"Welcome to the land of mysteries and Mystica. A place for seekers, made of myths: Wanderlust." Orin said, taking a glance at his Guru's vacant expression, before going off-script.
"Wanderers—the most blatant, obvious, and boring race, with no mysticism in them whatsoever—are said to have become a proper part of Wanderlust in the Third Era."
"How many eras were there before that?" he asked the class, his gaze lingering on Valeri a moment longer than needed, before answering his own question.
"No one knows for sure."
Valeri had once dreamed of—and now achieved—her optimal future. But thanks to Orin and his classmates, she came to realize what really mattered in life: peace.
For a bunch of first-years, each one carried a demon within them—something dragged up from the depths of Tartarus.
It was her task to handle them… and, eventually, to vanquish them before graduation.
'Guru' sounded noble on a résumé, but in reality, the job felt more like taming monsters—the so-called current generation of children, according to society.
Valeri was their prison guard, warden, parole officer, and reformer—she was their Guru.
And true to that title, she was tasked to guide her students out of darkness and into light. Metaphorically, of course.
(Not that it mattered. She did have access to Mystica that could turn them into perfect role models.)
Who needs free will when you have peace?
"Stick to the script, Mr. Mystiq," Valeri warned, snapping her fingers and breaking his hold over the spellbound class.
Orin Mystiq had the gift of storytelling—a gift he shamelessly misused to gain the upper hand in every situation.
Factor in his age, a tragic backstory of isolation, and even the stone-hearted Valeri couldn't expel him from the academy.
Not without proper cause, anyway.
No evidence, no expulsion. Valeri reminded herself constantly.
As usual, the classroom groaned in defiance, preferring Orin's twisted narrative to the dry, worn-out Scripts.
Orin slid his finger along the edge of the Script's golden page, unbothered by the risk of a paper cut.
Why would he be?
His entire focus was on the game afoot.
Unlike the Mystica—and the one exception among the Wanderers: himself—the average Wanderer was a predictable creature, with a linear view of the big picture.
Orin soaked in every subtle expression in the room before playing his next move.
He was nine, not stupid.
Others liked to flaunt their stupidity like a Quenara flaunts her beauty.
So Orin stayed focused on what mattered most: using them for his agenda.
"Everyone's just a spare cog in the wheel of life," Orin always said.
Valeri might've been the only person capable of going toe-to-toe with the great Orin Mystiq.
There might have been others out in the world, sure—but with his travel restricted and Valeri's watchful eye always on him, Orin had never met any of those so-called geniuses said to match his intellect.
Maybe one of his pen pals?
Dr. Quack always had a quick comeback and had even improved a few of Orin's speculations.
"Nah…"
Orin dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand.
"I always have the upper hand," he muttered, rubbing his pointy nose.
Believe it or not, pride ranked near the bottom of Orin's list of bad traits.
According to him, no one had ever been smart enough to distinguish his pride from his intellect.
If the day ever came when someone bested him in the ways of Mystica, only then would he acknowledge that "pride comes before a fall."
Until that day came, let the world mistake his intellect for arrogance. Let them wait for his downfall while he soared higher than they could imagine.
Each student had a massive tome resting on their desk. Like nearly everything else in Wanderlust, the first-year tomes at Morlan High were Scruners—more accurately known as Mystic Tomes.
A Scruner is a Mystica with a planar body, which acts as the tome's living spine. These creatures are impossible to detect… until they sprout wings. Those wings eventually harden to become the tome's front and back covers.
Unlike regular books, Scruner tomes are ancient, just like the Mystica themselves.
In their prime, Scruners gorge on Whisper Leaves from the Hush Hush Plant and develop ultra-thin layers between their wings.
Wanderers have learned to use these inner layers as pages—known as 'Wing Scripts'—to store information.
They're also among the laziest mythical creatures in existence, which makes them perfect for book duty.
Once a Whisper fills those wings with words, the inscriptions become permanent. And being one amongst the immortal Mystica, Scruners carry everything that has ever been written within them.
Yes—everything. Even the crap.
Orin pinched the creature's wings with expert precision and flipped to the next page.
While reciting from memory, he kept a constant pulse on the classroom—reading expressions, monitoring posture, cataloging distraction.
"Before Wanderers messed up the balance, only Mystica roamed these lands.
