Clang! Steel sang like winter rain as every knight drew their blade and leveled it at Lance, while his gear was stripped in a blink—the mages moved like lightning.

The air tightened like a drawn bowstring. Lance sounded bored with the storm, his voice calm as still water. “I’m not a Night Disciple.”

The lead mage shrieked like a gull in a gale. “Half a year! Not even a year! If he didn’t bargain with evil, what else could it be?!”

The Frost Knight spoke like ice that had waited to crack. “Lance Morrison, I’ve thought you were rotten for a long time. Your strength reeks of something wicked.”

Not everyone cast stones at Lance.

The Mountain Wind Knight stepped to his side like a tree taking the wind’s side. “Night Disciples lose their minds. They’re puppets of the Night God, hollow as husks. But this kid—”

He patted Lance’s shoulder, steady as a mountain breeze. “He’s brave and honest. More—he keeps to his code of chivalry like a river keeps its banks.”

“Even with that, do you still call him a Night Disciple?” He spoke and rested his hand on his hilt. A breeze climbed his fingers like a blade’s sigh.

Knights tensed like startled deer. Mages held back like cats near a hot pan. They’d heard of Mountain Wind’s edge and feared becoming ghosts under his killing sword.

The standoff baked like noon sand. Lance cut through the heat. “If you all doubt me, why can’t I prove myself?”

“Prove it? How?” The mage’s words cracked like a whip. “Bare your chest—no black sigils, no problem? Is that it?!”

“What else?” Lance’s answer was a clean blade; the method was sound.

The Frost Knight clenched his sword, lips curled like a rime of frost. “I’ve seen clever fakes. Some hide the black sigils with makeup. Planning to trick us too?”

Stephen, who’d been at odds with Lance, spoke with a cool wind. “Calm down. Lance is hateful, sure. But calling him a Night Disciple is a leap.”

“And there’s no ripple of dark power on him.” His words fell like rain on kindling.

Tension eased like fog lifting, but grips stayed tight as roots. The mage pressed the thorn. “Then how do you explain his spell power?”

Stephen’s voice stalled like a cart in mud.

Meditating half a year and reaching a first-tier mage’s mana was unheard of on the Nordland Continent, like snow in midsummer.

When the tension strained like wire, an ashen-haired youth arrived with a small tide behind him.

“What happened?” he asked, voice calm as lake glass.

The mage startled like a sparrow. “Professor Carlos?!”

Sword-bearing knights flicked glances like sparks. The ashen-haired man’s arrival hit like a sudden gust.

The mage spilled the tale. “I see,” the youth said, voice even.

“Don’t make this hard for him. Put your swords down,” said the one called Professor Carlos, words neat as stacked bricks.

“But—”

“Put the swords down.” His tone snapped like a dry twig. He sounded done with nonsense, as if lecturing a row of fools.

“He could be a Night Disciple!”

“Lower your swords first.” He switched to a soothing timbre, like a hand over a skittish horse.

At the sight of his indigo coat and the red robe trailing like a sunset, the knights sheathed blades with the scrape of snowfall.

“Good.” His gaze swept the crowd like a broom.

“Most of you haven’t met me. I’m Carlos Kavi, a High Mage. I practice the Elemental Arts. My mage title is ‘Healer Mage.’” His words marched on like a lecture bell. “My research now is longevity, the undying of organs. In trials, strong electrical stimulation can—”

People listened like students under rain, faces blank as chalk.

He treated the square as a classroom and they wore confusion like fog.

Then he beckoned Lance with two fingers, a teacher’s call. “Knight, come here.”

Fulin couldn’t read his game, but he had cut the net around “Lance.” Lance stepped in like a swimmer to shore. “Thank you for your help.”

“Mm.” Professor Carlos studied the young knight like a gem under sunlight.

“You’ve only meditated for half a year, yet your mana matches a first-tier mage. True?”

“It’s true.”

The air bristled again like thorn bush.

He took several minutes, thoughts turning like mill wheels. Then he spoke to all. “This young knight may carry a very unique bloodline. It lifts Battle Aura like a fresh wind. It also deepens mana like rain soaking soil.”

“Such a bloodline exists?” The lead mage barked disbelief like a dog at a comet.

“I don’t know. It’s a possibility. But—” He cast a blaze of light. It flooded Lance like noon sun, and nothing dimmed. “Night Disciples are wrapped in light-eating dark miasma at all times. This boy shows no sign. He’s not a Night Disciple.”

“Why not try believing the possibility? Maybe that’s the answer.” His voice fell like a final stamp.

Silence spread like ink. Eyes fixed on Lance; the earlier hate receded like tide.

But something knottier than hate flowed out, complex as smoke in wind.

The Frost Knight clicked his tongue, sour as brine. His gaze cut to Yuna like a wolf eyeing a jewel that should be his.

Yuna missed that stare. Her eyes stayed on the Rose Knight, cool as moonlight. She watched and weighed, and her glance held pity edged with scorn. She’d expected help for her master, but the end taught her—don’t trust a traitor to turn back.

The Rose Knight had been hunting for a way to aid Lance. She’d prepared a speech to wield the status of “Silkworm Clan Lady,” though she hated that cloak. The professor’s sudden drop stole even that reluctant chance like wind snatching a letter.

