I stood before her, hands clenched at my sides, breathing calmly. "I'm ready for the test," I said. My mother didn't smile. She rarely did before training. But her eyes shimmered with quiet certainty as she raised a single hand. Snap.
In a heartbeat, the world twisted, folded, and settled. My feet touched the stone path of our family's greenhouse—a massive enchanted space built beneath the main property. Calling it a greenhouse was a kindness. It was the size of a Quidditch field, a cathedral of living things and structured chaos. Bioluminescent moss crawled along walls. Fruit-bearing trees stretched into the ceiling. Vines slithered lazily in the warm air like bored sentries.
At the far end stood a tall tree—silver-barked, wide-canopied, its roots gnarled over ancient stonework. My mother pointed toward it, her robes flowing gently in the humid breeze.
"Your task," she said, as a pocket watch floated into her hand and clicked open, "is to levitate at least three fallen leaves at the base of that tree. Hold them in the air, stable, for ten minutes. Nothing more, nothing less. Begin." I didn't move right away. I didn't need to.
Because I wasn't going to lift three leaves. I raised my hand, fingers open, palm pulsing with concentration. I reached inward—not to the muscles, not to the system, but to that place I had unlocked days ago. The feel of magic, all around me. The flow. The ocean.
And I pushed outward. The leaves around the tree trembled. Then lifted. All of them.
Hundreds—no, over a thousand—leaves rose into the air, caught in a slow swirling current of invisible energy. My magic wrapped around each one, holding them just enough, like cupped hands supporting feathers. I was sweating within seconds.
My mother didn't react. She simply watched, the clock ticking in her hand, face expressionless. For ten minutes, I held them. When she spoke again, the watch snapped shut. "Okay." I let out a breath. "Is… that all?" She looked at me calmly. "Show me what you can do." I grinned.
And with that, I moved. The leaves responded—not chaotically, but flowing into a spiral, faster, higher. They formed a slow, massive whirl, a leaf-storm in reverse, orbiting like a wide vortex around me. A few shook, wobbled, but the control held.
Then I reached deeper. Fire. White flame licked the edges of my magic. I summoned it slowly, carefully—let it touch the leaves in their orbit. They began to burn.But not destructively. The flames were soft, ethereal—white, with hints of silver.
Then… they flared. Just for a second gold. Like molten sunlight, they shimmered. And then—gone. The leaves vanished into light. I lowered my hand, heart thundering. My mother turned her back to me, her voice still even.
"That was impressive," she said. "But don't waste what little energy you have showing off if you can't move afterward." I wiped sweat from my brow and nodded. "Yes, ma'am." She was right. My limbs were trembling. My core felt like jelly. But I'd done it. And as if sensing that I'd accepted the lesson, she appeared in front of me so quickly I didn't see her move.
A kiss touched my forehead.
"Good job, honey," she whispered. "You've passed your basic material. Take the rest of the month off for self-study. No lectures. No lessons. But don't slack—someone will be waiting for you when your break ends."
I blinked. "Someone?" She only smiled and disappeared in a shimmer of ambient mist. Later that day, while icing my wrists and stretching out my sore muscles, I entered my mind's eye.
> [System Notification]
Quest Complete: [Be Prepared]
Rewards Earned:
– Potion of Magical Amplification (x1)
– Potion of Hidden Potential Unsealing (x1)
Note: Rewards will be held in system storage until manually retrieved.
That wasn't all.
> Bonus Objective Complete!
You completed the quest before your 10th birthday.
Reward: Mystery Box – Sealed
Stored in Inventory
I leaned back in my chair, stunned—and thrilled.
A hidden inventory?
I hadn't expected that. System storage was a luxury I didn't even know I needed. A place to keep items hidden, locked away from the outside world unless summoned. The mystery box pulsed softly in the back of my mind. But I made myself wait.
Dinner came. My body ached less. I heard my father return from work, his heavy boots crossing the foyer. Then, quiet footsteps leading to his study. The door creaked shut. I crept closer, keeping my presence masked with a silencing charm I'd picked up from one of Samira's scrolls.
Inside, the mirror above my father's desk glowed. My mother stood beside him, her expression serious. A woman's voice echoed through the mirror firm, accented, and rich with quiet power.
"Aster," my mother said. "I think Callum… inherited the flame." My father glanced sideways. "You're sure?" Samira nodded. "During his wandless test. The leaf magic. The control was impressive, yes. But then—white flame."
A beat.
"Rare… but not unusual for our bloodline," Aster's voice answered. My mother exhaled. "But it turned gold." The mirror shimmered. Aster's eyes changed—glowed. That same gold hue, deep and ancient.
"I'll be there in a month," she said. "I wish I could come sooner, but I'm bound up here in Kyoto with temple reconstruction work." "Take your time," my father said. "He's earned a month of breathing room."
"When the wards are open," Aster added, "notify me so I can Apparate directly." My mother smiled faintly. "We will." That night, I lay in bed beneath my glowing constellation ceiling. My fingers twitched in anticipation. I called open the interface and summoned the item to my hand. The Mystery Box appeared—shimmering, humming softly, weightless yet heavy with meaning.
I stared at it, heart pounding.Then I opened it. And my eyes widened.
