In the days that followed, things did not really slow down.
They changed.
What had once been just idle whispers—small, isolated differences in the Lunarium's teachings—began to spread, to take shape, and solidify into something far more visible.
Students were no longer just improving at a fast pace. They were changing into something much more heretic in their eyes.
Healing witches, once bound to just healing and comforting the sick, began applying knowledge taken from the Bareblood world. They, the students, had begun understanding the anatomy of the human body. Not as something sacred, but as something precise.
Something exploitable.
Barriers that once protected the caster now meant little when a spell didn't need to pass through them at all.
A pulse of mana, directed internally, carefully calculated. And with that, an organ implodes and explodes.
No breach. No warning. Just failure from within.
Elsewhere, students began touching concepts that should have taken decades to even approach.
The Space and Time element of the universe. Elements that had once been regarded as a unique element for witches and faes to learn are now but simple for the students of Lunarium.
Small distortions on the space between them, blinking from place to place. Brief skips in the breaches of time, making the caster move faster than the naked eye. Combing the element of time with the usage of spells, causing spells to have delayed impacts.
It was unstable as it was still new for the Senate and the populace. Too dangerous.
And yet—
They were doing it.
Even Alteration, once limited to reinforcing the body, began to shift.
A handful of students pushed further, shaping themselves into forms not bound by reality but by imagination.
These weren't ancient records or documented magical beasts passed down through generations. They came from stories.
To be specific, from Bareblood books, games, films. Things witches would have once dismissed as meaningless fantasy. They flew with wings that didn't follow proper structure and yet, it still carried them through the air. Bodies reinforced with scales that shouldn't exist from any beasts yet it still deflected spells. Some even fully shifted into fully in magical beasts and fictional beasts however, either they lacked in mana or lacked proper structuring, making their forms limited in time instead of them cancelling their transformation.
Despite their flaws, the results spoke for themselves.
They worked.
It wasn't just growth anymore. It was deviation.
The Senate saw it and most of them did not like what they saw.
"This is exactly what we feared," one of the senators muttered, watching a projection through the Display spell.
"Those students of the Lunarium are advancing too fast! If we don't stop it…."
"We'll have a bunch of Calamities on our hands," another said.
"The thought… It's frightening."
Not all of them spoke.
Mildred Rossi remained silent, her gaze steady, unreadable. The great families watched as well. Some with interest. Some with caution. Some with quiet satisfaction.
Elsewhere, another reaction had begun.
The Fae had always been distant.
Proud.
Untouched by the concerns of witches and the other supernaturals in the Witching Hour. They had always kept themselves in their forest. Hunting animals for sport, living with the magical beasts, and the likes. Unlike witches who casted magic with runes, the primal language, they didn't use runes.
They didn't need to.
Beings made of pure mana, their magic flowed naturally—something witches could never replicate.
They were neither enemies nor were they not allies.
They simply existed above it all, observing with detached interest.
Or so it had always been. Until now.
Reports had begun to reach their higher authority. A name repeated more than once.
Charlotte Sweeiz, the witch who the citizens of the Witching Hour called the The Heretical Witch and the Coven Mother and the Head Mistress of the coven/school, Lunarium.
At the center of it all stood Aeris Lyth, the one who listened. The one who decided whether something was worth their attention.
The representative of the Faes. An Elf. One of the older ones. She had lived long enough to see witches rise, fall, and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
There was a time when she had taught them—back when Faes still entertained the idea of guiding witches, when spells were shared, when knowledge was exchanged rather than hoarded.
That time had long passed.
Now, the Faes kept their distance. None gave lessons and interfered with their problems unlike before. Only politics, when it could no longer be avoided.
And Aeris, she was one of the few who remembered what it was like before that line was drawn.
Cause for the first time—
The Fae were not indifferent.
They were… uneasy.
Charlotte stood before the public of Nocturne, flashing her own Display spell, on top of the other Display spell that wanted to project on the safety of their own places.
Not hidden.
Not shielded.
Open.
The Senate, present but distant, observing from the safety of their hall of authority. She didn't stand at a podium. Didn't raise her voice.
She simply stood—
coffee in hand, as always.
And with a sip, she spoke.
