Daniel Newwyn

Chapter 60

Severa took two steps into the center of the casting square then turned to him. Her brows arched like she was preparing to grade him before he even started.

“I assume,” she began with a voice so weirdly gentle, “you know how to spiral your flame clockwise?”

Fabrisse gave her a sunny smile he absolutely did not feel. “I, well, yes, if I can ignite my flame.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Let’s keep the combustion external, then.”

It was tradition by now. If Severa Montreal was going to help him, it was going to be with the same energy a noblewoman extended to a peasant attempting dinner etiquette.

But today was different.

Today, he had an edge.

The Silvial Quartz was still in his robe’s inner seam, inventory-stowed and safely out of sight. With Celestial Hoarding as his Path, he didn’t need to hold it. He could already feel its foreign aether existence beneath his skin, syncing quietly to his field.

[Passive Bonuses: ARC +??? | SYN +??? | Foreign Aether Source: Stable]
[Resonance Threshold Increase: Emotional Output x1.15]

He squared his shoulders.

“I’m ready,” he said.

Severa lifted her hand to demonstrate the form again. Fabrisse was amazed how fluid she made it look even though she had to do it in slow-motion. “Draw breath; coax warmth; speak bright,” she said lazily. “I recommend practicing the arc before adding emotion,” she continued. “Though with your history, even practicing might be a bit—”

Fabrisse raised his hand before she could finish.

“I’ll try it now,” he said.

“You haven’t prepared your pulse rhythm.”

“I have,” he lied.

Her facial expression didn’t change, but she wasn’t able to say anything for a second. That counted as a win in his books.

“Well then,” she spread one hand. “Do you think you can do it without practicing your rhythm, or are you giving up already?”

I will going to do it anyway, he thought. He steeled his Resolve. I will get it right on my first try. I will show her.

“Draw breath,” he whispered. Get the timing right. “Coax warmth. Speak bright.” Now!

His hand moved in a rough spiral. It didn’t look nice, but he was sure it counted. He felt the aether shiver.

An ivory-colored spark flickered at his palm. Then the flame came.

A loose helix of fire spun from his fingertips, wobbled. Heat licked up his hand and wrist, sharp and sudden, and he instinctively jerked back, shaking his fingers like he’d touched a hot stove. The flame sputtered. It held for just another second before fizzling into the air.

It left a soft orange shimmer in its wake, coalescing with the ivory of the spark to create a peach-gold trace that drifted in the air like a firefly on its lunch break. 

[Basic Combustion Funnel: SUCCESSFUL—Quest Completed]

[Spell Acquired: Basic Combustion Funnel (Rank I)]

[+1 Fire Thaumaturgy Mastery]

[+1 Concordance (Emotional) Mastery]

[New Spell added to Active Loadout]

[Bonus Objective Failed]

Fabrisse stared at it, stunned. His skin tingled. He didn’t even need to check the aetheric reaction equation.

Severa blinked a total of three times. He’d counted.

“Not bad,” she said slowly, like the words physically pained her. “Crude. But not catastrophic.”

Fabrisse was probably grinning silly by now. But his grin immediately vanished the moment she walked over to him and whispered, “So the Eidralith does improve you. You’ve been able to maintain a fire spell for two seconds only because of your artifact. The Eidralith helps you cast a basic spell. With me, it can set the realms ablaze.”

That line . . . is kind of extra, he thought.

[Training Completed: +14 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 1209/1500]

A shriek rang out from the left side of the auditorium.

One of the fire students—Larna, a third-term elemental alignment specialist with more enthusiasm than control—had panicked. She was casting a more advanced spell, against the instruction of the Professor. Her flame spiral broke formation, flared in two directions, and lashed toward the upper rows like fire arrows.

Half the class ducked. Professor Markenth was on the other side, shouting to a student blocking his view, “Duck!”

Fabrisse turned, instinct locking up, unsure if he should run or cast a Stillbrace. But before he was able to think, a figure from the back of the room raised one arm.

An onyx-colored ripple shot out, looking like a snorkelling eel. It reached a fire arrow in a flash. The flame vanished, completely swallowed by a blot of curling shadow before collapsing into nothing.

A glint of aquamarine burst from Severa’s palm.

A ribbon of high-pressure water snapped across the air with a sound like a cracked whip. It struck the second arrow head-on, shearing the flame apart in a hiss of steam and aether sparks. The remnants fizzled and dissolved before they could reach the student seats.

The class gasped in unison.

Professor Markenth stormed down the steps with a flick of his cinderstaff, flame spirals extinguishing in midair as he cut a path through the dispersing smoke.

"Control!" he barked. "Is the first rule of fire work. Not confidence nor dramatics. And certainly not improvisation." He turned on his heel, voice sharpening. "Control."

You didn’t say that before . . .

Larna had already sunk halfway into her seat, eyes wide with panic. Markenth didn’t berate her directly. He just raised his chin and looked across the room.

"My thanks to Montreal," he said crisply. "And to Ciemnosc. Swift responses and clean execution. Exactly what should happen when a student loses control."

Rimmar Ciemnosc was still standing at the back of the room, hand lowered. He gave a polite half-nod and murmured something too quiet to catch clearly. But his spell had been quick. Too quick. Fabrisse wasn’t sure if he’d chanted any mnemonic. He only saw that slick curl of onyx energy, silent like an assassin’s ribbon.

Fabrisse squinted. He knew what spell Severa had used—Fractaline Thread, a mid-tier water-form cut stream used for flame severing. Water subdual wasn’t uncommon among multi-affinity prodigies.

But Rimmar’s spell?

He couldn’t recognize it. And that was a problem. Not because darkness-type spells were banned—they weren’t—but because they were rare. 

He felt a shiver crawl across his shoulders. Darkness can’t branch out to Void. Can it?

Or can it BE Void? Is that what Void wants to look like, when it’s pretending to be something else?

Rimmar met his gaze from across the room with a neutral stare. Then he nodded at Fabrisse.

Fabrisse quickly looked away.

Chapter 59

“If you find yourself alone, please find someone to accompany you immediately. If you’re not in class, please be in class,” Lorvan had warned Fabrisse.

That was why he’d come to Flame Thaumaturgy I lecture today. And he hated Flame Thaumaturgy.

He didn’t understand why the founder of the discipline had named it Twelvefold Flame, as if setting things on fire twelve different ways made it more sophisticated. He didn’t understand why fire, of all elements, was so relentlessly exalted in their curriculum when the others probably had just as much potential. But mostly, he hated the culture that came with it. 

Flame thaumaturges were some of the loudest, most self-congratulatory spellcasters he’d ever met. They carried themselves like walking furnace billboards, radiating ego and smoke in equal measure. And of course they did, because the Order loved to parade them as the golden standard: bold, dramatic, explosively charismatic. Fire wasn’t just an element to them. It was a personality contest, and Fabrisse never wanted to compete.

Today’s lecture wasn’t helping. Professor Markenth was ranting at the front of the auditorium, gesturing his arms as a cinder spiral burned over his shoulder like a halo made of sparks.

“Combustion is not destruction,” he declared, pacing across the tiered platform. “Combustion is conversation. The fire is asking to consume, to convert, to become! And it is your job, as practitioners, to answer that invitation with confidence!”

Fabrisse slumped a little deeper into his seat.

Last week, Markenth had compared combustion to ballroom dancing. The week before, it had been kissing. Now it was conversational etiquette. No one ever compared Earth Thaumaturgy to kissing. Or Stone. Or Moss-based Lattice Enchantments, which at least had a consistent tempo.

He glanced around. Half the students were eating it up. They always did. One of them had literally scorched their sleeve last week just to demonstrate a combustion trick. They wore the burn mark like a badge of honor.

After what felt like forty uninterrupted minutes of metaphor-heavy theory and flame-poetry, Professor Arkenth clapped his hands and hushed the room. “Now. Demonstration,” he said. “Montreal, would you be so kind?”

Severa Montreal stood from the second row. Her cloak swept behind her like she had a personal breeze. She was already halfway down the stairs before Markenth finished calling her name.

Fabrisse obviously wasn’t fond of Severa, but who was he to deny that she was good at everything? Not in the loud, flashy, obnoxious way some of the other fire students were—though she could be that too, when she wanted—but with that kind of unsettling competency that made it look like her spells had been pre-written in the margins of reality before she even said them.

“Basic Combustion Funnel,” Markenth reminded her.

Severa stepped into the casting square at the base of the lecture platform, turned, and raised one hand. She whispered something, and that was all she needed.

A narrow spiral of controlled flame bloomed from her fingertips, curling into a perfect helix. It vanished seconds later, leaving behind a neat trail of rising smoke that dispersed before it reached the ceiling.

There was no color in the aether at all, which meant no emotional sparks. She hadn’t felt anything, yet she performed the spell anyway.

The class broke into soft applause. One student in the back whooped. Severa bowed, barely.

“Elegant as always,” Professor Markenth praised, his smile wreathed in cinderlight. “Severa Montreal, everyone. Controlled and precise. Just as a flame should be—centered, not merely loud.”

The students applauded again, this time a little more enthusiastically. Severa gave a small nod, then walked back down to reclaim her seat.

“Excuse me,” said a voice from the fourth row. “May I offer a different perspective?”

Fabrisse turned, along with almost everybody else.

Aldren Ranan raised his hand.

A glyphcraft specialist, he wasn’t the loudest student. He always wore charcoal-grey robes with no adornment, save for a copper-rimmed bookmark poking from his left sleeve, and he never seemed to leave the library between classes.

Professor Markenth raised an eyebrow. “A perspective, Ranan?”

“Yes, Professor,” he said. “Montreal’s control is excellent. No one disputes that. But this is a demonstration lecture. And what she performed wasn’t a demonstration, but an execution. Demonstration requires more than clean delivery. Students need to see the gesture arc, hear the mnemonic cue, sense the emotional inflection. Without those, they can’t replicate the result.”

Severa had already made it halfway up the steps back to her seat. She regarded Aldren with the kind of polite interest someone might give a new kind of beetle. “I was under the impression we were here to learn flame control. Not showmanship.”

Aldren is brave, but Severa is every professor’s favorite student. Professor Arkenth won’t let him have it.

He ran a hand through the cinder-spiral above his shoulder, as if rearranging its shape, then tapped his pointer finger twice on his lectern. A small flame snapped into existence and winked out. His smile thinned, almost indulgent.

“Excellent,” Markenth said, clapping his hands again. “Then I suppose we’ll have the rare fortune of an educational counterpoint today. Aldren, the floor is yours.”

Or maybe he will?

Aldren was one of the few students who could actually argue with Severa and not instantly get roasted. Maybe his demonstration will be different.

Aldren stood and calmly descended the steps.

As he stepped into the casting square, he turned to the class. “The Basic Combustion Funnel, as most of you know, has three principal triggers: ignition, spiral retention, and forward taper. If you want a flame that curves like a thread and doesn’t collapse under its own heat, you need to time your pulse with each transition.”

He raised his right hand. “Mnemonic: ‘Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright.’ It’s not official. It’s what I use.”

Then he inhaled, murmured the phrase, and made a deliberate spiral gesture. Fabrisse could follow the movement; he could actually remember the steps. But he could never replicate them so precisely.

Fabrisse caught Severa rolling her eyes, and that got him surprised. She’d always tried her best to keep a composed front.

The flame emerged. It was not as perfect as Severa’s, but it had a steady coil and a pleasing cadence. More importantly, a flicker of yellow-orange danced along the edge. That meant emotion. Aldren had given the spell something to feed on.

He closed the casting and bowed his head.

“That,” Aldren said, “is what I believe a demonstration should be.”

The class clapped again—this time not louder than for Severa, but with more murmurs of curiosity.

Severa had already taken her seat. Her foot tapped a few times beneath her desk, rhythmically.

Professor Markenth chuckled. “Well then. We’ve had the courtly version and the scholarly version.” He swept his gaze over the room. “Do we have a third offering today? Perhaps one from the emotionally embattled faction?”

Fabrisse immediately looked down.

Please don’t call me. Please don’t call me.

He could feel Professor Markenth’s gaze, like twin heat-lanterns drilling directly into the crown of his head. Not even the lecture flames were this intense. 

Across the aisle, Cuman—smug little elemental specialist he was, who lived to see people flounder—twitched as if about to raise his hand. But then he smirked and leaned back in his seat, folding his arms instead. He wasn’t going to volunteer.

He was waiting to feast on Fabrisse’s misfortune.

Fabrisse’s pulse thudded in his ears.

Markenth opened his mouth again. His eyes lingered on Fabrisse a second longer.

“If nobody volunteers,” he said, pulling out a chalk strip and tapping it once against the edge of his lectern. “We’ll work in pairs. A stronger caster will guide a struggling one. Teach the funnel and share the cadence. If your partner immolates their sleeves, that shall constitute a bonding experience. We shall start with Cuman and Nagrisse,” he called, glancing over his shoulder at the roster. “Aldren and Veck.”

Fabrisse let out a breath so long it nearly fogged the desk in front of him.

He didn’t realize, of course, that what came next would be worse.

“Montreal and . . . Kestovar.”

The syllables hit Fabrisse in slow-motion. His gaze crept to the side.

Severa’s expression was as still and elegant as ever. But her foot had stopped tapping. 

Fabrisse stood, clutching the hem of his outer sleeve. This must’ve been Professor Markenth sending a message.

You’re a brilliant caster, Severa, but can you teach someone who doesn’t even spark?

Subtle criticism. Served hot, flame-grilled.

Fabrisse made the walk over slowly, the way a guilty pilgrim approaches a very judgmental shrine. When he reached her side, she gave him a curt nod and stepped toward the casting square without a word.

He followed.

“Kestovar,” she said. “Let’s start.”

As he reached the casting square beside Severa, the system intruded with a notification.

[Quest Received: Trial by Fire Funnel]

✦ Objective: Channel your Resolve and successfully cast the Basic Combustion Funnel using the correct mnemonic and movement sequence.

✦ Requirements:
• Emotion: Resolve (minimum emotional intensity threshold: Moderate)
• Gesture Arc: Spiral-inward with tapered release
• Mnemonic: “Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright.”

✦ Reward:
• Spell Learned: Basic Combustion Funnel (Rank I)
+1 Fire Thaumaturgy Mastery
+1 Concordance (Emotional) Mastery

Oh.

He realized he would get this as an immediately usable spell. If he could survive Severa.

Chapter 58

Uh oh. Fabrisse realized he’d said something he shouldn’t have said.

He gawked at Lorvan and attempted telepathic screaming by wiggling his brow. How much do I tell him? How much do I tell him?! It did not seem to work.

Rolen leaned back in his chair and set his teacup down. He regarded Fabrisse with the expression of someone watching a cat slowly roll itself off a table and pretend it meant to do that. “The Eidralith told you?” he repeated. “That’s a new one.”

Fabrisse wilted slightly in his seat. “Um. Yes. Technically.”

“Technically,” Rolen echoed, turning slightly to glance at Lorvan. “Did you know he was receiving divine instruction from within a pocket artifact?”

“I had suspicions,” Lorvan said dryly. “He was staring at walls with increasing intensity.” 

Fabrisse flailed. “It’s not divine. It's just, uh—” Then Lorvan also appeared to telepathically scream at Fabrisse by wiggling his brow back. Fabrisse dared not say more.

“And what does touching my nose accomplish for you?” Rolen asked.

“Well, the Eidralith didn’t say why. It just said ‘touch the nose.’ I thought it’d be rude not to.”

[System note: Sidequests are optional. Meat vessels can choose to skip the quest by swiping away the quest interface, or simply clicking No.]

And you’re telling me this now . . .

[System note: It is implied in the word ‘sidequest’.]

Fabrisse’s eyes twitched. You could’ve implied louder.

“So you’re telling me you can talk to this artifact?” Rolen squinted.

Lorvan squinted, aggressively. Fabrisse gulped.

Rolen continued after not receiving an answer, “Well. I suppose it’s not the worst divine instruction I’ve heard. Last year, someone claimed their earrings told them to duel a wyvern.”

“Wait. This has happened before?”

“Yes. But I didn’t know the Eidralith can communicate verbally. There has been no existing account of that yet, but there’s very limited existing account of what happens to an Eidralith-bound spellcaster. Maybe they’re just more tight-lipped than you are.” He waited for a few seconds for an answer, and continued again after having received none, “In any case, just know I’m a line of contact.” He reached into one of the drawers, rummaged past a pile of tangled glyph panels and an enchanted spoon, then pulled out a small, palm-sized slate etched with glimmer-thread runes. He tapped its corner twice. A new string of glyph characters burned across the center in clean strokes. “This is my private glyph address,” he said, holding it out to Fabrisse. “Use it if something happens.”

Fabrisse took it with both hands, like he was being handed a relic.

“But only,” Rolen added, fixing him with a raised brow, “if something actually happens. Anything to do with pocket realms, spontaneous resonance collapses, or people trying to extract forbidden aether from your spine.”

Fabrisse nodded quickly. “Yes, Archmagus. Life-threatening only.”

“And failing your classes,” Rolen said, “is not life-threatening.”

Fabrisse wilted. “I didn’t say anything—”

“You were thinking about it.”

Fabrisse clutched the glyph panel tighter, suddenly unsure if he should write thank you or sorry on it.

“Don’t fail classes anymore. I can’t have you break my record one more time.”

“What do you mean by that?” Fabrisse tried to not raise a brow, but he did so anyway.

Rolen leaned back again. “Do you know who last held the record for most consecutive years failing Basic Thaumaturgy I?”

He paused. For dramatic effect, Fabrisse thought. Possibly too long.

“It is yours truly,” Rolen declared with a small, theatrical bow of the head. “Archmagus of the Independent Concord and Supervisor of Two and a Half Realms.”

Fabrisse stared at him. “Wait. Seriously?”

“Oh, absolutely. Took me four tries to pass my first incantation exam.”

That made Fabrisse laugh. It slipped out before he could stop it.

Rolen gave him a sideways smile. “So keep your head up, Kestovar. Maybe you just haven’t found your talent yet. Doesn’t mean you won’t.”

Fabrisse’s shoulders eased. For a brief, shining moment, he felt okay.

Then Rolen added, “But I didn’t fail Flame Invocation I. You should at least be able to perform that much.”

He didn’t feel okay anymore.

“In any case, you are the rightful Chosen One of the Eidralith, Kestovar, whether people like it or not. It is my duty as an Archmagus to ensure . . .” Rolen picked up a quill and tapped it against the rim of his inkpot. “ . . . that justice, safety, and the bare minimum of functioning social behavior are upheld.”

“Is that an official creed, Archmagus?”

“No. It’s mine. The other Archmagi are less fun.” He dipped the quill once, scratched something onto a half-folded sheet lazily.

“Thank you, Archmagus.” He’d definitely write thank you now.

“Ah. And before you go,” He reached into the drawer, pulled out a small pinch of skin powder, and dabbed it across his bridge. “Now you can touch my nose.”

***

Fabrisse stared at his quest rewards as he walked out into the extension of the Archmagus Hall.

[Sidequest Completed: Test of Absolute Absolution]
✦ Objective: Touch Archmagus Rolen’s nose.

Rewards:
+3 Stealth Mastery
+1 FP
+1 DEX

[Training Completed: +12 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 1195/1500]

He checked his total Stealth Mastery accumulation to see if it was enough for any upgrade. He only had a total of 7 Mastery Points so far.

That was the only thing he could do, because he and Lorvan weren’t talking. His mentor had been eerily quiet, even for his usual self. The space between them was exactly two paces apart, like Lorvan had calibrated the distance with a ruler. The only sound that lingered was the rustle of his outer mantle as he turned corners, never once looking back.

When they nearly reached the entrance, he finally stopped, looked up at the privacy glyphs mounted on the door, and asked, “Do you know why I brought you to him?” 

“I don’t, Mentor,” Fabrisse replied.

“Have you seen that dimension expansion spell cast before in your life?”

“I have not, Mentor.”

“You shouldn’t.” Lorvan stopped for a second. “Because it’s a forbidden spell.”

Fabrisse’s stomach did a full somersault. “Forbidden?” His voice came out thinner than he intended.

Lorvan turned enough for Fabrisse to see the sharper edge in his otherwise serene expression—like a petal with a blade pressed beneath it. “Treaty-Restricted, cross-disciplinary consensus forbidden. And they’re resonating with the element Void.”

Fabrisse stiffened. “Void?” he echoed. The word alone felt like it pulled the warmth from the air.

Lorvan nodded once, slow and grim. “Void is not an element in the traditional sense. It doesn’t correspond to nature, cycle, or construct. It resonates with absence. With hunger. It responds to fear, despair, envy, hatred—anything that hollows a person out. That’s why it’s not taught. That’s why it never will be.”

Every accredited academy in the Accorded Realms teaches the same rule from day one: the elements are bounded. Aether bridges them. Void is not one of those elements. It never has been. And if you encounter it, you don’t study it. You report it.

Lorvan continued in a more hushed tone, “There has been one recorded case of forceful unbinding of Eidralith in history. It is possible. Some people might think you’re an easy target.” Then finally, he turned around and met Fabrisse’s eyes. “Please, do not talk to anyone about this apart from Rolen.”

“Not even the other archmagus?”

Lorvan looked down the hall. “Especially the other archmagus.”

Okay . . . Not like I’m going to have a heart-to-heart with Headmaster Draeth.

Chapter 57

Rolen set down the teacup and steepled his fingers. “What do you remember about the exact moment the dimensional pressure hit? Did your body feel heavy? Were there distortions in sound? Or perhaps, peripheral movement?”

“Well, uh . . .” How do I touch his nose? He’s like two meters away from me. And I don’t have long arms.

“Start with the aether signature,” Rolen prompted gently. “Which hue was it? Did it favor an element?”

Fabrisse nodded very slowly. “It wasn’t—it didn’t feel elemental at all. It was more like . . . an absence of elements?” He adjusted his seat ever so slightly, sliding an inch to his left, toward the desk. I need to get close to him.

Rolen tilted his head, intrigued. “Explain in anxiety-free language, please.”

“Yeah. Like the color wasn’t from any spectrum I know.” Fabrisse moved again to the left. He was no longer sitting diagonally across from Rolen—he’d drifted closer, angling his seat to what was now an adjacent corner. Just off to the Archmagus’s right, within potential nose-touching radius. The chair creaked faintly.

Shift diagonally, then fake a deep moment of emotional distress. Lean in, elbows on desk, and go for it while pretending to tremble with trauma.

Touch nose. Exit with dignity.

Rolen didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he was choosing not to acknowledge it. “Describe the spell rupture. Did the aether recoil or discharge?”

Fabrisse nodded slowly. “There was a snap. Like . . . like a silk sheet tearing underwater.” It’s shifting time.

The moment he leaned in, the Archmagus . . . scratched his nose.

With not one finger. Not two. Three fingers! It was a full defensive formation. He almost covered his entire nose.

Fabrisse froze, one elbow awkwardly balanced on the desk.

Rolen kept talking, entirely unfazed. “That kind of tear could indicate a forcibly induced boundary fold, though I’ll need more data to confirm.” He glanced at Fabrisse. “You look tense.”

“I’m—uh—just emotionally processing,” Fabrisse croaked.

Rolen turned ever so slightly in his seat and took a sip of tea from the third cup. Which meant his nose was temporarily guarded by a ceramic rim.

It was like trying to sneak up on a squirrel that kept checking over its shoulder.

Why is this so hard. Come on; come on. I need to touch his nose so bad.

“Hmm . . . Do you see any color after the fold first appeared?” Rolen asked again, setting his cup down.

Fabrisse continued, inching another half-step closer. “It wrapped around my ribs, and my legs too. And the color—it wasn’t just black. It was like it ate every color around it.”

Rolen nodded again, picking up the second teacup. “I see. We might know what it is. What did it feel like?”

“Uh. I couldn’t even think. My mind just kept looping the same thought: why me?” He pushed forward another inch. His thigh bumped the corner of the desk. Almost there.

“Good,” Rolen said, setting down the cup. “Emotional state is crucial. It tells us how the spell compromised your resonance threshold. Did it feel targeted?”

He nodded slowly, hand drifting closer across the wood grain. “Yes. Very. I felt—I felt like they wanted something from me. Like they were trying to drag me into a—”

“Are you alright?” Rolen asked.

Fabrisse froze. “W-what?”

“You’re sweating.”

Fabrisse laughed too quickly. “Haha. Sorry. Trauma. Just . . . just trauma. You know. Classic trauma.”

He scooted back a little, trying not to look like he was retreating. It was just now that he realized a critical flaw in his carefully crafted plan.

I CAN’T TOUCH HIS NOSE IF HE’S LOOKING STRAIGHT AT ME.

“Would you like water?” Rolen asked. “Or what is it that you fancy kids drink these days? Logan Prime?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.” Maybe my stealth arsenal can help. Anything that can get me out of this situation.

“Are you sure? I have citrus-flavored Logan Prime.”

Fabrisse’s eyes darted to the side of his interface.

[Available Skills: Liminal Presence Drift · Echofold · Shadowed Reposition Protocol · Veil of Shame]
[Passive: Auditory Dissipation Field (ACTIVE)]
[Warning: Stealth effectiveness diminished in high-direct-attention zones.]
[Note: You are being directly looked at.]

Great. All his skills were nearly useless.

Still, he had to try.

Attempt #1: Liminal Presence Drift

He activated Liminal Presence Drift (Rank III) with a subtle mental flick. His posture softened, his breathing slowed, and he imagined his very presence blurring around the edges.

Rolen stared at him. “Kestovar? Are you dissociating?”

Fabrisse panicked. “No! Just . . . regulating my trauma emissions. And no . . . no Logan Prime, please.”

Rolen nodded, apparently accepting this answer.

He leaned in again—elbow grazing the desk, hand poised like he might simply scratch his own cheek—then pivoted that same hand to nose-tap.

Almost . . .

Attempt #2: Shadowed Reposition Protocol

[Select lower-attention anchor zone...]
[Anchor Zone: The Desk Edge – Low Distraction Radius]
[Executing displacement...]

Fabrisse leaned a few centimeters forward, enough to shift his knee under the desk and slide his palm halfway toward the zone of nose.

Unfortunately, this made the chair creak.

Very loudly.

Rolen raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to resummon the memory of the moment? Is that what the squirming’s about?”

Fabrisse laughed again, far too loud. “Ha! Yes. Somatic recall. Very helpful for emotional reconstruction!”

He was internally sobbing.

Attempt #3: Veil of Shame

Desperate, Fabrisse flared Veil of Shame (Rank I)—his hand tingled with residual memory from every single time he’d tripped in public.

[Visual suppression activated. 18% reduction to local awareness.]

That was enough. Maybe. He could do this.

He lifted his fingers again. Inched closer. Rolen was looking down at his notes. It was now.

And then, a fly appeared.

A lazy-winged, blessed miracle of a bug, buzzed in from the open window and landed lightly on the Archmagus’s cheek. Then walked across the bridge of his nose.

Rolen didn’t even flinch. He just kept drinking.

Fabrisse stared at it.

This is it. This is the moment. The world is handing it to me on a silver glyph-plated platter.

He reached—

But then the fly launched itself toward him, buzzing near his own face. Fabrisse flinched violently, swatted blindly, and knocked over one of the tea cups with a loud CLINK–splash.

Rolen looked up as a few drops of herbal tea soaked into his paperwork. “. . . Is that somatic recall too?”

Fabrisse said nothing.

Lorvan sighed audibly. That had been his only contribution to the conversation so far.

[Sidequest Status: Incomplete]
[Bonus Objective Failing: Archmagus Rolen was absolutely watching.]
[You gain: mild embarrassment and tea-scented hands]

The tea soaked deeper into the parchment as Fabrisse sat frozen, one hand hovering near the overturned cup like it might apologize on his behalf.

