2026-04-24 15:14:24Flint stood over Elton's body, and the rock pieces on his hand fell off.
Without saying a word, he turned around and went back into his house.
“What a bother.” Flint said, moving to the fridge.
Today was the day he would get into the mage academy, and he had already wasted enough time.
He picked up some left over snacks and dropped the money he had taken off Elton on the table.
‘Heading to the academy. I dropped a few things, please manage it and take care while I'm gone. I'll visit you all soon again.’
Flint wrote a note, and placed the money bag over it.
He had previously counted it, and it was fifty gold loin
A gold loin was enough to feed his family for two months, containing three course meals a day.
He could already imagine how happy they'd be.
Flint's body ached, causing him to frown, “I can't keep having so much pain from a little struggle.” He thought out loud.
“Strengthening this body would mean some exercises.”
After packing out some clothes in his backpack, Flint set out for the mage academy.
“You are late for the class distribution.” A lady in sharp red glared at him when he arrived at the teleportation portal.
“I'm sorry. I had a bit of a transportation issue from where I lived.” Flint donned an awkward look.
The woman rolled her eyes before switching on the device.
“Also Miss, is it true that the mage academy is located in the clouds, and far from ground?”
When she heard Flint's question, she wondered if he had been born with a rock for a brain.
“Yeah, that's why it's called Heaven's Mage Court. It's meant to be in the heavens.” She answered, before channeling magic into the portal device.
“I see.” Flint said.
“If this is your first time using portal travel, remember to keep your eyes closed and your limbs by your side.” The lady warned as soon as the portal device turned on.
Flint nodded and he went inside.
It took barely a minute before he found himself in front of a large and pristine gate.
“You can go in. The class distribution has already started but I hope you make it in time. Where's your admission scroll? " A golden clothed guard spoke up, and Flint nodded, handing over the golden scroll.
“Okay this is legit. Go in.”
“Thank you.” Flint said, taking the scroll and walking inside.
Below the floating peaks of the Heavens Mage Court, the lower city stretched out like a sea of glowing lights and elegant looking houses.
However, Flint didn't have time for sightseeing.
After getting directions from the guard, he made his way to the Great Hall.
He pushed open the closed door, causing thousands of heads to turn to the source of distraction.
At the podium, a middle-aged man with a sharp face and a crimson robe stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes narrowed as they landed on Flint.
“Well. So much for a fresh start.” Flint thought, and walked forward.
“The audacity,” The middle aged man narrowed his eyes. His name was Kaelen and he was the instructor in charge
"You are late,” The instructor stated, “The distribution is a very important aspect of the admission process, and you decided that your sleep was more important?”
Flint shook his head. "I had a delay at the portal."
One of the students sitting in the front row, let out a sharp chuckle. "A delay? Or did you just get lost looking for the servant's entrance?”
A wave of laughter broke out amongst the students.
“Look at his clothes,” Another girl laughed, “He doesn't even have any mana fluctuations or a family crest? He's probably the new janitor. Maybe he lost his way.”
Her words made the students laugh harder.
However, Kaelen wasn't impressed. “That’s enough.”
But these guys weren't done.
The first guy who had spoken, suddenly stood up, his silver embroidered robe flowing as he did.
“Instructor Kaelen, surely the Heavens Mage Court hasn't lowered its standards so much that we allow just anyone into the academy?”
“Bale! I said that's enough.” Kaelen’s voice thundered and Bale’s face turned red, and he quickly sat back.
With a flick of Kaelen’s wrist, a faint golden light shimmered around Flint’s ankles.
Cling!
Flint felt his feet lock onto the marble floor, bounded by something.
"We will proceed with the talented candidates," Kaelen said, his eyes not leaving the crystal ball in front of him. " As for you, stay there. We will verify your scroll once everything has been settled.”
“Okay, thank you.” Flint nodded, and then tightened his hold on his backpack.
He regretted taking a little food from home. Now he was getting hungry.
The class distribution proceeded as planned.
Each student stepped forward, placed their hands on the crystal ball and got a reading.
“Bale Crown, Mana level A. You are assigned to Class 1A.” Kaelen said in approval.
“Jolene Tristan.” The crystal ball gave a deep shade of red. “Mana Level S. You are assigned to Class1A.”
Mumbled whispers filled the room. This was the first time a S level Mage was called out.
“Okay now we are done with the class distribution,” Kaelen kept the crystal ball, “I'd inform you all on the rules–”
“Excuse me, Instructor Kaelen. I haven't been distributed yet.” The voice belonged to Flint.
Kaelen narrowed his gaze. He had totally forgotten about the young man.
“That's true. Come forward.” Kaelen said, and brought out the crystal ball.
Flint felt his legs come loose and then he walked to the front of the crystal ball.
“I bet you he's going to be in Class1F.”
“They might even create a lower class just for him.”
The whispers increased and Kaelen shot a gaze forward, causing everyone to keep quiet.
Flint placed his hand on the crystal ball.
A bright immense red light shot forward.
Everyone was shocked.
