A satisfied smile crept across Barnaby’s face as he shifted in his floating chair, eyes fixed on the arena below. He knew Guinevere Dubious well—knew her talent and knew her father’s name carried weight even among the faculty.

  By convention, Guinevere Dubious should have enrolled in the Department of Dark Magic to inherit her family’s legacy—one that had served the royal court for generations. She had refused outright.

  She believed her abilities belonged at DVM—or at least, that was where she could use them best. Her unconventional choices—such as converting her boots into conduits for deploying a spiderweb field—were proof enough. Guinevere excelled not at memorizing grimoires, but at bending magic into something uniquely her own, rather than stagnating in departments shackled to obsolete tomes.

  Her defiance of tradition had been infamous long before she entered the Academy. Combined with her habit of constantly assessing the battlefield, Barnaby classified Guinevere as a true field-control mage.

  Once someone stepped into her web, survival was unlikely. The more a victim struggled—or tried to fight back—the faster their own mana was dragged into the structure.

  Barnaby chuckled softly. Not at Guinevere herself, but at the trick he had suggested: integrating dark-mage mana drain techniques into the spiderweb’s structure. It consumed vastly more mana from the caster—but it also made her one of the most dangerous students in DVM.

  The web didn’t merely restrain.

  It drained mana—the moment a spell was cast.

  “The more unorthodox you are,” Barnaby murmured, stroking his chin, eyes fixed on the first-year bound at the center of the field, “the better you fit Devil’s Den. Now then… what will you do, you little monster?”

  Then he froze.

  By instinct, any ordinary mage trapped in a spiderweb domain would panic—thrash, or unleash spells in blind retaliation. Guinevere had prepared for all of that.

  What Barnaby saw instead was a messy-haired boy squatting calmly.

  Rein pulled a long, plain black object from his coat and carefully prodded the sticky webbing on the ground, studying it with quiet focus.

  For a moment, Barnaby wondered—

  Did he forget he was in a match?

  The thought echoed not only in Barnaby’s mind, but in the stunned silence of the audience—and Guinevere herself.

  Rein ignored them all. He lightly tapped the black strands with Nightfall, muttering under his breath.

  “Interesting… Structurally different from Belle’s Shadow Bind,” he muttered. “Longer range. But the adhesion’s weaker.”

  A faint glimmer appeared where Nightfall met the web. Rein readjusted the angle, testing the flow.

  “Hm… mana absorption too. Figures—you’re just like them, Nightfall. No—‘Nighty’ suits you better.”

  Guinevere pressed her lips into a thin line.

  She had been ready to deploy a Magic Shield and let her opponent exhaust himself. The harder he attacked, the more mana the web would siphon back to her. A perfect plan—just wait, and win.

  But when the prey refused to struggle, the plan unraveled.

  Then I change tactics.

  Her calm gaze sharpened. The nickname “Dotty” came from the eight primary mana anchors, the dots binding her domain.

  Eight black points around Rein warped. They burst from the floor as obsidian spikes—jagged, nearly three feet tall, and still growing.

  “This might hurt a little, Rein.”

  Dark Spike.

  Her most lethal spell. At four feet, all eight spikes would converge, impaling the trapped target with no escape.

  But just before they reached killing range—

  Rein, still crouched, raised one hand.

  Snap.

  A single finger snap.

  White light detonated less than five feet from Guinevere’s face—compressed, overdriven, forced into density far beyond a standard flare.

  Guinevere recoiled instinctively. Her vision washed out to pure white as she shut her eyes to protect her pupils.

  Not just her—the audience, even Barnaby on the dais, turned away from the blinding flash.

  A flare? No—far stronger than a standard flare.

  Even without sight, Barnaby understood. This wasn’t a basic spell, but a refined manipulation of mana structure—forcing radiant output to peak in a single instant. A brutally simple sensory attack, perfectly tuned to cripple a control mage who relied on vision.

  Guinevere lost her rhythm—and her sight. But she wasn’t inexperienced. Even as Dark Spike remained incomplete, she commanded the attack toward the pre-locked coordinates.

  All eight spikes surged forward at once.

  Thwick-Thwick-Thwick!

  “Rein—!” Mira cried.

  As the light faded, Guinevere, Barnaby, and the nearest spectators opened their watering eyes.

  The black spikes had pierced the exact spot where Rein had been standing.

  Or so Guinevere thought.

  Only a pair of black boots remained. Pinned to the web.

  Empty.

  Where is Rein?

  Her gaze swept the arena—

  And a calm, icy voice spoke from directly behind her.

  “This might hurt a little.”

  CRACK!

