Student after student walked out before the crowd with a twinkle in their eye and an idea they thought would change the world. One after another, they left, wondering what the point of it all was. The disinterest of the archmages may have seemed cruel, but it had always been that way. Students weren’t meant to pass. Independent ritualism was an old tradition, dating back to the dawn of humanity. A college student in their late teens at the youngest wasn’t expected to be a pioneer. The examination, in fact, was meant only to get them started on the true path of innovation. What actually earned the associate's degree was the essay students wrote in the days after the examination. That was something he already wasn’t looking forward to.

  By the time twenty students had come and gone, all failing to impress the arch mages, Okimoto wondered,

  Several rows of seats ascended around the demonstration platform in the fashion of an ancient arena, forming a half-circle opposite the balconies that housed the board of arch mages and the noble families.

  From where Okimoto sat with his friends, at the back, in the highest row, he could see all the families watching from up high and muse over which family name had discarded its pride to forge a fraud legend amongst the attending progeny.

  “That last boy was actually quite bright,” Dolly sighed. “An item that lets you stack up rituals in advance so that you use them more quickly when needed. If that isn’t worthy of a pass, then wha-“

  “The problem isn’t the concept, it’s the ether cost,” Iomy said, not giving her the chance to finish before going on to yap her to death.

  The examination continued, and he endlessly re-evaluated the thief in his mind, slipping the face of each student over the perpetrator’s in his head, knowing that if Christopher’s words were true, time would eventually slot the right face in for him.

  Soon, there was only Odiggan’s friend group left.

  One by one, they failed to impress anyone, only Salinio managing to stir up some mocking laughter after realising there were no doors on the demonstration platform.

  Odiggan was the last one left.

  Upon stepping up, he retrieved a small cage from his pointed hat, the unmistakable ether of Okimoto’s sprite seeping through the bars.

  There were many kinds of anger a person could feel: the kind that provoked a person to explode into a tantrum, the kind that made a person cry out for vengeance, the kind that roused a person to unleash a barrage of curses. What he felt was the deadliest kind of rage, the kind so overwhelming that his emotions didn’t explode, but implode into a silent and lethal calm, the calm before the storm, the water receding away before a tsunami swept over the land in a blue and white veil of death. It was the kind of malice that plotted against someone’s life.

  Odiggan gave a speech. Okimoto didn’t hear it. But when Odiggan began to show off the sprite, describing its abilities, he did hear the cheers of amazement from the watchers. But the voices all blended, like rain heard behind a shut window, merely noise in the background of his plotting. These plots diverged into a thousand paths all ending in the same place: with him explaining to the authorities that what had happened to Odiggan Orion on this day wasn’t the result of an unprovoked attack, but a reaction, that he was sorry Odiggan’s broken bones and shattered spine couldn’t be compensated for after the successful lawsuit against the Orion family.

  Odiggan

  had summoned a flame at some point, manipulating its shape in a meager effort that paled in comparison to what Okimoto had done last night.

  “Truly marvelous!”

  “What an amazing thing you’ve come up with!”

  The Arch mages sang their praises.

  “I can’t believe my eyes,” Dolly exclaimed.

  Kariggan was silent, his brows tensing.

  Already, he had put two and two together.

  “I saw the project he was working on,” Kariggan hissed. “It had nothing to do with sprite breeding.”

  Odiggan bowed to the crowd, then continued inside, everyone compressing through the doors behind him in bewildered pursuit.

  Okimoto was a phantom among them, fingers grasping for Odiggan’s shoulder while itching for his neck.

  Someone grabbed Okimoto before he could get to him.

  He looked back to see an all too familiar young man as tall as himself, skin a rich brown, suit red and immaculate, eyes shining a thousand colors.

  Christopher tapped his forehead twice. “Be sharp, he has the sprite but doesn’t know it how you know it. He might be able to fool them now, but the fake essay he’ll write up will expose his real fraudulence. Your best option is to stay calm and be pragmatic. Start by detailing the breeding process to the faculty.”

  Okimoto reached forward and grabbed Odiggan’s shoulder, prompting him to look back. Okimoto then pulled his arm back like a sling and shot his knuckles into the troglodyte’s face, Odiggan’s glasses exploding from the impact.

  The weasel was flying, then rolling across the corridor like a tumbleweed caught in the wind, the cage with the sprite shooting from his hand and shattering on the floor.

  “Being retarded and catching a case for grievous bodily harm is an option too, I guess,” Christopher said, shrugging. “You could’ve at least contained yourself enough to challenge him to a formal duel. Now you’ve created a bunch of extra complications.”

  His punch had knocked the voices out of the crowd, leaving the corridor in total silence.

  A professor walked over to what remained of the cage and gasped, “It’s dead! Okimoto, what have you done!”

