The Lecture Hall was sharp with morning light when Isaac slid into the back row.
Around him, the assessment results from the previous day were circulating through the student body in the particular form that information always took in institutions like this—part accurate, part distorted, entirely unavoidable.
"Zero-point-zero-zero-five," a girl with a red braid was saying to her companion, her voice caught between amusement and something adjacent to unease. "Three decimal places. I've never seen three decimal places. Imagine your Total Reserve being so low that there is essentially zero risk of Mana Overload—I mean think about it. How can there be an 'overload' when there is nothing to leak?"
"Then why did Thorne end the session?"
The girl had no answer. Neither did anyone else, and the absence of an answer was doing more work than any explanation could have.
Isaac opened his notebook, one that he decided to bring out to test if filing details in a physical form would complement his perspective reinforced by [The Prism].
For now, he wrote nothing. He was watching the room's social geometry instead.
His eyes moved to the middle tiers.
Cassiopeia was already sketching something with the focus of someone who had arrived early enough to think before the crowd did.
Beside her, Marlene sat with the particular posture of someone still processing yesterday's result—not broken, but carrying extra weight in the shoulders.
Cassiopeia Terra and Marlene Raven. Isaac noted.
Then the doors opened, and the room's noise dropped by half.
Lyra moved through the entrance—not dramatically, but her presence alone was enough to induce a social pressure. She took a seat in the middle tier, three rows ahead of Cassiopeia, and opened her notebook before she had fully settled. Her silver gaze passed across the room in a single, unhurried arc.
It paused on Isaac for exactly 1.3 seconds. Then it moved on.
Isaac watched her gaze complete its arc and settle. His eyes narrowed.
[The Prism] showed him that based on the active circulation of her mana, her skill was currently operating.
The words regarding her skill has already spread far and wide just as how Silas's S-rank: [Lightning Spear] did.
A-rank: [Clairvoyance], the skill that supposedly lets one peek into the future. It offered nothing physical, but was incredibly versatile in countless aspects.
He wrote, Lyra Aetherion: How much mana does she exert to see how much ahead in time?
He underlined it once and moved on.
Thorne soon arrived, dropped a stack of case-bound texts onto the dais, and turned to the board.
The lecture began without an announcement.
"Manafold Circuitry is a tight system from the inside. It ensures that what lies within remains within. A failure to do so results in Mana Overload. However, such isn't necessarily the case from the outside."
He wrote the words with chalk.
"The ambient mana of the environment gradually enters and accumulates in our Manafold Circuitry over time. It is incompatible to our personal mana, and deposits around the inner vessel walls as plaques."
He turned and with one single sweep, looked across the hundreds of seated students.
"Chronic deposition of plaques has a variety of side effects. The most dangerous one would be the very degradation of the vessel walls, as the body detects the plaques as if they were part of the walls and try to compensate for their unnatural 'thickness.' This autoimmune disease is known as Mana Contamination."
He turned back to the board and wrote the word "Mana Contamination."
"Mana Contamination. You definitely heard about it numerous times before," he stated, writing the words with chalk. "It is the primary cause of Mana Overload, and is found to be one of the world's leading cause of death."
He let that settle.
"The recent research revealed that the primary risk factor for Mana Contamination is emotional volatility during high-output skill-discharge. However, given the current warring situation, we don't have luxury for that. So, then what? How do we prevent Mana Contamination?"
Isaac integrated Thorne's lecture. Processed it. His Overload Risk was 0.005%. His Manafold Circuitry was narrow but smooth and clean—free of any plaques.
There was enough evidence. He drew the answer to Thorne's rhetorical question himself,
Meditation.
"Meditation or wand training. That is the answer." Thorne spoke just as Isaac thought of the same. "We will be revisiting this topic in the afternoon. Class dismissed."
...
Lunch arrived with the assessment's weight still pressing on the student body.
Isaac found the stone bench near the dry fountain—the same one as the day before—and laid his notebook open across his knee. The food was temporarily forgotten in his mind, with there being too many things for him to think of, ranging from his status as the fallen noble to Silas Fulgur.
At of now, he was observing. Through the window, through the long distance. He precisely captured the image of Silas, and beside him, Vane, the man who supposedly drew B-rank: [Mana Siphon] and C-rank: [Mana Pressure] for skills—Vane Abias.
That flow of mana…
He found that the external flow of mana around Vane was drastically different from the others.
The external mana is entering his Manafold Circuitry consistently. [Mana Siphon] is a famous example of a passive skill, but then, won't he be susceptible to Mana Contamination?
Upon closer look, he discovered an additional trait in Vane.
There is a very thick plaques built up in his vessels. Yet, he doesn't seem to be suffering from Mana Contamination.
He concluded for now that the skill [Mana Siphon] also includes the preventive measures against its own effect. If body doesn't register the plaques as vessel walls, then through meditation and wand training, those plaques could be broken.
"You're doing it again."
Then, Elara appeared beside him, balancing two trays with practiced ease.
