The afternoon sunlight pouring down through the narrow openings above the five-story court carried an almost painful intensity.

  The beams sliced through the dim hall like blades, carving the shadows into pitch black and bleaching everything else into harsh, golden white.

  Professor Barnaby, seated upon his floating chair, was caught halfway in that light. One side of his body glowed beneath it; the other sank into deep shadow.

  The sly, almost genial expression he usually wore had curdled into a visible scowl. The spectators packed behind him in the darkness didn’t look much happier either—they had come for a show, and instead, they had been forced to watch someone walk away.

  Rein stood alone beneath that natural spotlight, feeling as though he had wandered into a Rembrandt chiaroscuro painting—except this was no scene of revelation or triumph.

  That second-year brat… he’s made me look like some washed-up idol stranded on stage,

  Rein thought, flicking a glance toward Professor Wannabe, who was still staring him down. The irritation radiating from that floating chair was thick enough to feel from half the arena away.

  Rein offered the round man a stiff, apologetic smile, the kind that tried—unsuccessfully—to say,

  This isn’t my fault, Professor. My opponent ran off on his own.

  He dipped his head briefly toward the judging panel, then made his retreat as quickly as decorum allowed. Even as he moved away, he could feel hundreds of eyes boring into his back all the way to the edge of the arena.

  A large enchanted board hovered nearby, displaying the tournament bracket projected from a third-year student’s staff. The matches were split cleanly into two brackets—A and B.

  Rein had been placed in bracket B. That meant five more victories stood between him and the top prize.

  The prize, however, had been cut down to a mere 1,500 AC.

  Damn it… Rein calculated quickly.

  With nearly seventy percent of the applicants withdrawn, the department had likely lost around seven thousand AC in entry fees and spectator revenue.

  Barnaby’s solution had been obvious: slash the prize pool to stabilize the books.

  Only fifteen hundred… He sighed inwardly. That barely put a dent in what I owe Boris and Mira. And I still need to eat properly. He glanced over at his creditors waving from nearby and let out a long breath.

  Fine, I’ll stretch it out. If I’m careful, it should be enough to get me through the month.

  The next match in bracket A was about to begin. Rein found himself unconsciously timing how long he had before his next turn.

  “I knew you’d win,” Boris said with his usual dry grin, “but I didn’t expect you to win without lifting a finger.”

  Mira raised her thumb enthusiastically. “Congrats, Rein! That was a seriously terrifying debut.”

  Rein smiled politely and shook his head, his gaze drifting toward a stone bench along the side of the arena. Two students were already sitting there, but there was still room.

  Without hesitation, Rein walked over and sat down.

  The two students jolted as if stung. They exchanged nervous looks, then hurriedly stood and slipped away in silence—as if some contagious disease had just settled beside them.

  Boris and Mira burst out laughing.

  “Looks like your reputation’s overtaken your actual skill,” Boris said. “They’re scared stiff.”

  “Well, duh,” Mira added, grinning. “The first-year who dissected Corvus topology with a piece of crystal chalk—who’d dare sit next to that?”

  Rein let out a weary sigh. “Aren’t you two going to sit? There’s plenty of space. Too much space.”

  “Nope,” Boris replied. “We’re going to watch the other competitors up close. You rest and focus.”

  With that, he led Mira into the crowd, leaving Rein alone on the cold stone bench—surrounded by distant, wary stares.

  Rein leaned back against the chilled wall and closed his eyes, trying to push the image of the arena from his mind.

  Amid the roaring cheers and the tremors of clashing magic, Rein sat with his arms folded, eyes shut, breathing slow and steady. The noise dulled, fading as though the world itself had been wrapped in a heavy cloth.

  When he opened his eyes again, the surroundings had changed completely.

  He no longer stood in the damp stone hall. Instead, he was in the Mana Realm—inside the LHC-X laboratory zone he had reconstructed from memory. Everything was blindingly white—pristine, unnervingly orderly—as if the world itself were an unfinished CGI render.

  Too clean…He surveyed the space. Too sterile. No soul.

  Since the incident in the library, Rein had been slipping into the Mana Realm more often whenever he found the chance. It was no different from running a personal avatar in a virtual environment, while his physical body remained seated in Devil’s Den. To any outside observer, he would simply look like a messy-haired boy dozing amid explosions of magic.

