Aeron POV
The first Magic Studies class.
Which meant, unfortunately, that most of the main cast would be there.
Once, that would have made this room perfect. A place where drama happened at a safe distance while Aeron watched from the edges and thanked the universe for never placing him in the middle of anything important.
Now, just approaching it made his nerves tighten.
Aeron had not slept well.
Naturally, like any responsible academy student, he had spent the morning eating while practicing with his circles.
He arrived at the classroom like a prisoner walking toward a very politely decorated execution.
The door slid open.
A warm morning breeze spilled past him, carrying the faint scent of paper, mana residue, and polished stone. The room was different from the others. A raised stage sat at the center, with rows of desks curving around it in a loose circle instead of facing forward in neat lines.
And the moment he stepped inside, his eyes caught it.
Aeron slowed.
'A magic circle.'
It was subtle. The desks had been arranged around faint markings worked so cleanly into the stage and floor that most people would have missed them entirely.
Watcher—or whatever his trait had become now—did not.
His gaze narrowed.
'But what spell?'
He took another step, studying the stage.
'Hmm.'
The room was silent.
Too silent.
Aeron frowned.
'Why is it so quiet?'
He looked around the empty desks.
'There should be people here. There should be noise. There should be—'
Then another thought hit him.
'Wasn't there supposed to be some event around now? Something where Kyle does something cool again?'
That was when he finally glanced at the clock.
9:45.
The class started at 11.
Aeron stared at it.
Then slapped a hand over his forehead.
'It starts in an hour.'
'Oh, for f—'
He froze.
A soft clink of porcelain against a plate sounded from the far corner of the room.
Aeron's face paled.
The breeze caught one of the long curtains near the window and pulled it aside. Sunlight spilled across the shadowed corner.
There was a person there.
A very large person there.
'Large.'
That was Aeron's first thought.
It was quickly followed by:
'Please let me leave.'
His body turned with the stiff desperation of a man trying to retreat from fate without attracting its attention.
'Please, please, please—'
"Awkward."
The voice was young.
Too young, almost. Light and easy and threaded with amusement.
"Honestly, it would have been less suspicious if you'd just used your space mark and had Iori drag you out through a rift."
A brief pause.
"Instead of trying to leave like that."
Aeron's heartbeat stumbled.
'He can see the space mark?'
'What else can he see?'
"I do enjoy talking to myself," the voice continued pleasantly. "But even I have limits."
Aeron turned back with the expression of a man being betrayed by every muscle in his body.
The curtain shifted again.
"Ah," the voice said. "Is that in the way? One moment."
Mana moved.
Not strings.
Not threads.
Thick, visible tendrils of mana rose through the air in smooth, deliberate lines and wrapped around the curtains with casual precision, drawing them neatly aside.
Aeron's eyes widened.
The control was absurd.
Beautiful, even.
Cleaner than his own.
The figure in the corner was revealed fully at last.
Black trousers. White shirt. A cup of black tea steaming lazily in one hand.
The shirt was slightly too tight across a broad frame, its buttons looking like they were engaged in active prayer. He had a rounder face than Aeron expected, almost soft, with dirty-blond hair and a baby-faced sort of youth that clashed strangely with the composure in his posture.
Professor Casper Borne.
He smiled.
"Am I too handsome, or what?"
His gaze flicked to his watch.
"I mean, I don't mind if you want to keep staring for the next…" He tilted his wrist. "Hour and fifteen minutes."
Before Aeron could stop himself, his mouth betrayed him.
"Your transformation disguise is almost perfect, Sir Casper."
Silence.
Then the professor's smile deepened.
"Hoho. And what," he asked lightly, "makes you think it's a disguise?"
Aeron's stomach dropped.
'Why did I say that?'
'I only know because of the show.'
'Damn it.'
Unfortunately, his face chose confidence.
Or at least what it believed confidence looked like.
Professor Casper looked at him for a moment, then snorted.
"No," he said. "Don't do that."
Aeron blinked.
"That smile. It looks like you're trying not to shit yourself."
Aeron's hand rose automatically to his mouth.
His expression collapsed.
Professor Casper looked delighted.
"This," he said, pointing lightly at him with his teacup, "is why I came to the academy."
