"Do you have everything? Nothing forgotten?" The middle-aged gentleman, dressed in an expensive tuxedo, addressed the young man seated inside the carriage.
"Nothing. I have everything I need." Alzer replied.
"Good. Then go — and hurry, before the snowstorm rolls back in." Count Volheim waved his hand.
Joanna and Hannah — his mother and sister respectively — stood beside him, waving with bright smiles. One smile concealed an ulterior motive. The other concealed something quieter, more genuine. Not that it mattered to him either way. He simply wanted out of this frozen place and on his way to the examination.
The carriage rolled into motion the moment farewells were done. Its wheels carved tracks through the expanse of snow as it moved, leaving twin lines behind it. By the look of things, it was going to be a very long day.
Afternoon light settled over the capital as people moved freely through its streets. Vendors lined the roads in numbers too great to count, their voices weaving into a constant, comfortable noise.
Sunlight cut through the curtains of a certain carriage, falling across a young man slouched against the side, asleep. The cries of merchants hawking their wares, the low murmur of passersby, and the faint, unhurried whistle of the wind drifted into his ears.
Alzer yawned and stretched his arms. Three days — it had taken three days to reach the capital, and the journey had cost him more energy than he had anticipated. His predictions had been off. Still, he had made use of the time. He had spent most of those three days practicing lightning magic, and the control he now had over it was noticeably better. The only gap was spells — he hadn't learned any lightning spells in his past life, which meant he would have to acquire them at the academy.
He opened his palm and muttered under his breath. Electric arcs crept across his arm, gathered at his hand, and shaped themselves into a coiling snake of current. Six days of practice — three on the road, three in the manor before departure — had produced this. He was satisfied with the result.
Alzer drew the curtain aside. The capital spread before him, loud and alive with motion. Crowds flowed in both directions; individuals and groups weaved among one another, stopping at merchant stalls or simply passing through. The atmosphere had a density and energy that Snow County could not match.
"So I'm back, then."
A few minutes later, the carriage reached the Volheim manor in the capital. It was considerably smaller than the one in Snow County, but for someone traveling alone it was more than sufficient. A garden had been added to the grounds at some point, and the place carried a quiet, well-kept quality. There was no biting cold here either.
He stepped down from the carriage and took a slow walk through the manor. It satisfied him. Peaceful, uncluttered, private. Alzer had never set foot here in his previous life — the family had never deemed him worthy of it. A Dark Mage had no place in a property connected to their reputation.
He settled into his room and took a seat by the window. From here he had a clear view of the street below. The sun was pressing down on the people there, but none of them seemed particularly bothered. They went about their business as they always did.
Scenes like this were ordinary in a city of this size. Commerce never really stopped. Watching it, Alzer recalled a certain faction from his past life — the Golden Tower. The name said everything about what it was. Even a third of its wealth was said to exceed the combined holdings of every Duke in the kingdom. And yet, for all his years in the Royal Court, he had never learned who actually owned it. The faction fascinated him. If it ever chose to move against the Royal Family in earnest, it had the resources to pose a serious threat. Strangely, it maintained a close partnership with the crown that no external pressure had ever managed to shake.
Even as a Royal Court member, there had been things beyond his reach. The internal workings of the Court itself held oddities he had never understood. The mysterious organization known as the Black Union. Gaps and shadows everywhere he looked.
Alzer shook his head and cleared his mind. Dwelling on unknowns was unproductive. What mattered now was planning for what came next. He had a persistent feeling that something about his previous life had been wrong — not the mistakes he'd made, but something deeper. An invisible hand, moving pieces he had never been able to see. The academy was the best foundation to build from if he wanted to eventually pull that curtain back.
He wasn't worried about the entrance exam. He already knew what it entailed, and with both lightning and dark elements at his disposal, passing it wasn't in question. What required more thought was the old priest. Kuro was almost certainly watching him from somewhere. There was a real possibility the man had placed an informant inside the academy.
Alzer exhaled and stood from his chair. He lowered himself to the floor, sat cross-legged, and began steadying his internal state. No training today. His current strength was more than enough for the exam, and pushing any further would only compound his fatigue. Six days of relentless practice had left him with a heaviness that had settled into his bones. He needed mana recovery and rest, nothing else.
Morning arrived.