Like any new arrivals, we were welcomed with open arms by beasts so powerful and magnificent that not even our imagination could picture them—back in the First Era."
His eyes drifted across the classroom, absorbing twenty unique reactions from twenty very different kids… and one very tired Guru.
A Mystica reveals all its tricks in due time, Orin reminded himself—his mantra to overcome every obstacle.
A subtle twitch of a Mystica carried the nuance of data.
Orin had grasped those changes since birth, using them to decode a Mystica's way of life—an understanding that, in turn, unraveled the very fabric of their reality.
A simple twitch signaled a shift in the equation upon which Wanderlust itself existed.
And yet… for a boy who listened to the changing tone of the wind to guess a Mystica's mood, Orin consistently missed the obvious expressions of his fellow Wanderers.
He told himself he understood all there was to know about his kind—but in truth, he found them monotonous. Their attempts at expressing emotion struck him as some form of facial or mental deformity.
The only time he noticed a Wanderer's emotions was when they interrupted what he considered sacred: Mystic Time.
He kept telling himself he almost understood the hidden and overt cues these so-called creatures gave off. Yet compared to the beauty and complexity of Mystics? Wanderers were pale imitations of sentience.
Orin doubted any student—or even Valeri—had the slightest clue about the real depth of Wanderlust. None of that would change until they either graduated seven years from now… or grew a pair and tackled the cruel world without a certificate to coddle them.
'Or,' he thought with a smirk, 'if I have anything to say about their boring little wandering.'
'Push, and they shall fly. If not, too bad.' That was Orin's philosophy when it came to Wanderers.
None of the students understood the real Orin, but like every child on the planet, they favored the goofy one in the room.
So he played the role. And twisted the next sentence in the script to test their attentiveness—and to test how much longer he could bend Valeri's patience.
"The upcoming generation must worry about the unknown Mystica roaming the world… and the rules created by the now-dominant race: Wanderers. Rules made by their outdated predecessors…" He delivered the final line with pointed emphasis, directing it straight at Valeri. "To guide the next generation toward so-called stability."
There was no eruption from the students—just a few stifled yawns, with Valeri shifting ever so slightly.
Time to go further.
"Wanderers are difficult to cohabitate with. Wanderlust found this out the hard way—it took four entire eras to create even a fragile balance between Mystica and Wanderers."
Balance? Rules? Dominance?
Orin didn't give a Joot's ass about any of that. Not until he had true, unfettered access to Mystica. Not until he could finally solve the riddles of their existence.
Until then, the world could collapse back into the chaos of the First Era for all he cared.
Most people have a muse—something that keeps the inner spark alive.
For Orin, that spark was Mystica and their myriad ways. Nothing else ever measured up. Not an evening jug full of 'BeeBuzz,' not a steaming morning cup of 'Co'He'—no indulgence compared to the thrill of solving, or even simply existing near, a mysterious Mystica.
Even now, he forced himself to be confined within four walls filled with halfwits and hive-minds—because this institution, despite everything, still held knowledge.
"What's the point of rediscovering what's already been discovered?" This line echoed in his head every time he was tempted to abandon the place and galavant across Wanderlust in search of first-hand experience.
But he stayed. Because somewhere deep within this dusty excuse for a school stood a temple: Whisperkeep: A library not of silence, but of whispers—scrolls that murmur secrets, books that breathe forbidden knowledge. The kind of place that could drive a lesser mind insane, but would make Orin feel alive.
One might think an institute built to educate young minds on Mystica would offer unfettered access to their knowledge.
And one would be right.
Until you factored in the absolute power handed to the teaching elite.
In this world, a Guru wasn't just a mentor. They were judge, jury, and jailer. The highest-ranking educators could override society's basic laws in the name of "education."
If you were to read through Orin's many 'Hawk-letters to' Dr. Quack, you'd see Quack approving this system. 'Power to those shaping the next generation is vital, he'd argued.
But Orin, naturally, had dismantled that philosophical debate with ease. "Power doesn't corrupt," he wrote. "Unbridled power does. Proper distribution of power is essential for a king to heed the call of a commoner. Otherwise, they shall pass rules to their liking, squashing any opposing views.
A proper example being a queen having to listen to another queen without interrupting, while a commoner like himself failed on multiple fronts for a simple summons to rant on Valeri.
