The moon over the Aegis Academy was not merely a celestial body; it was a focal point for the world's magical tides. On nights like this, when the lunar cycle reached its zenith, the Academy's massive collectors hummed with a low-frequency vibration that made the very air taste of ozone and ancient static.
While the rest of the Male Wing slept in their soft, lavender-scented beds, dreaming of domestic stability and favorable marriages, Moha Stalloni sat cross-legged in the center of the basement boiler room.
It was a place of iron and soot, far removed from the marble elegance of the upper towers. Here, the "Dirty Mana"—the chaotic, unfiltered residue of the school's massive energy consumption—pooled like stagnant oil. This was the spiritual runoff, the dregs of magic that were too unstable for the sorceresses to use. To a normal magic user, this energy was toxic, capable of causing mana-fever or permanent spiritual scarring.
To Moha, it was a feast.
"The goddesses only drink the wine," Moha whispered, his voice echoing off the damp stone walls. "They have no idea how much kick is in the dregs."
The Ripping Technique
In his previous life, Moha hadn't been a sorcerer, but he had been a master of "The Breath of the Void." It was a forbidden meditative technique used by assassins to lower their body temperature and silence their heartbeat. Now, he was adapting that cold, hollow vacuum of his soul to act as a siphon.
He closed his eyes.
He didn't "reach out" for the mana as the girls were taught in their flowery textbooks. He didn't ask the universe for permission. He visualized his soul as a jagged, bottomless pit—a black hole where empathy and mercy used to live.
"Open," he commanded.
Deep in his chest, the pool of mercury-colored mana didn't just ripple; it began to spin. Faster and faster, it formed a violent vortex.
Outside his body, the air began to scream. The thick, grey "Dirty Mana" clinging to the pipes and floor began to lurch toward him. It wasn't a gentle flow; it was a frantic, desperate rush. The energy was jagged, filled with the "emotional noise" of a thousand students—ambition, spite, exhaustion, and arrogance. It was a chaotic slurry of spiritual waste.
The first wave hit him like a physical blow.
CRACK.
Moha's spine arched backward at an impossible angle. His ribs groaned under the sudden, violent pressure. A normal boy's mana-veins would have disintegrated instantly, but Moha didn't have "veins"—he had scars. He used the sheer, stubborn trauma of his previous life to forge his internal channels like tempered steel.
"Is that... all?" he wheezed, his face twisting into a "Manic Grimace"—his jaw unhinging, his eyes bulging until the veins in his sclera began to glow a pulsating violet.
He gripped his own arms so hard his nails drew blood. The Dirty Mana poured into him, scorching his insides. It felt like swallowing broken glass and liquid fire.
The Transformation
His skin began to undergo a terrifying change. The alabaster "Angel" complexion flickered, replaced by a grey, metallic sheen. Fine, black lines—like spiderwebs of obsidian—crept up his neck and across his cheekbones.
He was no longer a beautiful doll. He was something ancient and industrial, a furnace fueled by the trash of a magical civilization.
"MORE!" he roared, though the sound was muffled by the roar of the steam pipes.
The vortex widened. He began to draw mana not just from the room, but from the building's foundation itself. The lightbulbs in the hallway above flickered and died. A nearby pressure gauge on a steam pipe spun wildly until the needle snapped off.
The "Emotional Noise" of the mana tried to overwhelm him. He heard the echoes of Clara's rage, Vex's insecurity, and the Headmistress's cold ambition. It tried to drown his identity, to turn him into a mindless vessel of chaotic energy.
Moha laughed. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated madness.
"You think your little feelings can scare me?" he hissed, his eyes glowing with a violet light so intense it cast long, flickering shadows on the ceiling. "I've lived in hell. Your 'ambition' is a campfire compared to my sun!"
He visualized his will as a massive, rusted press. He took the chaotic, screaming mass of Dirty Mana and began to compress it. He didn't try to harmonize with it; he broke it. He crushed the emotions, stripped away the "noise," and refined it into a dense, heavy, and lethally concentrated form of power.
