The dream was colorless, yet painted in bleeding light. Zerathos stood in a space that wasn't space—an absence of all logic, sensation, and form. It stretched on, unfathomably deep and incomprehensibly vast. A place outside all concepts of space and time. And at the very heart of this madness, where chaos was absolute, something began to take shape.
A voice reached him.
"Remember me?"
A figure emerged, composed of crimson strokes as though painted onto the void with bleeding ink. Her voice was manic, cracking and sweet all at once.
"I can finally see you now…" she whispered.
Her presence felt like madness given form—possessive, longing, and ancient. Her silhouette leaned into him, tilting her head unnaturally. She grinned, eyes like twin blades of stained glass.
"Who's she?" she asked with mock curiosity, though there was no one else there. "No matter. You'll forget everyone else. Only me…"
Zerathos couldn't move. Her fingers ran along his jaw with a gentleness that belied the tension in her knuckles. Her words were velvet laced with nails.
"I was always here. You just forgot…"
She leaned close, her lips nearly brushing his ear.
"But now… you'll remember—"
A sharp jolt. The dream cracked apart like shattering glass.
"—AUGH!!"
Zerathos bolted upright, drenched in sweat.
"Dude, calm down!" Kagetsuchi yelped, standing over him with a startled expression. "I was just trying to wake you up! You were sleeping like a unit. Like dead weight, man."
Zerathos blinked, still disoriented. The echo of her words lingered like smoke in his chest. "…It was just a weird dream," he muttered, rubbing his eyes.
Kagetsuchi raised a brow but said nothing.
Later
The classroom was quieter than expected. Old stone walls, sunlight spilling through arcane-glass windows, and a faint hum of magical energy thick in the air.
That hum got louder the moment she walked in.
Her steps were weightless, like she might dissolve if the wind hit her wrong. Long, white hair flowed like silk, and her deep green eyes glinted like cut gems—unnervingly focused. The robe she wore didn't just shimmer with magic—it breathed it.
"That's an elf," Arashi whispered to Kagetsuchi.
"Obviously," she shot back, "shut up."
The woman stood at the front of the room without ever announcing her name. She didn't need to. Her presence alone did all the talking.
"Let us begin with a question."
Her voice was soft but precise—each syllable crystalline, deliberate.
"Where does magic come from?"
The class looked at each other, hesitant.
"The soul," Kagetsuchi said, arms crossed.
"The mind?" Arashi guessed.
Zerathos opened his mouth slowly.
"…The person."
The elf raised a snowy brow.
"Interesting." She paused. "Some of you are closer than others."
A ripple of murmurs.
She turned to the chalkboard and raised a hand—no wand, no incantation. A single rune ignited midair, and the word 'SOURCE' burned itself in golden script across the stone.
"Magic comes from you," she said, voice like velvet edged with steel.
"Not your mind. Not your soul. Not your mana. You—the purest, most essential concept of your existence. The part of you that remains even when all else is stripped away. The Source."
There was a long pause.
Elves—though physically delicate compared to humans—excel in magic to an almost unnatural degree. Their affinity isn't just power, it's purity. Where a human punches through with force, an elf slices through reality with clarity.
And when this one spoke? Even magic itself listened.
"Your Source emits a wavelength," she continued, gliding across the front of the room. "Each person's frequency is unique. That is why all magic is personal, and why no two mages ever truly cast the same spell."
She finally turned, eyes narrowing as they passed over the class. When they landed on Zerathos, something caught—like a flicker of familiarity, or a warning.
"Some of you," she said, her voice dipping slightly, "already resonate with your Source. Even if you don't know it yet."
A heavy stillness. Zerathos shifted, but said nothing.
Then, almost as if to break the weight of the moment, the elf clapped her hands.
"Now then. Let's dissect everything you thought you knew about mana."
She walked slowly across the front of the room, hands behind her back.
The room shifted, the air seemingly thinner for a moment.
Then she clapped her hands, and the atmosphere snapped back to normal.
