chapter 53 - Precaution
The ache in Nick's mana circuits felt like lightning trapped beneath his skin, each pulse reminding him how far he'd pushed himself the night before. Beneath the pain thrummed something else—a resonance humming through his core, as if his entire being had finally tuned to the correct frequency.
[Mana Recovery: 87%]
[Warning: Host, I detect severe strain on your neural pathways. I recommend avoiding any Class II abilities for the next six hours.]
Thank you, Sophia. Your warning is noted, Nick thought back.
You pushed harder than I expected, Arlize's voice drifted through his mind, faint but tinged with pride. Integrating new pathways always carries risks. But you've crossed a threshold that few Codex Wardens reach, even after years of study. Congratulations.
A small smile crept across Nick's face as he slowly got out of bed. Memories of the previous night flooded back—the precise equations guiding Mana Sculpt, the instinctive flow of the Shield of Seven Forms, and most vividly, Arlize's confession of failure: a world he couldn't save, the people he couldn't protect.
I won't make the same mistakes, Nick vowed, the resolution settling deep into his bones.
I won't let Earth fall.
The common area buzzed with activity when Nick emerged from his room. Jordan sat at their dining room table, surrounded by holographic projections of Guardian formation patterns. On the other side of the room, Maggie hunched over her workstation like a technomantic spider at the center of a web of data streams.
"Morning," Nick said, heading for the coffee machine. Even walking felt different now—more deliberate, more controlled.
Jordan's gaze swept over him, then did a double take. "Morning... you look like you've been hit by a bus," Jordan said, frowning. "You okay? You said you'd be training yesterday, but you look half-dead."
Nick chuckled softly, pouring coffee into his mug. "The brutal kind of training that will hopefully make me stronger and unlock more class abilities," he said, taking a sip.
Oh, the good stuff. Yes. Wait—is the coffee tasting better because of my new evolution?
Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard Arlize give a burst of laughter.
"I'll explain everything later. Right now—"
"Nick." Maggie's voice sliced through his deflection. "Your mana signature has completely changed. The harmonic frequencies don't match yesterday's readings, and I'm detecting resonance patterns that shouldn't exist with your previous class."
She turned to face him fully, her interfaces blazing to life around her like a constellation of screens. He felt her interface scan him, his skin tingling as the energy swept over his body.
Nick suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. This isn't awkward at all...
"You advanced," she continued, her mana circuits clearly working overtime to process the scan. "But it's more than that—you went through an evolution. What the hell happened last night?"
"Uhh, well, I pushed my Codex Warden abilities further than I thought," he said, meeting Jordan's eyes and hoping to ignore the excited mana radiating from Maggie. "And I may have unlocked some capabilities that I'm still figuring out."
"That's fucking awesome, Nick!" Maggie yelled, punching his arm. "No wonder my systems went haywire last night. I was pulling data trends for all three of us, plotting our growth trajectories, and the algorithm I was using for you refused to work."
"Yeah," Nick said hesitantly, suddenly sensing that if he didn't leave that minute, he'd become one of Maggie's experiments. Arlize's chuckling grew louder and more boisterous in his mind.
You shut up. This is your fault. The laughter increased. Nick pushed Arlize's laughter to the back of his mind and faced his friends again.
"I actually need to see Val and Marcus about this. Want to make them aware so they can help if any unforeseen issues come up."
Jordan, who'd been smiling at Maggie's antics, suddenly adopted a thoughtful expression. "That's right—we've been getting a lot of attention recently, especially with your class change. This could exponentially increase that, and that wouldn't be good."
Nick nodded. "Exactly. And I want to see if anything can be done to mask my new mana signature."
Maggie looked a little deflated as he finished his coffee, dropped his mug in the dishwasher, and headed back to his room. After a quick shower and change into comfortable clothes, he returned to the common room. As he made his way to the door, Maggie stopped him with a hand on his arm. "I'll probably be at the Technomancy lab, so I won't see you when you get back, but this conversation isn't over."
Nick smiled down at her, knowing she'd be relentless about this. He should have realized when he first started accepting her help all those months ago that he'd eventually become her guinea pig.
"Yeah, I know. We can chat about it tonight or tomorrow?" he asked.
"Fine. Just as long as you make time for me to take some readings and adjust the measurements I hypothesized."
"Of course," Nick said, hand on the door, pulling it open.
"Stay safe," Jordan called out, his voice carrying across the room. He was still comparing different Guardian patterns across a couple interface screens.
