9 days left.
The night wrapped the academy in heavy silence as Noel slipped through the restricted sections of the Grand Hall, moving with a predator's patience.
He wasn't aiming for the banquet hall itself.
Not yet.
He moved toward the places mentioned during the secret meeting—the underground classrooms, buried deep below the academy's foundations. Forgotten places. Hidden places. Exactly where you'd hide something you didn't want found.
Noel moved through servant corridors and abandoned maintenance tunnels, heart steady, steps silent.
Most students were sleeping.
The rest? Focused on exams. On rumors. On ordinary academy life.
'They have no idea what's coming.'
'And if I don't move fast enough… they never will.'
He found the old service stairwell tucked behind a supply closet—half-collapsed from years of disuse—and descended.
The underground air was thick, stale, carrying the dry, electric smell of ancient mana and crumbling stone.
Below, the subterranean hallways stretched out—long, cracked, dust-heavy. The only light came from the occasional weak mana crystals embedded in the walls, casting pale blue shadows.
Rows of old classrooms lined the hallways.
Most of the doors were rotted, some hanging off their hinges. The signs were unreadable, eaten away by time. Here and there, old scorch marks marred the walls—ghosts of long-forgotten spells.
It was the perfect place to hide something lethal.
Noel moved carefully, systematically.
Checking each room.
Some were empty except for shattered desks and warped bookshelves. Others were sealed behind degraded rune barriers, sparking faintly when he brushed close.
Still, he pressed on.
'The others don't even know the real threat exists.'
'Marcus will face the attackers when the time comes. He's the hero of the story.'
'But this... this is on me.'
Alone, in the freezing dark, Noel hunted for the bombs buried beneath their feet.
Because if he didn't find them soon—
everyone would die.
It took time.
More than he expected.
Noel moved deeper into the labyrinth of collapsed hallways and dead classrooms, navigating through dust and silence.
He was scanning every inch now. Every crack. Every exposed section of stone.
And then he found it.
Behind a broken column in a half-collapsed room—a small mana reactor buried in the wall. The faint shimmer of runic circles spun around it, delicate and deadly.
He crouched low.
Looked closer.
Not a bomb in the traditional sense. No powder. No wires.
This was pure mana engineering.
A compact spell-structure designed to convert mana into kinetic force—enough to bring the hall crashing down when triggered.
The circles were intricate.
Too intricate.
He recognized some of the stabilizers and energy flow markers from his classes—but others? They were far beyond anything he had studied.
Noel pulled out his pocket notebook and started copying the runes down by hand, sketching their flow, noting the twists where stabilizers warped into fuses.
After an hour, he leaned back, frustrated.
'I can't rewrite this. Not yet.'
He understood the basic flow—but the higher-order mana compression seals? The layered trigger conditions? Those were on another level entirely.
'Even a slight mistake and it could auto-trigger the sequence.'
He wiped a hand down his face, thinking hard.
He needed to understand this. Really understand it.
And that would take hours—maybe days—if he did it alone.
'No good.'
There was one person.
Someone who lived and breathed mana manipulation.
Someone who could look at these runic circles and see their weaknesses instantly.
Professor Daemar.
Professor of mana manipulation.
Strict. Brilliant.
And, though it wasn't public knowledge yet, Noel remembered from the novel:
'He's just a step away from Archmage level.'
An Archmage.
Three entire ranks above Novice.
A leap almost impossible for a normal mage to even dream of.
'If anyone could help me understand this structure without realizing what it's for... it's him.'
But he had to be careful.
Daemar couldn't know what he was actually working on.
Noel began crafting the idea in his head already:
A hypothetical "assignment." A fabricated question about advanced mana compression theory.
Enough to spark Daemar's interest.
Enough to get real, applicable answers.
Without raising alarms.
'Just a student curious about spell architecture.'
'Nothing suspicious at all.'
Noel closed his notebook carefully.
He had a plan now.
Time to move.
And time was running out.
9 days left.
The next morning, Noel kept his head down during classes.
