The sun had finally set.
The Academy grounds were painted in the pale light of the moon and the flickering glow of magical streetlamps.
Arion walked slowly away from the library. He was mentally exhausted.
Between detonating a fireball in theory class, saving an idiot noble from blowing his own arm off, being accused of shameless debauchery, and ignoring a mental ocean, his social battery was completely shattered.
He clutched the incredibly thick book on municipal bricklaying under his arm. It was his only comfort.
"Bed," Arion muttered to himself. "I need my bed. And silence."
He navigated toward the dorms. It was a simple stone building that smelled faintly of cheap soap and adolescent anxiety.
Arion climbed the stairs. He reached the top step, let out a heavy sigh of relief, and looked down the dimly lit hallway toward his room.
He froze.
Standing directly in front of his wooden door was a figure that absolutely did not belong there.
Sebastian Ambrose was pacing back and forth. The blonde noble was glowing with an aura of expensive cologne and manic perfection. He was clutching a stack of leather-bound notebooks to his chest, muttering feverishly to himself.
Arion slowly took one step backward. If he was quiet, he could retreat to the stairwell and just sleep on the steps.
"Arion!"
Sebastian's head snapped up. His eyes widened with a terrifying, starved intensity.
He didn't just walk. He closed the distance in three massive strides, practically cornering Arion against the stone wall.
"You are here!" Sebastian gasped. He looked like he hadn't blinked in an hour. "I have been waiting for you! I tried to replicate it, Arion! I pulled raw fire mana into my palm without an incantation!"
Arion stared at him. "You did what? I told you not to do that."
"I almost lost my hand!" Sebastian said, his voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated excitement. "The mana went completely out of control! It was terrifying! It was beautiful! The chantless barrier you cast around me earlier... the sheer stability, the perfect containment... it defies every grimoire written in the last three centuries!"
THUD.
Sebastian dropped his stack of notebooks. They scattered across the wooden floorboards.
Before Arion could react, Sebastian grabbed both of Arion's free hands. He locked their fingers together with a desperate, crushing grip.
"Hey," Arion stiffened, trying to pull his hands back. "Personal space. Let go."
"I cannot let go!" Sebastian pleaded, pressing Arion's hands against the silk of his own vest. His blue eyes sparkled with the fervor of a scholar who had just seen the truth of the universe. "I must understand your spellcasting! Please, Arion! Let me stay by your side!"
"You're too close," Arion said, leaning back as far as his spine would allow. "Back up."
"I will do anything!" Sebastian pressed closer, pinning Arion between himself and the wall. "Night and day, I will dedicate myself to you! Let me observe every inch of your technique!"
CREAAAK.
Down the hallway, a door opened.
A second-year student stepped out, holding a wooden washbasin. He froze.
Two more students walking up the stairs behind Arion stopped dead in their tracks.
The hallway fell into absolute, suffocating silence.
From an outsider's perspective, the scene was damning. The highest-ranking noble heir in the first-year class was currently pinning an older student against a wall. He was clutching his hands, breathing heavily in the dim light, and loudly begging to be with him night and day.
"Did... did you hear him?" one of the students on the stairs whispered, his eyes wide.
"He said he'd do anything..." another muttered, his face turning bright red. "I thought Teacher Sophia claimed him... is he collecting the Ambrose heir too?!"
Arion heard the whispers. He felt a massive headache bloom behind his eyes. He looked at the stunned audience, then back to the blonde noble who was currently looking at him with desperate, pleading eyes.
"Sebastian," Arion said, his voice low and incredibly strained. "Look around you. People are watching. Let go of my hands."
Sebastian, completely blinded by academic zeal, did not look around. He misinterpreted Arion's hesitation as a test of his resolve.
"I know I am unworthy!" Sebastian cried out, his voice echoing off the stone ceiling.
"I am going to enter my room," Arion stated.
He violently yanked his hand free, nearly dropping his bricklaying book in the process.
"And I am going to lock the door. If you follow me, I will throw you out the window."
Arion snatched his keys from his pocket, shoved his door open, stepped inside, and slammed it shut right in Sebastian's face.
CLICK.
