Arthur let his shoulders drop, entirely shedding the imposing, untouchable weight of a senior Honor Class student. He consciously synthesized William Sinclair's methodology—curating an image of harmless, lighthearted softness. But Arthur intended to push the architecture of that persona even further. Sinclair maintained a strict, professional boundary, for reasons unbeknownst to him. Arthur, however, intended to weaponize intimacy to flush out a potential threat.
"First-years aren't typically allowed in the Academy before orientation," Arthur explained, his tone casual and warm. "Normally, you'd board two days from now, giving the senior cohorts time to vacate their old dormitories and transition into their new ones."
Arthur took a deliberate step forward, breaching the standard conversational perimeter. He closed the gap until they were standing mere inches apart, invading Cyril's personal space.
"But," Arthur continued, playfully twirling his index finger in a slow, rhythmic circle in the air between them, "since you're my protégé, and you'll inevitably find your room there regardless, it shouldn't be too much trouble to have you come with me."
Cyril's crimson eyes sparkled with raw, unfiltered adoration. The boy leaned into the proximity, his fluffy white halo of hair bouncing with his enthusiastic nod. "I'll follow you, Cedric!"
Arthur paused. He lifted a hand, scratching the side of his head with a perfectly engineered, sheepish grin. "Actually, hearing it aloud, it sounds a little off..."
The innocent joy instantly vanished from Cyril's face. The boy's spine snapped perfectly straight, his posture returning to a theatrically rigid, military-esque stiffness. He bowed his head sharply, pinning his arms to his sides. "I'm sorry, mentor!"
Arthur let out a smooth, resonant laugh, gently waving his hand to dismiss the tension. "Haha, don't worry about it too much. I was the one who requested it first, after all."
Beneath the flawless, saintly exterior, Arthur's Autonomic Merged Processor filed away the physical variables of the interaction with chilling, frictionless speed.
I allowed myself to enter his immediate range of attack, Arthur noted internally. Throat, heart, and liver completely exposed. Utterly defenseless.
Cyril hadn't reacted. There had been no pupil dilation, no microscopic twitch in his knuckles, no predatory shift in his breathing pattern. No suspicious behavior yet.
But if he has ulterior motives, then by playing the role of his close friend and mentor, I will certainly draw the rot to the surface. If the Celestial Sun Church engineered him as an assassin to finish the Ash Mages' work, I will dissect him with my allies.
Arthur watched the boy eagerly adjust the sleeves of his pristine white robes, looking around the plaza with wide-eyed wonder.
If this is all a cosmological coincidence, then I'll have a genuine Saint who has complete, unquestioning loyalty to me. Zero cost. I won't be losing either way.
Arthur turned, gently gesturing for Cyril to walk beside him as they navigated the paved walkways.
Unlike with them, Arthur thought, his mind briefly flashing to Vicktor, Kaelen, and Alice, a cold pragmatism anchoring his rationale. It doesn't matter how close I appear to be with him. I couldn't care less if the Ash Mage captures this pawn.
"Are you hungry?" Arthur asked, allowing a note of gentle, brotherly concern to enter his vocal cords. He reached into the deep pocket of his uniform and extracted two cylindrical sticks wrapped in translucent wax paper. He held them out. "Do you want some candy?"
Cyril tilted his head, his fluffy white hair shifting like a cloud. "Candy?" he echoed, testing the syllables. "What's that?"
Arthur unwrapped one and offered it. The dense, golden-brown caramel caught the sunlight.
Cyril accepted it tentatively. He placed it in his mouth.
Arthur watched the boy's physiological response with clinical precision. The ascetic from the rocky outskirts had likely never consumed processed sucrose. The reaction was instantaneous. Cyril's crimson pupils dilated to their maximum perimeter. A sudden flush of blood rushed to his cheeks as the dense concentrate of life-fueling sugar bombarded his unmapped taste receptors.
"Delicious!!" Cyril practically vibrated, his voice pitching upward in pure, unfiltered euphoria. "We never had anything like this in Grenfell!"
Arthur let out a soft, highly modulated chuckle, perfectly mimicking an amused older brother. "Haha, you already said that."
Arthur peeled the wax paper from his own stick and bit into the caramel.
Lipid fats from the churned butter. A rapid, aggressive glucose spike. Zero dopaminergic response, Arthur dissected the input with absolute apathy as the sugar dissolved on his tongue. Predictably sweet, the chew delivers a heavy base of caramelized sugar and honey layered with toasted, nutty notes and a faint floral trace. Dense butter and heavy cream coat the palate, giving the texture a weighted heft rather than a clean richness. While a slight bitter edge of scorched sugar and a fleeting prick of salt momentarily push back against the dairy fat, the flavor quickly flattens out, leaving a lingering, borderline-cloying sweetness. Factoring in the boy's baseline metabolic rate, I will have to account for a severe glycemic crash in exactly sixty-two minutes.
Cyril chewed furiously, his eyes shining. "What is it?"
"It's a chewy caramel," Arthur replied casually. "Sugar, honey, butter, cream, and a pinch of salt."
Cyril paused his chewing, a look of profound confusion crossing his innocent features. "Salt? I only tasted sweet. Why would they add salt?"
Arthur slipped his hands into his pockets, barely giving the culinary trivia a second thought as he continued his leisurely stride down the paved walkway.
"It's a simple truth," Arthur said offhandedly, his attention drifting to the passing architecture of the staff sector. "Quality can't fully exist without its opposing force. Only with the addition of salt can you truly appreciate the sweetness."
Arthur kept walking, fully expecting the boy to simply nod and finish chewing his candy.
But the sound of Cyril's footsteps ceased.
Arthur took two more paces before a sudden, violent shift in the atmospheric pressure brought him to a halt. The ambient mana in Sector Six screamed.
A colossal, blinding pillar of pure, incandescent light abruptly erupted from the pavement behind him, shearing through the air and shooting directly into the cloudless sky. The sheer kinetic force of the divine energy rustled Arthur's robes and painted the surrounding stone planters in a blinding gold.
Arthur snapped his head back, his amber eyes widening.
Cyril stood at the epicenter of the holy beam. His fluffy white hair floated upward in the anti-gravity field of his own raw power. The boy pressed his hands together in a posture of absolute reverence, his crimson eyes glowing with untamed divinity.
"Thank you for your profound words, mentor," Cyril whispered, his voice resonating with the weight of a celestial choir. "I think I just reached enlightenment."
Inside the chilling, frictionless architecture of Arthur's mind palace, the Autonomic Merged Processor ground to a catastrophic, stuttering halt.
What?