"I will," Nick called over his shoulder as he stepped out and closed the door behind him.
They really care for you, Arlize said in his mind with a bittersweet tone, probably reminiscing about friends now long gone.
A small smile touched Nick's face as he thought about how far he and his friends had come. Yeah, they do.
Walking to the elevator, he reached out to Sophia.
Hey Sophia, can you please send a message to Val for us to meet ASAP?
[Priority Communication - Encryption Level: Alpha]
To: V. Estrada
From: N. Valiente
Subject: Critical Development Report
Emergency consultation required. Last night's training session produced results that shatter all previous parameters. Immediate assessment needed.
[Message Transmitted - Priority Override Engaged]
[Host, message to Val has been sent]
The response arrived in under sixty seconds—fast enough to confirm his message had triggered an automated alert system.
[Secure Chamber 7 - Sub-Level 3. Fifteen minutes. Authorization Code: Alpha-Seven-Seven-Nine.]
Chamber 7 sat in the outer fields, outside the main campus. It would take him exactly that long to get there. He could jog and arrive faster, but on such a beautiful spring day, he didn't mind the walk.
It was 9 am—not many students were out and about yet, but quite a few had emerged, and the campus was beginning to stir to life.
He hadn't paid much attention to the outer campus when they'd first arrived, but now he noticed the vast forest sprawling through the valley where AIA was located. They were nestled in the famous Mount Cook mountains, which meant the forest contained towering beech trees, ribbon wood, and other alpine and coniferous species.
Chamber 7 sat among the outermost buildings before the main campus. The school had scattered various chambers like this one throughout the grounds for personal use by professors and students alike.
The chamber itself was a small, squat brick building. He simply swiped his hand over the door, and it automatically let him in.
Walking inside, he found his way to the elevator. The chamber seemed to house many rooms, including what looked like classrooms and labs.
Before stepping into the elevator, he texted Val through his encrypted communication device.
[Encrypted Text]
To: Val
I'm headed down.
[Encrypted Text Sent]
As Nick entered the elevator, he felt himself being scanned.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
[Authorization to sub-level 3 granted.]
The doors closed behind him, then in an instant the elevator plunged downward.
A split second later, the elevator dinged open.
What kind of super-speed elevator is this? Nick thought, grateful for his various evolutions—without them, he would have certainly thrown up.
He stepped out momentarily dizzy, but within a second he felt fine. A single door waited at the end of the hall on that sublevel.
The entire sublevel felt like stepping into another reality. Privacy wards layered the walls like invisible armor, while dimensional dampeners hummed with enough power to isolate the space from virtually any form of surveillance.
Opening the door, Nick found Val already inside, talking with a holographic projection of Marcus Eidolon. The room was an exact copy of the command center from the Compound—screens and whiteboards everywhere, tracking various areas where the Veil was thin and persons of interest around the globe.
"Nick," Val said, her voice welcoming. "Come on in. This is my personal command center."
"Thank you. It looks very much like the one in the Compound," Nick said, settling into the seat next to Val, across from the holographic image of Marcus, who smiled warmly at him.
"Good morning, Nicolás. How are you this morning?" Marcus asked from the screen.
"I pushed myself a bit too hard yesterday, but otherwise good," Nick replied with a small chuckle.
"So what's with the emergency ping this morning?" Val cut in smoothly.
Nick took a steadying breath and launched into what had happened yesterday.
Sophia, I know you said I couldn't use my abilities for 6 hours. But I need to show them my new skills. How far would that set me back?
[If you show them a minimal amount of Mana Sculpt and the Shield of Seven Forms, it shouldn't set host back by too much. 1 hour at most.]
Okay, thanks.
He demonstrated his enhanced Mana Sculpt by manifesting a combat knife from pure mana, starting with a shimmering filament of energy no thicker than a hair. Layer by layer, he wove microstructures into the blade: a dense core lattice for strength, a fine edge matrix designed for molecular sharpness, and resonance channels that would let mana flow through the blade and adjust dynamically during combat. The finished knife glowed faintly, its surface shimmering like liquid mercury, every angle optimized for balance and control. Data streams from hidden sensors flared to life, capturing terabytes of readings on the weapon's thermal distribution, vibrational stability, and arcane integrity in real time.
[Construct Analysis Complete] Sophia provided privately. [Structural integrity: 97.3%. Mana efficiency improved 34% over previous benchmarks. Class: Epic rarity.]
