The Broken Magic System: I Level Up by Failing

Chapter 7) Chasing Down The Damn Truth

The decision had already been made, at least, in Cael's mind.

He stood by the window, the last rays of sunlight warming the cold frame as he stared out at the city below. His expression was unreadable, but something deep in his eyes flickered with restrained fire. Behind him, Vey leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"So you really want to go back there?" Vey finally asked. His voice was calm, but there was a tension beneath it, like a taut string waiting to snap.

Cael nodded slowly. "They tortured me in that place. I need to know why. I need to understand what they were trying to break out of me." His hand tightened into a fist. "And if the black market is involved, if it's all connected, then I want answers. I'm not just going back for closure."

"Revenge?" Vey tilted his head.

"Answers first," Cael replied. "But if revenge comes along the way... I won't stop it."

For a few seconds, silence hung between them.

Then Vey shrugged. "Alright. I'll go with you."

Cael turned. "You don't have to."

"I know," Vey said simply. "But you think I'm going to let you walk into that place alone?"

Cael let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Thanks."

"I'm not doing it for you," Vey added with a grin. "I'm doing it for the drama."

Cael smirked, but didn't argue. He turned and began packing.

While Cael methodically slipped a small knife into a hidden pocket of his jacket and checked the rest of his gear, Vey stayed as he was, unmoving. Watching. Waiting.

"You're not bringing anything?" Cael asked, glancing at him.

Vey shrugged again. "I don't need to. If things go south, I have myself."

"Confident."

"Prepared," Vey corrected.

It was close to twilight when they left the dorms. The streets were quieter than usual, though the ambient hum of the city was still present, distant traffic, murmurs from open windows, a dog barking far away. The zone they were headed toward wasn't just unfamiliar. It was forbidden. It was the kind of place where the lights dimmed without reason and the shadows stretched a little too long.

As they walked, neither spoke for the first ten minutes. Then, as the concrete jungle slowly gave way to more twisted alleys and forgotten corners, conversation stirred between them, unforced, almost lighthearted.

"Didn't think I'd be back in this part of the city," Cael muttered.

"What, miss it already?" Vey grinned.

Cael rolled his eyes. "I don't miss bloodstains on the floor and the smell of piss and iron."

"Poetic."

"I try."

They continued for over two hours, taking turns through rusted fences, bypassing old security nodes that had long since stopped working, and weaving between collapsed buildings swallowed by vines and dirt.

At one point, Cael stopped and crouched down near a burnt-out lightpost. He touched the rust with two fingers, eyes narrowing. "We're close."

Vey crouched beside him. "You remember the exact spot?"

"Yeah, that dumbass just walked me into there.."

Vey didn't respond. Instead, he stood up slowly and glanced around the darkened street. "Then we need to be ready. Just in case."

He didn't wait for permission. In one fluid motion, Vey stepped back and raised his right hand, palm open. A brief flicker of violet shimmered in the air around him. Cael watched as the shimmer grew, solidified, and then split.

A second Vey emerged beside him. Identical. Flawless. From the casual posture to the mischievous smile.

Illusion.

"He can take a hit or two," Vey said. "Buy me time if I need to slip behind someone. Or draw fire."

"Not your full power?" Cael asked.

"No," Vey answered. "Just a glimpse. If I showed you the full thing, it wouldn't be fair."

"To who?"

"To reality."

Cael scoffed. "Show-off."

Vey grinned. "Says the guy planning to waltz back into his own trauma site."

They moved again.

The buildings were tighter now. More enclosed. The streets felt narrower, as if the world itself was pressing inward. Vey fell quiet for a long stretch, and Cael knew better than to interrupt him. He could feel the unease creeping into his own chest now, winding around his ribs like a cold wire.

As they approached the final corner before the hidden lot where Cael had once been held, he paused.

"Here," he said. His voice was barely above a whisper.

