The training hall was quiet and empty. Just how Noah wanted it.

The one usually reserved for his group was occupied.

He'd seen Damien and Arlo there earlier, sparring hard enough to shake the walls.

He had no interest in listening to their chatter, or worse, their questions. He needed privacy. Silence. Space to push himself.

Classes for the day were finished, the sun already moving towards the horizon, painting the high glass windows of the hall with soft gold.

Noah dropped his satchel by the wall, pulling out the parchment from his spatial ring.

Aegis of Hades.

The white parchment shimmered faintly, the spell formation drawn in lines so dark they seemed to absorb light around it.

He studied it in silence, tracing each curl and angle, committing it to memory.

Time bled away as he focused, every line slotting into place in his mind's eye.

When he finally closed his eyes, he could see the whole thing, intricate, symmetrical, and radiating with a kind of oppressive elegance.

Now came the hard part.

Noah raised his palm, mana stirring in his veins, and began forming the spell formation.

It was like threading a needle while blindfolded.

Thirty minutes in, sweat dampened his shirt, his breathing shallow. He had ninety percent of the formation in place, but the last portion slipped away every time he tried to hold it together.

It was like trying to catch smoke.

Null Stride had been difficult, but at least it had been straightforward. He'd done it piece by piece, pattern by pattern, until it clicked.

This… this was slippery. Every attempt to solidify the formation made it waver, threatening collapse.

He exhaled, clenching his fists. He couldn't sit here for another hour crawling through lines only for them to dissolve.

So he gambled.

Noah summoned his mana and forced the final pieces into place in one quick push.

The spell formation shuddered violently, its edges bending like it would break apart, then with a pulse, it clicked together, whole.

He let out a long breath, his chest rising and falling.

Relief flooded him. If it had collapsed, he would have had to start over from scratch.

"Alright," he muttered, lifting his palm. "Let's see it."

He cast the spell, the formation disappearing in a flash of light.

The spell parchment crumbled to dust, and the floor around him bled shadows.

Darkness poured upward, rising like smoke, coiling around his limbs, his chest, and his shoulders. It thickened, hardening, until he was encased in armor.

Noah looked down, his mouth curving into a grin.

The armor was like a single piece, with molded plates of matte black that hugged his body without a single gap.

The breastplate was angular, ridges flaring outwards like the ribcage of some abyssal beast.

His gauntlets were clawed at the fingertips, the lines etched into them glowing faintly with smoldering purple light.

The helmet was a dragon's skull wrought in shadow, its crown tapering back in jagged horns, the eye slits burning orange to mirror his gaze.

Every edge looked sharp, and every line standing out, as if destruction itself had been given shape.

He flexed his arms, rolling his shoulders. No weight. No drag. No loss in movement. It felt like wearing nothing at all.

Noah strode around the hall, testing his stride, pivoting, even dropping into a crouch. The armor moved with him, silent as the grave.

Then, with a flex of will, he pushed mana through it.

Spikes erupted from his shoulders, forearms, knees, and even along his spine, lances of shadow jutting outwards, wicked and cruel.

They gleamed with a deadly promise, and Noah smirked at the sight.

But he felt it. The mana drain.

The armor's summoning had taken a flat cost, not small, but not overwhelming either.

Keeping it active was little more than a background hum, barely noticeable.

The real unexpected bite came from the spikes. That single burst had drained as much mana as an FF-rank spell.

Still, Noah couldn't stop grinning.

"It's perfect."

Not just protection, but intimidation.

To him, Aegis of Hades wasn't simply a shield. It was both a weapon and a presence. Exactly what he needed.

The perfect defensive spell.

He flexed his hand, the claws glinting in the torchlight, and let the armor dissolve back into mist, curling into the floor.

"Perfect," he said again, his grin wider this time.

He slipped a hand into his spatial ring and pulled free the last parchment.

The S-rank spell.

Pocket Cube.

The parchment shimmered like no other he had seen before.

It didn't glow with the deep colors of Void, nor burn with the faint heat of Fire, nor even shiver with the horrors of Darkness.

It shimmered with a dizzying rainbow, the surface rippling like oil spread across water.

And in the center sat a dot. Thick. Opaque. Darker than any black he had ever seen, like the ink was made of more than just ink.

Noah stared at it, frowning. "How the hell am I supposed to parse this?"

The dot stared back at him, unyielding.

There were no lines, no glyphs, and no familiar curves or circles. Just a hole in the middle of a rainbow haze.

Then his vision wavered.

His breath caught.

The world seemed to tilt as if dragged by unseen gravity. His sight tunneled, zooming into the dot until the world outside blurred away.

And then, just like that, he saw it.

The spell formation.

It spread out like an unfurling galaxy, a spiraling web of lines and symbols layered atop each other.

It was not just a spell. It was an equation written into the very fabric of reality.

Each line curved with intent, each symbol locked into place as if balanced on a razor's edge.

It was beautiful. Terrifyingly so.

Noah's breath hitched as his eyes traced it.

The formation wasn't static. It shifted as he studied it, one layer unfolding to reveal another beneath, as though testing if he could keep up.

For a solid minute, he just sat there, mesmerized, lost in its impossible beauty.

It was math, and it was art, and it was power wrapped together into something that defied human hands.

Finally, he shook his head, forcing himself to focus. He couldn't just gape at it forever.

And so he began the painstaking work of memorizing it.

One layer at a time. One pattern at a time.

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