Looking at Val and Marcus's expressions, Nick couldn't decide whether to be amused or confused. Val's mouth hung open while Marcus's brows furrowed deeper than Nick had ever seen.
After they both stared at the weapon in Nick's hands for what felt like an hour — though it was really only a minute or two — Marcus finally spoke up. "Show us the defensive technique."
Nick took a steadying breath and stepped forward, calling up the construct sequence for the Shield of Seven Forms. Instead of attempting the full formation of seven mirrors, he focused on manifesting just four — a compromise between showing mastery and preserving mana.
He began by envisioning the shield not as a flat plane but as multidimensional geometry, each incoming vector plotted in his mind's eye. Arcane glyph-logic flowed beneath his skin while ghostly formulae danced across his HUD as he layered the equations.
His mana surged in steady pulses, each beat synchronized with his breathing: in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. With each exhale, a mirror blazed to life — shimmering planes of blue mana that pulsed like living walls. These weren't simple barriers; each one contained a dynamic feedback loop designed to absorb, redirect, and analyze incoming attacks.
The first mirror snapped into place above his right shoulder, angled to deflect high-speed aerial strikes. The second formed at his left flank, positioned to intercept wide arcs or sweeping blows. The third hovered low and forward, ready to block thrusts or piercing shots, while the fourth circled near his back, shifting constantly to counter unseen threats.
A message flickered at the edges of his vision:
[Mirror Integrity: 99.4%]
[Mana Drain Rate: Moderate - projected duration: 62 seconds]
Sophia's reminder that he couldn't hold the shield much longer.
Each mirror hummed softly like tuned glass, reflecting not only the overhead lights but faint projections of Nick's own aura. The edges shimmered with ultramarine and silver threads—the telltale sign of Nick's evolved mana signature reinforcing each surface.
Marcus and Val watched, mesmerized, as the mirrors moved in perfect arcs, weaving around Nick in a fluid, almost dance-like rhythm.
Sweat beaded down Nick's temple as he held the configuration, muscles taut under the strain of maintaining precise calculations and raw mana output. He felt each mirror as an extension of his own body, sensing every vibration as a potential failure point he corrected instinctively.
Then, with a final breath, he released them. The mana dissolved into swirling motes of azure light—some flowing back into his body, others vanishing into the air. Silence settled over them, the air still crackling faintly with residual energy.
Nick straightened, exhaling shakily but wearing the faintest hint of a triumphant smile.
[Host, after that demonstration, your abilities must rest for at least an hour.]
"Unprecedented," Marcus said, his voice carrying a mixture of awe and excitement. "Your development exceeds every projection we had for your growth. Your grandparents will be proud when I tell them about this demonstration." He paused, his gaze dropping as his tone grew solemn. "Your parents would be proud of you, Nicolás."
This acknowledgement brought an unexpected itch to the back of Nick's throat and eyes. It had been weeks since he'd thought about his parents, and guilt washed over him—he still hadn't called his grandparents, and they'd been at AIA for three weeks now.
As if sensing where Nick's thoughts were headed, Marcus looked back up at him. "Call them. They want to hear from you." In a teasing voice he added, "Francisco was pouting around the compound yesterday when I told him I got to speak to you."
That brought a smile to Nick's face. He couldn't imagine his stoic abuelo pouting, but if Marcus said it happened, it probably did.
Shifting his gaze beyond Nick's shoulder, Marcus asked, "Your Arcadian system. It's sentient?"
The question caught Nick off guard. He hadn't spoken to Val or Marcus about Sophia, and though he hadn't directly told Maggie and Jordan about Sophia's sentience, he knew they understood his AI was much more than just an interface for his system.
"Yes, sir," Nick said, the words stuttering out as surprise flickered across his face.
"Good. I'm guessing you had an interaction with [ERROR] then?"
This completely blindsided Nick. No one else had even mentioned the unknown entity he'd encountered back at the compound. He'd searched for more information about it, asking Sophia repeatedly, but every time she tried to share details about the anomaly that had spoken to him, he'd only gotten ERROR messages like the first time. Eventually, he'd given up asking.
After downloading the data from both the Omega Archives and the Restricted Library, one of the first things he'd asked Sophia to do was comb through everything to find any information about the ERROR. Nothing had come up.
"How do you know about the ERROR?" Nick asked, now shocked beyond comprehension.
