The next morning, Dojin woke before sunrise.
Again.
Apparently, reincarnation didn't fix insomnia.
The rain had stopped, leaving behind a washed-clean sky. The estate's courtyard shimmered faintly under dew — peaceful, almost respectable, if one ignored the muddy boot prints shaped like accidental art projects.
He yawned, cracked his neck, and muttered, "Day five of babysitting medieval incompetence."
***
Gerald arrived precisely thirty minutes late, holding a roll of damp parchment and an enthusiasm that looked forced.
"My lord, the workers await your orders!"
"Correction: they await my mistakes so they can gossip about them," Dojin replied.
Gerald smiled nervously. "Shall I… tell them not to?"
"Yes, Gerald. Tell the wind not to blow too."
The butler hesitated, unsure if that was sarcasm or divine command.
***
Dojin spread the parchment across a stone table in the courtyard. It was an estate map — or rather, something pretending to be one. Ink smudges, warped proportions, half the symbols upside-down.
He stared at it.
Then stared longer.
Then, quietly: "This looks like a chicken committed treason on paper."
Gerald peered over his shoulder. "A family heirloom, my lord."
"Then your family should sue itself."
***
Still, he began marking sections — blue for water flow, red for mana pulse, black for cracks.
Each mark triggered that faint flicker in his mind again.
Mana Conduction Coefficient → Variable Flow Resistance → 3.1 Ohms equivalent
Depth Map available: [Incomplete]
He blinked. The text shimmered faintly over the parchment, transparent, like light reflecting on oil.
Not hallucination. Pattern recognition, maybe. Or magic pretending to be Excel.
He traced the lines slowly, following the faint blue flow from courtyard to cellar. Every so often, the numbers adjusted themselves, auto-correcting his measurements before he even finished.
"Gerald," he said softly, "get me a lantern. We're going underground."
Gerald paled. "Underground, my lord?"
"Yes."
"Is that… safe?"
"Absolutely not."
***
The cellar door groaned like a dying beast. The smell of old wine, rot, and something faintly electrical hit him.
Mana residue.
He stepped down the stone steps carefully, Gerald trailing behind, lantern trembling in his grip.
The cellar was larger than expected — a maze of old barrels, broken crates, and dust motes dancing in the dim light. But beyond that, in the back wall, Dojin spotted faint blue veins — glowing lines running like capillaries beneath the stone.
Mana conduits. Ancient ones.
He crouched, brushing his fingers against the wall. The glow pulsed faintly at his touch.
Immediately, the ghost-text surged again, clearer this time.
[Mana Channel Detected]
Efficiency: 41 %
Structure: Compromised
Root Node: ???
Root node?
He stared, heart racing. The data was no longer just instinct — it had form, syntax, even brackets.
"Gerald," he whispered. "Bring the lantern closer."
Gerald hesitated. "Will it explode?"
"Hopefully not."
"Hopefully…?"
"Gerald."
"Yes, my lord."
The butler obeyed, and the wall's glow strengthened, rippling outward. The blue veins connected across the cellar, sketching out a rough map of the estate's internal mana system. It pulsed like a heartbeat, weak but steady.
Beneath the flickering numbers, a faint hum filled the air — not sound exactly, but vibration, like pressure against the skin.
[Subnode 1 Activated]
Flow Restoration: +3 %
Warning: Core Unstable
A tiny blue spark jumped from the wall, hit Dojin's hand, and vanished.
He didn't flinch. He smiled.
"Oh, you're talking now," he murmured. "Good. Saves me the trouble of inventing language for you."
Gerald stepped back. "My lord… it's talking?"
"In a manner of speaking." Dojin tilted his head. "You ever seen magic quantified before?"
Gerald blinked. "Quantified?"
"Numbers, efficiency, percentages. No? Of course not."
He tapped the wall with his knuckle. "This entire estate's built on an energy grid. Primitive, inefficient, but designed to self-sustain using ambient mana. Probably pre-cataclysm architecture."
"Pre… what?"
"History. Don't worry about it."
***
He traced a conduit line toward a cracked section where faint moisture seeped through. His vision flickered again.
Degradation Rate: 0.6 % per hour
Possible Cause: Biological Intrusion
Recommend: Seal with Reinforced Mana Mortar
"Oh, now you're giving advice," he said. "Cheeky."
He turned to Gerald. "Bring a bucket of the new mix. We're patching this now."
Gerald blinked. "Here? In the dark?"
"Yes, Gerald. The dark is just light that failed engineering school."
***
Half an hour later, sweat streaked down his neck as he pressed the mana-mortar into the cracks. The ghost-numbers guided his ratio precisely, adjusting water content mid-process. The glowing veins brightened with each stroke.
Finally, the wall pulsed once — steady, strong, alive.
[Subnode Repair Complete]
Flow Restoration: +7 %
Overall Efficiency: 52 %
Structural Stability +2 %
Dojin exhaled, leaning back. The faint humming stabilized, resonating gently through the floor.
Gerald, meanwhile, was holding the lantern like a holy relic. "My lord, the estate… it's glowing."
"Good. Means it's listening."
"Listening to what?"
"Me."
Gerald's eyes widened in reverence or terror — Dojin wasn't sure which.
***
By the time they returned upstairs, the first light of dawn was breaking. The courtyard trenches glowed faintly again, as if in response to the reactivated conduits below. The mana system and his drainage grid — synchronizing.
Dojin stood at the threshold, mud still on his hands, watching the estate breathe through flickering light veins.
A thought crossed his mind — not his own, but something woven through the air like static:
[Integration Detected]
Mana Infrastructure → User Cognitive Network
Partial Link Established
The text shimmered, then dissolved.
He didn't move for several seconds.
Finally, he exhaled and muttered, "So that's how it begins."
***
Gerald's voice broke the silence. "My lord?"
"Nothing," Dojin said, smirking faintly. "Just realized I've accidentally become the estate's operating system."
"The… what?"
"Never mind. Bring coffee. We have an old world to debug."