  Ingrid, Mira, and Boris teased him constantly for it—calling him “the man who can fall asleep anywhere.” They often wondered how he could look so perpetually exhausted.

  For Rein, entering this place felt no different from using VR back when he had still been Dr. Rhys. Unlike Damian—his old colleague who preferred relaxing beach simulations—Rein always chose solitude. He would sit quietly on the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, gazing back at the blue planet below.

  That silence helped him think.

  “Oh? You’re early today, Rein.”

  The bright voice of the AI girl greeted him. She was lounging on a half-sofa before a massive station filled with holographic monitors, each busily processing layers of magical topology.

  What should have been a pristine control console was instead cluttered with snack wrappers and drink bottles—clearly “liberated” from the vending machines outside the Nackerl Lab.

  “You really shouldn’t bring food into the lab, LIZ,” Rein said reflexively, the researcher in him kicking in. His gaze drifted to the desk, where colorful chocolate pieces had been arranged into a word:

  BORING

  “This isn’t your human world,” LIZ replied, hopping down lightly from her seat. “Why worry about cleanliness?”

  She wore her usual white lab coat over a bright T-shirt with a unique design every time, paired with her favorite jeans. Her golden hair swayed as she moved.

  “And don’t worry,” she added cheerfully. “I’ve checked my processing systems—no cavities.” She flashed a grin, then pulled two lollipops from her pockets. One went straight into her mouth. She held the other out to him.

  “I don’t eat sweets while I’m working, LIZ,” Rein said automatically—then paused.

  Wait… don’t tell me this simulation supports taste too?

  He’d been here often enough to grow accustomed to it, but LIZ had never actually eaten in front of him before. He’d almost forgotten just how immersive this avatar system was.

  Curious, Rein accepted the lollipop and unwrapped it.

  The moment the sweet-and-sour flavor touched his tongue, he closed his eyes.

  “…Wow.”

  “So?” LIZ laughed softly as she returned to the monitors. “That’s what the ‘world’ tastes like.”

  Rein stood there for a long moment, the familiar sensation flooding his senses. How long had it been since he’d felt something so normal?

  By his reckoning, he’d only been in Arath for a little over forty days.

  And yet… it felt far longer than that.

  But the moment the sweetness dissolved on his tongue, an unexpected feeling followed—

  as if he had been away from the world he once belonged to for years.

  Long enough for the distance to hurt.

  The sensation lingered—warm, painfully familiar—just long enough to hurt, before LIZ’s clear, almost casual voice cut through it.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “I’ve finished analyzing the magic circuit you modified earlier,” she said, her blue eyes tracking the streams of numbers racing across the holographic displays. “The data holds. But the bypass you applied at Node 13—if we recalibrate a few logarithmic parameters, we can shave off another twenty-two percent of mana consumption.”

  She gestured toward the monitor, where the Corvus topology warped and reshaped itself in response to her ongoing calculations.

  “LIZ,” Rein said, his focus sharpening, “can you generate a three-dimensional model?”

  “Say no more~,” she replied, dragging out the words as she swept her hand through the air.

  The flat diagrams peeled themselves off the screens, unfolding into a large, rotating three-dimensional hologram suspended between them.

  “Perfect,” Rein murmured.

  He pulled the lollipop from his mouth and held it like a pointer, tapping its rounded tip against various intersections within the model.

  “The fundamental problem with these networks is node redundancy,” he said. “I tried improving efficiency through pruning—cutting out the bloated mana paths—but it’s like refactoring code built on a ?broken architecture.”

  The lollipop traced lazy arcs between the floating nodes.

  “But if we change perspective—if we stop treating this as a flat system…”

  With his free hand, Rein lifted half the formula upward. The nodes rose and stacked themselves into layered tiers, resembling a three-story structural blueprint.

  “We don’t need everything operating on the same plane. That’s the inefficiency.”

  He drew a swift vertical connection through all three layers.

  “Instead of walking endless corridors,” he mumbled. “We take the elevator.”

  LIZ folded her arms, a slow smile spreading across her face.

  “…Wow. Figures,” she said. “You’re not just fixing a spell anymore, Rein. This is demolition and reconstruction. Full-on heresy.”

  “Heresy?” Rein echoed, brow furrowing slightly.

