“This is Aud—”

  At the center of the Empire’s Academy of Esoteric Studies stood a tower.

  “Breaking news came in from the frontlines of the galactic—”

  In the topmost room of that tower, overlooking the students and the kingdom alike, sat a man surrounded by paper, books, and shattered pieces of metal. His brows creased in annoyance.

  “The Emperor of Cratis is becoming—"

  Talin had just smashed his latest ‘mana speaker’ prototype for the hundredth time this week.

  It wasn’t that it didn’t work. But for some reason he couldn’t even begin to fathom, it was receiving signals from seven unintended sources. Eight total including his own world. The mystery had been eating at him for the better part of a… a time much longer than he cared to admit.

  There had been multiple iterations and fixes to the thing, but he just couldn’t get it to work exactly how he wanted.

  By this point, he’d already deciphered each of the languages he’d heard. Well, maybe not. Three of the ‘languages’ that the thing spat out were more like random clicks and droning sounds that seemed to not have a shred of logic to his ears. He couldn’t even tell if there were multiple speakers, or if it was all from the same being.

  He slumped his shoulders in dejection and shoved his hand in the empty space in front of him. Space smoothly tore open as a spell circle glowed for a moment on his hand, showing a black glove densely packed with spell circles—not a single iota left empty.

  He pulled out an ornately carved wooden pipe, took a long drag of dense smoke and sighed as if it was the greatest disappointment in the universe. Though he knew that it was far, far from it.

  Talin chuckled, remembering one small line he’d heard long ago:

  “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Archmage Vitram’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in isolation and hunger.”

  He didn’t know who said it, but he couldn’t help but agree. Although he was now a different person from the child his adoptive father had found all those years ago, he too was once a clueless kid out in the middle of nowhere.

  If he could just remember who said it, and if that person was still alive, he would have loved to have tea with him. Though he didn’t hold out much hope. His mana speaker only ever read messages that had ‘soaked’ in mana for long enough. How long exactly that was… was inconsistent at best. Even the things picked up from his own world were from well over a hundred years ago.

  “I still don’t quite understand why you waste your time on that thing if you’re just going to throw it at the ground like that,” Talin looked over to the source of the voice. His daughter stood, leaning on his study’s doorframe with her arms crossed. And for a moment, his late wife’s face overlapped with his daughter's.

  She definitely had that look his wife used to give him down pat, that’s for sure.

  “I told you, it has potential!” he replied. “And besides, at this point, it’s just a good source of randomness in my life.”

  “Uhuh. Whatever you say,” she said, sauntering toward the couch. “Anyway, I’m here to give an update. Knowledge acquisition has been… slow. As we predicted, there’s not a lot of people who want to share their family secrets in the name of ‘progress.’”

  “Not even if it’s at the behest of the Primus, huh?”

  “That worked against us in some cases.”

  “With whom?” Talin’s brow raised, then shook his head. It wasn’t the time for that. “We’ll just have to think of another way then. For now, put all resources into preparation. Chaos is sure to follow once step one is complete.”

  “And when would that be?” she straightened her back as her brows furrowed.

  “Any day now,” his eyes unfocused for a moment. “What of your brother?”

  “No news yet. I know he’s strong, but I… I’m worried.”

  “Mmm,” Talin nodded and took another drag from his pipe. “I’ll handle it.”

  ***

  Talin leisurely walked toward his first class of the day. It was a lecture on spell efficiency that he’d added to the curriculum only thirty years ago as part of the preparation. The students tended to hate it since it was more for advanced mages than students barely able to cast second tier spells.

  But he was the teacher who knew better, so they had no choice but to deal with it.

  Besides, for all their hate, many had approached him years later, thanking him profusely for the lessons. That always managed to put a smile on his face.

  He passed both students and teaching staff, with everyone greeting him with either a good morning or their own versions of “happy trails”. When he finally arrived at the classroom, he could hear the usual murmurs of the children talking amongst each other.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  That changed when he stepped through the door, his free movement spell activating instantly.

  Talin flew through the air under the gazes of just under three hundred students—the best of the best among the younger generation of the Empire. Each one sat in a floating desk of their own, placed equidistant from each other in the form of a sphere. At the center of it all was a single podium. In the background was a space that looked like a meadow, complete with a gentle breeze and a dimming, picturesque sky.

  As his hand made contact with the podium, the meadow shifted into a more solemn hall filled with intricate wall carvings, and torches lighting up every inch.

  “Right. This is Spell Efficiency 301. I trust you all know what you’re in for?” he said in a teasing tone that begged only one appropriate response.

  He heard groans from every child there and was quite satisfied.

  “Good. Let’s start,” Talin summoned the spell circle for fireball in front of him, then warped and enlarged it so that everyone could see every detail clearly. “Now, can anybody tell me what this is?”

  A girl whose first name—Micah—was the only thing he knew, raised her hand.

  “Fireball spell, Vitram’s version 5, sir!”

  “Good!” he nodded, then rearranged the components of the spell into a compact and dense ball no larger than a thumb. “Now, tell me what this is.”

  It took a bit longer this time as confusion overtook each student’s face, but one finally spoke up, even if his voice was small and unsure.

