​Tom remained motionless for a long time, clutching his bowl of porridge. Zephyr sat nearby, silent, though he stole occasional glances to see if the man had moved.

​Just as Zephyr began to feel the creep of boredom, he noticed a subtle shift in the man's eyes. Abruptly, Tom twisted his wrist and dumped the contents of his bowl onto the floor.

​'Such a waste.'

​Zephyr stared at the porridge splattered on the dirt.

​'Why did he have to…'

​Tom ignored the mess. He walked past Zephyr without a word and entered the hut. A moment later, he emerged wearing thicker, warmer clothes and carrying a heavy earthenware pot filled with fresh porridge.

​"You can stay here," Tom said, his voice flat. "I will come back in the morning."

​He walked a few meters away from the hut, then stopped. Without warning, he hurled the entire pot onto the hard ground.

​The earthenware shattered instantly, sending shards and porridge flying.

​Zephyr's confusion turned into suspicion. The usual polite smile vanished from his face.

​"Hey, why did you throw away good food?" Zephyr called out.

​Tom paused and turned back, his expression unreadable. He raised a finger, pointing to a patch of greenery in front of the hut.

​"Don't touch the plant," he said. "My daughter planted it for me."

​He added nothing else. As if Zephyr's question about the food meant nothing, Tom turned and walked away, disappearing into the gloom.

​"What the hell…" Zephyr muttered.

​He sighed. Tom was certainly one of the most interesting—and baffling—people he had met in this world. Although Zephyr couldn't fathom why the man was so gloomy or why he would destroy his own supplies, he decided to respect the request.

​'It's not like I have any reason to harm a plant.'

​He glanced at the pea plant. It had a few pods at harvestable maturity. It occurred to Zephyr that the peas in the porridge likely came from that very plant.

​Zephyr shook his head and closed his eyes.

​'Anyways, distracting thoughts won't help. Let's meditate.'

​He cleared his mind. Almost instantly, his consciousness shifted, and he appeared within his mindscape.

​He was getting used to the sensation of entering and exiting this mental space; the transition was now nearly seamless.

​'The cores are back to full capacity.'

​Zephyr observed his internal reserve. His mana was distributed among the 1,956 cores floating within his mindscape. In this world, these cores worked in tandem, naturally funneling mana to the spell matrices as needed.

​Most of the cores—about a thousand or so—were still blank, unmarked by runes. The rest floated in distinct clusters, each cluster representing a specific spell.

​'Everything looks good.'

​Zephyr watched the numerous Lightning and Light-element spells.

​'720 cores are currently occupied by the 30 Light modifiers and 30 Lightning modifiers,' he calculated silently. 'The rest are taken up by the Mana Gathering, Water Condensation, Telekinesis, Smoke Containment, and Earth Spike spells. Counting them manually is becoming a hassle.'

​Although he could perceive the mindscape in its entirety, the sheer volume of cores was making organization difficult.

​'I need a better system. I should move the Railgun chain-casting structure to the side—that's my strongest attack spell. The rest of the single-use spells should be sorted based on elemental affinity.'

​He visualized the arrangement.

​'I can place them around me in orbiting rings.'

​Since the cores in Zephyr's mindscape were movable, sorting them was simple. He began shifting the clusters, organizing them by element.

​'I should also create a dictionary of runes, especially the Null Runes, since they are important. It would be useful to have runes engraved and ready for immediate use, but the complexity is an issue. Most runes serve functions too complex to isolate, but primary runes usually serve a single function. I could engrave and store those.'

​Zephyr paused, analyzing his growth strategy.

​'The advantage of having many small cores is that I can independently cast a barrage of small spells simultaneously. The downside is my low total mana capacity. Some complex runes require more than one core of mana to even activate. This rapidly consumes my mana pool. So, I should stick with basic spells.'

​There were still many nuances to this runic magic system he didn't understand. Learning it from the ground up would take time he didn't have. He needed to pivot.

​'I should prioritize using my game knowledge to find the best spell combinations for survival right now.'

​In the game, the central mechanic was "chain casting." Casting two or more spells together often created unexpected reactions—synergies that enhanced the output, or discordant failures.

