Mal swung open the glass doors, chest heaving and sweat coating the inside of his robe. Cassandra glanced up at him and several students looked back—including Hypode, Philo, Rolam, and Nima. Lusia was to the side, textbooks in hand.

  Hypode sneered as soon as he saw Mal. "Late, Malfrasius."

  Mal glared at Hypode, the expression sharp enough to cut through steel. "I was busy."

  Hypode flinched back, then furrowed his eyebrows as if confused by his own reaction. He opened his mouth to speak when Cassandra spoke up first.

  "Malfrasius." Cassandra took a drag from her pipe. "You were late for class yesterday." She paused. "Actually, you didn't show up at all, which is a pretty daring move, I've got to say."

  Mal returned his expression to neutrality before he looked at Cassandra. He bowed his head. "My apologies, Professor. It won't happen again."

  "See that it doesn't." She looked back at the rest of the class. "Now, as I was saying, the fundamentals of potion making are relatively simple..."

  Mal found himself fading in and out of the professor's explanation. His mind was still rattled by that conversation with Puck, and what the professor was saying was of very little interest to him. He already knew what he was supposed to know at this point because of his intensive study of the textbooks, so what was the point of listening?

  Really, he was more interested in herbalism. It was funny, because there were far more students here than there were at the herbalism class. Hypode hadn't shown up to the last one, for example. At least herbalism was new. Not to mention, it linked into his plans of studying witchcraft further. Potions was the same old, same old. Stuff aligned mana into a brew, cook it over a fire. Bada bing, bada boom, you've got a potion.

  "Mr. Patoal, do you really find my class that uninteresting?"

  Mal was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of his name. He shot his gaze over at the professor and quickly thought of a reply.

  "No?"

  "Then why do you look like you're about to fall asleep? You're already on thin ice."

  There was an edge to her tone that told him she wasn't joking around. Which made sense—missing the very first day of class was definitely a bad look.

  "My apologies, Professor."

  Cassandra took her pipe out of her mouth using her index and middle fingers. She blew out a thick cloud of smoke with her breath.

  "What happens when you throw a worm tongue infusion and forget to heat it up for the minimum required time?" Cassandra asked.

  "The toxins remain inside of the potion and you end up with something unusable."

  "What are the four rules of potion safety?" Cassandra said.

  "You remember them using an acronym—CROC. C: Be careful. R: Be reactive. O: Be observant." He paused. "And the last C: Can you please listen to your professor?"

  Cassandra's frown, rather than abating, seemed to sharpen at Mal's response.

  "What do you get if you combine a dragon heart, the horns of a frost giant, and the blood of an innocent?"

  Mal almost responded before he stopped. He, of course, knew exactly what potion he created—one of the most infamous yet well-known enhancer-type potions in all of wizardry. But as a fresh, young first-year, Mal wasn't supposed to know about it.

  "I don't know, Professor."

  "Good."

  After that, she resumed teaching as if nothing had happened. Philo nodded at him, while Rolam looked absolutely mystified. By the end of the class, Mal was just about worn out. The bell rang, Cassandra glanced off to the side, then looked back at them.

  "I expect you all to have the rules for potion safety memorized. Not because you'll ever actually use them, but because it'll come up in the test."

  Well, at least she was honest, Mal thought.

  The next few days passed by in a blur. Mal continued research into fractured cores, but couldn't find anything. At this point, the librarian had started to get used to him, merely greeting him with a nod and already preparing her wand to assist him with more search spells. In between classes, Mal spent his time locating the basic ingredients needed for the fractured core. Aside from the leaves of the ash tree, everything else was disturbingly common. Elder root, a small amount of bark from a willow tree, and a pinch of glass dust, of all things.

  Mal was a tad mystified as to why the glass dust was needed—there were no obvious inherent magical properties, but the book had been adamant that it was a necessary ingredient. It was another one of those quirks of aligned magic. Mal's best theory was that there was a small amount of aligned magic inside of the glass, it was simply too low for him to detect. But that would mean that there was a small amount of aligned magic in everything, which seemed like an odd statement to make. Though, Mal supposed there was nothing inherently contradictory with his worldview about that theory.

  Mal had also sent a letter to the office of student affairs, asking for an update on his transfer. They hadn't said anything. Following his first request, if they didn't send anything on his second letter, he would assume that they weren't getting his letters, and he would need to go in person. Honestly, that's what he should have done at the start, but he hadn't wanted to wait in line.

