[Task: Immediately proceed to Sylvas Magic Academy.]
Lucas was still sitting on the roadside bench, bag between his feet, staring at the floating message like if he looked at it long enough it would get the hint and leave. This was not the first time it had appeared. It wasn't even the third. It just kept coming back, patient and annoying, like a knock on a door that never stops.
"I can see it," he muttered under his breath. "I get it. I'm going. Just give me a second."
He wasn't ready to move yet. His head still hurt from earlier. His stomach was empty. And honestly he had just found out he was in someone else's body in a world where people floated and made fire with their hands so maybe he deserved thirty seconds to sit on a bench and process it quietly.
He leaned back and looked up at the sky.
The message appeared again.
[Task: Immediately proceed to Sylvas Magic Academy.]
His eye twitched.
"Okay you know wha-!?"
Then his body stopped.
Not slowly. All at once. His arms wouldn't move. His legs wouldn't move. He couldn't turn his head or shift his weight or do anything at all. He just sat there, completely locked, trying to push his hand forward and getting nothing.
'Huh? why can't I move?'
A message appeared.
[Warning: Continued disregard of the assigned task will result in enforced penalties.]
A pause. Then one more line.
[Penalty: Termination.]
"WHAT!?" His eyes went wide.
Then his body was his again.
Just like that. He could move. He flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders, confirmed everything still worked.
He stood up.
"...Okay," he said quietly to nobody. "Okay. I get it."
He wasn't going to test that again.
Getting directions had been easy enough. A few questions to the right people and he found out a carriage heading toward Sylvas Academy would be passing within the hour. He got on, and here he was, moving. Doing what the screen wanted. Being a good little player.
He hated it a little.
The trees rushed past outside. The carriage rocked. For a moment it almost felt normal, just a ride, just a road, just a regular morning.
Then-
[Staring outside won't make you look any smarter.]
Lucas's eye twitched.
'What is this thing's problem.'
The man sitting beside him glanced over, probably because Lucas's face was doing something involuntary.
Lucas smoothed his expression out and turned slightly towards the man beside him.
"Hey, sorry quick question." He gestured vaguely at the air in front of him. "Can you see this? Like, these words floating right here?"
The man looked at him. Then at the air. Then back at him.
"...Kid," he said slowly, "did you hit your head?"
Lucas stared at him for a second.
"Right," he said. "Never mind."
He turned back to the window.
'So only I can see it. Got it.'
[At least now you've figured that out. Took you long enough.]
'I will not react. I will not—'
[Never met someone as dumb as you, honestly.]
'SHUT UP.'
He clenched his fists in his lap and stared very hard at the trees outside. The man beside him had quietly shifted two inches further away. Lucas couldn't blame him.
The rest of the ride passed without incident, unless you counted the screen making three more comments that he refused to acknowledge. The other passengers chatted quietly among themselves. The road got smoother as they went. Slowly the trees started to thin out.
Then the driver called back "This is your stop" and the carriage rolled to a halt.
Lucas stepped down, bag over his shoulder. Handed the driver the fare. The carriage pulled away and disappeared back down the road it came from.
He turned around. And stopped.
Sylvas Magic Academy sat at the end of a wide stone path, and the word school did not even come close to covering it.
The buildings were massive, tall cylindrical towers with smooth polished surfaces that caught the light in a way that made them look almost unreal. Clusters of glowing clouds hovered near the upper floors, not drifting, just sitting there like they had been placed deliberately. The whole thing looked less like somewhere you came to study and more like somewhere you came to bow.
"...This place is expensive," Lucas muttered.
A familiar screen popped up in front of him.
[Task complete.]
[Reward: Mana Perception — Skill +1]
"Mana Perception?" He tilted his head slightly. "What does that even do?"
[Skill – Mana Perception (Passive): Allows the user to sense and visualize mana in the surroundings, including flow, density, and energy structure.]
He read it carefully. Slowly.
"...Okay," he said after a moment. "That's actually not bad."
He started walking toward the entrance.
The closer he got the more people he noticed, a long line near one of the side sections, young people around his age, some standing straight and confident, some fidgeting, some staring at the towers with that wide-eyed look of someone trying not to look wide-eyed. A sign above the section read: Application Registration — Entrance Exam.
Lucas joined the back of the line.
He watched the others while he waited. A few of them had nice clothes, the kind that said money without trying. Some had family crests on their bags or jackets. Everyone looked like they belonged here in a way he wasn't sure he did.
The line moved. Eventually he reached the front.
The woman at the counter didn't look up. She had a ledger open in front of her and a pen in her hand and the practiced efficiency of someone who had processed a hundred of these already today.
"Name?"
"Lucas Ironhart."
"House identification?" she said, her voice carefully neutral.
He handed over the card. It was in a bag his family gave him before they pushed him out the door, the last thing the Ironhart family had ever handed him. She examined it. Her expression didn't change but her eyes moved slowly across the details.
She handed it back.
"Your name has been registered," she said, the professional smile back in place. "Proceed to Block 4 for the entrance test."