Aeron frowned. "Me?"
"Yes, you." The professor leaned back in his chair. "Not the usual talents. Not the loud ones. Not the obvious monsters." His eyes sharpened with bright, impossible interest. "The abnormal ones."
His gaze lingered.
"Like you. Like Iori."
Aeron went very still.
"The way your presence touches that line," Casper said softly. "How it slips. How it almost fails to settle. The way you noticed the circle the second you walked in. The way you saw through my disguise." He smiled again, easy and playful and somehow much worse for it. "No one here can do that properly. Not except the principal."
Aeron's brain, for reasons beyond all fairness, chose that moment to fail.
'He knows Iori?'
"So, Aeron Araxys," Professor Casper went on.
'Wait. When did I tell him my name?'
"Let's say," Casper said, "I have a habit of showing favoritism in my classes."
Aeron's expression fell into instant horror.
The professor's smile widened.
"So you," he said cheerfully, "will be volunteering quite often."
'Extra my foot.'
Casper took another sip of tea, then waved vaguely toward the stage.
"Let me repay the trauma. What did you see when you walked into the room?"
Aeron forced himself to focus.
"A magic circle."
"Amazing," Casper said. "A visionary. A scholar. A man of culture."
Aeron stared at him.
"Guess the tier," Casper continued, "and tell me what kind."
Aeron looked toward the stage again, frowning.
The circle was broad, layered, and hidden well enough that most of its structure was swallowed by the floor. But what little he could feel from the edges—
He hesitated.
"Tier five," he said slowly. "Maybe higher in complexity, but not in raw output. And not utility."
Casper's brows rose.
"Oh?"
Aeron exhaled.
"It doesn't feel passive enough for utility," he said. "The structure is too deliberate. Too directional."
For a moment, the professor simply looked at him.
Then he grinned.
"Ah," he said. "So you are the one who set the library on fire."
Aeron's face folded in on itself.
"I do not currently have the funds to deal with that accusation."
'I really need to start that business.'
Casper laughed.
"Relax. Nothing important was damaged." He set the cup down. "And you're right. Tier five. Not utility."
His eyes glimmered.
"It's a portal."
Aeron let himself look surprised.
Professor Casper waved a hand lazily.
"You don't need to perform surprise for me. Everyone has secrets. I'm a professional admirer of them."
He stood, broad frame unfolding with deceptive smoothness, and stepped toward the stage.
"It's different from a formation," he said. "And different from modern casting theory. This is a large-scale magic circle. Old structure. Fixed logic. Beautiful work, really." He smiled over his shoulder. "I made it."
Aeron stared.
"You might be wondering," Casper continued, "why I don't teach this to everyone."
His tone remained light, but something quieter sat beneath it now.
"My traits are Mana's Heir and Control Freak."
He said it almost casually.
"As a general rule, no one is going to have my reserves. And no one is going to have better control than me." He shrugged. "So there's rarely much point."
The words were amused.
The feeling beneath them was not.
For the first time, Aeron caught something that almost sounded like loneliness.
Casper looked back at the circle.
"It would be nice, though," he said, "to find someone who could actually keep up. Research together. Build something absurd. Step through enough worlds to make historians angry."
Aeron blinked.
'Bruh.'
'You sound like you're pitching the start of a novel.'
That thought, very unhelpfully, led to another.
'Iori. This professor. Me.'
'That is either a terrible business model or the beginning of the worst trio this academy has ever seen.'
The more he thought about it, the less he hated it.
Casper was still talking now, half to himself, about old magic, dead methods, and how modern mages had no respect for structural beauty.
Aeron looked at the portal circle again.
Then at the professor.
Then back at the circle.
'I could probably use that someday.'
And that thought, more than anything else, was probably the beginning of a problem.
So Aeron showed him.
A magic circle began to weave itself into existence.
Not all at once.
Its outer ring formed first in thin, precise lines, then the inner structure followed in staggered layers, each segment appearing at a slightly different speed, as if the spell were thinking itself into place.
Professor Casper stopped mid-sentence.
For once, he did not joke.
His eyes fixed on the circle with naked interest.
"Beautiful," he murmured.
The praise landed more heavily than Aeron expected.
