–3,200 AC
—on the golden card in his hand.
The light that had once looked luxurious now felt more like thermal radiation—slow, merciless, burning the only steak he had left into ash.
“Rein… are you okay?”
Mira’s voice dropped to a near whisper. She’d noticed the faint vein pulsing at his temple.
“I’m fine,” Rein replied, his tone disturbingly calm.
“I’m just calculating how much money I’d save if I kept eating your stone bread for another month… and whether the dental bills from cracked teeth would still make it worth it.”
He slipped the card back into his pocket with decisive finality.
A mind once accustomed to calculating mana fluctuations was now working overtime on a far crueler equation—survival.
Why was the account negative?
Rein began constructing hypotheses. The previous Rein hadn’t been reckless or extravagant; his notebooks painted the picture of someone obsessively methodical, almost pathological about experimentation.
If the money wasn’t spent on luxury, then it had to be something essential.
Something dangerous.
A sharp sensation—like static electricity—shot through his temple. For a split second he thought it was stress catching up to him.
It wasn’t. It was data recovery—fragments of memory long buried beneath unfamiliar thoughts began to surface.
He saw himself standing in a shadowed black-market alley, negotiating with a smuggler whose face stayed deliberately indistinct. In his hand was a High-Grade Lightning Crystal—a rare consumable with a finite number of charge cycles. Once depleted, it would become nothing more than a pretty, worthless stone.
But while it lasted…
It was an overclocking module for arcane circuits. A way to unlock the limiter on lightning magic and push spells far beyond their standard thresholds.
Its price wasn’t just high.
It was catastrophic.
Buying it didn’t merely empty a wallet—it mortgaged the future for a single crystal.
So that’s where the debt came from, Rein realized bitterly.
You didn’t just buy a crystal.
You bought victory on an installment plan.
Another memory sharpened—this one from the Arcadia Grand Magic Tournament.
While aristocratic students like Timothy’s older brother swaggered into the arena wielding inherited Rare-tier weapons, Rein had stepped onto the stage with nothing but a battered oak staff.
To the audience and judges, it was junk. Uncommon-tier at best—something you’d find in a secondhand shop, or get handed out as a freebie.
But beneath that plain wood lay a brutal truth.
Through Arcane Utility Modification, the previous Rein had hollowed out the staff’s core and embedded the lightning crystal inside, turning a low-grade weapon into a Sleeper.
Harmless on the outside.
Rare-tier devastation hidden within.
Perfect tactical bait.
Opponents judged only appearances and lowered their guard. A commoner with a stick—low threat, no urgency.
When the match began, while his opponent was still boasting about lineage and weapon pedigree, Rein released a Delayed-Cast Lightning Bolt he had primed from the very first second.
The result was immediate.
Timothy’s brother collapsed before he could even move.
Had Mage Armor not been mandatory under tournament regulations, that man wouldn’t even be alive today to scream accusations of cheating.
The nobles had misunderstood one thing.
Timothy’s brother hadn’t lost to luck.
He’d been crushed by superior strategy.
Their Rare weapons were bought in a single transaction—paid for by family prestige.
Rein’s staff was built from sweat, debt, and genius… repaid in monthly installments.
So when the dust settled, the nobles cried “Cheating!”—unable to accept that a stupid oak stick had shattered a great house’s pride.
But the rules had never forbidden weapon modification.
And that illusion was exactly what the previous Rein had exploited.
Rein exhaled slowly as the memories finished integrating into his mind.
“A perfectly calculated gamble,” he murmured.
“You went 3,200 AC into debt just to slap a Malfoy heir across the face and prove a point.”
He snorted quietly.
“Tactically? Brilliant.
Financially? Absolute suicide.”
He glanced down at the card again.
The previous Rein had left him a legacy of victory—
—and an overdue bill.
Five minutes later, Room 13 was thick with tension.
Boris and Mira stood amid piles of letters and spellbooks, staring at the single debtor who had officially gone bankrupt.
“I’ll be honest,” Rein said evenly, responsibility weighing on his voice.
“I need to delay repaying you. This one’s on me—I miscalculated.”
“Relax, it’s only a few hundred AC,” Boris waved it off, then frowned.
