In 1993, London, England.
Inside the Department of Spiritual Evocation lecture hall at the Clock Tower, headquarters of the Mage's Association, the classroom was laid out in a quarter-circle, its tiers of seats rising like steps. At the focal point beneath the curved dome, a young, handsome, impeccably poised lecturer stood at the podium, tapping a pointer against his hand as his voice rose and fell with practiced cadence.
From a distance, the scene was immaculate. Students sat straight-backed beneath bright lights that illuminated every corner without leaving a single shadow. Anyone seeing it from the outside would have sighed in admiration. As expected of the foremost stronghold of Western European magi and the highest institution of ancient mystery.
But only by drawing closer would one realize that beneath the lecturer's refined bearing and measured tone lay criticism so merciless it could only be called vicious.
"Mystery is ancient. Magecraft is inherited. The older a family's magical lineage, the denser the Mystery congealed within its Magic Crest. The descendants it produces possess magic circuits greater in number and superior in quality, and naturally their aptitude as magi is stronger as well. Since the end of the Age of Gods, this has been proven to be the only truly effective way to preserve the ever-dwindling Mystery."
"I trust this is common knowledge to all magi. As for the assignment I gave last term, most of you completed it quite well. The papers submitted have all thoroughly demonstrated this basic truth."
The lecturer swept his gaze across the hall. On the desk before him lay a thick stack of documents. But even as he spoke, he drew one out, and the faint praise in his tone turned sharply in the space of a heartbeat.
"However, facts have once again proven that fools are never lacking in this world. Not even in the highest academy of Mystery."
"Denying the importance of bloodlines and origin, claiming that effort alone can overcome the innate advantages granted by family—"
"Mr. Waver Velvet!"
"Y-Yes!"
Someone answered at once. In a corner seat, a student jerked upright in panic. What met him was not only the lecturer's severe stare, but also the covert glances cast his way by the surrounding classmates.
The English boy with smooth, shoulder-length black hair clenched his fist beneath the desk. His lips parted, wanting to say something—perhaps to argue for his thesis, perhaps to defend himself. In this world of magi, where bloodline and lineage meant everything, he still firmly believed that many things could be accomplished through a single generation's effort.
But the lecturer gave him no chance.
"Close your mouth and use your brain to think. What conclusion could a brain less developed than that of a hatchling possibly produce?"
"Mystery is inheritance. If you cannot even face that fact—if you cannot accept even that much—then I suggest you get out of this lecture hall and crawl back to that little rural shack of your pitiful three-generation family line to continue your daydreaming. Or, you might choose to learn from the gentleman sitting beside you, Mr. Lu Kang. Another country magus, another hatchling—and yet he has done vastly better. His theory of 'the older, the stronger' perfectly illustrates the hierarchy of Mystery. Even I cannot help but praise it."
"That is all I have to say."
"Class dismissed."
Under the young lecturer's voice, sharp as thunder, the black-haired boy's open mouth trembled soundlessly. His flushed face made him look like a monkey put on display in some amusement park.
The eyes turned toward him from all directions were curious, mocking, amused.
At last, the lecturer tapped the desk one final time. The echo of the bell rang out, and he strode away with firm, steady steps.
The lights remained bright. Only after he had gone did the young apprentice magi begin to stir, whispering among themselves as they rose one after another from their seats.
But Waver Velvet remained where he sat.
His fist tightened, loosened, then tightened again. Only when the huge classroom had emptied completely did he finally speak.
"That damn lemon-headed bastard!"
Waver cursed furiously and slammed his fist against the desk, as though the tabletop were the lecturer's face.
That was when a voice sounded beside him, lazy and unhurried.
"If I were you, I definitely wouldn't pick that as my method of venting."
"Doesn't your hand hurt?"
Only then did Waver stop pounding the desk. Crossing his arms, he snorted.
"Of course it hurts."
"I'm not like you, Mr. Star Pupil, always getting praised by the lecturers."
"Are you sulking?" the other person said indifferently. "A man sulking is pretty disgusting."