And who, exactly, was going to let Orin—a commoner—free from the royal clutch of Valeri?
Valeri, his Guru, had stripped his access to higher-level Mystica, banned him from even low-tier Whisperkeeps, and confined him to the institution's most underdeveloped zone, all under the claim of "teaching a valuable lesson."
She had placed him in a prison whose bars were invisible—and mocked him for failing to escape an open cell she'd so brilliantly constructed.
Their battle had begun the very first day they met—at the recruitment office. Since then, they'd been trying to outwit one another.
No one had won. Yet... For Valeri's victory would come only with Orin's expulsion, and Orin's victory would come only with Valeri's replacement.
The small battles meant nothing.
Only the final war counted.
Sadly, changing Gurus wasn't an option. If Orin had been assigned a regular teacher—an Adyapak, or even an Acharya—he could've pulled a few strings, spilled a few mystic tears, and switched them out like last week's socks.
But no, Orin had to go and dominate those lesser ranks in a single day. Impressed the board so thoroughly, they skipped him straight to the apex: Guru status held by Valeri.
If only he'd known what kind of absurd, society-bending jurisdiction a Guru held… (Not that he remembered that now.)
You see, Orin had another talent—just as refined as his knack for Mystica: He could delete anything he didn't deem necessary.
Names? Gone. Rules? Optional. Valeri's tyrannical grip on his life? Mentally archived in the trash and overwritten with fantasies of freedom.
He also had a knack for harvesting sympathy without ever showing weakness. A neat trick. One that kept him and Valeri locked in a perfect stalemate.
"But as with any arrival," Orin resumed, voice thick with sarcasm, "we wanted a piece of this mystery—a place beside the Mystica. And like those before us, we fought for that right. But unlike any other…" He paused, leaned into the dramatics. "We claimed it."
SLAM.
Orin shut the massive tome of Wanderlust History with enough force to jolt a few desks and dramatically tried to shove it away.
The Scruner didn't budge.
Instead, Orin's poor wooden chair let out a tortured creeeak as it bent back into a curve—threatening, once again, to break beneath the weight of his disappointment.
The god-forsaken screech of the Elsyer wood made every student in the room wince.
Orin simply gritted his teeth and muttered: "Now 'you' know how 'I' feel," as he fought the itch to jam his pinkies into both ears.
There might be others who came close to Orin's level in the study of Mystica… But when it came to the Wanderers? He was as clueless as a rock.
Or, as Orin himself would say: "Dumb as dumb can be."
The Scruner on his desk wriggled toward the edge, one sluggish flap from freedom, yet, true to its lazy nature, it thought better of it.
"The amount of crap written during the first era…" Orin muttered, pointing at the Scruner like it personally offended him. "Secrets," he continued, raising his voice— "that only certain people get access to." His hand swept across the Z'board, clearly wanting, but scared to point at Valeri.
Even Orin knew when not to poke the sleeping Mime.
He began monologuing, each statement laced with a subtle blade, drawing out his classmates' doubts, peeling back their fears.
One by one, they leaned in. One by one, they joined the silent revolution.
"Hidden History," he said.
The girl on his right curled into herself, shrinking like a leaf under frost.
"STRENGTH!" he bellowed.
The scrawny bully in the corner tried to flex and nearly pulled something.
And still, the Scruner refused to fly away. Already accepting and bearing the burden of lethargy.
Orin couldn't recall names—he refused to. Instead, he tagged individuals he regularly encountered with memorable titles that captured their essence… and their potential future value.
Someday, for instance, "Billy the Bully's" currently nonexistent muscles might be needed to lift a metaphorical (or literal) rock off Orin's delicate frame. You never know.
His first preference for backup was always a Mystica. If not that, an Ornyx. But a true genius always kept a backup for the backup, and Orin was nothing if not prepared, thanks to all his constant dance with Valeri.
Valeri, of course, had caught onto this obvious naming scheme. She'd been studying him up close for four months now and knew to look for those neon signs.
This was that time of the month when all the seeds Orin had slyly sown at the start bloomed into a glorious explosion of chaos. All part of his absurd cycle: sow discord, spark a crisis, then heroically solve the very thing he'd created.
It always ended the same—Orin flipping all his negative stars into glowing positives, clinging to the institution like a parasitic Slymora that just wouldn't die.