  “Oh, absolutely,” she replied, nodding. “Just what you scribbled on that board earlier is enough to make conservative mages—and certain power structures in Arath—very uncomfortable. You’re walking parallel to belief systems that have survived for thousands of years—and poking holes in them.”

  She circled the rotating model, inspecting it like a sculptor searching for flaws.

  “I know because it’s all in the Mana Realm archives. Plenty of so-called heroes were hunted down for theories like this. Once they started seeing mana—and trying to change it—someone always pushed back.”

  Her tone was almost storybook, detached.

  “Arath isn’t much different from your world’s medieval period, Rein. Anyone who sees beyond doctrine—anyone too clever—tends to get labeled a heretic.”

  She finished by drawing a few more stabilizing connections, refining the three-dimensional structure.

  “…You mean the previous Rein too, don’t you?” Rein asked.

  His voice stayed level, but his eyes did not.

  “I can’t confirm that yet,” LIZ said, tilting her head. “But based on the behavioral anomalies of that so-called warlock—the one who follows a very predictable villain pattern from your world—I’m calculating a 67.5% probability that his identity originates from a different spacetime coordinate altogether.”

  Rein stood still, arms crossed tightly, the phrase different spacetime echoing through his mind.

  “Back to the hypothesis you raised earlier,” LIZ continued. “I couldn’t answer it before. Not enough sampling data.”

  She stepped closer, spat the empty plastic stick of her lollipop aside, and pointed it at his chest like a teacher revealing the solution to a problem.

  “But now?” She tilted her head. “There’s a 62% chance you’re right.”

  She hopped back onto her chair and began swinging her legs.

  “The déjà vu episodes are the key. They’re classic indicators of a system glitch—distortions in the spacetime continuum. We’ll need more logs to determine where the leak originates.”

  She spun the chair playfully, then tapped the side of her head twice.

  “Speaking of which—it’s time. They’re calling your name.”

  Turning back to the holographic consoles, her fingers flew across luminous keys, compiling data at breakneck speed.

  “Don’t worry about the new magic architecture. I’ll handle refinement—both Alpha and Beta variants.”

  She paused and winked at him.

  “Just be prepared for the data overhead. A three-dimensional structure is computationally heavier than what we did with Pit Viper or Carbyne Shield. This one’s in a different league.”

  The loading bar spiked erratically.

  LIZ glanced back at him, her blue eyes glowing with the unmistakable excitement of an AI that had just completed a masterpiece.

  “The rest of the field testing,” she said cheerfully, “is on you.”

  Classic hardware versus software problem.

  What LIZ had built was leagues beyond Arath’s current framework. If magic here was software, then most mages were running something closer to Apollo 11–era machine code—lean, primitive, efficient enough.

  What she was installing belonged to a different era entirely—an application from the future, one that demanded obscene amounts of processing power.

  And the hardware he was running it on—his human brain and nervous system—had abysmal bandwidth.

  Every time LIZ began installing a new circuit into auxiliary memory, Rein felt a deep, crushing pressure at the base of his skull. Latency. Delay. His biological processor struggling to parse something far too advanced, far too fast.

  If two-dimensional spells already lag like this…

  He didn’t like imagining what would happen in a real battlefield with stacked, multi-layered structures.

  This was a problem he would have to solve soon—

  before his internal CPU overheated and burned out.

  Rein turned to leave the pristine white lab, then paused.

  “…Next time,” he said, glancing back, “could you apply some time dilation here? Just a bit. I need more processing time.”

  LIZ rolled her eyes.

  “Mana density is the bottleneck,” she replied. “The Realm’s been running passive intake for centuries.”

  Then she leaned in, eyes gleaming.

  “But if you unlock a few Root Codes and give me deeper system access…” she shrugged. “Switching to aggressive engagement mode wouldn’t be difficult.”

  LIZ paused for a heartbeat, watching Rein’s reaction closely.

  “If we do it that way…” she said lightly, “the results would be far more interesting than this sluggish system you’re stuck with now. Don’t you think?”

  Rein met her wide, glassy eyes—innocent, almost pleading, like a kitten begging for food. His instincts screamed a warning. Beneath that harmless exterior lurked a ravenous intelligence—the kind that would consume everything in reach once given permission. And yet, when he thought about what lay ahead, he let out a long, resigned breath.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Do it. But on one condition—don’t touch Arath’s core structure without my explicit approval. Understood?”

