Codex Memory Realm
It began with flames.
Not heat—but light. Blinding, radiant, blue-white light that rolled across the horizon like a storm.
Lyle stood in the center of a shattered courtyard atop floating stone ruins. Towers burned in the distance. Ancient runes peeled from the walls like ash caught in the wind.
He wasn't alone.
He looked down at his hands—her hands again.
Lysera Arcai.
The last Archwizard.
The last true bearer of the Codex.
But this vision was different.
It didn't feel like a memory anymore.
It felt like he was inside her. Connected. A thread in the tapestry of her soul.
"Report," she said aloud, and her voice shook the stones.
A young wizard limped forward, robes torn, blood on his face.
"They've breached the outer seal. The Null Hunters are moving toward the inner sanctum."
A wave of bitterness rose within Lysera—Lyle could feel it, like it was his own.
> So this is how it ends... not in honor, but in fear.
The others had fallen. Wizards who'd crafted whole islands from arcane equations, now shattered by mass-produced anti-magic weapons and ability suppression chains.
The enemy wasn't superior.
They were ruthless.
The ruling powers of the world had unified—not to control the wizards, but to destroy them.
And they had succeeded.
---
The Inner Sanctum
The vision shifted—abruptly.
Lyle stood now at the heart of the great Arcai Vault: a spherical room where spells hovered in crystal orbs, and thousands of soul-sealed books orbited the core like moons.
In front of him—a mirror.
Lysera's reflection stared back at him.
But her eyes slowly… changed.
And then she spoke—to him, not to the memory.
"You are the last, Lyle Greenbottle."
He froze.
This wasn't scripted.
"You inherited more than my name. More than the Codex."
The mirror rippled.
"You inherited the cost."
He reached out to touch the glass.
And the world shattered.
---
Back in Reality – Barracks
Lyle gasped awake, heart pounding.
He sat up, drenched in cold sweat, chest heaving as if he'd just run a marathon.
The others still slept. The room was unchanged.
But the system?
It had changed.
A new interface flickered to life in his mind's eye—sleek, ancient, golden-trimmed with glowing runes dancing around the edges.
> [Codex System Upgrade Complete]
[Arcai Legacy Fully Integrated]
[Stat Interface Unlocked]
---
🧬 [Ability Stat Panel – Hidden Access]:
Attribute Current Notes
Strength 9 Base: 5. Codex Bonus: +4
Agility 11 Base: 5. Codex Passive Flow Boost: +6
Intelligence 18 Base: 6. Arcai Core Sync: +12
Endurance 10 Base: 5. System Reinforcement: +5
Mana Capacity ∞ (Sealed) Suppressed by System Cloak Protocol
Perception 15 Enhanced via Arcane Detection Field
Willpower 20 Boosted through Ancestral Memory Anchoring
---
> [You may now earn and assign Stat Points through combat mastery, spell creation, hidden tasks, and Codex fragment recovery.]
[Warning: Stat visibility is locked to System Bearer only. External scans will reflect normal values.]
Lyle stared at the screen.
Most cadets—even elite ones—had base stats between 5 and 10 in their prime categories. He'd already surpassed them.
Quietly.
Secretly.
And no one could see it.
He clenched a fist, feeling the subtle strength behind it now—light, efficient, precise.
This wasn't borrowed power.
It was his.
> I won't need to stay weak forever, he thought. But until then... I'll sharpen every hidden edge.
He lay back down, eyes wide open in the dark, the interface still glowing in the corner of his vision.
And somewhere deep inside, beneath the layers of spell slots and memory fragments, the Codex whispered:
> "Grow in shadow. Strike in silence. Rule in light."