He played the perfect part: the slightly tired, slightly stressed first-year just trying to survive the end of the trimester.
No one questioned it.
After lectures ended, he made his way casually toward Professor Daemar's office, a thick stack of "study notes" tucked under one arm.
He rehearsed his lines mentally.
'It's just a hypothetical. A curiosity about mana compression structures. Nothing weird.'
When he knocked, Daemar's familiar sharp voice called from inside.
"Enter."
Noel stepped in, closing the door softly behind him.
The office was as it always was—neat, cold, lined with spellbooks stacked like precise weapons, mana diagrams projected above the desk, glowing softly.
Daemar looked up from a dense set of scrolls.
Noel cleared his throat.
"Professor, do you have a moment?"
Daemar raised an eyebrow but gestured to the seat across from him.
"I'm working, but if it's quick."
Noel sat carefully.
Pulled a few pages from his stack—completely fabricated diagrams mimicking the runic structures he'd seen around the bomb but without copying them directly.
"Sir, I was studying advanced mana compression theory for extra credit. I came across some sample structures in the older textbooks, and I had... questions."
Daemar's gaze sharpened.
'Hooked.'
Noel kept his face neutral, eyes slightly tired, playing up the curious, hard-working student act.
"These structures—particularly the way the mana compression nodes interact with kinetic triggers—" he tapped one of the sketches, "—I can't fully figure out how the stabilization is supposed to work. It seems almost... recursive."
Daemar leaned forward, scanning the diagrams.
He frowned.
Not disapprovingly.
Thoughtfully.
"You're not wrong. Recursive layering. Extremely inefficient unless the designer was trying to create a delay effect."
Noel nodded slowly. Took notes.
"And if the compression seals are tuned too tightly...?"
"They would create a catastrophic feedback loop. Explosive, potentially lethal depending on core material." Daemar glanced at him sharply. "Where did you find these examples?"
Noel shrugged casually. "Archived scrolls in the back of the library. Stuff from the Second Age reconstruction projects."
Not technically a lie.
Daemar nodded once, accepting it.
Then spent the next twenty minutes explaining how such structures were built—and, more importantly, how they could be manipulated or destabilized safely without triggering the entire chain.
Noel took furious notes.
Every word mattered.
When Daemar finally leaned back and returned to his scrolls, dismissing him with a wave, Noel gathered his things quickly and slipped out of the office.
The hallway was empty.
He leaned against the cool stone wall, breathing slow.
'Now I can fight them.'
8 days left.
Each night, Noel returned to the hidden underground hallways.
Armed with his new knowledge, he worked slowly—modifying the mana circles, introducing controlled faults, disrupting the cascade without setting off any alarms.
It was painstaking work.
Hours of careful carving, precise rune disruptions, mana balancing under pressure.
Each day he attended classes.
Trained.
Ate with Roberto.
Studied.
Smiled at Marcus and Clara.
Acted normal.
And each night, he risked everything under the academy's very feet.
7 days left.
The academy walls buzzed with excitement.
Rumors of an upcoming event floated everywhere—an end-of-trimester banquet, the posters starting to appear.
Gold trim.
Red banners.
A grand celebration.
Noel watched it all unfold like a funeral procession in disguise.
'Seven days.'
The announcement came mid-morning.
The mana-crystal loudspeakers embedded into the academy's walls flared to life with a sharp hum, silencing conversations across the halls and classrooms.
A voice—calm, ceremonial, and unmistakably official—echoed throughout the grounds.
"Attention, students and faculty. By order of the Academy Council, we are proud to announce the Grand End-of-Term Banquet. A celebration to honor your hard work and achievements this semester."
Noel sat frozen at his desk.
Students around him cheered, laughed, even clapped.
Some immediately started whispering about outfits, dance partners, afterparties.
But for Noel?
Every word sounded like a countdown.
'It's official now.'
'There's no stopping it.'
Posters began appearing within hours.
Richly decorated sheets pinned to every notice board and pillar: gold and red borders, glittering letters promising a night of celebration, fine food, and dancing under enchanted lights.