  Philo had asked about Mal joining him for morning runs, but Mal had declined each time, saying that he wanted to do it, but was too tired from the night before. Which was true—Mal wasn't opposed to Philo's offer, but other things kept on taking priority at night and he didn't have the energy to do a run in the morning. Once his schedule cleared a little bit, Mal would join Philo.

  During classes, Mal had focused on trying to avoid making any more waves. He never raised his hand, and when called upon, he ensured that he always had the amount of knowledge that was expected for him at his level. No more, no less. The only problem with his strategy was... himself.

  This would soon be demonstrated during one of his magic theory classes.

  “The core is what separates us from the magical beasts. It’s the fundamental difference between us and them.”

  Mal doodled a picture of a large stick figure. To his left, Rolam had long since fallen asleep, as he had done in nearly every magic theory class since the start of the semester. Philo, meanwhile, seemed to be transcribing Igna’s words verbatim. From what Mal understood, this was detrimental to comprehension, but he didn’t particularly care. Nima hadn’t bothered to bring out his notebook and was instead listening as best he could.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Igna finished writing a few keywords on her blackboard. She turned back around toward the students. In the back of his mind, Mal wondered why she didn’t automatically write them using the spell she had employed previously. Perhaps she had grown tired of using it and wanted to switch things up?

  “As you all know, magical beasts are created from a surplus of aligned mana. This is why the core is so important, why it’s the foundation of our practice and study.” She paused. “With that said, as much as we try to study and systematize the art of magic, there are still major gaps in our understanding. For example, does aligned mana modify the world around it to be closer to its affinity? Or is the mana adapting to its environment?"

  The whole time, Mal had been chewing the inside of his cheek. It took a massive effort to stop himself from asking questions.

  “Going back to the core, it seems to be the fundamental key to the movement of mana. All—”

  Mal’s hand shot up of its own accord. Igna looked over at him and froze. It was as if she were internally debating whether to answer Mal’s question. She let out a sigh, her smile frozen in place.

  “Yes, Malfrasius?”

  Well, I’m already this deep in, might as well go the full mile.

  “Professor, I was wondering if we could continue our discussion on aligned magic. According to the books I've studied, practitioners didn’t use their cores. So how exactly were they doing all the things described in those early treatises?”

  Igna’s smile turned into a frown. The expression disappeared instantly, and she returned to her usual grin.

  “This question again, hm? Unfortunately, research in this area has been rather limited due to the rarity of witches, and the few who practice witchcraft refuse to demonstrate their practice to us wizards. According to our best guesses, we believe they actually are using their cores and simply don’t understand that that’s what they’re doing.”

  “But what about that study? The one where those people had their cores damaged or even removed but were still able to do basic magic?”

  Igna seemed to let out a groan under her breath, still keeping the smile plastered on her face.

  “Malfrasius,” she said after a few seconds “Yes, that is true, but there’s no way the spells we’ve observed used by witches could be done without a core. The study you mention is very clear that they were unable to do more than the absolute most basic spellcraft.”

  “But doesn’t that poke a hole in the theory that the core is the foundation of all spellcraft?”

  The entire classroom went quiet. One could have heard a pin drop.

  Igna let out a soft chuckle, the sound tinged with a slight edge.

  “Personally, I believe that in that study, there were still enough fragments of a core, and that was what provided the muscle. I think that’s far more plausible than people simply willing mana to move around with their minds. If the core isn’t the foundation of magic, Mal, then the small amount of progress we’ve made in the field of magic is all complete nonsense. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No,” Mal said simply. “I have no idea what the truth actually is. I’m just open to other possibilities.”

  Igna scoffed. “I am as well. But suggesting that something so foundational to our practice is wrong is absurd. It’s tantamount to saying we don’t actually do our thinking in our brains but in a floating vat of liquid on another planet, with those thoughts transmitted into our bodies.”

  “By your own admission, magic theory is still in its infancy. Is it really so hard to believe there may be more to the story?”

  “And what exactly would you propose to be this ‘more’?”

  Mal was about to elaborate on his experiments with resonance when he suddenly realized that would be a terrible idea, given he was trying not to draw attention to himself. He ran through the last few minutes of the conversation in his mind and realized, with dawning horror, that he had just started debating his professor about basic magic theory in front of the entire class. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that nearly everyone was looking at him and Igna.

  “That’s a good question, Professor. I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he said.

