And things had been going so well, Orion had the time to lament, before the urgency of the situation grew too great, and he prepared for what he was pretty sure would be a suicidal fight.

  That was, until a wave of shadows swallowed the two vampires who had tried to hit on his mother before he could fully commit, obscuring his view for a long moment, then fading away and revealing only empty space.

  “I apologize for that,” Night Lord Valentine slid into the scene so smoothly that one could be forgiven for thinking he’d always been there. “The young ones usually know better than to force my hand like this. I will make sure they are properly punished, do not worry.”

  His tone was perfectly calm, but his glowing red eyes told a story of terrible wrath, and Orion had no trouble picturing that the near future for those two idiots would be very unpleasant.

  Good, he thought nastily as he released the light mana he had gathered back into the Field. It wasn’t as much as he would have liked, but that was to be expected given his current location.

  Only the necromancers’ embassy would be a worse place to cast light magic in Valderun. That he had even managed to summon enough power to power an [Infinite Laser] at all was a major achievement, and not something a typical tier one mage should be capable of.

  The difference between extra classes and everyone else is really noticeable. My Attunement might not be as high as most tier two mages, but my [Mana Manipulation] being C-rank lets me get away with a lot.

  From the way Valentine’s eyes flicked over to him for just a moment, he could tell the vampire had noticed the buildup and the subsequent release, but he didn’t say anything, patiently waiting for Asteria to speak.

  Orion wondered how she would react. Her emotions had been a bit too unpredictable since ranking up, but it seemed he had nothing to worry about, as her face shifted into a calm mask.

  “I trust you will see to that. It’s a good thing you intervened then, Lord Valentine, or this would have been a night to be remembered.” She was clearly implying that if she had to take matters into her own hands, she would have caused more than a few uncomfortable days for those two, and Orion doubted anyone would blame her for that.

  Really, she should have just said she would have killed them, he thought viciously, though he understood why she hadn’t done that.

  Valentine took her words in stride, not appearing bothered by the threat she had just made against his own men. Since he had promised them safety, and this was already the second near-accident, his credibility was at stake.

  “I’m sure, Magistra. To wash away the bad taste left by those two, let me offer you something,” he said, and gestured for two thralls who hadn’t been there just a few moments ago to step forward.

  Together, they pulled a large, heavy object out of the shadows, which turned out to be a cauldron of some sort, made of a dark material that looked more crystalline than metallic.

  “A Pot of a Thousand Nights,” Asteria murmured, clearly recognizing the object. “That is a princely gift.”

  Valentine smiled, pleased. “It is only right. Your night was almost ruined because of my foolish people, and hopefully, this will be enough to ensure a more lasting relationship between us.”

  Asteria didn’t seem fully convinced by his generosity, but she accepted the gift anyway, waving her hand over it and making the obsidian-like material shimmer with an inner glow.

  “Crafted by a master, too,” she murmured. “One of these hasn’t been seen in the Sanctum for over a century.”

  Looking around, Orion noticed that every vampire was watching the exchange intently. He doubted they often saw a Night Lord apologize for anything, but the ease with which Valentine was managing it showed he was an old hand at social engineering.

  Is it possible he started this accident in the first place? It basically allowed him to bribe Mom without making it look like that’s what was happening.

  The conspiratorial thought felt ungrounded in reality, but at the same time, exactly like something an immortal vampire of his level would do.

  Orion probably wouldn't find out ever, and it would take too long to untangle all possible reasons for Valentine’s actions, so he sighed and relaxed his stance.

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  From there, the evening went on more smoothly, with several adult vampires heading straight for Asteria to talk about the cauldron she received, which was apparently a special kind needed for the most powerful vampiric brews and blood potions.

  Orion, on the other hand, had the dubious privilege of having to field a few of the younger ones. Apparently, almost all of them had sensed it when he summoned the light mana to fuel [Infinite Laser], and they wanted to know how he had done it.

  “What do you mean? I did what I always do,” he replied confusedly, though he was starting to realize the matter wasn’t as straightforward as he’d assumed.

  Judging by the surprised looks on his interlocutors’ faces, he was pretty sure he’d once again done something he shouldn’t have, but Esmeralda saved him from more questions by linking her arm with his and pulling him away.

  When the others attempted to follow, protesting that they wanted to know more, she gave them a glare so cold it made even him want to step back. After her fellows were properly chastised, she took him aside.

  “I should have expected something like this would happen with you involved,” she mused, glancing at him from the corner of her eye while she bent down to examine a flower.

