Chapter 7: The Artifact Beneath the Roots

It began with a whisper in the earth.

Not a voice. Not words. Just a pull, a magnetic hum beneath Harris's bare feet as he stood in the center of the Arcane Garden. His head was still sore from the night before, and his magical reserves felt thinner, like stretched thread.

But something had changed.

He felt it under the soil. Deep.

Alive.

He knelt and pressed his palm to the mossy ground. The hum grew stronger, vibrating softly through his bones. His silver eyes narrowed.

"There's something here," he whispered.

Something old.

Something waiting.

Driven by instinct, Harris began to dig.

Not wildly, but methodically. A few inches. Then deeper. He scraped past roots, dirt, small stones… until his fingers brushed something cold.

Metal.

He dug faster, heart thudding. The object was round, flat, and smooth, the size of a small plate. He cleared the dirt carefully and lifted it into the fading light.

It was a disc, ancient and tarnished, carved with swirling runes and a triangle enclosing a circle.

The same symbol that was stitched into the blanket he'd been found in as a baby.

His breath caught.

"Is this… connected to me?"

The runes were unfamiliar, but as he stared, something strange happened, they rearranged themselves in his mind, as if his brain was decoding them automatically.

"Memory-Seal. Trigger. Inheritance."

An inheritance?

He turned the disc over. On the back was a small depression, just large enough for a thumb. Without thinking, he pressed his finger into it.

The disc flashed with gold light, bright and blinding.

Then silence.

The world shifted.

He wasn't in the Arcane Garden anymore.

He stood in a gray void, soft fog swirling around him. In front of him, a figure appeared. Hooded. Faceless. Cloaked in shifting shadows.

Then it spoke.

"If you are seeing this… you are one of us."

The voice echoed with power, ancient and calm.

"You are a Seeker, a soul cast between worlds, reborn with purpose.

This artifact contains a fragment of knowledge. A gift. A test."

The fog thickened, and glowing glyphs floated in the air around Harris, spinning, burning into his mind.

Rune Magic.

Not the kind Hogwarts taught. Not the classroom-level etch-and-pronounce spells.

This was deeper, the fundamentals of binding energy to symbols, of anchoring magic into reality using lines, angles, intention, and blood.

His body trembled as information flooded in.

How to craft runes. How to inscribe them onto objects. How to combine them into arrays.

How to weave spells into the world itself.

Then the figure's voice returned, softer now.

"Master these, and more shall come. The path of the Seeker is long.

But the world you walk will need you."

The vision faded.

And Harris collapsed in the garden, gasping, eyes glowing faint gold before returning to silver.

The disc was still in his hand, dark and quiet now.

But something had changed inside him.

He knew how to draw power into symbols. How to build traps, barriers, enhancements. How to make his magic last longer, strike harder, remain hidden.

He had unlocked a new system of magic, one lost to most wizards.

His hand trembled as he whispered, "Runecraft… this is my first key."

From now on, it wasn't just training.

It was uncovering a legacy.