"Are you feeling better now?"
Magnus answered his mother's question with a nod. "Yes, better than ever. Go get some rest, Mom, you look tired."
Elara felt a warmth in her chest seeing her son think of her despite having been in a life-threatening condition just the night before. She smiled with a weary expression, leaned down, lifted his hair, and kissed him on the forehead.
"Alright, sweetheart, but let me know if anything comes up."
"I will."
Elara left the room, and Magnus was alone in his now-empty room. Or so he thought, until Rina's sleepy grumbling from where she still lay in his bed reminded him he wasn't.Magnus was a little tired, so he lay back down.
He chuckled as his sister, who was supposed to be asleep, wrapped her arms around him the moment he settled in, then closed his eyes and drifted off.
When Magnus woke up around noon, he was alone in the bed.
He got up, washed his face, and noticed with some surprise that everything felt unexpectedly light.
At first, he thought it was just the grogginess of sleep. He raised his hands, opened and closed them a few times, and watched the movement of his fingers.
There was a hollow feeling in his muscles, as if the weight from the night before had lifted. But this wasn't simply fatigue fading. It was different.
He leaned against the edge of the sink and examined himself more carefully. He rotated his wrists, bent his elbows. His movements were more fluid, his reaction time faster. The strangest part was that none of it required any effort.
"This isn't normal..."
He muttered to himself. The events of the previous night came back to him. The fever, the trembling, the feeling of not being able to breathe and then that strange, sudden sense of relief. As if his body had been taken apart and reassembled.
He turned toward the door, then stopped.
"Could this be related to my class?"
He took a deep breath, let his shoulders drop, and settled a more ordinary expression onto his face.
He opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
The house was as it always was. The faint creak of the wooden floor, the soft smell of food drifting from the kitchen, the distant sound of voices.
When Magnus entered the main hall, everyone had already gathered there.
A gathering like this didn't happen at this hour under normal circumstances. His father, Dormon, was always either out or in his study at this time of day. Raphael, even when he was home, kept to his own corner.
But now they were all there, as if someone had called them in one by one and arranged them in place.
"Magnus!"
Rina leaped off the couch and came running toward him, arms wide open with her usual enthusiasm.
"Are you feeling better? Are you okay? Are you hungry? Mom set aside some braised meat, I told her to, I said Magnus loves it, and they put it aside!"
"Rina." Selene called from behind, though she couldn't quite hide her smile. "Breathe."
Magnus ruffled his little sister's hair. "I'm fine."
Selene stood up and walked over to him. She didn't say anything, just gave him a light tap on the shoulder. But her eyes were glistening, and she knew it, and she wasn't even trying to hide it.
"You scared us." she said quietly.
"I'm sorry."
"You'd better not scare us like that again..." Selene looked annoyed for a moment, or tried to, but then gave up and smiled. "Still, I'm glad you're here."
His father Dormon hadn't risen from his armchair, but he sat up straighter when he saw Magnus. His shoulders were square, his chin raised. That familiar posture. But this time there was something else in his eyes, something Magnus had rarely seen before.
Pride.
Silent, unexpressed, but there.
"You're on your feet" he said. He added nothing else. For Dormon, that was enough.
Magnus lowered his head. "Yes, Father."
Evelyne stood by the window, arms folded, slightly apart from the others as always. But when she looked at Magnus, there was a small, satisfied expression on her face.
Then Magnus saw Raphael.
His older brother was sitting in the corner chair. Arms crossed, eyes on the floor. While everyone else was talking and laughing and the room was full of life, Raphael sat perfectly still, as if he had been fixed to that spot.
He knew this silence of Raphael's. It wasn't the silence of contempt. Nor the sullen, impatient kind. This was different. More inward. Heavier.
Elara came out from the side room at the sound of voices. She stopped when she saw Magnus, and her eyes filled, but she didn't cry. She had cried too much the night before. Now she only looked tired and happy.
"Come, sit down. Eat something first," she said.
"Mom..."
"Sit, Magnus and eat."
Realizing there was no point arguing, he sat. The meal that had been prepared and covered to keep warm was waiting for him at the table, and he began to eat.
Elara settled into a chair at the edge of the table. Hands in her lap, eyes on her son.
"We can talk when you're ready," said Evelyne.
Magnus glanced at the table. "What are we talking about?"
Rina couldn't hold back. Her voice was trying to be a whisper but never quite got there. "We're going to find out your class!"
Evelyne let out a quiet breath. She raised her thumb and index finger on her right hand and turned them slightly.
The ring on her finger was no ordinary ring; its metallic color shifted with the light, sliding from copper to lead, from lead to a dull grey tone. A storage ring.
She produced from her storage ring a magical sphere large enough to fill both cupped hands.
"This is a class-determining sphere. When it comes into contact with someone who has just completed their awakening, it reflects their class according to the power within them. We use it at the Academy every admission season. Objects of this kind are quite rare outside the Academy now." said Evelyne. "
Dormon leaned forward. His eyes were on Evelyne, not the sphere. "How reliable is it? We could also visit the clergyman in town."
"Don't worry, Dormon. My sphere is of considerably higher quality than some small-town cleric's. And I'm doing this free of charge, on top of that..." Once Evelyne saw that her brother-in-law was satisfied with the answer, she turned to Magnus. "Place your hand on it."