  The professor sank to his knees.

  “You'd better explain yourself.” Demanded a random girl.

  An outcry rang out, the crowd growing restless.

  “Odiggan, are you alright?” Asked a female professor.

  Odiggan didn’t answer; it must have been because he was ass up and face down unconscious.

  “That sprite had been mine.” Okimoto declared. “Odiggan is a scheming twat. He stole it from me last night and is trying to pass it off as his own.”

  “What’s your evidence of this?” The male professor, still collapsed by the sprite's corpse, roared. “This is quite a bold statement you're making; you'd better be able to prove it, or else there will be dire consequences.”

  Okimoto cleared his throat. “Ask my dorm master who I had first reported it to. Or ask the Headmaster or any of the security mages. They all know my project was stolen.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  With that said, Okimoto dove into Odiggan’s hat, which had fallen to the floor, searching for the caterpillars.

  Textbooks, spell guides, and all other kinds of clutter clogged up the tiny pocket dimension within, and he had to work his fingers like drills through it all.

  Alas, the caterpillars weren’t here, probably having been taken to the Orion family treasury already.

  Someone with a death wish grabbed him by the hips and yanked him out.

  When Okimoto stood up, discarding the hat to the side, none other than Oddon was facing him.

  The man squinted before hissing, “How dare you openly pillage my son’s belongings after so savagely brutalising him?”

  “I meant not to pillage, Mr Orion,” Okimoto said flatly. “I was merely seeking out that which is mine.”

  “Yours?” He laughed.

  Okimoto raised an eyebrow. “That’s right, Oddon, I’m searching for the caterpillars that are useless to you anyway because you don’t know the trigger to mature them with.”

  Okimoto made sure to raise his voice so everyone present could hear.

  Murmurs ran in a circle through the watchers.

  “Naturally,” Oddon agreed. “The sprite was my son’s creation. He did not inform me of the inner workings of his project, nor did I expect that of him.”

  “Well, be sure to ask him once he’s done with nappy time.”

  “Got yourself a smart mouth, haven’t you, and I caught you addressing me by my first name just now. You clearly lack a proper upbringing. You do not refer to men of nobility in such a light manner.”

  “Actually, our traditions dictate that if one is confident of a superior’s corruption, proper titles may be discarded until said superior has cleared their name.”

  “I take it that you're challenging my honour then?”

  “With confidence.”

  Oddon’s face darkened, his narrow lips pulling back in a grimace as he bared his teeth like some savage animal. He balled his fist and threw it.

  Okimoto side-stepped and grabbed his arm, flipping the Orion family patriarch over his shoulder and down towards the floor. Oddon wrapped his other arm around Okimoto’s neck mid-way and took him down with him.

  “Oh my goodness!”

  “Stop that now!”

  The two professors lunged to intervene, but stopped when finger snapping could be heard amidst the tussle.

  They immediately changed their priorities to erecting barriers to protect the students.

  Okimoto grappled with the man, the two not allowing each other to fire off a successful air bullet. During fights in close quarters, it was essential to disrupt any ritual the enemy was trying to perform.

  Eventually, Oddon fired one at the ceiling, causing the collapse of part of it.

  In response, Okimoto gave up on grappling and darted out of the way just in time to avoid the debris.

  Oddon had done the same in the opposite direction, now standing over his son.

  Out of breath, he wheezed to the two professors, “I’ll pay for the damages, no problem.”

  Okimoto was also panting, cycling through potential spells to cast in his mind.

  “Stop!” Yelled the Headmaster, hobbling in between the two of them. “This is rather inappropriate!”

  “Headmaster, sir, his son is the thief, and I suspect that he had a say in the matter.”

  The Headmaster turned to him. “I’ll be having none of that, you hear me, none of it.”

  “What?”

  The Headmaster growled, “I had heard of your talents four years ago when we agreed to enroll you. And for a while, you showed immense promise, but recently I’ve been made aware of some deeply unprideful behavior of yours.”

  “What are you talking about? Earlier today, I came to you seeking help with my situation.”

  “Don’t lie to me, boy. I know that you’ve been secretly forcing Odiggan to complete your mandatory assignments. You’ve gotten so overconfident in your abilities that you see studiousness as beneath you. Perhaps most disgustingly of all, you’ve threatened Odiggan on multiple occasions for not giving you his project for the exam.”

  , Okimoto thought.

  “I knew something was off about you.” Said a random boy, and then another added, “You always acted so indifferent to everything, as if you were better than all of us. You barely ever bothered with work, yet somehow you’d always pop up with excellent grades out of nowhere. I guess this explains that.”

  “Ridiculous.” A girl cried. “Odiggan is such a hard-working boy, always helping out with those of us who are struggling. I find it repulsive that you’d take advantage of him.”