  “…the same spell… sir?”

  Talin had to check the podium’s information storage for his name before replying. “Exactly, young Bronton!”

  Then, he unfurled the ball bit by bit, showing each line’s rightful place in the original circle-version.

  “This is the easiest and most straightforward way to increase efficiency—reducing the spell circle’s, or in this case, spell sphere’s size. This reduces mana travel time by at least 30%!” he paused. “When done right.”

  ***

  The class went amazingly well, even by Talin’s standards. A few of the students had shown quite a knack for the exact way of thinking required for three-dimensional spell manipulation. One had even succeeded in condensing the more basic ‘push’ spell that basically just expelled mana in one direction.

  However, he was still feeling the slow crawl of it all. He’d been teaching both noble and common-born alike for over a hundred years now, and still, he hadn’t encountered even one he could consider his equal in talent.

  He took out his pipe once again and took a few puffs.

  The plan needs to work.

  Now, he was on his way to the next class. A new one of fresh enrollees from all over the kingdom.

  He couldn’t wait.

  There were two new batches today, and he had the pleasure of greeting both and delivering his welcome speech for their orientation. This made him wish he’d just put them in the same room though before actually speaking the entire speech spanning several pages.

  He sighed as he was too lazy to rearrange things now.

  Talin hurried to the next room and was greeted by a sight he didn’t quite expect. The class was made up exclusively of beasts from every non-humanoid species with enough sentience he could think of. Without a hint of hesitation, he hurried toward the podium and touched the info storage crystal, and immediately understood.

  The class was part of his subordinate’s plan to better integrate non-humanoids into human society through a… softer, drip-feed style.

  It was a good idea. Till then, they’d always just inserted them among the humanoid dominated classes. This, unfortunately, resulted in them being isolated, or worse, bullied. That’s even with the constant surveillance of staff.

  This plan, however, would do it the other way and insert groups of humanoids of different loyalties. It would hopefully force them to socialize with everyone equally.

  Unfortunately…

  Talin watched as all the beasts glowered at him like he’d killed someone they knew. It was perplexing, to say the least. As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything bad to the beasts (lately) and was even friends with some of their elders. He couldn’t help but think that something was wrong.

  Just then, the professor who’d put this class together came in. His forehead was covered in sweat and creased in anxiety and rage. Something was wrong.

  “Headmaster! I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s an urgent matter that you need to attend to!” Professor Fuldawe said, his voice carrying a tone Talin hadn’t heard in all the time he’d known the man.

  Talin snapped his fingers and teleported both of them outside the classroom.

  “So?” he asked. “What’s the oh so important matter that couldn’t wait?”

  “Headma—no,” Fuldawe corrected himself and straightened his back with a fist on his heart. “Primus, sir! I come bearing a message from the Royal Mage. Your…” he swallowed. “Your son has been captured by the Merfolk!”

  Talin froze and focused on the professor sweating bullets in front of him. He hadn’t sensed a single lie. But that was impossible… almost impossible, at least. His son had several artifacts made by him that could practically kill anyone short of whoever was the hundredth (and beyond) strongest person in the world.

  His breath caught in his throat. His mind went through all the possibilities and couldn’t quite pinpoint a single one. Sure, he’d made a lot of enemies, but his title and power alone should’ve deterred anything from happening. Unless the perpetrator was stupid. Or brave. Or both.

  “How did that even happen?” Talin asked. “The mer have never strayed far from Marisabel, no?”

  “Yes, but they’ve lately been encroaching on the land of their neighbors. The Spectre has confirmed that there is someone pulling the strings from behind.”

  Talin squinted his eyes. “I see.”

  Why now? When he was so close to completing step one. Did others out there know about his plan? Or was this nothing more than a coincidence?

  He stopped for a minute to think.

  “Sir…?”

  Talin looked at the man in front of him, practically drenched in cold sweat. His robes darkening and starting to stick to his skin. The whites of his eyes now turning red. He was about to ask what was happening, then noticed his aura was bearing down on the poor guy.

  Clearing his throat and controlling himself, he palmed his pipe.

  “Mmm. Right,” he said, taking a few puffs—noticing that he’d been relying on the thing more and more the closer the completion of step one came. “Have the Spectre monitor the situation as best they can. I’ll take care of it once I’m done with things here.”

  “Is… that a good idea?”

  Talin shook his head, smoke dancing about as he did. “No need to worry. They wouldn’t dare, nor would they even be able to kill my son,” he said, tapping a few spots on his gloves in sequence. “I have my ways.”

  “Understood!” Fuldawe thumped his chest, then turned around. There were perks to having once served in the military like this. But like everything, there were drawbacks. In this case, perhaps even more drawbacks than benefits.

  He teleported back inside the room, gave probably the briefest speech he’d ever spoken to a freshman class.

  After, he went to the next room of freshmen hoping to make it as quick as the previous class. Instead, he arrived to an unruly class filled with nothing… but nobles.

  He had a lot on his plate.

  And his mood was completely and utterly ruined.

  So he smiled and slowly raised his hand.

  omnipresent thing was made, I figured I'd write it myself hahaha.