The waking world returned in a wave of distant whispers and scurrying footsteps as the academy came alive. The noise shattered his fragile peace, prompting him to shove his face into the mattress and fold the pillow tightly over his head. He tried to sink back into oblivion, but the harsh ring of the alarm tore through the room.
He lunged out of the sheets, hitting the button to kill the noise. The abrupt silence offered no comfort; his mood was completely ruined.
"Unbelievable. Not even the alarm wants me to rest," Vale muttered to the empty room, his voice sour.
Dragging his exhausted, ghost-like body out of bed, he went through the motions of brushing his teeth and washing up. As he bathed, a phantom ache throbbed in his hand—a lingering reminder of his sister’s terrifying rage.
Standing before the mirror, he stared at his reflection. His body looked frail, entirely unsuited for a world built on strength. ’What on earth have I been doing all these years?’ he thought bitterly.
Clenching his jaw, he muttered to his reflection, "From now on, I’m training this body.
His resolve was quickly cut short when he glanced at his watch. Panic flared in his chest. Reaching for his things, he rushed out the door, locked it hastily behind him, and sprinted down the hallway toward class.
The instructor had already started the lesson before he even reached the threshold. As he pushed the heavy door open, it let out a sharp, piercing screech that cut right through the lecture.
Instantly, the shifting of fabric and rustle of papers echoed through the room as several students along with the teacher turned their heads. Their gazes locked onto him. He stood there, breathless and disheveled from sprinting across the campus, his hand still gripping the brass door handle.
The heavy silence lasted only a second before the whispers began.
"Is that him?"
"Why did he even bother showing up?"
The collective murmurs grew into a low buzz, quickly wearing away the instructor’s fragile patience.
"SILENCE!" she barked, a vein visibly pulsing on her forehead.
The classroom fell dead quiet. Her sharp, irritated eyes drifted over the crowd until they snapped directly onto him. She narrowed them, analyzing his sudden appearance.
"Vale... what brings you here so early?"
The sarcasm in her voice was thick, and for a moment, the question felt off. Then, the realization clicked. In the past, he had only ever bothered showing up to the academy after the theory lectures were completely over. After all, what was the point of a mana-less defect sitting through hours of complex magical theory?Thinking back on it, he couldn’t help but curse his past self’s sheer idiocy.
Magic or no magic, knowledge was power, and certain theories could save a life given the right situation. Still, caught off guard by her biting remark, he found himself entirely unsure of how to respond.
Fortunately, the instructor didn’t care enough to wait for an explanation. She waved a dismissive hand. "Just go and take your seat."
As he began making his way up the stepped rows of the lecture hall, a sudden movement caught his attention. Sitting on the far right of the second row was a girl. The moment their eyes met, a flash of recognition hit him, but before he could process it, she quickly averted her gaze, ducking her head low to hide her face behind her textbook.
He couldn’t quite place where he had seen her before. Shaking off the uneasy feeling, he continued climbing the steps to the very back row, slipping into an isolated seat right next to the window.
The lecture hall returned to a dead silence, save for the dry scratch of charcoal on parchment. At the front of the amphitheater, Instructor Sophiana stood before a massive, chalk-dusted slate. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she drew a single, elegant circle, then shattered it into a dozen radiating lines.
"What is mana?" Sophiana’s voice carried a crisp, resonant edge that cut through the morning drowsiness of the initiates. She didn’t wait for hands to rise. "The uninitiated call it boon, or a simple fluid pool waiting to be drained. They are fools. Mana is ambient, fundamental reality. It is the invisible atom binding the air you breathe to the stone beneath your boots. It flows through everything, a chaotic, unyielding sea."
She turned, her sharp gaze sweeping over the rows of students.
"But a sea cannot fit into a bucket without breaking it," she continued, stepping down from the dais. "For a mage to perform even the simplest spark of magic, you must first understand a harsh truth: your flesh is weak. Raw mana would shred your muscles and boil your blood if it ran through your actual veins. Therefore, nature provided a secondary anatomy."
Sophiana tapped her own chest, right over the sternum."The Mana Core. Your internal generator. It acts as the anchor, drawing those ambient, wandering atoms of energy into a stable, pressurized center. But a reactor is useless without pipes."
She walked to a brass anatomical model of a human body standing in the corner. She pressed a small lever at the base. A complex, glowing web of ethereal silver strings rose slightly above the brass skin.
"The Mana Circuits," Sophiana murmured, tracing a silver line that ran from the model’s chest, down the shoulder, and into the fingertips. "They form what we call the Mana Veins. Mark this well for your exams: they are entirely separate from your physical body. They exist a fraction of a millimeter outside our biological nervous system, overlapping it like a shadow. They are the lead-lining that protects your mortal meat from the volatile power you command."
She stopped, looking directly at a nervous initiate in the front row.
"A simple magic spell by first class mage—a spark, a gust of wind, a drop of condensed water—is not a matter of willpower alone. It is an act of internal engineering. You must draw power from the Core, force it through the separate channel of your Mana Veins, and project it outward before the energy can ionize and combust your actual biological tissues."
Sophiana stepped back to the slate, her expression hardening. "Fail to maintain that separation—let the mana circuit collapse into your physical veins—and the atomic balance shatters. The energy will mistake your cells for fuel. And you will learn, in a very brief and excruciating fashion, exactly what happens when a reactor leaks."
"Why does she always remind us of the basics in every single class?" a student in the third row muttered, shifting irritably in his tiered seat. He scratched the back of his head. "We get it. Core, circuits, don’t die."
’Fool... The basics are the backbone of everything. Skip a step in the foundation, and the whole tower crushes you’. he though
Vale let out a long, exhausted sigh. The sheer weight of the lecture seemed to press down on his shoulders until he finally gave up, letting his head drop onto his crossed arms on the wooden desk.
"So even mages have their own difficulties. It’s not just hand-waving and miracles. They are practically walking explosive devices," he murmured.
Instructor Sophiana packed up her things after ending the class, leaving a large stack of documents behind on the podium
"HELEN" Instructor Sophiana called out before leaving.
The word hit the back bench like an electric current. Hearing that name—’Helen’ shattered the heavy fog in the room. The exhaustion that had been pressing down on Vale, melting his bones into the wooden desk, vanished instantly. His posture straightened, his eyes snapping wide open as his pulse gave a sudden, violent kick..