Vey nodded, and with a flick of his hand, the illusion-Vey split off and walked ahead, silently scouting. The real Vey remained beside Cael, eyes sharp and alert.

They crouched behind a collapsed metal beam, peeking around the edge toward the warehouse ahead. From the outside, it looked the same, abandoned, hollow, forgotten. But Cael knew better. He could still hear the buzz of the old lamp inside. Still see the cracked tile where his blood had dried.

Vey tapped his shoulder. "No movement."

"Yet."

Cael exhaled. "Let's go."

They stepped out from cover, cautious but steady, moving as one. The door loomed ahead, old, crooked, still stained with a line of something brownish-red. Cael pushed it open slowly.

The air inside hit him like a wall. Stale. Damp. Thick with dust and memory.

The room was empty.

At first.

Then…

A noise. Light.

Footsteps above.

Cael's pulse surged.

But he didn't retreat. This was what he came for.

…

The silence didn't last long.

Two shadows moved at the far end of the corridor.

Guards.

They were lean, armored in patchwork gear, and carried rifles with the ease of men who'd fired them too many times. One had a scar running down his cheek; the other walked with a limp and a cigarette smoldering between his lips. Their boots tapped steadily on the cracked tiles as they rounded the corner, chatting in low voices.

Cael held up a hand, signaling Vey to stop.

"Two," he whispered. "Just ahead."

"Let me," Vey replied, already shifting his stance.

"No," Cael said quietly. "I need to try it."

He stepped forward, calm, slow, deliberate. As the guards turned and saw him, eyes widening, Cael's body glowed for an instant. A faint ripple of energy passed through his skin. The world seemed to blur, the edges of reality pulling back for just a breath.

And then he was gone.

To their eyes, Cael vanished in an instant, only to reappear behind them with an audible pulse of displaced air. Before they could react, he struck.

The first crumpled with a brutal elbow to the base of the neck; the second spun, firing blindly, but the bullet ricocheted off the wall behind Cael. In one motion, Cael swept his leg beneath the man and slammed him into the floor with a crack.

Silence.

Vey whistled low, stepping out from cover. "Alright, alright. That was something."

Cael shook out his hand, feeling the faint burn of energy still laced in his bones. "That was only the first one."

"First what?"

"One of the three."

Vey raised a brow. "You didn't tell me you could blink behind people."

"I didn't know I could either. Not like that."

"Well," Vey said, nudging the downed man with his boot, "glad you found out before we got surrounded."

Cael looked down at his palm, still pulsing faintly with bluish threads of power. His first ability had triggered instinctively, and cleanly. It felt right. Like something deep inside him had simply remembered what to do.

"Let's keep going," he said.

They passed through the corridor in silence now, their senses heightened. Every creak of old wood or buzz of flickering light felt magnified. The building was vast, a patchwork of industrial wings, side rooms, offices, and storage zones built on top of one another like a bad afterthought.

"This place wasn't built to last," Vey muttered, eyeing the exposed piping overhead.

"Doesn't need to. Just needs to hide things well."

"And hurt people in the meantime?"

"Exactly."

They reached a fork in the hall, left led into a narrow stairwell; right descended into what looked like a holding bay filled with rusted machinery. Cael paused.

"Downstairs," he said. "Boss's office should be at sub-level one."

"You sure?"

"I remember the footsteps when they dragged me down. Three steps past the broken light, turn left. That's where the big door is."

Vey looked at him carefully. "You okay?"

"I will be once we're out of here."

They took the stairs.

The air grew colder with each level they descended. Muffled voices echoed somewhere far off, too distorted to make out. A soft hum vibrated through the walls, generators maybe, or some ancient ventilation still kicking.

As they reached sub-level one, the stairwell opened into a wide corridor lined with reinforced doors. Most were shut, sealed with rusted biometric locks. One, however, hung open.

Inside, crates. Shelves. A stockroom.

Cael glanced in. "Storage."