Rolen calmly lifted the wet sheet, shook it once, and set it aside to dry. Then he looked up and said, with all the unflinching solemnity of someone reciting doctrine before a tribunal, “Do you want to touch my nose?”

Fabrisse made a strangled noise. “What—no—I mean—what? No?”

Rolen raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Fabrisse tried to recover with dignity. “Absolutely. That would be unprofessional.”

Silence.

Rolen then turned over to ask Lorvan, “Does he like to touch people’s noses unprofessionally?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” said Lorvan. “Maybe he learned that from my sister.”

“N-no!” Fabrisse blurted out, red-faced. He could no longer bear the shame. “The Eidralith told me to!”

Both Rolen and Lorvan stared at him.

Chapter 56

Mercy the Clucklebeak loved rye bread. Fabrisse had test multiple types of bread to see if any held Mercy’s attention as much as the beloved rye, and it had proved to be a difficult task.

Mercy paddled in delighted circles across the surface of the North Pond, trailing little spirals of ripples behind him like calligraphy strokes. The moment Fabrisse tossed a chunk of rye bread into the water, he darted after it. His downy yellow feathers bobbed with each motion, and his tiny webbed feet kicked up lazy swishes beneath the surface.

The rye floated briefly, then vanished in a flurry of delighted quacks and splashy chomps.

[You are now more attuned to Familiar-Grade Creatures | Perfect Resonance Progress: 82%]

[Familiar Bonding Completed: +6 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 1183/1500]

On other days, Fabrisse would’ve been delighted at the progress.

Today, however, his mind was pre-occupied with something else hovering in front of him.

[Item Equipped: Silvial Quartz of ???]

— A low-grade tuning quartz designed to reflect active emotional resonance.
— Glyph pattern: Spiral Variant – Unindexed.

[Note: Resonance compatibility detected. Foreign aether trace present. No interference registered.]

Effect: ARC +???; SYN +???

Resonance Threshold Increase: EMO x1.15

This quartz had been imbued with something. The mitts Tommaso had given him was named Thaumaturge’s Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado, and it was imprinted with his emotions. But what? It could’ve been unintentional. Should he even ask Ganvar about this?

Fabrisse sat at the edge of the pond, the cool breeze brushing against his sleeves as Mercy chased soggy crumbs in widening circles. He took a slow breath. Okay. Shame.

He thought about all the failed spells. About the time Lorvan had tried, gently, to mask his disappointment. He thought about the time he’d flubbed a Binding Phrase so badly he’d accidentally silenced himself for a whole week. About Liene having to do damage control on his behalf.

The quartz shimmered. A dull, tentative amber crackled through the inner spiral, flickering like a candle flame in uncertain wind.

Fabrisse held his breath.

He was doing it.

But the moment the light sparked, he felt a sudden lift in his chest. He was actually doing it. For once, the spark hadn’t fizzled out before it started. The fact that it worked made something else swell inside him.

The amber twisted, and the glow brightened into sky-blue, curling into the seams of his gloves like threads of dancing light.

It wasn’t a ball like Liene’s. Just loose sparks. 

He laughed to himself. Why would it matter?

Holding this quartz was the first moment in his life he’d been able to produce colors so vividly and so consistently. He could actually graduate. He could actually cast spells that would help people do things. He wasn’t about to throw all of this away now.

Fabrisse felt sudden awareness that he was being observed. He looked up.

Lorvan stood at the curve of the path near the willow bridge, framed by the swaying reeds. His robes were pressed, his expression sharper than usual, calm but with that extra layer of intensity that made it clear this wasn’t a casual drop-in.

The man didn’t even wait for a greeting. “Come with me.”

Fabrisse’s throat closed around the words he wanted to say. Is something wrong? Where are we going? Did I—? But he couldn’t get any of them out.

He simply nodded and followed.

They walked side by side through the northern path, weaving between the tall-stemmed rivergrass and the soft hush of pond breeze. Fabrisse kept his eyes down, his thoughts racing. Had he broken some kind of rule again? Or did they overturn his hearing decision?

When they reached a quieter clearing near the bend of the path, Lorvan finally turned to him. His gaze swept down to Fabrisse’s still-sparking palm.

“Were you able to conjure joy just now?” he asked.

Fabrisse froze.

He opened his mouth, about to say Yes, but the reflex kicked in. He tucked his hand behind his back, and with a quick, fumbling motion, slid the quartz back into his satchel.

The glow faded almost instantly.

Lorvan noticed.

Of course he noticed.

He didn’t scold, not out loud. He didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was clear: You used an artifact. 

Lorvan was one of those who believed magic drawn through shortcuts was brittle, and that reliance on assistance made a spellcaster weaker, not stronger. Most of the Synod’s senior staff agreed. Magical talent had to be internalized. Anything else was seen as academic dishonesty.

Fabrisse dropped his gaze, ashamed.

The residue of the quartz was still tingling in his fingers. And as he curled them into his sleeve, a trail of pine green scintillated behind his wrist.

Anxiety.

He clenched his fist tight until it stopped.

***

The walk stretched longer than expected.

His nerves buzzed louder with each silent step .They passed the familiar colonnades of the north corridor, then crossed under the arched bridge near the old observatory—places he usually only passed during field practicum or when sneaking between classes. But they didn’t stop there.

Instead, they veered toward a smaller, side-facing wing that extended from the main complex of the Archmagus Hall.

This wasn’t the administrative rotunda. It wasn’t even near the public hearing chambers. This place was older, quieter, and much more shielded. The entryway alone had four diamond-shaped sigil wards that looked like layered privacy glyphs. Fabrisse had never been here before. He didn’t even know students were allowed here.

Lorvan pushed the door open without a word.

The chamber beyond the privacy wards was unexpectedly cozy, and more study than tribunal. It had vaulted ceilings, yes, but the space was softened by wall-length shelves filled with battered tomes, rolled scrolls, and odd glass artifacts in various stages of glowing or ticking.

And everywhere—woven between the furniture, curling along the ceiling beams, even pooling gently near the base of a worn reading chair—flowed ley-threads.

Ley was the term for invisible or visible veins of ambient aether that ran beneath the ground like buried nerves, responding to strong magical discharge the same way a heart might respond to shock. Sometimes, when aether concentrated in the surrounding space, thaumaturges might not need to draw from their own emotions, but could draw aether straight from the environment.

But these ley-threads were different.

Fabrisse had never seen them this clearly before. Delicate strands of ambient aether shimmered into view the moment he stepped past the threshold, soft pink in hue, like ribbons of warm breath or veins of liquid rose-gold. They drifted lazily through the air like slow rivers, alive with quiet intent, pulsing faintly in time with some unseen rhythm.

Isn’t pink the color of passion? None of the naturally occurring leylines Fabrisse had seen had colors this vivid. Maybe an archmagus could call upon a big enough aether reserve to weave their own ley-threads.

Seated behind a desk scattered with sealed correspondences and three mismatched tea cups, was Archmagus Rolen. His long brown hair was loosely tied back, with a few strands falling around his temples, making him look more like a distracted historian than one of the Synod’s highest-ranking casters. His robe was rumpled. 

When he looked up and saw Fabrisse, he offered a crooked smile and a little finger wave. “Oh, good. Come in.”

As Fabrisse stepped inside, Rolen gave a lazy swirl of his fingers through the air. In response, the pink ley-threads rippled like water gently redirected with the command of his hands. The strands flowed into new arcs and loops along the edges of the room, briefly illuminating the space in bands of soft, rose-gold light.

“Enjoying the lightshow?” Rolen asked. He flicked his fingers, and the ley-threads obediently slid back toward him.

Fabrisse watched, wide-eyed, as the threads curled inward and disappeared directly into the tips of Rolen’s fingers, vanishing like silk drawn into a spindle.

That confirmed it.

He hadn’t walked into an old chamber saturated with lingering aether.

He had walked into a room with someone powerful enough to create and sustain personal leyflow.

And it was pink.

Fabrisse exhaled. At least this wasn’t going to be some sort of rough interrogation. Rolen was the chillest out of all the Archmagi. He brewed his own tea and enchanted plants to deliver memos. 

“Take a seat,” Rolen said, gesturing to one of the overstuffed chairs in front of his desk. “Lugano, sit if you want. Or not. You probably want to go back to playing chess with Langley or something.”

Lorvan nodded once, then stepped aside and sat near the edge of a perfectly rectangular table. Scattered across the smooth emerald landscape were balls, an array of colorful spheres—brilliant reds, sunny yellows, deep blues, and striped ones too, Fabrisse had no idea what that table was for.

Fabrisse slid into the seat diagonally across from the Archmagus, the overstuffed cushion swallowing him half a foot deeper than expected.

Before he could even brace himself for questioning, Rolen leaned back and said, in a tone far too casual for what came out of his mouth, “Eh, tough luck, huh? I’ve received reports you’ve been ambushed by a dimension expansion user.”

“I—sorry, what?”

Rolen reached for one of the mismatched cups on his desk, sipped, then made a face. “Ah. Wrong one. That’s Langley’s awful barley root blend. Remind me to throw that out.”

Then the System intruded his vision.

[Sidequest Received: Test of Absolute Absolution]
✦ Objective: Touch Archmagus Rolen’s nose.
✦ Bonus Objective: Without him noticing.

Rewards:
+3 Stealth Mastery
+1 FP
+1 DEX

[Accept Sidequest?]

Yes

No

What?

He risked a glance at Rolen, who had leaned back in his chair again, nose angled upward slightly as he inspected the steam curling from a second tea cup.

Why are my sidequests all nonsense?

Chapter 55

Studying is boring if you don’t understand anything. And that’s what was happening to Fabrisse on his first tutoring session.

He was in the East Archive’s fourth-tier courtyard, seated on a stone bench that was so cold and damp it must’ve absorbed the last three rainstorms. His posture was excellent. His emotional output was garbage.

Across from him, seated on a low-wrought stool that somehow made her all the more imposing, was Ganvar Ciemnosc. 

"Again," she said, voice flat. Her gloved fingers tapped against her knee in a steady rhythm, as if counting his failures like ticks on a ledger. "Close your eyes. Breathe. I want you to bring up something real this time. Don’t imagine the dead dog again.”

"I am," Fabrisse muttered. “I’m channeling resolve.”

Ganvar shook her head. “Resolve is not an emotion. It’s a diplomatic excuse for not having one.”

He frowned. “But the workshop guide said it was acceptable as a stabilizer—”

“Yes. As a stabilizer. Not as a source. You’re trying to power a resonance, not hold your breath through it.”

Fabrisse inhaled again, sharper this time. He tried conjuring frustration. That had to count as emotional fuel, right?

The tutor was already waiting when he arrived fifteen minutes late, and she had been reasonably annoyed. She had told him to meet ‘somewhere quiet with a view of the aether grid,’ which apparently meant a crumbling backlot that had exactly one advantage: a clear, unobstructed view of the visible thread of milky white aether above the Archive roof, called the leyfield.

Her name was Ganvar Ciemnosc, and he’d actually risen from his seat when he found out the last name. Ciemnosc wasn’t a common surname. Any relation to Rimmar? he almost asked, but didn’t, in case she hexed people for bringing that up. However, she had a High Distinction in Emotional Conduction and Advanced Ritual Theory, and she only charged 65 coppers per lesson.

Liene had warned him in advance: ‘Some people call her the Crow.’

Not because of her family name, but because of the way she dressed. The long shadow-draped sleeves, the endless layers of the blackest black, the silver thread markings stitched like plumage over her cuffs. Some of the older Archmagi deeply disapproved of her wardrobe, but Ganvar simply tucked the offending fashion under her formal robes, showed up to faculty clearance hours, and went about her business. 

“Did I get it right, teach?” Next to Fabrisse, Liene extended her palm. Inside her palm was a glowing ball of sky-blue—joy.

She was actually having fun learning this.

“Good.” Ganvar nodded and smiled at her. “Is there any other thing in here that can spark another emotion in you? Any recent events?”

“Oh, yes. Recently Fabri threw rocks at bullies without telling me.” Liene frowned. Her glowing ball of aether promptly turned into a bright orange—not quite rage-red, but it was probably the very same frustration Fabrisse was trying to channel.

“Why are you studying Emotional Tuning?” Fabrisse turned to her and whispered.

“Can I not? I’m paying for the both of us,” she grinned like a chuckling hyena.

“Focus, Kestovar. I want to see thaumaturgic sparks in your hand.”

“Sorry, tutor.”

“Still nothing.” Ganvar leaned back slightly, her long sleeves draping like wings. “Aren’t you supposed to be a third-year?”

He winced.

Liene looked like she wanted to interrupt, but Ganvar had already sighed and corrected herself. “That was unnecessarily cruel. I apologize. This is a tutoring space, and I am being paid to help.” She folded her hands neatly in her lap. “But also—what on this dying plane have you been doing for three years?”

“I . . . I just don’t have any innate resonance.”

Ganvar studied him for a long moment, then exhaled. “There’s a method,” she said at last, “for casters like you. You said you’re good with quartz, yes?”

“Oh! Yes!”

She unrolled a small cloth pouch from her sleeve and retrieved a thumb-sized quartz etched with fine, nearly-invisible spiral glyphs. “This is a low-grade tuning quartz. It doesn’t generate resonance, but it can echo what’s already there, if you can give it enough of a push.” She held it out to him. “We’ll use it as a bridge. You supply the emotion. This will reflect the waveform. Once you can see the shape of your own resonance, it becomes easier to build pathways around it.”

He took the quartz warily. “What if there’s nothing to reflect?”

“Then I’ll be forced to conclude you’re actually a decorative houseplant and invoice the Synod accordingly.”

Liene chimed in, “You’re not empty, Fabri. You’re just clumsy with the part that matters.”

Fabrisse turned the quartz over in his hands with something close to reverence. The glyphwork was incredibly fine, etched in spirals that curled in on themselves like mirrored threads. It looked like a common-grade tuning quartz, just like the ones he’d handled during mineral classification exercises. But now, in his palm, it felt . . . special.

A tiny speck of violet left his hand. It was so fleeting he thought his eyes had tricked himself. But he was sure of it.

Reverence.

He’d never been able to conjure reverence before.

“This quartz work!” He gasped.

Even Liene peered in curiously. “Wow! Why did Lorvan just give you this rock? You would’ve passed classes!”

If it echoes active resonance . . . and it’s a stone . . . then I might be able to check something.

He grinned, focused, and activated his internal glyph interface. Stone Resonant Carry (Rank I) should kick in the moment he holds an active, common-grade mineral.

Lorvan wouldn’t approve of this. But Lorvan wouldn’t have to know.

He gripped the quartz tightly in his hand, anticipating the glint of the interface as a stat bonus kicked in.

Nothing happened.

He waited.

The system showed up, but it wasn’t the stat bonus he was looking for.

[System note: The rock is not of common grade.]

Huh?

That didn’t make sense. From what he could tell, this was textbook common quartz. It had moderate clarity, natural inclusions, no internal distortion, ambient field low but consistent. It was even warm to the touch, a sure sign of shallow but stable aetheric alignment. It should qualify.

He turned it over in his hand again, this time squinting at the glyphs spiraling along its side. Could the glyphwork have changed its rarity? But glyphworks were synthetic features. They shouldn’t.

Was he misreading the System? 

Before he could get any deeper into the spiral of doubt, Ganvar’s voice resounded. “Focus.”

Fabrisse startled slightly. “Right.”

Liene leaned over slightly and whispered, “Try channeling what you just felt.”

“What?”

“The reverence! Getting reverence is crazy! It’s so hard! I can only conjure this much!” She closed her hand and opened it again to reveal a ball of violet sparks. It looked half the size of her previous ball.

Ganvar tapped her knee again. “I am waiting, Kestovar.”

Fabrisse turned the quartz in his hand once more. He focused on the quartz. He was in awe of it, but now he felt more confused. The feeling of a puzzle just out of reach. That something here was more than it seemed, and he wanted to know.

[Item Equipped: Silvial Quartz of ???]

— A low-grade tuning quartz—

The notification had only passed his vision when his palm tingled, and he swiped it away by instinct.

A faint shimmer lit across the quartz’s surface. The color was a lemony yellow—the color of curiosity.

I did it? I did it!

“Better,” Ganvar said. Her voice was calm again. “Now feed it. Don’t hold back. Curiosity is closer to passion than most people think.”

But it was too late. His curiosity had turned to joy, and the shimmer quickly morphed from yellow into sky-blue. 

Fabrisse’s face lit up with a grin so wide it might’ve unseated his ears. The sky-blue shimmer danced like a ribbon around his fingers, trailing soft loops through the air like a naughty firefly.

“I did it!” he whispered, louder than he meant to.

“You’re glowing,” Liene said.

“I am?” He looked down.

“You are.” She ruffled his hair. “Look at your wrist.”

The sky-blue tinge spiraled gently up his wrist, bright enough now that it reflected in both their eyes. He turned his palm, marveling at the light. 

[Training Completed: +25 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 1177/1500]

Ganvar stood slowly. She regarded him with the calm patience of someone who had seen hundreds of students stumble and maybe four or five stand.

“You took your time,” she said. “But that was well done.”

Fabrisse straightened, still smiling. “Thank you.”

She paused, then unrolled her cloth pouch again. Her hand hovered over the collection of stones for a moment before picking out a second quartz, similar to the one he held, though this one glowed faintly even at rest.

“Would you like to borrow it?” she asked.

His smile grew even wider. “Yes. Please.”

Chapter 53

The date had been set for his Synaptic Resonance practical retake: two weeks from now, on Tuesday. And Fabrisse had become increasingly confident he’d be able to fully recognize the basic synaptic thread in time.

[Basic Synaptic Thread Recognition: 40% Progress]

The fact that he could track his improvements tangibly did wonders for his confidence. If he could keep up this diligence for the next two weeks, he’d get there. 

Over the next two days, none of the weird things happened. He categorized rocks during the morning, went to theoretical lectures and practiced Synaptic Threading, went home before eight, then obsessively checked his attributes until he fell asleep even though nothing had changed. 

Tonight, he was also doing the same time wasting, obsessive staring thing. At least he was able to calculate his Health Point replenishing rate by staring at the screen after bumping his toe into a table and losing 3 HP. Every five minutes, he would gain 1 HP back. He’d also learned that the shape of the rocks mattered, at least for Stupenstones. The rough ones would give him a STR bonus, but he decided to not move them to the robe pockets for now. He didn’t feel he would need STR at this moment, as this specific attribute didn’t seem to have anything to do with spellcasting. However, he did make a mental note to only practice Stupenstone Fling with the smoother stones that didn’t grant him anything.

There was no Tommaso to bother him the last couple days. Apparently he had been recalled for a couple of days to meet with a disciplinary liaison from the Northern Engagement Corps—something about ‘reckless conduct unbecoming of a junior field affiliate’ and ‘a worrying comfort with improvised combustion.’

Tommaso had sent him a single message via communication glyph—one of the older single-use panels etched on cheap slate. It took thirty minutes to arrive and would probably dissolve by dusk.

It read, ‘being lectured by a guy whose last name is Protocol. literally Protocol. wish me luck, he allergic to jokes.’

Fabrisse had stared at it for a moment, then sighed and scratched his reply into the return strip, which the glyph would convert and pulse back once the ink dried: ‘try not to explode anything.’

He almost added especially your chances of survival, but ran out of space. Budget glyphs had character limits.

No new quest had popped up during that time. However, he did get a small boon for his hard work.

Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery + 1

His current Mastery Point accumulation was 4. He would need another 6 to upgrade another skill to Rank II, which, at this rate, would take another twelve days of hard work. However, it would still be a significant improvement compared to the astounding growth rate of zero over the past several years. 

“Why do you keep staring at nothing?” Greg asked. He was still sitting in front of his desk, writing some sort of report.

“Uh . . . Assistant Hajin told me to, uh, meditate. This clears my mind,” Fabrisse lied.

Greg replied, “This kind of training is why Earth Thaumaturgy is so ineffective.” Then he just resumed writing.

Fabrisse just kept staring.

As he stared at his glyph, something popped up at him.

When is the last step of the tutorial going to come? And when will I get to see my Emotional Attunement attribute?

Not like he had a lot of hope about his Emotional Attunement being anything usable, of course.

In theory, it seemed like one of the most important attributes. But now he’d learned many spells didn’t require you to invoke emotions at all, and theoretically he could go his entire life just flinging stones without ever having to channel emotions. 

Another screen pulsed into view.

[Tutorial: Final Phase – Phase 4: Concordance Synchronization]
✦ Objective: Achieve and maintain short-term resonance synchronization with another aetherically-active caster.
✦ Requirement: You must be within range of a caster currently channeling emotion-fueled spellwork.
✦ Instruction:
  — Detect another’s emotional frequency (eg. shame).
  — Channel your emotional resonance into a shared aether pool.
  — Sustain a synchronized pulse long enough to draw upon their emotional input.

✦ Warning: Emotional resonance is inherently unstable.
  — Synchronization will drain FP at an accelerated rate.
  — Mnemonic incantation time is halved during shared casting.
  — Emotional overload may cause backlash.

Rewards: Emotional Attunement (EMO) Unlocked

Skill to be Unlocked: [Harmonized Spellcasting (Rank I)]
✦ When harmonized with another spellcaster, you may draw on their emotional charge to supplement your own.

✦ The effectiveness of harmonization is boosted primarily by your EMO, secondarily by your SYN.

✦ Rank I Limitations:
   — Duration: 3 seconds max (if you’re the caster; if you’re the contributor, the duration depends on their harmonization capabilities)
   — Only applies to emotion-fueled spells
   — Massive FP cost; backlash possible on failure

System Note: One cannot fake resonance. To access this power, you must feel what is real.

Harmonization? That’s an intermediate-level technique! I can’t even manifest my own emotions, much less borrow from others! I don’t even have a skill for it yet, and there’s no way I’m understanding any of these instructions.

Fabrisse stared at the tutorial, then opened the casting schematic to check the aetheric reaction involved.

[Aetheric Reaction Requirements: Harmonized Spellcasting – Rank I]

→ Input 1: External Emotional Resonance – 25% (if you’re the caster) / 50% (if you’re the contributor)
  Foreign emotional frequency detected within 10m. Must be active and stable for at least 0.5s.
→ Input 2: Internal Emotional Resonance – 50% (if you’re the caster) / 25% (if you’re the contributor)
  Self-generated pulse must be attuned within ±5Hz of external frequency.
→ Input 3: Synchronization Factor – 25%
  Measures moment-to-moment alignment of emotional pulse, aetheric rhythm, and intent.

→ Output:

 • Shared aether pool (temporary, unstable)

 • Access to [Harmonized Spellcasting] 

 • Mnemonic incantation time reduced by 50%

 • FP cost multiplier ×2.5

 • On failure: Emotional backlash chance 40%

So it was a two-person spell.

You needed someone else’s emotional charge just to form the pool. Without that, you were just pushing emotion into a vacuum. No resonance, no pool. No pool, no harmonization.

He frowned.

He couldn’t learn this alone; no way. If he wanted to master this skill quickly, Lorvan would be the worst person to ask. His mentor would just force him to train Emotional Tuning for hours while insisting he would need to grasp the basics first before borrowing emotions from anyone else. Traditionally, for Harmonization to take effect, firstly, two spellcasters had to feel or conjure the same emotion at the same time.

Maybe I can ask Liene. I’m not sure if she’s learned that, but it’s not like I have any other option.

***

“I have no idea how to harmonize,” Liene replied. “Why don’t you ask Lorvan?” She rested her back on the wall of the pie shop as she watched Fabrisse munching on a slice of mulberry pie.

Fabrisse replied, “He’ll ask me to spend weeks honing my Emotional Tuning. That’s so boring.”

“Well then, maybe we should start with Emotional Tuning first. But you struggle at that too.” 

“You don’t have to rub salt into the wound . . .” 

She wasn’t wrong. A big part of why he failed so hard at hitting the demon with his Invocation of Grief during last week’s training was that his poor Synaptic Clarity didn’t allow him to align the emotional climax of his fake story with the release of the spell, but he wouldn’t have had to do that had he felt actual emotions to begin with. Many expressive students could still make do with poor control because they still had the needed emotions to cast spells, even if their handling of the spell was lacklustre.

This is the tutorial, glyph! Why are the conditions so hard? Who in their right mind makes an impossible tutorial?

[System Note: Control of one’s emotion is a basic spellcasting prerequisite.]

[Additional Note: If you lack both emotional access and control, please consider enrolling in a different field. Suggestions include Rune Copying, Ancient Bureaucratic Theory, or Decorative Divination.]

[Suggestion: You may initiate a Tutorial Path Recalibration.]

[Would you like to restart Tutorial Protocol with a more compatible discipline? Recommended paths:
– Procedural Glyph Rendering (Low-Emotion Track)
– Administrative Chantcraft (Audit-Focused)
– Bureaucratic Summoning (Form 12-C Required)]

Hey . . . that actually doesn’t sound that bad.

[Warning: This choice is permanent. You will become emotionally inert.]

He tapped the prompt away in horror.

Okay, maybe not.

[Confirmation needed: Are you paying attention?]

Yes?

[Reminder: This interface is referred to as the System, not “glyph.” Terminology adherence ensures proper documentation, accurate troubleshooting, and consistency across all interdepartmental communications. Continued misuse may result in flagged entries.]

Oh, okay. You could’ve told me sooner, System . . .

“I’m not sure anyone can teach Harmonization to you if you don’t have decent Emotional Tuning,” Liene continued. “Why don’t you attend your next Emotional Resonance workshop?”

“I’ve skipped too many of those to understand the methods now.”

Liene exhaled slowly. Fabrisse swore she was resisting the urge to throw the rest of her pie at him. “Then you need a tutor.”

“A what?”

“A tutor. You know, those terrifyingly competent people who get paid to fix your ignorance?”

Fabrisse stopped chewing. “Wait, that’s still allowed?” He thought they’d banned tutoring since a few years ago.

“Yes. We are in the Synod, Fabri. It’s basically half a school and half a talent bazaar.” She tapped her fork against the edge of her plate. “There’s a whole registry of magus-certified tutors—some of them are adjuncts, some are specialists on academic rotation. A few are even senior-year students who passed High Distinction and now make side coins helping lower tiers not explode. Also, they can gain credits that count toward their Mastery Ledger or apprenticeship bids.”

“So I can just . . . book one?”

“Through the Arcanum Registry, yes. If you can afford the fee or barter something useful. Some even offer first-time assessments for free.” She shrugged. “If you’re too scared to ask Lorvan, or if he doesn’t have time, this is literally your only option. Unless you want to keep failing grief spells until a ghost starts coaching you out of pity.”

Fabrisse groaned. “What if they laugh at me?”

“They won’t laugh at you.”

“How much does it cost?”

“I’m not sure. The last time Lorvan tried to get one for me, he forked out 85 copper coins per lesson. I was a first-year then.”

He looked at her, then peered inside his satchel. He only had stones. He then looked into his pocket, and saw one copper coin. One. That was to pay for the pie.

Liene studied him further, then reached over to fix a stray curl that had come loose near his temple. “Silly. What are you afraid of?”

“Huh?”

“If it gets you to study . . .” She grinned. “I’ll lend you money for a lesson. Cool?”

Chapter 51

Fabrisse found himself back in the Stratatal Wing less than twenty-four hours after nearly being disqualified from it. Min Hajin was already there when he walked in, bending over a glass viewing trough that shimmered faintly with internal aether. He didn’t look up. “You’re two minutes early.”

“Good morning, Assistant,” Fabrisse muttered. He made his way to the side counter where someone had stacked a crate labeled “ORE SAMPLE L-7-B – UNCLASSIFIED / DRAFTED.” The crate was somewhat splintered and smelled like burnt copper, which meant he was probably about to make new friends with some minorly radioactive gravel.

“I am not giving you a big assignment,” Min Hajin said. “I’m still technically not supposed to be giving you any assignments. But good with latent resonance theory, you are.”

