While the very important and very smart leaders of the MegaPatch were jumping up and down and hugging Lorena, Luke was in the firing range.
Concrete walls. Reinforced steel target plates. The air smelled faintly of gunpowder from earlier target practice.
The interesting thing about Luke though?
He wasn’t holding a rifle.
He stood alone in front of a reinforced target wall, boots planted on the marked firing line, hands raised.
“Ignite.”
A sharp tongue of flame snapped into existence.
FWUMP
It struck the target plate and splashed across the metal with a burst of heat before fading into drifting embers.
Luke reset his stance, rolling his shoulders once.
“Firecloak.”
Nothing.
The room stayed quiet except for the soft hum of the ventilation fans pulling heat away from the firing lane.
He adjusted his fingers, focusing harder.
“Firecloak.”
A flicker.
A shimmer of orange light curled around his forearm for half a second.
Then it collapsed.
Luke frowned.
The Firecloak was supposed to be a modified flame wall. A defensive variant. Instead of projecting outward, the fire folded inward, wrapping around the caster like a moving shield.
He could picture it perfectly.
The shape.
The curve.
The heat folding around him instead of exploding away.
But it wouldn’t manifest.
He tried again.
“Firecloak.”
Nothing but a faint warmth spreading through his palms.
He exhaled slowly.
“Firecloak.”
Again.
FWUFF
A brief ripple of heat twisted in the air around him and vanished.
After the sixth or seventh attempt, his hands started to feel heavier. A faint pressure built behind his eyes.
Mana drain.
He tried once more.
“Firecloak.”
The air trembled.
For half a second a thin ring of fire formed around his torso, sparks skittering across the floor.
Then it collapsed.
Luke lowered his arms.
A wave of fatigue rolled through him.
“Yeah. I’m out of mana,” he muttered. “Time to stop.”
He flexed his fingers and looked down at his hands.
Ignite was easy now.
Reliable. Fast.
Firecloak?
Not even close.
‘Yeah, I’ll take a break for the day,’ he thought.
Maybe meet up with Ben.
‘I wonder if he’s out in the Deadlands? Or maybe wander down and grab a beer somewhere. Or I don’t know. A shower. A spa? Oh yeah. All of that sounded good.’
***
When he woke the next day, Luke felt good.
Not just good. Reset. Like he was a car that had been freshly detailed.
The spa had done its job. Hot water, muscle therapy, real food, and a few beers with friends who were also inside the walls. For the first time in a while his shoulders weren’t tight and his head wasn’t buzzing with fatigue.
He rolled over in bed, grabbed his phone, and checked his GCP balance.
It had climbed.
Nicely.
Leadership bonuses. Hazard pay. Emergency payouts.
Luke let out a satisfied grunt and sat up.
“Yeah. That’ll do.”
‘Now what should I do today?’
Luke stretched in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
‘Big breakfast sounds good. Hang out a bit.’
He rolled onto his side.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
‘Should I take a job?’
He thought about it for a moment.
‘Nah. I’ve got plenty of GCPs. They’re not going anywhere.’
He smirked.
‘Yeah. Nice, leisurely day. Wander around. And definitely hit the bar tonight.’
That sounded perfect.
So that’s exactly what he did.
Luke Patch—the only spellcaster in the world—spent that night partying.
When he woke up the next morning, his mouth felt gummy and his head carried that dull, tired buzz that came after a good night out.
He lay there for a moment with a slow smile on his face.
‘Now that was fun.’
After another minute of doing absolutely nothing, he thought, ‘Okay. That was fun and all. Let’s see what else is going on.’
He stretched, joints popping, then opened the Deadlands exploration board on his phone.
The screen was packed.
Teams forming everywhere.
Black Masks running rotations nonstop. Loot runs. Wall patrols. Perimeter sweeps. Forward camp escorts.
The Deadlands were alive with opportunities.
Luke stared at the listings for a moment.