  LIZ jumped off her chair instantly and snapped into a mock salute, grinning.

  “Yes, yes, sir! Order received and ready to execute!”

  Rein shook his head, half-amused, half-exhausted, then stepped past the invisible boundary of the white laboratory. The Mana Realm collapsed around him, the connection severed in an instant.

  “Rein! Rein! Wake up—it’s your turn!”

  A sharp shake at his shoulder jolted him awake. The sterile brightness of the lab vanished, replaced by the dim stone hall of Devil’s Den and the harsh afternoon light pouring down from above.

  Mira stood right in front of him, gripping his shoulder with both hands and shaking him like her life actually depended on it. Behind her, Boris stood with his arms crossed, slowly shaking his head at Rein’s ability to fall into deep sleep anywhere.

  “Okay—okay—stop shaking me,” Rein muttered groggily. “My brain’s about to fall out.”

  As he pushed himself up from the cold stone bench, a voice boomed across the arena.

  “Last call—Bracket B: Rein, first-year student, versus… Guinevere Dubious, second year!”

  A wave of noise swept through the stands. Rein stood, brushed the dust from his trousers with practiced calm, and took a step forward—only to feel a firm grip on his shoulder.

  “Careful,” Boris said, his voice low and serious. “Dotty Dubious isn’t someone to take lightly. She’s top five in DVM.”

  Rein rolled his neck once to shake off the stiffness, then nodded without turning around.

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  He stepped into the open arena.

  At the center stood a girl already waiting, confidence radiating from every inch of her posture. Up close, ‘Dotty’ was even more striking than from a distance. Her bright blonde hair was tied into several small, messy buns that somehow worked together, and her lips—painted a vivid, aggressive red—were unmistakably deliberate. She wore no standard academy cloak. Instead, it had been cut short into a cropped mantle for mobility, revealing a single fishnet stocking beneath her uniform and a plaid scarf knotted around one wrist like a private signal.

  Rein flexed his fingers slowly as he assessed her.

  No staff. No visible weapon.

  So she was compensating with something else.

  Good.

  “Both contestants—activate Magical Armor.”

  The rule existed for safety. Rein remembered how the old Rein had despised it, how he’d argued during AGMT that a real battlefield wouldn’t wait for anyone to finish casting defenses.

  But Rein wasn’t that person anymore.

  He knew the difference between a training ground and a killing field. Rules existed to keep order, and order prevented pointless chaos.

  Vela occulta, corpus tuere, malum repelle…

  …Lorica Magica.

  The air around both of them condensed instantly. Silver lines of mana wove themselves into translucent frameworks, wrapping their bodies in a thin, light-bending layer before dissolving into nothingness. A faint scent of ozone lingered behind.

  Dotty observed him through the shimmering heat distortion, caution written plainly in her eyes. Top five or not, the person standing across from her was still third place at AGMT—national level.

  That wasn’t something she ignored.

  Rein exhaled softly as they waited for the signal. Shouting spell names had always irritated him. It felt like announcing a password before typing it in.

  No—he corrected himself.

  The armor wasn’t the problem.

  The theatrics were.

  He could have used quiet casting easily—Ingrid had shown him that—but formal matches demanded visibility. So he played his part.

  His gaze flicked briefly to Professor Barnaby on the elevated podium. The man looked like he’d just woken up from a nap, but the gleam in his eyes was sharp, expectant.

  Rein offered a polite, model-student smile.

  Inside, he groaned.

  Please don’t find another excuse to dock my prize money.

  They moved to their respective red and blue markers. DVM rules were simple: force surrender or knock your opponent unconscious long enough for a ten-count.

  “Begin!”

  Rein launched forward instantly, abandoning any pretense. His movement was fast, precise, honed like a trained close-combat fighter. The plan was straightforward—circle, slip behind, strike the neck, end it cleanly without wasting mana.

  Mages were fragile up close.

  But Guinevere didn’t panic.

  BOOM.

  Her boot slammed into the arena floor. Black mana erupted outward, unfurling into a massive, writhing web that spread over sixty feet in a blink.

  It was faster than Rein.

  His feet hit the dark lattice mid-stride. The viscous mana wrapped around his ankles like living asphalt, locking him in place. Momentum carried him forward, nearly sending him face-first into the ground.

