“Dy Valensis, Zephyrin.”

Zephyrin stepped forward wordlessly, aware of the curious eyes of his classmates boring into his back, and the thoughts foremost on their minds. The Valensi were highly secretive when it came to their magic, preferring to educate their sons in their own northeastern schools to ensure their techniques wouldn’t leak to the other houses; what was a member of their house doing here in the capital?

The master glanced down at the list once more, and Zephyrin felt a pinprick of apprehension. Was there an asterisk by his name? A disclaimer that said, ‘title acquired, not inherited’? Either way, the master soon motioned for him to perform the exercise without comment.

Zephyrin closed his eyes. Concentrating on his heartbeat, he reached within his mana core.

If harnessing his mana in his past life had been comparable to wading upstream through chest-high water with his arms fully extended, with the turbulent flow constantly threatening to overwhelm and tip him over, now he encountered a dormant sea, a tranquil immensity pliable to his every whim. Zephyrin did not know what formed a greater contrast, between the size of his mana pool or its docility. Where he had once found an impurity-laden body, he now found a pristine source; where a rebellious, angrily coursing current, a boundless stillness.

He had but to scoop into its depths to withdraw the mana he needed. This he did as he held out his palm, forming in a matter of moments an opaque, sky-blue colored sphere, uniform in color and unvarying in its intensity, as different from the wildly flaring, crackling incantations of the other boys as a still, chilly harvest moon is from a bed of roiling lava.

It was no spell he demonstrated; just pure mana, and he hoped it would suffice to bar him from admittance to the highest ranking class. While Zephyrin had not held back academically, magic training posed a unique hurdle: the utter banality of the curriculum. Rather than the basic but useful training exercises prescribed for the weaker students, the upper level classes followed a plan uniquely suited for the highest ranking nobles—artistic mana channeling. Rainbow-dances, mana-formed bouquets, the shimmering, interweaving displays of color so near and dear to the hearts of the aristocracy—and so thoroughly and utterly useless in battle. Yes, if at all possible, Zephyrin hoped to avoid being placed in one of the ‘advanced’ classes.

Rotating his modestly sized, pearl-shaped emanation of mana in the palm of his hand, Zephyrin flicked up his eyes to gauge the master’s expression surreptitiously. The man studied his efforts blandly, frustrating his attempt to decipher his thoughts. After fixating Zephyrin’s efforts with plump, tightly pursed lips for several more moments, Master Pondrey spoke at last, motioning with his hand.

“That will do.”

Zephyrin allowed the pulsating orb to dissipate. He stood expectantly as the master paused, considering. Finally, he asked, “Do you know any fire spells?”

Zephyrin shook his head. “No, sir.”

“What about lightning?”

“No, sir. I only know how to cast an elementary ward.” His weak heart in his first life hadn’t been able to withstand his practicing with more mana-intensive, strenuous spells.

The master frowned slightly, while pitying smiles rose to the lips of several boyish faces at this avowal. Only a ward? And he, a noble hailing from a high, illustrious house? Everyone knew wards were for diluted users; weak, water-veined nobles who had no choice but to favor defense over offense, who could only aspire to walk away from duels defeated but relatively unscathed. At best, a ward was used by a weakling; at worst, by a coward.

Zephyrin read their thoughts plainly enough on their faces. They had inherited these notions from their fathers, who would be singing a very different tune once the Cleansing was underway, and the restructuring of Gaulyrian society begun in earnest. He wondered just how many blueblood lives this prejudice had cost in the original history, and how many it would still claim in the years to come, even with the possibility of his intervening late in the process.

Meanwhile, however reluctantly, the master seemed prepared to render his verdict. He lifted his hand to wave Zephyrin back, and Zephyrin himself began turning on his heel… until the prefect spoke.

“A moment, Master Pondrey. I wish to evaluate the boy’s gift personally.” The elderly cleric’s voice was mild, almost feathery light, but it contained an authoritative note that Zephyrin did not miss. His was the tone of a man who regularly issues orders to men, and by force of habit acquires an easy air of command, and an expectation of being obeyed.

At his interjection the master started slightly, then subsided, looking back at his superior as the elderly cleric kept his gaze locked on Zephyrin’s hand, as if still seeing the blue sphere that had swirled above it; meanwhile, though Zephyrin kept his face expressionless, he only dismissed with difficulty a rising string of complaints in response to the prefect’s gratuitous intervention. He had been so close to obtaining a middling grade…!

