“What’s going on?” The old mage stepped forward, voice ringing like a bell in fog.

The protesting apprentices saw the Head Instructor, and their fire dimmed like coals in rain. They still refused to leave the hall; a leader stepped out, tone hard as iron. “Head Instructor, the academy’s admission is famously strict. How can we let scum in?”

The leader’s words rose, and voices followed like sparrows startled from eaves. “Yeah—yeah!” “How can we let scum in!”

A few hundred voices surged like a tide, and the old mage only stroked his beard, calm as a winter pond.

“Why disrupt the academy’s order?” he said, and his Voice Projection spell rang bright as a bronze gong, sweeping the noise like wind over barley. The label “disrupting order” landed like a heavy cap, and the clamor snapped silent.

The protest leader didn’t flinch; he cast Voice Projection too, sound clear as a reed flute. “This isn’t disrupting order.”

He pointed at Lance, words sharp as thorns. “We know this man’s history. He’s a hustler knight climbing by tricks and filthy means!”

The quiet boiled again like soup on a hot stone. “Hustler knight!” “Vile, disgusting scum!”

It was midday; more apprentices drifted over like leaves in a current, drawn by the noise.

The old mage seemed used to such storms, beard under his fingers like combed frost. “By the Academy Regulations, if you don’t disperse, I have the right to handle you.”

He smiled like tea steam, but mana ripples spread, pale-blue rings rolling out like stones dropped in water.

The apprentices felt the pressure like a coming squall, and they scattered like paper in a gust.

Seeing the littered road, the old mage shook his head, breath a thin thread of winter. “Young people these days…”

He spoke while casting a Rimewind spell; a crisp breeze swept the dirt like snow brushed off steps.

“Sorry for the scene.” His keen eyes softened, and his sigh drifted like smoke. “The young are learning less and less.”

“Less and less?” Lance felt the phrase blur like breath on glass.

“Yes, less…” The old mage watched the ashen sky, a sheet of old parchment. “They chase too much beyond spellcraft, but the world knots tighter than spells. Their eyes are tender and muddy—can they read this tangled world?”

Fulin guessed the old man liked philosophy, like a hermit steeping bitter tea.

“All right, the tour’s about done.” He stopped by the housing district, pointing at neat villas set like chess pieces by hedges. “Staff housing. Knight-recommended students get special treatment. Pick an empty one.”

“This one.” Lance pointed to a two-story villa by the lake, the water flat as glass under gray light.

“Oh, that one…” The old mage stroked his beard, thoughts drifting like snowflakes. After a few seconds his eyes lit like lanterns. “If you live there, you may have a roommate.”

Lance frowned, a crease in paper. “Another knight-recommended?”

“Of course.” The old mage brushed his beard again, calm as a pond. “We have eleven knight recommendations before spring. You’ll be glad to meet them.”

“Maybe.” The sky stayed dull, deep winter hanging like lead.

Lance walked toward the lakeside house. Halfway, a voice carried like a kite string. “Your badge, apprentice manual, and uniform will be delivered at seven tonight. Be sure to open the door!”

“Got it,” Lance said, steady as a blade laid flat.

At the door, a breath of presence stirred inside, warmth behind paper screens. Lance knocked. “Anyone there? I’m a knight-recommended. May I come in?”

The door slid open by itself, and a familiar voice rolled out like mountain wind. “Blazing Fire Knight, so polite when no one’s watching?”

A gust hit; the familiar Battle Aura tightened Lance’s chest like a fist. He almost pressed his palm to the Sirius Sword, fingers closing on the hilt like ice about to crack.

But the other stepped out lazily, and the wind fell like a tamed hawk. “It’s just a door. Can’t you ask before you swing?”

It was the Mountain Wind Knight, and he came out without his saber, shoulders loose like grass in breeze.

Seeing no hostility, Lance offered a thin smile like morning frost. “Sorry. I’ve been jumpy lately.”

“Heh, jumpy…” The other’s smile held a blade’s gleam, a crescent of mockery. “Looks like your last six months weren’t kind.”

The air turned awkward, silence hanging like fog between reeds. Lance had no words.

The other reached out a hand, sincerity warm as coals. “My name’s Klein. Good to see you again.”

“Me too.” Lance let his face ease, and took the hand like a steady rung. “Good to see you.”

Inside was clean and spare, personal items set like stones in a garden. Lance asked, “How’ve the six months been?”

“So-so.” Klein watched the still lake, the surface breathing faint ripples. “A lot happened.”

“Yeah. A lot happened.” Lance watched that calm water; the chill wind traced dim wave-lines like fish scales.

Klein turned, eyes measuring like a craftsman at work. “You got stronger, didn’t you?”

Lance nodded. “Mm. I got stronger.”

“And you got more aloof.”

“Aloof?”

Klein kept his gaze on the quiet lake. The buildings reflected faintly, and a person at the shore saw no self, like a dream without a mirror. “When someone carries too much, he becomes that kind.”

“How many Battle Aura stones now?”

“Seven,” Lance said.

“And back then?”

“Four.”

“Impressive.” Klein smiled weakly, smile thin as a scar.

He added, “Since you came to Maple City, you mean to enter the Knight Festival, right?”

“Mm.” Lance watched the lake go still, and his voice smoothed like glass. “I’ll take the crown.”

Klein clapped his shoulder, mouth crooked in a grin like a split seed. “You do love talking big.”

“I never talk big. I will win.”

“Fine. Let me watch you win.” Klein laughed and tapped Lance’s shoulder again, light as a bird.