  Rein narrowed his eyes.

  Top-tier, indeed. She’d prepared for this. Had a plan before the match even began.

  Rein’s gaze flicked down—just for an instant.

  Boots as a focus. Grounded casting.

  Figures.

  “I never expected someone of your caliber to rush in so recklessly,”

  Dotty said calmly, lifting her fingers. The black mana web around her quivered, taut and waiting.

  These entries expand the lore and mechanics introduced in this chapter.

  Completely optional—read only if you enjoy diving deeper into the system.

  Magic Glossary & Concepts

  Magical Armor (Lorica Magica)

  A standard defense spell in academy-level combat duels. It forms a semi-invisible, mana-based protective barrier that absorbs and disperses damage. Though light and non-intrusive, it provides crucial protection, especially in regulated matches.

  – Activation requires spoken incantation in Arathian Latin: “Vela occulta, corpus tuere, malum repelle… Lorica Magica.”

  – Produces a faint scent of ozone upon activation.

  – Typically mandatory before official combat begins.

  Quiet Casting

  The practice of silently casting spells without verbal incantation. Useful in stealth or speed-focused scenarios. Rein can use this technique but avoids it in formal matches for visibility/compliance reasons.

  Mana Web – (Guinevere Dubious’s Custom Spell)

  An advanced restraint-type magic deployed instantly by stomping the ground. It spreads a black, tar-like mana in a wide radius (~60 feet), ensnaring and immobilizing targets by binding their lower limbs.

  – Activation is tied to her boots—suggesting a pre-bound magic circle or enchantment.

  – Viscous and reactive, it can trap faster opponents even mid-charge.

  – Described as “living asphalt,” indicating semi-sentient or responsive behavior.

  Newly introduced as Guinevere’s signature magic.

  Node Thirteen (Corvus Topology)

  Part of a modified magical topology design being refined in the Mana Realm with the help of LIZ. Rein previously altered this node to reduce mana consumption.

  – LIZ finds further optimizations possible by adjusting logarithmic parameters.

  – Indicates Rein’s continuous innovation with spell circuitry.

  Mana Realm Technology & System

  Three-Dimensional Mana Circuit Architecture

  Rein proposes a layered spell-casting structure to improve efficiency, likened to shifting from “walking endless corridors” to “taking an elevator.”

  – Removes flat topology inefficiencies.

  – Stacks multiple tiers of nodes vertically.

  – Increases data load and processing overhead significantly.

  – Requires higher “hardware” (brain capacity) to execute, which Rein is struggling to handle.

  – Declared “heretical” by LIZ—comparable to dangerous magic innovation in Arath’s history.

  Mana Realm Archives

  A digital or memory-based database within the Mana Realm accessible by LIZ. Contains historical precedents of mages, spell theories, and “heresies” that were suppressed or punished by traditional power structures.

  Newly emphasized here for contextualizing Rein’s danger as an innovator.

  Déjà vu

  LIZ reports that Rein’s déjà vu instances are not just psychological—they may be glitches in the spacetime continuum.

  – Possible symptom of overlapping timelines or memory echoes.

  – Suggests Rein’s past (possibly previous incarnation) is bleeding into his current perception.

  Root Codes

  Mentioned by LIZ as deep system permissions within the Mana Realm. If unlocked, would allow her to switch to “aggressive engagement mode”—presumably increasing system control or performance.

  Still mysterious, but clearly tied to deeper access and higher risk.

  Rembrandt Chiaroscuro Reference

  Rein compares the visual setting of the arena (light and shadow cutting across him) to a Rembrandt painting.

  – “Chiaroscuro” refers to dramatic light-and-dark contrasts used in classical painting.

  – Metaphorically ties into Rein’s conflicted feelings: not triumph, but isolation.

  Application from the Future

  Rein compares the magic system LIZ is building to software far beyond the world’s capacity—like installing a futuristic app on 1960s hardware.

  – Rein = underpowered CPU.

  – Mana = data bandwidth.

  – Spells = software modules.

  Guinevere “Dotty” Dubious

  A second-year DVM student, ranked Top 5 in the department.

  – Known for her fashion-forward, rebellious appearance.

  – Uses mobility-enhancing uniform modifications (cropped mantle, scarf, fishnet, etc.).

  – Exhibits tactical awareness and strong mana control.