Magnus reached out and rested his hand on top of the sphere. At the same moment, Evelyne placed her own hand on it and closed her eyes.
The sphere did nothing at first.
Then the blue light inside it went out. Completely. The glass darkened, like ink, a black with no depth and no edge.
Rina's breath was drawn in with a sharp hiss.
Elara gripped the arm of her chair.
Then, from the very heart of that darkness, a light was born. It was not a single color. First a deep violet, then silver, then both at once, intertwined, two colors spiraling upward around each other. It expanded slowly inside the sphere, filling it all the way to the surface of the glass.
Rina's mouth fell open.
Selene whispered "My God..." without realizing she had.
Elara swayed forward and back where she sat. She couldn't stay seated, she stood up and pressed her hand over her mouth.
Dormon said nothing. But he rose. Without a single word he looked at his son, and even Magnus felt it, something breaking inside the man, or the opposite, something finally falling into place.
Evelyne leaned over the sphere. Her eyes scanned it with professional precision, but her fingers, resting on the table, closed once, quietly.
Only the user of the sphere, meaning Evelyne, could know what Magnus's class was, and right now she looked genuinely stunned.
Whether she was pleased or displeased with what she saw was impossible to tell. It was as if she didn't know what to make of the result the sphere had produced.
That expression, that bewilderment, was an extraordinarily rare sight on Evelyne's face.
And Raphael noticed it.
Raphael, who had been sitting in his corner with arms folded and eyes cast down, felt the tension in his shoulders ease slightly when he saw his aunt's frozen expression.
Perhaps this was what he had been waiting for. Perhaps the class didn't matter, perhaps the sphere was faulty, perhaps Evelyne's expression signaled not something good but the very opposite.
Perhaps Magnus was ordinary after all. The corner of his lips rose just barely, almost imperceptibly.
At that exact moment, Evelyne straightened.
She withdrew her hand from the sphere. She stood still for a moment, eyes fixed on a point in front of her, as if she were weighing what she had seen one more time before putting it into words.
"Interesting..." she said.
Silence.
"What?!" Rina burst out, nearly jumping from her seat.
Evelyne turned her gaze to Magnus.
"Your class..." a brief pause, "is Titan Mage."
The air in the room shifted.
Rina furrowed her brow. "Titan... Mage? What does that mean?"
Selene was equally puzzled. "I've... never heard of it."
Elara simply looked at Magnus. As if she hadn't even registered the name, only its outcome.
Dormon, meanwhile, lowered his brows ever so slightly.
"Do you recognize this class?" he asked, his voice even but attentive.
Evelyne slowly shook her head.
"No."
The answer landed heavier than expected.
"I have never heard of a class like this before," she continued. "There are thousands of registered classes at the Academy. Thousands, in the true sense of the word. The official archives alone would fill several libraries."
She ran her fingers across the surface of the sphere, over the glass that had now gone completely dark.
"But..." she said, her voice shifting into a slightly more academic tone, "there is a theory that has been accepted for a long time."
Everyone's attention fixed on her.
"Unregistered classes... That is to say, classes that have never been awakened before, or that, even if awakened, were never recorded. At the Academy, this is not an entirely dismissed idea. In fact, most professors are in agreement on the matter."
Dormon folded his arms across his chest. "So my son's class... could be an unknown class."
"In all likelihood, yes," said Evelyne plainly.
Rina's eyes lit up. "Is that a good thing?!"
Evelyne smiled faintly this time.
"If we go by the name..." she said, looking at Magnus, "the phrase Titan Mage suggests two things."
She raised one finger.
"First, magical capacity. The 'Mage' part speaks for itself."
She raised a second finger.
"Second... the word 'Titan.' This may not be purely figurative. It could point to physical strength, endurance, even traits connected to bodily development."
Selene held her breath. "So... both magic and physical strength?"
"Yes," said Evelyne. "It appears to be a hybrid class."
Then she added:
"And if that is the case..." Her gaze sharpened. "This represents an extraordinarily rare, and extraordinarily dangerous potential."
Dormon spoke at this point.
"Potential is fine," he said, his voice measured and grounded. "But there is a problem."
Everyone turned to him. He took a step forward.
"An unknown class," he said plainly. "It may never have been used by anyone before... Then who is going to train him?"
For the first time, the professional composure on Evelyne's face cracked ever so slightly. She simply had no answer.
At that very moment:
"Enough!"
The voice rose suddenly.
Everyone flinched.
Raphael was on his feet.
The legs of the chair scraped hard against the floor. His arms were rigid at his sides, his fingers clenched into fists.
The anger on his face was no longer hidden.
"Unknown class, unparalleled potential..." he repeated with a sneer, his voice trembling, visibly losing his composure. "How impressive!"
Raphael's gaze slid to Magnus. It was a brief moment, but long enough for Magnus. Then he looked away.
"It's all empty words!" he said sharply. And without any warning, he turned toward the door.
"Raphael!" Elara called out.
Too late. He threw the door open. The wooden door slammed hard against the wall, the crack exploding through the room. After a brief silence, the door swung shut with a bang.