The Nullborn’s City

Energis-7 was a city of light.
Not just neon. Not just street lamps.
Magic woven into steel.

Skyscrapers glowed with etched runes, whole towers pulsing like circuit boards turned inside-out. Mana grids hummed under the streets, their faint ozone tang leaking through every grate. Holo-ads projected across rooftops, shimmering with spell-script that shifted languages mid-sentence to match whoever glanced up.

Everywhere I looked, kids showed it off. Sparks dancing between their fingers. Runes glowing across their notebooks. Even the classroom air shimmered when someone sneezed—mana answering like an obedient pet, rippling the light like a glitch in the sky.

Everyone shined.

Except me.

“Again.” The instructor’s voice was flat, almost bored. His rune-slate glowed faintly blue in his hands, recording every flicker of success, every failure. “Draw the rune. Focus your flow.”

I pressed my palm to the chalk symbol glowing faintly on the desk, the runic grid etched into the wood humming as it waited for power. I wanted it to glow so badly my chest ached. Just once—let it flicker. Let me belong.

The rune stayed dead.

The girl beside me rolled her eyes, her rune blazing so bright the ward-lights overhead flickered in response. She whispered to her friend, not quietly enough:

“Figures. Nullborn.”

The word landed like a stone in my gut. Same as always.

I forced my hand away from the rune-grid and picked up my pencil instead. If mana wouldn’t answer me, then fine. I’d build something that would. My notebook was already filled with sketches—pipes, chambers, crystal slots. Hybrids of magic and tech I’d scavenged from the city skyline. A weapon that could fake the spark everyone else was born with.

“Don’t forget, Temo,” Grandma’s voice echoed in memory. “There were worlds before magic. People who built their own power. If they could, so can you.”

The instructor sighed, the rune-slate dimming in his hand. “Kuroganezu, you may leave. You’re wasting the class’s time.”

I closed the notebook carefully, ignoring the stares that followed me out. On the page was a half-finished drawing: a barrel, a crystal chamber, a trigger.

A gun that could fire spells without a drop of mana.

If the world wouldn’t give me magic, I’d make my own.