Today? Valeri was ready.
Before Orin could incite the next wave of calculated chaos, Valeri calmly placed her palm on the Z'board's Orb behind her. "Drizzak," she said, her tone sharp, her gaze locked on Orin like a hunter watching her prey trip into the trap.
Inside the orb, the [Mother An'z] stirred—her spindly antennae twitching, sensing the shift.
"Drizzak," Valeri repeated, firmer now.
Instantly, the Mother An'z swarm within the Z'board responded.
The Billboard An'z, sealed within their translucent glass box, scattered like shattered ink across water. Their tiny legs moved in harmony, shifting grains of enchanted sand across the inner surface. Chaos spun into spirals. Spirals morphed into intricate geometry. A silent message crystallized across the Z'board—a beautiful, terrible display of authority.
Valeri took a moment to blow on her designer nails, watching idly as the last An'z crawled to its safe zone.
Orin, meanwhile, had been watching everything. Every twitch, breath, and microscopic motion of Valeri was code to him.
Emotion he might miss—but a chant—never!
He knew what was coming and was out of primary options, so he switched to backup plan C.
Just as the final An'z nestled into its shelter, Valeri whispered something into her nails—her voice low, teeth clenched.
"Tessoryx."
The design etched into her nails twisted, curled… and grew. Tiny dagger-like points emerged—mystica-forged, sharp enough to slice through dimensions.
Then, slowly, with maddening precision, she dragged her daggered nails across the Z'board's surface, pressing into the sacred geometry etched in sand.
A screech. Not a normal one... Something born from mystica and malice.
The sound crawled through the ears of every student like a whisper made of broken glass. Heads clutched. Eyes squeezed shut. Mouths opened in silent pain.
Except for two people who stood unaffected, the rest folded.
Valeri—serene within the sound-dampening field generated by the swirling pattern beneath her feet. And Orin—grinning just enough to make it personal.
Because he knew and planned for this the day Valeri purchased those mystica-formed nail charms.
Backup C was a go.
"Nactrols!" Orin spat the Mystica's name like a curse, curling into a ball and clutching his ears tight. "Who taught someone to use them like that?!"
Having a backup plan meant nothing if one flipped the rules of the game.
His eyes flicked toward the girl who unknowingly made his backup possible. 'I owe you one, Crybaby,' he thought. 'You too, Slooth.'
He rose slowly, dramatically—hiding his disorientation—revealing the pair of Mystica tucked over his ears. Not his usual smug smirk. No victorious gloating. Just a quick check behind him—on the classmate he'd borrowed the sound-muffling Mystica from. The only other person, it seemed, who hadn't been affected by Valeri's sonic trap.
"Linpo's," Valeri whispered, recognizing the Mystica clinging to his ears. Her eyes narrowed. "When did he…?"
She followed Orin's gaze to Elio Ruiz—a.k.a the Slooth—the laziest, slipperiest creature she'd ever had the misfortune of registering.
Valeri had once described him to another teacher as "a Scruner on sedatives."
Elio was out cold, as usual. Whether he had been affected by the screech or was just deep into another midday nap… unclear. Neither Valeri nor Orin could tell, as they needed different answers.
Orin needed Elio to be knocked out—the next phase of his scheme required a passive Slooth, while Valeri needed Elio to have heard everything, just to ruin Orin's follow-up.
Neither of them, of course, was genuinely concerned about Elio's well-being.
Valeri could almost admire how quickly she could map out Orin's plan after the damage. She could stop him now. Take disciplinary action. Strip his access. Finally end this exhausting war, but… that wasn't what a Guru did.
Curse her brilliance, and curse her title for that.
"Talent is such a curse." She muttered under her breath.
There was another option: outthink him before he made his move. Simple enough—if she didn't have nineteen other little schemes to track, each one trying to sabotage or one-up the system in their own petty, infuriating ways.
Her mind was twenty-one pieces divided, held together by sheer willpower and designer coffee.
She remembered the moment—a month ago—when Orin had changed his seat.
The same week, she'd rewarded herself with those pretty mystica for surviving three months with twenty demons in one class.
"Hysteria, dear," she called out, checking in on Crybaby with a subtle nod.
The girl gave a crooked smile in return.
Valeri didn't miss it. The little girl's house—technically a race and religion in its own right—had access to more knowledge than anyone in the room. That was the danger.
