Fully immersed in the ebb and flow of his mana, Kor reached for the edge of the page. A faint pulse of resistance met him, subtle at first but growing sharper, until it lashed out like a whip, driving his connection back. The rejection struck deep, and his breath hitched as his heart pounded. Failure loomed cold and mocking. His hands clenched the sheets of his bed. No. He would not fail so easily.

The sting of the book’s rebuff only stoked his resolve. He wasn’t the same chubby scholar from a week ago. He had learned control, refined his skills, and faced challenges he hadn’t thought himself capable of as he’d delved into the world of magic. Gritting his teeth, Kor steadied his breathing and pushed the doubt aside. If the book wanted control, he would show it control.

Focusing his awareness, Kor called his mana forth. A faint hum resonated at the base of his stomach—something he’d only noticed in the last few days—signalling the power pooling at his fingertips. With utmost care, he refined his mana down to a smaller and smaller thread. With the same patience he’d used to tackle the mana puzzle, Kor directed the thread forward, guiding it with care and precision. Inch by inch, it crept towards the corner of the page. His pulse thundered in his ears as the thread slipped beneath the edge.

The book’s magic surged, a final desperate resistance that sent tremors through his entire body. His thread of mana wavered like a candle in a storm, yet he held firm, wrapping his will around it like a shield. Time stretched like honey, each second an eternity, until at last the book’s defences crumbled. The page turned with a whisper of surrender.

Ancient script bloomed across the revealed page, each character igniting with a pale blue radiance that cast shadows across Kor’s awestruck face. The words appeared one by one, as if being written by an invisible hand, each symbol burning itself into both paper and memory:

“The mind must be a mirror, reflecting the truth without distortion. Logic is not a cage, but a key, unlocking the secrets hidden within the chaos.”

Kor felt a shiver crawl down his spine. This wasn’t a simple lesson. It was a challenge, a demand for a deeper understanding. He searched his mind, not for facts, but for the underlying principles, the invisible threads that connected the seemingly disparate elements.

“In the smallest fragments of form lies the architecture of eternity,” the book intoned. “See how the same truth reflects itself in endless shapes—a leaf mirrors a tree, the waves echo the seas, and the stars themselves weave the fabric of the void.”

Kor’s brow furrowed as the cryptic language deepened. More images formed in his mind—shapes that seemed to fold into themselves, endlessly repeating, yet never quite the same. He saw echoes of these recursive patterns in the spiralling shells of molluscs, the frost etchings on glass, and the jagged peaks of distant mountains. Each form held a resonance that felt both alien and familiar.

The imagery spilled onto the next page, filling it with shifting diagrams. Lines twisted and branched, curling inwards even as they expanded outward. Shapes repeated, yet their details multiplied with every loop. It was an unbroken sequence which seemed to hum with its own internal logic. Kor gasped, caught between awe and the subtle dread of confronting something infinite.

When the writing stopped, Kor stared at the edge of the page. The silence of the book was deafening. Summoning his focus, he fought for calm and reached out again. Delicately, he turned the page.

This time, the book yielded without hesitation. The words materialised swiftly, as if it were eager to share its secrets:

“A final step then, before the veil is lifted from thy eyes. The realm of logic and reason extends infinitely outward, but does infinity have an end? Are all infinities the same?” Kor’s heart raced. Memories of studying bizarre mathematical concepts with his father clawed at his mind—the notion of infinities beyond infinities, each vastness somehow greater than the last. Could magic mirror such unfathomable depths?

Mind abuzz, Kor cast his recollection back to his father’s words. “Imagine a hotel with infinitely many rooms,” his father had explained, “always able to accommodate more guests by simply shifting those already present. Yet,” his father’s voice had dropped to a near whisper, “imagine a multitude of guests so vast that even this endless hotel could not contain them. A multitude… greater than infinity itself.”

The book seemed to smirk at him through its next lines, taunting and enticing:

“One final test for the keen of mind. Is this the end or just the beginning? Below, we shall find.”

The lines of a riddle etched themselves onto the page:

“In patterns that never cease to grow,

I’m small and large, above, below.

Zoom in or out, I’m still the same,

Endless detail is my game.

Infinity’s child, I spiral on,

In nature’s art, I’m never gone.

What am I?”

Kor ran a hand through his hair, absently adjusting his glasses as his mind began parsing the puzzle. He repeated the riddle under his breath, focusing on its cadence and meaning. “Patterns… infinity… growth.” His fingers twitched as if mentally sketching a diagram.

First, he thought of numbers. Prime numbers had fascinated him as a child. Their unpredictable distribution seemed at odds with their inherent regularity. But no, this didn’t fit. Primes weren’t self-similar—they didn’t mirror themselves at different scales.

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He shifted to geometry. Perhaps it was a shape? The circle came to mind immediately. Infinite in its continuity, yes, but it lacked the complexity described in the riddle. Circles didn’t spiral endlessly; they simply looped back into themselves. He shook his head, murmuring, “Not the circle.”

Catching a faint whiff of soil from Talen’s plants, he glanced briefly at the crystal palm tree. Its tiny, shimmering leaves swayed faintly, agitated by the room’s subtle mana currents. A grounding moment amidst the storm of thought. Kor exhaled, centring himself.

“Infinity… beginnings and ends,” he muttered. The idea repeated in his thoughts, persistent and teasing. A Mobius strip? It held the notion of endlessness, a single surface that twisted back on itself. He entertained the idea, but again, it didn’t align. The riddle spoke of spirals, of patterns that grew endlessly, yet remained the same.