“He doesn't even look like a mage.” Bale said in his seat.
Almost immediately, the colour changed to yellow, and then to orange, different colours started to flicker from the crystal ball.
“Wait for a moment.” Kaelen frowned. He couldn't get a normal reading.
Then the crystal ball cracked, before shattering and turning into dust.
“Was his reading so low that the crystal couldn't measure it?” Someone said and others laughed.
Meanwhile Kaelen had a different thought. The only time this had ever happened was when the Academy Headmaster had wanted to test his strength.
Could this boy be on par with the academy headmaster?
“Simply wonderful.” Kaelen muttered to himself. He had
to keep a watch on this kid.
“Flint Hayd. Mage Level. Unknown. You are assigned to Class1A.”
The entire room was in uproar.
“How was that right?”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
THE ACTIVE READING
The split happened the way significant things happened when they had been agreed upon the night before — without ceremony but not without weight.Jolene went first.She left at the hour before dawn, before the sky had changed from black to grey. She had her pack and her notes and the guild contact information she had been building since the Northern Highlands and she left the waypoint without waking anyone except Flint who was already awake.She stood at the waypoint door.She looked at him."The maritime operation." She said."Yes." He said."And after." She said.He held her gaze.She was asking something specific. Not about the maritime mission. About what happened after — what the north would look like, whether the group would reassemble, whether what had been built would still be intact when the dust cleared."After." He said. "Find us."She looked at him for one more moment.Then she turned and walked northeast and was gone before the sky changed.He stood at the door and watche
CARAVAN COUNTERMEASURE
They stopped at a waypoint structure at the end of the second day north.Not a settlement. A trade rest point — four walls, a fire bracket, a well that was still showing contamination from the vein network's pre-reversion state. Terra sealed the well. They used water from their packs.That night Flint laid out the split.He did it the same way he did everything — in sequence, without weight added by inflection. But the group was quiet in a different way than it was quiet for tactical briefings. This was the quiet of people who had been moving through significant things together for long enough to know when something was ending."Dylan and Terra to the academy." He said. "Valdris's pattern gives you the three administrators. You need names. Jolene's notes on the decision records will give you the method for identifying them without tipping Soren's network." He looked at them both. "The goal is not arrest. Not confrontation. Document what they are and who they report to. Give it to some
The Dragon Marrow
They moved north at first light.The Hollow followed.Not from the direction Flint expected. Not north behind them — it was simply present, the tooth running its inverted wave at a continuous low frequency that said proximity without saying location. It had no location. It existed in the space between detectable things and moved through that space with the patient disinterest of something that had been given a function and had an unlimited amount of time to complete it.Caravan walked at the group's rear.He had said at dawn that holding the Hollow at distance cost him. Not in the catastrophic way of running a skill against its own limit — in the slow way of something that required sustained focus to maintain. Like holding a position in deep water. You could do it. Not indefinitely.He had not said how long indefinitely was.Flint had not asked because the answer would not change the direction.They walked north.---By midday the territory had changed enough to confirm the reversion.
DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRESS
It came that night.Not into the camp. Near it. The tooth woke him from sleep at the second hour past midnight with the inverted wave running so fast the luminescence was continuous rather than pulsed. He had it in his hand before he was fully upright.He pressed two fingers to his lips.The camp was dark. He could see Dylan's outline against the sky — on watch, the position he took in the second rotation. Dylan had seen Flint move and had gone completely still the way he went still when he was waiting for an instruction.Flint looked at the tooth.Then north.Then at the camp perimeter.Pack Sense registered nothing. The absolute nothing of something that was not a mana-present entity moving through a field that Pack Sense read for mana signatures.But the
DESTRUCTION METHOD
He told the group at dawn.Not everything from the night before. The Hollow first. The detection, the loss of the sigature, what Valdris had said about its nature. He laid it out the same way he laid everything out — in sequence, without weight added by inflection, and let the information carry its own mass.It carried significant mass.Dylan was the first to speak."Pack Sense caught it once." He said."At the edge of range." Flint said. "Northern bearing. It registered as nothing classifiable and then it was gone.""Gone or suppressed." Jolene said."I don't know." Flint said. "The signature did not fade. It stopped. Like a door closing."Jolene looked at her notes from Valdris's account. She had been reading them since before the group assembled. She had the expression she wore when data was not fitti
NO CONDITION
He sat outside the camp at the edge of the cleared extraction ground and looked at the stars.The stars above the western territory were wrong in the same way everything above it was wrong. The contamination in the ground reached high enough to affect the ambient mana in the air and the air affected how the stars refracted through it. They were the same stars. They looked slightly different. He had spent enough lives looking at different versions of the same sky to find it interesting rather than troubling.He was thinking about his wife.Not the way he thought about the mission. Not operationally. He was simply thinking about her the way you thought about someone you had not seen in a very long time — without agenda, without the forward pressure of wanting to get back to them. Just the fact of them. The specific fact of a person who existed somewhere and was real.Her name was Sael.He did not use it often. He had learned across enough lives that names were the most dangerous thing to
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