There were several possible ways Neris could respond to being asked how he felt about saving the world in approximately eight days. Screaming was one. Fainting was another. Running away was probably the smartest. Since Neris seemed to be considering all three at once, Eiden patted his shoulder twice like that helped and left the practice room before the boy could produce a full panic attack.
He had trained until his hands ached, his head felt light, and the inside of his body felt like someone had wrung his mana dry like a wet cloth. It was already evening by the time he found his way back to Dormitory C, which was impressive because he had only gotten lost twice, entered one wrong corridor, and almost walked into a room where three upperclassmen were floating upside down in silence.
Eiden climbed the stairs to the third floor, found Room 3-17, and stopped in front of the door.
There was noise inside.
Something crashed. Someone shouted, “That was not my fault!” A second voice shouted back, “It was literally flying out of your hand!” A third voice yelled something about property rights. Then something small hissed, something wet slapped against wood, and the room lit up blue under the doorframe.
Eiden stared at the door.
“I was gone for one day…” he said.
Something inside exploded.
Not loudly enough to be fatal.
Probably.
Eiden opened the door.
The room was chaos.
His four-person dormitory, which had been clean, empty, and peaceful when he left it, now looked like a monster nest. Two girls and one boy stood inside, all shouting at each other at the same time. Clothes were spread across two beds. A half-open trunk had spilled books, boots, and several glass bottles onto the floor. One chair was upside down. A blanket was hanging from the ceiling lamp for reasons Eiden did not understand.
On the window bed—his window bed—a small creature with red scales and tiny folded wings stood proudly on the pillow, smoke curling from its nostrils.
A mini dragon.
Eiden shut the door behind him.
The three roommates stopped shouting and turned toward him.
Then all three spoke at once.
“Who are you?”
“Did you leave this trunk here?”
“Tell him the window bed is mine!”
Eiden pointed at the window bed. “That one was mine.”
The girl by the window bed stared at him.
She had dark blue hair tied back with a silver clasp, sharp eyebrows, clean boots, a fitted coat that was definitely not standard academy issue. She stood beside the window bed with one hand on her hip, guarding it like a noble defending ancestral land.
“Yours?” the girl repeated.
“Yes,” Eiden said. “Mine.”
“I don’t see any belongings.”
“I was here first.”
She laughed. “That’s not how it works.”
Eiden glanced at the bed. “Is that dragon yours?”
The mini dragon sneezed a small burst of fire onto the pillow. The pillow began smoking.
“Eww! No! I hate scaly little things!” the noble girl said quickly.
A girl with wild brown hair and a face full of freckles lunged toward the bed with a blanket. “Brisket! No! Bad! We do not burn pillows!”
The mini dragon—apparently Brisket—squawked and flapped its tiny wings, knocking ash across the bed.
Eiden pointed at the dragon. “That thing is named Brisket?”
The freckled girl hugged the dragon protectively. “He came with the name.”
The boy near the overturned chair spread both arms as if the entire disaster had been arranged for his personal entertainment. He had black hair cut unevenly, bright green eyes, loose sleeves, and a little silver ring on his finger. Somehow, he looked comfortable in the chaos. Too comfortable.
Eiden looked at him and immediately decided he was not the responsible one.
The girl pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is exactly why creatures should not be allowed in shared rooms.”
The freckled girl gasped. “Brisket is not a pet. He is emotionally independent.”
Brisket tried to bite the blanket.
Eiden sighed. “Please just say your names before the dragon sets something else on fire.”
The black-haired boy bowed dramatically. “Roan Veyr. Spatial mage, future legend, current victim of unfair politics.”
The noble girl’s jaw tightened. “Voxanna Veyne. Second daughter of House Veyne, and the only person in this room with any standards.”
The freckled girl lifted Brisket under the arms. The dragon dangled like an angry lizard. “Pax. Just Pax. Beast handling specialty. Probably.”
“Probably?” Eiden asked.
Pax shrugged. “Animals like me.”
