The question was asked in a classroom that smelled of incense and old parchment.
A hall built for magic.
Runes carved into the stone walls pulsed faintly with mana, reacting to the presence of dozens of young mages seated in disciplined rows. Sunlight filtered through high arched windows, catching motes of dust that danced like tiny sparks of divine favor. At the front stood Instructor Vaelor—robes embroidered with golden threads of the Mana Eternal sigil—his voice steady as he concluded the morning's lecture on healing spells and mana circulation.
"—and thus," Vaelor finished, staff tapping once against the marble floor for emphasis, "all restoration flows from mana, granted by the gods. Without mana, life decays. This is the natural order."
Most students nodded.
They had heard this truth since childhood, repeated in nurseries, temples, and academies alike. It was not questioned. It was accepted, like the rising of the sun or the turning of seasons.
But one did not accept.
The apprentice was young. Barely seventeen. His mana was average—nothing special, nothing that would earn him a place among the elite—but his curiosity burned brighter than his talent ever could.
He raised his hand.
Instructor Vaelor's eyes narrowed. Questions were permitted, but only the *right* kind.
"Speak," he said, tone clipped.
The apprentice swallowed once, twice.
"Master… may I ask something?"
A murmur spread through the hall like wind through dry leaves. Heads turned. Eyes widened. A few classmates exchanged uneasy glances.
"Yes," Vaelor said cautiously, already sensing the wrongness.
The apprentice hesitated, then spoke.
> "If monsters without mana can cure disease…"
Silence.
The runes dimmed, as if the room itself recoiled.
The apprentice continued, voice trembling but sincere.
> "If they can clean wounds, stop rot, lower fever—without spells—
> then what does my healing spell actually prove?"
The instructor's face hardened into something cold and unyielding.
"You repeat dangerous rumors."
"But the reports—" the apprentice pressed on, desperation leaking through, "—they say wounds that would kill soldiers survive. That their mortality is lower than villages with licensed healers. That—"
"Enough."
The word cracked like a whip.
Vaelor slammed his staff against the floor. Mana surged, a sudden wave of pressure that rattled benches and made several students gasp.
"You are confusing survival with worth," he said coldly. "Magic is not convenience. It is validation."
The apprentice opened his mouth again.
Guards entered from the side doors—two armored men, faces blank, hands on sword hilts.
The class watched in frozen silence as the young mage was dragged from his seat. His books spilled onto the floor—pages fluttering open to diagrams of mana flow he had once studied so carefully. No one moved to help. No one met his eyes.
By sunset, his name was removed from the academy registry.
By nightfall, a decree was issued.
The Sermon
The next morning, every church bell rang at once.
Across cities, towns, and frontier villages, priests ascended pulpits with identical scripts delivered by courier birds under sealed orders.
Their voices echoed through stone halls and wooden chapels alike.
> "Do not be deceived."
> "Survival does not mean worth."
> "Mana is the mark of divine favor."
> "Those without it may endure—but they are not chosen."
The words spread faster than fire.
Not because they were convincing—
—but because people *needed* them to be true.
If monsters without mana could heal, build, and protect themselves…
Then what did that say about the blessings humans paid tithe for?
What did that say about the children born without talent?
About peasants who died while mages debated spell costs?
The answer terrified them.
So the sermon was accepted.
Repeated.
Defended.
Anyone who questioned it was labeled confused at best—heretical at worst.
A healer in a small village who had quietly begun boiling water before dressing wounds was visited by church inquisitors that very week.
A merchant who spoke too loudly of "the forest city" found his license reviewed and his goods impounded.
A mother who asked why her mana-less son could not learn to read symbols like the monsters did was told to pray harder.
The doctrine settled like frost over the kingdom.
Quiet.
Cold.
Unquestionable.
Black Academy – The Western Wall
Lucien did not hear the sermon.
But he felt its weight.
That morning, a courier bird—small, gray, one wing scarred—arrived bearing a fragment of intercepted news: gossip passed between merchants before guild pressure silenced them.
He read it once.
Then again.
His expression did not change.
Around him, the city moved with its quiet rhythm.
Students carried slates and chalk toward the Hall of Learning.
Doctors scrubbed hands with boiled water in the Healing House.
Guards rotated shifts without enchanted armor, only discipline and signal mirrors.
All of it normal.
All of it impossible.
Luna noticed his stillness as she approached the parapet.
"Professor?" she asked quietly.
Lucien folded the paper carefully.
"They're afraid," he said.
"Of us?"
"No," Lucien replied.
"Of the question."
He looked toward a training yard below where goblin and beastkin children practiced reading symbols carved into wood.
"They can accept monsters dying," he continued.
"They can accept monsters suffering."
"But they cannot accept monsters understanding."
Luna didn't fully grasp it—but she felt the chill in his voice.
Lucien turned away from the horizon.
Somewhere far beyond the forest, faith had cracked.
And cracks always demanded blood—or denial.
This chapter ends not with war…
…but with a truth the world could no longer silence:
> If mana defines worth—
> then knowledge is heresy.
And heresy never goes unanswered.