"Now, let's get to the part where I ruin your childhood understanding of mana flow charts."
The runes on the chalkboard were still glowing faintly gold when Professor Elarin Vaenyra, the ancient elf with white hair and gleaming green eyes, turned back toward the class. She clasped her hands together, the tips of her long fingers perfectly aligned.
"Now then, let's talk about mage ranks."
The room straightened up. No one wanted to miss this part.
With a wave of her hand, a series of symbols appeared in glowing script midair:
C → B → A → S → SS → EX
"These ranks," she said, "aren't just letters. They're thresholds of potential. Dangerous thresholds."
She pointed to the C.
"A C-ranked mage is… well, let's just say they've barely scraped past the entrance exam. Most don't last long in mage society. They either fall behind, burn out… or get turned into something's lunch."
Arashi shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
"A B-ranked mage?" she continued. "Capable of leveling a city. Give or take a few buildings."
Zerathos blinked slowly. "That's… B?"
"An A-ranked mage could shatter a mountain," she said. "They are rare. Respected. Watched closely."
Zerathos leaned to Kagetsuchi, muttering,
"Wait, you're that strong?"
She gave him a smirk that didn't deny it.
"An S-ranked mage," Vaenyra said, voice lowering, "is a planetary threat. Their existence must be monitored. Negotiated with. Or suppressed."
"Double-S—or SS—means we've moved beyond the world. These are calamities wrapped in skin. Threats to nations, realms, even the stability of reality."
She let that sit for a moment.
Then with a flick of her wrist, the final sigil shimmered into view: EX.
"The EX-ranked mage is the strongest of the strong," she said quietly. "A classification reserved for beings beyond conventional scale. There are… very few in recorded history."
Kagetsuchi raised her hand.
"What about Z-rank?"
"Oh?" Vaenyra gave her a cryptic look. "Z-rank is… undefined. We use it for individuals who cannot be measured yet. Whose power and purpose are… in flux."
She smiled just slightly, eyes flicking toward Zerathos for the briefest second.
"It's a placeholder. Until the world figures out what it's supposed to do with them."
Zerathos stared down at his desk, thoughtful. Or bored. It was hard to tell with him.
"Anti-Magic"
Professor Vaenyra clapped her hands once, and the room's lights flickered as a spell-circle glowed under their feet.
"Now then. Let's move to the day's topic: anti-magic."
A ripple of interest passed through the class. Even Arashi sat up.
"Magic, as you know, has polarity—structure. But if you learn to flip the flow of your Source, invert it like a mirror, you create anti-magic."
She held out her hand. A swirling fireball appeared, hovering an inch above her palm.
"It's like inverting a current. Positive becomes negative."
Then she breathed in—and the mana in her hand shifted.
With pinpoint precision, her aura dimmed, then turned inside out. Her hand shimmered with a strange void-like distortion. She reached up, pressed her hand into the fireball—and it vanished.
No explosion. No sound. Just erasure.
"It nullifies magic. Not with force, but with opposition," she said.
She looked at the class.
"Coating your body in anti-magic increases your output tenfold. The tradeoff?"
"No spells. At least, not unless you're incredibly skilled." She gave a soft chuckle. "Even I can't do that part."
Arashi blinked in awe.
Kagetsuchi was silent. She looked distracted, but her eyes were subtly tracking every move.
Zerathos looked like he wasn't paying attention at all—but the faint scribble in his notebook said otherwise.
"Inversion. Destructive balance. Useful…"
Professor Vaenyra turned back for just a moment, as if remembering something important.
"Oh—one more thing I nearly forgot. For those of you aiming for SS-rank and above…"
She paused, tapping the silver clasp at her neck. A faint pulse of mana shimmered out, barely visible but immensely dense.
"Mages of S-rank and higher are required to wear a magical artifact that suppresses their power. It doesn't just dull it—it suppresses it a billionfold."
Some students went wide-eyed.
"Without it, even walking around normally, their mana could level a mountain range just by existing. Or worse—accidentally rupture the ley lines holding our world together."