When I opened the Mystery Box, I expected… something shiny. A trinket. Maybe an artifact. Something with a glow.
But instead, a book appeared.
It floated gently into my lap like a falling feather—its leather binding dark blue, etched with intricate golden lines that shimmered like starlight. I blinked at it. There was no title on the front. No aura of overwhelming power. Just the smell of old parchment and a soft warmth rising from its cover.
A blue tome. Gold-lined. Sealed with nothing but silence. I opened it carefully. The first page held a single sentence, hand-written in elegant ink that shimmered faintly as if it had been penned seconds ago.
> Consider this an investment.
– M
I stared at the signature for a long time. M? My mind immediately scrambled.
Magi?
Merlin?
Morgan le Fay?
I had no clue.
The next several pages? Completely blank.I flipped through them rapidly. Still nothing. No faded ink, no hidden runes. No reactive magic. Just page after page of emptiness. I narrowed my eyes, suddenly suspicious.
Wait…
Tom Riddle's diary. The way that enchanted book had interacted when written in… Maybe this was similar? I rushed to my desk, pulled out a quill and my best bottle of enchanted ink, and carefully wrote in the center of the second page: Hello. Is this M as in Magi… or Merlin?
The ink disappeared almost instantly, sinking into the page like water on sand. I waited.
One minute.
Two.
Five.
Nothing.
Ten minutes passed, and the page remained blank. No response. Frowning, I turned inward and summoned AIA in my mind's eye.
> "AIA," I asked. "What is this book?" She answered in her smooth, familiar voice—but in text, as always: [Text Response: Item registered as 'Enchanted Journal'].
Classification: Passive-bound object.
Behavior: Reacts to stimuli. Retains magical signature.
Query: Further detail?
"Yes, how is it enchanted?"
> [Error: Insufficient Soul Authority Level. Access Denied.]
I rolled my eyes. "Great. So… it is some kind of cosmic foreshadowing. Perfect." No answer. I sighed, closed the tome, and tucked it back into system storage. It would keep. No point forcing a mystery open before it was ready. Instead, I turned to one of the rewards I'd been eager to try. The Potion of Magical Amplification.
It appeared in my hand like it had been waiting—an elegant crystal bottle, about 8 ounces of swirling violet-blue liquid glowing gently within. A gold stopper sealed it with a wax rune I didn't recognize.
I broke the seal. I drank most of it—6 ounces down my throat in seconds. Warmth spread instantly, starting from my stomach and surging through my limbs like a silent, glowing tide.
I stopped myself just in time, leaving two ounces untouched. I didn't know what would happen if I took it all at once, and some part of me whispered, save some for later. Moments later, my body sagged. Drowsiness hit me like a charm to the back of the head. I barely had time to tuck the bottle back into my inventory before the dark pulled me under.
I woke up… burning. Not with pain—but with power. And I was in the air. Floating. Surrounded in white and gold fire. It danced around me, elegant and terrifying.
I gasped. "Wh—" But I couldn't speak. The magic wasn't coming from me anymore—it was me. Every heartbeat sent a pulse through the air, every blink was like rippling the veil between worlds.
Then hands. Firm, shaking.
"Callum?!"
My parents' voices.
My father chanted something—his wand glowing. A white-blue flash filled the room and suddenly the world changed. The fire didn't vanish.
It moved.
It flowed outward into the space around me until everything was white. A room made of nothing but soft light. No walls. No floor. Just me, floating gently inside this space. My breathing slowed.
Then… blackness.
When I awoke again, I was back in a room I recognized—my mother's study. Soft herbs filled the air. Her favorite green-lanterned lamp glowed over my head. She stood above me, both hands hovering inches from my chest. Her palms emitted a warm green light—calming, slow, comforting.
Like a heartbeat I didn't know I needed. I blinked. "Mom…?" She exhaled slowly. "You're okay now." My father stood behind her, eyes guarded. Wand at the ready. "What happened?" I whispered.
They exchanged a look. "You had a magical spike," my father said slowly. "A huge one." "We thought…" My mother paused, words catching in her throat. "We thought you were… becoming an Obscurus." My heart thumped. That cursed word. That dark fragment of suppressed magic gone volatile. Raw power turned violent, parasitic. Destruction born of neglect and fear.
"No," I said quickly, trying to calm them. "I'm fine. I swear."
I left out the potion.
I left out the system.
Their eyes searched mine for cracks. Finding none, they both let out slow breaths and pulled me into a hug. A deep, warm, human hug. One I wasn't used to—not in my old life.
I didn't cry.
But something inside me cracked anyway. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to scare you." My father leaned back. "We're just glad you're okay, son."
"But what was that room?" I asked. "The white void?" My father stepped back, folding his arms.
"Before wizards of color were accepted in the UK—or anywhere, really—our families had incidents. Magic exploding from children. Obscurials forming. Especially in America." He gestured toward the air. "That room is old. Built from ancient warded magic. Created to suppress magical outbursts, to protect the child and the family. It's saved lives."
I looked down at my hands, still tingling faintly. My mother knelt beside me, smoothing back my curls. "We have to be careful now," she said. "Your Aunt—my sister—Aster… she'll be here in a month."
I blinked. "To test me?" She nodded. "To see if you are meant to be our family's heir."