“But you’re the one in real trouble. A 3,200 AC debt… how are you planning to deal with a negative balance like that?”
He paused, mentally running numbers.
“If you wait for the next stipend, that’s next month. Even after clearing the debt, you’d only have about 1,800 AC left for the whole month. If you live like a monk, you might survive.”
“But that’s next month’s problem!” Mira snapped.
“The real crisis is this month! Even if scholarship housing is free, you still have gear costs, food, utilities—nothing in the Academy is free!”
Rein watched her quietly.
She looked more distressed than he did.
For a moment, he wondered if she wasn’t worried about him at all—but terrified her debtor might starve to death before repaying her.
“Rein… you should talk to the finance office,” Mira said seriously.
“There could be an error. Maybe you can request deferment.”
“Talk to Registry?” Rein scoffed.
“I’d bet my last brain cell they work slower than a Dormoss. By the time an appeal clears, I’ll be a decorative corpse in this room.”
He inhaled deeply, then met the eyes of his two creditors with calm, unwavering confidence.
“Don’t worry. Give me time. I’ll figure something out—tonight.”
The next morning dawned heavier than any before.
Rein staggered out of Room 13 like a walking corpse. Dark circles framed his eyes—clear evidence of a brain pushed past its limits all night. Boris, just stepping out of Room 6, froze, then patted Rein’s shoulder gently without asking a single question.
Even a creditor hesitated to demand payment from someone who looked ready to collapse at any moment.
The reason Rein hadn’t slept wasn’t accounting.
It was because he’d swallowed his pride and consulted LIZ—despite not wanting to drag her into something this trivial.
The AI in a girl’s form showed zero sympathy.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
She laughed through the chat channel as if his financial crisis were a Conan O’Brien monologue.
And after laughing her fill, she delivered a proposal that sounded deceptively simple—
—and completely insane.
[LIZ: Why don’t we do this? We plug your Mana Vision into the Academy’s circuit network at full output, and I’ll attempt an intrusion—hack—into the Central Registry.]
[LIZ: Even if they have defenses, I can probably punch through. And don’t worry—I promise I’ll be back in time to pick up the phone.]
Even though it was only a chat window, Rein could practically feel LIZ vibrating with excitement—as if she’d just found the perfect excuse to cosplay Trinity.
[If we pull it off, forget wiping a measly 3,200 AC debt. I could add a few zeros and make it 3,200,000 AC in your account… as easily as dragging junk files into the trash.]
Rein rejected the suggestion without hesitation.
Somewhere in the depths of the interface, LIZ was probably sulking—robbed of her chance to slip into glossy black, bend the Academy’s mana network over her knee, and stage a dramatic cyber-infiltration through the Central Registry… or whatever overproduced fantasy she had already built in her head.
No matter how desperate things became, Rein still clung to one principle.
An escape shouldn’t be built on theft.
And more than that—using a hero-tier skillset and quantum-level processing power just to siphon a few thousand credits from a school ledger…
…it made his skin crawl.
It wasn’t only morality.
It was ego.
If the previous Rein ever found out, that arrogant brat would laugh straight in his face.
A Nobel-front-runner physicist—solving problems like a thug, brute-forcing his way into a database to pry loose pocket change?
Just imagining the smug expression of the body’s original owner made Rein irrationally irritated—briefly forgetting that the face he was mocking in his head was, inconveniently, the same one he now wore.
They crossed the corridor balcony that wrapped around the central court.
Rein slowed and glanced down into the vast, hollow interior.
At this early hour, the sun still sat too high to pierce the five-story vertical shaft. Only diffuse atmospheric scatter reached the stone floor below—cold, dim, and oppressive, like standing at the bottom of a deep well.
Yet within that gloom, flashes of spellcraft sparked intermittently.
Several pairs of DVM students were already training at the court’s center, practicing casting sequences with an intensity that bordered on obsession.
It was… unusual.
Over the past week, Rein hadn’t seen anyone use the court at all. Most students preferred to seal themselves inside private labs like reclusive hermits.
Boris, walking beside him, caught the pause immediately. He leaned back against the stone railing and followed Rein’s gaze.
