The chamber beneath the guild hall was sealed.
Not by locks.
By silence.
Mana lamps glowed faintly along the circular walls, their light bending unnaturally as if the air itself feared the discussion about to take place. The people seated around the stone table were not adventurers. They were not craftsmen.
They were interpreters of order.
A guildmaster—broad-shouldered, silver-haired, badge gleaming like a cold star—broke the hush.
"Read it again."
The report was passed hand to hand.
No laughter this time.
No disbelief.
Only tension.
"A city," a mage murmured, voice low. "Built by creatures without mana."
"Impossible," a priest replied automatically—then hesitated. "Yet the report exists."
"That's the problem," the guildmaster said. "It exists."
A cleric of the High Church folded his hands, rings catching the dim light.
"Mana is not merely power. It is proof. Proof that the gods recognize you."
Several heads nodded in solemn agreement.
"If beings without mana can build, heal, and govern," the cleric continued, "then mana is no longer proof of favor. It becomes… coincidence."
The word tasted bitter on every tongue.
A scholar—thin, bespectacled, robes frayed at the cuffs—spoke next.
"This is not about monsters. It is about precedent."
Silence.
Because everyone understood.
If the manaless could thrive—
Then peasants might ask why mages ruled.
Then believers might ask why prayer mattered.
Then kings might ask why bloodlines were divine.
The guildmaster exhaled slowly.
"So we define it," he said.
"Define what?" a noble patron asked, voice sharp with unease.
"The truth."
Quills scratched parchment.
A new interpretation formed—not written as law, not preached openly.
But whispered.
> Mana is the mark of higher life.
> Those without it exist in a lesser state.
> Any structure formed without mana is unnatural.
"It must be framed as protection," the cleric said. "Not suppression."
"Of whom?" the scholar asked.
"Of the world," the cleric replied.
The doctrine spread quietly.
No grand announcements.
Only changes.
A sermon here, gently reminding the faithful that mana was the gods' signature upon the worthy.
A lecture adjusted there, where a professor now spoke of "primitive imitation" rather than ingenuity.
A guild handbook revised—subtly removing passages that praised non-magical engineering.
Children were taught in classrooms across Virel:
"Monsters imitate.
They do not create."
A mage academy quietly removed a chapter titled Primitive Engineering.
A healer who suggested cleanliness mattered more than spell strength was reprimanded in private.
"Do not confuse coincidence with causation," he was told.
The idea was simple, elegant, and ruthless.
If knowledge without mana worked—
Then faith was optional.
That could not be allowed.
Black Academy – The Western Wall
At the Black Academy, no one knew any of this.
Yet they felt it.
Merchants stopped arriving.
Messages went unanswered.
Routes once open grew silent.
Lucien noticed the change first.
Trade logs shrank day by day.
Questions from distant traders went unreturned.
Caravans that once braved the forest edge now turned back at the first trees.
"They are thinking," Luna said one evening, standing beside him on the parapet.
Lucien nodded, eyes fixed on the darkening horizon.
"And when people think," he replied quietly, "they choose fear or effort."
He already knew which one the world preferred.
Below them, the city moved with its new rhythm.
Torches burned in measured intervals.
Guards changed shifts with quiet words instead of signals.
Children carried wooden tablets etched with symbols instead of prayers.
Everything worked.
Everything lasted.
And that, Lucien realized, was the real heresy.
Not the walls.
Not the healing.
The fact that it worked without asking permission from the gods.
Inner Chambers – Guild Hall
In the guild's inner chambers, the final decision was spoken.
"The Professor," the guildmaster said. "That is the problem."
"A human leading monsters without mana," the cleric agreed. "That alone is heresy."
"A teacher," the scholar added. "Worse than a king."
They did not call Lucien an enemy.
They called him a contaminant.
Someone asked, voice barely above a whisper, "What if we are wrong?"
No one answered.
Because if they were wrong—
Then everything else was too.
The guildmaster folded the report one last time.
"Prepare the expedition," he said. "Quietly. No fanfare. No declaration of war."
He looked at the others.
"First we observe. Then we contain."
The candles guttered as the door opened and closed.
Outside, the night sky over Virel was clear.
Stars burned cold and indifferent.
Black Academy – Lucien's Hut
That night, Lucien dreamed of fire.
Not magical fire.
The kind that erased cities and left shadows burned into stone.
He woke before dawn, heart steady, mind alert.
"They've decided," he whispered to the empty room.
Outside, the Black Academy stood quietly.
Unaware that the world had just rewritten its place in existence.
Lucien rose, dressed, and stepped into the cool air.
The city slept.
The wall remembered heat.
And somewhere far away, quills were already scratching the first orders.
The heresy of the manaless had begun.