Forbidden Splicer: Infinite Spellcraft

Chapter 6: Mirror and Mask

Copper casing around the main archway groaned under the weight of silver glass. Pale light spilled across stone tiles at the Sub-Level 3 checkpoint, casting cold reflections on commoner scribes lined up for morning intake.

Three Citadel High Enforcers stood beside the archway, black plate armor gleaming in the dim brazier light. Above them, the newly installed Rune-Tracing Mirror hummed with a low, vibrating tone, sending ripple patterns across its metallic surface.

A young scribe four places ahead of Jaroth stepped under the frame. He carried a small clay jar tucked inside his sleeve.

The mirror hummed louder, its silver face flaring dark crimson.

"Contraband," an Enforcer growled.

Before the boy could speak, an iron gauntlet struck his face, sending him sprawling against the stone wall. The Enforcer crushed the clay jar under his boot, releasing the sharp odor of common burn salve.

"Smuggling unrecorded alchemy into archival sectors," the Enforcer said, dragging the weeping boy up by his collar. "Take him to the intake cells for questioning."

The remaining scribes froze, their eyes fixed on the floor tiles.

Jaroth stepped forward when the guard gestured. Beneath his wool tunic, his heart rate remained steady, his pulse unhurried. In his system inventory,

Displacement Sheath

remained stored in its matrix slot, constructed from stolen noble spellcraft. If the mirror scanned that spell code, he would not live to take three steps.

He reached the threshold. The silver glass projected a beam of cool light across his shoulders.

A blue window flickered in his vision, visible only to his eyes:

[Warning: High-Purity Dimensional Scan Detected.]

[Initiating Matrix Compression Protocol...]

The Splicer interface responded instantly. Instead of attempting to block the scan, the system pulled the stored code of

Displacement Sheath

downward, compressing the spell threads deep into the fractured, ruined channels of Jaroth's shattered core.

The mirror's scan passed through his torso. The light struck the dense mass of broken, static-filled pathways inside his chest, finding no clean geometric runes, no active mana flow, and no structured spellcraft. To the diagnostic glass, his body resembled a dry well filled with crushed gravel.

The silver mirror remained pale and silent.

"Broken core," the Enforcer muttered, waving a hand in dismissive boredom. "Pass through."

Jaroth bowed his head, stepping into the dark vault aisle without altering his stride.

Dust hung thick in the air of the blast zone.

Overturned oak bookshelves lay scattered across the main aisle of Sub-Level 3, their scorched pages fluttering in the cold draft. Melted slate tiles bore deep, blackened grooves where Cassian Vane's fire spell had clashed with Anzor's shadow acid.

Archivist Garrick walked along the perimeter, his hands tucked into wide clerical sleeves. Beside him walked a woman clad in dark navy silk trimmed with white fur.

Lady Katherine Vane moved with quiet, deliberate grace. Unlike her younger brother Cassian, whose posture carried the loud arrogance of spoiled youth, Katherine radiated cold authority. A slender silver wand rested in her right hand, its tip glowing with a faint blue light as she inspected the ruined stone pillars.

Six elite House Vane guards followed three paces behind her, swords drawn.

"My brother is an idiot," Katherine stated, her tone flat and devoid of warmth. "He relies on bloodline mana to overwhelm opponents, treating spellcraft like a heavy club."

Garrick bowed his head lower. "Lord Cassian fought bravely against a high-tier intruder, Lady Katherine."

"Cassian panicked," she corrected, stopping beside the central stone column.

She raised her silver wand, tapping the tip against a deep fissure in the pillar. A small circle of blue light expanded across the stone, illuminating the microscopic grain of the rock.

"The official Enforcer report claims the assassin cast a shadow wave that overwhelmed my brother's

Aurelian Flare

," Katherine said, her silver eyes narrowing as she scanned the fissure. "Look at these edge lines, Garrick."

Garrick leaned closer, squinting at the rock. "It... appears scorched, my lady."

"It is decayed," Katherine said, her voice dropping. "The fire matrix was neutralized from within before the acid ever touched the stone. The elemental bonds were stripped down to raw code and dissolved. A standard shadow spell corrupts matter; it does not dismantle spell structures."

She turned her wand toward the commoner scribes sweeping ash twenty yards away. Her gaze swept over the workers, lingering briefly on their bowed heads and soot-stained rags.

"The assassin did not act alone," Katherine concluded, lowering her wand. "Or he used an unrecorded, forbidden artifact to siphon spell energy during the clash."

"Shall I call for another Enforcer sweep?" Garrick asked, cold sweat shining on his forehead.

"Enforcers look for blood and weapons," Katherine replied smoothly. "They lack the wit to see structural flaws in spellcraft. Unseal Vault 7."

Garrick blinked, caught off guard. "The Cryo-Archive? My lady, the containment array in Vault 7 has been leaking frost radiation since the attack. The air inside is hazardous to unshielded workers."

"The cold will force any lingering spell residues to react," Katherine said, stepping toward the northern corridor. "Bring the scribes inside to clear the intake shelves. Let us see what surfaces when the temperature drops."

Vault 7 opened with a heavy iron groan.

A cloud of white frost rolled out across the threshold, coating the stone floor in a thin layer of slippery ice. High vaulted ceilings disappeared into blue mist, where long icicles hung from ancient stone arches like silver daggers.

