He was after my attention, clearly. I deduced that to be Professor Couren's true goal. The reading assignment had to be a contrived excuse. He was almost as much a stranger to civilian life as I was, and had no decent role models to learn from. Under his gruff exterior was still only a stunted boy who didn’t know how to approach others, so he made up these strange games to get them to approach him on his own terms instead.

  But I wasn’t going to play along.

  I wouldn’t be begging anybody, him least of all. I resolved to show only utter disinterest and ignore him entirely until he lost his patience and offered the other volumes of Comprehending Spatial Magic voluntarily. Yes, that was what I'd do. Men were ultimately simple to understand and thereby easy to control.

  And I could wait. Once, in the southern Karrath, we camped for two weeks in a crack under a red cliff, waiting for an enemy convoy to pass along the nearby highway. Ten days of no talking, no fire, no moving in daylight, giving away no sign of ourselves, with only bugs and snakes and vultures for company. I could certainly wait.

  I took my theory notes in the back row of the classroom, acting as if the man behind the lectern didn't even exist. Only my ears were paying attention.

  “Good morning, class,” Professor Couren began in his colorless tone after taking attendance. “In our lecture series on basic arcane theory, we have another essential and exceedingly important topic to cover today. Due to its elementary nature, we will not revisit it again, so everyone who failed to attend today's lecture has already received an F and must retake this course next year.”

  The students looked like someone had conjured a bucketful of cold water on them.

  Nobody warned us beforehand that the contents were going to be so crucial!

  Even without failures, class B had shrunk by four students since the start of the term. We were now twenty-six, and two others were absent this morning. At the current rate, I had to wonder if anyone would be left to graduate.

  “The subject is this,” the man said, without bothering to operate the chalk this time. Instead, he projected the words directly onto the blackboard with mana, in luminous letters. “‘Control priority.’ What does that mean in the context of magecraft? Could someone kindly answer that?”

  Several hands rose here and there among the sitters.

  “Silla.”

  Alice Silla, ever hard at work earning back the activity points she lost in our duel.

  “Sir. Control priority refers to a caster asserting regional dominance,” she answered with an air of frigid pride. “When two Falkner’s fields formed upon incohesive ritual structures have overlapping coordinates, the less potent is superseded, as per the Second Law of Thaumaturgy.”

  “You would be mostly correct,” the professor said. “However, the mechanical memorization of textbook lines and answering in terms more complicated than the question cannot be considered optimal performance. I give you three points.”

  “But I answered correctly!” Silla snapped, outraged. She seemed to have shed some of her respect for authority over the weeks.

  Professor Couren looked blankly back at the young woman and replied,

  “If being ‘correct’ were the only thing that mattered, there’d be no wars. Only people doing the obvious and being unanimously accepted. An intelligent person, if she intends to be understood, tailors her presentation for her audience. When your answer leaves most of your peers gasping for air, it cannot be said you’ve communicated effectively. You are not here to impress me, seeing as I've already graduated twenty years ago. These questions are for you to help each other learn. Do reflect on this, instead of committing to a blind pursuit of points. That would be putting the cart before the horse.”

  Silla dropped back down to sit, fuming, while our classmates didn’t even try to hide their schadenfreude.

  “Silence,” the professor said and resumed. “An attempt at an answer is still a hundred times better than none. This lesson is indeed about the Second Law. When two effects overlap, the more potent one overwrites the weaker. Silla mentioned the term ‘Falkner’s field.’ The definition of that is—what? Would anyone care to make an attempt at that?”

  Fewer hands were raised this time. Though Silla attempted to patch her poor performance, the turn fell to the bespectacled young man in the front row.

  “Meldow.”

  “Sir. I-it’s the, um, the set of coordinates in space that fall under conscious influence when magic is cast, centered on the initial conjuration point...”