He wants me to sort rocks again.

Min Hajin nudged a slate tab across the counter. “L-7-B. Evaluate. Tag anything that pulses.”

Fabrisse scanned the manifest. There was no classification, no comments, no hazard flags. Only a lot number and a single line: Harvested near Calder Shelf. Caution: unfiltered pull. That meant the ore was harvested without standard purification or resonance stabilization protocols. It could shift properties unexpectedly and was more dangerous to handle.

Min continued, “I checked. It’s boring now. Go learn something from it.” That removed the ‘dangerous’ part.

Fabrisse pulled on the gloves—standard spell-woven cotton with fray-resistant charm stitching—and reached into the crate. The first chunk was a jagged prism of something quartz-adjacent. It had a dull shine and no thermal imprint. It was likely inert. He set it aside.

The next shard was more interesting. It had hairline fractures and a faint purplish hue under light, and was warm on contact. The resonance depth seemed shallow but not dead. Possible mana ferrite? But . . . off-pattern.

He brought it closer to the viewing glyph, watching for the telltale flicker of latent aether.

There was a glow at the edge of his glyph-vision. Not from the stone—but from his glyph itself.

[Quest Received: Applied Rock-onomics]

Objective: Evaluate and rate the use-potential of raw materials from Ore Load L-7-B with at least a 75% accuracy. Submit findings to Supervisor Min Hajin.

Bonus Objective: Correctly identify a misfiled or mislabeled mineral with latent or unstable aetheric potential.

Reward: EXP +75 | FP + 2 | Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery + 1

Bonus Reward: Skill – Stone Resonant Carry (Rank I) (Passive)

  ✦ While holding an Aetherically-Active Common mineral, gain temporary attribute bonuses based on mineral type.

  ✦ Path Synergy: Celestial Hoarding. This effect also applies to minerals stored in inventory.

  ✦ Current Carry Limit: 3 Stones Active

He stared at the quest description for far too long.

A passive skill, and one that synergized with his Path? He hadn’t even known there were synergy perks for Celestial Hoarding yet. Resonant Carry. While holding an active mineral, it would boost attributes.

But with Celestial Hoarding, the stones didn’t even have to be held. They just had to be on him.

He turned the purplish shard over in his hands again, newly reverent.

Could this grant something? Even if minor? A bonus to INT, maybe? Or ARC, if he was lucky?

He glanced back at Min Hajin, who was still bent over the viewing trough, unmoved.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Fabrisse returned his attention to the ore pile. Suddenly, every nondescript clump looked like it might be hiding treasure. He picked up the purplish shard again, studying the subtle iridescence along its fracture lines and the faint warmth it gave off even through the gloves.

The warmth wasn’t thermal, but likely a shallow ambient aether leak, which meant the internal lattice still had active alignment. The purple tint wasn’t just coloration either. Under filtered glyphlight, it hinted at residual arc signatures.

He remembered a lecture from Stratatal Field Theory: Vein-twisted quartz formations, particularly those pulled too early from Calder Shelf zones, sometimes carried trace conductors of mana-ferrite and auric salts. Harmless alone, but resonant under pressure or proximity.

He tapped the edge of the shard once, gently, listening to the way the resonance caught. There was a hum.

Yes. This one’s active. Categorize as mild-reactive.

Fabrisse reached for the next piece—gray, heavy, no light refraction. He turned it over, noting the dull surface and uneven grain. 

Inert. Basaltic filler.

He set it in the discard tray without hesitation.

Fabrisse moved through the crate methodically, one stone after another. A cracked fluorite shard, definitely inert. A smoky quartz silver with minimal warmth, maybe passive storage potential, nothing more. Two chunks of something clay-heavy and completely dead.

His notes filled slowly with shapes, hues, resonance response, estimated yield. Most of it was textbook.

Until he reached a palm-sized clump that didn’t match anything.

It was irregular, faintly translucent at the edges, but coated in a layer of matte grit that dulled its glow. He brushed it off. The core shimmered, not the normal shimmer of low-tier quartz, but something unstable.

He tilted it under the viewing glyph.

There wasn’t a tag or any matched entry in the quick-index. Definitely not in the manifest.

Fabrisse leaned closer, heart beginning to thump.

Misfiled. Maybe unstable.

He set it down gently, careful not to lose the glow.

This one might be it.

Fabrisse hesitated, then gently scooped up the irregular shard and crossed the lab. “Assistant Hajin,” he said quietly, “I think this one was misfiled.”

Min glanced over. “Explain.”

Fabrisse placed the stone down on the bench. “It’s not tagged. I ran a resonance check, and it’s reactive, possibly unstable. I think it’s a twisted quartz, um . . . maybe Calder Shelf pulled too early.”

His heart started beating like crazy. Min must have noticed his hesitation there. What if he was wrong?

Min finally looked up.

He reached out, tapped the stone once with a gloved fingertip.

The shard buzzed.

A glyph flared behind Fabrisse’s eyes.

Min nodded. “Correct.”

[Bonus Objective Complete]
Misfiled Aetheric Sample Identified
Bonus Reward Unlocked Upon Quest Completion: Stone Resonant Carry (Rank I)

He almost dropped the tray.

But no time to celebrate yet. The rest of the crate still sat waiting. He checked his notes, double-checked them, then triple-checked four of the samples just to be safe.

He handed over the completed manifest with 18 entries.

Min scanned the first one, the purple shard Fabrisse had marked as mild-reactive. He immediately frowned. “This was marked inert in the initial pull manifest.”

Fabrisse’s breath caught.

Then Min added, “But you were right. It’s not inert.”

The pressure in Fabrisse’s chest broke out as he exhaled loudly.

Min continued flipping through the list, page after page. He stopped at the thirteenth entry. “No. This one is obsidian-tinted filler. You marked it as low-storage grade.”

Fabrisse’s stomach dropped. Did I rush that one? Was the grain too coarse?

Min kept reading.

Then, he shut the tab.

“One incorrect,” he said.

Fabrisse blinked. “That’s . . . wait, that’s still passing, right?”

“Seventeen out of eighteen,” Min said. “Ninety-four percent. Congratulations.”

[Main Objective Complete]
EXP +75 | FP +2 | Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery + 1
Title Gained: Rocksteady Novitiate

[System Note: Rock-solid performance. Congratulations on being smarter than the average mineral sorter.]

[Progress to Level 5: 1115/1500]

Fabrisse made a sound that might’ve been a wheeze of victory.

Min didn’t look up. “Now clean your station. And go eat something.”

Fabrisse didn’t even care how tired he was. He grinned like an idiot. He didn’t just pass. He passed with flying colors.

Spells Unlocked: Stone Resonant Carry (Rank I)

[Scanning for existing stones]

[8 Stupenstones scanned: Ineligible—Common Stupenstones do not grant any additional bonuses]

[2 Stupenstones scanned: Rough-Edged Stupenstone (STR +1)—Please move the objects from your extension inventory to your main inventory to activate bonus]

[1 Glowing Stupenstone scanned: Ineligible—This object is a Rare-grade Rock]

[1 Meridian Pebble: Ineligible—The object is a Rare-grade Rock]

His Stupenstones were so useless they didn’t add anything to his stats, but it didn’t matter. Rock studies had never felt so good.

[Theory Learning Completed: +14 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 1129/1500]

Okay, less good now. The system really disrespected theory learning. Maybe it was engineered by Draeth.

“We are done for today,” Min said as he brushed the dust off his hands. “One final thing. Have you registered for your Synaptic Resonance exam retake yet?”

Fabrisse tensed so hard he turned into a taxidermied mantis (figuratively).

Oh no, my Saturday Synaptic Control tutoring session!

He hadn’t done any preparation.

Chapter 50

Cuman leaned forward with a triumphant scoff. “See? Even Rhel—”

“—But,” Rhel continued, eyes still fixed on the floor, “Cuman already had flairs drawn. I could feel that, too. And everyone knows how he gets when there’s a crowd.”

Cuman blinked. “Wait. What?”

“I’m just saying,” Rhel went on, still speaking to the marble tiles, “if I’d been the one holding the Stupenstone, I probably would’ve thrown it sooner.”

A rustle spread across the room like wind through parchment. Even Miro looked up from behind them, shocked.

Cuman spun toward Rhel. His jaws were so clenched together they looked fused by a glueing spell. “What is wrong with you?”

“Mr. Gollivur. Please do not interfere again,” Norraden said, still calmly, but with a sharper edge this time. “Consider this your second formal warning. There won’t be a third.”

Cuman seethed. Fabrisse could practically hear his teeth grinding. He slowly turned forward, back stiff as a sword.

Rhel’s voice had steadied. “He didn’t deserve to get hit in the head,” he admitted, nodding toward Cuman. “But he did start it.”

That was it.

Fabrisse sank about half an inch deeper into his chair, unsure whether to exhale or just collapse into vapor. His heart felt like it had been wrung out and hung to dry.

Tommaso gave a fist pump against his knee, careful to keep it below table level.

The scribe’s quill hadn’t stopped once.

Norraden raised her head again. “Testimony noted.” She lifted her hand, palm outward. The glyph-seal on the record scroll flared. It was binding now. “The Board has reviewed the testimonies and preliminary evidence. Here are our findings.”

A faint ripple of breath moved through the chamber. Even Tommaso straightened.

“Fabrisse Kestovar,” she said, gaze sharp. “Your conduct was impulsive but not malicious. You responded to a perceived threat during an emotionally charged situation in an open demonstration space. While use of a Stupenstone in this context is not encouraged, your response does not meet the threshold for punitive sanction. You will receive one formal caution and be required to attend a conflict de-escalation seminar.”

Fabrisse’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Liene, behind him, nodded quickly—take the win.

Norraden continued. “Tommaso Ardefiamme. Your unauthorized spellcasting resulted in property damage and a cascading escalation of the incident. However, your documented spell parameters, paired with the cited Practice Grounds Manifest, suggest that the dummies were not up to compliance. We have already initiated a review of the dummy lot’s insulation glyphs. Should your claims be verified, your disciplinary infraction will be reduced to a procedural citation and forwarded to your Corps handler.”

What? So the dummies were actually defective? Did Tom know this or did he just luck out?

Tommaso offered a salute. “Understood. Looking forward to being yelled at by a different bureaucracy.”

Aval muttered, “Again.”

“And finally—Cuman Gollivur.” Norraden’s voice flattened like a gavel. “You entered the Ring with active spellflairs during scheduled instruction. You advanced on a fellow student, in a manner that multiple witnesses interpreted as confrontational. Regardless of your stated intention, you contributed significantly to the escalation. Given your prior behavioral record and prior informal warnings, the Board issues the following: you are placed on temporary instructional probation. You are barred from leading, demonstrating, or facilitating peer instruction in any Synod-recognized capacity until such time that this restriction is lifted by review.”

Cuman stood. “That’s not—!”

“Sit down,” Norraden said without looking up.

Cuman sat. The bench creaked under him.

“Further protests will be noted as disruptive behavior,” she added. “This hearing is now concluded.”

The glyph seal flashed again.

The scribe capped her ink with a snap.

The moment the silence resumed, Tommaso exhaled. Loudly. “Whew. That’s a yes to not dying today.”

Fabrisse just stared forward, still a little stunned.

Liene reached over the bench from behind and whispered, “You would’ve been able to attend zero seminars had you followed my notes.”

Fabrisse whispered back, “I—”

“I prepared a diagram, Fabri. A diagram.”

Behind them, Cuman muttered something under his breath and stormed out of the hall, with Miro trailing and Rhel very much not looking at him. As he passed Fabrisse, he stared at him, then at Tommaso, but ultimately said nothing. Fabrisse just knew this wouldn’t be the last of him.

The door shut behind them.

Fabrisse rubbed his forehead. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Already booked you a debrief pie,” Tommaso added.

Liene rolled her eyes. “You two are insufferable.”

“You say that now,” Tommaso said, already rising. “But just wait until I file a petition to officially rename that move ‘The Stupenstone Arc.’”

“Don’t,” Liene hissed, as she grabbed her folder. “Let’s just leave with dignity.”

As the trio gathered their things, Lorvan stepped down from the gallery and approached them. “I don’t know what ridiculous entity you three pray to,” Lorvan said before turning to Tommaso. “But don’t test its generosity again. Especially you, Mr. Ardefiamme. One would expect your current station to have instilled at least a minimal sense of restraint.”

Tommaso gave a two-finger salute, too lazy to be respectful. “You’d think so. They tried.”

Lorvan sighed. “Don’t mistake bureaucratic mercy for approval.” He started to turn away, then added, “That said . . . well played, Kestovar.”

Was that a compliment?

As he gazed at Lorvan’s back, he noticed a figure standing at the edge of the upper columns, partially obscured by a drape of wallshadow.

Rimmar Ciemnosc.

What’s he doing here? Is he Synod-staffed? But he’s a student.

Their eyes met.

Rimmar nodded at him once, then slipped into the corridor beyond the archway. He was gone.

Fabrisse frowned. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Liene asked, already stuffing papers back into her satchel.

“Someone was watching the whole time,” he murmured, more to himself.

“Yeah. Half the Synod was watching the whole time.” She shoved him lightly. “Let’s go before they change their minds.”

Still, as they exited the Hall of Conduct and stepped into the early dusk, Fabrisse glanced back once, just in case.

The gallery was empty.

Chapter 49

The Hall of Conduct was far too dramatic for what it was designed to handle. The arched ceilings and polished runes on the walls were said to be powered from the aether pools contributed by the Archmagi themselves, tuned to detect lies. At the center were three curved benches of disciplinary authority. Behind them sat Magus Exemplar Nora Norraden, famed for breaking a blood-heir’s career with a single clause citation, but not much else. To her left, Instructant Aval. To her right, an administrative scribe whose only joy in life came from recording formal testimonies in perfect, indelible glyph-ink.

Fabrisse wasn’t late today. But he wasn’t earlier neither.

He kept his steps quiet, hoping not to echo too much. The polished volcanic glass floor had that effect—every shoe tap sounded like a threat. He spotted Tommaso and Liene near the lower tiers. Liene had a death grip on a folder of what looked like statements. Tommaso was slouched as usual, chewing some gum. Fabrisse didn’t know if that was allowed indoor. The moment Fabrisse reached them, Liene grabbed him by the sleeve.

“Where were you?” she hissed. “You were supposed to arrive ten minutes ago.” Then she looked him up and down. “Oh! This suits you! You look like an adorable chipmunk.”

Fabrisse was wearing his cleanest set of formal student robes.The fabric was a muted slate-gray with silver trim at the sleeves, just stiff enough to make him feel like he was wearing a folded tablecloth. He had tried to wear his old robe, and Liene had even tried to cast Minor Wrinkle Dismissal twice on him, but couldn’t make the scorch marks at the end disappear.

“I had to—my robe caught on a hinge and—”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear your excuses unless it’s ‘chip chip’.”

“‘Chip chip’?”

“That’s what chipmunks sound like. Anyway, I have prepared three versions of your defense, a backup index of clauses, and a diagram that proves your mitts were enchanted by someone who cannot legally enchant anything unsupervised.”

Tommaso raised a hand. “That would be me.”

“But I haven’t studied any of those notes. I won’t be able to remember,” Fabrisse ruffled his own hair.

“Just read from the notes.”

Fabrisse sank into his designated seat on the Defense side, still trying to remember if he’d brushed his hair. “How bad do you think it’s going to be?”

“That depends,” Liene said. “On whether the hearing board believes you were reckless, or tragically uncoordinated. Which, for the record, are legally distinct categories. Remember to read from the notes.”

Everyone got to their seats.

Seated awkwardly on the Defense side were Fabrisse and Tommaso. Tommaso, by contrast, sat reclined. His boots were up on the bench rail until Liene, now sitting one row behind them like an angry chaperone, kicked them off.

Cuman sat on the other side. His silk-bandaged forehead had been styled for maximum sympathy, and his robe was artfully tousled to imply recent struggle. Beside him, Rhel looked like a tree trying to shrink. He kept rubbing his arm and staring at the floor. Miro sat behind them, looking like he was forced to be there.

Norraden’s voice rang out. “This hearing is now in session.” The scribe’s quill scratched as she continued, “This matter concerns an unsanctioned magical altercation in the Kinesthetic Ring. I have received reports of reckless channeling, unregistered spell activation. And,” she added with a glance at Fabrisse, “a projectile to the face.” Norraden adjusted her sleeve cuffs. “All involved parties are present. Mr. Gollivur, Mr. Kestovar, Mr. Ardefiamme . . . and I see that Mr. Rhel is listed as a witness. Good.”

Tommaso leaned to Fabrisse and whispered, “You should really name that spell. ‘Stupenstone Arc: Direct Ego Disruption.’”

But it already has a name . . .

“Mr. Ardefiamme,” Norraden said while staring at her glyph-inscribed ledger, “do not speak unless addressed.”

Tommaso mimed zipping his lips. Fabrisse sighed into his hands.

Norraden steepled her fingers. “We will begin with a clarification of events. Mr. Kestovar, describe what happened from your perspective.” She looked at Fabrisse. “Begin.”

Fabrisse stood. He’d rehearsed his lines no less than five times. He could do it. “I wasn’t trying to escalate. Cuman had active spellflairs and stepped toward me in a clearly aggressive stance. I panicked and dropped the Stupenstone. Then after the explosion near the training dummies, I retrieved it and responded on reflex.” Then he remembered he hadn’t even opened Liene’s ‘note’ yet.

Cuman immediately leaned forward. “That’s not what happened! He was waiting to throw something! He had it ready before—”

Norraden didn’t even raise her voice. “Mr. Gollivur.”

Cuman stopped.

Norraden continued, “There will be no interruptions. You will be given your opportunity to speak when called upon. If you struggle with this instruction, I will assume you do not wish to be heard at all. Understood?”

Cuman sat back slowly, jaw clenched. “Understood.”

“Good.” Norraden returned her attention to Fabrisse. “Continue, Mr. Kestovar. What was your intent when you threw the object?”

Fabrisse swallowed. “To stop what I perceived as an incoming threat. I didn’t plan it. It just happened. I didn’t mean to injure him.”

Norraden made a small notation in her ledger. “Noted. Mr. Ardefiamme, I assume the explosion was your doing?”

Tommaso sat up straighter. “Yes, Magus Exemplar. Though it was not intended to damage property or escalate anything. It was a minor combustion channel meant to—ah—redirect attention.”

Norraden arched a brow. “Redirect attention.”

“To create a distraction, not a fireball. The damage to the dummy pile was . . . unexpected.”

Norraden tapped a glyph on her ledger. “Mr. Ardefiamme, you are a high distinction graduate of the Synod, now affiliated with the Northern Engagement Corps. You were expected to know the limitations of your spells, especially within Synod grounds. Do you dispute that expectation?”

Tommaso folded his hands. There was still a glimpse of boyish deflection in his grin. “No, Magus Exemplar. I don’t dispute it. I just overestimated the structural integrity of the practice dummies.”

“You’re saying they were structurally unsound.”

“I ran a low-yield ignition pulse with capped combustion spread. It was supposed to startle, not topple. The dummies weren’t supposed to light up like parade lanterns.” He glanced at his notes—real ones, jotted in margin-scrawl on the inside flap of his sleeve. “Based on the material specs posted on the Practice Grounds Manifest, the core stuffing is supposed to be non-reactive to standard spark spells. I calculated a sub-1% ignition risk.”

Norraden’s brows knit together.

“And yet,” Tommaso shrugged. “The padding combusted. I believe the internal insulation may have degraded. There were signs of brittling on the foam-ward lattice, possibly from long-term sun exposure or improper reinforcement glyphs. I’ll file a follow-up, of course.”

Fabrisse widened his eyes. That was either complete nonsense or extremely specific technical truth. Possibly both.

Tommaso smiled. “I accept fault for casting on school property without clearance. But the reaction wasn’t proportional to the energy delivered. The dummies shouldn’t have exploded.”

Norraden scribbled something briskly. “And your intention?”

“A diversion,” Tommaso said smoothly. “To keep eyes off the confrontation. At the time, Cuman had stepped forward with summoned spellflairs. My judgment—correct or not—was that he was going to make an example of Fabrisse in front of an audience. I chose spectacle to minimize injury.”

Aval tilted his head slightly, but said nothing.

Norraden gestured to the scribe. “Log the technical claim about the dummy materials for verification.”

The scribe made a pleased humming noise and began recording in aggressive, looping glyph-strokes.

Fabrisse turned enough to glance toward the gallery, where the observing faculty and designated mentors sat. In the second row, arms crossed, was Lorvan.

Their eyes met.

Fabrisse mouthed, Trust me.

Lorvan slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again, and gave a resigned nod. A sigh you could feel through posture.

Then he saw Liene sitting near Lorvan, flinging her arms wildly while mouthing, READ YOUR NOTES.

“Mr. Kestovar,” Norraden said, “this is not a spectator’s forum. Please focus.”

“Yes, Magus Exemplar.” Fabrisse turned forward again.

Norraden looked up. “Mr. Gollivur, your version of events. You may speak now.”

Cuman stood too fast. The chair scraped behind him, and the sound bounced off the marble walls like a warning klaxon. “Magus Exemplar, I was conducting a normal peer demonstration in the Kinesthetic Ring. I had summoned standard spellflairs—non-lethal, I may add—for kinetic form instruction. Fabrisse Kestovar entered my quadrant in a deliberate arc. I saw him holding a Stupenstone. I asked what he was doing, and he didn’t respond. Then I witnessed Mr. Ardefiamme detonate the dummy stack, which pulled everyone’s attention—”

“You were not affected?” Norraden asked.

“I—no. I was startled, of course,” Cuman said, voice tightening. “But my flairs were still under control. That’s when Kestovar launched a projectile at my head with no provocation. It struck me here.” He tapped his bandage, then realized he’d been tapping it too aggressively, so he tapped more lightly.

“And your response to his approach?” Norraden asked.

“I stepped forward to engage. Not aggressively! Just to intercept if needed. But I didn’t even get to that part. I was struck down in public, and humiliated. Deliberately.”

There was a pause.

Then Norraden said evenly, “You stated earlier that the spellflairs were non-lethal. Yet you admit they were active at the time.”

“Yes, but they weren’t aimed. I didn’t attack him.”

“You advanced toward a student with spellflairs floating behind you,” Aval added. “In a controlled space. During instruction time.”

Cuman’s jaw shifted. “It wasn’t an attack.”

“But it was enough for Mr. Ardefiamme to feel the need for a distraction?” Norraden asked. “Enough that witnesses believed a confrontation was imminent?”

Cuman glanced at Rhel. “Rhel saw everything.”

Norraden turned. “Mr. Rhel.”

Rhel stiffened.

“You were a witness,” she said. “State what you saw.”

Okay, it’s all good, Fabrisse exhaled. Rhel doesn’t like Cuman. He’ll back me.

Rhel swallowed. His voice was low but clear.

“I saw Fabrisse enter the Ring holding something,” he said. Then his voice dropped lower. “I could feel it. He was going to do something stupid.”

Cold sweat prickled along Fabrisse’s neck and down his back. It was like his blood had been swapped with melting ice. 

Chapter 48

The first person to hear about the incident was Lugano. Luckily, not Lorvan. Liene Lugano.

“TOM!” Her voice hit the far side of the Kinesthetic Ring like a sonic sigil. “Why did you NOT tell me you came back?”

She stormed across the field as she reached the pie shop where Fabrisse and Tommaso were at, the one near the east quadrangle, tucked behind the rune-inscribed water cistern where students pretended to study but mostly people-watched. Her coat flared behind her like a war banner in a passive-aggressive breeze.

Tommaso winced. “Yo, Linny. I was hoping to break the news gently. Possibly with a peace offering or a pie.” He offered a slice of pie to Liene. “Pie?”

“I’ll deal with you later.” She took the slice from Tom and stuffed it in her mouth.

Fabrisse instinctively stepped back, which didn’t help, because the moment Liene turned to him, she jabbed a finger straight into his chest. “And you.”

Fabrisse squeaked. “Me?”

“You got into a duel—no, wait, a public projectile altercation—with Cuman Gollivur—in front of witnesses—while wearing those ridiculous mitts—and you didn’t even message me?!”

“I . . . uh . . . there was no time?”

“No time?” she echoed, throwing up her hands. “Why did you leave me out? We practiced for this! You had enough time to roll through chalk dust like an amateur stunt double and spark a snowstorm!”

How much did everyone know already . . .

Tommaso made a proud noise. “The snowstorm was mine, actually. Ilya edition. It comes with flurries and legal ambiguity.”

“You two are so done. You’re probably gonna get a disciplinary hearing tomorrow.” Liene put a hand on her hip. “Good job. Are you hurt anywhere though?” She looked at Fabrisse’s face, then peered over his shoulder, then inspected his back.

“I’m fine.”

Liene squinted at him. “Physically fine, or emotionally repressing it into your spleen again?”

“But I don’t repress my emotions?”

She smacked his arm. “You idiot.”

Tommaso shoved another forkful of pie into his mouth and mumbled, “Don’t worry. His pride respawns slower than his aether pool anyway.”

Actually . . . Aether pools aren’t a thing. They’re actually Focus Point, as has been revealed to me by the glyph.

Fabrisse opened his mouth to retort—something about how spleens were medically not known to store emotion—but suddenly, Liene realized something.

“Wait . . . Who’s Ilya?” She turned to Tommaso.

“Oh. Do you want to know?” Tommaso’s lips curved into a half-grin.

“Yeah! Who is she? Tell me!”

“You’ll know when you meet her.”

Liene narrowed her eyes. “No, no no—don’t give me that cryptic nonsense. What do you mean ‘you’ll know when you meet her’? Is she your secret weapon? Your forbidden arctic girlfriend from the north gate?!”

Tommaso just grinned wider, like he’d been waiting all day for that exact meltdown. “I’m not confirming anything. But you’re welcome to speculate wildly.”

“Speculate—?” She rounded on Fabrisse like a hawk zeroing in on a startled squirrel. “Fabri! You were there, right? Who is she? Is she dangerous? Did she cause the snowstorm?”

Fabrisse looked between Liene and Tommaso. Very slowly, he shrugged. “Well . . . what Tom said.”

Liene let out a strangled sound of disbelief. She physically jumped in place, pie still in hand. “You two are impossible. I’m surrounded by juvenile cryptic menaces!”

The door’s bell chimed.

Severa Montreal stepped into the pie shop. She was alone, as usual. A breeze followed her in from the square, catching her coat just enough to make it swirl without looking staged. She held a small, cloth-wrapped package in one hand, probably lecture notes or a commissioned scroll.

Fabrisse instinctively straightened. It was a muscle reflex at this point.

She eats pie too? He had thought elites fed on theoretical acclaim. I guess they also have to eat normal food.

She passed by their table without slowing. But right as she did, she gave him a look, and then, as if to punctuate the moment with some sort of absurd dignity, she scrunched her nose.

It lasted less than a second, and then she was already gliding toward the counter.

Fabrisse blinked. “Was that . . .?”

Tommaso raised both brows and leaned in. “Dude. Did that dignified glacier just acknowledge your mortal existence?”

Liene said, “That’s Severa. Montreal.”

Tommaso tilted his head. “Do you always say it like that?”

“She’s from House Montreal. I’m being accurate.”

“I know House Montreal without you explaining to me. So she’s the new prodigy?”

“She also turned down two Instructor Assistant offers this term because she can invite High Instructants from other kingdoms to come tutor her,” Liene added. “And she’s technically a second-year, but she’s being evaluated on senior-tier projects.”

While those two were still whispering among each other, Fabrisse focused his attention on Severa. He remembered his new skill: Spectral Appraisal. It had unlocked barely an hour ago, and he hadn’t tested it yet. There was no better trial subject than someone terrifyingly competent and probably not looking his way.