Jaroth shuffled into the chamber alongside twenty scribes, holding an iron shovel and a brass bucket. The sub-zero air bit into his skin through his thin wool tunic, turning his breath into white clouds.

Along the main aisle, ancient scroll canisters sat on iron pedestals, encrusted in thick, glowing blue frost. The localized mana radiation was unstable. Every few seconds, faint blue sparks crackled across the floor tiles, making the scribes' hands shake as they worked to clear ice from the shelf bases.

Jaroth kept his head low, scraping frozen soot near the secondary array. His eyes tracked the ambient energy lines running through the room.

To his right, a loud crack echoed through the mist.

A bronze containment ring securing a cluster of ancient frost scrolls snapped under the build-up of ice pressure. The central pedestal fractured, releasing a wave of raw, unrefined frost light that exploded outward into the aisle.

"Watch out!" a scribe screamed, dropping his shovel.

The wave of frost light expanded across ten yards. Two wooden worktables caught in the blast froze solid in a fraction of a second, their wood grain turning brittle before shattering into thousands of icy splinters against the floor.

Scribes scrambled backward in panic, slipping on the ice as the freezing light surged toward the main walkway.

Katherine stepped forward without breaking her posture. She raised her silver wand, her navy robes flaring as her high-tier bloodline mana surged through her arms.

"Glacial Mirror Shield!" she commanded.

A wall of dense, faceted ice erupted from the slate floor, spanning eight feet high and twelve feet wide. The clear ice wall intercepted the surging frost wave, absorbing the kinetic shock and trapping the volatile light behind a reflective barrier.

The containment wave slammed against the barrier. Cracks spread across Katherine's ice wall as internal pressure mounted, sending glowing shards of broken frost matrices popping into the air like shattered glass.

Scribes ducked for cover behind stone pillars.

Jaroth dropped behind a fallen book rack, keeping his body low to the cold floor.

A glowing chunk of frost ice, detached from Katherine's defensive spell, flew across the aisle and lodged into the floor tile three inches from Jaroth's knee. The shard hummed with dense, high-grade defensive spell code, its blue light fading as it exposed itself to the warmer air.

Jaroth extended his right hand, pressing his bare palm onto the glowing ice shard.

[Harvesting... Success!]

Acquired: [Glacial Mirror Shield (Tier 1 High-Density Barrier Matrix)]

The blue glow vanished from the shard, leaving behind a plain piece of melting ice beneath his fingers.

During evening shift change, the sorting bay emptied as scribes rushed toward the dining hall.

Jaroth slipped into a narrow maintenance alcove tucked behind the secondary book stacks. A single oil lamp burned on a wall hook, casting long shadows across piles of discarded parchment bindings.

He sat on a wooden crate and willed the Splicer interface to open.

[Current Inventory Status]

Slot 1:

[Displacement Sheath (Utility Matrix)]

Slot 2:

[Glacial Mirror Shield (Defensive Matrix)]

Slot 3:

[Empty]

Jaroth studied the two spell structures floating in his vision.

Displacement Sheath

provided short-range spatial relocation and created a brief illusory decoy.

Glacial Mirror Shield

offered dense, physical protection capable of reflecting incoming kinetic and magical energy, but it required a stationary cast.

Separately, both spells carried clear limitations. Spliced together, their structural mechanics complemented each other's flaws.

He focused his mind on both icons, pulling them together in the interface workspace.

"Fuse matrices," Jaroth whispered.

[Fusing Stored Matrices...]

[Synthesis Complete: Void-Refraction Aegis (Tier 1 Forbidden Art)]

Effect: Constructs an invisible, crystalline barrier that reflects 50% of incoming elemental spell damage back at the caster while rendering the user invisible for 3 seconds upon impact.

Current Slots Occupied: 1/3.

The blue light faded from his retinas. The new spell settled into his first memory slot, leaving two slots open for future harvests. He now possessed a defensive art that protected his body without producing a visible elemental flare, allowing him to defend himself while remaining undetected in the dark.

Dusk settled over Sub-Level 3 as workers lined up near the exit archway to clear the evening inspection.

Lady Katherine stood near the copper-bound mirror frame, flanked by Archivist Garrick. She watched the scribes pass one by one, her silver eyes sharp as she noted their posture, their hands, and their breathing. Most commoners walked with bowed heads, their shoulders slouched from exhaustion and fear of theEnforcers.

Jaroth stepped into the line, keeping his steps measured and his gaze fixed on the floor three feet ahead.

As he passed under the silver glass of the Rune-Tracing Mirror, the light swept over his wool tunic. The compressed matrix inside his static core remained invisible to the diagnostic beam, reflecting a hollow, mana-barren outline.

He walked past Katherine, keeping his distance.

Katherine's silver eyes lingered on Jaroth's face for a second longer than the others. She observed his steady breathing, his unburned hands, and the absence of tremor in his fingers despite standing near the Vault 7 explosion hours earlier.

Jaroth continued walking, stepping through the exit archway and heading toward the basement stairs.

Katherine turned her head slowly, her cold voice cutting through the quiet corridor.

"Garrick."

"Yes, my lady?" Garrick bowed quickly.

"Assign that scribe—Jaroth Drake—to my personal clearing detail in Vault 7 tomorrow morning," Katherine ordered, her gaze fixed on the dark hallway where Jaroth had vanished. "I want to see how he handles cold metal."