The sun hung low over Cael Varn, washing the white marble walkways in a pale orange glow. Alaric sat alone in one of the inner garden courtyards, beneath a flowering tree whose name he didn't know. Birds chirped somewhere in the distance, but he wasn't listening. His attention was locked on the sheet of parchment spread across his lap.
He wasn't preparing for a lesson. He was working on his first project.
Lines of magical script lined the page in tight arcs and concentric loops. It wasn't a summoning spell, nor a basic offensive rune set. It was something different. He was working on his first true magical project—not just copying or adapting something from a book, but synthesizing his own structure from the teachings of his instructors, the library's ancient texts, and patterns whispered to him by the Vault.
The Vault had flickered earlier that week, during a lecture on mana control feedback loops. Not violently, not with urgency. Just a nudge, like a teacher tapping the corner of a blackboard. And so, during the following break, Alaric returned to this courtyard and began.
What he was crafting was simple in theory: a golem. A magical construct used by a lot of magicians as helper, wardens, defenders or in many other ways.
The idea had come to him while watching a student botch a defensive spell in a duel the previous week. He got carried to the clinic by a golem given to him by his family.
It made him think that he could have a small helper to give miniscule and just timewasting tasks to. Just like the rest of the wizards did here.
He scratched another symbol into the lower quadrant of the circle.
"It needs a filter layer," he muttered under his breath. "Something that prevents feedback loops. Maybe a limiter sigil... or a tertiary buffer line."
His hand moved instinctively now. A triangle of interwoven lines took shape, intersecting with a glyph he'd seen on the third floor of the library—in a scroll about crystalline harmonics. It wasn't meant for moving, but logical thinking.
Close enough.
Just as he finished inscribing the new symbol, he spread it finely onto the marble table.
He pressed his fingers to the center of the design and pushed a thread of magic into it.
The lines glowed faintly.
And then, he saw it.
A net of entangled magical wire, resembling a computer circuit. Basic logic engraved into it mixed with magical understanding. Understanding of words, processing of it, data saving. It wouldn't be able to do complex thing, but carrying, or buying stuff – generally tedious stuff that just took up Alaric's time. That it would manage.
He grinned.
"It works."
The Vault pulsed once.
Later that week, Alaric stood in the third level of the Silver Cities' grand library. Only a few acolytes had permission to be here. Most of them were older. He, on the other hand, had been granted access after submitting a project about making the machines in the different factories that belong to the city council more energy efficient to one of the djinns.
He came up with the idea having been demanded to fetch some artificial mana crystals by the instructor that day.
Apparently, the project had been deemed "potentially scalable." Whatever that meant. He guessed expanding the spell matrix to different machines or whatever.
He didn't mind. Access was access.
Today, he was researching further into material creation and mixing them into different alloys – enchanting as well.
Particularly, he was trying to understand the distinction between how to make a useful magical alloy that used up the attributes of the original materials that he wanted, and useless underperforming scrap.
The Vault had been silent for hours.
Until now.
He turned the page of a particularly dry tome on the connection of spirits of nature belonging to the metal type and ore veins and caught it: a flicker of light in the upper left of his vision. Not real, but imprinted inside his awareness.
An axiom pulse.
He looked down at the illustration. A tale of a prince that fell in love with a metal elemental after his kingdom discovered a gold mine. A tragic tale but probably made up.
Still, the Vault had pulsed. That meant something in the context resonated—not the story, but maybe the implication. He traced his finger along the inked spiral drawn beside the passage. Not part of the main text. A symbolic flourish. Or maybe something else.
"A bond," Alaric whispered. "Not a contract, not domination. A bond of recognition."
The Vault pulsed again, stronger this time. Confirming.
Of course. All his prior research had focused on the structure of constructs. On logic, control pathways, command glyphs, magical batteries. But if he wanted a golem to be more than just a magically animated puppet, it needed more than orders.
It needed resonance.
He closed the tome slowly, head bowed in thought.
Back in his room that evening, he rolled out the design he had been working on—his first construct framework. It looked pristine on the surface. A complicated sequence of support glyphs, an elegant mana filtration loop, even a minor self-repair protocol. But now, looking at it again, it felt hollow.
"Like a brain without a heartbeat," he muttered.
The Vault didn't pulse this time. It didn't need to.
So, he flipped the page and began to work again—this time from the bottom up. He kept the logic nodes but simplified them, carving away excess detail. No more stacking complexity for the sake of complexity. If he wanted to make something that could act on his behalf, it had to understand more than just directives. It needed to feel aligned, even if artificially.
A small orb sat on the desk beside him. A discarded mana crystal, barely viable. Leftover scrap from a failed enchantment in class last week.
He picked it up and began carving with a steady, slow-burning magical flow. Not just runes, but anchors. Shapes meant to store intent, not just commands. He'd read once, in an old ritualism scroll, that magical constructs often mirrored the emotional clarity of their creator.
"Then let's give you a purpose," Alaric whispered. "Carry. Observe. Keep things orderly. A tiny librarian that doesn't get distracted."
He snorted at the image.
By midnight, he had a new core inscribed and ready. The spell circle beside it was fresh—simpler, leaner. Built not for strength, but clarity. He placed the crystal into the center of the matrix and activated it with a low pulse of power from his core.
The lines glowed.
This time, the glow didn't just stop at the edges. It spun—clockwise—pulling in ambient mana in a slow whirlpool of luminous lines.
The crystal lifted from the table by an inch.
It held.
Alaric blinked. It didn't shudder. It didn't collapse.
It hovered.
Then, with the barest whisper of static, a single rune appeared in the air between the crystal and the center of the matrix. Not one of his.
A Vault-given rune.
Alaric stared at it, eyes narrowing slightly. It was a combination glyph—part instruction, part boundary. But more than that, it was… a name.
Not in a linguistic sense. In a magical one. A unique identifier. The golem's "thread" in the net of magic.
"A registration rune," he breathed. "So, the world knows it exists."
The glow faded slowly, and the crystal settled onto the table again. But Alaric felt it, the imprint left behind. The core was seeded now. Given identity.
Later, once he built the body, once he gave it form and motion, it would awaken again. Not as something alive—but as something aware.
He leaned back in his chair, arms folding behind his head.
"Progress," he whispered.
The Vault gave no further response. It didn't need to. The silence was affirmation enough.
Tomorrow, he would start collecting materials. Maybe scrap from the golem workshop. Maybe pieces from older constructs that failed and got disassembled. Light alloys, enchanted bronze, wood fitted with mana-conductive veins.
He'd ask for the right to use the fabrication alcoves—quietly. No need to raise attention.
No need to let anyone know what he was doing. After all he would only stay and visit this world as long as there was something useful to see.
This was his first. His foundation.
The golem wouldn't be powerful.
It wouldn't be fast.
But it would be his.
A whisper of order in the chaos of his growing knowledge.
A mirror of his will.
He scratched a new title into the top of the next page in his notebook:
Project Designation: First Construct — 'Butler.' The name felt suitably ironic.
Most acolytes weren't even allowed to start construct-work until their second year. But Alaric never asked for permission. Only results.
Alaric smiled.
"I'll give you a brain and eyes next week," he promised quietly.
Then he snuffed the candle and returned to the orphanage. He slept, already dreaming of circuits, spell-matrix filigree, and the soft thrum of logic flowing like a second heartbeat.