SPECTRAL APPRAISAL: ACTIVE
Target: Severa Montreal
Classification: Synod Student (Tier 9)
Affiliation: House Montreal
Status: Clear

Vitality (HP): ??? / ???
Focus (FP): ???

Attributes:
INT (Intuition): 68
ARC (Aetheric Resonance Control): 99
SYN (Synaptic Clarity): 94
— All other attributes are currently restricted.

Spell Affinities:
— Locked due to appraisal rank.

Behavioral Pattern: Strategic / Controlled / High Focus
Resonance Volatility: LOW

Warning: Target’s access level exceeds appraisal clarity threshold. Further details restricted.

Fabrisse felt his stomach tighten.

Her ARC was 99. It was like 40 times his.

She was too high-tier for him to even glimpse her full status.

“So she’s a nerd,” Tommaso concluded.

Fabrisse was still staring at the counter where Severa waited. She hadn’t turned back around. “She’s not a nerd.”

“Oh no,” Tommaso said under his breath. “He’s already infected.”

“What?” Fabrisse asked.

“Nothing.” Tommaso passed him another slice of pie. “Here. Eat before your heart starts writing poetry.”

Severa didn’t so much as glance back while the three of them whisper-argued behind her. The pie shop wasn’t big. The acoustics were terrible. And Tommaso was not a subtle whisperer.

She accepted her parcel from the clerk, nodded once, and pivoted gracefully toward the exit.

As Severa passed their table, she slowed. “It’s ‘research assistant,’ not instructor assistant. But thank you for the accuracy effort.” Then she walked out, braid swaying. The pie shop door chimed.

Tommaso curled his lips in amusement. “I take back what I said. That was a cool nerd move.”

Liene groaned and slumped forward. “We are so dead. What could possibly be worse than making enemies with the most powerful snob in the Synod?”

In walked Lorvan, now with rings glinted on his left hand instead of just two. And he was holding a folded parchment.

“Oh no,” Tommaso and Fabrisse muttered in unison. “The parchment.”

“Good evening.” His voice was too calm. “You three,” he said, “prepare for a disciplinary hearing.”

“Three?” Liene leaned back. “What did I do?”

Lorvan didn’t address her. “I expect you to bring statements, contextual defense, and non-exploding alibis. You have twenty-four hours.”

He then left the shop.

“We blame it on Linny,” Tommaso said.

“If I go down for this, I’m taking both of you and a fireproof pie tin with me,” Liene grumbled.

Fabrisse swallowed the rest of his pie. He probably should have told Liene. But everything had happened too fast, and too stupidly.

The new skill was not worth it.

Chapter 47

You could always find Cuman Gollivur in the Kinesthetic Ring.

It was his natural habitat—half athletic arena, half performance stage. At any given hour, he was sparring someone dumber than him or bullying someone quieter than him, grinning like the idea of humility was a stupified Stupenstone.

Right now, he was juggling spellflairs.

Three glowing spheres of compressed aether floated between his hands in a smooth loop. It didn’t look impressive unless you knew how hard it was to hold a flare that long without scorching your fingertips or throwing off the balance of the ring. Miro wasn’t around.

Fabrisse watched from behind a low hedge. “He juggles now?”

Tommaso crouched beside him, chewing the stem of a conjured mint leaf. “He juggles pride. One of these days, someone’s going to drop it for him.”

“Someone like you?”

Tommaso patted his shoulder. “Like you, dude. It’s your show. I brought the mitts. You bring the motivation.”

Fabrisse stared at the glyph in his peripheral vision.

[Quest: Rock and Retaliation — Objective: Launch projectile at target’s face with emotional intent]

[Remaining Time: 26 hours, 17 minutes]

[Bonus Objective: Humiliate him publicly]

[Bonus Reward: FP +2]

He slipped on the Thaumaturge’s Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado. The moment the laces cinched, his spine straightened an extra inch and his emotional judgment dropped by five.

Tommaso grinned. “You ready for Operation Skull Tap?”

“That’s not the name.”

“It is now.”

“Do you get to name operations?”

“No.”

“I see why.”

Cuman had gathered a small crowd. Nothing serious—just a few of his usual followers, Rhel among them, watching as he lectured a first-year about ‘a proper shoulder rotation in kinetic projection.’ The poor student looked like he was fighting the urge to cry or punch something.

Fabrisse reached into his satchel and picked his smoothest Stupenstone. This one had a good echo—resolve layered over minor annoyance. Exactly the kind of vibe Cuman deserved.

“Alright,” Tommaso whispered, “Follow the plan I’ve carefully crafted.”

The plan was ridiculous, and he had laid it out in steps.

Step 1: Fabrisse would enter the Kinesthetic Ring from the southwest quadrant, walking at exactly 65% confidence speed (just enough to look intentional but not enough to raise Cuman’s suspicions).

Step 2: Tommaso would ‘accidentally’ knock over a stack of sparring dummies using a delayed combustion spell timed to explode 1.3 seconds after Fabrisse crosses into Cuman’s peripheral vision. This would create the illusion of a spontaneous training mishap and distracts the crowd.

Step 3: While all eyes are glued to the chaos, Fabrisse would perform a three-step momentum roll to build kinetic flow, then flings the emotionally-primed Stupenstone directly at Cuman’s face using ‘The Curveball of Righteous Spite.’ (The Stupenstone Fling, in Fabrisse’s case).

Step 4: Upon impact, Tommaso would cast a minor glamor to display the words ‘Critical Hit: Ego Fractured’ midair, followed by an enchanted slow clap and maybe a firework shaped like a middle finger.

Step 5: Escape via dramatic retreat, ideally into sunset lighting, while maintaining eye contact with anyone who looks too impressed.

When Fabrisse did not agree to this plan, Tommaso had asked if he had a better one. He didn’t. But maybe Liene had a better plan. Maybe he should’ve stuck with Liene for this revenge arc.

The Thaumaturge’s Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado felt like they were vibrating with a nervous energy as Fabrisse put them on. He glanced at the remaining time: 26 hours, 17 minutes. Plenty of time to back out, plenty of time to . . . not.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Step one.”

He stepped out from behind the hedge and started walking across the perimeter of the Kinesthetic Ring.

Sixty-five percent confidence speed was a lie. It felt like tiptoeing through a performance critique, but he held steady. Left, right, left. Shoulders back. Chin level. No shaking.

He passed a pair of third-years sparring with blunt-end rods. One of them looked up and did a double take—probably recognizing the kid who once missed his own foot with a pebble. Fabrisse ignored it.

He was almost at the southwest quadrant.

“Wait for it . . .” Tommaso whispered, crouched like a saboteur behind the dummies.

Cuman’s laughter carried across the field. “No, no, no—like this, see? You can’t throw it like a dying rabbit and expect arc correction to save your honor. Try again.”

The crowd snorted.

Fabrisse winced.

“NOW!” Tommaso hissed.

Fabrisse rushed in.

And—

Nothing exploded.

No combustion, no toppled dummies, no puff of misdirection. Just Tommaso waving frantically from behind the stack, mouthing, wait, wait, fuse delay.

Fabrisse froze.

Cuman turned.

“Uh,” Fabrisse said.

“Oh look,” Cuman said, cracking his knuckles and not breaking his juggle. “It’s the lawn ornament with eyebrows. Are you finally learning kinetic projection or are you just lost?”

Fabrisse’s brain screamed ROLL NOW. So he did.

He dropped low, launched into a momentum roll—

—and immediately got stuck on the edge of a chalk line.

“Augh—!” His foot snagged, and he did a sort of sideways-flop-scramble that did not look very heroic. He emerged from the roll covered in chalk dust, with half a grass blade stuck to his face.

FP: 15/30

Spellcasting efficiency and stats drop by 30%.

Oh no. I even have fewer chances to land the rock on his head now.

“Wha—?” Cuman blinked, momentarily confused.

Tommaso finally yelled, “Distractioooon!” and flung a flame dart into the dummy pile.

With a boom, a stack of dummies went flying.

The top half of a training torso spun into the air and landed with a hollow thunk on the opposite end of the Kinesthetic Ring. A piece of foam padding hit the first-year in the face. Everyone ducked.

NO! You don’t blow up the dummies! You’re supposed to blow up NOTHING!

He should’ve stuck with Liene. They were definitely going to be disciplined.

Cuman, to his credit, barely flinched. The moment the blast drew everyone's gaze, his grin dropped. His eyes narrowed with sudden, predatory focus.

He had felt the flare of the spell before it launched. And now, with Fabrisse standing in front of him in orange mitts and a panic-glazed expression, the entire thing clicked together.

“You little runt,” he said. “You came here to throw something at me.”

Fabrisse tried to stammer something—an apology, a distraction, a pun—but it came out as a wheeze.

He flared his hands wide, conjuring a kinetic grip spell—one of those that caught airborne projectile energy and returned it with interest. The flairs he’d been juggling condensed into a sharp triangle of green-tinted wind-blades hovering behind him.

“Oh no,” Tommaso muttered. “He’s entering his showboat stance.”

Fabrisse raised his stone too late. His throwing arm hadn’t even reached full arc when Cuman barked, “Let’s see how you like throwing!”

A burst of air slammed toward Fabrisse, an aetheric shove, knocking his stance off balance. The Stupenstone dropped from his hand.

[Damage Taken: Disorientated]

Then Cuman snapped his fingers.

The spellflairs behind Fabrisse exploded outward like thrown daggers, not aimed to hit, but to corral. Flare-blades arced to herd him into the center of the ring.

Cuman stepped forward, one foot at a time, in a mock slow-walk.

“FABRIIIIISSE!” he shouted. “GO SNOWGLOBE!”

Fabrisse blinked. “What does that mean?!”

Tommaso conjured a mini snowstorm. In July. Directly in the Kinesthetic Ring.

He can cast snow-based spells now?!

A spiral of frost swept in like a conjured blizzard, summoned by an aggressive three-part channel: wind, mist, and showmanship.

Cuman reeled back in surprise as a puff of snow burst in his face. “What—?!”

“MOVE!” Tommaso barked.

FP: 9/30

[Thaumaturge’s Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado’s Passive Effect Activated]

Fabrisse, unsure if he was obeying magic or instinct, ducked. The leftover Stupenstone he’d dropped glowed faintly with its original ivory charge—resolve and irritation—and rolled to a stop near his foot.

I have a chance! He thought as he tripped over a training cone and caught his own foot in the hem of his robe. He was now upside down and was at an impossible angle. It’s the perfect angle! 

He scooped it, channeled, and threw.

The mitts burned with kinetic heat. The glyph flared.

The Stupenstone screamed through the blizzard like a vengeful raven.

Cuman turned, just in time to catch it right between the eyebrows.

BONK.

The spellflairs winked out.

His balance failed.

Cuman hit the ground with a heavy thud. A snowflake landed gently on his left cheek.

Silence.

Then:

[Quest Completed: Rock and Retaliation]

[Reward Granted: Spectral Appraisal (Rank I)]
[Bonus Objective Achieved: Humiliate him publicly]
[Reward Granted: FP +2 | SYN +1]
[Title Unlocked: Petty Strategist (Temporary)]

Fabrisse stood there, stunned, while Tommaso slid beside him in a cloud of conjured frost.

They stared down at the unconscious future of inherited mediocrity.

Fabrisse turned to Tommaso. “I did it.” 

Tommaso nodded eagerly. “He got stoned.” 

They fist-bumped. The sun flared behind them for some unknown reason. They turned back. The ‘sun’ was a burning training dummy.

Tommaso opened his mouth, “Right. That one was probably a bit much.”

The scorched husk of foam and cloth tipped sideways with a theatrical fwoomp, sending a thin curl of smoke into the air.

[Sparring Completed: +42 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 1040/1500]

That was for sure not sparring though . . .

A dozen spectators stood frozen around the Kinesthetic Ring, wide-eyed. Most had ducked during the explosion, but now they were watching Fabrisse and Tommaso like they were either about to get arrested or knighted.

Fabrisse’s hand was still halfway through the post-fistbump pose. “So uh. Now what.”

Tommaso slapped his back and spun to face the crowd like a street performer mid-final act. “Now,” he said loudly, “we initiate Operation Cover Our Glutes.”

He cleared his throat and raised his hands. “Esteemed students of the Synod! Witnesses to this glorious educational incident! You all just saw Cuman Gollivur—unprovoked—attempt to intimidate and forcibly project kinetic spellflairs at a fellow peer.”

Someone in the crowd blinked. “Wait, weren’t you the one who—”

Tommaso cut them off with a radiant smile. “And in a heroic act of instinctual self-defense, young Fabrisse Kestovar—famed rock-flinger and part-time duck whisperer—used a basic thaumaturgic tool of resistance to subdue a belligerent upperclassman.” Tommaso was several classes above Cuman. “Which, I remind you all, is technically encouraged under Synod Clause 107.1.b, subheading ‘Situational Assertiveness in the Face of Arrogant Idiots.’”

One student shrugged. “I mean, he was being a jerk again.”

Another nodded. “Cuman’s always yelling at first-years.”

“I saw him toss a chalkboard away once just because it misspelled his name,” said a girl with a clipboard. “His name was written right.”

“Is anyone going to check if he’s breathing?” A fourth asked.

“He’s fine,” Tommaso called. “You can’t kill smugness. It just regenerates.”

Fabrisse muttered, “This is insane.”

Tommaso leaned toward him. “Yeah. But also, nobody here really likes him. Even Rhel’s halfway out the exit pretending he didn’t witness anything.”

Sure enough, Rhel was power-walking away with his head down, whistling.

Tommaso turned back to the group, pointing a very finger-waggy finger. “If anyone official asks, you saw Cuman cast the first spell. Fabrisse responded. And the dummy pile spontaneously combusted due to poor maintenance protocols, as noted in Facilities Report 217-C. Understood?”

The students exchanged glances.

Then they nodded, almost in unison.

Chapter 46

“So you’re going to stay for the next three months?” Fabrisse asked before shoving the last piece of pie into his half-stuffed mouth.  He balanced his pie tin on one knee, while Tom sat cross-legged beside him, absently flicking sparks between his fingers.

“Yeah,” Tom said. He wasn’t eating any pie. He didn’t even like pie.

They were slouched in their usual spot, a semi-forgotten maintenance balcony halfway up the east tower overlooking the glowvine-lit atrium below. It was just high enough to discourage surprise visitors, or to practice pyromancy tricks without accidentally burning anything down. Someone, years ago, had dragged two mismatched chairs and an old sigil-console up here and declared it furniture. Probably Tom.

Fabrisse claimed the sturdier chair.

“Are you guys even allowed to take a vacation that long?” Fabrisse asked.

“I still have work to do. There have been bizarre fire resonance phenomena inside the Synod, and I’ve been sent back to have a closer look.”

“What phenomenon?”

“That’s classified,” Tommaso gave him a toothless grin.

“Oh. You’re keeping secrets now that you’re a magus?”

“Speaking of secrets, I should be asking you.” Tom nudged him with his elbow. “The Chosen One, huh? What’s your ultimate spell, dude? I know you can conjure an entire ballroom full of illusory chickens now. Spill it.”

“Well . . . I have this one.” He took out a Stupenstone from his satchel. “Turn around.”

Tommaso chuckled and obliged. 

Fabrisse raised the Stupenstone, muttered a few choice syllables under his breath—most of which probably weren’t magical—and released the spell.

A bolt of shimmering force zipped through the air.

And he missed.

The spell zipped past the pot, just grazing the wall behind it with a harmless fizz.

Tom turned back around just in time to see the wilted plant wobble from the near miss. “Huh. Not bad. Though this is what you’ve been spending time on? Where are the obligatory fire spells?”

“I haven’t learned them.”

“How did you pass the exam?” Tommaso furrowed his brows.

“You need a 50 to pass. 50% of the test was theory. I scored a full 50 in theory.”

“You passed on a technicality?”

Fabrisse shrugged and shoved the now-empty pie tin under his chair. “It’s not a technicality if it’s in the rules.”

“Then how much did you get for the actual spellcasting portion?”

“Seven. Lorvan said my form was acceptable.”

Tommaso let out a long, slow exhale and rubbed his temples. “You’re the Chosen One.” He paused for another second. “Look. Final year subjects won’t be like that. The theory itself gets harder and they won’t let you pass without a sufficient cast. Maybe we can transform whatever knowledge you’ve accumulated into practice. You don’t keep that old notebook with you anymore?”

“At home. It’s so tattered it can turn into dust if I touch it too hard.”

“What about your lucky charm?” Fabrisse had once found a shard of lunarglass hematite. That rock was aether-reactive and could resonance channels during incantation

“I left it with Dubbie.”

“You’re kidding,” Tommaso snorted. “It actually offers a boost to your Aetheric Resonance Control, so you should bring it along with you. Dubbie doesn’t even practice Thaumaturgy. You, on the other hand, need some help.”

Speaking of help . . . He had a quest which would run out in two days. During those two days, he had to throw a rock at Cuman’s face. It was imperative that Cuman got stoned.

“I know this might be a long shot . . . But do you know of any way for me to improve my rock flinging in two days?” Fabrisse asked, sheepishly.

“Rock flinging, huh?” Tommaso put a finger on his chin. “I have just a thing for you.”

***

[You have equipped the Thaumaturge’s Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado]

Description: SYN + 3; ARC + 3

Also passively increases your likelihood to pick fights you probably can’t win, if you FP drops to lower than 30% of the total amount.

[Warning: These will take up 2 Inventory slots]

“I made them myself! You likey?” Tommaso boasted the moment Fabrisse got the mitts on. He wore a particularly pompous puff of pride on his face.

“What did you imbue into this?” Fabrisse asked, but he knew the answer was probably arrogance. 

“Spellthreaded aetherhide, and a bit of attitude.”

“Ah.”

Spellthreaded aetherhide was a pliable leather harvested from dusk-antlered hornbeasts, creatures not extinct but rather hard to herd without someone losing a limb. But during the crafting process—particularly at the stage of infusion—these materials became highly impressionable.

In Tommaso’s case, that emotional imprint had baked in an unwanted side effect, nudging the wearer towards unwise but theatrical acts of magical aggression.

Fabrisse stared down at his mitts. The weather was still much too warm for such thick gear, but he appreciated the lunarglass mesh that etched along the knuckles. It caught the light like frost. If only these mitts weren’t . . . orange in color. Bright orange, like someone had tried to enchant confidence and ended up with safety cones.

“Alright, let’s see it.” Tommaso tapped Fabrisse’s satchel. “Grab a stone and aim for that shriveled patch on the root.” He pointed at the wilted plant.

Fabrisse reached into his satchel and pulled out one of his smoother stones. The weight felt denser somehow, like the mitts had synchronized with it. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

He channeled a reasonable amount of resolve, and the air around the stone grew ivory-tinted.

Then he flung it.

The stone zipped through the air in a perfect arc and struck the exact spot with a sharp thwack, sending a puff of dry soil into the air. The wilted plant shuddered in its pot.

“Woah.” Fabrisse stared at his own hands. He did not just make a shot that clean.

[Mastery Training: Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)—Progress to Rank III: 41%]

→ Trajectory Curvature: Stable ~ Consistent

→ Estimated Launch Velocity: 5.6 m/s (72% max)

→ Accuracy Deviation: ±3.2%

System Note: Good. Next time try it without cheating.

I can complete the quest now. But I shouldn’t be so full of myself.

There would be no way Cuman would just let a stone flying at his face without blocking it. He needed a distraction.

As Fabrisse walked over to pick up the stone, he spoke to Tommaso over the shoulder, “Tom. I have something I need your help with.”

“Spit it. Nothing your best buddy can’t handle.”

He really wanted to tell Tommaso about the quest, which would mean his friend needed to learn about how Eidralith worked. But Lorvan had told him to not tell anyone, even his best friends.

“What you’re about to say, dude? Don’t backtrack now,” Tommaso urged.

He should’ve opened his mouth to tell Tom everything—the glyph, the system, the sidequest. However, what came out was, “I’m being bullied by sixteen-year-olds.”

“For real?” Tommaso’s voice cracked with disbelief, stretched between stifled laughter and genuine confusion.

Why did I say it like that? Now it sounded even more humiliating.

Chapter 3

The Eidralith? The stony box that looks like a piece of veined quartz?

He jolted upright in surprise—

—and his satchel tilted.

With a series of cheerful clunk, clink, eleven more hideous, completely useless stones cascaded out and hit the polished sanctum floor like a pocket-sized rockslide. They stopped only when a particularly big stone nudged against the base of the dais . . .

The Headmaster, Archmagus Murelien Draeth looked down at the dozen Stupenstones littered across the sanctum. “Kestovar,” he said, voice like falling granite, “do you imagine yourself amusing?”

Fabrisse opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, “. . . not usually.”

A ripple of horrified disbelief spread through the assembled magi.

Draeth took a single step forward. “You have failed more courses than any apprentice in recorded history,” he said, voice rising now. “You can’t conjure a spark without singing your eyebrows. You once submitted a stanza instead of a methodology section. And yet—yet—you continue to squander what limited time and limited attention you possess on these . . . these geological droppings!” He jabbed a finger at the mauve-flecked stones as though they might explode. “You parade your incompetence like a badge! You disrupt a sacred invocation to chase rubble!”

The Archmagus sure remembers a lot about a student he claims to not care about . . .

“With all due respect, Archmagus,” Fabrisse muttered, “technically it’s sub-aetherically inert metamorphic residue with unclassified matrix potential—”

“Silence!” Draeth thundered.

The winds that weren’t there a moment ago came roaring through the sanctum, stirred not by any open door or window, but by the Archmagus’ command of Thaumaturgic Gale. The gale was a crimson, the color of rage. They coiled through the rafters and howled against the stained-glass moons above, rattling every banner on its pole.

“That is why,” the Archmagus snarled, voice echoing through the chamber, “the Origins have never blessed you with a trace of true gift! No magic reverence! Because you have the soul of a hedge-rat and the priorities of a moth!”

Fabrisse’s mouth opened, but he had absolutely nothing to say.

Lorvan stepped forward.

“Headmaster Draeth,” he said, inclining his head. “If I may—”

“You may not,” Draeth snapped, already turning the full weight of his disdain. “Unless it is to apologize for the catastrophic standard of apprentices you continue to advance.”

Lorvan’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

Draeth turned to the assembled congregation with theatrical derision. “Consider, for contrast, Mentor Rubidi—whose pupil, High-Kindling Severa Montreal of the Ninth Tier, has not only completed her trials a full annum early, but has already drafted three treatises on transference theory and translated the Sixth Flame Canticle into pre-Draconic syllabary.”

As if on cue, Rubidi, resplendent in a robe stitched with glyphs no one else had earned, lifted her chin a smidge, the kind of smug gesture that required years of practice. Beside her stood Severa, a statuesque figure of impossible posture, wearing the faintest trace of a victorious smirk. Her hair, a precise cascade of ink-dark coils pinned into a faultless spiral, looked like it had never known the concept of wind. Even her uniform robes looked somehow sharper than regulation, cinched at the waist with a clasp etched in her House sigil.

Severa glanced at Fabrisse like one might glance at a pigeon that had wandered into a royal banquet. Rubidi gave Lorvan a glance that might as well have been a sympathy wreath.

Draeth raised both arms, silencing the room once more with nothing but presence.

“This is not merely ceremonial,” he intoned. “This is the first true awakening in nearly half a century. The Eidralith has stirred. It is a gift from the Origins themselves, bound in mystery and power older than speech. And for the first time in over two Spans, it calls.”

The silence in the sanctum deepened in ways Fabrisse didn’t think possible.

“Not to the loudest,” Draeth continued, voice ringing like a bell. “Not to the cleverest tongue. But to the most steadfast. To those who have shown reverence, devotion, and scholarly mastery beyond their years.”

He swept a hand toward the dais, where a shrouded, towering form throbbed beneath coils of braided silver chain. 

“Only the most accomplished among you may earn a Vothiculum, a sacred chance to attempt resonance with the Eidralith. A chance, I must remind you, that many will never see in their lifetimes.” The Vothiculum was just the name of the ritual where you try to earn the mysterious box’s respect. Fabrisse didn’t know why there should be a name for every little thing, but there was anyway.

A hushed murmur rippled through the ranks. Somewhere behind the third column, someone actually clutched their heart.

The Archmagi had never explained why students had to be the ones to attempt resonance. There were theories among the kindlings, of course: that the Eidralith rejected minds calcified by age, that the cosmic frequency of adolescence was more compatible with the stone, or that the box simply hated wrinkles. Whatever the case, the rule was unshakable. The performer of the resonance must be an undergraduate.

Then Draeth turned back to Fabrisse with a gaze like a hammerstone. “You shall stay,” he said. “Not to participate. But to witness. So that you may at last comprehend what it means to be worthy. So that you may see the reward of diligence, and what becomes of those who choose the path of reverence over rubble. But first, pick up your rocks.” His robes swished as he pivoted.

Fabrisse stared at the floor.

Of course Severa gets to try first. She gets every first. Even Nora and Aldren—actual hardworking magi—haven’t been invited to go first once. They’ve studied for years and haven’t so much as touched the box. But nooo, Severa does one flawless flame braid and suddenly she’s Destiny’s chosen frypan.

Severa Montreal was the best sixteen-year-old he’d ever seen, and she was attending lectures in many final year subjects, which would mean she was on track to graduate by seventeen. He didn’t know if that would set a new record.

He also didn’t know if Severa would have achieved that level of success had Draeth not decide to to all but adopt her as a personal project. That alone was a ridiculous advantage. One private review a week with a High Instructant, plus personal access to annotated spell-rotas. There had also been whispers that she’d been allowed to test prototypes of new resonant glyph matrices before they even passed peer audit.

From the far end of the chamber, a heavy door creaked open, and the attendant emerged. No one knew his name. He had no robes, no sigils, no house crest. Just a face carved by years and eyes that never quite blinked at the right time.

Behind him floated the Eidralith.

The box itself was roughly the size of a bread loaf, but that was the only familiar thing about it. It drifted, bound in writhing aether chains that twisted like smoke caught in amber. Veins of raw energy traced along its edges, threading themselves through the chains, which sparked gently as they adjusted to the pulse.

The chamber went completely still. Even Severa straightened a little more.

The Eidralith floated to its resting place—an obsidian pedestal etched with warding runes that shimmered a soft violet as it descended. The aether chains settled too, coiling midair in neat, watchful spirals.

He crouched to retrieve his shame, stone by stone. Each one was louder than it had any right to be. As if they weren’t rocks, but proof. Proof of his failure, of stubbornness, of dreams so unmagical and mundane they couldn’t even shimmer nor spark in his imagination.

What’s wrong with rocks? I can go into theoretical strata research if I know enough about rocks. But Draeth had never seemed to care for theoretical research.

He reached for the largest one when a second hand came into view.

Lorvan bent beside him and began helping.

They said nothing. The air was too thick with the aftertaste of public humiliation.

Fabrisse risked a glance. “Thank you,” he mouthed soundlessly.

Lorvan didn’t respond. He just shoved the last of the stones into the satchel and walked away without a word.

Chapter 45

Fabrisse rubbed his eyes, still not entirely sure he hadn’t inhaled too much channel residue during the Skybrace match.

“W–why are you back?” he asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be off . . . I don’t know, fighting off goblins in the Redscape or throwing fire at warbands in Jorhest?”

Two years older and coming from the same commune of Itakonra as Fabrisse, Tommaso had trained his entire life to become a combat mage. The pay was tremendous, and he’d always felt an urge to ‘smash those evil goblins’ heads in’ (his exact words). The goblins had always been a nuisance near the frontier as they had no concept of borders and demarcated lands.

Tommaso threw his head back with a theatrical laugh. “Goblins? Man, please. That was last month’s hobby. I’m on vacation now.” He shot finger arrows at nothing in particular. “Synod rules say I’m technically an ‘adjunct fire resonance observer’ until further notice. So yeah—paid break under the glorious sun and free dining hall lunch. Also, I think I still owe you a concussion from the breadstick duel of ‘22.”