  Guinevere’s Magical Armor shattered like glass struck by a hammer. Her thoughts went white again as her body collapsed face-first onto the arena floor, unconscious.

  Barnaby, dabbing tears from his eyes, froze.

  Rein stood behind her, hand still poised from a completed strike.

  Then Barnaby’s eyes dropped.

  Bare feet.

  No—floating.

  Rein hovered inches above the ground. Beneath his soles, a small mana circuit glowed faintly, keeping him from touching the spiderweb.

  “…Levitate?” Barnaby whispered.

  “The spell medics use to move patients?”

  Barnaby could scarcely believe his eyes.

  The boy had compressed and miniaturized a spell circle down to barely half a foot in diameter—just enough to serve as a temporary foothold. The veteran professor couldn’t help the crooked smile that crept across his face.

  Now this…

  This finally makes sitting through a children’s sparring match worthwhile.

  Rein turned and offered Barnaby—and the third-year judges beside him—a polite smile.

  Please start the count.

  “…Eight… nine… ten!”

  “The winner of this match—Rein, first-year!”

  The official announcement echoed through the arena, swallowed almost immediately by a rising wave of stunned murmurs. Most of the audience still hadn’t grasped what they’d just witnessed—

  how Rein had escaped the web and appeared behind Dotty within a few heartbeats.

  While the arena buzzed with confusion, the messy-haired boy calmly walked back toward the remains of the spiderweb spell, now crumbling into black dust. He picked up his boots.

  Afternoon sunlight streamed through coin-sized holes punched clean through the leather,

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  spilling across his face.

  Rein let out a long sigh and raked a hand through his hair, making it even messier than before.

  “Subtracting the cost of a new pair of boots…” he muttered.

  “Looks like about twenty-eight percent of the prize money is gone.”

  “This is a disaster.”

  A few minutes later, he pushed through the still-whispering crowd and dropped back onto the same stone bench as before. Waiting for him were Boris and Mira—his two biggest creditors—both staring down at his sorry state.

  All three of them focused on the sight of Rein’s big toe poking cheerfully through the torn boot. He crossed one leg over the other and wiggled his toes in irritation.

  “Second round in, and I already need new boots,” he said flatly. “If the next rounds start costing me clothes, I’ll be running at a net loss.”

  Boris shook with barely contained laughter before replying. “You’re the one who ditched the boots yourself. If you’d taken the Dark Spike head-on with Magic Armor, they wouldn’t be this wrecked.” He shrugged. “Of course,” he added, “you might not be sitting here wiggling your toes right now either.”

  “Wait—what are you two even talking about?” Mira blurted out, pouting. “After that blinding flash, I couldn’t see anything at all!”

  Rein raised an eyebrow, then turned to Boris. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  Boris nodded with a faint smile and tapped a finger against his own eye. When Rein looked closer, he noticed layers of tiny arcane glyphs shimmering faintly within the dull gray irises.

  “If I’m going to survive at DVM,” Boris said casually, “I need a few tricks of my own. It’s called The Eye of the Beholder. Lets me shift my viewpoint—within a fixed range.” He smiled thinly. “Everyone has their secrets, right?”

  So that’s it, Rein thought, glancing toward the empty air above the arena.

  He’s built a surveillance grid—multiple viewpoints stitched together and processed through that spell. A dangerous tactical analyst.

  “And?” Mira pressed impatiently. “What actually happened?”

  “After Rein used that eye-searing Flare,” Boris explained, folding his arms, “he took his boots off immediately.” He shot Rein a knowing look. “You pretended to probe Dotty’s web with that black rod, but your other hand was already undoing the straps.”

  Rein didn’t respond—just let the corner of his mouth curl upward while his exposed toes continued to wiggle.

  “Before the spikes hit, you launched yourself. Clean and fast. If I had to guess, you used some kind of thrust spell to lift off fast, cleared Dotty while she was blinded, landed behind her, and then—”

  Boris chopped his hand through the air.

  So even the Eye of the Beholder has blind spots, Rein noted inwardly.

  He saw me levitate, but not the mana circuit under my feet.

  “I see…” Mira murmured, nodding slowly. Then she frowned, tapping a finger against her lips.

  “But wait. A simple palm strike shouldn’t be enough to shatter a second-year’s Magical Armor. Pure physical force alone shouldn’t penetrate it like that.”

  Rein chuckled softly and raised the hand he’d used to strike. Faint scars—old ones—lined his knuckles.

  “My memories aren’t complete,” he said, “but I get the feeling I trained in close-quarters combat pretty seriously. Confident I could hold my own against a Bronze-rank fighter, at least.”