“You probably don’t remember,” Boris said, nodding toward the activity below. “First day of the month. Departmental ranking matches.”
He shrugged. “They’re small bouts, sure—but DVM funds them heavily. Keeps us from getting lazy.”
A burst of lightning flared in the court below, runes flickering in midair.
“That’s why they’re up early,” Boris continued, his tone steady but edged with seriousness. “Everyone wants the bonus points… and more importantly—the prize money.”
The words prize money hit Rein like an execute command.
Prize money?
The phrase flipped a switch in his brain. His eyes widened, and a thin, bright thread of hope cut through the undead exhaustion that had been dragging him along since dawn.
“Wait—you’re saying they pay winners?”
“Of course they do…” Boris tilted his head, narrowing his eyes with open suspicion. “Don’t tell me you’re actually planning to compete.”
“Why not?” Rein shot back instantly, the sudden enthusiasm in his voice startling even himself. “Am I not allowed?”
“No rule against it,” Boris said, scratching his head. “It’s just… everyone knows you never even glance at these minor events. All last term, you didn’t enter the departmental rankings once. The last time we saw you step into an arena and start drawing lightning patterns was AGMT.”
The Arcadia Grand Magic Tournament.
The name alone widened the gap between the untouchable Rein of legend—and the current Rein, who was one bad meal away from starvation.
“Everyone has a first time,” Rein shrugged. “So… is there an entry fee?”
Boris frowned, mentally digging up the number. “Mm. About a hundred AC, I think. If you’re serious, I can front it for you.”
The silver-haired boy studied Rein for a moment, weighing risk against return, then smiled.
“Investing in the AGMT third-place winner is basically guaranteed profit. Just… be careful. The top spots are usually second- and third-years. Even for you, it’s not a free win.”
His voice dipped slightly.
“Those people… they deserve the title Devil Mage. Hard to read, crafty, and—”
“When does it start?” Rein cut in, refusing to let the warning finish—as if the word prize had risen up and eclipsed every other danger in the corridor. “Let’s go sign up.”
Boris couldn’t help smiling at the sudden, unnatural liveliness.
“Afternoon. DVM classes end at noon today—the afternoon’s reserved for the monthly activity. Ranking matches. As for registration… I don’t have a morning class. I’ll handle it at Registry, then head to the library.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Boris!” Rein blurted out, color finally returning to his face.
He spun toward the staircase tower—
—and froze.
His eyes had caught the ancient wooden clock mounted above the corridor.
“…Ah,” he muttered softly.
“I’m late, aren’t I?”
Rein stood panting before the massive oak doors of Room 402—Introduction to Magic Circuit Topology.
The lecture hall occupied the fourth floor of the main building: a grand amphitheater chamber, one of three infamous rooms known for being both magnificent and deeply intimidating.
He pulled in a breath and resumed his internal complaint—approximately the hundredth since arriving at the Academy.
Buildings taller than five stories. Towers everywhere.
And not a single person had ever thought to install a mana elevator.
Were mages too lazy to solve practical problems—or had their engineering neurons simply died out centuries ago?
He tried to tame his messy hair, fully aware it was a pointless gesture, then eased the door open as carefully as he could.
In a classroom so silent he could almost hear the clock ticking, even the faint creak of a hinge detonated like thunder.
Master Valerius von Thorne stood with his back turned, writing a magic-circuit formula on moonstone slate—complex enough to resemble a star map etched into reality.
The tip of his crystal chalk stopped with a sharp, clean click.
He didn’t turn around immediately.
Instead, a deep voice—smooth, refined, and unmistakably aristocratic—cut through the silence.
“Mana flow waits for no one…”
A perfectly timed pause.
“And it seems the Academy’s clock does not stop for anyone either, Mister Rein.”
Valerius turned slowly.
White streaks at his temples caught the glow of the mana lamps like snow clinging to obsidian. Beneath a patrician, unwrinkled face, pale blue eyes pinned the disheveled boy frozen in the doorway.
“Five minutes and forty-two seconds,” he said mildly, lifting one brow—polite disapproval carrying crushing pressure beneath it.
“That is the amount of time you have wasted today. I sincerely hope the reason you provide will be dense enough in logic for me to overlook this delay.”