Fabrisse gaped. “You are a what?”

“Anyway!” Tommaso cut in, grinning wildly. “Wanna see my newest trick?”

Before Fabrisse could answer, Tommaso rolled his shoulders, flicked both wrists outward in a crisp spiral, and channeled.

A burst of orange-gold fire ignited midair, spiraling into shape like it was being drawn by a drunk, excitable artist. The wings of the thing flared, and its beak opened but made no sound. It pecked the air with glowing ember eyes and let out a screech like someone setting dry hay on fire. The mint sparks surrounding the creature were much more pronounced in color than that of Miro’s.

It was unmistakably, and unfortunately, a chicken.

Fabrisse stared.

Tommaso beamed. “Can’t do a phoenix yet,” he said proudly. “But we’re getting there.”

The fire-chicken flapped once, caught a breeze, and very nearly charred a passing tree branch before Tommaso snapped his fingers and popped it out of existence.

Tom would probably have been his class’ best graduate had he not spent his time on conjuring wacky spells like that. Fabrisse remembered he used to enchant the lecture lanterns to dance to tavern tunes during symposium week. He was a wildfire with legs, powered by zero impulse control. His resounding success during and after his time in the Synod was probably the reason why Lorvan still kept his job despite his failures with Fabrisse.

Fabrisse couldn’t stop himself. “You’re still ridiculous.”

Tommaso grinned wider. “Ridiculously talented, maybe. You’re welcome, by the way. This chicken saved a caravan last month. Goblins don’t like poultry, or fire. Oh, also, I want you to meet somebody.”

“There’s more?” Fabrisse asked.

“There’s more?” Lorvan asked.

Tommaso jabbed his thumb behind him. “You see the snowman over there?”

Fabrisse turned. “What snowm—?”

Then he froze.

About twenty paces from the scorched training ring stood a snowman. Not a conjured snow effigy or an illusion of one—but an actual, physical snowman. Round and compact, with triple-stacked spheres, little pebbled eyes, and a crooked pine cone for a nose. It even had twigs for arms.

It was also surrounded by a faint circle of hoarfrost, frosting the surrounding grass under what was, by any reasonable measure, twenty-degree sunshine.

“Since when has it been there?”

Tommaso shrugged. “Since love entered my life.”

“What?”

A sound popped into the air behind him—a thin, crystalline snap, like ice cracking under pressure.

[PRAXIS-NODE Auto-Defense Activated]

[Proximity Alert: Pranking Pattern Detected]

Fabrisse whirled around. Too late.

“BOO!”

He yelped.

A woman was standing inches from his face, her hands tucked into her sleeves and a self-satisfying grin blooming across her lips.

She had pale silver-blonde hair drawn into a loose, side-sloping braid, a frost-blue ribbon tied at the end. Her eyes were like glacial glass, bright and unnervingly clear. She wore no armor, only a tailored coat of white velvet over glacier-gray travel robes, trimmed with runic thread.

“Sacred socks and dragon scales!” Fabrisse gasped. “You nearly gave me an aneurysm.” Lorvan must have seen her, and he didn’t even warn him.

Tommaso strolled over with an unhurried chuckle. “Fabrisse Kestovar, meet Ilya Snezhnaya. Snowmancer. Spirit channeler. Also? Acceptable kisser.”

Fabrisse stared at her, then at the snowman, then back at her.

Ilya offered a hand, very formally. “Hello.”

Fabrisse took it, mostly out of instinct. “Ah. Hi.”

As Fabrisse took her hand, a shiver ran up his arm but from the sudden sensation of tiny snowflakes materializing on his sleeve. He promptly pulled back.

Ilya’s eyes sparkled as she turned to Tom. “You were right! You can actually prank him twice in a row.” She hadn’t smiled, but her eyes had done the smiling for her.

“Great. Trouble multiplied,” Fabrisse muttered, red-faced.

Tommaso grinned like a fox. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

Fabrisse rubbed ice crystals from his sleeve. “I thought you were going to hex me.” ‘Hexing’, in this context, meant any minor, often mischievous, magical incantation designed to cause a temporary and usually harmless inconvenience.

“I considered it,” Ilya said. “But hexing is inelegant. This method yields more dramatic results.”

Just as Fabrisse opened his mouth to reply, a shadow passed over the scorched ring.

A bird dropped down from the air and perched neatly on Ilya’s shoulder.

It was a hooded raven, its gray plumage soft as ash, head and wings a sharp velvet black. The bird gave a clicking sound in its throat. Not a caw. More like punctuation.

It’s a familiar. If I bond with that clucklebeak, it might follow me around too.

“Oh,” Tommaso said brightly. “And here comes your little spy.”

“Not a spy,” Ilya corrected. “An informant.” She turned slightly, as if listening to the bird’s stillness. “He brings news, not mischief.”

The raven winked at Fabrisse.

Great. Trouble multiplied again.

The System showed him helpful messages.

[FAMILIAR DETECTED: Aetherically-Imprinted Common Raven]

[Emotional Imprint: Calm]

[Perfect Resonance Established—Ilya Snezhnaya]

[Additional Information: Knows how to wink.]

If it’s aetherically-imprinted, is it really common anymore? Fabrisse mused before finally deciding that was possibly not important in the grand scheme of things.

Chapter 44

The field was emptying.

Instructant Aval had dismissed the class with a casual gesture, and the murmurs of conversation had soon scattered. Fabrisse stayed behind for a moment, kneeling to gather his scrolls at the edge of the chalk circle. Half of them were smeared with grass-stain, the other half crumpled from being sat on.

He needed them. He’d been jotting down notes about quartz grain behavior earlier in the Wing of Stratal Studies, especially that odd silver-veined cluster on display near the central archive case. He’d drawn a rough sketch, labeled it: Possible dormant-phase ferrite-quartz? Check heat sink response later.

As he rose with the scrolls under his arm, he heard rustling sounds nearby.

There was a quiet figure sitting cross-legged on the grass, half in shadow. He wore the standard robe like everyone else, but looser, like it didn’t really belong to him. Pale-banded gloves and longish fringe, his presence had gone completely unnoticed until now.

Fabrisse was sure he’d seen this guy in lectures before—always sitting alone near the eastern windows, near the back entrance. He thought for a second, then recalled a name.

Rimmar Ciemnosc.

The guy who channeled weird spells. His air currents had no tint. Even his wards shimmered in grayscale, which was supposed to be much more difficult, as an emotionless spell usually carried a lot less intent, thus a lot less aether. Still, the spells worked. Fabrisse didn’t remember who Rimmar’s mentor was, but if they hadn’t questioned it, it meant the spells weren’t that out-of-the-ordinary.

Fabrisse gave a polite nod and was about to keep walking.

Then Rimmar spoke, “It sucks, huh?”

Fabrisse paused. “Pardon?”

“Being the butt of the joke like that,” Rimmar said, not looking at him. His voice was flat. “Those snobs think they have it all just from being born rich.”

There was a beat of silence. Wind stirred the grass between them.

Fabrisse almost wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. So he just said, “Yeah. It kinda does.”

Rimmar didn’t respond. He just tilted his head toward the sky like he was listening to something far away. Then he got up and walked off without another word.

Weird guy. It was hard to find someone weirder than Fabrisse, but that guy was pretty close.

A voice called from the sidelines. “Miss Montreal!”

Fabrisse turned to see a familiar figure in long rust-colored robes sweeping across the field with quiet command. Magus Instructant Affar Rubidi, the artifact mentor of the Montreal house, and Severa’s tutor in formal resonance mapping.

“Montreal,” Rubidi said briskly as Severa turned to her. “High Instructant Mustafa is already waiting. Remember, he came all the way from Ninnengrod. You’ll want to be properly attuned before the session.”

How many private instructants had it been this semester? Fabrisse thought. At this rate, Severa’ll collect them all and rune-stamp them like collectibles. What if they really are collectibles to her?

The image came unbidden—towering effigies of the High Instructants, cast in enchanted pewter, each adorned in their signature ceremonial robes, arms crossed sternly or raised during lectures. Miniature, lifelike crystal replicas arranged in neat rows across Severa’s dormitory shelf, some with moving mouths that recited wisdoms on loop, others enchanted to scowl disapprovingly at students who entered unannounced. The very idea of packaging centuries of arcane authority in bubble-wrap and shelf enchantments made Fabrisse wince. But then he imagined them being made of stones, prismglass, and infused ore, and that got him to smile again.

As Fabrisse gathered his belongings and stepped out of the practice field’s east wing archway, raised voices pulled his gaze toward the administrative colonnade.

Framed by the slope of the sun-drenched portico, stood two silhouettes locked in terse dispute—one tall and rigid, the other angular and sharp as a broken shard of glass.

Rubidi and Lorvan.

He stopped in his tracks.

Rubidi, ever in her rust-red robes and crested brass mantle, stood with arms folded, her tone low but tightly wound like a bowstring. Lorvan, by contrast, was literally and figuratively layered. He had three layers of clothing for possibly no other reason than his own fashion sense, and he looked completely composed despite the weight of fabric that would probably crumple Fabrisse.

Severa was nowhere to be seen.

“You’re overreaching,” Lorvan was saying. “You don’t get to question my student while you’re treating yours like a bonded adjunct.”

“Oh, my apologies, Lorvan. I forgot your supervision included exclusive jurisdiction over unremarkable improvement.” She flicked a hand, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the field. “If bonding with the Eidralith actually did something for your favorite student, I wouldn’t have to request supplemental reports from two departments just to verify he’s doing more than stone tricks.”

Wow. That’s actually an incredible insult if I wasn’t the target of it.

Lorvan’s brow seemed to have twitched; Fabrisse couldn’t be sure.

Rubidi’s smile sharpened. “And Miss Veist,” she added with deliberate slowness, “seems to have plateaued rather early. One might wonder whether the fault lies with the student or the mentor who keeps shielding her from challenge.”

There was a long pause, long enough that Fabrisse, watching from the archway, genuinely wondered if a ward duel was about to break out in the middle of the colonnade.

Then Lorvan spoke again, low and silken, “I’ve seen your kind of ambition before. It eats through everything it touches. Including protégés.”

The wrinkles on Rubidi’s forehead folded as she gave a narrow-eyed smile. “Your last graduate became a research clerk in outer Glyvan. You just want potential preserved in amber, Lorvan.” She turned before he could answer, robes swirling like a drawn curtain, and swept off toward the next column.

Fabrisse held his breath as Rubidi passed him without so much as a glance. Only when her footsteps had faded into the distance did Lorvan speak without turning. “Kestovar. Do you have some spare time?”

“Maybe? The dining hall sells mingleberry pies today, so . . .”

“I think you’ll like this more than pie,” he said. “Follow me.”

“Huh?” What could possibly be better than pie?

Lorvan strode toward the outer practice rings behind the administrative block. Fabrisse hesitated, half-worried he was about to get personally scolded for being bad at wind sports, but eventually followed. They passed through two archways, down a short slope of stairs, and onto the edge of the south plateau. This area was mostly unused, with only a ring of scorched dirt, old channel marks, and a single practice pylon long since warped from heat damage.

“Where are we going?” Fabrisse asked, glancing at the sky. It was still late afternoon. The glyphlights weren’t even on yet.

“You’ll see.”

They stopped near the circle’s center. Lorvan checked a pocketwatch and then looked up, scanning the sky with a small nod of satisfaction.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Right on time.”

Fabrisse was about to ask what was happening when a sudden flash burst across the sky. He turned to a line of fire through the clouds, followed by a trail of mint spark like that of a comet.

The fire trail twisted into a ribbon of incandescent crimson, coiling around a single, descending figure like a divine pyre. Fabrisse stumbled backward, shielding his eyes. Heat blasted outward in all directions, searing the edges of his sleeves.

The man landed in a crouch. Fabrisse didn’t know if the scorched dirt could even be more scorched, but that man might very well have managed to.

And then the fire winked out. Then came the figure: long rust-brown hair half-tied, half-falling over one shoulder, sun-scarred skin, and a grin like he'd set the world on fire and was waiting for applause.

Fabrisse squinted past the haze and smoke.

“What’s cooking, dude?” the showy fire man called out to Fabrisse, brushing soot off his sleeve. Then he clapped Lorvan’s back. “Yo teach. Still looking keen. Though you might wanna take care of that single strand of greying hair behind your back.”

“Tom?” Fabrisse staggered back. That was definitely his old best friend, Tommaso Ardefiamme.

But . . . he just descended as a fire comet. How has he become so good?

Chapter 43

The whistle pierced the field. Second half.

Cuman’s team came out aggressive.

Verryn and Rhel rotated, swinging wide to draw Severa’s team apart, and Cuman drove center with a tight gust under his feet, the silkball gliding low and fast. All three of them zipped pasta at the same time, and nobody could stop their movement.

The ball bypassed Halma, threaded through a misread gust from Larna, and curled toward the net. The net was empty.

Fabrisse flinched, bracing for the point to land.

A burst of torqueed wind spiraled in from Severa’s side, hitting the ball with a sharp lateral bend just as it crossed the third quadrant.

It skidded away like it had tripped on invisible thread and veered off course.

Cuman spat a curse under his breath.

The crowd gasped.

Severa stood still at centerfield, her robes fluttering with the last echo of her channel. Her left hand was still raised, two fingers curled in a perfect pivot seal.

Fabrisse hadn’t even seen her move.

“She’s unreal,” Larna muttered.

The game reset. Possession bounced back and forth, but it wasn’t stable.

Severa’s team couldn’t finish their breaks. Verryn had found his rhythm, skimming midfield like a raptor and cutting off every pass aimed at Larna. The moment she tried to break wide, he intercepted with looping drafts, catching the silkball and resetting the tempo. He wasn’t deft enough to catch it and launch it to the net, but he’d managed every block and sent the ball out of bounds so far.

Halma, for his part, tried twice to drive the ball past Rhel, but Rhel’s channeling had a grounded precision. He used a trebuchet-style spell array, coiling wind in dense arcs and then launching backbursts that staggered Halma’s forward motion.

Fabrisse stood at his flank post like he was tethered there. There was nothing left for him to do. So he thought.

He tracked the rhythm of play—the flow of movement, the crossing lines. And slowly, it began to make sense. Verryn was blanketing Larna, forcing her wide, and Rhel was matching Halma one-to-one with precision strikes. Severa could send them the ball ten more times and nothing would come of it.

That left only one weak link.

Cuman.

He was the only one defending their side. And he was reckless. He always overcommitted.

If she didn’t pass the ball forward—

If she kept it—

A forward run. Solo. She could get past Cuman to avoid interception, and shortening the distance meant there would be less time for the opposite keeper to react.

[Intuition +1 | Current: 23]

My glyph agrees. That’s the play.

“Severa!” He called out as the silkball travelled in the air. Severa didn’t turn to him. “Do a forward run!”

“Forward this!” Cuman fetched the ball in the air and shot it directly at Fabrisse. Severa hadn’t intercepted. It seemed Fabrisse had been left out of play for too long that even Severa had forgotten about him.

The silkball was screaming straight at him.

Fabrisse’s heart jumped into his throat. He barely had time to register it. His fingers moved on instinct, snapping down to the glyphplate at his belt. He hadn’t meant to use it. He knew what Severa would say. But—

The glyph flared.

[Stillbrace — Activated]

A translucent, ivory-colored disc of calm air burst into existence in front of him, barely large enough to shield his chest. The moment the ball struck it, the air rippled like water—absorbing the velocity, compressing, and then releasing.

The silkball bounced cleanly backward, rebounding in a perfect arc.

Straight to Severa.

Severa pivoted off the center circle and stepped forward, hand raised. The silkball spun back to her in a quiet draft. She suspended it with a tight, circular channel of air. Her head tilted. 

She saw it too.

The lane ahead was clear. Cuman had overextended in his push. Terrero hadn’t realigned. There was a gap.

Cuman tensed across the field, cocky grin in place. “Come on, then. Let’s see you try it.” He leaned forward. He was ready to rush in and intercept.

Severa didn’t answer. She charged.

The wind at her heels spiraled low and tight. She twisted past Cuman’s warding sweep like it wasn’t even there, ducked the countercurrent, and sidestepped through the narrowest break in the lane.

Cuman spun to block. Too late.

Fabrisse’s eyes locked on her movement. She bent the air ahead of her like it was a rail, guiding the silkball an inch off the grass.

Rhel flared his wind—a broad, flat cross current—but Severa’s shot came low. Lower than the angle he could counter. The ball dipped, skipped once like a stone on water, and kept cutting forward.

Terrero dove.

But he was too tall. Too slow to reach the bottom corner. The ball streaked under him with a clean whisper of wind and hit the net.

The whistle blew.

Final point.

1–0.

The crowd burst into a fit of applause.

Severa didn’t raise her fist. She didn’t even smile.

She just lowered her arm, turned, and walked back to centerfield like the whole thing had gone exactly as planned.

And Fabrisse—arms trembling, glyphplate still dimming under his palm—realized something else.

He’d just assisted.

Teammates surged toward Severa like filings to a lodestone.

Halma reached her first. “That pivot shot was ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head with a low laugh.

Larna skidded in next, arms in the air. “One-nil against Gollivur? I’m framing that in my soul.”

Severa only replied with a nod. She’d already moved past the match in her mind.

[Sparring Completed: +40 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 998/1500]

But before the celebration dispersed entirely, Halma turned.

To Fabrisse.

He didn’t run. He didn’t even walk fast. But he stepped up and offered a hand to pat his shoulder, solid and grounded.

“Good eye catching that weak spot,” Halma said.

Fabrisse blinked. “Huh?”

“You called the forward run. Smart call.” Halma gave him a small smile, then trotted off after the rest.

Fabrisse stood there for a beat too long, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then he felt it—just under the ribs. A flicker of something proud. He hadn’t been a passenger this time. He’d made a call. He’d made a play. It mattered.

“Thanks,” he murmured, almost too quietly to hear.

From the edge of the group, he felt eyes on him.

Severa.

She hadn’t joined the others in their brief chorus of victory. She wasn’t smiling. 

Their eyes locked for half a second.

She looked away first.

Fabrisse exhaled slowly. His heart was still hammering, but it wasn’t panicking anymore.

He hadn’t let himself be humiliated. Not this time.

Chapter 42

The whistle blared. Play resumed.

Verryn surged forward first this time, chest low and arms out, cradling the silkball between two finely balanced gusts. He had good footwork, better than most, and an uncanny ability to dribble the ball like it was tethered to his stride. For a moment, it looked like Cuman’s team would finally break through Severa’s midfield control.

But as Verryn spun left to launch a pass across quadrant lines, Larna darted in like a comet of cobalt-blue sparks.

With a skimming current that slid in under Verryn’s channel, she disrupted the airflow just enough to make the ball tip off course, and then caught it with a reversal draft.

“Nope.” She whipped around as the silkball hovered inches from her shoulder. “Severa!” She hurled the ball on a jetstream back toward center.

Severa had already had one foot forward, palm up. A swift, low spiral of wind gathered at her side and tightened into a compressed helix. The moment the silkball entered her zone, she channeled.

Fabrisse swore the ball travelled even faster than last time she hurled it. It screamed across the field, headed straight for the top corner of the net.

Cuman slammed his palms together.

The shockwave of air that exploded from his position was like thunder with form. A gigantic wall of pressurized gust tore through the center pitch and crashed against the incoming silkball.

The ball jerked and spun out of line, veering off its path like it had struck a barrier. It shot over the boundary line and skidded to a stop in the grass beyond the goalposts.

“Out of bounds!” Aval shouted.

Half the class stared.

Severa lowered her arm slowly, brow furrowing.

Cuman rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. “Don’t speak until it’s over. You’re not the only one who’s been practicing long shots.”

Severa didn’t answer.

The game continued.

Back and forth the silkball flew, never holding to one side for long. Cuman’s team was all aggression, storming down the flanks with powerful bursts and sharp aerial arcs. Severa’s team held only because of her. She was everywhere, looping deflections from one side, calling mid-air handoffs without even looking, and carving control out of the sky like it was hers by decree.

Fabrisse tried to keep up.

He stuck to the flank, eyes darting, hands ready. The Stillbrace glyph hovered at the edge of his nerves, ready to be cast if he could just read any moment correctly.

But the ball never came his way. The few times it spun wide, Severa redirected it early or Halma stepped up to punch it back with a dense wave. Even Larna started avoiding his zone, curving her passes away from where he stood like he was a dead wind patch.

Then it got worse.

Cuman faked a full-circle loop, launched the ball back to Rhel, and then sprinted straight down Fabrisse’s lane.

He tried to move, but Cuman was already blowing past. And he’d moved into the center. In Severa’s way.

Oh no.

“Out of the way!” Severa slammed into him from behind as she lunged for the interception, one hand slicing the air, the other guiding a sheer gust like a slingshot draw.

Fabrisse stumbled and hit the dirt. The silkball flew just inches above his face, caught by a corkscrew burst Severa barely salvaged. 

The whistle didn’t blow.

“Not a foul,” Aval said calmly from the sideline. “If you’re in your teammate’s way, that’s your problem.”

How can I know I’m in my teammates way . . . I didn’t even see her there.

Cuman rushed again. This time with something clever.

He looped the silkball around to Verryn, then feinted a misfire and dropped his wind channel. 

He’s doing it deliberately, Fabrisse thought, but he didn’t yell it out. It’s all happening too fast. I might make a mistake.

It looked like a botched cast. However, the moment Larna pounced on the ‘mistake,’ he reversed his stance and cut a sharp lateral burst toward the open zone behind her.

It almost worked.

But Severa had read it before the pass even curved.

She stepped in without fanfare, twisted her wrist into a fine-point spiral, and threaded the silkball back across the quadrant like a needle pulling through cloth. It zipped low, a clean diagonal slice through wind and pressure—straight to Halma, who had already begun his run.

“Halma!” she called.

Halma caught it with an upward pulse and followed with a blast of forward gust, throwing all his weight behind the charge.

Terrero blocked it with his finger blasts again.

The silkball flattened against it like a slap against glass. It tumbled to the side, bouncing twice before skidding into the outzone.

The whistle blew.

“Half mark!” Aval called. “One minute break.”

The teams broke formation. Fabrisse lowered his arms, breath uneven even though he hadn’t done anything. But he had been paying attention.

Terrero is too tall. He’ll have trouble getting to low balls.

They circled up near the chalkline.

Halma wiped his brow. “We’re close. That one almost went in.”

“Not close enough,” Severa said. Her eyes scanned the field like she was already re-running every possession.

Fabrisse stepped forward. “Actually, I think I noticed something—”

But Severa spoke over him. “Terrero’s coverage is good, but he’s too tall. His reach makes him late on low dives.”

Fabrisse’s mouth froze open.

“That last deflection was top-heavy,” she went on. “We don’t aim for altitude anymore. We bring the shot low, with lateral torque and ground-skipping current. One tap ahead of the keeper’s drop line.”

He slowly closed his mouth.

There’s no need for me to say anything.

“And Halma,” Severa added, turning. “You’ll fake wide next time and rotate back center. Larna, prep for a short vertical cross. I’ll handle the re-arc.”

Larna nodded. “Got it.”

Halma grinned. “Sounds fun.”

Fabrisse glanced down at his fingers, flexing them over the chalk-smeared glyphplate at his belt.

Then Severa addressed Fabrisse for the first time, “You won’t get better if you use a glyphplate. It feeds the correct emotion into an existing rune-array. You won’t cast a spell correctly otherwise.”

Larna snorted. Fabrisse only managed a weak nod.

Chapter 41

The teams had a minute to discuss the strategy. They formed a circle, and the first thing Severa said was, “We’re playing Power Rotation.”

Halma, a big burly guy, raised a brow, “Power? With him?” His tone was baffled. Power Rotation would mean no keeper, which would mean no backline. 

Larna, a girl with curly blue hair that fizzled like static, eyeing Fabrisse, who stood awkwardly a few paces away, cradling his scrolls that he hadn’t found a place to put down yet. “Look, no offense,” she said carefully, “but if we’re being strategic, maybe Kastovar should anchor defense. Catch the ball if he can. It gives us coverage, and—”

“No,” Severa cut in. “He plays the flank.”

“Seriously?” Larna said. “He barely channels. And they’re gonna put Cuman there.”

Severa’s voice stayed level. “Then he’ll learn to stand in the wind.”

That shut them both up.

Fabrisse stood on the edge of the conversation, pretending not to hear. They weren’t even talking to him. Just about him. Like he was some fragile component in a ritual array.

Severa turned toward him at last. “You flank. Redirect only. No absorption. Understood?”

He swallowed. “Understood.”

They stood in formation. Larna was right. Cuman stood directly across from Fabrisse, enough to make eye contact. He gave Fabrisse a smug grin, like a blade freshly whetted.

The whistle blared.

With a single ripple of channeled wind, the silkball leapt into motion. Cuman surged first, riding a gust straight toward the ball. Severa countered with an elegant lateral stream that spun the silkball sideways, straight toward Fabrisse’s flank.

“Yours,” she called.

I can’t conjure a gust! I have to catch it by hand—

A gust slammed into his chest and knocked him clean off his feet. 

He hit the grass flat on his back. The silkball skittered out of bounds with a sad wobble.

“Foul!” Instructor Aval barked. “Cuman! That’s not directional play—that’s player targeting! You want to disqualify yourself?”

Cuman shrugged. “He was in the way.”

Fabrisse groaned and sat up, ribs buzzing. Halma helped him up with a quiet “You alright?” but even he looked mildly confused.

Severa’s voice came in. “Kastovar. Stay on the flank. Redirect, don’t absorb.”

Redirect . . . I have a spell for that. Stillbrace.

He could cast focused dampening glyph that could calm air into a suspended shield of stillness for just under two seconds, which would be enough to form a low-tension surface that should be springy enough. But he’d need to successfully communicate an emotion to form that spell.

I can try.

The silkball spun back into play. This time, it arced low toward him again.

He braced, arms up, then extended his hand and tried to center the glyph. He used the most-basic emotion even the first year would have a level of command over: resolve. A glint of ivory materialized in front of him.

Before Fabrisse could even finish forming the glyph, a graceful spiral of air caught the silkball. It looped once, then curved gently backward, arced in a circle, then returned to Severa’s outstretched hand like it had never been meant for anyone else.

The entire team—and most of the class—turned to look. Fabrisse’s hand was still raised.

Severa caught the silkball one-handed, tucked it against her side, then cast a simple wind-based spell to pass it sideway to an advancing Larna. The ball zipped past Verryn before he could intercept, and Larna opened her palm and suspended the ball in the air as she carried it forward.

Fabrisse lowered his arm slowly. The spell collapsed. Stillbrace hadn’t even flared.

So much for redirecting.

Fabrisse repositioned like he was told. His role was clear. Stand here. Be a wall.

He hadn’t touched the silkball once.

Every time it even veered near his side, Severa swept in early, graceful and merciless. She arced gusts in precise loops that rerouted passes before they could test his reach. At one point, she didn’t even look, and only spun a brief cyclone with her heel and diverted the ball around Halma like it was tethered to her will. But it was also the reason why her team hadn’t been able to score a point. 

Larna tried a mid-range volley once, channeling the air beneath the silkball in a zigzag surge, but it sputtered halfway and drifted into Rhel’s field like a falling leaf. Halma, for his part, lunged to intercept a side-curve, but his timing was off. The wind coiled too soon, and the ball bounced over his shoulder.

Halma and Larna weren’t dexterous enough to break through Cuman’s team’s backline. Rhel had really good sense of blocking, and he would manipulate the local wind currents to stop the ball in time. Meanwhile, Terrero was tall.

It was easy to defend when they knew Severa’s team could only attack on one side.

“You think you can keep covering for him?” Cuman laughed. “I’ll just bypass you both.”