Fulin stayed inside the role like a dancer on a narrow beam, easy on the surface, razor-focused within. Lance watched the misunderstanding grow like storm clouds. He had planned to lean on Mountain Wind Knight. The professor’s arrival cleared the sky too smoothly to be chance.

Lance kept wary, like a fox studying a trap. No pies fall from heaven. He watched Professor Carlos with careful eyes.

Gazes crossed like threads. The air turned tight and hot.

The professor didn’t see those wires. He held out his hand to Lance. “Alright, young knight, your name?”

“Lance Morrison. Knight name ‘Flame of Chaos.’ Pleased to meet you.” Lance didn’t take the hand. He tapped his fist to his heart like a drum of oath.

“A young, polite genius…” The gesture surprised the professor like a sudden bell.

Surprise melted into satisfaction like sugar in tea. “You may never attend my class. Still, if the Academy gives you trouble, find me in the Lab Block, Basement Level Six. I or my aide are always there.”

He turned away, then glanced back with a sun-warm smile. “I look forward to your work, Blazing Fire Knight.”

The crowd swelled with whispers, voices like bees in clover.

“That was Professor Carlos.”

“A High Healer Mage, title ‘Healer Mage.’”

“He made great strides early… but they say he grew restless with healing and now studies the secret of never dying.”

“No way…”

The lead mage stared at Lance like a thorn he couldn’t pluck. He coughed, then cut the chatter. “Let’s continue. Next is the practical spell test.”

Under his lead, the knight candidates moved to another corner of the yard. A long table held a tangle of scrolls, while neat-cut bricks lay scattered like chess pieces.

“I’ll teach your first spell,” the mage said, voice steady as a metronome. “Though it barely counts as a spell.”

He spoke and lifted a brick with mana. It rose like a leaf on a breeze.

“This is Levitation. On objects, we call it Grasp. In shape, it’s closest to the essence of mana.”

He set the brick down like placing bread. “In theory, if you can use mana, you can use Grasp. Try it.”

People tried. Effort piled up like ants.

Minutes passed. Almost no one moved a brick with mana alone. Some got bricks to rise, but only by reflex-spiking Battle Aura, a short reach like a candle’s heat. Push the brick farther, and they failed like nets with holes.

The lead mage and two apprentices wore expected looks, heads shaking like willow branches. “Knights really struggle with mana.”

At ten minutes, the Mountain Wind Knight lifted first. A brick ten meters away shivered up like a startled bird. Stephen, without awakened Battle Aura, raised his brick almost at the same breath.

The lead mage blinked like a cat at snow. “Not bad at all…”

Others caught fire. Effort sharpened like whetstone.

Ten more minutes, more found the knack. The Frost Knight and the Rose Knight teased mana out; their bricks floated like dandelion seeds.

Thirty minutes in, those with mana moved their bricks. The rest stared at the dead weight like fishermen at a silent river.

Lance’s turn. His brick sat in the dust like a sleeping ox.

The lead mage’s mouth tilted, envy hiding like a thorn under moss. He spoke with a sour hook. “What’s wrong, mister genius? Can’t lift a little brick?”

The Blazing Fire Knight’s reputation burned bright enough to draw envy like moths. Many found balance in this moment and grinned at the stubborn brick.

Then Lance’s brick rose, smooth as a kite catching wind. Eyes widened like moons.

Lance said, flat as slate, “My mana control’s bad.”

Then—thud!

The brick shattered like a clay pot under a hammer.

The mage wiped the sweat prickling his brow like rain. “Alright.”

“Next.” He tapped the table with his staff. Matching scrolls drifted down to all eleven like falling leaves.

The Frost Knight unrolled his. “A spell scroll?”

Lance opened his. A big hexagram stared up, each point marked with tadpole script, ink like river reeds.

The mage nodded. “Level-1 Warmth. Let your mana flow along the hexagram’s path, and the scroll wakes like dawn.”

“Keep the scrolls safe. You’ll need them.” His words landed like pebbles.

Stephen asked, curiosity bright as a candle. “What’s the difference between using a scroll and a mage casting?”

“A mage draws the matrix in the mind, then pours mana. It’s not easy.” His tone went stern as oak. “The cleaner the matrix and the smoother the flow, the better the mastery.”

“If you slip, mana backlash bites like a snake.” He added the sting.

Several hearts chilled like water under shade.

Stephen pressed on. “Then I can just use a scroll. No matrix to memorize.”

“A scroll stands in for your mind as the spell’s vessel. It eats the cost of failure. Fragile parchment burns at once like straw.”

“The ones in your hands sell for two silver mage-coins outside.” He dangled the value like a ripe fruit.

Knights cradled scrolls like eggs.

Someone asked, eyes bright as dew. “Is there a more durable vessel?”

“Yes.” The mage didn’t blink. He lifted his staff. “Magic stones are durable spell vessels.”

Heads nodded. Understanding fell like rain.

“Alright, last part.” His voice drew the line like chalk. “I’ll test both your mastery and your use of Warmth.”

He tapped the ground with the staff’s butt. Apprentices brought eleven tulips from the corridor, stems tall as candles.

Each tulip sat under a glass warm-bottle. The air inside was cool as morning shade. A warm hand felt chill through the glass. The big buds held shut like shy girls behind fans.

“They were cultivated for this. Warm the bottle, and they bloom. Warmer means faster.” His gaze weighed them like scales. “I’ll use this for your entry score—it decides your spell department and class in the Academy.”