Chapter 1 1 Running A Scam

Wolfe looked down at the drill in his hands and then back to the recharging inscription on the table beside him. Sure, it was a crime to create a fake spell inscription, but how would the Witches ever know it was him? He needed some quick cash, and the guard patrols that had actual witches among them almost never came this far down into the lower levels anyhow.

Ever since the war between the Magi and the Witch Covens, who had allied with all of the world's mundane armies, and wiped out every Magi strong enough to activate even a simple Cantrip, the Covens had ruled this portion of the world.

In some ways, it was for the betterment of society, with Magic being integrated with technology to create new and wondrous devices. Still, it had come at a cost beyond the devastation of a global thermonuclear war.

Only those with Witch blood could activate the enchantments, and their skills were needed to power them when the initial charge ran out. Of course, they were happy to do so, as long as you could pay. They began marketing Mana Crystals that anyone could use to recharge magical items, bringing magic into the mainstream for every citizen under their rule.

Over time, mana replaced the entire mundane power grid within the fortress cities that the survivors had sheltered in to ride out the aftermath of the war. It was clean energy, infinitely renewable, and, best of all, hoardable. The wealthiest could physically hold them, ensuring their access to magic even without a Witch nearby.

But without the Noble Bloodline, they couldn't create them, so they would never be more than wealthy. The Witches were the true aristocrats, and one hundred years after the war, they had the Governments of the slowly recovering nations codify it into law.

Sure, a few resisted, but they couldn't last long when facing an opponent who could deactivate their entire nation's infrastructure on a whim. The Coven Leaders, more commonly called the Queens, pulled the mana out of the energy grids of those who opposed them, sending entire fortress cities with populations of millions back to the stone age until they repented.

That was how the dream of equality and Democracy died long before Wolfe was born.

The monopoly of the Witches on magical items, thanks to their exclusive ability to use magic, was what Wolfe was planning to take advantage of today.

Magical items were expensive but useful. The inscription that the drawing he had in front of him was copied from would keep the batteries of a power tool charged for a month with a single unit of energy from a Mana Crystal.

A Unit was worth ten credits, not a high price to pay, but the inscription itself was worth three hundred credits. If he could inscribe it onto this plain drill from the Pawn Shop, he could clean and resell the tool for two hundred credits after the shop took their cut off the top.

Nobody would ever know the inscription was fake until the batteries died and they tried to refresh it. You couldn't add more mana to an active inscription, so the shop should think that the tool was authentic and active, not just freshly recharged from the wall outlet.

He would have to do that later. The pawn shop owner he bought it from was too cheap to use his own electricity to recharge even a simple power tool, so the drill was stone dead right now.

Using the copy of the inscription as a template, Wolfe carefully inscribed the lines into the battery pack, then filled the etching with silver paint.

It should have real silver and a number of other ingredients in it to make the spell work, but even if Wolfe had been born into a Witch-Blooded Family, he was a young man, not a Noble Daughter who could possibly use magic.

Wolfe added the final symbols to the circle, and suddenly a stabbing pain shot through his hand like he had been burned.

"Dammit, I thought I checked that this thing was discharged first. It shouldn't have shocked me even if I carved too deep." He muttered, glaring at the device in his hands.

Hopefully, he hadn't damaged the battery pack. The whole hoax would be worthless if the tool were broken.

The lights on the battery pack were glowing now, showing 1 percent battery. Then two and three. As Wolfe watched, the charge indication climbed until the pack showed fully charged.

There was no way that the inscription worked. Every kid in the city knew someone who had been scammed by a reseller peddling forged magical items. If just drawing the circle was enough, the Witches would have never gained the level of power they had, and every item would be a magical item within a week of being purchased.

Hesitantly, Wolfe pulled the trigger, and the drill spun to life, happily whirring away with a full battery.

Wolfe's thoughts were racing in joy at his discovery. "It worked? That's simply not possible. But if it really worked, doesn't that mean I can sell these anywhere without fear of being called out? Even the high-end shops that pay top dollar wouldn't turn me away if the enchantment actually worked."

The rumour in the neighbourhood was that the Noxus Family were descended from Magi who had escaped the Culling and that the current family head, Wolfe's distant relative, who he courteously referred to as his Uncle, could kill people with a touch.

Wolfe had always taken that as superstition, as he had personally seen his Uncle shoot a failed assassin from another family, but now he wondered if there might be some truth to it.

The problem was that if he openly tried to verify his lineage and abilities, there were no good outcomes for him. If the rumour were false, he would be humiliated and chastised for spreading rumours that damaged the reputation of the family.

If he was right, and he was really from a family of former Magi, then his easy life of running deliveries in the daytime and playing games or doing side hustles at night would be over the moment that anyone caught wind of it and reported it to the Witches.

The Coven laws would issue the death penalty to any man who showed an affinity for magic, and sometimes even witches who practiced magic without being a member of the Coven.

Either way, an actual Magic user who wasn't a Witch was unheard of in the past few centuries. If they found out he could use this power, the Noxus Family wouldn't risk him being exposed and having a rival Family capture him for their own ends.

The ability to actually use magic was far too precious of a secret to let anyone else learn of it.

So, Wolfe made a plan. He would go to the pawn shop and pretend to be retiring as a construction worker to move into a better career. He was old enough to have finished his basic education now, and with the Noxus Family name, the act would be believable. He even had the Family tattoo on his arm to verify his gainful employment story.

He would enchant three more batteries if he could get the inscription to work again and then sell two full sets of tools, each with a spare battery.

That would net him an easy thousand Credit profit, and he would be set for at least a month. It was a scam he could only run once at two different shops in different territories, but Wolfe was more interested in learning about what he could do with these newfound powers.

The world he grew up in was a relatively good one, at least for someone allied with a strong Crime Family who could claim a large portion of one of the floors within the Fortress City as their own territory, but it would be better with more power.

The Noxus Family took him into the Family business after the unfortunate demise of his parents in a car accident. Like the hundreds of other families that populated the lower floors, they were more closely related to a pre-war criminal organization than a mundane corporation. It was a life that many in the City dreamed of, even with the inherent risks.

Wolfe thought back to what he could recall from the history classes he had taken in school, hoping that something in those lessons could help in this situation.

The war between the Magi and the rest of the world had devastated the planet to the point that it was only now recovering. Humanity had moved into fortress cities, sheltered against the pollution and radioactive fallout of the war.

Where the Witches excelled in nature magic, potions and enchantments, the Magi had been innate Elemental Magic users. When the world turned against them, they did not go down easily.

The exact details had been scrubbed from history to discourage anyone from attempting to emulate their actions, but what everyone knew was that a large portion of one Continent was lost to the seas, dragged under by overwhelming Earth Elemental magic that shifted the tectonic plates.

That was when the mundane armies resorted to nuclear weapons. The citizens were herded to the newly created fortress cities for their safety as the war engulfed the world.

None of that really helped Wolfe, but it did give him hope that maybe he could do more than just recharge batteries.

Maybe he could recharge Mana Crystals as well? They might be used to recharge magical items, but they were legal currency with a value set by their current charge.

How awesome would it be if he could create his own money?