A steady stream of young people was flowing toward the southern district of the capital — the kind of crowd that only gathered on examination days. Alzer moved among them.
The capital of Uyzher was divided into five sections. The Northern District was the Trading Area, where the Volheim manor sat and commerce dominated every street. The Eastern District was the Noble Quarter — exclusive to Marquises and Dukes, with lower-ranking nobles barred from residence. The Southern District housed the Royal Academy, normally closed to outsiders, open only on examination days — and even then only partially. The Western District was the Commoner's Quarter, home to peasants and ordinary citizens. At the center of it all sat the Royal Palace in the Central District.
It took Alzer nearly an hour to travel from the northern edge to the southern. Carriages weren't permitted on examination day due to the sheer volume of foot traffic. The noble-born applicants had already entered the grounds through a separate arrangement — something Alzer had deliberately avoided, having little patience for the posturing that came with aristocratic company.
When he arrived, the registration line was already long. It cost him another hour to get his name down before he made his way toward the examination grounds proper.
Near the front, a middle-aged man in red robes stood at the center of a cluster of nobles, all of whom were competing to compliment him in increasingly elaborate ways. He carried himself with the composed authority of someone who had long since stopped noticing flattery.
Alzer's gaze sharpened.
He recognized that man. Ferrell Izkard — Vice Headmaster of the Royal Academy. His presence here was unexpected. In Alzer's memory of his previous life, Ferrell had not attended the entrance examination.
That's strange.
He thought it through carefully. None of his actions since returning should have been significant enough to draw Ferrell here. Awakening a lightning element was notable, but among five thousand examinees, at least two hundred typically held Supreme Elements. One more wouldn't shift Ferrell's schedule.
Did the man simply change his mind?
It was the only explanation that held any shape, but it felt thin. A Vice Headmaster didn't alter his calendar over nothing. And the unsettling part was that Ferrell's decision to attend had apparently happened before Alzer had even done anything worth noticing. Whatever was nudging the timeline, it wasn't him — not yet.
He filed the observation away and moved on. Maybe time travel itself had introduced variables too small to trace. He would stay alert.
Once the grounds were full, Ferrell turned and gestured toward the nobles flanking him. They dispersed without a word, and Ferrell faced the crowd.
"Today, your fates will be decided." His voice carried easily. "However, this year's examination is not what any of you were expecting. A significant change has been made."
He let that settle before continuing.
"The examination format changes every year — you all know that. This time, however, the change goes considerably further. His Majesty and the Headmaster reached an agreement last month to make this examination harder. Substantially harder.
"For those who fail — your path as a Mage ends here. Permanently. If that wasn't clear enough: anyone who fails will have their Mana Core crippled."
The crowd went rigid.
Immediately, a golden-haired young man near the front raised a shaking hand. "Isn't this — isn't this too severe? What about the people who've dedicated everything to getting here?"
"That concern is exactly why I'm offering you an alternative," Ferrell said, unhurried. "Anyone who chooses to withdraw now will leave with their Mana Core intact. You simply forfeit the right to sit the examination next year. This offer closes the moment the exam begins. Hands up — who's withdrawing?"
Silence held for a long moment.
Then a single hand went up. That one hand broke something in the crowd, and the dam gave. Hands rose in clusters, driven by fear rather than calculation — until nearly half the assembly had withdrawn before the first question had even been asked. Roughly a thousand remained, the ones confident enough, or stubborn enough, to hold their ground.
"Good," Ferrell said. "Not all cowards, then."
He let them have a breath before continuing.
"One more thing. We will only be accepting fifty applicants this year."
The reaction was instant and total.
Originally the academy took two hundred students annually. Fifty was not a reduction — it was a gutting. Even the most self-assured examinees went pale. The murmuring that broke out was less protest than collective disbelief.
Alzer was not unaffected. Not by the new quota — by the timing. The examination rules had been changed a month ago. He had been back in this timeline for less than two weeks. The past had shifted without any intervention from him at all.
That realization hit him harder than anything Ferrell had said. If the timeline was already diverging on its own — if something was reshaping events independent of his presence — then sitting quietly and consolidating his strength was no longer sufficient. The future was not going to wait for him to be ready.
His hunger for power sharpened into something more urgent.
Whatever was moving in the shadows, it had started long before his return.