Adam sat cross-legged across from Chloe, their knees almost touching, his hands resting loose on his thighs as he tried to hold onto a thought that refused to stay still.
Chloe watched him with open amusement, chin tilted slightly up, like she was already enjoying the outcome.
He closed his eyes and tried again, not reaching outward this time, but turning inward the way Aiva had explained it, the way it had been drilled into him until the idea itself felt simple even if the execution refused to follow.
Mind reading wasn't about guessing, or imagining, or forcing anything into shape. It was closer to a scan, like running a diagnostic across a system that was already active, except instead of hardware it was thought, and instead of electricity it was Lumen.
The first step was always the same: read yourself, because your own mind was the only place where the input and output existed at the same time, the only place where you could compare what you were thinking to the signal your Lumen was producing and start mapping one onto the other with actual certainty instead of guesswork.
Once that mapping clicked, once a mage understood what a specific pattern of Lumen meant in relation to a real thought or feeling, the rest followed logically, because then you could aim that same process outward, send Lumen into someone else's mind, catch the patterns, and interpret them in real time like reading a language you'd already learned.
It sounded clean in theory, almost obvious, which made the fact that he couldn't do it feel worse.
He tried to isolate a single thought, something simple, something stable, but the moment he focused on it, it changed shape, like looking directly at it made it shift into something else.
Okay, fine, don't look at it, just… feel it.
He tried that instead, letting the thought exist without pinning it down, while pushing Lumen through himself in a slow, controlled flow, searching for any kind of correspondence between what he knew he was thinking and what he could sense moving through his own lattice.
There was something there, faint and inconsistent, like static that almost formed a pattern before slipping apart again.
He pushed harder, trying to lock onto it, trying to force the connection into something usable.
It slipped.
He exhaled through his nose and opened his eyes.
Chloe didn't even bother hiding the grin. "You look like you're trying to do math without numbers."
"How helpful," Adam said flatly.
She shrugged, clearly pleased with herself. "I'm telling you already, this one is not for you."
He ignored that and closed his eyes again.
This wasn't like the other techniques where he could at least visualize the outcome and fail on execution. This one broke down earlier, at the level of understanding itself, like he was missing a piece of the logic that made the rest of it possible.
It's not guessing. It's not imagining. It's matching.
He thought to himself
So why the hell is not matching?
He tried again, slower this time, not chasing the thought but letting it sit, letting the Lumen move, trying to notice instead of force.
Nothing aligned.
He felt Chloe shift slightly in front of him, the movement small but deliberate.
"Fine, how about this—" she said, like she was adjusting the rules of a game she was already winning. "Give me your hand."
He opened one eye. "What?"
She held her hand out between them, palm up, fingers relaxed. "Just do it. It should be easier for you that way."
He hesitated for half a second, then reached forward and took her hand.
Her skin was warm, her grip loose but steady, and the contact grounded him more than he expected.
Chloe's smile sharpened. "You know palm readers, yeah?"
"Yeah, like the street scam thing?"
She nodded, clearly entertained. "Not a scam. Well, a little bit scam. But not because they are fake, it's because they don't explain what they actually do."
Adam glanced at their joined hands, then back at her. "Which is?"
"They read you," she said simply. "Not the future. Just you."
He frowned slightly, interest cutting through the frustration. "How?"
Chloe tapped lightly against his palm with her thumb, like she was demonstrating something invisible. "Contact makes channeling lumen through someone alot easier. Even if you're very weak, or a very messy mage like yourself, Sustaining a connection with one's brain is easier. They push a little Lumen, just enough to catch the surface signal, things you already think about, worry about, remember recently. Then they talk around it, make it sound big and vague, so you fill the rest yourself."
Adam let out a quiet huff of laughter, the explanation clicking into place with a kind of satisfying inevitability. "So they're basically just pulling real data and dressing it up."
"Exactly," Chloe said, clearly pleased he got it. "You hear something that feels personal, you think, wow, they must be right about everything else too."
"That's actually kind of cool," he said, still half laughing. "It's not even fake, it's just… Misleading."
She squeezed his hand once, quick and firm. "Now use it. Contact makes the signal clearer. You don't need perfect understanding, just try to catch something."
He nodded, the idea settling into something he could work with.
This time, when he closed his eyes, he didn't start with himself.
He focused on the point of contact, on the place where their hands met, and pushed a thin thread of Lumen outward instead of inward, letting it brush against her lattice the way he imagined the palm readers did.
At first, there was nothing.
Then something flickered.
It wasn't a thought, not in any recognizable form, just a faint pattern that felt distinct from his own, like a rhythm that didn't match his internal cadence.
He tried to hold onto it, to map it, to understand what it corresponded to.
It slipped the moment he tried to define it.
He tightened his grip slightly without meaning to, pushing more Lumen through the connection, trying to force clarity out of something that refused to stabilize.
The pattern broke completely.
He opened his eyes, tension settling into his shoulders.
"Still nothing," he said.
Chloe clicked her tongue. "Your too stiff. You are treating it like some equation instead of listening."
"It is an equation," Adam shot back. "You literally just explained it like one."
She rolled her eyes. "Technically yes, but you are not supposed to stare at it until it breaks."
He let out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
Across the room, Aiva shifted in her seat, the soft sound of pages closing drawing a brief glance from him before he refocused on Chloe.
"Try again," Chloe said, not letting him drift. "But this time, don't chase the meaning. Just notice the difference."
He nodded and closed his eyes again.