'I need to separate those two before he figures it out,' she thought, scanning the room again. 'He probably asked her about the nails because she's the only girl who'll talk to him. Or maybe… the only person who doesn't flinch at his constant scorn for Wanderers.'
She paused. Worry was gripping her heart. 'He hasn't figured out her race. I'd bet he doesn't even know Eva's a girl.' She convinced her worry to settle down.
Valeri's eyes swept across the classroom, reading expressions, cataloguing postures. 'At least… I hope that's the case.'
Even as she replayed the sequence of events, Valeri found herself facing too many gaps in her theory.
She assumed Orin had whispered the spell to activate the Linpo, making them slink over his ears when he ducked. He had moved before anyone else—far too quickly. The question remaining, when he had stolen them from Elio Ruiz?
"I saw them on Ruiz during class," she reminded herself.
Valeri's eyes flicked toward Orin again—he was now attempting (poorly) to hide his bag behind one leg.
'That's obvious. He wants me to look at his leg…' Her gaze shifted upward. And there it was—a slender tail, slipping beneath Orin's collarbone and into his shirt.
'He has that Mystica with him now! Bu... when… when did he chant?'
She scrubbed through her memories like a reel of stills. Not once had she seen Orin mouth a word. Not even a whisper. Nothing.
'This kid is something else.' She smiled despite herself, and Orin noticed—and that, more than anything, made him nervous.
"Mr. Mystiq," Valeri said, tone sharp, "explain to the class... what is a chant?"
Orin stood straight. Hands folded behind his back, his voice crisp and perfect.
"Orphus—the mystic word, or the now lazily tossed-around term chant—is how Wanderers communicate with Mystica. The mystical creatures of Wanderlust." He gave a generous pause, a hint of a smirk curling up. "Of course, you can't just know the word and hope the Mystica obeys. I'd go into more detail, but it's far too advanced for these kids," he gestured lazily, "and should be common knowledge for a Gu-ru."
He dropped back into his chair, balancing with casual arrogance. If he could've crossed his legs, he would have, but for now, even half-leaning was disrespectful enough.
"And is there any other way to activate a Mystica?" Valeri asked, her voice sharp and simple.
"Nope!" Orin replied, all teeth.
Valeri's eyes narrowed. 'When was the last time I saw someone control a Mystica without a spoken chant?' Then it struck her. 'Ah… that's right.'
She looked into Orin's eyes, glistening, ever-glowing orange. That same eerie shine. That same intensity.
'Same eyes.'
She couldn't remember a single day when his eyes weren't laced with that molten orange hue, as if he were always under the influence of an Ore.
At first, she suspected the impossible: a seven-year-old having an Ore addiction.
Later, she dismissed the theory on the grounds of absurdity. No one could stay high that long--not a seven-year-old.
Then there was the hair. That dark green hue which would shimmer, and turn ethereal at noon, as if he were being charged by the Suns themselves.
He had once explained in great detail as the result of a "personal experiment"—done to blend in with nature.
Valeri never reported it. She didn't need to. Everyone already knew he wore those self-woven, patchwork rags he called clothes—to camouflage himself during what he called 'Mystic Time.'
Which was him sneaking through the jungles. Hiding in the canopies. Not to play, not to prank—but to spy on Mystica—or unbeknownst to her, sneak into Whisperkeep.
He called everyone obvious, yet everyone knew his clothes were laced with secret pockets. Places to hide scrolls, keys, crumbs, or—of course—Mystica.
'Removing hidden flasks from a secret pocket, when in a crowd of dumb Wanderers, only shows how dumb you are.' Valeri would never forget the stunned look on Orin's face when she first said that. To make things better, he still didn't understand how she'd debunked his plans that day.
"Plus four," she called out with a chuckle, adding those imaginary stars to Orin.
"Yes!" Orin dropped back into his chair, sliding down like he'd just conquered a kingdom, and missing Valeri's obvious outburst of character. 'And I'm back to minus ten stars. Which means…' He dove into mental math with all the glee of a gambler back in the game.
"I almost forgot," Valeri interrupted, slicing through his thoughts like a dagger. "Everyone will need to trade in twenty stars for our upcoming outing."
The class erupted.