  He didn’t add the rest—that he’d deliberately held back. If he’d layered Might Enhancement into that strike, Dotty’s outcome wouldn’t have differed much from Belle.

  Mira made a face and muttered, half to herself, “Seriously… are you sure you’re a mage?”

  Rein didn’t answer. He just smiled faintly—while privately considering the question himself.

  That… is something I’m still not sure about either.

  By all available data, the way the previous Rein had used magic differed ?from conventional mages. In Arath, spellcasters began by sensing mana, controlling it, and releasing it through circuits aligned with their innate element—a process that required years of training until it became instinct.

  It was like constructing a building entirely from imagination. A mage had to be both architect and craftsman; lose focus, and the structure collapsed before completion.

  An analog system—slow, fragile, human.

  But the previous Rein possessed something beyond that—Mana Vision. He could see spell structures directly, copy them as if blueprints hovered in midair. All he had to do was place mana bricks according to what he saw. Fast. Precise. Efficient.

  Digital casting.

  And what about me now? Rein wondered.

  He could see those blueprints too—but he wasn’t content to simply rebuild old designs. What fascinated him was fixing the flaws in magical architecture itself.

  In high-load situations, he delegated execution to LIZ—an autonomous construction system, a high-resolution 3D printer that assembled spell frameworks and managed mana flow down to the particle level.

  What remained was strategy. Proportion. Design.

  Working alongside a quantum supercomputer—something no language in this world could properly explain.

  So what was he now?

  A mage?

  Or something beyond that?

  Rein exhaled softly, letting the unanswered question drift away, and returned his attention to his toes greeting the open air.

  Then came another surprise.

  The quarterfinal opponent withdrew because of injuries sustained in the previous round, advancing Rein straight into the semifinals—free, except for the boots.

  “Is this even a tournament anymore,” Barnaby muttered, “or should we just hand the trophy to that little monster?”

  And just like that, Rein moved on.

  Once again, without lifting a finger.

  Only a few dozen minutes passed before the quarterfinals began—and ended just as quickly.

  Four competitors remained: two third-years, one second-year—and a single first-year.

  Rein.

  Barnaby called for a brief recess, giving the final four time to prepare.

  Naturally, in Mira’s and Boris’s eyes, Rein simply went back to doing what he always did.

  Sleeping.

  Half an hour later, the semifinals began.

  Rein stepped onto the arena floor to face a third-year whose name he didn’t bother remembering. The senior stood tall, spell staff in hand, eyes burning with ambition—and with a very specific intent.

  “I’ll face you with lightning,” the senior declared. “I’ll prove to everyone who the true lightning wielder really is.”

  Everyone watching knew the truth.

  Troposphere-tier lightning magic was built for disruption—interference, signal scrambling, sensory harassment.

  To most combat mages, spells at this level had no place on a real battlefield. If they wanted decisive force, they had to reach the Stratosphere-tier.

  And this third-year had chosen to walk the same path as the legend the former Rein had left behind.

  He was using the same strategy Rein had employed to claim third place at the national AGMT—inscribed Troposphere-tier lightning spells into Lightning Crystals to bypass his own mana limits.

  The number of charges was fewer than what Rein had once achieved, but the destructive power was still more than enough to dominate anyone in his year.

  “Begin!”

  The third-year struck his staff against the ground.

  A wave of static electricity burst outward.

  “Static Field!”

  Pale blue charge shimmered through the air. A twelve-foot radius around him became a violent electromagnetic zone—strong enough to scramble basic spell circuits and prevent casting altogether.

  As Rein hesitated for a fraction of a second, the senior raised his staff overhead. White-blue light erupted wildly from the lightning crystal.

  “Lightning Bolt!”

  Despite the name, the bolt stretched nearly three feet long—compressed lightning, forced into a dense, penetrating form.

  “You’re not special, Rein!” the senior shouted over the thunder. “Without tricks like this, you’re just a lucky, mediocre lightning mage!”

  The bolt fired.

  Blinding light flooded the arena, thunder cracking hard enough to rattle bone.

  Rein narrowed his eyes, watching the incoming lightning calmly. His lips moved—barely.

  Sagitta Magica.

  “Magic Missile.”

  A basic cantrip—pure mana condensed into a lance of light—fired instantly. It collided with the Lightning Bolt at the point of maximum symmetry.

  BOOM.

  The spells canceled out midair, the shockwave ripping through both combatants.

  The third-year frowned, disbelief flashing across his face. He unleashed everything stored in his staff—five Lightning Bolts in rapid succession, twisting arcs of blue-white fury.

