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Patrice's Library at Luke Cadet Academy was filled with midday stillness. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, carving bright lines across the polished floor that reached all the way to the balustrade.
Ernst lay on his back right on the second-floor railing, truly savoring the prevailing atmosphere. The boy with long, straight ash-colored hair and ruby-red eyes, accentuated by round glasses, was the very picture of boredom. He lay with one leg crossed over the other, propping his head up with one hand, while the other held a nearly eaten red apple. He lazily watched the scene unfolding on the first floor from his upside-down vantage point.
What a boring day, flitted through his mind, and he automatically took another bite.
His gaze was fixed on two famous cadets—a sophomore in black uniform and a freshman in white—setting up pieces for a game of chess.
"Today, I will be victorious!" declared the freshman, pointing a finger at his opponent with a smug smile full of both mockery and respect.
"Those who cannot control their emotions are most often the ones who lose. That very flaw can leave you wide open," the upperclassman admonished in a monotone, without even opening his eyes.
I'm not interested, Ernst thought. These two never played seriously. They didn't try to maximize efficiency or utilize unpredictability. They were losing their edge. His logic passed judgment: he condemned them for not treating the game like an algorithm for victory.
"His mere presence is so calming," he heard whispered by a pair of girls passing by.
Ernst's gaze shifted to two cadets by the majestic doors.
"Today was utterly overloaded with Green Magic and Earth Magic lessons. I can't even look at dirt right now," Alpis grimaced, her face taking on a greenish hue of disgust.
"You were the one begging the teacher for it, and I was whispering that it was a bad idea," Leir smirked, though his eyes remained friendly.
At that moment, Alpis grabbed him by the collar and began shaking him.
"You could have used Silence Magic so the teacher wouldn't hear my plea!" she exclaimed with feigned anger.
Leir laughed, not resisting at all. "But where would the drama be then?"
"Well, well, look who it is. The guy with the most useless magic and the fool with Enhancement and Earth Magic," boomed the loud, contemptuous voice of Wenz.
Ernst froze, watching the climax unfold with interest. He saw Leir and Alpis freeze simultaneously before identical, threatening smirks spread across their faces.
"Maybe I'll muffle him…" Leir began slowly.
"…and I'll use Earth Magic to shape it into a gauntlet?" Alpis continued.
"And you'll hit him with Enhancement Magic?" Leir finished.
"Good idea. That way, even the teachers won't hear us," Alpis nodded.
Wenz, paling as he realized he'd pushed them too far and witnessed their seamless coordination, apologized, bowing at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
Inefficient conflict, but efficient resolution, Ernst analyzed. Their trust and synchronicity affected the outcome faster than any spell. That was illogical. But Wenz, though he surrendered, also learned a new lesson not only about the power of teamwork but also a new way to announce magic—his retreat was rational.
Ernst looked away. His logical cycle had been disrupted. Hearing the teachers discussing an incident during third-year practicals and their imminent return, he realized the library's silence would soon be shattered by the usual crowd noise. He decided to block out the sounds of the world, not with hope, but perhaps with a genuinely interesting book.
He slid off the railing, brushing dust from his trousers. His movements were awkward and slightly jerky. He walked slowly along the shelves toward the corner of a majestic bookcase, scanning practically every shelf. Finding nothing, he was already heading for the exit when his gaze fell on a shelf near the main entrance. There lay a book that seemed out of place—its cover looked too ordinary, like a book of facts: The Book of Nemesis.
An interesting title, as if borrowed from the goddess of mythology, Nemesis. Taking it, he headed to the library's check-out desk.
At the desk waited Miss Arni—a woman in her early thirties in a gray robe adorned with blue hieroglyphs. She looked him in the eye and gave a triumphant smirk.
"So, I was right that you'd find a book to interest you."
"Yes, Miss Arni, I lost the bet. I want to see if this book will be as captivating as the ones you told me about," Ernst acknowledged monotonously.
"You can make a wish, as per our agreement. If the book interests me, then I lost."
"Don't worry, I won't command anything. But I'll give you some advice: never regret what you cannot change. Your face looks like you regret many things, but don't understand what."
Ernst wanted to argue but accepted defeat. Bowing with a sense of relief, he took the book and left, weaving through crowds of cadets and ignoring the throngs. His path led to the abandoned Garden of Black Roses, whose giant bushes stretched higher than the Academy walls.
Finding a stone bench, he used Delay Magic, creating a ricochet of stones. By accelerating a stone fourfold, he cleanly sliced off part of a bush to make a place to sit. A rose branch that fell nearby jerked sharply in a gust of wind, but he had no desire to trim it. It's not really in the way, he noted.
Ernst flipped through the book, softly running his finger along the text.
"…in history, people who rule countries are set apart from ordinary people by how they think and how they perceive the weight of their actions. This book was written so that one could become the best version of oneself, but it is not a magic wand that will change everything with one wave; if it were, there would have been no point in writing this book."
Interesting. So it's meaningless to simply copy a 'before and after'? We need to align our vector of thought correctly, and that's it? Ernst reasoned in a whisper.
Opening the book to the middle out of habit—wanting to skip all the 'watery' parts (he still thought The Book of Nemesis was a fact book)—he saw a blank page. Then something inexplicable began.
— THE BOOK IS GLOWING! — Ernst shouted.
When the light emanating from the book faded, Ernst threw it aside. A moment later, he calmed down. How could Luke Academy allow an 'ordinary artifact'? It's classified as an area-of-effect weapon. And how did Miss Arni not notice this was a magical book, an 'ordinary artifact'? But then the book began to pull him in.
Hooking himself onto a thorny black rose bush, Ernst struggled not to scream from the pain—the thorns were two to three times larger than those of ordinary roses. He held back his cry, and just as his grip was failing, he opened his eyes, about to shout. At that moment, he saw that everything meant to be moving had frozen.
A thought raced through his head: A wandering artifact? Wait, what's a wandering artifact? No way… It was clear why this book seemed out of place… He needed to understand the artifact's operating principles to cancel its effect on the world around him.
But when he tried to use his own magic, he realized it had no effect. How could you slow movement in a world where time was already frozen? Fatigue washed over him then, and Ernst let go of the bush's thorns, simultaneously cutting his palms deeply in the process. Clawing at the ground with his last strength, he lost consciousness due to magical overload, falling into a faint.
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The country of Larios—a sun-drenched nation located on an island far from the main continent. The island was nearly the size of a continent itself. That night, in one part of the sky, an energy explosion rippled out, shaking only those exceptionally strong in magical sense, as Ernst fell from the sky toward the capital city of Larios. His trajectory seemed to halt at a certain point; he was flying toward a place that looked like a magic school. He landed, crashing through the roof of the main auditorium.
The headmaster, who had been walking just before Ernst fell through the roof, broke into a run. Avoiding every turn with fluid, efficient movements enhanced by a speed-boosting artifact—the 'Swift-Runner' detector—he doubled his pace.
Some guards activated and prepared to run to the scene, but they were stopped by a barrier the headmaster had erected as a safety measure for the students living in the dormitories.
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