The first day at hell
The next morning, almost all the pain had vanished. My left arm still throbbed and wasn’t fully usable, but Erynthia Academy’s infirmary had done its job efficient, magical, and slightly terrifying
I skipped the morning run and exercises. Today is the First official class in erynthia I didn't want to be late
The classroom filled with tension and quiet chatter
The classroom didn’t just buzz; it felt like a i was in a pressure cooker.
As I walked inside sudden silence
All 60 eyes on me
Then whispers that followed me
'Is that him "?
"The Casper bastard..."
"I heard he used some kind of forbidden blood catalyst to win."
"Look at his arm. Serve’s him right for cheating."
I ignored them, keeping my expression as blank as possible.
I scanned the room.
The layout of Class A.
At the front bench, Elena von Hestia and Arthur sat together
a duo of pure talent that seemed to emit their own light.
To their left sat Aria Asteron and Iris Aethelgard
Looking the room with sharp, predatory eyes.
their eyes sharp and scanning.
Behind them, the other benches were filled with the rest of the thirty students who had made the cut. They sat in small clusters, divided by noble houses or commoner cliques,
And : My "buddy" Theo... Wasn't present
I slumped into a seat toward the back, trying to look as invisible as a guy with a bandaged arm could look.
You didn’t make any friends yesterday?”
I didn't have to look to know who it was. Lucen Gray was sitting directly behind me, as solid and unmoving
“I was busy being in a infirmary stay ,” I grunted, not turning around. “What’s your excuse?”
“I came here to become strong,” Lucen replied evenly. And I just got here.
And I don't have a terrible image that makes people avoid me like a plague
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Ouch. Even the 'Iron Wall' has jokes. He’s right and you know.
Tap! Tap!
Sword Instructor Selene Lunaris entered the room. She had a silver hair that was perfectly aligned and her eyes were sharp enough to cut through stone.
I’d been too exhausted to notice it during the chaos of the last two days, but seeing her now, in the clear morning light...
She was drop-dead gorgeous.
The silver hair and eyes were a lethal combination,
She had an aura of dominant
cold presence that demanded your pulse slow down
She had a curvy, attractive body that felt like it was personally designed to steal the youth and focus of every boy in the room.Especially those two big...
Umm... personalities.
i always had a thing for strong strong mature woman
Hey, don’t judge me. It’s just my type, okay? I know you like it too. Don't lie to yourself.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Warning: Staring too long at the Instructor might cause a permanent reduction in your number of teeth.
Selene’s gaze swept across the room. It felt like a blade passing over my skin. When her eyes hit mine
they lingered for a fraction of a second long enough for me to feel my soul leave my bodybefore she turned to the chalkboard.
“Class A,” she began,
her voice like silk over steel. “Yesterday, you proved you have the potential to be soldiers.
Today, we begin the process of finding out which of you will actually survive the war.”
The rankings you received yesterday are not permanent. In this room, Rank 1 through 10 are the 'Elite.' Ranks 11 through 30 are the 'Foundation.' Every Friday, the Foundation may challenge the Elite for their seats."
Her eyes locked onto mine. A small, dangerous smile touched her lips.
"And since our new Rank 6 has shown such a... unique grasp of magic spell he will be our first live case study.
Louis Casper, stand up. why don't you explain to the class how you 'calculated' a water spell that defies three laws of mana flow?"
The entire class turned in their seats. Sixty eyes settled on me again
some curious, most hateful.
I stood up slowly. My chair scraped against the stone floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silent room.
"Well," I started, rubbing the back of my neck with my good hand. "It wasn't exactly a 'spell' in the way you guys think of them.
I didn't pray to the water spirits or visualize a majestic ocean wave. I just treated the mana like a plumbing problem."
A ripple of laughter went through the room. It wasn't friendly. It was the sound of people watching a fool prepare to hang himself.
"A plumber?" Iris Aethelgard chirped from the front row, spinning around in her seat. Her violet eyes were wide with mock wonder. "Does that mean the Great House of Brandis was defeated by a leaky pipe?"
"In a manner of speaking," I said, ignoring the heat in my face. I walked toward the front of the room.
Every step felt like i was walking through a minefield. I picked up a piece of chalk.