Next play, Rhel drifted farther back, nearly outside the regulation zone. Cuman faked another advance, drawing Severa’s attention center. Then, in a sudden cut, Rhel snapped both hands forward and conjured a sharp draft aimed skyward. The silkball shot up into the air. It was ridiculously high, higher than any of them had launched it all session.

Fabrisse’s head craned upward.

“Out of my way, Chosen One.” Cuman leaped the quadrant gap in one bounding rush, and he zipped past Cuman in a second.

Fabrisse turned too late. His fingers twitched toward the glyphplate, but he wasn’t ready. He’d never been ready for plays this quick.

Cuman would reach the silkball. The goal was wide open.

A low howl sliced through the sky, fine as a whistle-edge. It wasn’t sound—it was movement, a wind current so tightly wound it could’ve cut ink from air.

[Spell Detected: Gale Severance — Rank IV]

Severa. 

The gale was green. Her channel hit the upper altitude draft like a blade slamming into fabric. It tore straight through Rhel’s current, at its peak. The ball dipped, staggered, and spun helplessly backward.

Cuman shouted something that was swallowed by the wind. The ball didn’t reach him.

Instead, it floated downward on a thread of redirected air and landed lightly in Severa’s palm. She hadn’t even moved more than two paces from center.

She countered an upper-altitude aerial play in under a second, from centerfield, without moving? How good actually is she?

Severa turned on the ball of one foot, and extended her hand forward. A burst of dense, spiraling wind formed. It compressed and coiled like a spring inside a spell. Then she let it loose.

The silkball rocketed like it had been flung from a storm cannon. It screamed across the field in a straight line, faster than anyone expected. Especially since she was still standing at center. She was forty meters away from goal.

Terrero, Cuman’s last pick, stood in front of their net like a confused statue.

He realized too late.

He leaped and twisted his body through the air like a diver caught in a hurricane. With one hand outstretched, he fired a miniature wind dart from the tip of his index finger. The dart glowed charcoal—the color of fear.

A thread of air punctured the edge of the silkball just before it crossed the boundary.

It veered.

The ball struck the post, rebounded, and thumped into the grass outside the net. The crowd gasped audibly. There was even a whistle.

“Almost,” Instructor Aval muttered, loud enough for the class to hear. His voice had a rare edge of admiration in it. The score was still 0 - 0, with over two minutes left.

Terrero landed, gasping, face twisted with the kind of half-relief that looked like fear.

Cuman clenched his jaw so tightly his cheek twitched.

"You're kidding me," he muttered, just loud enough for those near him to hear.

Fabrisse had seen Terrero reaching. He’s good at blocking high angle shots. Does that mean . . .

As Verryn came to retrieve the ball, Rhel leaned over to Cuman and whispered, “She caught that upper-altitude stream like it was a handle.”

“I saw,” Cuman snapped before growling at Severa. “You little show-off. You think you can maintain your control for more than a minute?”

“I absolutely think so,” Severa replied.

“Snobby narcissist. I’ll smear the ball across your smug face,” he gritted his teeth.

Severa puffed her chest as Verryn brought the ball back in play. “Is it called narcissism if I actually am just better than everyone?”

Her statement earned an ‘oh’ from the spectators.

Fabrisse hadn’t moved.

Severa glanced at him once, then turned back to her other teammates. “Resume your positions,” she said.

Chapter 40

Lorvan left. For a moment, the corridor held its breath.

Fabrisse realized how lucky he’d been. Lorvan knew approximately where he’d be and when he’d be home. Had he not reported his training to Lorvan, his mentor might not even have shown up.

Then came the faint rustle of wards warping, a second flare—if he could call it that, and the distant cracking sound of a shatter-bound sigil being disrupted. The flare—which did not seem like a flare but more like a pitch black that swallowed light whole, splintered outwards like shrapnel, each shard of energy momentarily carving a path through the air before dissipating.

Silence again.

Another minute passed before Lorvan returned, striding quickly but without the tension of combat. He slowed as he reached Fabrisse.

“They’re gone,” Lorvan said. “There was no signature left behind except that restraint weave, and even that’s beginning to fade. Someone covered their tracks well.”

He crouched slightly beside Fabrisse, scanning him with a quick aetheric sweep from a ring-glyph. “You’re not injured. But you were seconds from being pulled into a spatial pocket, Kestovar.”

“What’s a spatial pocket?” He asked, dumbfounded.

“That’s a high-level dimension expansion spell, opening up a new ‘pocket’ to trap someone in. Most Magi don’t have a good grasp of the technique,” Lorvan answered, offering no additional information, which only made Fabrisse even more anxious.

“Who—who would even try something like that on Synod grounds?”

Lorvan didn’t answer immediately. He looked down the path again, the lines at the corner of his mouth drawn tight. “We’ll find out. But you’re not walking alone again.”

***

Fabrisse met Severa for the first time since his visit to the Montreal residence. He hadn’t emotionally recovered from last night, and he wasn’t prepared for a tirade coming from the fiery queen today.

Who could it have been? Fabrisse had spent a sleepless night thinking, but he couldn’t figure out if it could be anyone he knew. The most obvious suspect would be Severa, but he didn’t know if she would ever stoop down that low. And that colorless magic? Even Severa couldn’t conjure a spell that powerful. So when morning came, Fabrisse didn’t get any closer to the answer. He only got closer to sleep deficiency.

I should’ve just skipped class, he thought, before extinguishing that very thought. He was trying to get better; to finally take practiced Thaumaturgy seriously for one. He couldn’t give up just because he was afraid some girl would stare at him too hard.

However, she didn’t look at him.

The wind thaumaturgy class had been moved to the southern practice fields for open-air channeling, which meant there was no wall, no row of desks, no sanctuary to hide behind. Only a ring of chalk-drawn invocation circles and the open sky.

Severa stood across the field, hair caught high in a silver band, her practice robe cinched with the symmetrical folds. She hadn’t so much as flinched when he arrived. Not when he stepped across the outer ward-line. Not when Replacement Magus Instructant Aval called roll. Not when a passing gust ruffled the paper scrolls tucked under his arm and sent them flapping like nervous flags.

He bit his lips. What was he expecting? That the best student of her class would spare him a glance now that he’d visit her home once?

Well, at least I didn’t get insulted.

Cuman gave a low whistle as he passed by Fabrisse’s circle. “Kestovar,” he said with cheer, “Still hiding behind girls with real talent, or are you planning to blow some air today?” Miro followed close behind him, tongue sticking out.

Fabrisse didn’t respond. He lowered his head, pretending to focus on the chalk symbols at his feet. The edge of one glyph had smudged. He traced it back with his thumb even though the line wasn’t the problem.

Magus Instructant Aval stepped into the center of the chalk-ring and clapped once for attention. “Alright, today’s practical will be a round of Skybrace. I’m sure you’ve seen it demonstrated by Instructant Ovrien before. We’re having two teams with four players each. The objective is to send the silkball through the opposing net using only wind-channeling. No hands, no feet. You’ll use precision gust control, arc flares, or sustained current if you can manage it. Bonus points for defensive deflection and airborne rerouting. You have three minutes.”

A few groans rippled through the class. Skybrace wasn’t easy. The silkball was enchant-light, sensitive to overcasting, and notoriously prone to veering off if too much force was applied. You needed balance, control, and the ability to read airflow like script. Most of the class was barely functional at that. A few were excellent.

Two especially.

Severa and Cuman.

Instructor Aval turned toward them. “You’ll lead. Take turns choosing your teams. Three players per side.”

Cuman grinned like a wolf handed a meal. “I’ll go first.”

Fabrisse exhaled with quiet relief. Cuman wasn’t going to pick him, not unless he wanted someone to anchor the sidelines with a nervous breakdown. And Severa . . . well, she definitely wouldn’t pick him. She plays to win.

Severa didn’t speak.

Cuman made his first pick. “Rhel.”

No surprise there. Rhel had strong channel control and a vicious streak. Severa responded, “Larne.”

Cuman called, “Verryn.”

Severa didn’t even pause. “Halma.”

Last round.

Fabrisse kept his head down. His fingers curled tight around his scrolls. Cuman gave a theatrical sigh and swept his gaze lazily toward the remaining group. “I guess I’ll take Terrero. He’s tall.” Fabrisse was surprised he didn’t take Miro, but maybe Miro wasn’t any good at air-based invocations.

For a moment, Severa didn’t say anything. Fabrisse dared to glance up, already bracing for someone else’s name.

Severa’s gaze lifted across the field and landed directly on him.

“Kastovar.”

A beat of stunned silence followed.

Fabrisse’s eyes widened. He wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Some students turned. Miro let out a small, exaggerated choke of laughter.

Fabrisse stood frozen for half a breath too long before realizing he was expected to move.

“Kastovar,” Severa said again, crisply. “You’re with me.”

He walked slowly toward her, scrolls still under one arm, pulse hammering like he’d been picked for ritual sacrifice. He passed Cuman on the way.

“Your funeral,” Cuman said with a smirk.

Fabrisse’s heart lurched. He wanted to disappear. But his feet, traitorous things, moved forward anyway. At least he’d grabbed a glyphplate and positioned it on his belt. A glyphplate is a personal channeling device inscribed with basic and intermediate runes. It would help reduce the cost of maintaining sustained glyphs like Stillbrace or Stonesway and initiate spells quickly without manually drawing glyphs each time.

He dared a glance at Severa as he stopped beside her.

She didn’t acknowledge him. Her focus was already on the silkball Aval had conjured into suspension at centerfield.

Her lips curved into a razor-fine line.

This wasn’t a strategy. It was a setup.

She’s going to make me fail, he realized. In front of everyone.

Chapter 39

Thursday came. Fabrisse was confident he had something to show for to Liene. His mastery progress had gone up to 34%, but there was something else.

SYN (Synaptic Clarity): 4

His Synaptic Control had risen to 4 after Veliane’s guidance. He didn’t know when it happened; he must’ve missed the notification. And it wasn’t like he felt he was doing anything much different. He just put in a bit more effort than he would normally.

Was Veliane a better teacher than Lorvan? Unlikely. Fabrisse didn’t progress at all before Lorvan. He was sure most of his gains in INT before he bound with the Eidralith had to do with his mentor. Lorvan must’ve found a direction for him and tried to mold him in that direction.

Then, is the Eidralith actually speeding up my improvements?

He stood by the North Pond, feeding Mercy (yes, the clucklebeak had a name now) as he waited for Liene. The duck swooped in, swallowed the bread gleefully and nodded at him before paddling off.

[Perfect Resonance Progress: 63%]

He let the number sit in the back of his mind, along with the low ache in his shoulder from too many late-night throws. He’d managed to land hits from three meters out now. One of them had even curved mid-air to tag the edge of a mock target.

Liene is kinda late today, he thought. Last time they practiced late together, Lorvan had demanded both of them to report to him if they arranged the session next time, followed by a reminder that unsupervised training past sunset, even on Synod grounds, came with certain expectations.

They’d reported it formally after that. Signed the registry scroll, filed the timestamped field declaration, and even vouched they would return before eight.

Fabrisse heard the grass shuffle behind him.

“Fabri!” Liene’s voice chimed across the quiet. He turned, already half-smiling.

And then the smile froze.

Because in her hands was a thin, soft-backed field manual with a bright yellow cover he recognized instantly. The Beginner’s Handbook to Stone-Form Aether Alignment.

He knew it because he’d read it five years ago. Twice. And he remembered the theory.

“Is that . . .?” he began.

Liene blinked at him rapidly, then turned the book right-side up. “Oh, this? Yeah. Thought I’d brush up.”

“Brush up?” Fabrisse echoed, stunned. “You don’t read.”

Liene pouted. “Rude. I read.”

“You read pie labels.”

“Well, that means I’m well read enough to read through this, um . . .” Liene rubbed her fingers together with the hand not holding the book. “Well. I’ve been reading through it. Sort of. Skimming, really.”

“You’ve been skimming Stone-Form Aether Alignment?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. There’s a diagram on page twelve that looks like a sad egg. I paid full attention to that one.”

“Okay, and?”

“And . . . I realized, your little flinging spell thing? It’s not in here. There’s nothing about emotional imprint curvature or impact vectors. But I did find something kinda close. Page twenty-two. It talks about anchored pivot tosses, whatever that means.”

Fabrisse smiled. There was something genuinely earnest about the way she said pivot tosses like it was both mysterious and made-up. And when she flipped the book open to show him the page—upside down for some reason—he thought, She’s kind of adorable when she’s trying this hard.

Liene tucked the book under her arm and said, “Anyway, I thought, why not test it? I practiced with the thing you do—y’know, the charge-lift bit.”

“You practiced?” Fabrisse asked, incredulous. “As in, trained?”

She huffed. “Yes.” She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a rounded stone with chalk veining. 

“I don’t have that cool arc you do,” she said, “but I figured if I threw it just right, it might arc a little. Watch.”

She squared her shoulders, wound up, and extended her palm. A white spark splashed, and the stone launched in a clumsy and skewed arc. It hung just long enough in the air to show it had caught something and curved lazily to the right before thunking into the grass near one of the marked circle posts.

Fabrisse pursed his lips. “That actually went far.”

[Note: Third spell not detected. Reward not triggered.]

Wait. That objective thing was still going . . .

“I know, right?” She looked pleased, and a little embarrassed. “I spent fifteen minutes in the courtyard behind the eastern dorm trying to get it to curve like yours. Nearly hit a squirrel.”

He stared at her. “You really practiced.”

Liene crossed her arms, exhaling. “Stone thaumaturgy is stupid. It’s heavy and stubborn and won’t flex when you ask it to. I’ve always heard it was unpopular, and now I get why.”

“Because it’s hard.”

“Because it doesn’t want to help you,” she said. “Like it has this grudge against being useful.”

Fabrisse laughed. “Yeah. It kind of does.”

“But,” she added, straightening a little, “if you’re going to master it, I figured I might as well try to keep up.”

He stared at her, and for a moment, the words didn’t come out. Veliane Veist wouldn’t have done this for him.

“So,” she said as she put one foot on the ground and nudged him with her elbow. “Are we gonna test your fancy flinger now, or what?”

***

“Yay! That’s a hit!” Liene announced.

The pebble zipped through the air and struck the scarecrow square in the collarbone. Fabrisse didn’t whoop or cheer. He just let the moment sit in silence for a beat, chest rising with quiet satisfaction.

[Mastery Training: Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)—Progress to Rank III: 40%]

[Stone-Based Thaumaturgy—Resonance Alignment Improved]

[Synaptic Clarity +1 | Current: 5]

[Note: Exponential growth might occur when you train an innate spell in your foundational element.]

He was kind of right. So the floating glyph really wanted him to train in Stone Thaumaturgy and would even reward him for that.

Liene gave a soft, approving nod and clapped once. “See? You’re getting good. Soon you’ll be launching rocks into people’s heads without even trying.”

“I think that’s exactly the kind of sentence they warn us about in orientation,” Fabrisse said, stretching out his throwing arm with a small wince.

“Well, you’ll be fine,” Liene said. “You’ve got good aim. And Mercy likes you. That’s a mark of character.”

The clucklebeak honked from somewhere nearby as if on cue.

He was getting better. But was he good enough to successfully hurl a stone at Cuman’s head yet? He didn’t know.

[Sidequest: Rock and Retaliation]

Time left: 3 days

Liene’s voice pulled him out of his train of thought, “Maybe you can show off to that girl who instructed you during your next class.”

“Huh? Oh. She’s not in my class.”

“So how did you come to know her? I thought you were . . . how do I put it?” Liene touched her forehead with her knuckles. “A bit intimidated by poker-faced girls.”

Now he couldn’t tell her about the whole ‘confession’ thing, so he went to the next best truth. “We go to a few lectures together. There are a couple that I’m behind, so I have to attend with the juniors.”

“Well, I’m not that surprised, I guess. If you weren’t so emotionally incompetent, you’d be popular with the girls.” She reached over, stopping for a second, probably thinking about whether she should pinch his cheek or ruffle his hair, and settled for the hair. “And maybe just a smidge taller.”

“You didn’t need to add that.” Seriously, though, popular with who? They were in the Synod. People were only ever into those who could cast successful spells without embarrassing themselves.

A bell rang from afar. Fabrisse realized it was the eight bell. “Let’s go back.”

“Aight!” Liene stood.

[Training Completed: +18 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 958/1500]

The glyphlights had already lit as they strolled back across the east quadrangle, but half of them flickered like they were losing charge.

“Is it just me,” Fabrisse muttered, adjusting his satchel, “or is it getting darker earlier than usual?”

Liene tucked her hands into her sleeves. “That’s just what happens when someone makes you throw rocks for an hour past when you should be eating.”

“I’m serious.”

“Fabri, we’re still inside Synod grounds. What’s going to happen? Someone mug you with a spell license?” She nudged him playfully. After a short walk, she veered toward the southern dorm complex, already waving goodbye. “Get some rest, Stoneboy. Thursday’s over! Remember to eat your dinner!”

He watched her turn the corner, humming as she disappeared into the sandstone arc of her dormitory stairwell. The tune stayed a moment longer than she did, light and carefree. But when it faded, the silence that followed felt heavier than it should’ve.

For the first time in days, he felt alone.

Fabrisse turned and kept walking toward his own dorm, across the old cobbled corridor that passed through the ridge of Myra’s Spine, an older section of the Synod no longer used for class traffic, barely lit, and too far between glyphlights. The moss here was thick, and the wards old enough to pulse a second out of rhythm.

He was halfway between lanterns when the glyph at his collar flared.

[PRAXIS-NODE Auto-Defense Activated]
[Proximity Alert: Hostile Pattern Detected]
[Caution: Containment Barrier Forming]

He stopped walking. “What—”

Before he could finish, the world seized.

A force he couldn’t explain wrapped around his legs and chest in a choking pressure. Aether shimmered across his field of view in an unfamiliar hue, not red, not gold, but something that burned sideways in the eyes. It felt unrooted from any known spectrum, like the spell had no allegiance to elements at all.

He tried to cry out, but his voice didn’t leave his throat. Even his thoughts felt muffled.

Something pitch black erupted from the aether. It was the blackest shade of black he had ever seen, a hue that made the deepest night sky look like a pale grey in comparison. The world around him folded like space itself was being pulled apart. 

What is this?

He was being dragged.

Backwards, toward an alley knot of trees and stonework where no light reached.

He couldn’t move. His arms were pinned. He couldn’t move, couldn’t cast spells, couldn’t even think straight.

This isn’t a prank. 

His mind tried to seize on anything—any of the thousand protocol briefings, any of Lorvan’s drills, any half-remembered defense glyphs from classroom walls. But nothing surfaced. Every thought stuttered. The glyph at his shoulder buzzed again, and he couldn’t even see it.

Why would anyone target me?

And then a worse thought surfaced.

Do they want the Eidralith?

No. No, no, no. I can’t let them take it. I just got it. I just started getting better—

With a snap like torn silk through water, the spell shattered.

Fabrisse stumbled forward and nearly hit the stones. The air flooded back into his lungs all at once. His knees buckled, and he dropped into a crouch on instinct, heart pounding like it was trying to dig out of his ribs.

An explosion of sigillight lit the path behind him. Spell-sound echoed off the walls, slicing the air with blinding bursts.

Footsteps approached from the side.

“Kestovar!” came the voice. “Are you alright?”

Fabrisse turned his head just as a pair of boots stopped beside him. His coat was half-unfastened and the rings on two of his fingers were still glowing.

It was Lorvan.

Another burst of light hit the air. It made no sound.

“Stay down,” Lorvan whispered. “They weren’t expecting counterfire.”

Chapter 38

The codex dimmed as its final thread faded into stable anchoring. Lorvan stepped away without a word, which, for him, was the closest thing to ‘Good job’ they were likely to get.

Veliane rolled her wrist once, stretching the tension out of her fingers. Fabrisse finished recording the final harmonic note and closed the annotation slate with a quiet tap.

[Observation Completed: +19 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 910/1500]

They didn’t speak until they were down the steps and back in the corridor beyond the office. The hallway was quieter now, flooded with late daylight from the lattice windows.

“So, Kestovar.” She glanced sideways at him. “Back in the training yard. What were you doing?”

Fabrisse rubbed the back of his neck. “Just trying to get control over a new Stone Thaumaturgy spell. A fling-type projection, using a, well, an useless type of stone. It’s not complicated, but it’s . . . really hard to make it behave.”

Veliane shrugged. “I’ve never studied Earth alignment.”

“You haven’t?”

She shook her head. “Never needed to. Most of the spell patterns I work with are Aether-flexible. Stone-based alignment’s too slow for multi-thread chaining. But accuracy is accuracy.”

He turned to her, curious. “Are you offering to help?”

She gave a slight shrug, the corner of her mouth tipping up. “You’re already familiar with spell timing. I can help with the aim. You’ve seen my arc glyphs.”

“Only from a safe distance.”

“Smart.”

They crossed into one of the shared outdoor training fields, the kind reserved for general-use thaumaturgic exercises. It was a wide swath of grass, lightly flattened in places from combat footwork drills. 

Several marked circles were drawn in sand or salt, and in the far corner a pair of water-aligned students were halfheartedly levitating a droplet between them like a bored contest.

“Do we need to book this?” Fabrisse asked.

Veliane waved a hand. “Not after class hours. First come, first scorch.”

“Good to know.”

He reached into his satchel and pulled out one of the practice stones he’d been using earlier. It was smooth and faintly warm from contact, still holding a trace of focus residue.

“Okay,” he said, gripping the stone. “Watch this. If it works, the pebble’s supposed to home in on emotional signature. If not . . . it’ll hit my foot.”

Fabrisse inhaled, tapped the glyphplate at his shoulder, and flung the stone forward.

It sailed awkwardly, curved left, and dropped unceremoniously three meters short of the scarecrow target.

“You’re still far off,” Veliane stated the obvious.

“That was seven percent progress,” Fabrisse muttered, trudging over to retrieve the pebble again.

She followed, arms folded. “Show me your grip. No—stop. Here.”

Without waiting, she reached out and adjusted his fingers over the stone. Her thumb curled against the side. Her hand brushed his.

He didn’t say anything.

She didn’t seem to notice.

“Don’t muscle it,” she said. “You’re trying to brute force resonance. You can’t out-push magic. Just give it a frame and let the rest follow.”

Fabrisse stared at her. “That’s surprisingly poetic.”

“I read,” Veliane said.

He tried another throw. The stone arced cleaner this time. It didn’t hit the scarecrow, but it didn’t hit the grass either.

A few students passed by in the distance, not watching, but Fabrisse suddenly became very aware of how visible they were. He kept his voice low. “I didn’t think you’d want to hang around me, after what happened last—”

Veliane shook her head once. “You’re stronger than you think. And more relevant than you realize.”

“That sounded like a quote.” He couldn’t imagine an actual human being saying that.

“It is.”

“From where?”

“Avon McClay.” She stepped back to give him room for another shot.

Fabrisse held the stone a little tighter.

Maybe this wasn’t about pie or training. Maybe she was just curious. Or maybe something had changed.

Either way, he took aim again. A quiet flicker of shape behind the scarecrow caught his eye—the way the field lines bent around a low-anchored rune. Probably defensive. Probably old. The glyph didn’t glow, but his gut said it was there.

Maybe Arcform Sense was in the work.

And this time, when the Stupenstone launched, it curved mid-flight.

A perfect hit. The scarecrow’s head popped off with a puff of straw.

[Mastery Training: Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)—Progress to Rank III: 17%]

→ Trajectory Curvature: Stable

→ Estimated Launch Velocity: 4.9 m/s (63% max)

→ Accuracy Deviation: ±4.5%

“It . . . it worked,” he muttered, staring at the scarecrow.

Veist didn’t cheer. She nodded once.

“Better,” she said.

The speed was terrible, and that accuracy could definitely tighten. But it was real progress.

He turned to her, maybe to say thank you, or maybe to joke that she made a better Earth Thaumaturgy tutor than all the geomancers he’d met (which would be one), but then he saw her eyes had shifted to something past his shoulder.

Fabrisse turned.

There, at the edge of the training field’s salt-marked border, stood Liene Lugano.

She wasn’t alone. A fellow student was beside her and saying something to her. But whatever he was saying faltered when Liene didn’t respond.

Her gaze was fixed on Fabrisse.

Fabrisse looked at her.

Then she looked at Veist.

There was a pause, then Liene broke it. She gave her companion a brief word and a polite touch to the sleeve. He nodded and peeled away.

Oh, great . . . She’s feeling cheated because I’m training with someone else.

Veliane seemed perfectly calm, save for the way she adjusted her gloves by the wrist, and tugging once, unnecessarily.

Liene stopped at the field’s boundary, right beside the spare stones Fabrisse had gathered in a canvas bag.

“Hi, Fabri! Training?” she asked him, her voice lighter than usual. She looked at the scarecrow, then the still-glowing pebble, then Veliane again. “Hi, you!”

“Trying to improve consistency,” Fabrisse said. “I’m still missing half my shots.”

Veliane nodded politely. “Veliane Veist.”

“Liene Lugano,” she replied, brushing a curl behind her ear. “We’ve never officially met, I think.”

“Are you the Mentor’s sister?” Veliane raised a brow.

Liene laughed lightly. “Oh no, I only look like him when I’m scowling, which isn’t often.” Then she added, in that same cheery tone, “I’m his sister, yes. Liene Lugano.”

“I see.” And then, with careful diplomacy, “He speaks of you.”

“I’ll assume that’s a good thing.” Liene crouched and picked up a stone, giving it a small toss in her palm before looking at Fabrisse. “So. You swapped partners and forgot to tell me?”

Fabrisse flushed. “It’s not like that.”

“Sure.” She twirled the stone once in her fingers. “I was supposed to drag you through the synaptic control, remember? We had a vague plan.”

“Well . . . we’re still going with that plan.” Fabrisse scratched the back of his head. “We haven’t set the date up yet.”

“Guess it can be hard to set up plans now you have more things to worry about.” Liene tossed the stone once and caught it. “Glad you’re getting help, though. I can’t compete with real effort.”

“You’re . . . really good at feedback,” Fabrisse mumbled, which wasn’t helpful.

Veliane said nothing for a moment, then adjusted her gloves again. “Ready?”

“Mm-hm.” Liene smiled. “So we’ll have a next session on, say, Thursday?” 

“I’m free on Thursday.”

“It’s settled, then! We’ll see how much you’ve improved. See you around.” She turned to Veliane. “Bye!” She waved, and wandered off without waiting for a reply.

Veliane said nothing for a moment, then adjusted her gloves again. “Ready?”

Fabrisse swallowed and tried to focus. The scarecrow wasn’t the only thing under target today.

By the end of the session, Fabrisse gained another 30 EXP.

[Progress to Level 5: 940/1500]

Chapter 37

Lorvan stood at the far end, his coat unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, a half-drafted codex hovering mid-air in front of him. Its pages were still transparent with unassigned threads.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Good afternoon, Mentor.” Veliane bowed lightly. “I assume we weren’t expected at any specific time.”

Lorvan gestured to a floating slate beside him. “I expected you when the formatting glyph reached this point.”

Fabrisse squinted at the floating script. “That looks like a doodle.”

“That doodle is a temporal binding mark,” Lorvan replied. “And yes, you’re helping with symbol pairings. Veist, you’re taking the first quadrant.”

Veliane stepped into place without hesitation.

Fabrisse trailed after her, resisting the urge to wipe his hands on his coat. “Any particular style you want me to follow?”

“You’re not doing the sketches, Kestovar.” Lorvan glanced at him. 

Lorvan glanced at him, then at the codex. “You’re on annotation duty. Keep the internal glyph harmonics noted by quadrant, and flag any thread that hums out of alignment.”

Fabrisse narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”

“That’s the spine of the whole weave,” Lorvan said. “If the spine collapses, the structure frays. You’re not ready to draft yet.”

