The guild hall in Virel's capital was never truly quiet.
Ink scratched endlessly against parchment. Boots echoed across marble floors enchanted to repel dirt and blood alike. The air carried the heavy perfume of incense meant to calm mana flow, undercut by the sharper scents of sweat, oiled steel, and the faint, metallic bite of authority.
Three adventurers stood before the central counter.
They did not look heroic.
Bandages wrapped their arms and torsos in uneven layers. Pinter, the blond-haired leader, leaned heavily on a crutch carved from a fallen branch. His second, a scarred woman named Mara, had dried blood still caught in the seams of her leather armor. The third—quiet, wiry Torren—kept one hand pressed to his side, as if afraid the stitches would split open if he moved too quickly.
Their weapons hung at their sides: nicked blades, dulled edges, hasty field repairs visible in the bent steel.
They had survived the Forest of Death.
That alone should have earned respect.
The clerk glanced up, unimpressed.
"Names," he said flatly.
"Pinter. Rank Silver," the blond man answered.
The others followed. Mara. Torren.
Their report was accepted, stamped with the guild's heavy seal, and passed to a junior evaluator. He skimmed it once—then frowned.
He read it again, slower.
"…Monsters organized in a fortified settlement," the evaluator muttered aloud. "Healing without mana… spoken human language…"
A short laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
"That's a good one," he said, pushing the parchment back toward the counter. "You must've taken a blow to the head."
Pinter's jaw tightened until the muscles stood out in sharp lines.
"We were nearly killed by a wild beast," he said. "We were rescued."
"By monsters," the evaluator replied dryly. "How generous of them."
"They didn't eat us," Mara snapped, voice low but edged with steel. "They healed us."
That earned a few curious glances from nearby clerks and waiting adventurers.
The evaluator sighed and waved over a mage in blue robes.
The thin man skimmed the report, mana flickering faintly around his fingers like dying embers as he read.
"No spell signatures," the mage said slowly. "No recorded mana fluctuations."
"Yes," Pinter said. "Because they didn't use magic."
That sentence landed wrong.
The mage looked up sharply.
"What?"
"They cleaned our wounds," Pinter continued, voice steady despite the pain in his ribs. "They boiled water. Used alcohol that burned like fire. They stitched flesh without spells. They changed bandages. They watched fevers rise and fall. They waited."
Silence spread a little wider this time.
The mage scoffed, but the sound lacked conviction.
"That's impossible. Healing requires mana. Everyone knows that."
"They did it anyway."
A senior guild officer—broad-shouldered, silver at the temples—overheard and approached.
"What's this?" he asked.
The mage handed him the report.
The officer read quietly.
Too quietly.
"…A city?" he said at last. "Not a nest?"
"Yes."
"Stone walls?"
"Yes."
"Defensive formations?"
"Yes."
"And you're saying these creatures—goblins, kobolds, beastkin—have no mana?"
Pinter met his gaze without flinching.
"None."
The officer's expression hardened.
"That's a contradiction," he said. "Mana is proof of higher life."
"That's what we were taught," Pinter replied.
The officer folded the report carefully.
"You were spared," he said, "because they were weak."
"No," Pinter said quietly. "Because they chose to."
That sentence didn't get laughter.
It got discomfort.
The officer stamped the parchment—not with approval, but with classification.
ANOMALOUS REPORT — UNVERIFIED
"Go," the officer said. "Rest. You'll be called if needed."
As they turned away, Pinter heard a clerk whisper to another:
"Manaless creatures cannot build civilizations."
He didn't respond.
But the words stayed with him, sharp as the stitches pulling at his side.
That night – Inner Chambers of the Guild Hall
The report did not stay where it was filed.
It traveled upward.
From clerk to evaluator.
From evaluator to guildmaster.
From guildmaster to places adventurers never entered.
Candles burned late in the inner chambers.
The report lay open on a polished table surrounded by figures who did not laugh.
A cleric in white robes embroidered with glowing runes traced the words with one finger.
"This cannot be allowed to spread," he said.
A mage in deep indigo leaned forward.
"It contradicts divine hierarchy. Mana is the mark of the gods' favor. Without it… what separates us from beasts?"
Another voice—older, colder—spoke from the shadows.
"A civilization without mana. If that exists, then what separates us from them?"
No one answered.
Because the answer was terrifying.
The cleric closed the report.
"Send word to the Church of Mana Eternal. Priority seal. And to the Royal Inquisition—same priority."
He looked at the others.
"If this Black Academy is real… the manaless are no longer hiding."
He smiled thinly, the expression never reaching his eyes.
"They're teaching."
Outside the tall windows, the sun had long set over Virel.
Somewhere far away, in a city of stone and quiet determination, a boy who once had nothing was building everything.
And the world had just noticed.
Black Academy – The Western Wall
Lucien stood alone on the new parapet, the night wind cool against his face.
Below him, torches flickered in measured intervals along the streets. Guards changed shifts without spells or signals—only discipline and a quiet word.
Children carried wooden tablets etched with symbols instead of prayers.
He felt it then.
Not danger.
Attention.
Somewhere beyond the forest, something had noticed them.
And it did not laugh.
Lucien pressed his palm to the cool, gray stone.
It remembered heat.
It remembered fire.
And now—somewhere far away—others would begin to remember fear.