Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Her eyes searched around the area and found Chairman Kent walking off the podium that towered above where the students were gathered, with some applause sounding in the background.

'Kent must've just finished his speech,' Leanne thought and quickly found her way next to him.

"Chairman," she cleared her voice to declare her presence.

Kent looked towards her with a surprised face, before laughing sheepishly.

"O-ho, Leanne. Did you just arrive? That means you missed my speech… Damn shame, I think I did a pretty good one this time."

"Chairman, we need to talk privately."

Noticing her serious demeanor, Kent's casual face took on a frown as he gestured Leanne to follow behind.

A minute later, the two found themselves in a private room, one with a window to show what was happening to the arena below. It also possessed a few sets of Talismans of Sound that were designed to play out what was happening in the arena. This was a terrace reserved for the most prestigious of guests in the Academy, though it wasn't used for anyone now.

"I still need to oversee the Ceremony's progress, you see?" Kent explained. "So? What did you want to talk about?"

"I'll get to the point. Did you order for Talismans to be put inside Evin's room?"

"How did you know?" Kent asked, but he didn't seem very surprised that he was found out.

"I'll take that as a yes. Could you tell me why?"

"Hmm…" Kent murmured, before glancing down to the arena, "Look."

Leanne looked down and found a tall, prestigiously dressed, blonde-haired boy who was playing around with a serpentine dragon made with the World of Water, Ivelisi. With his exceptional use of Lumiaris, the water dragon shone in countless different lights, looking like a masterfully crafted crystal sculpture. The sense of dignity and ego that were prominent in young nobles were clear for everyone to see in the boy, judging from his self-confident poise and visionary gaze.

If Leanne remembered correctly, this would be a demonstration of magical prowess performed by the Student Representative of first years, Decatur Carew. He was the son of Madame Alix din Carew, Countess of Greater Ankelite, the noble woman tasked with ruling over Ankelite city and the few surrounding towns.

"The pride and prestige of nobles, oozing from every pore of his body… Fancy synonyms for arrogance and vanity," Kent scoffed. "Do you think that someday, that boy will rule over our lands as the new Count of Greater Ankelite?"

"Pretty sure he has a brother who study in Arcvallen that is much more qualified to be the next Earl."

Everyone in Greater Ankelite knew about the prodigal son of the Countess, Gehenne dan Carew. Only twenty years old, yet the young man was already nearing the levels of a High-mage thanks to his incredible talent of casting spells and controlling the World energies. Some even speculated that he was a love child between Countess Carew and someone from the royal bloodline due to his silver hair.

"No… I've met his brother before and I can confidently tell you that the young man won't be satisfied at the level of a measly Count. He'll either strive to be sent towards the South and become a proper Marquess there, or he'll try to jump up a level and become a Duke. This leaves little Decatur down there to rule over the lands around here… A bit of a pity, isn't it?"

"Chairman, I must confess that I really don't care about who rules over Greater Ankelite," Leanne sighed, "Tell me what part of your speech has to do with you putting Talismans inside Evin's room."

Kent smiled back, a weird glint of something in his eyes. "Listen," the man gestured towards the arena where Decatur had just finished his one man show. The Talismans inside the VIP room activated, and Leanne could hear what the boy was saying.

"I hope everyone here has enjoyed the show of magic that I was performed," Decatur smiled brightly. "For centuries, the nobility of the West were the prime examples of Imagination Casting. Even in the Empire as a whole, very few people are able to actually perform these miracles on the same level as us. Some say that we're able to do these feats because there is a certain secret that we withhold from you all. A special sort of World Shards, a ritual that's unknown to the non-noble mages, or perhaps a blessing from some power above."

Decatur paused to judge the crowd's reactions... though Leanne didn't really know what the boy was expecting. Obviously, aside from the mages and the more educated people, the crowd did not show any particular reaction. After all, most of them were the parents of children who weren't even mages a few months ago. They didn't understand what was so important about Imagination Casting.

