Cold stone pressed against his back—sharp enough to feel like punishment. When he forced his eyes open, his vision swam through smoke and drifting ash.
He was lying in the ruins of a basement that no longer existed.
The ceiling had collapsed, exposing a jagged slice of night sky. Far beyond the broken beams and jagged stone, lightning flickered behind distant clouds—brief, violent flashes that made the wreckage twitch like a corpse under a strobe.
The walls were cracked open. Shelves had been torn apart and scattered like bones. A few stubborn flames still licked at splintered wood, but most of it had already collapsed into blackened stumps. Smoke hung thick in the air, choking the remains of the cabin as if the place itself refused to die quietly.
Footsteps—fast, urgent—cut through the haze toward him.
Rein tried to push himself up—his body seized, and agony drowned him. Pain rolled through him in a single, merciless surge. For a second, his vision threatened to go white again.
Backlash—Prototype Haste’s side effects were worse than he’d calculated.
His nerves and muscles felt scorched from the inside out, as if molten wire had been poured through his veins. It was overload—violent enough that it felt like his body might tear itself apart if he moved the wrong way.
“Rein! Rein—he’s here!”
Mira’s voice broke through the smoke, raw with panic, followed by more footsteps rushing through the smoke.
Rein squinted, blinking through the sting in his eyes, until the shapes sharpened into faces.
Mira. Boris.
Relief hit their faces so hard it almost looked painful.
And behind them—unhurried, as if time itself owed her favors—came a tall, composed figure Rein recognized instantly.
Master Alvira.
She was still dressed like she’d stepped out of a night gig rather than a battlefield: sharp uniform, polished leather shoes, heavy black eyeliner that made her gaze look even colder than it already was. A cigarette rested lazily between her lips, as if smoke was part of her natural atmosphere.
She didn’t rush or react—merely folded her arms and looked down at Rein.
The boy was a wreck: hair matted, left arm torn up, his body barely holding together while Mira and Boris struggled to keep him upright.
“Impressive,” Alvira said at last, her voice flat as ever. “Lightning boy—less than a month back, and you’ve already caused another incident.”
Rein coughed, the sound rough in his throat. “I… wasn’t trying to cause trouble, Master Alvira.”
“Oh, really.” She took the cigarette from her mouth with two fingers and exhaled a long stream of gray smoke. “Then student parties these days are getting a little too… lively.”
Her eyes drifted over the wreckage with bored precision.
“Lycanthropes. Zombies. Skeletons. A headless knight.”
She paused, as if checking a list in her head. “Oh. And demon fog.”
She said it the way someone might comment on the weather.
Then she lifted one hand and flicked her wrist.
The remaining flames died instantly—snuffed out so cleanly it looked unnatural. The smoke above them, thick enough to blot out the stars, suddenly shifted. It flowed downward, gathering as if pulled by an unseen gravity, compressing into a dense black sphere above her palm.
Alvira squeezed it.
The sphere shrank—tightening, hardening—until it was no bigger than a stone.
Then she tossed it aside without a second thought, like she’d just thrown away a piece of trash.
“Hm.” She took a slow drag again. “That’s better. Breathing’s easier now.”
A perfect smoke ring drifted from her lips—smooth, precise, almost elegant—floating lazily in the air as if the world hadn’t just tried to kill them.
Rein, Mira, and Boris could only stare.
What kind of magic turns smoke into something solid?
Even Rein—who’d seen too much to be easily impressed—felt a flicker of awe.
He turned his head toward Boris and gave him a small nod. “Good work.”
Rein remembered whispering it earlier—before the “party” began.
“Send a messenger magic bird to DVM. Reinforcements. Now.”
Boris scratched the back of his head, embarrassed—and still a little out of breath. “It wasn’t just me. I figured my usual messenger wouldn’t make it through the demon fog you warned about… so I asked Mira to handle it instead.”
“Mira?” Rein raised an eyebrow and looked at the short-haired girl beside him.
Her face was smudged with soot and dust, streaked with the mess of survival, yet she still managed to beam at him like nothing in the world could truly break her.
“Mhm!” Mira lifted her right hand carefully.
A faint shadow clung to the back of it—small, swallow-like. But it wasn’t a normal bird. A thin shimmer of light traced its outline, and something about the way it perched there felt unnaturally alive, like a spell that had learned to breathe.
“This is Swifty,” she said proudly. “DVM’s fastest courier familiar. Even if we’re completely surrounded, he always finds a gap.”
Rein stared at the tiny familiar, then back at Mira.
A thought surfaced instantly—sharp, grudging.
Looks like I underestimated this… little troublemaker.