Axel—a.k.a. Billy the Bully—flipped his desk with the help of a borrowed Ornyx. Eva shrank beneath her table to cry in private, while Elio simply slid off his chair and wrapped himself in a blanket, hoping to sleep through the chaos.
But the uproar screeched to a halt when Valeri rested her nails against the Z'board.
She spread her fingers—not scratching the board, merely hinting at it—and the class fell silent like they were under a spell.
Her palm struck the Z'board's orb. "Limmarch!" she intoned.
The Billboard An'z, ever loyal, burst into motion. Tiny limbs scattered the sand into controlled chaos, turning white, reforming the surface into crisp letters that stretched across the board.
"SILENCE", it read, and within those elegant strokes, only one student caught the hidden message etched just for him:
"I - Win."
Valeri didn't have to say anything. Her glance at Orin said it all.
"Never complain…" she said coolly. "Or celebrate…"
A faint click—her 'Bubble-Lens Spectacles' activated. Tiny insect legs crept from the sides of her frames, pulling the lenses into place with quiet precision.
"…too early."
The lenses zoomed into Orin's face—his smugness now twisted into tight-jawed defeat.
"Patience is key," she continued, her voice soft but cutting. "For it can turn any failure into true success."
With a final flick, the Mystica coiled back into her palm. She whispered to it, then tossed it onto the board.
The Mystica 'Bubblepede' hit the surface and split into eight transparent quadrants, never breaking the spherical bubble they shared. As they scurried across the Z'board, they began weaving intricate layers—bubbles upon bubbles, refracting and overlapping, until the board transformed into a multidimensional 3D projection.
From the haze of light and pattern emerged a scene: A mountain, racing across vast planes, circling all of Wanderlust with chaotic speed and strange logic. It only stopped once every ten years, and whenever it did, a timestamp was etched into reality.
Today, the An'z froze. The image locked. In the corner of the bubble's curve, glowing in pale gold script: "4E—51W—10D"
The classroom sucked in a breath as one. Their wonder caught halfway down their throats.
"Xavier's Market," someone whispered.
The room didn't exhale—it shivered.
"Now you tell me..." Valeri chuckled, tilting her head toward the mountain projection still floating in residual shimmer.
"Is twenty measly Scholar Stars enough for that?" She pointed.
POP. The bubble burst into a cascade of rainbow sparks.
"Nooo..!" the class groaned in collective agony.
"And whyyy is thaaaat?" Valeri mocked their moan by copying it exactly.
"It takes more than fortune, fame, or power to set foot in the infamous Xavier's Market…" they echoed, like a choir raised on resignation—All except Orin, who sat motionless, stunned by the cost of his failure.
"And what did I ask for?" Valeri tilted her head, a knowing twinkle in her eye.
"Twenty measly little Scholar Stars."
"…from ungrateful little kids," Valeri completed their sentence, grinning.
"Twenty stars that can get us into the second year," Orin grumbled, trying to reclaim dignity.
Valeri didn't bother correcting him. Not everyone viewed graduation as the grand escape from their Guru's grip.
Orin liked to think her class followed a real system—first year, second year, all the way to seventh. But truth be told, Valeri decided who earned what. She gave the titles. She took them away.
Twenty stars wasn't just an entry fee—it was a test of survival, strategy, and psychological warfare under her rule.
If any other teacher had been in charge, Orin would've sped through the seven titles in a week. And that was him being generous to the Certification Committee—or whatever those dusty nobodies living to inscribe pointless certificates called themselves.
But with Valeri? He was stuck in a cycle of gain and loss, where genius wasn't enough, and obedience wasn't even on the table.
'I don't have the stars… but I can still buy my way in. Somehow…' Orin reassured himself. 'Sell everything I own. Bribe. Trade. Trick. I'll find a way.'
He sat up straighter, regaining his infamous victory posture. 'This war wasn't over.'
He glared across the room to find Valeri distracted by other students, and that only made it worse...!
Among the nine wonders of Wanderlust, Xavier's market remained the hardest mystery to crack. Not because of the secrets within, but because the market itself was nearly impossible to reach.
Perched on the back of the elusive, traveling mountain, the market drifted across the continent in unpredictable patterns. The mountain only stopped once every decade, and when it did, the timestamp got etched into history. None that he could access—but kids tell him they are there.
Wanderers have tried since the first era, yet no one has come close to solving a mystery inside Ouroboros. Not a single verified breakthrough in all recorded time.
