Webnovel's Extra: Reincarnated With a Copy Ability-Chapter 29: Demon’s Shadow

Lucas had always trusted his strength.

Not in the blind way the arrogant did—he wasn’t stupid enough to believe power made him invincible—but in the way a person trusted their own lungs to breathe and their own hands to grip.

Ever since his awakening, power had been the one thing in his life that didn’t lie. It responded when he called it, surged when he demanded it, and quieted when he steadied his thoughts. Even when his training became brutal, even when he lost fights or got pushed into corners, his strength still followed rules. It still made sense.

Lately, nothing did.

The training hall was empty when he arrived. That wasn’t unusual—Lucas preferred the hours when the rest of the academy slept, when the air was colder, when there were no eyes to read him and no whispers to build stories around him.

The Triangle never truly slept, but it did thin out. Patrol drones passed at intervals. Distant halls glowed. Somewhere far away, metal clanged and someone shouted corrections at a sparring pair. Here, though, silence held the room like a lid.

And for some reason, tonight the silence felt wrong.

It wasn’t that Lucas was nervous. He didn’t do nervous. But his skin prickled as if the air itself expected a mistake. He rolled his shoulders, loosened his wrists, and drew his sword with a smooth, familiar motion.

The blade hummed faintly as it cleared the sheath—clean, balanced, better than he deserved if the academy were fair about handing out artifacts. Lucas took his stance, exhaled through his nose, and guided mana into his channels the way he had done a thousand times.

Mana surged.

Too fast.

It wasn’t a gentle rise. It wasn’t a controlled flow. It raced up his arm like a snapped leash—sharp, erratic, and hot in a way that didn’t match his own temperature. Lucas’s grip tightened instinctively.

He tried to redirect, to widen the pathway, to smooth the turbulence before it reached his wrist and shoulder. He’d corrected flow problems before. He’d adjusted pressure on the fly in combat. He knew how.

Pain lanced through his wrist.

"Tch—!"

The sword slipped from his fingers and crashed to the floor with a hard metallic ring that echoed off the training hall walls. Lucas staggered back, clutching his arm as mana dispersed unevenly through his system.

The feeling it left behind made his stomach twist—not the usual exhaustion, not the familiar drained ache after overuse, but something oily and wrong, like residue that didn’t belong in a human body.

Lucas clenched his jaw and forced his breathing to steady. He flexed his fingers. The pain lingered, sharp at the joint, and the inside of his channels felt... irritated. Like they had been scraped.

This wasn’t fatigue. He knew what fatigue was. This wasn’t a simple overload, either. Overloads burned. They made you shake, made your core feel hollow. This was different.

It was instability.

"...Again," Lucas muttered, more angry than afraid. Anger was easier. Anger didn’t make you question yourself.

A low chuckle answered him.

It didn’t echo in the hall. It echoed in his skull.

You’re forcing it.

Lucas froze. The voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a weight that made the room feel smaller. Ancient. Patient. Amused in a way that didn’t bother hiding its superiority.

"Zagan," Lucas said quietly, staring at the sword on the floor. "What did you do."

I didn’t do anything, the demon replied lazily. You did.

Lucas’s teeth ground together. "My mana never behaved like this before."

Because before, Zagan said, you were borrowing it.

The words struck deeper than the pain. Lucas’s chest tightened, not from panic, but from an unwanted realization that he didn’t fully understand what he was doing.

"Borrowing it? What are you talking about?"

A pause, like the demon enjoyed letting uncertainty fester.

It means you weren’t producing anything close to true mana. You were channeling what I allowed you to channel. A controlled stream. A faucet, not a spring.

Lucas’s fingers curled into a fist. "So what changed?"

You changed, Zagan answered. Your body adapted. Your channels widened. Your core learned patterns it shouldn’t have learned. You’re not just channeling anymore. You’re trying to generate.

Lucas’s heart jumped despite himself.

"That’s... good, isn’t it? That means I’m improving."

Silence.

Then the demon’s voice returned, colder than before.

No.

Lucas swallowed. "Why?"

Because humans are not meant to generate mana, Zagan said simply. You can host it. You can carry it.