I doubt i'll see anything with these vague ass instructions
He thought to himself hoping she couldn't read his mind.
Their hands remained linked, the contact steady, and he let the Lumen move more gently this time, less like a probe and more like a brush.
Something flickered again, slightly clearer than before.
He leaned into it, just a little.
Aiva's voice cut in, light and composed. "You might want to ease the output, Adam. Any person with an intuition would notice you trying to probe them."
He flinched, the thread snapping instantly as his focus broke.
He opened his eyes, the moment gone.
Aiva was already standing closer than she had been before, her posture relaxed, her expression perfectly neutral as she looked between them.
"Physical contact helps," she added, tone smooth and instructional, like she hadn't interrupted anything at all. "But only if the signal remains stable."
Well it was stable a few seconds ago before someone just had to...
Adam nodded automatically, not thinking much of it. "Right, yeah, that makes sense."
Chloe's hand slipped from his as she leaned back, the attempt clearly over.
"See?" she said, stretching her fingers like she was done humoring him. "Even with help, still nothing."
Adam leaned back slightly, resting his hands behind him. "You're enjoying this way too much."
"Of course," she said without hesitation. "I told you from start, this one is not your thing."
He gave her a look. "You said that about the last three."
"And I was correct every time."
"Debatable."
She snorted, then leaned forward again, eyes narrowing slightly with something sharper than before. "You even know what I was trying to make you read this whole time?"
Adam blinked. "You were thinking something specific?"
"Yes," she said, clearly delighted now. "A very clear sentence."
"…what?"
Chloe's grin turned almost vicious. "Neo jin-jja jon-na byeong-shin-i-da."
Adam stared at her. "I'm sorry, what in the K-drama is even that?"
She blinked once, then burst out laughing. "What? No, idiot, it just Korean."
"Okay, well, excuse me for not keeping up with my international insult catalog. Care to translate?"
She wiped at her eye, still laughing. "It means, 'you're seriously a fucking idiot.'"
There was a beat of silence.
Adam leaned back a little further, eyebrows lifting in disbelief. "That's what you were broadcasting at me this entire time?"
"Yup."
"Wow," he said slowly. "I feel attacked."
"You were supposed to read it," she shot back. "Not my fault you are fucking idiot."
He let out a short laugh, shaking his head. "Wow, who eve taught you how to curse in english? AIva, is this your doing?" Adam asked turnng to Aiva while gesturing towards Chloe.
"Don't look at me." Aiva retoreted raising her hands up in a shrug as she couldn't help but laugh.
"I'm surrounded by idiots," Chloe said with a sigh.
Adam pushed himself upright again, still half smiling as he reached into his bag and pulled out a small, worn notebook.
Chloe tilted her head. "Whats that?"
"Documentation," he said, flipping it open.
The pages were filled with a running list, each line a technique, each one neatly crossed out in pen.
Telekinesis.
Mirage.
Mind Reading.
Lightning.
Resonance Pulse.
He uncapped his pen and drew a firm line through "Mind Reading," the ink cutting cleanly across the page.
"Another one bites the dust," he said.
Chloe leaned over slightly to look, her expression somewhere between impressed and amused. "You are just going to cross out everything then?"
"Pretty much," he said. "It's a bucket list at this point."
"More like a failure list."
"Same same i guess."
Aiva stepped closer, her earlier interruption long smoothed away, her voice warm again as she looked down at the notebook. "Well i don't think it's a failure."
He glanced up at her.
"I'd call it success," she continued, her tone steady and reassuring. "You're learning what doesn't come naturally, which is just as important as discovering what does."
He closed the notebook halfway, resting it against his knee.
"Not feeling that successful to be honest," he admitted.
Aiva smiled slightly, the expression softening her features. "You will. Every person's lattice is structured differently, which means certain techniques align more easily with the way your Lumen flows while others resist you no matter how much you practice. That doesn't mean you're incapable of learning them, only that they require significantly more effort compared to techniques that match your natural affinity."
Adam listened, the explanation settling into place with a quiet, uncomfortable logic.
"So I've just been… testing for that?" he asked.
"Exactly," she said. "Trial and error is the only reliable way to find it, and once you do, progress becomes much faster, trust me on this."
Chloe crossed her arms. "Plus you'll stop wasting time on things you are clearly bad at."
Aiva shot her a brief look, not unkind. "Or you approach them differently later, once your foundation is stronger."
Adam nodded slowly, the idea making sense even if it didn't make the list any shorter.
"Alright," he said, closing the notebook fully. "So I just keep going until something clicks then."
"Exactly" Aiva said.
Chloe stretched her arms over her head, clearly done for the night. "Or until you accept your hopeless."
He snorted. "Encouraging as always."
She smirked. "I try."
They started packing up in a loose, familiar rhythm, the session winding down without any formal end.
Adam slid the notebook back into his bag and stood, rolling his shoulders once to shake out the lingering tension.
They headed toward the exit together, the underground hall falling quiet behind them as the lights dimmed automatically.
As they walked, the conversation drifted into nothing, small comments and easy silence filling the space.
Adam kept his gaze forward, his mind turning over Aiva's words.
Natural affinity huh.
It made sense. Kinda
It explained a lot.
But as the thought settled, something quieter slipped in underneath it, something he didn't say out loud.
What if there isn't one.
He let the idea sit there for a moment, uncomfortable but not overwhelming, like a question he didn't have the answer to yet.
Then he exhaled softly and kept walking.