"Not what we're looking for," Vey replied, already walking past. "Unless you want to carry out three boxes of assault ammo."

"No thanks. Not unless we're leaving in style."

They kept moving. The deeper they went, the more it felt like a mission, tight movements, silent steps, eyes scanning every corner. Twice they ducked behind corners as patrols passed, whispering to each other, unaware of the intruders slipping through their midst.

"You ever done something like this?" Cael asked as they crouched behind a forklift.

"Like what? Infiltrating a gangster-infested warehouse in the middle of nowhere with no backup and no plan?"

"Yeah. That."

Vey grinned. "Every Friday."

They passed through a boiler room, a maintenance corridor, and a grim little office with a shattered monitor still flickering static. Each space they moved through added to the sense of weight , as if the building itself carried memory. Violence soaked into the walls.

Finally, they reached it.

A thick steel door stood at the end of the hallway, framed by scorched plaster and bullet marks. No sign, no label, but Cael remembered it. Vividly. He could almost feel the cold concrete on his back again, the voices above him, the weight of someone's boot on his chest.

"This is it," he whispered.

Vey stepped forward and ran a finger across the door's lock panel. "Still has power. I could short it."

Cael stared at the panel. "Or we do it my way."

"Which is?"

"Knock."

He raised his fist and slammed it against the metal three times.

Silence.

Then, movement inside.

A click.

And the door slid open just a crack.

A voice growled from within. "Who the hell, ?"

Cael kicked the door in.

It swung inward violently, crashing against the wall. Inside, two men scrambled to their feet behind a metal desk covered in monitors and blueprints. One reached for a weapon, but Cael was already moving.

He used his blink again, shorter range this time. He appeared right in front of the armed man and disarmed him with a twist of the wrist. A knee to the gut and the man folded.

Vey strolled in after him, illusion-clone already sliding along the opposite wall like a wraith. The second man turned, aiming for Vey, but shot the clone instead.

"Wrong one," Vey said cheerfully, stepping behind him and slamming his head against the wall.

The room fell still again.

Cael approached the desk, scanning the monitors. Most showed camera feeds, many offline, some still active. One showed the entrance. Another displayed what looked like a lab. But the center screen held his attention.

It showed a symbol.

A black ring, stylized. Minimalist. Brutal.

Cael touched the monitor.

"That's it," he muttered. "The Black Market."

"Wait, this is them? This place is a branch?"

"A node," Cael replied. "Not the main base. But a route. A link."

Vey whistled. "No wonder they were torturing people. They were protecting this."

Cael rummaged through the desk drawers, pulling out folders, keys, comm units. One folder had shipping logs, equipment sent to other cities, names coded with letters and strings of numbers.

"These codes..." Cael murmured. "They're supply chains. Weapons. Serums. Contacts."

"They're not just a market," Vey said, reading over his shoulder. "They're a network."

Cael looked at him, eyes sharp. "A resource. Whoever controls the Black Market doesn't just profit. They dictate flow, tech, contracts, names. It's leverage."

Vey's smile faded. "Then we can't just shut them down."

"No. But we can follow the threads."

Before they could say more, footsteps echoed again, closer this time. Reinforcements.

Cael grabbed the folder and shoved it into his jacket. "Let's move. We're not here to die pretty."

They slipped out a side door, exiting into another corridor that looped back toward the upper levels. This time, guards were mobilizing, shouting orders, radio static filling the air. The silence was over.

But the mission wasn't.

Not even close.

Cael furrowed his brows, his voice low as they stepped over a fallen shelves. "It's not just about finding allies through the Black Market anymore, is it?" His eyes flicked sideways to Vey, a sharpness in them that hadn't been there before.

Vey let out a short breath, almost a scoff, but there was no humor in it. He gave a slow nod, his jaw tightening. "Yeah… it's about chasing down the damn truth." His gaze stayed fixed ahead, but his fists clenched just slightly at his sides.