Scholars speculated that the mountain moved because of a massive Mystica living within or near it. The theory stuck because everything caught in Ouroboros's wake was drained of energy, of will, of life.
A similar effect happened to anyone who stuck their head out of a moving 'Centi'—that dizzying, starving sensation of reality folding in on itself.
Weird coincidence that was too similar to ignore, yet possible to imagine if scaled to something... ancient, dangerous, and alive.
The specifics of staying on Ouroboros remain a mystery to this day. No Wanderer—nor even Mystica—has survived its harsh climate for more than an hour during transit. And those foolish enough to try leaping off mid-journey? Their stories always ended in worse ways than those who stayed, with empty coffins being buried.
Once the mountain moves, it doesn't stop again for ten years--Sometimes longer.
Ouroboros last paused a year before Orin was born. By all predictions, it should have kept moving for another year at the least. Yet here it was—still, silent, waiting.
Aurochs save Wanderkind if Orin doesn't get to reap the benefits.
The thought alone made his skin burn. The regret might bring the Mystic Armageddon to Wanderlust.
'Can this school even afford such an outing?' Orin thought bitterly. 'Can she handle a bunch of nosy brats in a place like that?' More questions followed with not enough answers.
In Orin's eyes, his institute was the lowest of the low. Even among the schools tossed to the outskirts, this one was a rubble heap, barely hanging onto the name of academia. Calling it a school at all was a stretch, especially when compared to the pristine, marble-walled universities in the capital. The only notable achievement this institute could ever claim was Orin himself.
They were so broke, so twisted in their priorities, they'd let Valeri take complete control, allowing her to expel more than half the class within her first twenty days in charge.
'If anything, this damn school is going to pay off my presence by sending me to that cursed mystery mountain. If I die there, fine. But block me from it?' He clenched his fists. 'And a lifespan of slavery won't settle the debt.'
Orin turned red, from frustration or fury—maybe both—and locked eyes with Valeri, flashing his most defiant smile, while she only smiled wider.
"And I will be giving out stars like crazy," she announced, "before Oru'Ma opens up to the public." Her voice had that telltale glint of mockery. "So grab what you lack. Earn it. Or don't go at all."
Want me to beg? Orin thought. And for the first time in a long time, he accepted the premise.
Anything for a shot at solving the ways of mystica. He wasn't going to let a decade slip by.
Valeri's grin turned into a laugh. "Ah! Before I forget…"
Now what?!
"Bring your parents tomorrow." She let the word hang in the air. "They need to sign some papers allowing you to go. No stars… no sign… no go." She smiled right at Orin.
—That was it.
All the calculations in his head—the backup plans, the escape routes, the bargaining strategies, the fake emotionless mask—They crumbled at once.
She said the one word he could never prepare for: Parents.
A word that halted every thought, every scheme, that held a meaning he couldn't reach, couldn't fake, couldn't understand.
Heavier than the mountain itself, the taboo word that held all the power to stop Orin dead in his tracks and touch on the filthy emotions he loathed.
The tragedies of the third era snatched Orin's mother from him, and the cruel clauses of the fourth locked away the truth of what really happened.
Suppressed memories flickered back—unwanted, uninvited—dragging him into the one state he hated most:
Helplessness.
Where nothing made sense.
Where everything could get past his otherwise impregnable guard.
Irene—his mother—was the only good thing about the Mystiq family. The only glue that held them together.
His old man? Orin couldn't even remember the man's name, let alone the last time they'd shared a meal.
'It couldn't have been too long ago,' Orin tried convincing himself. 'You need a parent's signature to get into an institution like this… right?'
He paused to consider the logistics.
'No, wait... I forged that. I forged that. Maybe a few others too... Otherwise, Valeri would've asked for a signature, not an appearance.' He clenched his fists. She figured it out. That witch figured it out... Which means... I did forge them.'
Without his permission came the question he didn't want to ask: 'When was the last time I even saw him?'
He bit his tongue, forcefully stopping the thought from spiralling out of control, instead focusing on gulping down the trickling blood.
He knew what came next—That dark room. Aching silence. No clinging sound followed right behind his mother's gentle footsteps. No gentle creak of a door to check if he needed someone.
Just a suffocating absence.
