The Grand Atrium, once a place of judgment, now felt like a gilded cage. Mehandi was a special envoy, a consultant, a ward of the Magisterium. The change in his status was immediate and absolute. Professors who had once looked through him now bowed their heads in respect. Students who had sneered now averted their eyes in a mixture of fear and grudging admiration. He was no longer the Ghost Volkov, but a recognized power—a title that felt both liberating and isolating.
His days were no longer filled with lectures on mana theory but with private consultations with Magisters. They asked him to demonstrate his magic, to explain its principles, to share its secrets. He spoke of the aether, of the quiet magic of the earth and the stars, and they listened with the rapt, skeptical attention of scholars confronted with a new reality. He felt like a rare specimen, a curiosity to be studied, but he knew this was the price of his new position.
One afternoon, he found himself in a desolate training hall, a place where students practiced their more destructive spells. A single figure stood in the center, her fiery red hair a vibrant splash of color against the drab stone. It was Anya. Her face was set in a scowl of frustration as she tried to conjure a simple spell, her mana sputtering out in a puff of smoke.
"It's no use," she muttered to herself. "I can't even get the basics right. My mana is all over the place."
Mehandi walked over, his footsteps silent on the stone. Anya looked up, her frustration giving way to a new kind of defiance. "Don't you have a report to give, Envoy?"
Mehandi smiled faintly. "Even a consultant needs to stretch his legs. Your problem isn't a lack of mana, Anya. It's too much of it. You're a torrent with no riverbed." He knelt, placing his hand on the floor. "You're fighting your own magic."
He extended his hand, not to cast a spell, but to show her. He pushed a small amount of aether from his palm into the air, and it settled, shimmering and pure. It didn't burn or explode; it simply was. "Magic doesn't have to be forced. It's a conversation. Listen to it. Let it guide you."
Anya watched him, a new understanding in her eyes. The frustration began to fade, replaced with a profound curiosity. She was the first person in the academy to see him not as a curiosity, but as a teacher.
Later that day, Magister Silas found him in the archives, reviewing old Volkov family records. "Your brothers' allies are not pleased, Envoy," he said, his voice low. "Our inquiry has been met with resistance. Powerful mages in the Council are stonewalling us, and the necromancer's network of influence runs deeper than we believed."
He placed a scroll on the table, its seal an unfamiliar, ornate crest. "This is your first official assignment. A small, remote outpost of aetherial mages has gone silent. The mages there are practitioners of a quiet, defensive magic, not unlike your own. The location, however, is a key strategic point for one of your brothers' most powerful allies, a merchant guild with considerable influence in the Magisterium itself."
Silas's eyes were sharp and direct. "We suspect foul play, but we cannot act officially without proof. Your magic, Mr. Volkov, is uniquely suited for this task. You can enter the outpost unseen. You will discover what happened and return with your findings. We will use it to bring this corruption to the light."
Mehandi took the scroll. The weight of it was different from the Veritas Stone. This was not a quest for vengeance, but for justice. He had come to the academy to clear his name, but he was leaving with a purpose far grander than he had ever imagined. His education in the world's unwritten rules had just begun.