Lucen woke to the taste of iron.
His tongue was thick, dry, sticking to the roof of his mouth as his eyes cracked open against a wash of sterile white light. The ceiling above him wasn't stone or sky, but paneled metal, traced with faint mana lines pulsing steady.
He was in a med-bay. FHA standard issue.
The hum of monitoring glyphs filled the silence, a soft rhythm of magic keeping track of a body that felt like it had been set on fire, drowned, and dragged across glass.
'…Yeah. Still alive. That's good news, I guess.'
The system flickered across his vision before he even tried to summon it.
[Status — Stabilizing.]
[Level: 55]
[Mana Pool: 480/480]
[Corruption Load: 62% — Suppressed via external interference.]
[Condition: Severe Burnout.]
Lucen blinked at the last line. "…External interference?"
"You're welcome."