Something about spirals… A faint memory stirred. Kor straightened, closing his eyes to summon the elusive thought. He could practically feel the edge of an answer as he pored over his recollections. Was it related to nature? Yes, nature… and mathematics. A concept he’d once read about in passing, something elegant and ubiquitous.

Elegant recursive patterns danced in his thoughts as the intricate drawings from the book practically leapt to the forefront of his mind. The spirals of ferns, the branching of trees, the delicate frost etched on a winter pane—it all seemed connected. He gasped aloud, exclaiming, “Gah! How could I miss it?” The realisation hit him with both clarity and a rush of self-reproach. The cryptic clues, the spiralling forms, the ceaseless growth—it all seemed so obvious now. Feeling particularly foolish, he adjusted his glasses hastily, as if the simple motion might somehow restore his dignity.

His pulse quickened. “Fractals,” he whispered, the word catching in his throat. The riddle’s description matched perfectly. Self-similar, infinite in detail, present in the spirals of galaxies and the veins of a leaf. It rang with the clarity of truth, though the pressure to solve it still weighed heavily on him. His mind latched onto the thread, pulling him closer to the answer with each passing second.

The book chimed in agreement, a subtle resonance that seemed to harmonise with something deep inside him. A pulse of mana radiated outward, sending faint ripples through the air. Kor froze, his breath catching as the sensation intensified. Fractals had been a branch of mathematics he’d only ever read about in passing. To feel their essence resonate with him now was both exhilarating and unsettling. The shapes seemed less like abstract figures and more like truths that had always existed, waiting for him to understand.

A pang of longing struck him suddenly. Fractals—with their intertwining patterns—reminded him so vividly of his mother’s obsession with geometry, the diagrams she would pore over late into the night. His father’s calculations had always been clean and logical, but his mother’s work possessed a kind of chaotic elegance, almost alive in its complexity. He had never been away from his parents for so long, and though he seldom indulged in sentimentality, his shared love of mathematics with them made him miss them even more.

The resonance grew, and the book vibrated faintly in his hands. The ache of homesickness mingled with an overwhelming flood of sensations. Kor fought to steady himself, focusing on the here and now. He adjusted his glasses again, this time out of nervous habit, and drew a deep breath. He wasn’t alone. He had friends now—Talen and Marcus, perhaps even Lena—people who he could rely on.

The resonance reached a crescendo, and suddenly, something shifted. A wealth of sensations washed over him, defying description. It was as if he’d discovered an entirely new limb—one that had always been there, unnoticed until this moment. The fractal magic entwined itself with his being, awakening a deeper understanding of their nature than he’d ever grasped before. It wasn’t just knowledge; it was a sense of belonging, of purpose.

Excitement bubbled up as he prepared to explore this new facet of himself. He couldn’t help but pause, his gaze fixed on the faintly glowing book. The hours spent struggling with theory and training had finally amounted to something tangible. He had done it—solved the riddle—and the understanding struck him with a wave of elation. For the first time since arriving at the academy, he felt like he’d bridged the gap that separated him from the others, like he had proven to himself that he was capable of more than surviving here. A deep, contented breath escaped him, and for a moment, he simply let himself marvel at the beauty of the snowflake-like patterns forming in his mind’s eye, intricate and unending.

It was as if the universe itself had leaned in to acknowledge his effort. The hard hours, the doubts, the quiet moments of failure—they had all led to this. He reached out, both mentally and physically, to grasp the magic, when a voice—familiar yet startling—broke through his inner dialogue.

“Kor! You finally did it.”

He froze. The whispers from his childhood, always faint and elusive, now rang clear as day. The voice carried a strange jubilance, weighted with an odd lethargy.

“Who...?” A strange mental image interrupted his thoughts—a tortoise, plodding determinedly across a sandy beach.

“Hey! I’m not a tortoise.”

Whatever this was, it had read his thoughts. “Then what are you?” he thought back.

A pause stretched between them. “I’m a... a me. Just like you.”

“A person, then?”

“Yes?” The uncertainty in the response was palpable.

“All people know what they are.” Amusement crept into his voice as the tortoise image resurfaced, unbidden, and unshakable.

“Not a tortoise!” “Okay, okay.” Kor couldn’t suppress a grin. “But what are you doing in my head?”

“I’m not really in your head. At least, I don’t think so.” The energy seemed to drain from the voice with each word.

His grin faded. “Unlocking my specialisation seemed to change something. Are you part of it? Are you... a fractal?”

“No.” The voice grew clear for a moment. “But you needed to reach this point before we could really speak.” Exhaustion crept in, as if each word was a struggle. “You need to advance quickly, else... else...”

“Else what?” Concern edged into his voice. “Else... I won’t arrive in time.”

“What do you mean, arrive? How does my advancing do that?”

Silence stretched out. The presence faded, though he could still sense the connection faintly in the back of his mind, distinct from his newfound fractal magic, but undeniably tied to him.

“Great. So I’ve got fractal magic and a sleepy tortoise in my head?”

“Not a tortoise!” The faintest echo reverberated before winking out entirely. The connection grew quiescent, leaving Kor alone with his thoughts. “Until I see proof otherwise, you’re a tortoise.” He shook his head. Why was that more important than answering my question?

Only silence met his last remark, but the draw of his newly awakened fractal magic proved irresistible. Ready and eager, he shot to his feet as he contemplated trying to use this new side of himself.

The only question remained, how? He glanced around his room. This wasn’t the place to practise something completely new.

He grabbed the Logos, placing it into his pack before heading out to the training fields.