"Most of you think of magic as Volume. You think more mana equals more power. You’re trying to crush your enemies with a giant bucket of water."
I drew a large circle on the board. Then, I drew a tiny, sharp triangle.
"I focused on Velocity and Pressure. In physics uh, in my theory Pressure is Force divided by Area. By constricting the exit point of the mana to a microscopic diameter, I increased the exit velocity to supersonic levels. It doesn't matter how thick your shield is; if the water is moving fast enough, it behaves like a solid blade. It doesn't splash. It cuts."
I tapped the board.
"I didn't beat Theo with more magic. I beat him with better math."
The room stayed silent for a beat too long. Then, a student in the third row a tall, sharp-featured guy with the crest of a noble family slammed his hand on his desk.
"stupidity!" he barked. "Magic is a gift from the heaven It is an art of the soul! To compare the sacred flow of mana to... to water pipes and calculations is an insult to every mage in this room!
You’re saying that years of meditation and spiritual attunement are inferior to... what? Arithmetic?"
"I'm saying the spirit doesn't matter if your arm gets blown off by a high-pressure jet," I countered, my voice getting colder. "Magic is a tool. If you don't understand how the tool works on a fundamental level, you're just a kid playing with a loaded crossbow."
Selene Lunaris hadn't moved. She was still leaning against her desk, watching me with an expression that made my skin crawl
It wasn't anger. It was the look of a scientist watching a new species of insect.
"Math," she whispered the word like a secret. "A fascinating perspective, Louis Casper.
But your 'math' had a variable you failed to solve for, didn't it?"
She gestured toward my bandaged arm.
"If your theory is so superior, why are you currently a cripple? Did the 'laws of math' fail you there?"
"Equal and Opposite Reactions," I muttered, looking at my boots. "Newton's i mean my Law of Equal Exchange. The force required to launch that jet had to go somewhere.
Since I didn't have a grounded brace, my arm took the entire recoil. It... uh... it was a work in progress."
"A work in progress," Selene echoed, standing up and walking toward me.
She was tall nearly as tall as I was and the scent of her, like ozone and winter air filled my senses.
Up close, her 'personalities' were even more distracting, but the cold fire in her silver eyes snapped me back to reality.
"In Erynthia we do not have 'works in progress.' We have successes and we have corpses.
You humiliated a noble House with a trick you couldn't even control. You are lucky i was there to catch you, or that 'math' would have painted the arena walls with your blood."
She turned back to the class, her voice projecting to every corner.
"The lesson here is simple. Rank 6 is right about one thing: Efficiency. But he is wrong about the most important thing:
Survival.
Never cast a spell that destroys the caster. Since Louis Casper is so fond of 'labor,' he will be spending his evenings this week in the training hall.
He will be my personal assistant in recalibrating the mana-dummies. With one arm."
A collective sigh of relief and smug satisfaction went through the room. They wanted me punished, and 'Personal Assistant to Selene' sounded like a death sentence of manual labour
The rest of the class was a blur of high-level mana theory that I barely understood. My head was still spinning from the pressure of sixty people wanting me dead.
When the bell finally rang, the other students scrambled out like the room was on fire. No one looked at me. No one spoke to me. I was a ghost in a room full of gods.
Lucen paused by my desk, his shadow looming over me.
"Pressure equals Force over Area," he repeated quietly. "Is that true?"
"Yeah," I said, leaning back. "It's true."
"Then you're a bigger idiot than I thought," Lucen said, a hint of respect—or maybe pity
in his eyes. "You just gave them the secret to your only weapon. By next week, the 'Elite' will have figured out how to use your own math against you."
He walked out, leaving me alone in the cooling classroom.
"He's right, you know."
I jumped. Selene was still there, sitting at her desk, watching the sunset through the high windows.
"In this world, knowledge is power. You just threw yours away for a joke about an enema."
"I didn't throw it away," I said, standing up and grabbing my bag. "I gave them the 'what.' I didn't give them the 'how.' They can know the formula,
but they don't know how to manipulate the mana circuits to achieve the compression. That took me weeks of... plumbing."
Selene stood up,
"We'll see. Come. The training hall is dusty, and my 'Assistant' has a lot of work to do."