He knew what this was. Annotation duty was a common first-step task. It required no talent in pattern-weaving, no real instinct for glyph aesthetics, only attentiveness, patience, and the ability to track harmonic changes across pages. It was beneath Veliane, and well within reach for someone like him.

It was also Lorvan’s way of roping him in. He had been listening to Professor Langley’s advice.

He could see it now: this wasn’t a favor. This was a lesson. Lorvan was placing him just close enough to watch Veliane at work, just close enough to the weave’s spine that, if he paid attention, the structure might start making sense.

But Fabrisse didn’t have an eye for these kinds of patterns. Not abstract ones. Not yet. If they’d been carved into stone or buried under sediment, maybe. If they’d come with echo impressions or fault lines or mineral drift.

These threads weren’t anchored in anything physical. They just floated, inkless and humming with invisible order.

“I’ll try not to mess it up,” he muttered, rolling his sleeves and stepping to the monitoring console.

“You won’t,” Lorvan said. “Because you’re going to observe, record, and not improvise.”

“Right. Absolutely zero improvisation.”

“You can improvise next year,” Veliane murmured, already inscribing a ribbon of luminous thread across her quadrant.

Fabrisse hovered over the annotation slate, eyes tracking the glyph harmonics as Veliane sketched a new arc line across the second symbol group. The glow twisted in response to her wrist movement precisely, but somehow still gracefully.

And then it . . . stuttered.

A half-beat delay in the fourth harmonic ring. The codex's ambient hum ticked half a pitch downward, only for a moment.

Veliane didn’t notice. She’d already begun binding the next thread set.

Fabrisse paused, stylus halfway to the slate.

He furrowed his brow. He recognized the glyph she’d just anchored. It was part of the older Trinate Form series. It was technically valid and functionally stable. But not for the variant alignment Lorvan had set up at the start of the codex.

He hesitated. It would sound ridiculous if he called it out and it turned out to be nothing. Veliane was probably the best glyphweaver in their whole year. She was in the year below Severa, but she could even be better than Severa at this. Who was he to say anything?

But he remembered it from theory lectures. He did remember. One of the first harmonics lessons. Pattern sequences nested within resonance arcs. If she kept going like that—

“Um,” he said, awkwardly clearing his throat.

Veliane didn’t look over. Lorvan did.

“That symbol,” Fabrisse said, tapping the projection. “The alignment’s off for a longitudinal weave. That’s a Trinate Core from a lateral stream. It’s going to pull—uh—slightly backward, not forward. Like counterweighting a pendulum.”

Veliane’s stylus halted.

Lorvan walked over and studied the thread, then reached forward and ran a finger lightly through the air above the codex. The glyph hummed again and pitched lower, exactly where Fabrisse had heard it dip.

“He’s right,” Lorvan said.

Veliane turned to him with eyes widened and mouth slightly ajar, but quickly regained composure. “I forgot Trinate doesn’t scale cleanly across overlay symmetry. You have good eyes, Kestovar.”

“Everyone forgets theory when they’re five glyphs in,” Lorvan said before turning to Fabrisse. “Good catch. Your theory is still solid.”

“T-thanks.” Fabrisse could feel his cheeks warming. This was the only reason he was still here. The only reason Lorvan hadn’t quietly let him fade into the Synod’s archival floor. Maybe, after graduation, he could go into theoretical research. Maybe someone had to write the rules that the prodigies forgot.

His own glyph jumped at him.

[Mastery Training: Arcform Sense—Progress to Rank I: 96%]

Huh?

Veliane had returned to work. But as she resumed, she glanced his way once.

Fabrisse turned back to the annotation slate, heart still thudding a little louder than the codex hum. He added a small note beside the corrected glyph:

↳ Lateral-trinate pairing: destabilizes forward-anchored harmonics in dual-axis configurations. Confirmed audible dip.

A line of text shimmered faintly in the corner of his vision.

[Pattern Recognition Skill — Unlocked]
Skill Name: Arcform Sense (Rank I)
Type: Concordance (Meta)

Category: Passive / Utility
Description: You can now identify glyph misalignments, thread disharmony, or symbolic drift in multi-layered weaves.

You can now identify the trajectory of arcs with 3% greater accuracy.

Bonus: Minor boost to collaborative codex efforts. Reveals hidden symmetry in 2-thread overlaps.

He filed the notice away with a quiet breath. The trajectory of arcs? This doesn’t just help me with glyphweaving. It can also help me throw rocks better.

“Do you want to finish the third quadrant?” she asked suddenly, not looking at him.

Fabrisse blinked. “What?”

“The third quadrant.” Her tone was level, but he could’ve sworn there was the faintest edge of amusement beneath it. “I’ll spot you. You call the sequence.”

Lorvan didn’t say anything. That was the strange part. He just turned a page on the codex and let it happen.

Fabrisse exhaled. “Okay. But I’m still not improvising.”

Veliane didn’t smile. But her stylus did pause for just a beat, like punctuation on a shared joke.

“Next year, then,” she said.

Chapter 35

The Stupenstone hit the scarecrow with a POP! The straw-stuffed dummy jerked back from the blow, one arm sagging like it had momentarily forgotten its job.

Fabrisse didn’t celebrate. He was already lining up the next shot.

Oval in shape, walled in with reinforced ward-bricks and segmented by invocation-safe channels, the training ground was one of the quieter yards on the northern fringe of campus. One actually had to book in advance, and Greg did so for Fabrisse after he’d asked.

He’d been here nearly two hours now. Just him, a satchel full of stones, and a growing callus between thumb and index finger from repeated short-channel charge techniques. Charging the stone. Flinging the stone. He hadn’t been able to call the stone back yet, which meant after each round of shooting, he had to come over and pick it up by hand.

[Mastery Training: Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)—Progress to Rank III: 7%]

“Seven percent? That sucks,” he murmured to himself as he took three steps back and flung another stone at the scarecrow. This one was inaccurate. He hadn’t been able to hit the target at a distance longer than a meter yet. At least the arc was getting cleaner and sharper for a while. Then, it got worse again.

At least, he’d figured out there was another way to upgrade his spells without using Mastery Points, and that was to actually train like a normal person.

His extra hour with Lorvan had been marginally more fruitful than the last two, bringing his progress with Synaptic Thread Recognition to a total of 23%. He felt as though he had started to internalize the movement and timing, though there was much more work to be done. Lorvan had promised he’d spare a Saturday for him if he could train the first arc by himself at home and present his best stance to his mentor at the beginning of their next session. He had agreed to the condition.

He crouched, breathed, and held the stone again. 

Train, he told himself, I must train.

Two hours in, and guesswork wasn’t cutting it anymore. He needed real data—something that could break down exactly where his spellcasting was falling short.

Maybe I can handle the data overload now.

He pulled up the system interface and navigated the subsections.

Diagnostics > Settings > Display > Aetheric Metrics

It was now set to Lite Mode, the choice he’d made when he was getting used to floating words in front of his vision.

He tapped the toggle at the bottom corner.

Toggle: Detailed Equations.

interface reshaped itself into a dense overlay of numbers, tags, and fluctuating sigils. He swatted them away for now and went into the [Skills] section to check if there had been any changes in the description of Stupenstone Fling.

There had.

Skill: Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)
Type: Directed Aetheric Projectile (Force/Emotion-Harmonic)
Status: Partially Stabilized | Accuracy Variance: ±11.2%
Cooldown: 2.6s between charges | Max Sustain: 2.1s

Core Equation:
40% Stupenstone Core Alignment (Stable) +
40% Thread Synchronization (Timing Delta: 0.42s) +
20% Kinetic Channeling Efficiency (Flow Rate: 66%)
→ Stupenstone Fling (Force, Blunt)

[ACCESS EFFECT DETAILS]

Okay . . . I’m getting used to the numbers now. But wait—my cooldown’s longer than my fling duration? That’s just sad.

He noticed there was another option below for even more details. How difficult to understand can it be? He thought as he opened the new glyph.

Effect Details:

• Auto-Tracking:
  Improves with INT and target’s emotional visibility (if they’re emotionally active or unstable).
  
  

• Velocity Scaling:
  Increases with charge duration, Aetheric Control (ARC) and Kinetic Channeling Efficiency (STR)
  – Base velocity: 5.5 m/s
  – Max charged: 7.4 m/s
  
  

• Aether Feedback Pulse:
  Echoed resonance scales with clarity (affected by SYN and INT)
  
  

• Impact Force (Mixed):
  – Physical: 30% from throw force (STR + technique)
  – Aetheric: 70% from resonance intensity (SYN + charge time)
  
  

• Range Limit:
  Base range: 1.2m
  Increases with ARC and SYN
  
  

System Note:
No current range extension detected.
To increase effective distance (>1m), improve:
→ Aetheric Resonance Control (ARC ≥ 12 recommended)
→ Thread Synchronization Stability (SYN Drift < 0.25s)

Warning: Repeated manual throws may cause channel stress blistering. Recommend upgrading to retrieval or auto-recursion variant before Rank IV.

Fabrisse had never closed a glyph that quickly. Okay . . . maybe I don’t need that much detail.

He vowed to never open detailed effects again.

He opened the glyph again—but only the top layer this time. Just the Core Equation.

40% Stupenstone Core Alignment (Stable)
40% Thread Synchronization (Timing Delta: 0.42s)
20% Kinetic Channeling Efficiency (Flow Rate: 66%)

That last one caught his eye.

Kinetic Channeling Efficiency.

He frowned. “That’s . . . physical, right? Kinetic, as in force.”

He rolled the stone in his palm, suddenly more aware of the slight weight of it, the tension he felt every time he coiled his arm to throw. Until now, he’d just assumed the ‘channeling’ was entirely aetheric—threadwork and sync timing. But this—

“Does this spell actually like it when I swing my hand harder?” he muttered.

That broke a rule he’d had in his head since day one.

Strength was irrelevant for a spellcaster.

But if even 20% of this spell’s performance was tied to how well he channeled physical force through the cast . . . then maybe it wasn’t just about finesse or clarity. 

He coiled his arm again, this time consciously bracing his legs, tightening his shoulder, and adding real swing behind the throw.

He hit the scarecrow’s head (it would’ve been difficult not to, as he was not even a meter away), but it’d dipped just before impact and hit the chin instead of the forehead like he’d hoped. The arc of the stone had held straighter, though.

“Huh.”

Not a breakthrough. But better.

He frowned, rubbing at the seam between his shoulder and collarbone. His body didn’t love that movement, but the stone had flown truer. That had to mean something.

Then he flexed his fingers into the Self-Directed Query Invocation posture and used the skill. 

The air coalesced into a translucent, slow-replaying afterimage of his last throw: a twist of faint light tracing where the spell had moved through him and outward.

It was like watching his own aetheric skeleton cast the spell in reverse. He squinted. Near the shoulder and wrist—faint glow, good continuity. That tracked with the physical force he’d added. Kinetic channeling looked like it was landing, at least partially.

But just beneath the wrist, where his threads usually bound the intent into shape—a dull smudge.

“Faded resonance,” he muttered. His intent had dropped mid-cast, or he’d resonated with aether later than he should’ve.

Near the upper chest and neck, where the spell should have fully synchronized with his threadwork and timing—a haze. Fatigue marks.

The system’s overlay labeled them.

⚠ Thread Weakening (Light)
⚠ Partial Drift (0.4–0.6s mismatch)
⚠ Emotional Undercurrent: Stable, but Thin

“SYN’s still off,” he muttered, tapping the side of the projection. “That’s where my timing’s dropping. I’m overcompensating for the release instead of syncing clean.”

He followed the glowing thread upward, toward the head of the scarecrow. The thread disappeared near the end, as if there was no longer any aetheric connection.

His ARC wasn’t strong enough to finish the job.

His weak stats had betrayed him.

Suddenly, another notification popped up.

[WARNING: Focus dropped below 25%.]

Focus (FP): 7/30

[RECOMMENDATION: Take a short rest and rehydrate. Drink 2 liters of water a day.]

Oh, yeah. What is Focus, by the way?

He pulled up the description from the script.

Focus Points (FP) represent a caster’s mental stamina, cognitive sharpness, and aetheric discipline. Every spell, gesture, calculation, or channeling of aether draws from this finite pool, not because it burns fuel, but because it taxes the mind. If your FP drops to below 50%, you get a penalty of 20% for every stats. If your FP drops below 25%, you get a 50% penalty. If you have no FP, you cannot cast a spell.

Which made sense. Aether was in everything, and it wasn’t something you could store. What could run out wasn’t aether—it was you.

He was overcorrecting the arc, burning too many focus points just trying to make the flight look clean. He needed to take a break.

As he walked over to a corner and took a sip of water, he caught sight of a figure past the ward-post glimmer and the rune-stamped boundary line.

Veliane Veist.

Chapter 33

(This chapter is stat-heavy, so I have included an option to read on Google Docs)

“Nine years in the Synod, and I’m Level 4,” Fabrisse murmured to himself as he stared at his profile.

His Synaptic Clarity attribute was terrible, also, and that had accounted for the extra 1 SYN he’d received from quest completion earlier.

There was a small note underneath the figure for EXP which he had to squint to read.

Note: Experience is awarded proportionally to resonance challenge.

“Well, that explains it,” he muttered. “Nine years, and I spent most of them befriending rocks and writing monologues to sediment.”

Fabrisse blinked at the menu again and scrolled to the descriptions. A side tab expanded with a soft click of light. He took out a notebook—his newly-assigned ‘Note of Important Observations’—now that the old one with knowledge he’d already memorized had become too tattered and was left at home.

ATTRIBUTE GLOSSARY
Calibrator Profile: Active Scan

Ah, I get it now. So Aether Resonance Control is how well I can control the aether, and Synaptic Clarity is basically my reaction speed, instant decision making, and . . . fundamental understanding of the aether. It makes sense that if I understand the aether more, I might tap into it better. Right now, I suck at it.

In Thaumaturgy theory, four elements need to exist in harmony for a perfect spell: Technique, Emotion, Intent, and Innate Resonance. Technique would be simple; his physical attributes like STR and DEX would influence that. Possibly ARC too. Emotion Attunement obviously affected Emotion. He didn’t know why the glyph bothered to lock him out of that such apparent attribute. Intent wasn’t about what you feel (EMO), or what you do (DEX/STR), but what you understood and chose in the moment. It must be tied to SYN. He had always sucked at intent. Innate Resonance was likely not any one stat at all; it was something with limited room for growth.

After a spell successfully ignited, ARC would take over as the most important attribute — controlling, maintaining, and stabilizing magical output. As for FOR . . . well, FOR didn’t affect spellcasting at all, but rather resistance to spells.

He was looking for reasons why Synaptic Clarity would be the most important attribute for Grain Analysis, and it seemed like he’d found it. He didn’t need to control the aether, since most rocks resist control anyway. But he needed to understand how and why the rocks had retained that aether, and captured emotions along with it.

There was one more thing he needed to check. Earlier, after he’d finished Step 3, he saw this message:  [Earth-based Thaumaturgy Mastery +1]. He wanted to know what this mastery attribute meant, and he suspected it would be within the Skills sub-section.

He was right. There was now a Glossary note for Mastery when he entered the sub-section.

MASTERIES & SKILL UNLOCK SYSTEM

Mechanics Overview:

• Mastery Points are gained through practical use, successful resonance, and progression steps.
  

• At 10 Mastery Points, a new skill can be unlocked from an eligible subtree.
  

• Foundational Tier 1 Skills must be unlocked via narrative progression, not by points (e.g., "Stonesway").
  

• Each skill tree has multiple Sub-Affinities, encouraging different styles (combat, sensing, flavor, etc.)

He moved on to the Earth-based tree.

EARTH-BASED THAUMATURGY TREE (early branches)

Sub-Affinities:

• Stone-Based

• Sediment-Based

• Soil-Based

• Crystal-Based (locked)

• Ore-Based (locked)

Existing Mastery: 12

Note: Stone-Based Thaumaturgy Damage, Range, & Accuracy boosted by 12% via your Path: Celestial Hoarding

Huh? Why how does this work?

He mentally willed the Note to show more details.

Total Stones Holding: 12

Inventory: 1/10 Stones

Stone Satchel (Extension): 11/15 Stones

Ah. So each item would give me a 1% boost.

[Correction: Each small-sized item would give a 1% boost, a medium-sized item would give a 2% boost, and a big-sized item would give a 3% boost.]

Okay. How do I utilize this Celestial Hoarding to my advantage, then? How can I upgrade it?

[Query received: “How do I utilize this Celestial Hoarding to my advantage?”]  

[Answer: Try progressing current skills first. Hoarding cannot boost non-existent skills.]

Rude.

Still, he made a mental note to collect more pebbles when he had a chance. Ideally, he would get more Stupenstones, because he could use them to fling.

He moved on to the unlockables.

Tier 2 – Unlockable with Mastery Points

You can now unlock these:

He read the descriptions, noted them down, then read again, underlined the keywords, then read again the third time.

What should he unlock first?

He realized Stupenstone Fling was the only skill that demanded him to ‘click’ on the description. He did as told.

Those seem like massive upgrades. Emotional tracking can curve the path lightly, which means I can find cover first. If I imprint it with fear, I might be able to scatter a group before they even know what hit them.

And I’ll need to smack Cuman in the head soon.

He mentally tapped on the name ‘Stupenstone Fling (Rank II)’.

The air shimmered around the glyph.

[Confirmation Needed: Upgrade Stupenstone Fling to Rank II]

He mentally confirmed.

Chapter 32

“Re-engage with a previously identified Residual Echo, huh . . .” Fabrisse muttered as he broke off the bread.

Mid-afternoon light filtered through the canopy in broken beams, dappling the water of the North Pond with a glint that looked almost like active glyphlight, but wasn’t. The clucklebeak swam over to him from the reedbed. It was a squat, downy creature with a body like a mossy loaf and stubby wings that didn’t understand flight. Its feet were oversized for its size, and it made a sound like a hiccup.

Fabrisse dropped a crust near the edge of the bank.

The clucklebeak waddled forward, gave the bread a cautious peck, then stared at him judgmentally.

“Yeah, I know,” Fabrisse said, settling down onto the flat stone at the pond’s edge. “No aether in it. Just grain.”

He watched it nibble with precise little head-jolts. Then it let out a soft churk and backed away a step, but didn’t leave.

“See? We’re learning to tolerate each other,” he said.

[Minor Echo Present — Category: Passive Emotional | Trace: Comfort/Guarded Affection]

[You are now more attuned to Familiar-Grade Creatures | Perfect Resonance Progress: 44%]

Fabrisse tilted his head. “Guarded affection?” he echoed aloud, then squinted at the clucklebeak. “Don’t tell me you like me.”

The clucklebeak let out an indignant chortle and turned its back on him. It gave a final disapproving huff and waddled in a circle before plunking down in the reeds.

Fabrisse was about to offer another crumb when he heard footsteps behind him.

“Now this is not where I expected to find you,” said Lorvan, his voice smooth and wry as ever. “How are you spending your afternoon off?”

“Good afternoon, Mentor.”

Lorvan came to stand beside him and gave the clucklebeak a brief nod. “And here I thought you’d be holed up in the Wing of Substratal Studies. Have you already ran out of passion for practiced thaumaturgy?”

Fabrisse shook his head. “No, no. That’s the best part, actually. Min starts with theory.”

Lorvan furrowed his brows. “Theory?”

“I know, right?” Fabrisse glanced up at him now, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “He didn’t even let me try invocation the first day. We just walked through quartz grain types and their social habits.”

“Social habits?”

“Okay, maybe not social. But still. I was excited. It was like being allowed to stare at pebbles on purpose.”

Lorvan gave a small laugh.

But then Fabrisse’s grin faded. “I . . . didn’t go back today, though. Not for the afternoon cycle.”

Lorvan studied him for a beat. “Problems?”

Fabrisse nodded once, the motion barely visible. “A few.”

He didn’t elaborate. Not yet.

Lorvan sat beside him on the stone, folding his coat beneath him like someone raised with both manners and ancestral furniture. “Let me guess. You tried to lecture a Council member about the metaphysical rights of sediment.”

Fabrisse cracked a small smile. “Worse. I met Severa’s father.”

There was a pause.

“Oh,” Lorvan said. “How did you talk to Miss Montreal in the first place?”

Fabrisse gave a helpless shrug. “She, uh . . . insisted.”

Lorvan’s brow arched slightly. “On what?”

“On knowing how I ended up with the Eidralith. She said it doesn’t choose at random, and if I didn’t have an explanation, she’d find out for herself. Apparently, she has the authority to requisition me. I thought it was a bluff. It wasn’t.”

Lorvan folded his arms. “So she brought you to the Magister.”

“Yep.” Fabrisse plucked at the hem of his sleeve. “Because of course that’s the most normal escalation. You ask a classmate about a weird artifact, and the next thing you know you’re standing in front of a man who makes gravity feel like a performance review.”

Lorvan let out a low exhale. “And you’re still alive. Good job.”

“Only because I didn’t say anything too stupid. Though I might have said something vaguely provoking near the end.”

“You? Provoking?” Lorvan said.

Fabrisse held up a hand. “I know. Actually, now that you’re here, I have something to ask.”

He mentioned the third step of the ‘Tutorial’, and that the glyph demanded a previously identified Residual Echo.

“That shouldn’t be hard, should it?” Lorvan replied. “One of your rocks should be imbued with your previous emotions.”

Fabrisse stared down at the glyphnote, frowning. “But I need to successfully resonate through an intuitive response,” he muttered. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what it wants me to do. The only emotion I can resonate with is shame.”

He played with the rocks he still kept tucked in his satchel. Most of them were collected long ago, reshuffled from pouch to pouch. A few held notes of resonance, but they were chosen for texture or alignment, not memory.

Certainly not for shame.

“Not even the Stupenstones?” Lorvan asked.

“Why would anyone hold onto something that makes them feel stupid?”

“Then we need to find a physical imprint. Remember that exercise in Physical Resonance where you had to hold some objects and feel the memories in there?”

“The only Echo I got anything from was that phyllite block Min gave me. And I didn’t even mean to connect with it. It just sort of . . . happened.”

“Then try again,” Lorvan said. “Grab another item from the room. Konan should have more than one rock with an imprint. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes?”

“You should go back to class.”

***

The quartz in Fabrisse’s palm was blue-veined, clouded at the center like a trapped breath. It wasn’t polished, but it had been handled. He could feel the worn points where fingers had gripped it again and again. It was cool, then cooler.

Fabrisse closed his eyes.

And there it was.

[Residual Echo Detected — Emotional Imprint: Anticipation / Focus / Fear]
[Category: Handheld Conductive | Physical Trace: Ritual Use]
[Emotional Anchoring Achieved — Intuitive Response Unlocked]
[Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery +1 | Experience +18]

Fabrisse opened his eyes slowly. “Someone held this,” he said. “A student. Maybe not long ago. The edges are smooth here, which suggests repeated handling. Their hands were sweating from nervousness, probably. They used this in a trial or test, but not in combat.” His fingers turned the quartz slightly. “It’s too light for an invocation core. But it buzzes near the thumb ridge. I think it was used for focus regulation. A stabilizer, maybe.”

There was a pause.

Min Hajin, standing across the counter, gave the faintest lift of his brows. “Correct.”

Fabrisse blinked. “Wait. Really?”

“It was keyed to a low-drift concentration charm, that particular quartz, and used in meditative calibration,” Min said, then tapped the corner of the drawer with a gloved finger. “The student it belonged to failed their glyph structure exam but passed their spell focus retake six weeks later. The stone has since absorbed three cycles of disciplined usage.”

Fabrisse let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I didn’t think I could do it again.”

“You still cannot create the emotional spark yourself,” Min said evenly. “But you are unusually attuned to what others leave behind. There is value in that.”

Fabrisse turned the quartz one more time in his hand. It didn’t glow or pulse, but it felt . . . known.

Min moved past him, organizing the drawer as if that moment of connection hadn’t happened at all. But before he shut it, he said, without looking back, “You’d make a good geologist.”

[Step 3 Completed: Echo Recognition and Response]

Completion Rewards: 

✦ Unlock XP Counter ✦ Elemental Mastery: Hidden Threshold Unlocked

Note: Please await further instructions to complete your tutorial.

Fabrisse turned the quartz one more time in his hand. Maybe he could do this.

If he could keep this up—if he could keep linking echoes and tracking emotion through touch—then maybe he had something real to offer. Maybe he could start applying for field apprenticeships early. Some of them allowed partial term students to do low-level analysis, paid by entry. It wasn’t much, but even a stipend would help.

He opened his mouth.

“But you’re not ready,” Min said without turning around.

Fabrisse’s mouth stayed open for a moment longer, then shut.

Min turned back to face him. “Tell me. Have you learned Aetheric Grain Analysis yet?”

Fabrisse hesitated. “I—I’ve read about it.”

Min raised a hand and spoke a single, quiet incantation. A ripple of silver light brushed over the quartz. In the gleam, a faint lattice of fractures appeared beneath the surface, like the echo of a spiderweb, visible only for a second.

“The core structure of this quartz has six major fracture lines. You didn’t mention them. Nor did you catch the presence of low-grade amber dust contamination on the western flank. That disqualifies it from ritual use in climate-bound regions.”

Fabrisse had never seen Min use so many words before. His face flushed. “I didn’t—I didn’t even think to check for dust drift . . .”

“You weren’t trained to. I’m not criticizing.” He let the silence settle before adding, more gently, “But even in theoretical research, you’ll need some magical finesse. Intuition alone is not sufficient.”

“H-how can I learn it?”

“How good is your Synaptic Control?”

“I—” Fabrisse looked down at the quartz again, its cloudy body now opaque, quiet. His grip tightened slightly.

“Come back to me when you’ve scored a 30 in Synaptic Resonance I and Synaptic Control I Practicals.”

“I understand,” he said.

All right, he thought, staring at the stone’s surface. This would be a great time to give me a quest. Something like ‘Beginner Aetheric Grain Analysis.’ Maybe a prompt. A side quest. Anything.

He waited.

Nothing showed up.

Maybe I really wasn’t ready.

The quartz sat in his palm, unchanged. He sighed and slid it gently back into its place in the drawer.

Chapter 31

The parlor was perfectly round. There weren’t any corners, which meant there weren’t many shadows either. Light filtered in from a domed ceiling etched with converging golden runes, none of which appeared decorative.

And at the center of the chamber was the most terrifying man Fabrisse had ever seen.

Magister Elon Montreal.

He wasn’t tall, but the room deferred to him. His robes were a dark navy that refracted like deep pressure stone under the spelllight. His hands were bare, resting atop a thin walking rod carved from something glossier than obsidian, a material Fabrisse couldn’t name.

His eyes didn’t rise immediately. That, somehow, was worse.

“Fabrisse Kastovar,” he pronounced his name flawlessly without a hint of emotion. “You’re the one who caught the Eidralith with his face.”

“Magister,” Severa said. “It is him.”

You don’t call your father ‘father’? Fabrisse thought, not daring to turn to Severa.

Elon didn’t stand. “I didn’t expect him to be . . . short.”

Fabrisse made the mistake of dropping eye contact.

The Magister’s voice cut through the air like fine wire. “If you are spoken to, Mr. Kastovar, you are expected to remain present. I know Earth Thaumaturges are taught patience. Try to apply it to your attention span.”

“Yes, Magister. Sorry, Magister.” He knows I’m just enrolled into the Wing of Earth Thaumaturgy too.

“Don’t apologize,” Elon said mildly, “unless you mean it. And if you mean it, fix it.”

Fabrisse’s brain scrambled for something dignified.