The mini dragon bit her sleeve.
Pax winced. “Most animals.”
Eiden pointed at himself. “Eiden. I was here before all of you. I don’t have anything to put but that bed is mine.”
“Yeah… no. How can we trust you? We just met.” Voxanna said.
Pax raised one hand. “I vote we let Brisket choose.”
“No.” Voxanna said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s just a dragon. Humans— we should vote.”
Roan leaned toward Eiden and whispered loudly, “The window bed is important because it has the best mana draft.”
Eiden blinked. “Mana draft?”
Roan nodded with absolute seriousness. “Yes. The moonlight hits the window, the window touches the air, the air touches the bed, the bed becomes spiritually superior.”
Voxanna stared at him. “That is not real.”
Roan smiled. “You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.”
“Prove it.”
Voxanna opened her mouth, then closed it, because proving that a bed was not spiritually superior was foolish even for her.
Eiden slowly raised both hands.
“You know what?” he said. “Do whatever you want.”
All three stopped.
“What?” Voxanna said.
“I withdraw from bed politics.”
Roan looked disappointed. “Already?”
“Yes.”
Eiden walked to the nearest empty bed. The mattress was soft. That was enough. A slightly inferior academy bed was not going to defeat him.
Voxanna looked suspicious. “You surrender the claim?”
“Yeah, do what you want.” Eiden said.
Roan pointed at him. “I like him.”
“You would,” Voxanna muttered.
Eiden lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Across the room, the bed war continued.
Eiden closed his eyes.
The next morning, Eiden learned that academy bells were much worse than village roosters.
A rooster at least had the decency to sound like an animal. The academy bell rang directly through the silver badge on his chest, vibrating against his ribs with a clear, bright chime that made him sit up like someone had struck him with a spoon from inside his bones.
He opened his eyes.
The room had not improved overnight.
Voxanna had somehow won the window bed, though Eiden suspected that was because he had stayed awake arguing the longest. Pax was asleep on the floor beside Brisket, who was curled on her chest like a warm, scaly loaf of bread. Roan was sleeping upside down with his legs on the wall and his head hanging off the side of his bed, which explained nothing.
Another chime rang through his badge.
“Class begins in fifteen minutes,” a calm female voice announced from the badge.
Eiden looked down at it.
“You talk now?”
No response.
He got dressed quickly. Voxanna woke up already irritated, which seemed to be her natural state. Pax woke because Brisket licked her chin with a tongue that smoked. Roan fell out of bed, landed on his shoulder.
And then the true battle began.
“I was first.” Voxanna said, already halfway to the door. “I am taking the bathroom first. I refuse to smell.”
Roan blinked, one hand rubbing the spot where he’d hit the floor. “First? By what metric? Time is a social construct. Also, I have very sensitive teeth. I require immediate brushing.”
Pax sat up on the floor with her hair in a wild brown halo, Brisket still loafed on her chest like a warm, scaly weight. “Can Brisket go first?” she asked hopefully.
Voxanna’s head snapped toward her. “Absolutely not.”
“Okay, then—one at a time. Voxanna first, then Roan, then me, then Eiden?” Pax said.
Voxanna’s mouth tightened. “Why is he last?”
“Because he’s… quiet.” Pax said, glancing at Eiden with a guilty look.
Roan leaned toward Eiden and whispered loudly, “Don’t worry, Eiden. Women love mysterious men.”
Eiden held out his hands and, called up the water spell he’d earned back in the forest.
Coolness gathered in his palms. A clear sphere of water formed..
Roan’s brows lifted. “Oh. You know water spells?”
Eiden brought the water to his face and washed quickly, letting it run over his cheeks and eyes, clearing away sleep and the lingering ache of yesterday’s training. Then he tipped the remaining water into his mouth, rinsed, and spat neatly into a corner bucket that looked like it had been placed for exactly this kind of emergency.
Pax stared. “You can just… do that?”
