The first few days of the week were relatively calm.

  Monday started with the test from professor Theron, which was exactly as hard as I'd expected. I'd be lucky to get even one answer right. My brain felt like it was melting by the third question, and by the tenth I was pretty sure I'd just started making up magical theory.

  Lina though? She seemed hopeful. After all her intense studying and analysis of that magic notebook, she looked like she actually understood the material. The way she was writing smoothly while I was staring at my paper in despair made me feel both proud of her and terrible about myself.

  Emberheart's lesson that day shifted focus. We moved past just magic missiles and started working on giving my mana other forms. Simple things, he'd said. A disk to hold objects. A shield to block a single projectile.

  Simple. Right.

  I didn't make much progress, though I could at least push my mana in one direction now and create what might be considered a shield in some very generous cultures. It looked more like a slightly thicker patch of air, but Emberheart seemed satisfied with the attempt.

  Tuesday was similarly uneventful. Classes blended together with mana training, and I fell into a routine. Practice shields. Fail at shields. Practice disks. Create something that was neither a disk nor useful. Repeat.

  By lunch on Wednesday, I was feeling way less exhausted. Things were finally adjusting into a rhythm, settling into something almost normal.

  That's when the first surprise came.

  "Hey, you'll never guess!" Lina practically bounced into her seat at our lunch table, a huge smile on her face. "I was chosen for the expedition!"

  "Cool," Erick said casually, not even looking up from his food.

  "That's awesome!" I said with genuine excitement.

  "I'll be responsible for cataloguing enchanted items and leftover enchantments still active in the corrupted zone." Her words came out fast, like she'd been holding them in all morning. "It's mostly busy work and I'll be on the backline, but it's still an incredible opportunity to learn about artifact preservation in hostile environments and—"

  "Good luck getting stuck for multiple days with the Prince," Erick interrupted, finally looking up. "I'd just throw myself at the corruption instead."

  "I'm sure you'll do great," I said, shooting Erick a look. "You've been preparing like crazy for this."

  "Oh, nothing to worry about!" Lina waved off the concern. "I'm sure I can handle him if it means getting an opportunity like this. Besides, he'll be too busy helping lead the expedition to bother with someone doing cataloguing work."

  She seemed genuinely confident, which made me feel better about the whole thing.

  After lunch, I headed to Emberheart's lesson. That's when the second surprise hit.

  "We will be going to the expedition," Emberheart said casually, not even looking at me. I was in the middle of practicing a shield when the words registered.

  "What?!" My concentration broke completely, and the pathetic excuse for a shield I'd been forming dissipated. "I barely had time to recover from the last event!"

  "The Director wanted an S-rank to monitor the expedition, and I volunteered." He said it like it was obvious, like there was no other possible choice.

  "Yeah, but why does that mean I need to go?"

  "It will be a good opportunity to test your skills in a practical environment." Emberheart finally looked at me, his expression serious. "You should be able to learn significantly more from real experience than from controlled practice."

  That didn't feel right, but I couldn't come up with any actual arguments against it. What was I supposed to say? That I was scared? That I didn't feel ready?

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  "Well," I said, trying to find a silver lining, "at least I'll have another week to train before we leave..."

  "Actually, the expedition departs this weekend."

  I stared at him. "This weekend. As in, three days from now?"

  "We didn't factor Saturday's competition into our calculations of the corruption's expansion speed," he explained calmly. "The event caused some changes in our timeline. We need to act soon, or we risk the corruption reaching the academy's outer territories before we can mount a proper response."

  "Any more good news?" I asked, not even trying to hide the sarcasm.

  "For now, that is all." He gestured back toward the training area. "Now, can you tell me the difference between using raw mana to defend versus casting an actual shield spell?"

  I forced my brain to switch tracks. "Mana barriers require constant output and concentration. Shield spells are set structures that exist independently once formed."

  "Exactly. However, shield spells can break under sufficient force. Mana barriers, while more taxing, can reform immediately." He watched me carefully. "For your purposes, a mana barrier will keep you safer for longer periods, especially if you need time to write."

  Right. Because I'd need to write rules if things went wrong. The thought made my stomach tighten.

  I went back to practicing barriers, though my heart wasn't really in it anymore.

  "What's wrong?" Emberheart asked eventually, clearly noticing my lack of progress. "You were doing better on Monday."

  "It's just..." I hesitated, trying to find the right words. "Seeing the S-ranks fight was a bit above what I expected. Seeing what they could do. It feels weird to be practicing these tiny barriers when they're out there destroying entire training fields with hurricanes and light magic."

  "Hm." Emberheart was quiet for a moment. "I understand the feeling. However, I must tell you that what you witnessed was actually a demonstration of the opposite of what you think."

  I looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

  "Gigantic effects, massive spells, dramatic displays of power." He gestured broadly with one hand. "They're flashy. They have their uses in specific situations. But they also demonstrate a lack of precision, control, and tactical efficiency. What you saw at the beginning of their fight? That was closer to how real combat should proceed."

  "The hurricane seemed pretty unstoppable though."

  "It was powerful, yes. But it was also reckless and unnecessary." Emberheart's tone took on a teaching quality. "In a genuine combat situation, Aurora could have simply withdrawn from the field and allowed him to exhaust his mana reserves with that wasteful display. The spell consumed an enormous amount of energy for relatively little tactical gain."

  He paused, seeming to consider his next words carefully.

  "Additionally, if Aurora were a more experienced combatant, she would have found the solution much faster. Her mistake was assuming the air currents were the primary source of that spell's strength."

  "They weren't?" That caught my attention.

  "No. But revealing more would constitute privileged information about the Prince's mana affinities." He gave me a meaningful look. "When you have better understanding of mana theory, if you dedicate yourself to advanced studies, you might develop the ability to perceive such nuances during combat."

  He let that sit for a moment, then added, "The point is this: don't judge spells by their size or the destruction they cause. Judge them by how effectively they accomplish their intended purpose. A perfectly placed barrier that stops a single critical strike is worth more than a massive explosion that hits nothing important."

  "I'll try to remember that," I said, feeling slightly better. I focused on the mana barrier again, trying to see it not as pathetic compared to hurricanes, but as exactly what it needed to be for its purpose.

  Emberheart nodded approvingly. "Good. Now, let's work on maintaining the barrier while moving. That will be essential if you encounter any threats during the expedition."

  The rest of the lesson passed in focused practice. By the end, I still wasn't great at it, but I could at least form a barrier and walk at the same time without it collapsing immediately.

  Progress. Slow, tiny progress.

  As I walked back to my room that night, my mind kept circling back to the expedition.

  I was going into the corruption. Actually going into it, not just hearing about it or seeing it from a distance.

  Would I find answers to my questions there? Would I discover something about why it was expanding, about what connection it might have to my power?

  The worst thought kept pushing its way forward no matter how much I tried to suppress it: What if I somehow discovered that I had something to do with the corruption's growth?

  What if my reality-writing was connected to it somehow? What if every time I changed reality, I was feeding it, making it stronger?

  I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, anxiety keeping sleep far away.

  Three days. I had three days to prepare for an expedition into a zone of corrupted reality.

  And I was going in with barely functional shields and pathetic magic missiles as my only reliable combat options.

  This was fine. Everything was fine.

  I didn't believe it either.

  Eventually, exhaustion won over anxiety, and I fell into an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of spreading darkness and rules that wouldn't work no matter how many times I wrote them.