And then—

[Proceed to Step 3: Echo Recognition and Response]
Objective: Re-engage with a previously identified Residual Echo and successfully resonate through an intuitive response.
Instruction: An Echo can be:

• Emotional traces (e.g. grief, pride, regret)
  
  

• Physical imprints (a collapse, burial, impact)
  
  

• Aetheric saturation events (like rituals or battles)

 Warning: Your prior attunement has unlocked System Leveling.
New Feature Unlocked: EXP | Levels
Completion Rewards: 

✦ Unlock XP Counter ✦ Elemental Progression: Hidden Threshold Unlocked
System Note: Listening opens paths. Speaking completes paths.

Levels? Fabrisse thought. What does that mean? Like . . . leveling up? 

Elon Montreal’s voice snapped him out of it.

“Fascinating,” he said. “You’ve been in my presence for less than two minutes, and already you’ve drifted into private thought. Severa, I trust this is the strategic intellect the Order believes warrants an artifact’s attention?”

Severa’s jaw didn’t move. “He’s under observation.”

“Mm. So is moss. Which begs the question.” It was the first time the Magister lifted his gaze, and it didn’t land on Fabrisse. It landed on Severa. “Why aren’t you under the Order’s observation?”

“Because I report to my mentors, not my bloodline.” Her voice wasn’t sharp, but it was exact, the way a scalpel is exact. The meaning of what she said though . . . Fabrisse struggled to understand. He didn’t handle vagueness well, and that line was a solid 8 on the scale of vague.

Elon tilted his head slightly. “Ah. So that’s how we’re branding independence now.”

He finally rose.

The staff came first. He pressed it once against the floor and the sound it made wasn’t loud, but final like a full stop.

Fabrisse thought it would feel like standing in front of a senior instructor or a headmaster.

It didn’t.

It felt like standing in front of the reason headmasters went gray.

Elon Montreal circled the edge of the room as if he was checking the perimeter of every vault. He didn’t speak for several breaths. When he did, his tone was as neutral as before. “You were holding a stone when the Eidralith made contact.”

Fabrisse stiffened. “Y-yes, Magister.”

“What kind of stone?”

“A Stupenstone, I think, Magistrate.”

His voice slowed. “You think? Or you know?”

Fabrisse’s throat worked. “I—I know. I brought it with me.” He didn’t know why he lied.

“Describe its resonance profile.”

Fabrisse gulped. “It had a low static signature and a mild echo imprint. I didn’t feel any spike until after the Eidralith, I swear—” He stopped himself, realizing the moment he said ‘swear’ he sounded guilty. He braced for the Magister’s retort.

Elon Montreal turned slightly to Severa. “You brought him here to explain the stone?” he asked. 

“No. I brought him here because I need your guidance on the Eidralith’s current behavior. It's still dormant, and I’m afraid we do not know what it wants. I believe it’s binding to him.”

“You believe,” Elon repeated, the phrase almost flavorless. “And you thought my parlor was the appropriate venue for discussing premature artifacts and accidental entanglements?”

Severa’s jaw tensed. “You’re the only one with a pre-binding codex and a Rank VIII disjunction record.” 

A pre-binding codex? He can understand the metaphysical architecture of artifacts even before they fully bond? But still, it’s the Eidralith we’re talking about.

“Ah. So we’ve arrived at flattery.” He looked back at Fabrisse. “Do you wish to be unbound, Mr. Kastovar?”

Fabrisse opened his mouth, but snapped it shut. He needed to think harder. 

Do I want to be unbound? Absolutely flaming not!

Not when this glyph had finally broken the dam that kept his magic from going anywhere beyond simmering sparks and useless pings.

He glanced sideways at Severa. She was still composed, spine straight. but her eyes didn’t meet his. They were fixed on her father.

They weren’t close. He knew that now.

And maybe . . . maybe that was the lever.

Fabrisse straightened. “I don’t want to be unbound,” he said evenly. “I want to understand it. And if anyone feels like they’re more qualified to bind with the artifact . . .” He looked directly at Elon, and then—deliberately—at Severa. “Then they’re free to impress it, and take it from me.”

Severa turned to him, slowly. The look in her eyes was not immediate fury. It was colder, deeper, like something unspooling inside her with surgical control. But there was no mistaking it: beneath her restraint, rage simmered.

Elon raised one brow.“Very well. The binding stands, for now. I have no interest in prying apart resonances on behalf of wounded pride.” He gestured once toward the door. “You may go.”

“Thank you, Magister.” Fabrisse walked first, before anyone could realize his fingers were shaking.

***

The head butler was waiting for them by the door. He widened his eyes for a second when he saw Fabrisse walk out first, but immediately reassembled his expression into polished neutrality.

“Miss Severa, and her companion,” he said, bowing with the exact degree of formality required for people who had not, technically, disgraced themselves but were also not likely to be invited back anytime soon.

Fabrisse nodded stiffly. “Thank you,” he said.

Severa hadn’t spoken.

She moved like a drawn blade held just inside its sheath. Even her cloak moved with discipline, catching the enchanted breeze from the hallway wards without fluttering.

Fabrisse didn’t speak. He didn’t even breathe too loudly.

Only once they were outside the manor gates—past the shadowhewn myrrenwood doors, past the ancestral sconce-portraits, past the fourth-dimensional chessboard and its smug knight still winning diagonally through time—did Severa stop.

“What in all the shriven echoes,” she said quietly, “was that.”

Fabrisse opened his mouth.

“No.” She finally turned, and her voice was cold steel. “You don’t get to play stupid. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

She didn’t fume. She looked at him the way a sculptor looks at a block of clay that refused to shape.

She stepped forward, stopping just short of his shoulder. Her voice never rose. “You’re not clever,” she said. “You handed him the bow, and you let him string it with me. And you think walking away with that artifact bound to your stupid head makes you the winner?”

He said nothing.

“I must admit, I have underestimated you, Kestovar. But now I know you’re hiding something.” Her voice barely rose above a whisper. “You will regret it. I will make sure of it.”

Her eyes burned. He saw sparks of crimson looming over her head—rage.

That was when Fabrisse realized this might have been a mistake. If he had been more graceful . . . he could’ve delayed the unbinding and not risk making a powerful enemy.

“Enjoy your artifact, Kastovar.” She stormed off in silence.

Fabrisse stood very still, feeling the non-existent warmth of the glyph at his shoulder. “I need to feed the clucklebeak,” he said to himself.

Chapter 30

Several bowed her head lightly toward Min, posture composed, voice smooth with the grace Fabrisse could never hope to replicate. “Magus Assistant Hajin,” she greeted with a respectful incline. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything critical.”

“What business do you have?” Min asked.

Severa met his gaze. “I need to borrow Apprentice Kastovar—briefly,” she said. “A personal matter, but one that intersects with institutional relevance. If it helps, Exemplar Konan is likely already aware of what this concerns.”

Min said plainly, though without particular heat. “I need to see proof of Exemplar Konan approving displacements of first-session apprentices.”

Severa inclined her head again, expression unruffled. “Of course. And under ordinary circumstances, I’d never presume to extract a new apprentice without formal clearance.” She stepped lightly forward, just enough to meet Min’s gaze at the proper angle of deference. “But I believe this qualifies as a gray-zone prerogative under Interdepartmental Clause 8.4b,” she continued, tone calm but precise, “which allows for provisional removal of a student in the event of a time-sensitive matter involving arcane resonance. You must have heard of the recent . . . incident.”

Min regarded her in silence for a long moment, then nodded.

Then Severa turned toward Fabrisse. “Let’s go, Kestovar.”

Fabrisse didn’t move.

He didn’t even blink at first. His hand was still resting lightly on the drawer of layered sediment samples, his hat slightly askew. But I was about to move on to minerals. And I don’t want to meet your father.

[Emotional Trace Detected: Reluctant Belonging]

“Well, can this, uh, wait?” He said.

So Severa walked over in three decisive steps and clasped his wrist—not forcefully, but with a grip that brooked no argument.

“You can keep the hat,” she said. Then she tugged him toward the door.

***

As they stepped into the hallway, Severa released his wrist but kept her stride brisk enough that Fabrisse had to jog a little to catch up. Her expression didn’t change, but her voice dropped to a low, efficient cadence, the same tone a well-prepared scholar might use before a presentation that determined whether or not you got expelled. “First, don’t bow unless my father bows first. He won’t. Second, speak only when addressed. He’ll expect full answers but short ones. Don’t self-deprecate. He considers modesty a cover for dishonesty.”

“That’s a lot for a greeting,” Fabrisse muttered.

“Third,” she continued, unfazed, “do not touch anything in the room unless asked. Do not sit unless told. Do not contradict him, even if he says something wrong. Correct him only if you can do it in fewer than seven words and with evidence.”

They turned a corner. The hallway narrowed slightly, the stone underfoot transitioning to veined marble etched with warding sigils. The lighting dimmed by degrees.

Fabrisse exhaled slowly, shoulders bunching as he clutched the rim of his satchel. “Do I really have to do all that? It’s not like your father’s going to think I’m royalty. I’m just a guy from the commune.”

Severa gave him a glance that might have been dry amusement, or maybe just mild pity. “Please follow the instructions to the best of your ability. You’re capable of that much, right?”

Fabrisse did not appreciate that tone, but he wasn’t about to fight now. Internally, Fabrisse bit down on his pride and muttered to himself. Let the man have his throne. I just need to get in, nod at the right time, and get out without getting vaporized. Maybe I’ll find something that can further my skills in there, and it’ll do me good not antagonizing myself in front of them.

He adjusted the crooked claybound hat on his head like it might shield him from scrutiny.

They reached the end of the hall. The doors here weren’t opaline or marble. They were shadowhewn myrrenwood, a deep, obsidian-toned timber harvested from pre-aetheric groves long sealed by the Order. On the doors, copper inlay traced through the grain like quiet lightning, framing the inverted triangle crest of the Montreal line: sharp, deliberate, and pointed straight down like a spear mid-descent. Fabrisse didn’t know how much myrrenwood cost, not to mention this variant, and the fact he didn’t know probably meant it cost a lot. 

“Oh, and one last thing,” Severa said as she opened the door. “Don’t talk about rocks.”

“I won’t.”

The foyer opened into the vaulted space of the Montreal residence. Enchanted sconces floated several feet from the walls, not because there was a shortage of space, but because the walls were currently hosting curated ancestral illusions: projections of regal-looking Montreals in flowing robes, each accompanied by a hovering caption in old Auric script. One of the ancestors had a staff made entirely of geodes.

A butler emerged immediately from the left vestibule. He was pale and starched, with a monocle so polished it practically cast a beam. “Miss Severa,” he said, then turned to Fabrisse, then said nothing.

“Head Butler,” Severa replied. “Where are the others?”

“I will call in the butter assistant.” The ‘head’ butler waved, and a younger butler rushed in from the side hall holding what looked like a glowing clipboard made of smoked glass. “Apologies, Miss Severa,” he said breathlessly. “Master Montreal is currently attending to the final movement of the parlor orbit. He’s requested an additional minute.” This butler did not wear a monocle.

“Yes,” said the first butler, his voice as still as ice, “and you are now late in delivering that update. Please inform Master Lasern that Miss Severa has arrived and has brought . . .” His eyes flicked again to Fabrisse. “A secondary.”

“A guest,” Severa supplied.

The younger butler vanished in a puff of wind.

Why do they have a butler for a butler?

They were led down a hallway lined with porcelain-inlaid book spines that weren’t books, but decorative replicas of texts that didn’t exist yet. Fabrisse passed a chessboard that played itself in four dimensions and a silence orb—a floating sphere that absorbed all sound for five seconds every minute.

That chessboard is probably made of some kind of lavastone, Fabrisse mentally noted.

“Master Montreal is a man of many inventions,” the head butler said a single line to Fabrisse before proceeding to saying nothing else. Even Severa hadn’t been talking.

Fabrisse reached toward a glowing brass filigree that looked like a lever. Severa smacked his hand.

Finally, they were brought to the main reception chamber.

A gold-framed plaque hung outside the door.

MONTREAL | PARLOR | ACTIVE CONVERSATION RATE: 17.3 WORDS/MINUTE
(Exceed at your own peril.)

Fabrisse was suddenly very aware of how often he muttered to himself.

Then the butler opened the door. Light spilled from the parlor.

And there he was.

Severa’s father.

Chapter 29

“How many of these quartz can you name?” Min’s voice was as calm as ever, but it came from just behind Fabrisse’s left shoulder, which made it feel more like a challenge than a question.

Fabrisse turned slowly toward the row of open sample drawers with labeled mounts upon where each stone rested angling toward the glyphlamp above. 

Common quartz, yes—but not trivial. They had been arranged deliberately.

He stepped forward and listed them from left to right. “Clear quartz. Milky quartz. Citrine. Smoky quartz. Rose quartz. Amethyst. Chalcedony, which technically isn’t pure quartz, but—”

“That will do,” Min said, already moving to the next shelf.

Fabrisse followed, emboldened. “Clear’s the best conductor. Smoky holds minor enchantments well—if stabilized. Amethyst’s good for emotion-linked resonance, but not for durability. Rose is almost never used unless it’s ceremonial or aesthetic. Citrine’s too bright for containment spells, but some people still use it for weak solar alignment.”

Min didn’t interrupt.

Fabrisse pointed at the pale, clouded specimen in the final tray. “That one—milky quartz. It’s nearly inert, so it doesn’t hold charge long. Doesn’t fracture evenly either. Most discard it.”

Min glanced at him. “And?”

Fabrisse blinked. “And . . . it’s sometimes used in dampening rings? As a buffer?”

A small pause. Then Min gave the faintest nod. “Correct. Though only if you need to suppress low-level glyph flares. Otherwise, it’s filler. Often overlooked, that quartz, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless.” He moved to close the drawer with silent fingers. “Nothing here is useless. Especially not the parts that don’t shine.”

Fabrisse wasn’t sure if that was still about rocks.

Min gestured to the opposite side of the room, where a wider cabinet had already been unlocked. “You’ll start with identification. Then classification. Then interaction. The point is not to memorize what quartz is. The point is to learn what quartz can do when it’s not behaving.”

Fabrisse stepped forward. The hat Konan had given him still sat on his head, faintly warm from spell-thread, faintly ridiculous. But he didn’t take it off.

Classification, as it turned out, was exactly as boring as it sounded.

They moved through two full cabinets of specimens, each with a tag, a tray, a label, and—if Min was feeling generous—a single-sentence note on regional variation. There were columns for grain texture, columns for saturation offset, columns for fracture type. Fabrisse swore one of the charts included ‘visual stubbornness’ as a metric.

Most students would’ve glazed over after the third drawer. Some probably had. He’d heard the jokes that Stone Thaumaturgy is just fancy rock-licking. Half the students who signed up for it dropped after the first term. They wanted results. They wanted to hold a stone and feel the magic thrum. Cast something. Channel something. Make something move.

But that wasn’t the point.

Stone, by nature, did not move. It endured.

He’d read it somewhere: ‘Stone resists shaping not because it lacks potential, but because it remembers what it already is.’

And that was the challenge. Earth-aligned materials were notoriously difficult to manipulate aetherically—not because they lacked resonance, but because most of them had already been shaped by aetheric events. If a stone had been through fire, or lightning, or sacred burial, or centuries of weather pressure, its inner resonance was already saturated. You couldn’t just shove more magic into it. That would be like trying to sketch over a sculpture.

So most of the research done here, to Fabrisse’s understanding, was about interpreting residual patterns, mapping out embedded aetheric histories, and finding out the practical use of elements without altering its properties.

Min hadn’t explained any of this directly. His instruction was minimalist to the point of deliberate silence. 

After an hour of classification, Min stopped in front of a small side table, apart from the labeled drawers, where a single, unmarked stone rests on a velvet pad. There wasn’t a tag nor any charts. There was only the stone.

Min said quietly, “Pick it up.”

Fabrisse approached. The stone was dull gray and unpolished. At first glance, it looked like a weathered river rock.

Min added.  “Use your own observation. Tell me what you think it is, and what it remembers.”

This was probably not a trick question. It was a rite of passage.

Fabrisse lifts the stone. It was heavier than it looks. Not magically so, just . . . old with the kind of weight that comes from time. He closed his fingers around it, kept his focus, and breathed in.

He started to describe it tentatively, about the grain type, density, mild layering like basalt, but then paused.

There was a rhythmic silence under his palm, like a memory that didn’t want to speak until you'd proven you’d listen.

[Minor Aetheric Echo Detected: Embedded Residual | Category: Unreleased Impact | Emotional Trace: Contained Regret]
[Note: You are learning to listen.]

“I felt emotional traces. Someone used this,” he said quietly. “As part of a structure, judging from its density. It saw something fall. Something collapsed, maybe. And whoever placed it here . . . maybe they hoped it would hold. But it didn’t. This is Phyllite, I think, but for it to be used in structures . . . it had to be recent. Possibly . . . five decades prior?”

Then Min’s voice came from behind. “Phyllite. Inner Sanctum yield. You were off by a decade, but close on origin. It was recovered from the western corner of an old dormitory that partially collapsed. No enchantments were used in the structure. The regret you’re sensing isn’t from the stone itself.”

Fabrisse looked up, confused.

“It’s from the one who laid it,” Min said. “An apprentice who helped build the foundation years before the collapse. The regret was probably imbued in as he inspected the site again.”

[Step 2 Complete: Calibrate Localized Resonance Anchor]
Location: Terra-Resonant Archive
Objective: Synchronize with Earth-aligned Thaumaturgic Locus — Success

Reward Unlocked: +1 SYN
[You have demonstrated natural attunement. Calibration completed passively.]

System Note: Most students require focused guidance to complete this step. You did not.

Observation: You were so still, the Archive categorized you as a shelf.

[Proceed to Step 3: Echo Recognition and Response — Incomplete]

Huh? I forgot about the quest for a moment and still completed it.

He wasn’t used to magic unfolding through quiet. But for the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel behind. He felt steady.

“You haven’t been able to tell a sample’s age with your senses yet,” Min said, “but you have keen deduction skills.” He paused, tone still even. “I heard you’re the one bound with the Eidralith.”

Fabrisse stiffened. “Y–yeah,” he said.

Min didn’t blink. “There’s a reason for everything. Maybe the Eidralith rewards keen senses.”

But I wasn’t doing anything during the Vothiculum, Fabrisse thought. He wasn’t reaching, or casting, or summoning anything. He was just picking rocks.

He waited for more questions—some probing analysis, some distant curiosity—but Min only sauntered toward the next cabinet.

“Let’s move on,” he said. “For our next step—”

Came the knocking from the door. Three even raps—measured, but not timid.

Min craned his neck slightly toward the sound, brows tugging just a fraction together. “Two visitors in a day?” he murmured. Then, in a slightly raised voice, he added, “Enter.”

The door opened, and then she stepped in.

Severa Montreal.

Chapter 28

Fabrisse knocked once, then twice more, before the door opened on its own with a grinding sound, like stone relenting. The room beyond was about the kind of cold that he’d expected, and smelled faintly of chalk, dried clay, and polished brass.

The first thing he noticed about the Terra-Resonant Archive were the walls. Every surface had been deliberately shaped, etched, or inlaid—some with geomantic glyphs, others with strange sigil-stamps he couldn’t quite read. One side of the room was taken up entirely by a modular shelving wall, the kind that extended both vertically and underground, and marked clearly by a chained rune switch labeled ‘Subterranean Archives: Authorized Access Only.’

This place looked like his dream coming true. If only he knew the Earth Thaumaturgy department was like this, he would’ve applied for an apprenticeship a second time. His first application was rejected, and if it wasn’t for Lorvan’s recommendation, they wouldn’t have so much as glanced at his second.

But before he could take a step further inside, someone looked up from a slate table near the back.

Seated there was a man perhaps Fabrisse’s age, maybe a little older. He wore the modest grey-trimmed robe that was supposed to be of the young apprentice, but his posture radiated the kind of precision most students didn’t even fake. He was tall, narrow-shouldered, and gave off the impression of someone who did not speak unless directly addressed. A small silver emblem with two concentric circles with a downward-pointing arrow gleamed on his collar. Not a full Earth sigil, but close.

“Magus Assistant Min Hajin,” he said with a polite nod, as though Fabrisse should have already known. “You must be the student Mentor Lugano spoke of.”

“Fabrisse Kestovar,” he replied, trying not to fidget. “I’m—interested in Earth Thaumaturgy.”

Min inclined his head. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

That wasn’t meant to be hostile, Fabrisse thought. Just honest. Maybe even hopeful, in a slightly withering sort of way.

Then Min stood, gesturing to the room with an economy of movement that seemed designed not to disturb the dust.

“You may look around. Magus Exemplar Konan is below, calibrating the Strata Core. She’ll be with you shortly.”

Fabrisse did just that.

He turned to the shelving wall again and realized it wasn’t just modular. It was categorized, beautifully so.

On the left, neatly stacked in padded alcoves, were Sample Classifications: Metallic and Semi-Metallics—complete with cross-referenced index glyphs detailing thaumaturgic conductivity, natural resonance retention, and shatter thresholds. The center columns contained Sediment Strata Cores, each labeled with provenance dates and imprint depth notations. There was even a color-coded sigil system—green for inert, yellow for volatile, red for cursed.

He crouched before one labeled ‘Zharek Composite: 3% Soulstone Contamination — Do Not Touch Without Rites.’

Even the warning tag was elegant.

To the right, on narrow drawers with smooth gliding tracks, he spotted Aetheric Echo Fossils, Claybound Relics, and what looked like compressed geomantic song tablets—likely used for harmonic resonance training. Some of the pieces were so fine they looked like sculptures. Others were just rocks, but the rarer rocks than those he could find inside the caves he usually frequented.

It was all absurdly well-kept.

He didn’t even realize he was smiling until Min asked, “Are you enjoying the view?”

Caught off guard by the question, Fabrisse jolted. “Yes,” he said, a little too quickly. “I didn’t think the Archive would be this organized.”

Min gave the faintest of nods, either approval or indifference. It was hard to tell. “Not here to be beautiful, these earths. But Earth work tends to become beautiful by accident, if done correctly.”

He moved with quiet steps toward a smaller shelf near the outer curve of the chamber—shorter, more accessible, and without any security glyphs or warning etchings.

“You’ll start here,” Min tapped one of the brass plaques with the back of his knuckle, and made a sound like a miniature chisel striking. “Introductory resonance cores and aether-storing stones. Simple to handle and less reactive to stray emotion, they are. You’ll train with these until Magus Konan says otherwise.”

Fabrisse stepped forward and squinted at the tags. “These look like . . . quartz?”

“Quartz, basaltite, some resonant sandcast variants. Don’t let their dullness fool you. They’re the only reason most first-year apprentices don’t lose their hands.”

He leaned down beside Fabrisse and slid open a sample drawer. Inside lay an assortment of dull-colored stones, each nestled in its own padded recess and marked with a stamped brass tag:

Clear Quartz — Tier I Reservoir

Rivercut Feldspar — Low Yield, High Stability

Redline Obsidian — Do Not Agitate (Current Charge: 22%)

Min continued, “These respond to clean, steady mnemonics. Earth doesn’t reward enthusiasm. It rewards consistency.”

Fabrisse exhaled. That, at least, sounded doable.

Then Min looked at him fully for the first time and added, “Try not to be interesting, Kestovar. Rarely last long, the interesting ones.”

But Min seems like an interesting guy, he thought.

Before Fabrisse could decide whether that was a threat or good advice, the floating glyph jumped at him.

Step 2 of 4: Calibrate Localized Resonance Anchor

Location: Terra-Resonant Archive
Trigger Condition: Stand within an Earth-aligned Thaumaturgic locus of stability
Objective: Synchronize your presence with a fixed spatial point of aetheric saturation
Instructions: Remain motionless and silent for 30 seconds while holding a neutral-earth sample.
✦ Do not project spells.
✦ Do not allow your thoughts to ‘tug’ on emotion.

[Progress Timer: 00:30]

[Note: This process cannot be skipped. Orientation begins with stillness.]

This seems specifically Earth-related, he thought. Is the glyph trying to guide me towards Earth-based Thaumaturgy?

Then, a slow grinding hum echoed from the stairwell behind Fabrisse and Min.

Magus Exemplar Konan was on her way up.

Tall and broad-shouldered, Konan Kann’s presence pinned the room down like another layer of gravity. Her skin was deep brown, rich with undertones like polished hematite, and her eyes were darker still. She wore her hair in close coils braided back into a crownbound loop, streaked with silver that didn’t age her so much as mark her as elemental, like a mineral that had been compressed into clarity over time.

Konan didn’t speak at first. She looked at Min. Min inclined his head and stepped aside.

Then she turned to Fabrisse, gaze as flat and exact as a pressure plate. “You must be Kestovar.”

Fabrisse tried not to straighten like he’d just been caught slouching in front of a tectonic spirit. “Yes, ma’am. I mean, Magus.”

Konan studied him a moment longer, then said, “What made you interested in Earth Thaumaturgy?”

Her voice was steady and textured like distant thunder—not loud, but impossible to ignore.

Fabrisse opened his mouth. No answer came out.

It was such a straightforward question, but it hit like a stone dropped into still water. The answer he’d prepared, something about ‘resonance potential’ or ‘technical alignment with his aetheric attributes,’ dissolved on his tongue. Those were things Greg would say. Real reasons. Scholarly reasons.

But his weren’t.

“I . . .” He glanced down at his satchel. “I think it started when I smashed my face into a stack of pebbles.”

Min, still off to the side, raised one eyebrow.

Konan asked, “Elaborate, please.”

He scratched his cheek and began, “I was small and not particularly good at sitting still. My mother would bring me to the shrine every third day. It wasn’t far from where we lived. She’d go there to offer rites, talk with the others, help tend the devotional circles. You know, grown-up stuff.”

He then rubbed his knuckles along the edge of his satchel strap. “Sometimes, my sister would be there with me, but often there weren’t any other kids. So I’d just . . . run around. I tried to find something to do. At first I chased the temple cats, but they didn’t like being chased. Then I tried sneaking after birds, but they always flew off. One time I ran after a rodent and tripped.”

He gave a short laugh, more at himself than the memory. “Smashed my face straight into a pile of pebbles. I thought I broke my nose. But when I looked up—right in front of me, there was this bit of quartz. It had caught the sun just right. It glowed like it had its own light.” He glanced up. “I think that was the first time I realized rocks could be . . . beautiful. Not just heavy or boring or in the way. So I started collecting them. I didn’t know it had anything to do with magic back then. I just knew it felt important to pick them up.”

There was a pause.

“Now I know,” he added, “some of them remember being picked up.”

Konan stared at him for another moment, enough for anxiety to ripple within him again. Finally, she gave a small nod. “But you should remember there isn’t much for you to do here. We involve heavily with theoretical categorization and mapping the muddy frameworks of the strata, and unfortunately it is not something the current leadership is willing to spend resources on.”

“I understand.”

That again.

Rocks have their innate attributes—stable, durable, immune to flux. People use them for everything from crafted wards to environmental stabilization, even culinary alchemy. But because they didn’t prance to resonance charts, the Synod had declared them inert. They had discouraged mineral studies for decades now. Unless you could light a hall on fire or redirect a river midstream, you weren’t worth listening to.

He looked past Konan, to the rows of stacked spell-maps and theory scrolls gathering dust in the alcove. Half of these structures held the key to resonance stabilization, or at least stopping the Synod buildings from collapsing from time to time.

But sure. Flashy gusts and flame glyphs.

“We give our students a hand-made hat. I’ll get you one.” And with that, Konan turned and began descending the stairwell again. Within a moment, she was gone.

“A hat?” Fabrisse asked.

Min, still standing near the shelf of resonance cores, offered the faintest shrug. “She makes them with claybound linen, and rune-stamps them herself. Excellent durability, those hats.”

“But where’s yours?”

“Good question.” He turned to face Fabrisse fully for the first time and proceeded to not answer the question. There was something almost like approval in the tilt of his voice now, though his expression remained mostly neutral.

“Welcome to the Wing of Substratal Studies,” Min said. “You’ll want to keep your boots clean.”