Aeron kept his face still.
"Tier two," Casper said softly. "Wind Burst."
'As expected.'
'He already knows.'
Mana flowed.
The circle drank it in with smooth efficiency before a wide pulse of compressed wind burst through the open windows. Curtains snapped violently outward. Loose papers lifted, danced, and scattered across the room before settling again.
Aeron let the circle remain for a second longer, then dismissed it.
Casper looked at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
"Oh, I am absolutely keeping you."
Aeron frowned. "That sounded threatening."
"It was affectionate," Casper said.
"That did not help."
The professor laughed into his tea.
Aeron glanced once more toward the stage, then back to him.
An idea flickered across his mind. Not a good one. Which, increasingly, seemed to be how his best ideas arrived.
'Iori. This professor. Me.'
'That is either an awful business model or the beginning of something deeply illegal-looking.'
The more he thought about it, the less he hated it.
"I might ask you something later," Aeron said carefully.
Casper raised a brow. "Money, knowledge, or crime?"
Aeron blinked. "That was an alarmingly fast list."
"I'm efficient."
Before Aeron could reply, his attention shifted.
Footsteps.
More than one set.
Coming down the corridor.
He turned slightly toward the door.
Casper noticed.
"So," the professor said lightly, "you sensed them before I did."
Aeron paused.
Casper's eyes sharpened.
For the briefest moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the professor smiled as though he had decided to file that observation away for future mischief.
"How interesting," he said.
The door slid open.
Scarlett entered first.
Her gaze found Aeron almost immediately, sharpened for one brief second, then slid past him like she resented the instinct. Xavier came in beside her, Seth and Catheryn close behind, the four of them carrying the easy shape of people already used to arriving together. Xavier slowed just slightly when he noticed Aeron already seated. Seth's eyes flicked over once, unreadable. Catheryn followed Scarlett's line of sight for half a beat before the group moved on.
A few moments later, Angelina entered alone.
Her attention settled on Aeron with that same quiet calm, as if finding him there was neither strange nor important enough to question. Then she moved to her seat by the window with effortless composure, sunlight catching briefly at the edge of her hair.
Lyra arrived after that.
Her gaze swept the room once—stage, markings, students, Aeron—cool and precise, before she continued forward without pause.
By then, Casper had already sunk back into shadow, teacup in hand, large and silent and strangely unbothered by being mistaken for furniture.
Aeron, meanwhile, had the deeply unpleasant experience of being noticed by several important people in separate waves, which somehow felt worse.
'Great.'
More students filtered in after them. By the time the clock neared eleven, twenty-eight members of Spade had taken their seats around the circular room. Conversation rose in low waves, most of it circling around the identity of the professor hidden in the darkened corner.
At exactly eleven, the chair creaked.
It was not a loud sound.
It did not need to be.
The room quieted.
Professor Casper stood, stretched once, then drifted out of the shadows and into the air above the central stage.
A thick cloud of visible mana bore his weight with effortless ease. His teacup floated beside him.
Quiet admiration moved through the room.
"Pure mana," someone whispered.
"So cool."
Another voice muttered, "He's kind of built like a noble's pantry."
"He can probably hear you," someone else hissed.
That ended that.
Casper floated above the stage and surveyed the class.
"Welcome," he said, "to Magic Studies."
His voice was light, but the room still seemed to gather around it.
"In simple terms, I will be teaching you casting. What it is. What it became. What it forgot." He took a calm sip of tea. "And if I find any of you remotely worth the effort, I may even offer advice."
A few students straightened at that.
"The name is Casper Borne," he continued. "You may call me Professor Borne."
His gaze drifted once over the room.
"Now then. What do we know about magic circles?"
Will raised a hand.
Casper pointed at him. "Go on."
Will lowered it and answered anyway.
"Magic circles were the primary method used by early mages. They impose structure onto mana before release, allowing for higher consistency and, in many cases, greater power. Their usage fell over time because they demand more control, more preparation, and greater strain than modern casting through will."
Casper nodded once.
"Decent. Dry. Continue and I may perish of boredom."
A faint ripple of laughter passed through the room.
Will's expression did not change.