The mercury-pool in his chest turned from silver to a deep, bruised purple—the color of a storm cloud at midnight.
The Peak of Power
Suddenly, the room went silent. The air stopped vibrating.
Moha sat in the center of the darkness, his head bowed. The black spiderwebs on his skin slowly receded, leaving his "Angel" mask back in place, though his skin now had a faint, ethereal luminescence that hadn't been there before.
He opened his eyes.
The world didn't just look different; it looked vulnerable. He could see the structural weaknesses in the stone walls. He could feel the pulse of every living thing in the tower above him. His mana-output, which had been a flat zero, was now fluctuating in a way that would have made a sensor explode.
He stood up. His movements were no longer "delicate" or "soft." They were silent. Perfectly balanced.
He looked at a heavy iron wrench sitting on a workbench five feet away. He didn't move a muscle. He simply willed the space between him and the wrench to vanish.
A flicker of violet static—zip—and the wrench was in his hand.
He didn't use mana to lift it; he used the concentrated "Void Pressure" he had just forged. He gripped the iron tool. With a slow, effortless squeeze, the solid iron began to deform. It folded like wet cardboard, the metal screaming as its atomic structure was crushed by Moha's grip.
He tossed the ruined lump of metal into a corner.
"Step four," he whispered, his voice smooth and cold as a grave marker. "The battery is charged."
The Mirror of the Soul
He walked over to a small, cracked mirror hanging over a utility sink. He looked at himself.
The "Angel" was still there. Doe-eyed. Beautiful. Fragile. But when he looked deeper, into the very center of his pupils, he saw it. The violet vortex. It was small, no larger than a grain of sand, but it was spinning with the force of a hurricane.
"They think Mana is a gift from the Stars," Moha chuckled, pulling a face of "Exaggerated Sarcasm"—his eyebrows dancing, his mouth twisted into a comical, mocking "O". "They think it's a noble energy for noble women."
He spat into the sink. The saliva sizzled with a faint, purple spark.
"It's just fuel. And I'm the best driver this world has ever seen."
The growth was staggering. In one night, by using the techniques of a dead world to consume the garbage of this one, he had bypassed years of training. He wasn't a "Tier 1" or "Tier 2" user. He was something else entirely. He was a "Null-Point"—a creature that could consume energy and turn it into pure, destructive force.
A floorboard creaked above him. The night watchwoman was making her rounds.
Moha's expression instantly flipped. The madness vanished. The violet light in his eyes died down to a dull, hidden ember. He slumped his shoulders, let his hair fall messily over his forehead, and practiced his "Sleepy, Confused Boy" face.
"Oh... is someone there?" he whimpered softly, hugging himself as if cold.
The door to the basement opened. A guard peered in, her torch beam sweeping the room. She saw a small, beautiful boy in a frilly nightshirt, shivering among the pipes.
"Moha? What are you doing down here?" she asked, her voice softening with pity. "The boiler room is no place for a little one like you."
"I... I had a nightmare," Moha sobbed, his eyes filling with instant, artificial tears. "I thought I heard a monster... I got lost looking for Papa's room..."
The guard sighed, walking over and wrapping a warm cloak around his shoulders. "There, there. It was just the pipes groaning. This old building makes a lot of noise. Let's get you back to bed before you catch a cold."
"Thank you, Mistress," Moha whispered, tucking his head against her arm.
As she led him out of the basement, the guard didn't notice the scorch marks on the floor. She didn't notice the crushed iron wrench in the corner. And she certainly didn't notice the way the boy's shadow seemed to linger on the wall a second too long, its mouth stretched into a wide, silent, and terrifyingly sharp grin.
The "Dirty Mana" was now part of him. The power gap was closing.
Moha Stalloni went back to his bed and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, dreaming of the day he would finally be able to stop pretending to be an angel—and start being the devil everyone deserved.
The chapter of his weakness was officially closed. The chapter of his ascent had begun.