"And when two SS-class mages fight… well, we forbid that for a reason."
Her voice grew quieter. Not dramatic—just matter-of-fact.
"Even without casting spells, the clash of their ambient magic alone can trigger planetary-scale storms. You don't want to know what happens when they actually start fighting."
A beat passed. She didn't add a warning. She didn't need to.
Then, as before, she faded away into motes of light, leaving only a lingering hum of magic in her place.
The marble floors of the royal observatory gleamed like still water under the magic-infused daylight. An ambient hum echoed through the high halls, soft and ancient, like the distant breathing of the city itself. At the heart of it all sat a man who could barely sit still.
The sun dipped low over the towering spires of the capital, casting golden light through the stained glass of the royal palace. Within the throne room—a vast hall of alabaster marble, sapphire banners, and humming magical sigils—the air shimmered gently.
A pulse of mana flickered at the center of the room.
Then, with no fanfare but a soft shimmer of wind, she appeared—Vaenyra, draped in her usual elegant robes, white hair gently cascading down her shoulders, green eyes still aglow with the residual essence of teaching.
"Yo," she greeted flatly, stepping past the dancing light of the teleportation array. "Class just ended."
The king—draped in robes so pristine they practically defied dirt itself—was already beaming before she finished speaking. His blonde hair, streaked with faint magical blue, glinted like a polished gem as he leaned forward on his throne, excited like a child hearing about his favorite adventuring party.
"So! Vaenyra," he said, bouncing slightly in his seat. "Tell me—how was the class?!"
Vaenyra stood before him, arms lightly crossed. Her expression was unreadable, as always, but there was a faint curve to her lips.
"Surprisingly potent. A few stood out more than I expected."
"Oh?" His eyes sparkled with interest. "Give me names! Come on, give me something juicy."
"Kagetsuchi."
That made him pause.
"…Huh. The girl with the blue hair, right? Kind of aloof?"
Vaenyra nodded once.
"Her magical affinity is… extreme. When I demonstrated anti-magic, she didn't flinch. She didn't even look surprised. She was analyzing it. I saw it in her eyes—like she was reading the technique as it was being cast. No delay. No confusion."
Jareth blinked. Then blinked again.
And then—his whole body jolted with excitement.
"Whaaaat? That's so cool! What type of magic does she have?!"
"Spatial," Vaenyra said simply.
"Oh, no way! Spatial?! You're telling me we've got a natural-born reality bender sitting in the academy right now?"
He threw up a ridiculous thumbs-up.
"That's awesome. Seriously, this is awesome. I gotta meet her sometime. That's, like, top shelf magic!"
"You're a literal toddler in a crown," Vaenyra muttered under her breath.
"Hey, I resemble that remark."
She sighed.
"You say that now, but you're going to get back from this meeting and ask me to fast-track her into the national mage corps, aren't you?"
"…Not denying that."
He chuckled as he straightened his sleeves, the jovial air giving way to something more official. A faint pulse of light began to gather around his boots.
"I'm heading off in an hour. Magic Council business. You know how it is—argue with a bunch of old codgers about leyline distribution, pretend politics matter, act like I'm not the strongest guy in the room. Whole thing's halfway across the planet, so I'll be gone for a bit."
"Don't get distracted by wine or cults again."
"One time!" he whined.
Vaenyra shook her head but allowed herself a small smile.
"I'll keep the class focused."
"Thanks. And hey—keep an eye on that one, Kagetsuchi."
He glanced back, expression softening as the teleportation circle beneath him flared to life.
"We've got a lot riding on this generation. If her potential is what you say it is…"
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
"I'll watch her," Vaenyra said. Then, quieter, "We already found the world-changers."
The king vanished in a pulse of blue light.
The room fell silent.
Vaenyra stood still for a long moment, her gaze distant.
A spatial mage with that kind of insight… and Zerathos in the same class…
She exhaled through her nose.
"Let's just hope they don't tear the world apart before they save it."