"They are also classified by tier," he continued, "and though high-tier circles are recorded in theory, very few modern mages can use them effectively—"
Casper snapped his fingers.
"Stop there."
Will stopped.
Professor Casper let the silence breathe for a moment, tea still steaming beside him.
Then he asked, "If magic is the will to change the world, what does it mean to bind that will inside a circle?"
Silence.
Then, from somewhere in the back:
"To make it less explodey?"
Casper stared at him.
"A breathtaking assault on scholarship."
Another student tried. "To increase accuracy, Professor."
"An answer," Casper said. "Not the answer, but congratulations on surviving thought."
A girl near the front offered, "To reduce mana loss?"
"Functional. Depressing. Continue."
"Because ancient mages were dramatic?"
A few laughs broke out.
Casper pointed lazily with his cup. "And yet somehow still more serious than your academic future."
Another voice called, "Because circles look cooler."
Casper nodded solemnly. "That is the first honest answer."
Aeron kept his head down.
'Not me. Not me. Not me.'
"Aeron."
His soul briefly left his body, then returned under protest.
"Yes, Professor?"
Casper smiled like a man committing a crime in broad daylight.
"You look personally offended by the question."
A few students laughed.
"Answer it."
Aeron exhaled slowly.
He could feel eyes turning toward him.
Annoying.
"It means," he said, "that the mage does not trust power to remain pure once it leaves them."
The room quieted.
Aeron kept going.
"A circle is structure imposed before failure can happen. A shape that tells mana what it is allowed to become." His eyes flicked once toward the stage. "Modern casting relies on will remaining stable in motion. A circle assumes will is imperfect."
Casper said nothing.
Which, naturally, encouraged disaster.
"It binds possibility into instruction," Aeron finished. "Not because magic is weaker inside a circle. Because it becomes narrower. More exact. Less alive, maybe. But more obedient."
Silence.
Then Casper slowly grinned.
"Well," he said softly, "that was irritatingly good."
Aeron stared at his desk.
'Excellent. Wonderful. Terrible.'
Professor Casper lifted one hand.
A small flame bolt formed and shot cleanly across the room, singing the edge of a sleeping student's sleeve.
The student jerked awake.
Casper ignored him.
"Simple will-casting," he said.
Then a magic circle bloomed before his hand.
The structure was crisp, layered, elegant.
A second flame bolt launched.
This one moved faster.
Hit harder.
And exploded wider against the far wall.
"Differences?" Casper asked.
"Power."
"Speed."
"Larger output."
He twitched. "Yes. Any answers with actual thought attached?"
Lyra spoke.
"The will-cast version reflected active intent. It could shift depending on what you imagined and how much strain your mind could sustain. The circle version was more stable. More consistent. It carried fixed instruction from the start."
Casper clapped once.
"Better. Much better." He smiled. "Though not perfect. Circles can be changed. It simply requires more research than most of you are worth."
Lyra gave the smallest frown, then nodded.
Professor Casper let the circle fade.
"One thing to remember," he said, voice light again, "I do not recommend any of you begin using circles simply because today has made them look interesting. You do not have the traits, reserves, or control for it. I use them because I can."
A pause.
Then he smiled.
"We are not the same."
That settled over the room nicely.
Then Casper clicked his fingers.
The windows flew open.
Mana rushed into the room in visible streams, spilling past the students before sinking into the desks, the floor, the stage.
Aeron's eyes widened.
The markings he had noticed earlier ignited all at once.
A vast magic circle unfolded beneath the entire classroom.
Gasps rose around him as students pushed back in their seats, only to realise too late that their desks had been placed precisely along its structure from the very beginning.
Casper rose higher above them, suspended in turquoise light, teacup still floating serenely at his side.
"Let me show you," he said, "what casting once was."
Ancient patterns awakened across the floor.
Symbols older than any modern script burned into the room in silver-blue light.
"This," Casper said softly, "is what humans forgot."
The circle turned.
The center folded.
And beneath every student, space opened.
A portal swirled into existence under the entire class.
Clouds of mana formed beneath them all, keeping them aloft as the threshold widened into something vast and impossible.
The room stared up at Casper in stunned silence.
He took another sip of tea.
"Tier Five," he said.