  “I rather feel I’m having a dialogue with Sir Victor Polemy’s Principa today, than a class of students. Since you apparently paid no attention and missed the earlier exchange, I give you no points, though the answer by itself falls within the margins of correctness.”

  We now had two very salty pupils among us.

  “Falkner’s field refers to the region of space directly under a magician's control when a spell is cast. For example, if you have conjured a fireball, the sphere's outer surface also denotes the boundary of your active Falkner's field. True, the heat emission of the fire reaches significantly further than that, but the total area of effect is not necessarily under direct control. If the control region overlaps with that of another spell, the weaker field collapses, and only the stronger effect manifests. Two spells cannot occupy the same coordinates. Why would that be? I hope someone other than Sir Polemy answers me. As a matter of fact, he cannot, since people didn’t yet understand the reason in 1454 when his theory was first published.”

  The professor’s lightless gaze swept over the seats, ignoring Meldow and Silla's hands, looking for fresh prey. And once again, the students began to experience that sensation that often fell on them in Couren’s lectures, like having a coarse hemp noose slowly tightened around your neck. Being whipped to run just a little faster than you had stamina for.

  When no eager volunteers emerged, he started to hand out turns.

  “Brook.”

  “S-sir, I can't say!”

  “Try. Points will not be deducted merely for being incorrect.”

  “Then…Is it because there's a conflict of mana quality?”

  “No.”

  “Surprise…”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Turing.”

  “I can't begin to guess, sir.”

  “Begin now.”

  The young man rolled his eyes.

  “The...The what-waves repel each other when they cross paths.”

  “In that event, both spells would be affected and not just one of them, yes?”

  “I gave it my all.”

  “I give you one complimentary point for the effort. Trudeau?”

  “I dunno, professor~!” the girl called Trudeau purred with a shrug, not even trying to think. “Maybe the spells just don't like each other very much?”

  Was she trying to get through it by acting seductive? Then she couldn’t have picked a worse target.

  “Your attitude is inappropriate. Minus five points.”

  “Ugh, seriously…?”

  Nobody could give a satisfactory answer, apparently.

  But the professor wouldn’t just hand it out for free.

  “Ruthford. Give us the answer.”

  Everyone started looking around, confused.

  Was there a student by that name in our class? Since I was always out of their line of sight in the back, never raised my hand, or spoke, I’d nearly slipped out of the collective memory. Now, everyone’s stares soon found their way to me, connecting the name and the face.

  Why did you have to go and remind them, you idiot?

  “Tch…”

  My classmates were making horrified faces. Did she really just click her tongue at the professor!? Did she have a death wish!? Sigh. Put to the spot like this, what else could I but obediently play along? Dragging this out didn’t benefit either of us.

  An answer tailored for the audience, eh.

  “...Particles cannot exist in multiple states at the same time,” I reluctantly explained. “They can have different potential states, but when one state has a strong reservation, the weaker requests are automatically cancelled. It’s a property of physical reality that not even magic can overwrite. Hence, a Law. Then the willpower and mana intensity of the casters competing for the same coordinates become the determining factors. That’s what’s meant by asserting control priority.”

  A stunned silence followed, soon interrupted by the professor.

  “Indeed,” he said. “The points for the correct answer negate the points I deduct for your disrespectful behavior, so your current total remains at zero. Do make more of an effort to participate in class.”

  “Yes, sir…”

  My classmates gave up trying to make sense of what just happened and forced their attention back to the blackboard, the lecture relentlessly pushing forward.

  “In Professor Woodrow’s class, I believe you went over the three states of a phenomenon. The natural state; the magically induced state; and pure fabrication, or Pure Illusion, as they are called. The most important thing that I want all of you to commit to memory today in indelible clarity is this: the Second Law only applies to the last group—magical constructs.”

  By the left side wall posed an undressed wooden mannequin, a humanoid torso attached to a pole stand, which he telekinetically pulled closer to stand on the narrow strip of floor between the blackboards and the rising seat rows.