A sneer seemed to form on Decatur's mouth for a split second, before he continued like nothing was off.

"But I must confess that there's really nothing of the sort. What helps us nobles cast magic using our Imagination, is not an item, or a ritual, or anything else that's similar to that. It is actually something that everyone else can potentially possess…" Decatur paused. "Sadly, I can't tell you what it is exactly, as you know, kingdom's rules and all that, but I can prove to you that it's not something exclusive to nobles."

A bad feeling crept up inside Leanne's mind, as she fearfully watched the boy on the stage.

"I've heard of a 2nd grade citizen capable of performing the same miracles that I just showed, perhaps even better than me. A simple boy of a blacksmith's origins, performing the same magics. I want to invite him to this stage, a first year by the name of Evin."

At this point, Leanne couldn't bear to watch anymore. She turned around and dashed towards the door to stop whatever was going to happen down there, but suddenly, her instincts screamed at her to stop moving, and so she did.

A second later, she felt a deadly force of Hard Air fly right in front of her face, moving from the left side wall to the right almost instantaneously. When it reached the right wall, it immediately jumped back, completely blocking off her access to the door.

Leanne murmured her chants in rapid succession, as she became battle-ready in the quickest amount of time possible. Pink steam hissed from her skin as it turned rougher and harder, and a thin layer of moving water encapsulated her whole body. The water coalesced into ice at her palm, turning into a pair of poisonous daggers.

Immediately, she dashed towards Kent, but right before she reached him, another slide of sharp air threatened to kill her. Cursing, she then sent out a stream of water at the wall of Hard Air out of frustration. The sliding wall of Air moved between the left and right walls at impossible speeds, diligently preventing even the slightest drops of the poisonous water from reaching Kent's body.

In front of her, she heard Kent, the perpetrator behind the sudden attack on her, clearing his throat calmly. As she expected, he then continued to explain how his spell worked, even though both of them knew exactly what it did and what it couldn't do.

"The Box of Invisible Walls. A Conditional Absolute of the Domain Type, that creates up to three thin slides of moving Hard Air in an enclosed environment, which will be called a wall as a whole. Except gases and other Absolutes, anything which tries to pass through the wall will be slashed to pieces by the moving Hard Air.

Activation Conditions: explain the effects of the spell in one minute after casting (Failure to do so will result in a backlash of the mana-core). A Talisman must be set beforehand to create the walls. The walls must be created with at least two meters of distance between them and must not collide with other walls. Walls can be individually disabled by the user, but cannot be moved or recreated. After all walls are disabled, the spell will require one minute to cast again."

Of course, Leanne already knew about all this. Like the Activation condition for the spell said, Kent needed to say all this every time he casted the spell. Conditional Absolutes were spells like this one, with extremely strong effects, but many other downsides (or one big downside) to balance out the ridiculous powers it granted the user.

Most of the time, the most reliable way to deal with an Absolute was to possess an Absolute, or a Conditional Absolute oneself, to be a High-mage... which sadly Leanne wasn't. Even though the concept was simple – to just sacrifice some functionality to create something powerful – it really wasn't so easy to put this in practice and actually create an Absolute, or even a Conditional Absolute.

'Guess he's planning to keep me inside here for now...'

But, of course, Leanne wasn't in actual danger. The Box of Invisible Walls was a powerful spell, but it wasn't really something that could threaten her life as long as she properly respected its dangers. And sooner or later, Kent was going to run out of mana to use, and she could use the opportunity to escape. But there was still some time before that, so Leanne decided to use that time to ask some questions.

"Why are you doing this?"

Kent never seemed like the type to create chaos like this. Most of the time, the man just spent his days like a cog in a wheel, living life on a rather boring schedule. At least that was what Leanne's impression of the man was, but apparently, she had a very bad eye for people.

"I want to pit the boy against the noble children," Kent said smilingly.

"What?"

'If you want to fucking die, then die; but don't pull me into it!"

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