  Orion looked at what she was holding, whose sap oozed a deep red, and decided he didn’t want to know how it was fed and watered. “It’s not really my fault this time. Nor was it the first time we met either, now that I think of it. Selene was the one to lead me on the first hunt, and you on the second. Maybe I should keep better company.”

  Esmeralda huffed but seemed to relax as well, now that she had confirmed he wasn’t angry anymore, and the rest of the night went by without any further incident.

  There was some noise on the streets as they headed back to the embassy, but whoever it was kept their distance after noticing the embossed sigil on their carriage.

  There was something in the air that had been missing for the past few weeks. The anxious cloud had lifted, transforming into nervous energy as the whole city waited to hear the results of the Collegium’s Senate vote that would take place that evening.

  Most members of the major factions went about their day as usual, doing their best to hide their curiosity about what the Archmages would decide, but Orion knew better.

  Everyone was awaiting the outcome, as the future of the Magocracy would be determined tonight.

  He, on the other hand, had spent the past couple of days working through exactly what he’d been missing during his previous attempt to perfect [Null Light], as he was now calling his prototype anti-magic spell.

  After the evening with the vampires, he returned with a new desire to have something, anything, to level the playing field against such beings, and so he approached his project from a different angle than before.

  Most of the formula he designed would stay the same because those principles are solid, and he doubted he could make more than minor tweaks. However, his expression of the formula could use some improvement.

  The idea of encapsulating [Null Light] inside a crystal with [Slow] wasn’t a bad one, and he believed he would find some purpose for it in the future. However, his primary goal was to resolve the interference the spell caused in the Mana Field, which proved more challenging than anticipated due to its complexity.

  Once he realized that, he went back to the drawing board to find ways to keep the spell stable while preventing other magic from activating. After many hours of testing and increasingly successful failures, he concluded that he simply needed to fine-tune the target of his nullification more.

  Affecting the entirety of the local Mana Field was certainly effective in stopping magic, but as proven again and again, it also had a negative effect on him. After some tests, he realized that it would disrupt his other spells as well, making it unfeasible unless he wanted to switch to melee combat, which he wasn’t eager to do.

  It might be worth considering once I can cast [Light Exoskeleton] through a spell crystal, but for now, it’s just another thing to save for later.

  What worked surprisingly well was isolating specific properties of foreign magic and negating only those. It was a bit tricky, given the conceptual nature of such a distinction, but he was a physicist. He was used to doing theoretical work that was more philosophical than mathematical.

  “I’ve managed to isolate specific mana types by improving the properties [Haunted Night] imparts to the spell, but this feels like a shortcut. There's something much better out there, and I just need to figure out how to make it work,” he muttered, pacing along the line he’d carved with his upgraded [Infinite Laser]. “The main issue is range and capacity, since both drain the spell’s interactive abilities. I need to find some vehicle that could let it, if not ignore, then at least lessen the drag…”

  Could it be that simple? He asked himself, stopping abruptly before diving back into the CC and rearranging the components into a new shape.

  When everything was prepared, Orion leaned against the work table and stared down at the crystal, an incredulous laugh escaping him involuntarily.

  “I already had everything. I just needed to think.”

  One of the very first spells he worked on was what allowed him to mimic broom flight, which he later perfected with anti-gravity.

  The fact that mana could influence a fundamental interaction so directly should have been world-shattering, but to be fair, he’d been very busy with his recently gained class and everything it entailed.

  Now, however, he could use that same principle as a way to cast his spell; he just needed to choose an anchor.

  Are there really any other options? Focusing on specific mana types might be useful in certain situations, but it’s very uncommon for a mage or witch to be entirely devoted to just one element. Even specialists are familiar with a few different schools of magic, and this spell only accommodates one principle.

  Limiting himself to elemental affinities would require disrupting and reworking [Null Light] each time his opponent changed spell types, as well as adjusting the formula in real time.

  No, that simply wasn’t feasible, which left only one option: using one of the fundamental components of a spell that practically everyone used, and that he was perhaps the only one who deliberately ignored.

  “Belief. Belief is the primary force behind much of the Sanctum’s spell, and in a way, also the magic I’ve observed the Collegium’s mages use. They might dress it up with more elaborate principles, but they still don’t grasp the core of what they are trying to do, and simply trust that their theories are enough. Vampires aren’t much different either, as their entire skillset is based on their legend.”

  The Computing Crystal shone with crimson light as [Null Light] finally formed a workable formula, and Orion wasted no time casting it.

  There was no visible change around him, no shimmer of mana, yet [Verification Principle] told him it was working because the embassy’s wards suddenly couldn’t affect the lab at all.

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