Aurelius saw a glow of light about the edges of his protective boulder.

  And he braced himself for the intense heat to follow with despair.

  The light penetrated through the rock itself, as if it were intangible, bathing him in its glow.

  Aurelius would have screamed if given the chance. And he did, instinctively, and quite unflatteringly, around a second after it had hit him.

  Aurelius and Seraphine were both enveloped in light that rivaled that of the sun.

  ???

  Seconds passed. The light subsided.

  Aurelius and Seraphine opened their eyes.

  The afterlife seemed suspiciously like the school grounds…

  The pair locked eyes.

  They were alive.

  The light had not done anything to them. It had tickled, and had shattered a mana shield, yet it had not damaged either of them.

  What happened?

  A thin line of geometric patterns appeared beside the pair.

  From it emerged a frantic middle-aged man dressed in a classic Aethernalian Mage robe. He had an angular face, with wrinkles that lined his forehead and droopy cheeks.

  He had a rat-like mustache, one that twirled up into the air with a disturbingly empty philtrum. The most striking thing about this man was the delicate wooden staff he carried. It was as tall as the man, adorned with pearls, a beautiful orb resting on the top of it.

  “WHAT HAPPENED? YOU TWO SHOULD BOTH KNOW THAT DUELING IS FORBIDDEN IN AETHERNALIS WITHOUT A PERMIT!” he shouted, clearly not reading the room.

  The middle-aged man with the irritating face was Archmage Varian Lucious. He was the Head of the Disciplinary Department, a dean of the school, and most importantly of all, impossibly dense.

  Seraphine collapsed, and her familiar fell from her shoulders in the process.

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  Aurelius crawled out of the radius of the rock wall, covered in burns and singed hair.

  Seeing this scene, the dean’s face turned serious, belatedly catching on to the severity of the situation. He conjured up another thin line, and a dragon stepped through.

  A flow of mana swirled as the familiar immediately assisted with the delicate manipulation required for healing, repairing the duo and their broken bodies.

  Seraphine still lay unconscious through this process, but Aurelius felt relief flowing into his body once again.

  The girl’s familiar also stirred from its slumber, drowsily staggering back to her pocket as it recovered thanks to the healing magic.

  The originally circular mini-arena was a mess. A sizable crater of glowing magma stood in its centre, and hazardous globs of molten rock were strewn everywhere.

  The Archmage then snapped his fingers, mana aligning around them, and three figures faded into view next to Aurelius.

  “I will be collecting statements from all of you shortly.”

  “All involved academy students, inclusive of witnesses, must testify truthfully to the details of this severe disciplinary case.” the Archmage announced impassively, pulling at his mustache.

  The three figures were all students who had been teleported by the mage. They had been going about their day, either training in the mini-arenas or enjoying the scenery.

  Baffled as they were, they quickly clammed up when they noticed Dr. Varian. His reputation was… infamous, after all.

  The dragon approached Aurelius, each heavy step jiggling his cheeks.

  Aurelius was then picked up by his robes unceremoniously by the dragon. And the dean levitated Seraphine off the ground.

  He surveyed the grounds once more, eyes like a hawk, enthusiastically looking for additional victims for his interrogation.

  However, his searching eyes fell into a deep frown as it swept over the lava-filled crater.

  In the middle of it all, there was a single, pitch-dark spherical bead the size of a marble. Its surface was impossibly smooth.

  Extending his staff, the ball was made to float off the ground. He inspected it casually at first, then with shock, then with fear, then with terror. His hands trembled slightly, and the levitation spell on Seraphine wavered.

  Composing himself, he snapped his fingers once more, a troubled look flashing across his face.

  ???

  Five students plus one dragon were teleported into the dean’s office.

  The spacious room lay at the top of one of the castle towers. It was a large, rectangular room with an overhanging second floor.

  Hanging from the roof was a large globe that spun about its axis, an expensive novelty decoration created by the forge-mages of the Western Continent.

  Books lined the shelves, and a small, smokeless fire was lit centrally surrounded by a number of sofas.

  Aurelius was laid onto one of the sofas by the dragon. Seraphine dumped onto another.

  The dean signaled the three students towards his desk, one where he sat with a disturbed look.

  He waved his hands, and an opaque barrier went up. His familiar settled itself curled around the hearth, sighing in comfort.

  The last thing Aurelius could make out was the witnesses’ terrified faces, bracing for a lecture worthy of the ages.

  He pitied them slightly. Their only crimes were being witnesses, after all.

  Then he froze. What was his crime? He had just caused an enormous commotion worthy of campus history. That dean was definitely going to crash out on his poor, poor self.

  That man could yell for hours!

  With a nasty habit of never shutting up, this man absolutely LOVED to hear his own voice!

  How many hours was his transgression worth?! How many hours of detention would he get? Would he get suspended? Expelled?

  No one was going to believe that he was just summoning a goddamn spirit!

  He might even invite the Magic Commission to interrogate him with mind magic, maybe even call in a Truth Mage, if not attempt it himself!

  The Commission would probably just kill him off quietly under such suspicious circumstances! They had a reputation for being ruthlessly efficient with anything resembling cultish activities after all.

  He panicked. He needed to come up with a reasonable excuse to avoid getting shipped off to the Commission!

  WIth this last thought, Aurelius fainted.