  One shot remained.

  The finisher.

  He was waiting for Rein to dodge or leap—just like with Dotty. If Rein went airborne, there would be no avoiding the final strike.

  But before the five bolts could reach him, a new volley of Magic Missiles launched—faster than before—intercepting each strike perfectly.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  Impossible! the senior screamed internally.

  Magic Missile can’t cast faster than Lightning Bolt!

  The accumulated force detonated across the arena. With his stored attacks neutralized, he was forced to play his last card sooner than planned.

  He raised his staff—

  And the crystal at its tip exploded.

  BANG!

  The Lightning Crystal shattered into dust as catastrophic backlash surged back through the circuit.

  PRANK! His Magical Armor shattered instantly.

  His mind went blank—questions dissolving into static—as his body was hurled backward. Residual electricity wracked his fallen form uncontrollably.

  Barnaby sprang halfway out of his levitating chair, gripping the armrest as it wobbled violently.

  “That little monster—he fired Magic Missile before the Lightning Bolt’s spell ring even finished forming!”

  The professor muttered, pushing his glasses back into place, then slammed a fist onto the armrest, laughing.

  “Magic Missile is supposed to be a joke—cheap, weak, barely worth mentioning. But it’s fast. And it costs almost nothing.”

  Barnaby’s belly shook as he laughed harder.

  “That kid traded a handful of mana for a Stratosphere-tier spell, one-for-one! That’s daylight robbery! And then he targeted the staff at peak load to trigger a backlash.”

  “He didn’t even let the other guy use his trump card.”

  According to Academy doctrine, mages usually ignored incoming Magic Missiles—letting armor tank the hit while they finished casting something decisive.

  Rein shattered that logic.

  He aimed at the focus device itself, using inhuman precision to turn the opponent’s weapon into a bomb.

  Barnaby grinned and pulled out a small notebook, scribbling furiously.

  Perfect material for the next book.

  Rein stood where he was, barely having moved. His calm gaze followed the third-year being carried off the field.

  To others, it looked like a miracle.

  To Rein, it wasn’t.

  He’d read everything the moment the spell ring began forming.

  He knew exactly how long it would take to complete—and where its blind spots were.

  He’d studied that spell until he could see it with his eyes closed.

  The Lightning Bolt this senior used wasn’t even the former Rein’s version. It was outdated—rigid mana lines, no flexibility, massive energy leakage into the surrounding atmosphere.

  A copy… including all the flaws, Rein thought, exhaling softly.

  You copied the worst version of Rein.

  The inefficient one.

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

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

  Key Characters

  Guinevere Dubious

  A student of the Department of Variant Magic (DVM), and daughter of a prominent family of dark mages who have long served the royal court. Guinevere, however, rejected the Department of Dark Magic and instead chose DVM, where she could experiment with hybrid techniques. Known for her use of environmental field-control magic, especially her custom Spiderweb Field integrated with mana-drain components. Nicknamed "Dotty" because of the eight anchor points in her field.

  Magic Codex

  Spiderweb Field

  A specialized field-control spell developed by Guinevere Dubious. It creates a magical spiderweb on the battlefield, which acts as both a restraint and a mana-draining trap.

  Any spell cast within the web gets partially absorbed and fed back to Guinevere, increasing her control. Vulnerable to opponents who don’t struggle or fight back traditionally.

  Dark Spike

  Guinevere’s lethal execution spell that deploys eight growing obsidian spikes from her web’s anchor points. When fully grown (up to 4 feet), the spikes converge and impale the trapped target. It's meant to finish off those caught in the web.

  Flash Flare (Rein’s Custom Spell)

  A modified version of the Flare spell, used by Rein. He overdrives the radiant output into a single instant to create a blinding white flash. Unlike the basic Flare, this one disables sight-based control mages like Guinevere by overloading their senses.

  Levitate (Rein’s Custom Spell)

  A customized application of the Wind-element Levitate spell. Rein condenses the spell circle to less than 6 inches in diameter and casts it directly under his feet to float above trap-based terrain. This version is soft, silent, and offers precise mobility.

  Eye of the Beholder

  A vision-based magic employed by Boris. This spell allows the user to shift their perspective within a limited range, effectively creating a personal surveillance grid. Rein deduces that Boris uses multiple viewpoints stitched together to analyze battles tactically.

  Items

  Lightning Crystal (Reused Concept)

  The third-year opponent used inscribed Lightning Crystals to bypass his own casting limitations—similar to Rein’s former national tournament strategy. However, the current Rein calls out the outdated mana lines and inefficiency of the replication, which lacked flexibility and led to energy leakage.