He didn't need that emotion. That shadowy, nameless thing. Not now. Not ever.
And not when the stakes were this high.
"Before I get into more details," Valeri's voice sliced through the haze, "and some of you miss it…" She locked eyes with Orin. "Don't you owe the class—and me—an apology?"
Just like that, the topic shifted. Her ego boosted, and Orin yanked right back into the moment.
It worked. Her timing always did.
Sometimes Orin wonders her to be a real witch of emotions.
What a silly idea that was.
"Never heard of an apology, Mystiq?" Valeri purred, adjusting the Bubblepede on her nose.
The rejoined Mystica slithered along the bridge of her sharp nose, circling her emerald-green eyes—eyes that glowed with smug victory.
"The thing people say when they're wrong," she added, twisting the knife.
Orin snickered. "You assume I've ever been wrong."
Before he could dig his grave deeper, a folded note slid across his desk. A simple number folding the entire leaf: "30."
Hysteria didn't even look up, but the meaning landed like a punch... or she hoped.
It had rather been a shyful memory they shared, which she hoped he still remembered, not as vivid, yet at least in broader strokes—because he was Orin after all, and it had been a day since.
"A memory is never really lost," Dr. Quack once told him.
Orin had argued otherwise. He believed he'd found a way to delete the trifle ones—sacrificing the insignificant to make space for the only thing that mattered: the ways of Mystica.
Hysteria understood this theory well, having lived through a strange event four times in a single hour, where Orin kept introducing himself to her. At first, she considered it flirting, only to realize this was Orin Mystiq she was dealing with.
Turns out, he forgot their entire interaction, and was living in the loop due to four weird distractions.
Once, he got distracted by a common Mystica, which, according to him, was doing something unique. I mean, an Arachnivis reaching for the shadows isn't anything new, but still!
Twice, while solving a puzzle, he had been working alongside during their casual conversation, and the fourth time… while trying—and failing—to recall his father's name.
Orin's mind was a sprawling Whisperkeep—A vast mental archive crammed with tomes on the 'Ways of Mystica.'
But names?
Names were often tossed into the abyss without ceremony.
Orin had taken to calling his father "Mr. Mystiq", while Hysteria, a Hystorian born to know everything within Wanderlust, winced every time.
Bound by her race's sacred laws, she could never share truths. Knowledge, to her kind, was taboo for all but historians to bear, so instead, she helped in other ways.
Most people avoided Orin, not because of who he was, but because he didn't remember them. This wore people down.
Orin claimed to have a "technique" for remembering Wanderers, yet he always defaulted to making up sounds or calling them by Mystica nicknames.
"Thank you… You!" Orin beamed one day.
"At least that's new!" Hysteria chuckled.
Orin hated to admit it, but he had wholly forgotten Valeri's promise.
Was it just to me? Or the whole class?
He shook the thought away. It didn't matter.
What mattered was remembering this: Thirty scholar stars = Access to Ouroboros.
Hysteria etched the same message onto a Whisper Leaf for him to carry.
"I'll remind you from time to time," she said softly, handing it to him. "Oh, and… you also have to apologize," she added.
"Why?"
'You don't remember compliments. Why would you remember insults?' Hysteria sighed, pulling out another Whisper Leaf Orin had stored with her for emergencies such as this.
"Do what Eva Hysteria Velmore tells you. Without questioning. Questioning the question is also a question. Just do it..." read the whisper lead.
"If you want to get into Ouroboros," she added, her voice gentle but firm. "Apologize."
Orin sighed, placed his hands together, and bowed toward Valeri.
"That's a neat trick," Valeri mused, staring at Hysteria like she'd grown extra limbs.'Does her clan have chants for brats?' she made a note to herself, wanting to ask her later.
"Nuh-uh!" Hysteria clicked her tongue and waved a finger across Orin's face. "Sign the leaf. Follow the note." She barely held in a giggle, bossing Orin around.
"Fine," Orin relented, falling back into the storm of thoughts in his head.
Hysteria's cheeks flushed red, excitement trembling behind her smile.
She'd done it. She'd finally gotten full access to Orin Mystiq.
"Um… Mish?" She tested out a nickname she'd crafted just for him, and he turned with that blank expression again. Her name—already discarded.
"…Never mind," she muttered, deflating into her seat.
He belongs to no one... not even himself.
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