Out in the hallway, Sebastian remained on one knee, staring at the closed wood with profound awe.
"Heresy!"
The shout echoed violently against the expensive mahogany walls of the Principal's office.
Teacher Sophia stood in the center of the plush rug. She was violently rubbing her temples, trying to manually massage a migraine out of her skull.
To her right stood the theory professor from the lecture hall. He was practically vibrating with righteous fury, pointing a trembling finger at empty air as if Arion were standing right there.
"Absolute, unmitigated heresy!" the old man shrieked. "The boy bypassed the twelve words of binding entirely! He absorbed raw fire mana into his own biological pathways! This is not magic, Principal! It is a mockery of the Gods!"
The Principal sat behind his massive desk. His face was entirely unreadable.
Standing slightly behind him was the Secretary, clutching a thin file and smiling politely despite the cold bead of sweat sliding down her neck.
"He did not petition the sacred elements, he commanded them without a geometric base!" the professor yelled. "What he demonstrated will encourage the first-years to incinerate themselves from the inside out! I demand his immediate expulsion!"
The Principal steepled his fingers. He looked at Sophia.
"Teacher Sophia," the Principal said calmly. "As his chosen master, what is your defense for your student's... highly irregular methodology?"
Sophia sighed. It was a long, rattling sound that carried the weight of a thousand unpaid overtime hours.
"My defense, Principal, is that he didn't blow up the classroom," Sophia said, her voice flat and exhausted. "Arion is... unique. His internal pathways are abnormally dense. He doesn't need an incantation because his physical body acts as the containment vessel."
"That is physical self-mutilation!" the professor scoffed, throwing his hands up in disgust. "He would melt! He is using some dark, forbidden artifact to cheat the system! Expel him!"
"Professor," the Principal interrupted.
He didn't raise his voice, but the sheer weight of his mana instantly dropped the temperature in the room. The theory instructor snapped his mouth shut, breathing heavily through his nose.
The Principal shifted his gaze to the large window overlooking the courtyard.
Expel him?
The Principal remembered the day the admission results were posted. He remembered the terrifying woman in his shadowy office.
He remembered how she had scoffed at their ethical codes, waving her hand dismissively. When he had warned her about the noble families complaining, she had laughed loudly, dismissing them as people who just "sit around eating pastries and pretending to be important".
"It's better you find someone—or something—unconventional to teach him," she had told him. "Standard classes will just bore him to death. Bye!"
And then she had simply vanished before he could even scream.
If he expelled Arion now, he would have to deal with that woman again. And he knew for a fact she did not care about the Academy's rules.
"The Academy is a place of order," the Principal said slowly, turning back to the room. "Our theories exist for the safety of the students. However... we are also an institution that respects raw results."
The theory professor looked horrified. "Principal, you cannot be seriously considering letting this—"
"I am considering a practical demonstration," the Principal smoothly talked over him. He leaned forward into the light of his desk lamp. "Words and theories only go so far. Let us test him in the upcoming First-Year Assessment Labyrinth."
Sophia flinched.
"Professor, if Arion's methods are truly fraudulent and unsustainable, they will fail him in a live-combat scenario within the labyrinth's shifting architecture," the Principal commanded. "If he cannot survive the assessment, the Academy will take disciplinary action."
The theory professor straightened his robes. A smug, triumphant smile spread across his wrinkled face.
"A brilliant solution, Principal. The labyrinth requires endurance, geometric precision, and proper elemental negotiation. A brute who relies on self-mutilation will not last ten minutes."
"There is one condition," the Principal added, his eyes flashing with a hidden, almost imperceptible amusement. "The assessment is a squad-based evaluation. Arion must complete the labyrinth in a standard party of four."
Sophia's eyes widened. "Four? Principal, he is a single-name commoner who just committed academic heresy in front of the entire first-year class. No one is going to team up with him."
"That is his problem to solve," the Principal said firmly. "He must find three other first-year students willing to party with him. If he cannot form a full squad before the assessment begins, he fails by default."
The professor laughed. It was a dry, nasty sound.
"Good luck to him. After his display today, not a single respectable student with a family name will ever tether their academic standing to his."
The meeting was dismissed.