He had spent enough time inside the walls.
More than enough.
‘I can cast Ignite now,’ he thought.
That alone was a massive advantage.
He leaned back slightly, remembering the meeting from yesterday. The part where they explained how mana capacity actually worked.
Exposure.
Proximity.
Time spent in the Deadlands.
Sitting around inside safe walls wasn’t going to increase anything.
He tapped one of the listings.
Join Mission.
Luke smiled.
Time to go back outside.
Normally, a clean confirmation would pop up.
Assigned to Squad B.
Forward Camp perimeter sweep.
Prevent mutated animals buildup.
Instead, the screen refreshed.
Your account has been locked.
Please contact WickerBasque.
Luke blinked in surprise.
“What?”
‘Was this because I attended that leadership meeting about mana formation?’
He wasn’t sure if this was connected. But there was a good chance that it was.
They’d been clear: don’t spread the information. Train if you want, but until they understood how to weaponize it properly, it stayed need-to-know.
He decided there was no point overthinking it and sent WickerBasque a quick text.
Why can’t I go out on a Deadlands raid? I want to improve my… level.
He had defaulted to the Towerbound term of levels without thinking.
WickerBasque replied almost immediately.
You’re the only spellcaster we have. We need more research.
Luke froze.
In his head, he pictured it instantly—strapped to a metal table, a medical drone hovering overhead, doctors murmuring while scanners hummed and needles dipped toward his veins.
‘Nope. Absolutely not.’
No way, he sent back.
Just come over, I’m in the armory.
Now? Luke typed.
Yeah. Now.
The relaxed, ready-to-go feeling he had gained from taking the day to decompress vanished as he thought about what that message meant.
‘Ugh. I don’t care. No matter what they say, I’m not going to be a guinea pig.’
Nervously, Luke got himself out of bed, strapped on his tactical gear and drove over to the armory.
One of the big perks of being an extremely active Black Mask was the flood of GCPs. He’d saved enough to buy himself a Ratmobile, similar to Ren’s. But instead of bright yellow with a stencil slapped across the side, his was matte black. Polished. Mean. Clean.
Well. Mostly clean.
It had one feature he loved.
Every mission he completed, he could apply for a symbol to be painted onto the vehicle. It beat a medal sitting in a locker somewhere, gathering dust and only coming out for ceremonies. His record was right there, rolling through the streets.
The best thing?
The symbol was a tiny wedge of cheese.
And he had a lot of missions.
Which meant his entire car was now covered in little painted cheese wedges.
Still, it looked cool.
It had cost him a pile of GCPs to get those cheese emblems done by the best artist.
Shara Hope hadn’t just painted lazy little blocks, either.
Every time she added a picture, she layered in fine rune-work beneath the paint. Tiny talismans embedded in the lines. Reinforcement sigils woven into the curve of the rind.
There were also further upgrades that came from Leslie.
Under the paint sat mana-resistant panels she’d been testing—thin, nearly invisible layers that helped the armoured frame handle incidental damage and environmental exposure.
All of it was a straight GCP sink, and he knew it.
Paint jobs. Reinforcement layers. Mana-resistant coatings. Custom panel work.
None of it was cheap.
He didn’t care.
The Ratmobile was his. Every cheese wedge told a story. Every tiny upgrade meant he’d gone out there and come back alive. It wasn’t some factory-issued slab of metal with a serial number. It was earned.
One of a kind.
And he loved it.
It got attention. A lot of it. Civilians admired it. Other Black Masks respected it. He’d been one of the first to nearly cover his entire vehicle.
Whenever he was taking a day off, he caught people staring. Even the occasional kid pointing.
“You’ve gone on that many raids?”
“Wow!”
He’d usually shrug and say, “Just doing my job.”
That part felt good.
But as he pulled up outside the armory, pride didn’t help much.
His stomach tightened.