​'In the past, my main attack rotation was Multishot chained with Mana Bolt, enhanced with Acceleration and Fire. I need to figure out my elemental affinity in this body before I decide how to enhance the Mana Bolt.'

​The "Multishot" logic from the game was simple but effective. It duplicated the projectile. One Mana Bolt became two; two became four. The number grew exponentially depending on how many Multishot layers were chained. The caveat was the mana cost, which scaled with the projectiles.

​However, the real secret to that build wasn't just the volume—it was the speed. By using Acceleration to negate the casting delay, a player could turn a simple spell into a rapid-fire shotgun, delivering massive damage per second.

​Zephyr analyzed his current reality.

​'I don't need the Multishot spell anymore. Nor do I need an Acceleration spell to remove cast delay.'

​In the game, those spells were workarounds for interface limitations. Here, with nearly two thousand independent cores, he could cast hundreds of spells simultaneously by simple virtue of having the hardware for it.

​'I am already a machine gun,' he realized. 'If I prepare enough Mana Bolts, I can launch them all at once.'

​Therefore, focusing on volume was redundant. His strategy needed to shift toward high-impact, single-strike heavy attacks—like the Railgun.

​'In the game, I organized spells into four main categories: Attack, Movement, Defense, and Healing. I should apply that structure here.'

Zephyr decided and began to think about what he should do.

Attack spells were the easiest to find. There are plenty of them recorded all over the world. With enough money, he could outright buy the spell matrix for those.

Movement spells, on the other hand, were difficult to find. From simple speedup and body weight dissipation spells to flight and short-distance teleportation, there existed a wide variety of movement spells.

To get those, Zephyr had to search far and wide in the game. From what he had seen, he would have to do the same in this world.

After all, he hadn't seen a single person use the teleport spell, which was considered the best movement spell in the world.

The randomness of finding them in the game world was the main reason for exploring the world.

'I think I can find them somewhere in the world. Or buy it from someone, since this world is more complex than the game.'

Zephyr sighed.

Then his attention focused on the defensive spells. They were rarer than attack spells, but were plenty available. He didn't worry much about finding useful ones.

'Storm tower and Royal Academy most likely will have those spells. However, healing spells are a bitch.'

Healing spells were the rarest kind of spell in the world. Finding one is like finding a needle in a haystack.

'Perhaps there might be people selling those too.'

Zephyr mumbled in his mind.

'Anyway, I have a railgun for heavy attack. I could rapidfire Mana Bolt with elemental enhancement or other projectile-type spells for simple battles. With almost 2000 cores, my life is indeed becoming easier.'

Zephyr stood there still for a moment after organising the spells and decided to meditate and create more cores. Without enough mana, there was no point in thinking about spells.

—

Zephyr spent the entire day meditating, only leaving the house to find something to eat. Aurelia and Elenor were also busy with their own training.

The next day, while walking around the hut, searching for a toilet, he came across a startling fact.

No, there was a poor-quality private toilet on the far side of the plot. It wasn't anything about that.

The cleaning equipment he saw along the way made him realise Moss was a liar. It was Tom who cleaned the house where Aurelia and Elenor stayed.

Why was he sure of that?

Because he could see similar rags he had seen on the house present near the broom. They had the same pattern of stitching and color.

'Well, it's kind of obvious. It was not really a startling fact.' He said to himself as he relieved himself.

From the way Moss acted, he knew the young man was a showoff without any substance. He claimed credit for looking good in front of the ladies.

'With great ambition comes great bullshit.'

He chuckled for a few minutes, cleaned himself, and left the toilet.

A few hours passed by like that. However, Tom, who said he would come back by morning, was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened to him?"

Zephyr stood in front of the hut, gazing at the pea plant. Then his eyes moved to the area where the porridge was thrown.

Suddenly, he frowned.

He saw the plant next to it wilting unnaturally. The grass on the ground next to it was totally dead.

'Hm…' Zephyr stood up and walked towards it.

He didn't notice it before because he was busy meditating. Now taking a closer look, he could see the change in the plants around it. All of it in the proximity of the decaying porridge was turning dark green and wilting.

'What the hell!'

'Was there something wrong with the porridge?' He wondered, remembering he had requested a bowl to eat.

Zephyr gulped slowly.

'Lucky…I was lucky…' He mumbled.

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