  “That’s my line.” Igna’s grin smoothed over, any traces of irritation disappearing. “Now then, let’s get back on topic rather than discussing these absurd hypotheticals.”

  Class resumed, but Mal noticed more than his fair share of glances from other students. He tried his best to ignore their gazes and focused on writing more notes. The funny thing was that Mal didn’t even think his theories conflicted much with the current state of magic theory. Resonance was new, but he was sure there was some way it could fit into the current structure of magic theory.

  Or would it?

  The more he thought about it, the more he somewhat understood why Igna found the idea so distasteful. If something else controlled mana, everything they knew about it would have to be thrown out the window, replaced from the ground up with new theory. Given that the models they had now seemed to work so well in practice, it seemed unlikely they had gotten the fundamentals wrong. If they had, how was it that Mal could manipulate mana to create arcane spheres? How could he make void orbs? How could he manipulate time? How would wizardry be possible at all?

  And what’s more, without the core being the foundation of spellcraft, if there was something else underpinning magic, then that meant there wasn’t nearly as much distinguishing them from magical beasts, which was a disquieting thought.

  Perhaps it was best to keep his theories to himself.

  The group was on their way to lunch and, of course, Mal's little argument with the professor became the topic of conversation.

  "D—do you really think the professor is wrong?" Nima said. "I mean, I'm no expert, but I feel like it's more likely that she's right this time." A look of panic appeared on his face. "Not to say that you're wrong, but —"

  To the sides, Rolam and Philo were quite clearly watching Mal for his response. Mal could feel Lusia's gaze practically piercing into his back. He wondered how long it would be before she finally worked up the courage to ask questions herself rather than waiting for other people to ask them. Probably a long time.

  "I don't know if the professor's wrong," Mal said. "I was just asking questions."

  "Was it just me, or did she seem really mad?" Rolam scratched his cheek and looked up at the sky. "Like, she had the smile on her face, but there was something about her tone that felt really… intense."

  Nima nodded and poked his head out to greet Rolam's eyes. “Y—yeah, I noticed it too. It was really weird. Normally she's so much nicer."

  Philo snorted and adjusted the textbooks in his hand. The motion caused his glasses to slide down his face and he had to awkwardly push them back up using his textbooks.

  "Mal was attacking the foundation of magic, not just as a science, but as a philosophy. If Mal is right, and the core isn't at the foundation, then what is? We would be starting from scratch. Philo perfectly understands her reaction."

  Mal shrugged. He'd already given his explanation, he didn't need to further elaborate.

  Rolam side-eyed Philo. "I don't know. I kind of get the feeling that she doesn't like Mal."

  "That's absurd. Why would she dislike him?"

  "I don't know either, but it sure seems like it based off of how she always gets that ugly look on her face when he speaks."

  "There is no ugly look. She's always smiling."

  "Yeah, but —"

  Nima pointed up at the sky. "Whoa, what's that!"

  Both Philo and Rolam stopped talking and looked over in the direction that Nima had pointed.

  "What are we looking at?" Philo squinted his eyes. "Philo sees nothing."

  "He's clearly pointing at that cloud," Rolam said.

  "It's just a cloud. That can't be what he was pointing out."

  "I'm telling you, he was pointing at the cloud."

  Nima hung his head and let out a soundless groan. “Mission fail.”

  Mal wondered in the back of his mind how exactly it was these two became teammates in the future. At the rate they were going, they were more likely to kill each other than him.

  When they sat down to lunch, Mal watched as Lusia headed off to the servants' hall where the staff of the school have lunch.

  Mal had gotten better at reading her expressions over the past week, and he noticed a strange hint of hesitation that had grown more and more each time she went away. If Mal had been feeling particularly egotistical, he might've said that it was because she wanted to spend more time with him. Of course, he knew that was complete baloney—there was no reason for her to feel that way. No, he suspected that her emotion had something to do with the servants' hall. But what and why?

  As she exited out the side door, he tapped his fingers against the wooden table, then stood up.

  "I'm heading to the bathroom," he said.

  Philo and Rolam were too busy arguing about whether the cloud outside had been shaped like a duck or a small boat, so they didn't pay any attention to him. Nima looked over at Mal with a pleading expression.

  "Please don't leave me alone with these two," Nima said.

  Mal scooted to the right and carefully avoided Nima's eyes.

  “Mal, don't do this —"

  Mal speed-walked away from the situation and exited out the door.

  It was time to find out what was happening to Lusia.