Chapter 38: Chantless Incantation (Castle Bonus)
Veyra had expected to find a corpse.Instead, Caelus stood in front of her.
He was pale, carrying the exhaustion of someone who had pushed his body far beyond its limits. His clothes were clean, but the fabric remained creased and damaged from the ordeal.
Around him, the Water-aligned cores lay scattered across the floor, every one of them drained to the point of uselessness.
Veyra counted them without meaning to.
Too many.
Each one had cost three gold coins, enough to feed an entire bloodline of ruling families. Caelus had burned through every last one simply to force his way into C-rank.
She had called the idea suicidal when he first asked for them. Looking at him now, she wasn’t entirely convinced she’d been wrong.
She had warned him that failure would kill him.
He had listened.
Then he had done it anyway.
The Eclipse Ring had almost certainly been involved. Veyra had seen enough of the artifact’s influence to recognize that much.
What she couldn’t determine was where the Ring’s contribution ended and Caelus’s own ability began.
That uncertainty bothered her more than the breakthrough itself.
He should have been barely conscious.
Instead, he was already looking around the room as though deciding what to do next.
His recovery alone was abnormal. His tolerance for pain was even more disturbing. What unsettled Veyra the most was how quickly he had returned to calculation after nearly destroying himself.
Veyra filed it away with the rest of her observations.
There were too many anomalies now.
Caelus knew too much.He survived too much.
And whenever the world gave him a problem, his first instinct was not to retreat, but to determine how he could exploit it.
Caelus finally looked toward her.
"So, I can cast Zero-Tier spells without chanting."
She raised an eyebrow. "Didn’t you say Zero-Tier spells were beneath you? What happened to that?"
He shrugged. "They are beneath me. That’s why they’re nothing more than stepping stones."
Veyra almost laughed.
Of course.
Nearly killing himself had done nothing to cure his arrogance.
"I promised I’d teach you chantless incantation," she said. "But I want something in return."
Caelus frowned.
Veyra could almost see the calculation behind his eyes. He had spent most of his money on the cores, and whatever remained would have to serve him once he returned to the Vespera estate.
"Money?"
"No."
His expression relaxed slightly.
That made her smile.
"The Church launched a purge recently."
Caelus looked at her.
"A purge?"
"They found one of the contractors’ bases. The Hero was with them."
She paused.
"They underestimated what they were dealing with."
"Several bishops died trying to save the Hero."
Caelus’s expression barely changed, but conflict flickered briefly in his eyes.
It was gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
Veyra noticed anyway.
"That’s saddening," he said. "But what does that have to do with me?"
"You’re going to make me say it plainly, aren’t you?"
Caelus said nothing.
"You know something about this."
He said nothing.
"I don’t know where the information comes from, and I don’t know how much you actually know. But I’ve watched you long enough to know you’re not guessing."
"If I’m going to trust you with something important, I need to know whether that knowledge can be trusted." She paused. "I don’t think the incident is the end of it. I think it’s the beginning."
"So, whatever you know about it, keep Eve safe."
"And the people of your generation."
"You’re asking a newly promoted C-rank to protect Eve and an entire generation? I’m the one who needs protection. I’m still D-potential, remember?"
Veyra stared at him.
He groaned.
"Fine. I’ll try."
"That’s enough."
It wasn’t trust. Not yet.
But Caelus had displayed genuine hatred for the Contractors before, and everything about him suggested he regarded them as enemies rather than allies.
That was enough for now.
Veyra reached into the space beside her and drew out a black book.
She held it between two fingers, then offered it to him.
His attention sharpened immediately.He tried to hide his curiosity, but he wasn’t particularly good at it.
"Do you know what this is?"
"No."
The lie came too quickly.
Veyra’s mouth twitched.
"Normally, you learn chantless casting through repetition. You cast the same spell often enough that your body begins to recognize the structure without the verbal sequence."
Caelus listened.
"The problem is that most people spend years doing that. By the time they can cast consistently without a chant, they’ve already advanced to a point where they could do chantless incantation without that training."
She tapped the black book.
"This shortens that process."
"How much?"
"Months for a talented mage. Weeks for someone exceptional."
There it is.
The reason he had asked her to teach him.
"But there’s a price," She said.
"Once you absorb it, you won’t be learning conventional spells the way other mages do."
"Meaning?"
"You’ll have to build your own. The structures, circles, glyphs, interactions. Everything."
She paused.
"I would actually prefer you to reject it. Most mages spend years learning established spells before attempting to create their own. You’ll be skipping that entire foundation."
"If you take this, you’re choosing the harder route."
"I won’t force you."
Caelus looked at the book.
He didn’t ask how difficult it would be or whether there was a safer alternative.
He held out his hand and took the black skill book from her.
He looked at it briefly.
"Absorb."
The book dissolved against his palm.
A cool current moved through his Twilight Circuit, threading through the completed pathways before settling within the Mind Core.
Veyra watched his expression.
It changed only slightly.
His eyes unfocused as unfamiliar structures unfolded inside his mind: spell patterns, chant sequences, the relationship between spoken language and mana, and the principles that allowed a caster to eventually discard the chant entirely.
The knowledge felt strangely familiar.
Caelus blinked once.
Veyra stared at him.
That was it?
He had absorbed a skill that took most mages years to develop, yet his reaction was barely more expressive than if someone had handed him another book.
She laughed before she could stop herself.
"From now on, you’re my disciple."
Caelus looked at her.
Veyra folded her arms.
"You’ve already chosen the difficult path. I might as well make sure you don’t walk it badly."
She smirked. "Your father won’t really like it."
"He won’t."
Caelus looked toward the door.
"I’m going back, then."
Veyra raised an eyebrow. "Already?"
"I’ve avoided my family long enough."
His tone remained flat.
"Besides, I’d like to see how my father reacts to his son returning as a mage and another person’s disciple."
Veyra almost smiled.
"You enjoy provoking him."
"I don’t."
He paused.
"I’m simply not opposed to the results."
A faint smile touched his face.
For once, he was looking forward to going home.