  Similar sentiments were fired at Okimoto from all around him, hateful eyes impaling him from all angles.

  “You're coming with me to the office.” The Headmaster said.

  Okimoto took a step back from him.

  The Headmaster sighed. “Fine, have it your way.”

  Suddenly, dozens of light swords appeared around Okimoto, stabbing into him but drawing no blood and causing no pain.

  The ether around him grew heavy, as if gravity itself doubled.

  He fell to one knee. “Headmaster…”

  “I won’t have you bullying our students; that kind of behavior is completely unacceptable, as made clear during your induction.”

  Okimoto tried to stand up but fell back down when several dozen more swords appeared and stabbed him.

  The ether grew heavier and heavier, forcing him onto both knees.

  The female professor gasped. “One hundred and fifty swords? Isn’t that a bit overboard? You could kill him.”

  “No.” The male professor shook his head. “He still isn’t fully restrained. Truly magnificent talent that. He would’ve been an arch mage for sure had he put his mind to it. What a shame.”

  More and more swords appeared, and Okimoto collapsed completely, darkness advancing from the corners of his eyes.

  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he found himself restrained by a special straitjacket for the magically gifted.

  He was in a white room, and the walls seemed to be made of pillows. There was only one metal door with a small window that he faced.

  Deafening silence filled the room, clearly under a ritual to keep out the sounds.

  “You should’ve listened.” Christopher laughed, walking in a circle around him.

  “Give it a rest.” Okimoto groaned.

  Christopher came to squat before him, mocking him with a smile.

  “You had such big dreams.” He said. “But life never goes as planned.”

  Straining, Okimoto managed to sit up. “It all happened so fast. Where am I? What’s the time?”

  Christopher shrugged.

  Okimoto chuckled, “You really are useless.”

  “Oh, am I now? Because I’m pretty sure I warned you at every step. Your current circumstances are the fault of none other than yourself.”

  “Every scheming bastard will scramble to get their hands on the sprite I said. Think about what will happen if absolute dominance over ether gets into the wrong hands I said. You’ve opened Pandora’s box I said.”

  “What the hell is Pandora’s box?”

  “What I’m talking about is the fact that people will do anything to get their hands on absolute power. You dangled fresh meat before the beast and expected it not to bite.”

  “I didn’t tell anybody. I kept it a complete secret.”

  “There’s no such thing as a secret. In this world, where rituals and spells exist that can transform reality and alter space-time, where people can do all kinds of ridiculous things? Where gods exist, and demons creep in the shadows? Here, there’s always someone listening, something watching. Obviously, people will be able to spy on you without you realising it, dumbass. The only things that are yours in this world are things that those more cunning than you have no interest in. You made something everyone was bound to be interested in. That was your mistake. In the end, you were too naive.”

  Okimoto frowned. “Shut up. You can lecture me all you want, what I need is a solution to this problem I’m having.”

  “The solution was to do as I say. You were already in the perfect spot, as he didn’t know shit about the sprite, and would’ve been exposed for it had he written the essay. Now you’ve given the Orion family an excuse to save him from doing it, with the reasoning being that he has brain damage or some shit from your punch. The faculty will let it slide, the sprite's mere creation enough to get him his associates.

  “Okay, so what now then?”

  “Now you actually listen, and forget ever going back to Toaddor again because we’re playing the long game now, the game of life. Think about the advantages you still have, like the fact that they need your blood to turn the caterpillars into more sprites. As stupid as that punch of yours was, it actually did us a favor by killing the sprite he had. Now they’ll have no choice but to get their hands on your blood somehow.”

  “Couldn’t they have already done it while I was unconscious?”

  Christopher shook his head. “You would’ve been kept under observation as they waited for the authorities to pick you up and bring you here. There was no opportunity for them to do it. Because of that, their movements from now on will be predictable. They’ll likely strike once you're out of here and alone. So be prepared for that to happen.”

  “But where exactly is here?”

  “No clue, I can’t see things you can’t see, isn’t that right? According to the psychologist you saw two years ago?”

  The door opened, catching Okimoto off guard.

  “I thought they put you in here because you’re violent, not violent and insane. Why were you talking to yourself just now?”

  The man now standing by the door was dark-skinned and silver-eyed (also weirdly short for a Coronatian man). He wore the standard police attire consisting of an armored black helmet and a black armored long coat.

  Okimoto didn’t respond to him.

  He retrieved a paper from his coat and read aloud, “You’re being charged with third-degree assault and battery. You’ll have to do three hours of community service each day for five days, starting on the two hundred and thirteenth. Failing to attend community service will result in a forty five shingle fine. I am also here to inform you that you’ve been officially expelled from Toaddor University.”

  “Sweet Fanny Addams.” Mumbled Okimoto under his breath.