“I can,” Eiden said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “And now I don’t have to listen to you complain about the bathroom.”
Roan nodded slowly . “This changes everything.”
Voxanna crossed her arms. “It changes nothing. The bathroom is still mine first.”
They found the Mana Control classroom by following the crowd. The room was not a classroom in the traditional sense. It was a circular hall with no desks, a polished stone floor, and rows of floating crystal spheres hovering at chest height. Transparent barriers curved along the walls, and a wide pressure gauge sat above the instructor’s platform, currently at zero.
Mira Voss stood at the center. She looked over the new students as they filed in. “Mana Control is the foundation of every spell you will cast. Power without control is waste. You will each take a control sphere,” Mira continued. “Your task is simple. Feed mana into the sphere and keep the inner light stable. Too little mana, it fades. Too much mana, it cracks. The goal is not to pour in as much mana as possible. Maintain the light using the smallest stable flow you can manage.”
Eiden looked at the crystal spheres.
“That sounded simple.”
Mira raised one finger. “If someone makes a serious mistake, the gauge will spike. If the gauge reaches the red line, every crystal in the room will shatter at once. Whoever caused it will stay after class and clean every piece by hand.”
Roan leaned toward Eiden. “Do you think she means literally clean the room?”
Eiden whispered back, “With our luck, yes.”
The class began.
Eiden placed both hands on a floating sphere. It was cool and smooth, about the size of his head, with a tiny white light in the center. He sent a thread of mana into it.
The light flared orange.
Eiden clenched his jaw and reduced the flow. The light dimmed, then wobbled, then shot sideways inside the sphere like a trapped insect. The gauge above the room ticked upward.
He tried again. This time he imagined his mana as a thin stream, something small and controlled, like pouring water into a cup. The inner light steadied for three seconds.
Then it vanished.
“Too little…” Eiden said. “So less than too much, but more than nothing.”
He tried again.
The light appeared. It wavered, brightened, dimmed, and then stabilized weakly. Eiden held his breath.
Five seconds.
Six.
Seven.
His concentration slipped because he got excited about concentrating correctly.
The light spiked and the gauge jumped.
Eiden released and the sphere went dark.
He took a slow breath and looked at his hands. Sweat was beginning to appear on his forehead.
For the next half hour, Eiden fought the smallest possible war against a glowing ball. He managed nine seconds once, then eleven.
On the next attempt, he did not push. He let the mana gather at his palm, then allowed only a thin line to pass into the crystal. The light inside appeared soft orange.
Eiden stared at it.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Thirteen.
Fifteen.
His eyes widened.
Then the light twitched.
“No,” Eiden whispered. “Don’t you dare.”
The sphere flared.
Eiden panicked and tried to suppress it by pulling the mana back too quickly.
That was the mistake.
The inner light collapsed inward, then snapped outward in a bright orange pulse. The gauge above the room shot upward so fast it skipped half the markings and slammed straight into the red line.
Every crystal sphere in the classroom glowed then they all shattered.
A hundred bright cracks rang through the room at once, followed by a glittering rain of crystal fragments falling onto the polished floor.
Eiden stood very still with both hands still raised.
Mira looked at Eiden.
Eiden lowered his hands slowly. “I have learned something.”
Roan laughed a little bit.
Mira’s expression did not change. “Have you?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Pulling mana back violently is also bad.”
Mira stared at him for a long moment. “You will clean the room after class.”
Roan raised his hand.
Mira turned toward him. “Roan.”
“I would like to volunteer.”
Eiden looked at him. “Why?”
Roan placed a hand over his heart. “Because watching you destroy every crystal in the room was inspiring, and I want to support the arts.”
Mira narrowed her eyes. “You are volunteering to clean?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
Roan smiled at Eiden.
After class ended, the others left while Eiden and Roan stayed behind with two brooms, one dustpan, and a bucket that looked too small for the amount of crystal on the floor.
Eiden swept. Roan held the dustpan incorrectly. Eiden corrected him. Roan somehow made the dustpan vanish for five seconds and reappear upside down.