You can borrow it in small amounts under a contract. But when your system begins to mimic it... it becomes unstable. It twists your channels. It changes your instincts. And if you push too hard, it will burn you from the inside.

Lucas stared at his shaking hand. The training hall suddenly felt too bright, too open. He forced his shoulders to lower, forced control into his breathing. "Why now?"

Because you’re close to a threshold, Zagan replied. And because you’re close to people you shouldn’t be close to.

An image appeared in Lucas’s mind before he could stop it: Dreyden Stella—Jack—standing too calmly in an arena, smiling like a man watching a machine work. The way he moved without excess. The way he never seemed to be surprised. The way he watched Lucas like Lucas was a future problem, not a person.

"...You mean him," Lucas said.

Zagan didn’t bother denying it.

I don’t fear him, the demon said. Which is worse.

Lucas frowned. "That makes no sense."

It will.

Lucas opened his mouth to argue, but footsteps echoed at the entrance of the hall—slow, steady, unhurried. Lucas turned sharply.

Jack stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, expression neutral in the way a knife was neutral. Not friendly. Not hostile.

Just present. His eyes swept the hall in one quick pass: the sword on the floor, the faint distortion of lingering mana in the air, Lucas’s posture, the slight tremor in Lucas’s wrist.

"Your stance was off," Jack said calmly, like he was commenting on a minor training mistake. "You’re overcompensating with mana."

Lucas’s spine stiffened. "How long were you watching?"

"Long enough."

Jack stepped into the hall. His footsteps were quiet, but not sneaky—he didn’t move like someone hiding. He moved like someone who didn’t care if you noticed. That was almost worse. "That wasn’t normal," Jack added, nodding toward the residue in the air.

"You’ve had irregular flow for days."

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. "You’ve been tracking me."

Jack shrugged. "I track patterns. Yours changed."

Lucas’s throat tightened. The demon in his head went quiet—too quiet. Lucas hated that silence more than Zagan’s voice.

"It’s been happening more often," Lucas admitted, because denying it would be pointless.

Jack nodded once, like he’d already expected the answer. "I figured."

Lucas snapped his gaze up. "You figured?"

"You pause between transitions," Jack said, his tone clinically calm. "Not in reaction time. In decision time. You hesitate, then you force the flow harder to compensate. Like you’re negotiating with something before you move."

Cold crept down Lucas’s back. That description was too accurate. Too invasive.

"...You notice too much," Lucas said.

"Habit," Jack replied.

They stood in silence for a moment, the kind that wasn’t empty but measured. Lucas felt the urge to say something sharp, something defensive, something that would put distance back between them.

But the truth was already there: Jack had seen him fail, and Jack hadn’t looked shocked. He’d looked... unsurprised.

"You think I’m unstable," Lucas said.

Jack considered the words. "I think you’re changing faster than your system can support."

"You sound like an instructor," Lucas scoffed, though the sound came out rougher than he intended.

"Instructors report problems," Jack said. "They delay action until the problem becomes a lesson. Oversight doesn’t delay."

Lucas’s grip tightened around his injured wrist. "And what, you’re Oversight now?"

Jack’s eyes hardened—not threatening, but honest. "No. I’m the guy telling you what happens if they notice first."

Lucas stared at him. "Say it."

Jack didn’t flinch. "If your mana instability becomes visible in the wrong moment, someone in authority will decide you’re a liability or a resource. They’ll either fix you or cut you open to find out how you work. And the kind of ’fix’ they use won’t care if you survive it."

Lucas’s chest went tight. He hated that Jack’s words didn’t sound dramatic. They sounded practical. Like a weather report.

Zagan’s voice slipped back into Lucas’s mind, amused.

He’s not wrong.

Lucas shut his eyes for half a second, forcing his temper down. "So what? You came to warn me out of kindness?"

Jack’s expression didn’t change. "Kindness is expensive."

Lucas’s eyes sharpened. "Then why?"

Jack looked at the sword on the floor, then back at Lucas. "Because if you collapse at the wrong time, you become everyone’s problem. Including mine."

The honesty stung more than any insult would have. Lucas didn’t know whether to feel offended or relieved. At least Jack wasn’t pretending.