“We were lucky,” Mira added, suddenly more serious. “The demon fog hadn’t sealed the area completely yet. But still… it took Swifty a while to slip through. And getting Master Alvira here in time…”
She swallowed, forcing a laugh that sounded too close to fear.
“I really thought I was going to end up as werewolf food.”
Rein turned toward Alvira, sincerity cutting through his exhaustion. “Thank you for coming, Master Alvira.” His voice came out rough. “Seriously.”
Alvira’s gaze slid back to him, indifferent as ever. She frowned slightly, then corrected him without warmth.
“I didn’t come to save you.” She gestured vaguely at the ruins. “I came to clean up the annoying trash around here.”
The cigarette glowed faintly as she took another drag—calm, unbothered, inevitable.
The one who actually shattered the time-domain around this cabin…”
She lifted a finger, pointing upward. “…was him.
CRACK—!
Lightning slammed into the ground barely twenty feet away, white-hot and blinding.
The blast shook the air so hard Rein felt it rattle his teeth. Mira and Boris flinched violently, and Rein’s head snapped toward the strike, eyes wide despite the pain.
As the glare faded and the smoke thinned, Rein finally saw him.
The same figure he’d glimpsed from inside the warped underground dimension—floating above the wreckage with lightning roaring behind him like a god’s halo.
Master Aiden—one of the Academy’s Five Disciples. A Mesosphere-tier, and one of the strongest on the continent.
Aiden looked like he belonged on a stage, not a battlefield.
Black leather jacket. Metal studs catching the lightning’s flash. Dark hair spiked into sharp quills like a crown of needles, silver earrings glinting at his ears. And this time, he wore black sunglasses—ridiculous under a stormy night sky—and somehow that only made him look more dangerous.
He tilted his head side to side as if loosening his neck, then strode toward them with relaxed confidence. He smiled and waved at Master Alvira like a celebrity spotting another celebrity at a gala.
Alvira clicked her tongue—sharp, irritated—and looked away.
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Rein watched the scene with a strange, exhausted disbelief.
A punk professor… and a rockstar Disciple?
DVM really was the Academy’s home for perfectly functional outcasts.
“Hi!” Aiden said brightly, his voice casual, almost friendly. “We meet again. You’re… uh…”
His head tipped slightly, like he was trying to remember a chorus.
“Rein, right?”
He chuckled. “Master Chloe asked me to keep an eye on you. Said you’re a surprisingly interesting little menace.”
Aiden nudged his sunglasses down a fraction—just enough to make it feel deliberate.
“Unlucky timing, though,” he added with a playful confidence that bordered on arrogance. “I’ve been busy lately. You know how it is—being popular always comes with a price.”
“G-good evening, Master Aiden!” Mira and Boris stood immediately and bowed instantly.
They both shot frantic looks at Rein, silently begging him to do the same.
But Rein was still half-broken, his mind lagging behind reality.
Alvira spoke without turning her head. “You’re not going to greet your Head of DVM, Rein?”
Wait. Don’t tell me this ridiculous rockstar-looking man… was actually the Head of DVM?
Rein drew a deep breath, forcing his mind to lock back into place.
He still hadn’t recovered enough to stand, but he made himself bow anyway—awkward, half-collapsed on the stone—like a man bowing from the bottom of a pit.
“S-sir… Master Aiden.”
Aiden waved it off as if Rein had just apologized for bumping into him in a hallway.
“Oh, don’t do that. Those fussy little Academy rules?” He clicked his tongue. “I’ve never cared much for them.”
Then his tone shifted—not dramatic, not sharp, but suddenly more focused.
“Anyway…”
Static prickled in the air.
Behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, something moved. His gaze swept over Rein from head to toe with an unsettling thoroughness—like a predator measuring a wound.
“Did you see it?” he asked. “Did you secure the Relic that caused this time-domain?”
Rein’s jaw tightened.
His mind spun—fast, cold—running through outcomes like branching code. If he lied too cleanly, it would sound rehearsed. If he told the whole truth, he’d be handing a loaded weapon to someone whose authority he couldn’t yet measure.
So he chose the only answer that fit the board: the truth—half of it.
“It was a black-bound book,” Rein said carefully. “Kellen and the others… they were experimenting with it without realizing it was a Relic. Something dangerous. Twisted into a shape that defies control.”
Aiden’s head tilted slightly. “And where is it now?” The air held still.
His eyes were hidden—yet Rein still felt them—flicked around the ruins again, as if expecting to see an intact artifact sitting politely in the rubble.
“It’s gone,” Rein replied, keeping his voice as steady as he could. “When you shattered the domain from the outside… the shockwave hit the basement. The book’s structure couldn’t take the shock. It broke apart—right in front of me.”
