Chapter 510: 510

He stared at it, confusion mounting… until the memories came.

They crept into his mind like a slow tide—techniques, phrases, the postures and pride of a goblin mage student. His back straightened. His eyes sharpened. And slowly, his expression changed. Fear dissolved into something colder. Wiser. Controlled.

Somewhere deep within him, Phanthom stirred.

It had taken time. Time to observe, time to understand, time to wait for the perfect moment. Phanthom had used his power subtly—his ability to steal appearances and shape perception, working through the connection he shared with Rattan. And now, he had gifted Rattan the ultimate disguise: the identity of a goblin mage student.

No one questioned the student who now walked among the others. Not even the true mages. After all, who would suspect one of their own?

Rattan—no, the student—glanced once more at the pit of despair behind him. He had escaped it. For now.

With this disguise, he had bought time—time to grow, to learn, to prepare.

Because something was coming. And Rattan wouldn’t just survive it.

He would have to rise above it.

Rattan took his first step—nervous, unsure—but something inside him shifted.

The posture, the arrogance stitched into the very bones of the identity he now wore, surfaced instinctively. His shoulders straightened. His gaze turned sharp. He scanned the frightened ratmen huddled in corners, making sure none had caught a glimpse of what he truly was.

For a flicker of a moment, a disturbing thought slid across his mind—Should I kill them, just to be sure?

It wasn’t his thought. Or maybe it was. The line blurred now, between Rattan and the persona Phanthom had sewn into him.

But the ratmen were too busy cowering, too paralyzed by fear to notice anything. Another was tossed in beside them with a thud. No one looked up.

So Rattan walked on.

He moved smoothly toward the other students, adopting their rhythm, their confidence. He didn’t speak—just observed, melting into the group like he had always belonged. Around him, goblin students laughed as they hunted. Some played with their prey, others struck without hesitation. It was all a game to them.

Then a voice, sharp and aged, cut through the chaos.

“Enough playing. We have a quota to meet.”

Instantly, the laughter ceased. The students shifted form, the snakes unraveling into goblins again with practiced ease. No one questioned the command.

Neither did Rattan.

He mimicked their movement. Through the memories now housed in him, he understood what was happening: each student had been trained to inscribe specific runes. None of them knew what the runes did. They weren’t told.

They were just told to memorize them. To replicate them precisely. And now, they would begin.

Stationed among the other students, Rattan stood before the massive construct—an amalgam of dark stone, magic metal, and pulsing veins of mana that hummed like a restrained beast. Its sheer presence made the air feel heavier, as if the structure itself was breathing.

From the depths of his borrowed memories, the runes rose like echoes—lines, curves, strokes—all etched into his mind. Alongside them came something far more elusive: the method, the silent instruction on how to move the mana around him.

Rattan extended a finger, hesitant but determined. He mimicked the pattern embedded in his memory, trying to guide the invisible threads of power into motion.

But nothing responded.

Panic flickered in his chest. The mana didn’t flow. It wriggled, resisted. It was like trying to pull threads out of water, only to watch them dissolve the moment he touched them.

Watching through Rattan’s senses, Phanthom wasn’t surprised. This was expected—after all, it was Rattan’s first genuine attempt to manipulate mana, not just mimic the mannerisms of those who could.

Still, the panic made Rattan sweat. He stole a glance at the others.

To his surprise—and slight relief—he wasn’t alone. Many students fumbled just like he did, brows furrowed in frustration, hands trembling with effort. Only a few had begun tracing runes into the air or onto the construct’s surface, their mana flowing with shaky confidence.

The air was charged, not just with mana, but with quiet pressure. The students were being watched.

Judged.

Rattan swallowed hard and turned back to the structure. He would try again. He had to. Not just to blend in—this was something more now.

It took Rattan a few more tries before he finally began to grasp the flow of mana. The movements were awkward at first, almost like trying to walk with someone else’s legs. When it came time to draw mana into himself, his hands trembled slightly and his focus wavered. But time has a way of shaping even the clumsiest efforts. After spending another week underground, immersed in training and isolation, his control gradually sharpened. What once felt foreign and elusive began to feel familiar—like a muscle he hadn’t used in years slowly remembering its purpose.

Phanthom, however, was less impressed.

He frowned as he studied the way this world approached magic. From what he observed among the students, they didn’t harmonize with mana so much as dominate it. Rather than allowing mana to flow freely and guiding it with intention, they suppressed it—forcing it to conform to the patterns and structures they imposed.

What set the mages of this world apart from others wasn’t raw power or arcane knowledge. It was their extraordinary sensitivity of consciousness. Their awareness wasn’t just sharp; it was honed to the point that it allowed them to sense and engage with the currents of mana around them. That sensitivity formed the foundation of their entire magical practice.

To cultivate it further, they subjected their minds to a unique kind of stress. They would deliberately push mana through their consciousness, knowing full well that mana here was not cooperative. It resisted, fought back—like trying to push against a strong tide with your bare hands. And yet, that resistance was exactly what they sought. The struggle created pressure, and the pressure forced growth.

In enduring that resistance day after day, their consciousness became more resilient, more precise—capable of eventually shaping mana with ease.

Phanthom had no insight into what came after that stage. The student whose body he now inhabited hadn’t yet reached the threshold where the next step was revealed. Whatever lay beyond was still hidden, wrapped in the same secrecy that cloaked much of this world’s true nature.

A week passed.

Training ended. The students and mages were expected to disperse and return to their routines. But instead of dismissing them, one of the instructors made them stay, citing a rare opportunity—one not to be missed. A fifth-stage mage, a figure of almost mythical skill, was set to demonstrate a spell. Such events were uncommon, and the chance to witness one in person was rarer still.

By now, Rattan had settled more comfortably into his new identity. The unfamiliar thoughts and sensations that had once jostled against his mind like jagged stones had begun to smooth out, sinking into him like sediment. He spent much of his time in quiet reflection, sifting through the fragments of memory he had inherited.

And with each passing day, with each memory that surfaced, something within him shifted. The wide-eyed wonder and naivety he once held were slowly eroding. In their place grew a cold understanding—a dawning realization of the truths that had long been buried beneath the surface of his world.

The truth had been slowly creeping in through the cracks—unwelcome at first, but impossible to ignore. The empire had never been the noble force it claimed to be. The life he once led, the rules he followed without question, the pride he took in serving the goblins—it was all a lie. What had been taught to him and countless other goblin children wasn’t tradition or wisdom. It was indoctrination. Conditioning. A carefully constructed cage for the mind.

Though Rattan hadn’t had much contact with his kind in recent years, he knew enough. The ratmen were not warriors, not conquerors. They could never stand against the empire’s might, not through force. And yet, the empire still poured energy into suppressing them—relentlessly painting them as pests, as creatures to be controlled or exterminated. If the ratmen were truly so weak, why bother?

He used to believe, without hesitation, that ratmen existed to serve the goblins. That it was simply the natural order—one race born superior, the other inferior. But now, with his new memories seeping deeper into his bones, Rattan began to wonder.

What if the empire wasn’t acting out of dominance, but out of fear?

The thought came uninvited, unsettling. What could they possibly be afraid of?

Then, just as suddenly, another thought surged to the surface—cold, detached, and bitterly practical.

“But why should I care?”

He sat with the question for a moment, and the silence that followed was telling. The truth was, he had risen higher than any ratman could ever dream. His new identity had placed him among the elite, gifted him a seat at the table where power was traded like a coin. He was no longer a servant, no longer scurrying through the shadows. He now belonged to a class of beings so far removed from the plight of his people that their suffering seemed like a distant storm—heard, but not felt.

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