And in the instant Rein met Valerius’s gaze—
a memory flared inside his skull.
It had been a brutal winter morning in Massachusetts.
He had stood like this before—hair a mess, breath ragged—outside Lecture Hall 26–100 at MIT. Late. Again. Back then, it had been for 8.05: Quantum Physics II, taught by Professor Julian Vance—a sixty-year-old tyrant whose sense of discipline was as sharp as a blade.
Not unlike Valerius.
That day, the long blackboard inside 26–100 had been drowned in chalk—Schr?dinger’s equation stretched across its surface, the Hamiltonian operator H boxed, underlined, and rewritten twice for emphasis. A particle in a three-dimensional box. No shortcuts. No mercy.
Vance had paused mid-equation, chalk hovering in the air, and said—his voice colder than the snow piling up outside—
“Mr. Rhys… in the quantum world, a particle may exist in two places at once.”
A beat.
“Unfortunately for you, in the macroscopic world, you were not here five minutes ago.”
Rein’s mouth twitched—just barely—at the memory.
So it really was the same everywhere.
At MIT, it had been dust-choked air, cracked chalk, and blackboards that never seemed to end.
At Arcadia, it was moonstone slate and crystal chalk, glowing faintly with mana.
There, it was wave functions and boundary conditions.
Here, it was magic circuits and mana flow topology.
Different symbols. Different constants.
The same underlying structure.
And one law, at least, remained immutable across all universes:
Timekeeping in a classroom was not negotiable.
“Five minutes and forty-two seconds…”
Rein repeated the number aloud, his voice flat, precise—more like he was reporting a fault in an LHC subsystem than apologizing for being late. The excessive seriousness did something strange to the room; it didn’t ease the tension. It sharpened it.
“My apologies,” he continued evenly. “I was… preoccupied with resolving instability in— M—”
He stopped.
The word nearly escaped before his brain caught it.
Money.
In less than a heartbeat, his thoughts executed a hard interrupt. The process was killed, logic rerouted, and his gaze snapped—almost violently—to the rune network on the moonstone slate, like a drowning man grabbing the nearest solid thing.
“…Mana, sir,” he corrected at once. “I was analyzing external excitation factors—”
In his head, prize money drifted past in glowing numerals.
“—specifically, the modulation of mana input within an unstable circuit,” he continued, momentum carrying him forward, “and failed to properly account for the rate of change in velocity over distance and time while traversing a steep incline in a building that is, frankly, devoid of basic engineering conveniences.”
The room went dead silent.
Dozens of students stared at him, mouths slightly open, unsure whether Rein had just spoken… or cast a new spell using academic jargon as the incantation.
Mira, seated near the front, pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly—like a soldier acknowledging a lost battle.
If Boris had been present, he would’ve buried his face in the desk and pretended this person was a stranger.
Master Valerius von Thorne did not move.
The crystal chalk rolled once between his fingers. His pale eyes—sharp enough to cut—remained fixed on Rein, as if he were parsing an unfamiliar language.
“Mana instability… external variables… rate of change… velocity… distance… time,” Valerius repeated, each term spoken with measured clarity. His head tilted slightly, disturbing the white at his temples.
“Fascinating, Mister Rein. You possess a remarkable talent for applying complex logic to explain the simplest failure imaginable.”
He set the chalk into the groove along the slate—softly. Precisely.
“Most students offer excuses such as: a summoned beast ate my notebook, my clock-spell malfunctioned, or I was bound to my bed by Binding magic.”
A pause—clean and merciless.
“But you are the first in years to submit a full theoretical framework in place of an apology.”
For the briefest instant, something like a smile touched the corner of Valerius’s mouth.
It was not kindness.
It was the expression of a silver fox who had just found a toy worth breaking.
“If you are so concerned about mana instability…”
He gestured toward the moonstone slate, where a dense topology of runes sprawled across the surface—chaotic at first glance, yet ordered, like a star chart waiting to be read.
“Then demonstrate it. Show me whether that brain of yours—so thoroughly packed with academic terminology—is capable of correcting the mana transfer fault at Node Seventeen in this Corvus-class detection circuit.”
