Reborn With A Wizard System

Lyle didn't sleep.

He couldn't.

The whisper still echoed in his mind—"You carry the mark."

And the ring…

It hadn't stopped pulsing since he touched the sigil.

Not with danger.

But with something worse:

Anticipation.

---

He emerged from the Subterranean Archive at dawn.

Juno was waiting by the dormitory entrance, arms crossed, gaze unreadable.

"You were gone all night."

"I know."

"Didn't answer your comm."

"I know."

A long pause.

She stepped forward, eyes locked to his.

"You hiding something from me, Lyle?"

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

And for a moment—he didn't lie.

"I found something I don't understand yet."

Her eyes narrowed. "Does it want to hurt you?"

"I don't think so."

"But you don't know."

He shook his head.

And she exhaled, sharp. "Next time, I'm going with you."

---

Up in the Administrator Tower, alarms pulsed low.

Veil stood alone before the deep-seal monitors, watching line after line of mana analytics shift like sand.

The subterranean levels hadn't lit up like this in decades.

But now?

The signature below Cadet Greenbottle was foreign.

Unplaceable.

And most dangerous of all—

Stable.

---

> "You've opened something," she muttered.

"And you don't even know what."

She turned to her data-scribe.

"Bloodline screening. Greenbottle. Full legacy trace."

The scribe hesitated. "But that was sealed by—"

"I know who sealed it. Run the scan."

---

Back on the training grounds, Lyle tried to act normal.

He practiced glyph layering.

Sparred with simulation dummies.

Sat through lectures on post-rewrite mana flow.

But even the instructors seemed on edge.

One of them—a silent man with frost-etched eyes—stared at Lyle for a second too long and muttered, "He's wearing a veil. Not of mana. Of shadow."

---

That evening, Lyle checked the Codex again.

> [Dimensional Gate Progress: 32%]

Anchor Stable.

First Jump Available in 4 days.

He closed the page.

Turned the ring on his finger slowly.

And whispered to no one:

"…What are you?"

---

Far away, beyond the reach of the Academy, beneath a blood-colored moon—

A figure clad in crimson armor opened his eyes.

He felt it.

The ring.

The anchor.

And a soul tethered to neither light nor shadow… but walking the edge of both.

> "So," Quinn whispered, rising from his throne of stone,

"Someone's found the key."