Realizing how badly he had lost control, Waver drew in a deep breath and forced himself to stop making a spectacle of himself.
He turned his head toward the speaker and met a pair of dark brown eyes looking back at him.
The man's voice was young and lazy, and he looked much the same—young, languid, careless.
Beneath his messy hair was a handsome face, a little pale, his features softer than those of a typical European, hinting that he was not of pure Western blood. His figure was tall and slender, and the Clock Tower student uniform only made him look more like a young nobleman who had stepped out of some classical age.
He was, objectively speaking, quite charming—
If one ignored the mark of sleep still printed on his face.
"Why are you sleeping in class again?" Waver couldn't help asking.
"If I hadn't been sleeping, I wouldn't still be here now, would I?" Lu Kang ran a hand through his messy hair. "You didn't even wake me up after class. Now I've missed lunch at the dining hall—"
"If you miss it, you miss it. Missing one meal won't kill you." Waver shook his head.
He couldn't help thinking that Lu Kang was probably what people called a genius.
Like Waver, he came from an ordinary little family with only two or three generations of magical inheritance, yet he was dazzling beyond reason, practically a mutant freak of talent. He never listened in class and yet somehow remembered every scrap of magecraft knowledge. He never finished assignments on time, yet anything he threw together at the last minute was showered with praise from all sides—including that very paper from earlier.
"But I still don't get it."
As he spoke, Waver began packing his bag, stuffing one textbook after another from the Department of Spiritual Evocation into it while muttering under his breath.
"Aren't you the same as me? Don't you also believe that family bloodline and inheritance can't decide a person's entire life?"
"Then how can you write something like that without even feeling conflicted?"
That was the real reason for his petulance. The two of them were from the same kind of backwater families, shared the same aspirations—shouldn't they have shared the same views too?
"That just proves Professor El-Melloi's assessment of you wasn't wrong." Lu Kang hadn't brought anything, so he had nothing to pack. He merely leaned back in his seat. The sleepiness in his eyes gradually faded, their focus sharpening as if he were slowly coming back to life. "Whether as a person or as a magus, you should be a little more mature."
"Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald—head of Mineralogy, first-rank lecturer of Spiritual Evocation, one of the twelve Lords of the Clock Tower, and a magus who reached the rank of Brand at the age of twenty-six. Offending someone like that is not a good thing for people like us."
Though, of course, he'd die in the Far East soon enough…
That last thought, Lu Kang kept to himself. Looking at the boy before him, now finally shaken fully awake, he suddenly felt a wave of emotion.
This world was seriously insane.
Of all impossible things, even transmigration—something he didn't know whether to call scientific or unscientific—had happened to him.
And among all transmigrators, he had to be one of the ones doing particularly poorly.
He had no earth-shattering background, only the identity of a country magus from a tiny family with barely two or three generations of Mystery to its name. In this world, he was unquestionably at the bottom. Worse still, even as a transmigrator, he had only awakened his memories from before after entering the Clock Tower, regaining his true sense of self only then.
Fortunately, with that restored self came memories of this world as well…
Compared to ordinary people, that at least gave him a slight advantage.
Waver's expression eased somewhat, understanding at last where his like-minded friend was coming from. He couldn't know what Lu Kang was truly thinking, but he could sympathize all the same. Even so, he still felt indignant.
"So for the sake of your future, you can say things you don't actually believe?"
"Of course not, Waver."
Lu Kang straightened in his seat, his expression turning serious.
"What I said was also what I genuinely believe."
"But the reading order needs to be adjusted a little. It's not 'the older, the stronger'—it's 'the stronger, the older.'"
"That's what I believe."
"So long as I become powerful enough, then I will be the oldest one."
That was Lu Kang's conviction.
The stronger one was, the older one became.
That was what he believed with absolute certainty, and what he was confident he could accomplish—
By relying on the "advantage" that had surfaced alongside the return of his transmigrator self.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it what it really was:
A cheat.
-------
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