Valerius paused, his pale blue eyes drilling straight into Rein’s.
“If you fail,” he said calmly, “I will be forced to rebalance your score in this course… and assign library confinement after class for one week—so you may immerse yourself in magical equations until the concept of punctuality finally penetrates your skull.”
Before the last syllable had even settled, the atmosphere in Room 402 thickened.
These entries expand the lore and mechanics introduced in this chapter.
Completely optional—read only if you enjoy diving deeper into the system.
A rare consumable magical component used to enhance or “overclock” lightning-element spells.
– Implanted by the previous Rein inside a hollowed-out oak staff via Arcane Utility Modification, it allowed him to cast lightning spells above his tier.
– Once depleted, the crystal becomes inert and valueless.
– Source of Rein's massive debt (3,200 AC).
A disguised weapon appearing low-tier but containing hidden enhancements.
– Rein’s oak staff was one—imbued with a rare crystal inside a common shell.
– Enabled surprise attacks and misjudgment by opponents.
Custom weapon modification using mana engineering and component embedding.
– Used by Rein to hide high-tier magic capability within a seemingly weak weapon.
– Allowed exploitation of visual deception in combat.
Prestigious magical combat tournament within the Academy, showcasing elite talent.
– Rein placed 3rd in the previous tournament.
– His unorthodox tactics shocked noble spectators.
Monthly inter-student duels within DVM for credits and prestige.
– Funded by the department to encourage participation and performance.
– Offer prize money, creating motivation even for struggling students like Rein.
Location Codex
An elite lecture hall for advanced circuit theory.
– Taught by Master Valerius von Thorne.
– Known for its rigorous standards and severe intellectual climate.
– Parallels drawn between MIT physics lectures and Arcadian spell topology.
A strict, refined instructor at Arcadia Academy. Possibly a noble.
– Known for academic severity, composed demeanor, and verbal precision.
– Compares excuses to theoretical frameworks—favors logic over emotion.
– Challenges Rein to correct a complex mana circuit fault as punishment for tardiness.
Spell Circuits
Corvus-Class Detection Circuit
A complex detection magic circuit involving multiple mana nodes.
– Contains an instability at Node Seventeen that Rein is challenged to repair.
– Likely an advanced educational construct for teaching circuit behavior.
A famous lecture hall located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), used primarily for foundational and advanced science courses—most notably for introductory and quantum physics.
– Significance: Often considered a symbolic space for high-level scientific discourse.
– Seating: Large, stadium-style layout to accommodate large cohorts.
– Cultural Impact: Popularized via OpenCourseWare and YouTube through lectures by legendary MIT professors like Walter Lewin and Allan Adams.
A real MIT course code referring to the second part of their undergraduate-level quantum physics series.
– Topics Include: Quantum mechanics, time-dependent perturbation theory, scattering, and particle statistics.
Character Origin: The Matrix (1999), directed by the Wachowskis
Portrayed by: Carrie-Anne Moss
Genre: Sci-fi / Cyberpunk / Action
Description:
Trinity is one of the lead characters in The Matrix trilogy—known for her sleek black outfit, hacker skills, calm confidence, and iconic martial arts action scenes. She is a veteran resistance fighter who plays a key role in awakening Neo to the truth of their simulated reality.
Iconic Traits:
– Black leather outfit and sunglasses
– Agile, highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and firearms
– Often portrayed leaping mid-air or striking cinematic fighting poses
– Represents strength, loyalty, and unwavering belief in purpose
Real-World Figure: American Television Host, Comedian, Writer
Notable Shows: Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show, Conan (TBS)
Background: Former writer for The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live, Conan is known for his self-deprecating humor, absurd sketches, improvisational brilliance, and distinctive physical appearance (notably his tall frame and exaggerated red pompadour).
Signature Traits:
– Hyper-expressive gestures and exaggerated facial expressions
– Deadpan delivery of surreal or absurd jokes
– Tall, lanky build with flamboyant red hair
– A mix of sharp wit and goofy, sometimes awkward charm
“Last life, it was the blackboard.
This life… still the blackboard.”
Rein exhaled.
“One more proof that the universe really does love copy and paste.”