Aiden nudged his sunglasses up a fraction, slow and thoughtful. The gesture was almost lazy, but it made the hair on Rein's neck stand on end.
For a moment, the rockstar charm drained away, replaced by something sharper—like the pause before a chord change.
As if he were trying to decide whether Rein was hiding something… or simply surviving.
Then Aiden exhaled and turned, shoulders lifting in a loose shrug toward Master Alvira.
“Damn.” He sounded genuinely annoyed—though not at Rein. “Looks like I don’t have Chloe’s luck with recoveries. Another Relic destroyed on my watch.”
“That’s because you don’t know the meaning of ‘gentle,’” Alvira drawled.
Aiden threw his hands up. “This is gentle.”
He gestured broadly at the scorched wreckage, as if presenting the aftermath like a stage set.
“See? I even left some remains behind. And most importantly—this time, we’ve got three students alive.”
“Three…” Rein repeated, the word thinner than it should’ve been.
His eyes shifted to Mira and Boris. “What about Dana?” Rein asked, and hated how small his voice sounded.
Mira’s expression wavered. “Dana… she ran outside. Alone.”
Guilt made her voice shake, like she’d been holding it back by force.
“We tried to stop her. We really did.” Mira swallowed hard. “She wouldn’t listen.”
“I… I don’t know what happened after that. Out there.”
“She’s dead.”
Alvira cut in—flat, almost gentle only because she refused to dramatize it.
She paused, the cigarette ember glowing faintly as she took a slow drag—replaying it.
“The fog swallowed her while she was still breathing. At first I thought I’d managed it—killed the fog’s source, dragged her back”
Alvira’s brow furrowed, just slightly.
“But then something didn’t add up. The moment I killed the fog’s mana core… Dana’s body—still lying there, still warm—started dissolving into black dust. In the span of a breath.”
She exhaled smoke, eyes narrowing as if replaying the scene again.
“As if… the fog and the girl had already become the same thing.”
They’d passed the point of return a long time ago, Rein thought.
He knew better than anyone what that loop-dimension did. In that domain, lives weren’t just killed—they were eroded, overwritten until flesh and consciousness became components instead of people.
When the Ekhosar collapsed, everything it had rewritten would collapse with it.
There had been no one left to save.
“Maybe that cursed book wasn’t just a Relic that grants power,” Aiden said, hands shoved deep into his pockets as he paced across the rubble. “Maybe it devours the user—turns their identity into fuel, merges them into itself to stabilize the domain.”
He stopped, looking back at the three of them.
“Either way… lucky, in a twisted sort of way. You three still had enough resistance to survive being processed.”
Aiden turned to Alvira, casual again, as if assigning a simple chore.
“Alvira. Get them treated. I’ll keep sweeping the area.”
Boris and Mira helped Rein up. His weight sagged between them, each step uneven. They began the slow walk back toward the Devil’s Den, with Master Alvira trailing behind them in silence—an escort that didn’t need to announce itself.
As they cut through the forest path, Rein’s eyes drifted to the trees.
Or what was left of them.
The pinewood that had once stood thick and towering was now snapped and scattered across a wide swath, as if a giant hand had swept through and never looked back.
Alvira noticed the question in Rein’s stare.
She answered with the same bored tone someone might use to complain about dirty dishes.
“Oh, that?” she said. “There were undead crawling all over. I didn’t feel like dealing with them one by one, so… I gathered them up and “swept” the whole lot away in one go.”
Rein only nodded.
But inside his head, numbers were already forming.
Master Alvira… at minimum, she’s Stratosphere-tier.
That kind of destructive output—ripping up dozens of massive trees, erasing an entire belt of forest with a single action—wasn’t just “strong.”
It was absurd—and it drew a line Rein couldn’t ignore.
Compared to what he had now…
He might as well be walking into war with a pistol while his enemies rolled out tanks and heavy artillery.
And Master Aiden?
That guy was worse—harder to quantify. His power wasn’t just output. It was pure, effortless control. His lightning precision could tear open the Ekhosar’s time-domain and pulverize a cabin with the first strike—without a single student catching a splinter.
Rein had nearly died trapped inside a time-cage, clawing for an exit.
If his opponent hadn’t been Kellen—someone near his own level—but a mage like Alvira…
He would’ve died, again and again, without even understanding how.
Mana output and control. And right now… I had neither. Rein thought, the conclusion hardening like a nail driven into wood.
That’s my bottleneck.
If his core mana circles stayed sealed like this, he’d never reach beyond Troposphere-tier—not in raw power, no matter how many techniques he stole, how many plans he built.
He’d defeated Stratosphere-tier invaders once before—yes—but that victory had been a perfect intersection: his plan, Chloe’s plan, and the enemy’s arrogance folding into the same moment.