Mira, standing at the doorway, said, “If you use your magic around broken crystal again, you will clean the hallway too.”
Roan stopped smiling quite so much.
By the time they finished, Eiden’s back hurt and a panel appeared as he left the hall.
Mana Control Training Result
Stability Duration: 15 seconds
Fire Mana Leakage: Reduced
Progress toward Quest Objective: Fire Bolt output control improved.
Eiden read it and nodded once.
Outside the Mana Control hall, the academy courtyard was bright and busy. Students moved between buildings. Floating boards displayed class locations. Somewhere in the distance, something exploded, and no one reacted.
Eiden looked at the sky.
The countdown ticked in his mind even without the panel.
He still needed a remote location, somewhere far from civilians.
Roan noticed his expression. “Why the long face?”
Eiden looked at him.
“I need to find somewhere far from the city,” Eiden said.
Voxanna slowed. “Why?”
“Training.”
Pax perked up. “Outside the city? There are old fields south of Valdenmoor, but people travel there. North road has villages. East has farms.”
Roan tapped his chin. “West cliffs.”
Everyone looked at him.
Roan’s grin returned. “Far from the city. Old quarry roads. Mostly abandoned. Good view. Terrible smell when the wind is wrong.”
Eiden narrowed his eyes. “How far?”
“Too far to walk quickly.”
“Can you get there quickly?”
Roan placed one hand on his chest. “Eiden, my friend, I am a spatial mage.” Roan spread his hands. “I can blink us near the west cliffs. Easy.”
Eiden looked toward the far edge of the campus, then toward the city beyond it. The sooner he knew the surrounding terrain, the better.
“What’s the catch?” Eiden asked.
Roan looked offended. “Why does everyone assume there is a catch?” Roan clapped his hands once. “Fine. Small catch. Spatial magic feels strange the first time.”
“How strange?”
“Like your stomach briefly becomes upside down.”
Eiden thought about that.
“Fine.” he said. “Take me there.”
Voxanna stepped forward. “This is a bad idea.”
“Let’s go.” Eiden said.
Pax raised a hand. “Should we tell an instructor?”
“No.” Roan and Eiden said at the same time.
Roan grabbed Eiden’s sleeve and lifted his other hand. Thin silver lines appeared in the air, bending into a circular shape.
“Ready?” Roan asked.
“No.”
“Perfect.”
The world folded.
For half a second, Eiden felt like his bones had gone somewhere ahead of him and the rest of his body was trying to catch up. His stomach did, in fact, become upside down.
Cold wind hit his face.
His boots landed on rough stone.
Eiden staggered forward, caught himself, and breathed hard.
They stood on a cliff road overlooking a wide stretch of empty land west of Valdenmoor. The city was far behind them, its towers visible only as pale shapes against the morning sky. Below the cliffs lay abandoned quarry pits, broken stone roads, dry fields, and scattered ruins half-buried in grass.
Eiden slowly smiled.
“This could work.”
Roan stood beside him, hands on his hips, looking very proud of himself.
Then Eiden turned.
“Good. Now take us back.”
Roan’s smile stayed exactly where it was.
“Roan.”
“Yes?”
“Take us back.”
Roan looked at the cliffs. Then at the sky. Then at a bird flying very far away.
“So,” Roan said carefully, “funny thing about that.”
Eiden closed his eyes.
He already hated the sentence.
“Roan.”
“I can explain.”
“You cannot return us.”
“I did not say that.”
“Can you return us?”
Roan paused.
The wind blew between them.
Somewhere below, a loose stone rolled down the cliff.
Roan smiled weakly. “Not immediately.”
Eiden opened his eyes and looked at the empty quarry land, the faraway city, the idiot spatial mage beside him.
Then he took a slow breath.
A panel appeared.
Quest Updated: [Before the Wave]
Objective Progress: Find a remote location suitable for first Wave containment. 1/1