GameDev Reincarnated into His Own Creation

Vol 2 - Chapter 28.2: Recursive Expansion

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Vel shrugged. "We have to start somewhere."

They gathered around Vel's diagram, working through the logic as a team.

"So following the Stormbringer pattern... Aqu-alea-voltis Aretum?" Tomas suggested.

"That's for the full-sized spell," Rohen pointed out. "We're making it smaller."

Vel's interface displayed the answer with crystalline clarity. The complete incantation hovered before his eyes, perfect and final. His hands clenched at his sides. Should he follow through? Should he break his own rule just this once?

Before he could wrestle with the choice any longer, Lyvenna approached. "You need to account for the size change. For contained spells, 'minor retum' becomes 'mino-retum' with the blending."

Vel exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. Lyvenna had given them the key without him having to abandon his principles. Thank you.

All eyes turned to Enya. She was the only one with air-water affinity who could attempt this spell.

Her hand stretched toward the vast empty training space. Then she took a deep breath, centering herself and holding her focus crystal steady.

"Aqu-alea-voltis mino-retum."

The instant those words left her lips, something responded. Her voice layered with impossible harmonies—echoes that had never been spoken, otherworldly resonance cascading from somewhere beyond the physical world. As if three different spirits were speaking through her throat simultaneously, transforming her simple incantation into an ethereal chorus.

Even Enya flinched, startled by the resonance coming from her own throat.

Above the sand, a small dark cloud began to form. Lightning crackled within its swirling mass, contained and controlled. The spell held exactly as she'd imagined it, lasting as long as she could maintain focus.

Never before had Enya cast magic that truly worked.

She stared in wonder as lightning bolts struck downward at random intervals, each crackling with contained power. Unpredictable, chaotic—yet exactly as she'd envisioned. The spell obeyed her will while embracing its wild nature.

Around her, jaws dropped. Here was the impossible—an "unstable" student casting magic with true intent and control.

Controlled chaos.

After nearly a full minute, Enya finally released her focus. The dark cloud dissolved with a gentle puff, leaving only scattered patches of glass in the sand where lightning had struck.

No one spoke.

Enya stared at her own hands, watching them tremble. The glass fragments caught the gold dawnlight like fallen stars—beautiful, intentional, hers.

Her knees buckled. She caught herself on one hand, the other pressed against her mouth as if to hold back a sob that had been building for years.

Tomas's wand clattered to the ground. Mira sat up slowly, afraid to move too quickly. Even Rohen froze, mesmerized.

"Did you see that?" Enya whispered through her fingers, voice breaking. "It didn't fizzle out. It didn't explode or turn against me or—"

She looked up at her classmates, tears threatening to fall.

"I'm not broken."

The silence that followed was profound. Years of self-doubt, of being told they were flawed, of watching other students succeed while they failed—all of it crumbled in the face of those scattered glass fragments.