“Young sir, please launch an attack on the same target as dy Llegellion.”

He nodded slowly. If that was all, then there was still a chance that—

“Oh, and dy Valensis… please don’t hold back.” The unnamed prefect added this diffidently, almost confidentially, as if he and Zephyrin were longstanding friends.

Zephyrin lightly expelled a sigh. There it was; a direct order. There was no way out of this situation now.

If thou remainest true to me in thy next life, I will be true to thee.

The words he had heard the Goddess speak in the great void between worlds recurred to him, and with awful force. He had vowed himself to her service, and submission to one’s natural superiors was very much enjoined upon followers of the Kosmæic Church. Ever since his rebirth, Zephyrin had erred on the side of caution and taken pains not to give his divine benefactress cause to retract the incomparable boon vouchsafed him; merciful deity or not, he had no inclination to transgress the boundaries of her generosity, lest he be annihilated from one moment to the next.

Zephyrin silently began channeling his mana again, forming another sphere. This time the color was deeper, a rich sapphire blue. He compressed as much mana as he could keep stable within such a small space.

“Hah…” Zephyrin exhaled steadily, his eyes on his sphere. Master Pondrey regarded him dubiously, stroking his wide chin. This skepticism Zephyrin fully expected; from the point of view of the spectators, this sphere bore a great resemblance, Zephyrin being the only one knowing wherein the key difference lay.

And now… for the second part.

Zephyrin raised his hand—but instead of relying on physical force to project his mana forward, as the boy earlier had done, he began channeling anew. His hand glowed, and was gradually consumed by a powerful, bright blue light—then there was a flash, and Zephyrin lowered his hand and stood at ease, the sphere gone, his attack complete. The students belatedly swiveled their heads to the target, which for the moment… stood intact.

There was no apparent change. Zephyrin’s mana orb had simply vanished, and unlike Viristin’s earlier attack had left no residual effects. But the prefect waited. And then, before long, the faint blue outline around the target became mysteriously and fully visible. Before instructors and students the magic envelopment shuddered, then oscillated wildly; finally, like a rent hot air balloon leaking helium, it slowly collapsed, streams of mana gently and silently flowing out like ghostly rills, before dissolving into the ether.

This occurred before thirty-two pairs of astonished eyes, of which none was more astonished than the originator of the stupendous phenomenon.

The ward… it was that fragile?!

Had he known, Zephyrin would have applied a quarter as much force, if that! After Viristin’s dramatic display, he had presumed it capable of withstanding a reasonably powerful attack! Meanwhile, a wide-eyed Master Pondrey stepped forward to ascertain the state of the target, and confirm that it had been well and truly breached. Finding the barrier completely inert, the instructor swallowed and turned to face his superior. “T-The ward must have been weakened by dy Llegellion’s earlier attack,” he hastened to suggest, evidently seeking to exculpate himself of any responsibility in the matter. “Breaking through a ward with just raw mana would be unheard of…”

“Indeed it would,” said the prefect softly. Zephyrin’s classmates noticeably relaxed at the prefect’s acceptance of the master’s words, a few of them even sharing sheepish grins at the hasty conclusion they had drawn. Viristin, of course, was the most reassured of them all; as Master Pondrey profusely apologized to the prefect, guaranteeing that he would be more vigilant henceforth about maintaining the strength of the wards, the blond boy gave Zephyrin a broad grin, as if to say, ‘you can thank me later!’

Zephyrin inclined his head in wry acknowledgment, all the while reflecting that this was one lesson which certainly hadn’t gone according to plan. Though it wouldn’t interfere unduly with his plans for the upcoming year, still it rankled on him. Dancing while weaving pretty lights around himself did not top the list of his priorities; perhaps he could appeal to one of the instructors in private for a reclassification…?

Pitiless in his obliviousness, Master Pondrey idly tapped the list in his hand with his quill tip several times, then quickly scribbled a grade, perfunctorily sealing Zephyrin’s fate. “Next! Dy Zèyn, Asnerius…”

As soon the last remaining boy had been evaluated, the two instructors conferred. Leaning in, the prefect murmured something into his interlocutor’s ear, to which Pondrey made low answer… but not so low that Zephyrin didn’t pick up the words, ‘Of course, Grand Prefect.’

Ah. So, as he had thought…

Zephyrin suddenly grew conscious of the priest—the Grand Prefect’s eyes on him.

“Dy Valensis. You will accompany me to my office before heading out to second recreation,” said the lyceum’s discipline-master with a pleasant smile.