In a direct clash?
Would my tricks, patterns, the techniques I’d fought so hard to earn… even matter against a real mage?
The doubt gnawed at him as their footsteps crunched over broken wood.
They were brought to the DVM infirmary.
It wasn’t grand, not like the Department of Healing—no glittering sanctums, no ceremonial arrays of high-tier restorative magic. Instead, it was practical—cramped with survival tools and the smell of bitter medicine.
Thick cabinets lined with jars of recovery potion, specialized spell scrolls, and extracted herbal medicines in colors Rein had never seen in any text—some faintly luminous, some disturbingly dull.
Thankfully, DVM had a healer on duty.
She wasn’t a legendary healer like Master Chloe, but for injuries caused by failed experiments… her hands moved with the competence of someone who’d spent a lifetime cleaning up disasters.
A sturdy, heavyset woman came hurrying in, hair half-tied, sleeves already rolled up, not long after they arrived, already grumbling at full volume about how the Devil’s Den students managed to attract catastrophe every single day—and how she hadn’t slept properly in ages because of it.
Even as she complained, her fingers worked with swift precision.
“Master Alvira!” the healer barked, glaring at the cigarette like it had personally insulted her. “This is an infirmary. No smoking. Absolutely not.”
Alvira actually paused.
For a brief moment, the punk-rock mage actually hesitated.
“Okay, okay,” she muttered. “Jasmine. You really don’t know how to relax.”
She flicked her wrist.
The cigarette vanished between her fingers like it had never existed.
Jasmine sighed, long and weary, unlocked a medicine cabinet, and began lining up bottles on a polished wooden table. She poured measured amounts into small cups with meticulous care, calibrating every drop.
Rein drank alternating doses—dark red, then blue.
The taste was savage—bitter enough to sting the back of his throat, but the medicine sank into his body like a slow tide, dulling the sharp ache that throbbed through nerves and muscles scorched by speed beyond his limits.
Nearby, Mira and Boris began to look human again, color returning as they rested on soft beds and drank their own recovery elixirs.
Half-drifting under the pull of the medication, Rein heard Alvira still trying to press him for deeper details about what happened in the basement.
But when she saw the exhaustion carved into his face—then caught Jasmine’s increasingly murderous stare—Alvira finally let it go.
“Get some sleep,” she said, her voice softer by a fraction—so small it almost didn’t count. “We’ll talk about the rest tomorrow.”
Then she left, her footsteps fading until the infirmary sank into quiet.
Under dim light, Rein lay on his back and stared at the wooden ceiling, holding onto what little awareness remained.
It felt fragile now—like a dull yellow leaf clinging to a branch—trembling, barely resisting the wind.
Only a few hours had passed. It felt like days.
Rein let out a weak, breathless smile, thinking of the greatest physicist from his old world.
“Einstein…” he whispered. “You were right. Time is relative.”
His eyelids finally grew too heavy to fight.
And at last, the leaf surrendered.
It slipped free into the darkness, and Rein fell into the deep sleep he’d been starving for.
These entries expand the lore and mechanics introduced in this chapter.
Completely optional—read only if you enjoy diving deeper into the system.
An unnamed technique performed by Master Alvira that compresses smoke into a solid sphere, demonstrating advanced elemental and spatial manipulation. She casually squeezes dense smoke into a compact stone-like object and discards it.
Update Note: Previously hinted that Alvira specializes in unconventional or hybrid techniques—this reinforces her elite status (likely Stratosphere-tier).
A small courier familiar belonging to Mira, used to send messages through dangerous areas like demon fog. It is described as a shadow-like bird with magical shimmer, able to find gaps in magical barriers.
DVM’s fastest courier familiar. Its introduction shows how even lower-tier characters can possess specialized and valuable abilities.
Introduced visually and formally here as one of the Five Disciples of the Academy and the Head of DVM. He wears sunglasses at night; unorthodox in demeanor.
Characterized by his punk-rock aesthetic and devastating lightning magic, including the ability to shatter time-domains with extreme precision.
Location
A practical healing ward inside the Department of Variant Magic (DVM), filled with specialized tools, recovery potions, and elixirs not commonly seen in the main Healing Department.
Healer Jasmine runs the infirmary with a sharp tongue and efficient hands. Notably non-magical-looking, but extremely competent.
Rein drinks alternating red and blue potions, likely representing physical and mana recovery.
Notable for their aggressive bitterness and immediate dulling of nerve damage.
Reference
A direct reference to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Rein jokes through exhaustion that time is relative, tying into both the literal time-loop they just escaped and his own warped perception of time due to trauma and mana exhaustion.
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— Re:Naissance