  “Allow me to demonstrate why this knowledge matters,” Professor Couren said and left the lectern to face the mannequin. “I’ve asked our academy’s barrier specialist, Professor Klomvir, to cast a protective shield on this figure. Watch carefully. I will now use offensive magic to strike it.”

  He lightly nudged his cane towards the mannequin.

  Though he had told everyone to pay attention, it was unlikely anyone actually caught it. The technique was a blur even for me, and I knew the man well. A heavy bang rocked the room as the mannequin exploded, hit by a fire spell of lethal intensity. He clearly didn’t want to leave anyone the impression that he was faking it. The students threw themselves flat on their desks, covering their ears, but the show was long over by then.

  But once the fiery orchid faded away, the mannequin was revealed unscathed under it, a simmering cocoon of faint green light enveloping it.

  “Why didn’t my attack work?” Professor Couren faced us with a rhetorical question. “No need to answer; the explanation is too obvious for words. Professor Klomvir’s shield magic was stronger. In other words, it retained control priority in the space that it occupies when faced with my attack. A purely mana-based shielding is sufficient to block magical attacks, as long as the energy concentration and the mental integrity of the image are higher. I will attack it now again, in another way.”

  The students braced themselves for another explosion, but none would come.

  The professor merely tossed his cane at the mannequin. His throw wasn’t very athletic or spirited, but he somehow landed a hit on the target. The cane, being light and short, bounced off the standing mannequin and fell onto the floor with a sharp rattle. Silence followed.

  My classmates allowed themselves to smile a little at the surprisingly childish show.

  But Professor Couren never smiled.

  “I was able to hit it,” he pointed out. “Why didn’t the shield work this time? That, too, is self-evident. Because my attack wasn’t in any way magical. An energy shielding cannot deflect physical matter. Particle constructs will simply slip through waveforms. To defend against a mundane attack like this, you will need to conjure not an energy shield, but a kinetic effect barrier, an entirely different technique. Which, on the other hand, will not protect you against magical attacks. Therein lies the difficulty of arcane combat. The method of defense must match the form of the attack. Otherwise, you may lose your life instantly.”

  The professor pulled the cane back into his grip and returned to his post behind the lectern, the blackboard continuing to fill with glowing words.

  “Wizards have long dreamed of a universal all-in-one protection method. A single-action effect that works against any and every conceivable form of offense. But this remains insofar an unattained fantasy. Why? The answer is found in Sir Polemy’s excellent book, which has been so busily quoted today. Does anyone still remember? Canth, how about you?”

  The small girl sitting next to Silla answered half to the class, and half thought aloud to herself, too absorbed in thought to even remember to stand first.

  “Umm...‘When two Falkner’s fields formed upon incohesive ritual structures have overlapping coordinates, the less potent is superseded'...Is that the case?”

  Showing astonishing flexibility, Couren didn’t reprimand her for the lack of etiquette, or for parroting Silla’s delivery word-for-word. As if he really wanted to encourage learning. Was this guy serious about teaching?

  “That’s the case. Sir Polemy’s wording, ‘incohesive structures’, has misled many to assume it means spells cast by different casters of different mentalities. However, that isn't the case. The Law doesn’t change depending on perspective. The caster’s person is altogether irrelevant; two different rituals cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Even a multicaster will not be able to place two effects in the same coordinates. Thus, a singular shield formula cannot incorporate conflicting mechanisms either. A stationary particle cannot function as a waveform at once. If we could comfortably block both, we’d be getting close to the domain of total inhibition, the utopian pinnacle of defensive magic. Layering effects is a more practical way to achieve security, even if costly energy-wise and difficult to execute quickly.”

  Professor Couren checked his wristwatch, then picked up his satchel and cane.

  “The contents on the blackboard will remain visible for 180 seconds starting from now. Class is dismissed.”

  Most of the class remained behind, feverishly writing, while the professor walked out without looking back.

  It didn't seem like he was going to give me another book today.