Jack bent, picked up Lucas’s sword by the hilt without asking, and held it out. Lucas hesitated—then took it. The moment their fingers almost touched, Lucas felt an odd sensation, like Jack’s presence was colder than the room.

"Don’t force mana when your flow spikes," Jack said. "If you feel turbulence, stop. Reset. Let it settle. And stop showing that sword style in public."

Lucas stiffened again. "You’re still on that?"

"Yes," Jack replied. "Because you’re not the only one who sees it."

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. "Who else?"

Jack didn’t answer directly. "Enough people that the risk isn’t theoretical."

Lucas swallowed. "And if I can’t stop it?"

Jack’s gaze held his. "Then learn to hide it better until you can."

That was the most dangerous thing Jack had said. Not the warning. Not the threat of Oversight. The implication that secrecy was normal. That hiding was acceptable. That survival outweighed rules.

Jack turned to leave.

"Wait," Lucas said quickly, surprising himself. Jack paused but didn’t turn around yet. Lucas’s pride fought his need, and for once, need won. "If it gets worse... will you tell anyone?"

Jack was silent long enough that Lucas thought he might not answer at all. Then Jack said, without emotion, "Not unless it becomes my problem."

Lucas didn’t know if that was reassurance or a knife held close to his throat. Before he could decide, Jack walked out. The door slid shut behind him with a soft mechanical sound.

Lucas stood alone, sword in hand, feeling the hall’s emptiness swallow him again. His wrist still throbbed. The residue in the air still felt wrong. Zagan laughed softly, satisfied.

You see? the demon murmured. Even your allies weigh you by usefulness.

Lucas gripped the sword harder until his knuckles whitened. "Shut up."

Zagan’s laughter thinned into amusement.

You wanted power. Power comes with chains. The difference is whether you see them.

Lucas stared at the blade’s reflection.

It shimmered faintly along the metal, his face distorted by the curve. For the first time since he entered the Triangle, he felt something he rarely allowed himself to feel: fear. Not fear of losing a fight, not fear of dying—he’d already accepted death was possible the day he stepped into this academy.

Fear of becoming something he didn’t control.

If mana changed him, if it rewrote his instincts, if it made him... less human, then what was left of him? What would happen if Zagan decided Lucas was no longer useful? What would happen if Jack decided Lucas was now a liability?

Lucas exhaled slowly and lowered the sword. He forced his shoulders to drop, forced his stance to reset. He did what Jack said—stopped forcing, stopped pushing, let the turbulence settle. The oily residue faded slightly, though it still left an aftertaste in his channels.

He hated that the advice worked.

Elsewhere in the academy, Jack walked the corridor with steady steps, the same way he walked everywhere—as if he didn’t belong to the flow of student life, but to something beneath it. His mind was already reorganizing. Lucas’s instability wasn’t a disaster yet. It was a warning. A crack.

Cracks could be exploited.

Or they could swallow you if you ignored them.

Jack didn’t like unpredictability. He didn’t like emotional variables. Lucas was both—especially with a demon whispering into his mind. Jack could almost feel the invisible tension around the protagonist lately, like the air bent slightly where he stood. Mana wasn’t just power; it was a signature. It left traces. Traces attracted attention.

And attention attracted institutions.

Oversight would notice Lucas eventually. That was inevitable. The only question was when, and under what conditions. Jack didn’t need Lucas to be stable forever—he needed Lucas to be stable long enough. Long enough for Jack’s own positioning to harden.

Long enough for the underworld threads he’d begun tugging to become real leverage. Long enough for Maya’s shadow moves to either become an asset or reveal themselves as a threat.

Jack’s pace never changed, but his thoughts sharpened into something colder.

Lucas wasn’t broken.

Not yet.

But he was no longer reliable.

That made him either a future weapon to be aimed...

Or a future liability to be discarded.

Jack reached the corner, passed beneath a dim corridor light, and for a moment his reflection appeared in the glass panel beside him—Dreyden Stella’s face staring back, calm and composed, eyes empty of panic.

Jack didn’t stop.

He didn’t hesitate.

Tools didn’t hesitate.

And neither did he anymore.