"You've all seen it," she said calmly. "The Lunarium. The changes. The results. I've heard everyone's whispers and I understand your fear."
Her gaze moved across the projections around her, the countless Displays broadcasting her image across the Witching Hour.
"Some of you are calling it dangerous."
A small pause.
"Some of you are calling it wrong."
Her expression didn't change.
"And most of you are calling it heretical as usual."
A faint exhale.
"…Good for you."
Murmurs rippled across the watchers.
The Senate remained still, watching with eagerness.
Charlotte continued.
"The Witching Hour has been the same for far too long."
"Safe."
"Stable."
"Unchanging."
"Just like you people had always wanted."
Her voice lowered slightly.
"But it had become way too stagnant."
That word landed heavier than the rest.
"You fear what's far out of your reach," she added.
"That's normal."
She took a slow sip from her coffee before continuing.
"But don't mistake progress for disaster."
"What I'm doing—what they're doing—"
She glanced behind her, towards the Lunarium.
"Is not the birth of Calamities."
Aurora stepped forward first. Then Theodore. Then Emilia.
"They're the result of finally allowing witches to think."
Aurora smiled, placing a hand over her chest, Emilia rolled her shoulder slightly, and Theodore flexed his fingers once.
Then—
They activated it.
Mana flowed.
Not violently and not forcefully either.
Just enough.
Their Display Marks reacted instantly.
Light traced across their skin—
Aurora's, over her bosom. Emilia's, along her shoulder. Theodore's, across the back of his hand.
The marks weren't simple. They formed in layered lines, thin and precise, like a sigil drawn with impossible accuracy. Circles. Fragments. Intersecting paths.
Then—
They projected.
Above each of them, a formation appeared.
Not solid.
Not quite real.
Like glass made of mana, thin and translucent.
Each symbol was the same.
Placed differently.
Shaped by its bearer, but still the same at its core.
Above Aurora, above Emilia, and above Theodore.
The mark of the Lunarium shone ever so brightly.
Then it reacted.
Mana flowed through them at the same time, and the projections responded.
They didn't split nor break apart.
They grew.
The symbols expanded, overlapping one another midair. Perfectly aligned despite being cast by different hands. The lines of the symbol thickened. The gaps stretched wider. What once looked like flaws became clearer.
And what formed after was simply a larger version of the same mark.
The symbol of her coven, the Lunarium.
A circular sigil made of three rings. The outer ring was thin, incomplete in places, as if left open on purpose. The middle ring was broken into uneven segments, never perfectly aligned. And at the center was a single vertical line, clean and absolute, cutting through everything. Around it, faint geometric patterns moved slowly, like something adjusting itself over and over again.
It wasn't perfect.
It wasn't balanced.
It wasn't traditional.
It looked weird.
And yet, it felt intentional.
Alive.
The symbol hovered above them, steady and unmistakable.
Charlotte looked up at it for a moment, then spoke like it was nothing more than a detail.
"…That's all it is." she said quietly.
But no one watching took it that way. It wasn't just identification. It was confirmation.
Silence settled across the Witching Hour.
Not out of fear yet, but something that was starting to lean in that direction. Because what they were seeing didn't look like failure or instability.
It looked deliberate.
Functional even.
Charlotte took another sip of her coffee.
Calm as ever. Like none of it required her attention beyond this moment.
Behind her, her disciples stood under the symbol. Not as students. Not as outliers.
Just… as part of it.
And somewhere beyond the Witching Hour, the Faes were watching too.
Unlike the other Supernaturals, they didn't speak openly about it.
They rarely did.
But the shift was obvious to them.
Witches weren't supposed to reach this level.
Not like this. Not with structure that felt close to what they themselves used.
It wasn't fear.
It was irritation.
Quiet, restrained, and buried under centuries of superiority that was now starting to feel… challenged.
Because if witches kept advancing like this, then the distance they had always relied on wasn't as absolute as it used to be.
Something the Witching Hour hadn't properly dealt with before.
And somewhere in that quiet, people started to hesitate.
Not out loud.
Not yet.
But the thought was there now. Whether the Senate had been right. Or Charlotte had been. Whether this was progress. Or something slipping past their control. Whether the Lunarium was shaping the future. Or breaking it. Either way, it had already started.