The Banquet would be held in the Grand Hall—of course.
The same Grand Hall he knew was wired to explode beneath their feet.
The same Hall where Marcus and the others would have to fight for their lives against the hidden attackers.
'This is really happening.'
Noel walked past the posters, his heart hammering.
Nobody noticed how his shoulders tensed.
Nobody saw how his hands curled slightly at his sides.
They were too busy planning their outfits, picking who they'd ask to dance, wondering what professors might show up, what food would be served.
No one thought about death.
No one thought about bombs.
Noel forced himself to breathe, steady and slow.
'Seven days left.'
'I'm not done yet.'
He couldn't stop the banquet.
But he could still stop the worst of it.
He had to.
That evening, when the sun dipped behind the academy towers and the courtyards fell into long shadows, Noel sat alone at his desk.
The room was dark, lit only by a faint mana lamp.
A blank sheet of parchment lay before him.
He tapped the pen against the edge once, twice, thinking.
'It can't be obvious. No fingerprints. No trail.'
He dipped the pen into the ink and wrote in quick, deliberate strokes:
To the Director,
You must keep an eye on Professor Caldus.
He is not who he appears to be.
Be discreet.
You would not want the reputation of the most prestigious academy in Vaelterra to suffer irreversible consequences.
— A concerned observer.
Noel read it once.
Short.
Concise.
Enough to spark doubt.
Enough to make the Director cautious without pointing any fingers directly at himself.
Perfect.
He folded the letter neatly, sealed it with plain wax—no markings, no signature—and placed it in an unadorned envelope.
Later, under the cover of night, he slipped it into the secure message dropbox near the administrative tower—the one reserved for confidential communications to the upper faculty.
The box shimmered briefly, absorbing the letter into its mana-sealed containment spells.
Noel stood there for a moment, staring at the empty box.
'Now it's out of my hands.'
The problem?
He knew how the message system worked.
Letters were sorted by arrival order.
And with the upcoming banquet, students were flooding the council and administration with petitions, congratulations, party requests, suggestions, complaints.
There was no telling when—or even if—his letter would be read in time.
But it was all he could do.
For now.
He turned on his heel and disappeared back into the shadows, the cold wind picking up around the towers.
6 days left.
The academy grounds buzzed with energy.
Decorations went up on every building. Mana lights were strung between the towers, slowly blinking in intricate patterns. Students rushed between classes and fittings, practicing formal dances in the open courtyards, laughing without a care in the world.
Noel watched it all from a quiet corner of the library's upper floor, arms folded across his chest.
'They have no idea.'
The bombs were dealt with.
Every night for the past few days, Noel had crept into the underground tunnels, working meticulously, room by room.
Using everything he'd learned from Daemar—and every ounce of caution he possessed—he had modified every single explosive mana circle.
Carefully, quietly.
They wouldn't detonate properly now. The chain would break before the energy could fully trigger.
It wasn't a perfect solution.
If someone physically tampered with them again, they might still be salvaged.
But unless the conspirators did a full inspection—which was unlikely this close to the event—he had bought time.
Saved lives.
'I've interfered completely.'
'Now it's up to Marcus to play his part against the attackers.'
Still, even with that weight lifted slightly, Noel couldn't relax.
He hadn't forgotten the second phase—the attack squad that would hit the Grand Hall directly during the chaos.
That part was still coming.
And Marcus didn't even know it yet.
Noel had to be ready to move, ready to nudge events where needed without revealing himself.
But right now?
Right now he was running on fumes.
Every morning, it took more effort to drag himself to classes.
Every night, it took more willpower to stay sharp, to pretend nothing was wrong, to hide the exhaustion behind easy smiles and half-lidded eyes.
And somewhere, buried under it all, a voice whispered:
'You're alone in this.'
'No one's coming to save you if it goes wrong.'
Noel exhaled slowly and closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out the sounds of laughter, of celebration.
'Six days.'
'Just six more days.'
He would endure.
He had to.
Because if he didn't—no one else would live long enough to regret it.