Hedi slipped back into her office. She dropped into the chair like a stone into a pond. The black seat gave a soft creak, like a tired bough.

Mottled light from the ceiling cast irregular shapes, and when she squinted, they looked like tiny constellations in a toy sky.

She stared up at that make-believe firmament; the talk replayed, and anger surged like a tide.

Disgusting—bile rose like smoke.

Stratford!

Ahaha—I’m livid, a thunderhead ready to burst.

Her mood swung between reason and impulse, and she writhed on the chair like an eel in a river.

She leaned left, trying to tuck her small self into the chair’s hard seams. Then she rolled right; her back muscles lifted and fell like ripples, lively as spring.

Each twist came with a deep breath, like bellows feeding a little forge.

She tossed and turned on that chair, quietly digesting the ripples inside, like waves fading on a night shore.

At last she yielded to the clamor. She pressed her cheek to the cool desk; long lashes cast a fan-shaped shadow under the light. Her dangling feet swung back and forth like a fawn flicking through the forest.

“There’s no way to beat Stratford at the table!” She clicked her tongue, spitting the thorn. “That knotty, mouth-twisting surname!”

Use Dark Magic as my hidden card?

No. We’d tear the net and drown together.

If I want data on Dark Realm Erosion, I have to work deep with Stratford; if I expose Dark Magic, she’ll put a knife to my throat and spill that I’m in Dark Realm research.

Then the thought flipped like a coin: magic theory is my ground. Maybe there’s a comeback. Even if Stratford guesses, the reins stay in my hands.

Heh—throw me into the fire, why don’t you.

Hedi shoved the files into a drawer. She taught the afternoon class with a breeze in her tone, but the room hung drowsy like humid air; raising her voice did nothing.

No help for it—she stuck to simple, clear bits, like breadcrumbs on a path.

When the bell chimed like a small gong, she left a problem on the board.

“Next time in my class, don’t be this dead and dull,” Hedi said, smoothing a strand at her temple, a willow leaf in a stream. “I’ll let today slide, but take the hint—magic gets drier the further you go. You get me?”

“Understood,” the room answered, like reeds in a wind.

Hedi quick-stepped back to her office; with no classes left, she dove into the documents like a diver into deep water.

Stratford’s lab notes said Dark Realm Magic is unique for its strict shackles.

You must undergo Dark Realm Erosion, like walking through acid rain.

For humans, the process scars the brain like those rare cases after pineal removal—permanent, irreversible damage to the neural architecture.

Dark Realm Erosion rewires the body and mind. It lets them wield Dark Realm Magic, but births brutal mutations—twisted limbs, stormier moods, a blood-hungry bent.

The rumor that the Institute cages monsters wasn’t idle smoke; they’re really netting creatures from the Dark Realm.

If Shattered City’s Dark Realm hazard drops, do they haul Selina’s sister out, like dragging someone from thorn and briar?

Stupid question, tossed like a pebble at a cliff.

Stratford said clearly: her sister was eroded yet kept her humanity. I doubt that, but from the Institute’s vantage, she’s a rare specimen, a moth pinned under glass.

Hedi kept turning pages, like leaves in wind.

Dark Realm Magic isn’t Dark Magic, Sacred Magic, or common spells. Its effects are stranger and wilder, shaping the realm’s interior—weather bent, small creatures steered, terrain birthed like fresh hills.

But once those monsters step out of the Dark Realm, the effect thins like smoke in rain.

Reading that, Hedi saw a path open like a clearing.

Inside, the usual notion of mana doesn’t exist. But the Dark Realm is a warped space woven of mana, so there’s an indirect tie, like roots under stone.

Its uniqueness: it doesn’t lean on mana. Through Dark Realm Erosion, it alters the person, letting them steer the realm’s peculiar rule-energy, like catching a river by its current.

From that angle, Dark Realm Magic doesn’t use mana directly. Yet its root and marrow tangle with mana—an offshoot, a variant born from mana in an extreme storm.

Hedi rifled the papers again, like a sparrow pecking grain.

Dark Magic runs on emotion. Sacred Magic runs on spirit. Common magic runs on mana. The trigger for Dark Realm Magic remains fogged, like a valley in dawn mist.

If so… could it be tentacles, feelers under ice?

After erosion, do humans grow new energy-sensing organs, new nerve paths, like vines finding cracks?

Or like Dark Magic and Sacred Magic, does it need an inner engine? Those eroded feel terror, despair, loneliness—maybe an unusual awakening—and that storm sparks Dark Realm Magic.

At that thought, Hedi recalled the wails before entry—voices jumbled like a chaotic choir. One monster or many? That count might decide whether Dark Realm Magic runs on inner fire.

Beyond those two, another guess rose like mist.

A feedback mechanism from the Dark Realm itself.

The magic may not be self-fired. It’s the realm’s response to those who enter and are eroded, like a sea pushing back at swimmers.

When life signals, thoughts, and moods hit a threshold, the Dark Realm might feed that energy back. It grants the ability to cast, like rain returning to a cloud.

“So, it might be alive? If only there were more data!” Her hope beat like a heart under ice.

“What data?”

Hedi jolted, a sparrow startled. She saw Bruns and forced ease into her voice. “Why didn’t you knock?”

“Knocked plenty. I figured you’d skipped off again. What’s got you so absorbed?” His words drifted like smoke from a hearth.

“Nothing,” she said, keeping smoke in her fist.

“Don’t I know you? We’ve been at this six years, since you were sixteen,” he said, time like rings in a tree.

“A novel.” Hedi shoved the papers into the drawer like burying seeds. “What else?”

“Thought it was magic business,” he said, tone like a slow brook.

“It’s a… student’s classroom novel. I confiscated it and gave it a look,” she said, like picking a nettle.

“What’s it about?” he asked, curiosity pricking like thorns.

Hedi drew a long breath, then spun straw into a tale. “A young explorer hunts ancient ruins in a forest.”

“That all?” he blinked, skepticism a thin frost.

“The lead faces evil beings and unknown forces, and digs up feelings and courage from the heart… a moving legend of family curses and self-salvation,” she added, words like lanterns hung in fog.

Bruns narrowed his eyes; his Adam’s apple bobbed, as if tasting the woven tale in silence. Then he pricked her little dodge without mercy. “Whatever you’re studying, seeing you think this deep makes me glad.”

“But?” she asked, a raised brow like a thin blade.

He stroked his beard and leaned in, a little hunched like an old pine. “Don’t bring trouble down on yourself.”

“It’s just reading. It won’t go that far,” she said, light as dandelion fluff.

“Take it as an old man’s intuition,” he said, a weather vane in a change of wind.

Hedi nodded perfunctorily, a leaf moving under small rain.

Who wants trouble? I only want to purge the erosion that chews at the brain, like rust on iron.