Mana Reaver System-Chapter 60: The Gift

The calm from the morning’s lesson lasted until Eric reached the mess hall. The noise was a physical assault after the deep, resonant silence of the reed and water. Clattering trays, shouted conversations, the scrape of a hundred chairs—it was chaos. He flinched, his new-found sensitivity feeling raw and violated.

He saw his roommates at their usual table. Silver was waving his arms, recounting some story. Opal was listening to Mantra with a slight smile. Gary was staring into space, methodically breaking a roll into pieces. They were a bubble of familiar chaos within the greater storm.

Eric collected a bland-looking stew and bread and made his way over. He slid into an empty seat beside Bart, who gave him a wordless nod.

"Where’ve you been?" Silver asked, not pausing his story. "You missed Lancel’s morning hell-sprints. It was glorious. Gary almost puked."

"I had... extra training," Eric said, stirring his stew.

"With who?" Opal’s head came up, her sharp eyes on him. "Master Lancel’s special sessions aren’t until next week."

"Not Lancel," Eric said, unwilling to lie but not ready to explain. "Something else."

Gary stopped destroying his roll. "Scout stuff." It wasn’t a question.

Eric met his flat gaze and gave a single, slight nod.

A strange look passed over Gary’s face—part curiosity, part something harder to read, like resentment. "Huh."

"Well, I hope it was more useful than listening to Professor Linus drone on about ley-line tax reforms," Silver groaned. "I’d rather get punched by a training dummy."

The conversation moved on, but Eric felt Opal’s eyes on him a few more times. She was connecting dots. His absence. His evasiveness. The strange, focused quiet that seemed to hang around him this morning.

He ate quickly, the food tasteless fuel. The serenity of the annex was gone, replaced by the gritty reality of the academy. And with it, the other reality returned. The weight of the dagger in his chest. The memory of draining the bandits. The System’s silent, judging presence.

[MANA BANK: 57/100]

[HUNGER LEVEL: 8%]

The hunger was creeping back, a slow, cold tide. It had been fed, but it was a perpetual thing. It would always return. The bandit mana had bought him time, not absolution.

After the meal, the group dispersed for free study period. Eric had no intention of studying. He had a different destination. He slipped away from the flow of students heading to the library and made his way back to the older, quieter sections of the academy.

He wasn’t going to the annex. He was going to the forge.

Borus was at his anvil, but he wasn’t hammering. He was holding a long, thin piece of glowing steel in a pair of tongs, examining its color in the furnace light. He didn’t acknowledge Eric’s approach.

Eric waited at the edge of the shed’s shade, the heat from the banked coals washing over him. He didn’t speak.

After a full minute, Borus thrust the steel back into the coals and pumped the bellows a few times. Then he turned, wiping his sooty hands on his leather apron. "Back again? You like the heat, or you just enjoy wasting my time?"

"I have a question," Eric said.

"You’re full of ’em."

Eric reached into his inner pocket and drew out the wolf-head dagger. He held it up. "You said to make it mine, I had to fight with it. To let it taste my hunger."

Borus’s eyes narrowed. "I said a lot of things. You remember that one, huh?"

"What if I haven’t fought with it yet?" Eric asked, his voice low. "But I want to... prepare it. To get it ready for my story. Can you do that?"

Borus stared at him, then let out a gruff sigh. He walked over and took the dagger from Eric’s hand. He turned it over, his thick fingers tracing the wolf’s head, testing the edge with his thumb. "It’s a mean piece. Good balance. Wants to cut." He looked at Eric. "Preparing it means stripping away the old finish. Revealing the bare steel. It’ll be naked. Vulnerable to rust. It won’t be a proper weapon again until it’s quenched in oil and blood—your blood, or your enemy’s. You understand? There’s no going back to what it was."

Eric thought of the bandit’s terrified face, of the hollowed-out feeling he’d left in Borik. He thought of his own hidden, devouring nature. "I don’t want to go back. I want it to be ready for what’s coming."

Borus held his gaze for a long moment, then gave a sharp nod. "Five silver. And you work the bellows while I do it."

Eric handed over the silver coins from the bandit stash. Borus tossed them into a small iron box without looking.

For the next hour, Eric worked. He pumped the giant bellows in a steady, rhythmic beat, feeding air to the coals until they glowed a fierce, molten orange. Borus placed the dagger in the heart of the fire, watching the metal change color. When it glowed a specific, deep cherry red, he pulled it out with his tongs.

He didn’t hammer it. He laid it on his anvil and, with a series of small, brutal-looking wire brushes and scraping tools, he began to scour the blade. He stripped away the old patina, the stains, the microscopic layers of grime and old blood. The wolf’s head pommel was cleaned with a sharp, acidic paste that made Eric’s eyes water.

It was a violent kind of cleansing. Not a reshaping, but an erasure. The sound was a harsh, grating screech that set Eric’s teeth on edge.

Finally, Borus plunged the gleaming, bare steel into a vat of clear, foul-smelling oil. It hissed angrily. He held it there, then pulled it out.

He held it up. The dagger was transformed. It was no longer a tarnished, ugly thing. It was stark. Severe. The blade was a dull, honest grey, the texture of the bare metal visible. The wolf’s head, clean of tarnish, was revealed as finer work than Eric had realized—the details of the snarling muzzle were sharp and clean. It looked less like a tool and more like a promise. Or a threat.

Borus wrapped the grip in a fresh strip of rough leather, binding it tight. He didn’t hand it back immediately. He held it, looking at the naked blade.

"It’s empty now," Borus said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. "The old story is scraped off. It’s a blank page." He finally offered the hilt to Eric. "Don’t write your first Chapter with cowardice. Steel remembers that, too."

Eric took it. The leather was rough against his palm. The balance was perfect. It felt lighter, sharper, hungrier.

"Thank you," Eric said, the words inadequate.

Borus just grunted and turned back to his furnace. "Get out. And don’t let it rust. The first spot of corrosion is a Chapter you can’t erase."

Eric left the forge, the newly bare dagger a cool, heavy line against his chest. It felt different. It felt like a key to a lock he hadn’t found yet. He hadn’t fought with it. He hadn’t bonded with it. But he had prepared it. He had declared his intent.

The blank steel was a mirror. And soon, it would reflect whatever he was becoming. The thought was more frightening than any bandit camp.