Being the only spellcaster in District One suddenly didn’t feel like an achievement. It felt more like a potential problem.
***
WickerBasque was in his office when Luke knocked.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
“Come in, Luke,” Wicker called. “I’m surprised you weren’t here yesterday.”
“Why yesterday?” Luke asked.
“That’s when we figured you’d try to head back out,” Wicker said. “After a Deadlands run and a leadership meeting, most Black Masks would take a day to decompress, but then would want to rush out for more action.”
Luke thought about the night before.
Yeah. Decompression.
More like being treated like a rock star. Free drinks. People chanting Three of Ten. Him stepping into the bar and casually casting Ignite like it was a party trick.
He’d been told not to spread the mana theories.
He had absolutely shown off the spell anyway.
“Okay, that makes sense,” Luke admitted.
Wicker folded his hands. “We locked your deployment for now. We need you to help confirm the mana theory.”
“Locked?” Luke stiffened. “Is that forever? I’m not getting strapped to a table, right?”
“We’d never do that,” Wicker said calmly. “First, you’re too valuable as a combatant. Second, even if this is dangerous, we still need you leveling up.”
Luke relaxed a fraction.
“I want to see if you can teach it,” Wicker continued. “Can you help others use mana?”
Luke scratched his neck. “I don’t really know anything special. I just treated it like Towerbound.”
Wicker tilted his head. “Interesting.”
He reached under his desk and brought out a small tray.
“Try three days of teaching”, he said. “You pick the students. Scrap Rat–level Black Masks only. They can pay you GCPs for the class.”
Luke blinked. “They’re paying me?”
“Information has value,” Wicker said.
Then he slid the tray forward.
On it were a nose piercing, an upper-ear cuff, a new ring, and what looked like a toe ring.
“Leslie’s prototypes,” Wicker said. “You’re getting one of the fifty sets. Constant mana exposure.”
Luke picked up the toe ring and grimaced. “That looks… weird.”
“She thought you’d say that,” Wicker replied.
He removed the toe ring and replaced it with a pair of black shin guards.
Flat leather. Clean lines. A subtle glow in the seams.
“CraftNest version,” Wicker said. “Scorpion carapace and plate. Threaded with mana-reactive stitching. No embedded fragment like the ring. If our theory is right and you absorb ambient mana, the red glow in the threads will eventually fade to silver or black.”
“And then?” Luke asked.
“Then you come back for a refill.”
Luke lifted one. Light. Flexible.
“Designed for DPS mobility,” Wicker added. “You wear them as much as possible. Like a ring. Twenty-four seven.”
“Won’t they get gross?”
“Wash them,” Wicker said flatly. “They’re armor, not socks.”
Luke considered the toe ring again.
“Yeah, I’ll take the leg protection.”
“Good,” Wicker said. “One more thing. NDA. No discussing mana theory outside authorized classes. This is our advantage. We keep it.”
“Got it.”
For the next three days, Luke ran a private class.
Breathing drills. Focus exercises. Visualization. Proximity to controlled mana fragments. Repetition.
Some students said they felt something.
A buzz. Warmth in their palms. A pressure behind the eyes.
But nothing manifested.
Until the final session.
One of the Black Masks, a broad-shouldered tank named Jim, stepped forward.
“Fight me,” Jim said.
Luke raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Jim clenched his fists.
“Fight me!”
A pulse rolled off him.
Luke felt it immediately.
Heat in his chest. Irritation. A spike of anger. The sudden urge to close distance and swing.
He took a step forward before catching himself.
The other four students were staring at Jim with the same sharp, hostile look.
Jim blinked. “Oh. Oh!”
The tension snapped like a rubber band.
Cold clarity washed back in.
“That was a taunt,” Luke said slowly.
Jim’s grin spread wide. “It works! That was my taunt!”
Luke exhaled.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re our second spellcaster.”
Jim pumped his fist.
“Yeah. I’m badass.”