Lance turned, puzzled, like hearing rain beneath floorboards. “What, you’re not entering the Knight Festival?”

“I can’t.” He stripped off his shirt, chest bared like battered bark, scars crisscrossed like dead vines.

Lance stared at the savage lines. “What happened? I remember you weren’t hurt then.”

Klein spat the truth like phlegm. “Inquisitors did it.”

“Heavenly Spirit Empire’s Inquisitors?”

“Yeah. Those whore-raised dogs.” His words bit like frostburn.

At first, the Mountain Wind Knight looked guilty, because his blade carried blood from Celestial Spirits and many men. The appraisal spell showed Blood Clan hands had gripped it. Dark Spirit ties accused him, so the Inquisitors drove him into iron torture.

The tortures were beyond human, a winter with no sun. “Those foundling brats used red-hot hooks and teased my liver out, piece by piece. They chopped my fingers one by one, then healed them, and did it again…”

The Mountain Wind Knight’s body was a map of wounds, some etched by spellfire. Pain still woke him like a knife under a nail. The mental spells left aftershocks that gnawed his skull like ants.

He clutched his head as if it might split, and he laughed, bright as broken glass. “So I killed one Celestial Spirit. Is that worth this?”

Minutes passed. Klein’s headache ebbed like tide.

His breath steadied, and triumph lit his face like dawn. “Those foundlings couldn’t pry my mouth. Before I blacked out, I spat in his face!”

Birds skimmed the lake, and ripples fanned like silver rings on a mirror.

Klein gave the reason he couldn’t enter the Knight Festival. “They sentenced me to forced service. A convict has no right to compete.”

He showed the ring on his left index finger, iron dull as winter steel. “This lets them know where I am, always.”

He bared his chest, where a stud sank like a cold nail. “This lets them kill me the moment they want.”

“In short, I’ll be sent to the front soon, selling my life like grain.”

“I see…” Lance had no words; he lifted his eyes to the gray sky, a lid of cloud pressing like stone.

“Don’t wear that face. It’s not on you.” Klein patted Lance’s shoulder, steady as a handrail.

“And it’s not all bad.” He soothed himself, gaze on that washed-out sky like a monk on a scroll. “Going to the front is just going home.”

“Home?”

“Yeah… home.” He lifted his sheathed saber toward the sky, simple as a vow. “My home is the Mephis Republic. It’s always been a buffer where Celestial Spirits and Dark Spirits crash like tides.”

His tone flared high, like a horn over hills. “There, if you want to live, you either pick up a weapon and sell your strength to foundlings!”

“Or…” his voice sank, lost like smoke in rain. “Or you run here like me, just to eat.”

“I see…” Lance’s answer fell soft as dust.

Klein rallied. “Anyway, don’t get grabbed by Inquisitors, yeah? They love tortures and the front line.”

“What if they force it?”

“Then don’t be afraid.” He lifted his eyes to the gray massed cloud, and his saber slid out with a cold gleam like moon on ice. “Some people living is a mistake.”

“Pick a way to correct them.” He sheathed the blade, then patted Lance’s shoulder like closing a book.

Lance recalled a question. “Klein, why’d you come to the Magic Academy?”

“Same as you—knight recommendation.” He saw Lance still asking with his eyes, and shrugged, light as a reed. “Those foundlings broke me up. I need a quiet place to heal.”

“Not here to learn spells?” Lance pressed.

“How could I be?” Klein slung his saber on his shoulder, easy as wind. “Learning spells is simple. Building mana isn’t. It needs years of meditation.”

“And a knight who awakens Battle Aura can hardly use mana anymore,” he added, words blunt as pebbles.

“Why?”

As an Earth Knight, Klein explained, voice steady as ground. “When he tries to use mana, Battle Aura flares instead. The two forces blur. Only rare talents can split them.”

“So knights generally don’t study spells?”

“Yeah, exactly.” Klein shrugged, shoulders like moving stone. “We knights come to the Magic Academy to open the kids’ eyes. Whether they grasp the Dean’s intent—that’s on them.”

Then Yuna arrived at the lakeside villa, breath quick like a small bird. Per Lance’s orders, she’d bought daily goods and waited outside.

When the door opened, she bowed to Lance, motion smooth as silk. “My master.”

Yuna had changed into a student uniform, mind and heart balanced like ink and bloom. She dressed beautifully, calm as water with a spark like a rose.

Klein glanced once and caught the meaning like a roadside sign. “I should probably move out?”

“No need. We have much to pass along. Living together is convenient.”

“True.” He asked nothing, and went to the yard to train Battle Aura, wind curling like smoke around his stance. “Then I’ll leave things to you two.”

“Mm. No problem.”

Next dawn, the knight-recommended students gathered before the experiment building, breath white as frost, waiting for the pre-admission mana test.

Lance and the Mountain Wind Knight arrived last, and Yuna trotted behind like a deer in dew.

“All eleven here?” The mage leading them said nothing about lateness, voice smooth as sanded wood. “Introduce yourselves.”

The words fell like stones in a pond. A minute stretched long, and none of the eleven spoke. The air was tight, a drawn bowstring.

The mage cleared his throat, dry as paper. “Then I’ll read names.”

“Klein, Mountain Wind Knight.”

“Here.” The reply came lazy, a hand lifted like a leaf.

“Lance, Blazing Fire Knight.”

“Present.” Lance raised his hand with staged ease, casual as smoke.

“Charlie, Frost Knight.”

“Present!” The handsome knight answered bright as steel in sun.

“Le—” The mage coughed, a hitch like grit in tea.

He corrected himself. “Madam Walz, Rose Knight.”