"The Hollows doesn't even give dinner. If you don't eat now, you aren't eating for the whole day."
She set one in front of him without asking. A supportive friend she has been, ever since they met in the first-year.
The thought paused. He looked at the tray. Then at her.
"Thanks, Elara."
She settled beside him. "So, what's in your mind that made you forget about eating?"
"Just… rumors, I suppose."
Elara was quiet for a moment upon hearing that.
"So you heard about it as well."
"Yes."
"Silas started to act. I don't get why he is so obsessed with you, but a form for a formal duel will soon be filed." She paused. "I… I checked the Academy regulations. In normal circumstances, students have the right to decline a duel request. However, the Kingdom regulations override that, and there is a statement that a formal duel can be considered a substitute to a trial for the 'fallen nobles,' and they don't have the right to reject a trial."
Such was the case because usually, the fall from nobility was from committing atrocious crimes.
"Silas, he… he is abusing the law."
Isaac set down his fork. Not dramatically—just a pause in the motion, a single beat of stillness before he reached for the next variable.
He then looked at her for a moment—at the tiredness around her eyes that said she had been awake early on his behalf. The iron charm was still in his pocket, and it was the charm handed by her as well.
"Thank you, Elara." That's all he had to say.
"Will you… be fine?"
He smiled, "It isn't about whether I am fine or not. I must be fine, to make sure that I am best prepared for whatever is to come."
She nodded with her face was still dark.
"It's getting too gloomy in here," he spoke, trying to ease up the atmosphere. "Anything else? Any other news?"
"Well… oh!" Something came up in Elara's mind, and her face quickly recovered. "There's something else indeed."
Eating in between, she spoke, "I heard two third-years talking near the furnace rooms. About the situation at the eastern border."
Isaac looked up.
"A battalion of our scouts came back from the eastern ridge a week ago, they said," she said. Her voice had dropped to the register she used when she was being careful. "It's just that… only a little number of them returned. Something happened, something bad."
The garden continued around them—trays clattering, students performing the ordinary social rituals of the midday hour, the Academy's noise proceeding as if the world outside its walls were the same world it had always been.
Yet, as Elara now talked about the war, this environment felt bizarre to Isaac, due to the mismatch between here and the situation outside.
"The bodies of those who didn't return," she said quietly. "They weren't burned. They weren't cut or crushed or marked in any way that corresponded to a standard engagement. The surviving scouts said they looked—" She paused. "Emptied. As if whatever was done to them didn't destroy them. It removed something from them and left the rest."
Isaac set his fork down properly this time.
"Emptied," he repeated.
"That's the word they kept using."
There wasn't much that he could discern from that information, other than a fact that a powerful foe has debuted.
"Do we know who was the cause?"
"Well… I did hear them mentioning what appeared to be a title. I am not sure about the name." She glanced around the garden with the reflexive caution of someone who had absorbed the third-years' atmosphere without meaning to. "The Hollow King of Solari Empire, they said."
A title rather than a name. Given by the empire that deployed him rather than inherited from a house or a lineage. Functional rather than honorific.
The "hollow" and "king" usually don't go together. The title intrigued Isaac, and he wondered how much of a threat this person really was.
"There's more," Elara then said. "The third-years said the Hollow King doesn't march with the Solari armies. He's never deployed in formation." She paused. "In other words, we cannot predict his moves."
"Not deployed in formation?"
Now that was even more interesting. This meant one thing,
"Solari Empire themselves cannot control him." He muttered. "I assume that it has to do with his skill."
He thought a bit more regarding the aspect. "And the Prince?" He then asked, with the tone of someone asking a practical question.
Elara looked at him carefully. "What about him?"
"The kingdom will need a response," Isaac said. "The King has two A-rank skills. That was adequate for a cold war. It won't be adequate for whatever emptied those scouts." He turned his fork over in his hand once—a rare displacement gesture. "Is the prince being positioned?"
A beat of silence. "I don't have an answer to that, but maybe." Elara said finally. "I would be relieved if the prince himself heads to the eastern fort though."
She was quiet for a moment, in a thought of her own.
"Isaac," she suddenly asked. "Are you frightened?"
He considered the question with the same care he gave every question worth answering honestly. Her question had multiple meanings, for there were multiple factors that he could be frightened of.
"Yes," he eventually said, with a calm demeanor that didn't match his response. "I feel that… anyone would be frightened if one were to be in my position."
But that wasn't the end.
"But Elara, that isn't the end." He stared at his own hand. "For years, I was looked down upon. Every day, I was called a failure, trash, useless—many things."
Then, he clenched it tightly. Elara appeared surprised by the strength that Isaac's hand exerted, not having been aware of the rage that was hidden within her calm friend.
"I can't let things end like this, with me as a failure." He looked down. His expression was stoic, but Elara could tell, that he was more emotional than he ever has been. "It isn't about proving to them. It's about proving to myself, of who I really am."
She looked at him for a long moment. She whispered, "Then, you will do so."
After, they ate in the ordinary noise of the garden in peaceful silence.