A faint smile touched his mouth.
"Porta Intermundia."
For one perfect second, everything held.
The portal beneath the class turned in slow, solemn silence. Silver-blue light spiralled under every desk and chair, ancient script revolving in smooth concentric layers. Clouds of mana held each student aloft as the threshold widened into something vast and impossible.
It was beautiful.
Controlled.
Exactly what an SS-class mage opening an ancient circle should have looked like.
Then Aeron felt it.
A flaw.
Tiny.
So small he might have missed it if Watcher had not already taught him to notice the shape of wrongness.
The pull beneath him deepened by a fraction.
Not enough to drop him.
Enough to hunger.
His breath caught.
One line in the script flickered.
Then steadied.
Then an outer curve bent where it should have stayed straight.
Aeron's eyes narrowed.
'No.'
That was not instability.
It was correction.
The same awful sensation as before. The same crawling certainty that reality had already chosen the next second and was only now bothering to inform everyone else.
The light below the class changed.
Not dimmer.
Deeper.
As if the portal had looked into its intended destination, paused, and accepted another answer.
Lyra's head snapped toward the floor.
Scarlett straightened.
Xavier tensed before his expression changed.
Angelina's calm sharpened into focus.
Aeron felt his stomach drop.
'This isn't right.'
In the original story, this lesson had been controlled. Safe. A spectacle. A rare display of ancient magic and ridiculous faculty competence.
Not this.
The center of the portal folded inward another layer.
One rune doubled over itself.
Another shifted half a degree.
Then a sound ran through the room.
Not from the students.
From the circle.
A low, dragging note, like stone being inscribed by something older than language.
Above them, Professor Casper went still.
Not alarmed.
Not tense.
Still in the way only very dangerous people could be.
His eyes traced the changing script once.
Twice.
Then lifted to Aeron.
And widened by the barest fraction.
Amusement touched his face.
Aeron nearly choked.
'Why are you amused?'
The mana beneath the class changed again. The gentle buoyancy became a steeper pull.
This no longer felt like a doorway.
It felt like a drop.
The first thing that reached him was smell.
Smoke.
Hot iron.
Wet stone.
Then sound bled upward through the widening threshold.
Steel striking steel.
A distant roar.
Something vast collapsing.
The class felt it all at once.
Murmurs broke sharp and uneven.
"What is that?"
"Professor?"
"This doesn't feel like a lesson space—"
Below them, through the turning depth of the portal, the destination finally showed itself.
Not a preserved ruin.
Not some quiet historical site.
A sky split by ash and red light.
Broken towers.
A horizon of scorched earth carved open by glowing trenches of old magic.
And figures.
Not living ones.
Echoes.
Ancient mages moving across a battlefield that should have died centuries ago.
Aeron's blood went cold.
'No.'
This was not a teaching site.
This was a war-memory.
A hardened echo.
A place where ancient casting had not been studied, but used.
Around him, chairs scraped uselessly against clouds of mana as students instinctively tried to move.
Scarlett stared down with her jaw set hard.
Xavier had shifted slightly toward Aeron without seeming to realise it.
Lyra's face went flat with that precise, dangerous stillness she wore whenever reality stopped behaving properly.
"This isn't drift," she said coldly. "Something changed it."
No one answered.
Professor Casper, infuriatingly, looked delighted.
Not by the danger.
By the phenomenon.
His gaze stayed on Aeron as though the rest of the class had, for one brief moment, become secondary to a far more interesting problem.
Then a voice brushed across Aeron's mind.
Warm.
Amused.
Entirely too calm.
Good luck, Aeron Araxys.
Aeron's soul attempted immediate evacuation.
Casper's smile deepened by a breath.
It seems you've improved the lesson.
'Excuse me?'
The mana holding the class aloft vanished.
Not all at once.
In sequence.
Outer desks first.
Then the middle rows.
Then the center.
Order collapsed into sudden freefall, and the entire Spade class plunged through Porta Intermundia toward a battlefield Professor Casper had never intended to open.
Aeron dropped with the others, heart slamming against his ribs as heat, smoke, and ancient killing intent rushed up to meet them.
And somewhere above, just before the portal swallowed the last of the light, Professor Casper laughed.