Marcus smiled. "You're not the only one with a sentient Arcadian system interface."
Glancing at Val, who was looking back and forth between them curiously, Marcus quickly brought that subject to a close. "We'll chat about the [ERROR] sooner rather than later, I imagine," he said with a small smile. Then his face turned serious. "Until then, keep your meeting with this Entity private. No one—and I mean no one, not even Maggie or Jordan—can know. It would be too dangerous for all of you, especially right now."
Especially right now? What does he mean by that?
"Yes, sir," Nick responded. "But what did you mean by it being too dangerous for us right now?" He couldn't help but ask.
Marcus let out a soft, weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of unspoken burdens across the holographic interface. "AIA is going through some internal struggles right now. All you need to know is that you should watch out for yourself, Maggie, and Jordan. Stay together, protect each other, and you'll be fine."
Marcus' cryptic response left Nick even more confused. But before he could press for answers, Marcus cut him off. "What is your system's name?"
"My system goes by Sophia."
"Sophia—a good name. Means wisdom in Greek," Marcus murmured, as if speaking to himself, while his fingers began dancing across an offscreen keyboard.
He typed for several minutes without saying anything. Nick glanced at Val, who had also pulled up a screen he couldn't see and was typing into her own interface. So Nick just sat there trying not to fidget, until Marcus finally stopped.
"Sophia?" Marcus asked, looking off to the side of Nick's head.
[Yes, Director Eidolon?] Sophia said out loud. This was the first time Nicolas had heard his AI speak aloud.
What the hell? Sophia, you could talk out loud? Where is your voice even coming from?
[Host, external vocalization capabilities have always been available. You simply never enabled them.] Sophia replied in Nick's mind, sounding distinctly amused.
What other features am I missing? Nick thought with growing wonder.
"Nicolás are you with us?" Marcus called, noticing Nick's distant stare.
"Yeah, sorry. I didn't know Sophia could do that," he apologized.
"I'm implementing comprehensive security upgrades for your system," Marcus explained with a knowing smile as he initiated a data transfer that Sophia immediately received.
[Host, I have just received the security updates from Director Eidolon. Here is the list of updates:
External intrusion countermeasures are now online, significantly reducing vulnerability to dimensional or psychic interference.
Security clearance has been elevated to match senior faculty privileges, granting access to restricted Arcadian archives and advanced operational environments.
Primary protection protocols have been extended to Margaret Chen and Jordan Torres. These protocols include localized mana shielding, subconscious threat alerts, and emergency override access.
Real-time threat assessment systems are now active, enabling predictive analysis of both environmental and individual hostility factors within a five-kilometer radius.
A direct, encrypted communication channel with Director Marcus Eidolon and Professor Valentina Estrada has been established and secured. This channel will facilitate high-priority updates and operational directives without risk of interception.]
As Sophia finished listing the necessary updates, Nick felt warmth spreading through his neural pathways.
[Security integration complete.] Sophia reported. [New operational parameters received: Primary protection protocols now active for Nicholas Valiente, Margaret Chen, and Jordan Keyes.]
"Thank you," Nick said, gasping as the warmth in his pathways receded.
"I've scheduled a private assessment of your abilities with Professor Kuro," Marcus said, seeing that Nick was back with them. "He works for me, so he'll make sure no one but our team sees the results. He's waiting for you in his lab."
Nick nodded and rose, walking toward the door. Val's words reached him as he was about to open it.
"Ten cuidado, ¿entiendes?" Val said, finally looking away from her interface. Her expression showed concern—only the second time he'd seen that from her.
Her switch to Spanish revealed her worry.
"Yes, I'll be careful, Val," Nick said, smiling as he opened the door.
"Thanks Marcus, I'll see you later."
He stepped out and closed the door quietly behind him.
After Nick left for his scheduled assessment with Professor Kuro, heavy silence settled over the secure chamber.
"Should we have told him?" Val asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Marcus's expression hardened, his jovial demeanor falling away. "Nick, as he is right now, lacks the temperament for strategic deception. If he understood the full scope of Vellian and Callahan's operations against the students at this school, he, Maggie, and Jordan would get themselves killed trying to stop them. They're too weak for that right now."
"So we send them into danger blind?"
"We prepare them as thoroughly as possible," Marcus replied, his voice gentle now, carrying the weight of someone who'd made similar choices before, "and pray they're strong enough to survive—and forgive us when the trap springs."