The heavy silence of the Magic Engineering corridor pressed against Arthur's shoulders. He drifted across the polished stone, a phantom marching toward an inevitable execution.
Head Instructor Vigo canceled last night's session to entertain that guest lecturer from the Sporelands. He scrapped tonight's broader class as well, yet demanded my presence at this clandestine hour. Arthur's amber eyes narrowed in the gloom. I've played his game so far. Procuring an elixir that forces a Mana Pool to rival God-rank Mages requires risks. But what if this is all a ruse?
He stalled outside the iron-reinforced doors of the private laboratory. Two months ago, in this exact spot, Vigo had shattered his terrifyingly stern facade, weeping with fundamentally human guilt over his failure to save "Arthur." Yet every interaction since that night had been a study in jarring contradictions. Inside that lab, the Head Instructor operated with chilling detachment, moral flexibility, and radical perfectionism.
Arthur's jaw locked. Was that initial warmth a calculated manipulation? A ploy to secure my absolute obedience?
He was adamant that power must reside solely in one vessel to retain its value and uniqueness. But perhaps he wasn't talking about me. Perhaps he meant himself.
Arthur's hand hovered over the brass handle. Could that be why he reacted with such indifference when we stabilized the perfect ratio last month? Have I outlived my usefulness? Is he disposing of me tonight? He tightened his grip. I won't let that happen.
He anchored his core, funneling ambient mana into his muscle fibers to prime the Nameless Manuscript's aura just beneath his skin, and shoved the doors open.
He braced for a cold dismissal. He expected a trap.
Instead, a violently bright, effervescent pink light washed over him, masked by the chaotic, bubbling hiss of overworked alchemical condensers.
"Cedric! My boy! The architect of our triumph!"
Arthur froze. His primed defense mechanisms stalled out.
Sivan Ruarc Vigo, the notoriously immaculate Head Instructor, stood balanced atop a steel workbench. His signature silver monocle dangled wildly from its chain. Static electricity possessed his usually pristine hair, turning it into a frantic mane. He brandished a massive, swirling beaker of fermented alchemical nectar—a glowing, volatile brew that reeked of ozone and overripe fruit. He swayed, completely intoxicated by a dangerous cocktail of sleep deprivation, manic euphoria, and whatever alchemical fumes he was currently inhaling.
Arthur blinked, staring up at the man. "Instructor...?"
"Don't 'Instructor' me tonight!" Vigo roared, a booming, unhinged laugh echoing off the vaulted ceiling. He vaulted from the table, landing with a heavy, clumsy thud, and marched forward, throwing a heavy arm around his student's shoulders. "We did it! Or rather, you did it! That perfect ratio we established last month? I finally secured the next phase. We are celebrating!"
He thrust the glowing beaker upward, sloshing sizzling droplets onto the stone floor.
Arthur stood rigid, the paralyzing paranoia evaporating into a sudden, overwhelming rush of heat. He's celebrating. For me. It was incredibly childish—a pathetic, starving need for attention that the original Arthur had always harbored but never fed. Yet here stood the Academy's most brilliant mind, shedding all decorum, acting like an unhinged madman purely to validate Arthur's contribution.
A genuine smile, sharp and hungry, broke across Arthur's face. "So this is why you canceled our session after night class," he murmured, the puzzle pieces clicking into place. "You weren't just exchanging pleasantries with the guest lecturer."
"Pleasantries? Hah!" Vigo spun, gesturing wildly toward the far corner of the lab. "The man is a premier smuggler! He delivered the exact inventory we require."
Two heavy containment cages rested beneath harsh magical spotlights. In the left, a Beastman from the Golden Plains lay heavily sedated. The steady rise of its chest, the structure of its clavicle, the map of its veins—it mirrored human physiology with terrifying precision.
In the right cage paced the sapient beast recovered from the Adventurers' recent tangent—a sprawling mass of spiked chitin and furious, intelligent eyes tracking their every movement with calculated malice.
"We escalated from the Seaman subject," Vigo slurred slightly, pacing before the iron bars. "The Seaman was adequate. But this!" He slapped the Beastman's cage. "Genetically adjacent! The vital stepping stone toward our ultimate canvas."
"And the monster?" Arthur asked, leaning against the workbench, drawn completely into the manic gravity of the performance.
"A visual aid to celebrate our superiority over the wider academic community!" Vigo snatched a prepared syringe from a velvet tray. Inside the glass tube, the hyper-condensed liquid of their 'perfect ratio' pulsed with violet energy. "The prevailing theory among lesser alchemists is an absolute embarrassment, Cedric. They believe that if a formula works, you need only scale the dose by the mass of the subject."
Vigo staggered toward the monster. The creature hissed, retreating to the far bars.
"Mass! As if weight is the sole variable of creation!" Vigo lectured, his voice rising in an ecstatic crescendo. "They completely ignore chemical composition! Diet, environment, ambient mana absorption, genetic anomalies! Every single organism is distinct. The further a specimen's biology strays from the target vessel—from you—the more variables exist. Thousands of variables that simple mass-scaling equations cannot possibly fathom!"
Vigo didn't bother opening the door. He simply jammed his arm through the bars. The monster lunged, snapping its jaws, but Vigo struck faster, driving the reinforced needle deep into the creature's thick neck.
"I have scaled this dose perfectly to match the exact mass of this creature," Vigo sneered, depressing the plunger in one fluid motion. He yanked his arm back a fraction of a second before the beast shrieked. "Observe the ignorance of our peers!"
The reaction was instantaneous. The creature's veins flared with blinding, violet light. The perfect ratio flooded its system, instantly colliding with an alien biological makeup. The sheer volume of unaccounted variables triggered a catastrophic cascade.
Arthur didn't flinch. He watched with rapt, unblinking attention.
POP.
The creature destabilized. Its physical form shattered under the violent mathematical paradox of the elixir. A shockwave of dense, glowing alchemical ash and viscous purple sludge detonated outward, rattling the heavy cages and coating the protective glass with a shimmering layer of residue.
The lab fell silent, save for the hiss of the condensers and the gentle breathing of the sedated Beastman in the adjacent cage.
Vigo wiped a streak of glowing sludge from his cheek. He turned to Arthur, eyes burning with a wild, triumphant grin. "Total cellular rejection! A glorious, unmitigated failure! Mass scaling is a myth!"
Arthur stared at the empty cage, taking in the shimmering ash, then looked back at Vigo. A profound, anchoring warmth bloomed in his chest. Vigo was deliberately performing for him, dismantling established academic theory and vaporizing a priceless specimen purely to prove a point to his apprentice.
What Arthur couldn't see, as he stared into the neon glow of the ruined cage, was the cold, calculating shift in Vigo's posture. Behind Arthur's back, the intoxicating mania evaporated from the Head Instructor's face for a fraction of a second. It was replaced by the razor-sharp, predatory gaze of a man who had just successfully calculated the exact emotional lever needed to secure his asset's blind loyalty.
Arthur turned back around, his amber eyes bright. "Well," Arthur purred, his voice smooth as silk, entirely unbothered by the ethical weight of the room. "It seems we must limit our variables, Instructor. Shall we begin with the Beastman?"