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
FULLY SELF SUSTAINING.
Jolene returned for good on the hundred and seventy-first day.Not for five days this time, not for a report and a departure. She arrived at the upper platform with her full pack, the specific quality of someone who had made a decision rather than a visit, and Flint met her there before she had fully crossed the stone."The maritime network is stable." She said, without preamble, the way she delivered everything. "Fully reconstructed. Twelve governance councils running their own audits with my framework, and now training their own people to extend it rather than needing me to run it for them." She set her pack down. "I am not needed there anymore. Not in the daily sense.""So you came back." Flint said."I came back because the thing that needs documenting now is here." She said. "The network with no boundary. The Collective's observation post. What the module is becoming as it spreads.
FIRST TIME IN WEEKS
The fifth external settlement's practitioners arrived that afternoon, and Flint spent most of it in the practitioner hall alongside Dylan, watching the framework do what it had now done four times before — meet people where their training had left a gap and let the gap fill itself in with a question rather than an answer.It was routine now, in the way that significant things became routine when they were repeated enough times to lose their edge of novelty without losing their weight.He was tired in a way that had nothing to do with the day's work.He recognized it that evening, sitting alone at the eastern window after the fifth settlement's group had settled into the guest quarters and Dylan had gone to review the day's session notes and Terra had gone to read the substrate one more time before dark.It was not fatigue in the channel. The channel ran clean, the same as it had f
MISSING SOMEONE AND FUNCTIONING
Dylan found him there an hour later, still at the window, and read the quality of his stillness the way he read most things now — precisely, without needing it explained in full."Caravan." He said."Yes." Flint said.He told him. All of it. The other final regressions. The entity's long attendance. The specific quality of this one — the one that would hold.Dylan was quiet for a long time after."Every other final regression the practitioner has ever faced." He said slowly. "They went home, and it went back to needing to start over.""That is what Caravan understood, yes." Flint said.Dylan looked at the field through the window."That means all of this—" He gestured, not just at the field but at everything beyond it, the vein, the module, the network with no boundary but time. "This has never happened before. In any of the ninety-nine, or however many other worlds the entity has watched across however long it has existed.""I don't think so." Flint said. "Not the way it's happened h
THE GEOLOGICAL NETWORK
Caravan's next communication came on the hundred and sixty-third day, and it was longer than any he had sent since leaving.Flint listened to it standing at the eastern window with the morning connection already run and the field quiet below him, the thing at the far edge unmoving in the specific stillness it held most mornings now, less a presence requiring attention than a fixture of the landscape the way a mountain was a fixture."I have been at the Ascent for two months." Caravan said. His voice carried something different than it had in the six-sentence and two-sentence transmissions before. Fuller. The specific quality of someone who had been changed by what he encountered and had needed the time to find words for it. "I told you the Ascent is the entity. I did not tell you the rest because I did not understand the rest until three weeks ago."Flint waited."The entity has been attending final regressions for longer than I can express to you in a duration you would recognize as
ONLY BAD WORK FEARS BEING WATCHED.
The Collective's review took nine days.Reyes and her two colleagues spent the first three with Terra, going through five months of substrate documentation with the specific thoroughness of people whose professional reputation depended on getting the assessment right. Terra answered every question without defensiveness, showing her raw data alongside her interpretations, making clear which was which.The next three days were spent with the twelve, individually and in small groups, and then with representatives from the southwest settlements who happened to still be at the academy finishing their framework adoption.The final three days Reyes spent, unannounced, simply present. Sitting at the field's edge for hours at a time. Attending a session six run for the fourth external settlement's arriving practitioners. Standing in the practitioner hall listening to Dylan teach.On the ninth ev
THE COLLECTIVE'S ACQUISITION
The Collective's formal inquiry arrived on the hundred and fifty-first day.Not a communication. A delegation. Three senior representatives from the Collective's independent oversight channel — the same body that had been documenting the governance review, the maritime network reconstruction, the army recovery — arrived at the academy's ground gate with the specific formality of an institution that had decided a conversation needed to happen in person rather than through relay.Dylan met them first, because Dylan had become, without anyone officially assigning it, the person the academy's various threads ran through.He brought them to the practitioner hall, where Flint was reviewing the fourth settlement's framework request with two of the twelve.The lead representative was a woman perhaps sixty years old, grey at the temples, the specific composure of someone who had spent decades adju
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