The Primordia Academy did not look like a school; it looked like a fortress built of solid light. For Kael, every morning began with a long, lonely walk through the iron gates. It was a ritual that felt less like an education and more like a slow walk toward a courtroom where his sentence had already been decided.
The Academy was divided into two completely different worlds. The mornings were dedicated to Fundamental Theory. In the cool stone lecture halls, under the gaze of ancient mages whose voices sounded like rustling parchment, the students learned the "why" behind the "how." They studied the geometry of summoning circles, the flow of ley lines, and the complex history of the Great Houses.
This was the only time of day when Kael felt like a human being. Without mana to cloud his senses or distract him with flashes of light, he saw magic for what it truly was: a series of equations. While his classmates struggled to memorize the patterns, Kael saw the logic behind them. His notebooks were not filled with messy sketches of fireballs; they were filled with precise diagrams that looked more like architectural blueprints.
"Magic is not a blunt instrument," Master Valerius, a distant cousin who carefully avoided looking at Kael, would tell the class. "It is a syntax. It is a command given to the fabric of reality. If your structure is flawed, your spell will crash before it is even born."
Kael drank in every word. If magic was a language, he knew its grammar better than anyone in the room. He could spot a flaw in a complex fire-circle from thirty feet away. He understood the "logic" of the elements. The problem was that he had no voice to speak the words. He was like a master composer who was stone deaf, or a brilliant programmer who didn't have a keyboard.
The afternoon, however, was when the real torture began: Practical Training.
In the massive training arena, the quiet smell of old books was replaced by the roar of flames and the sharp crackle of lightning. This was where the social hierarchy was written in fire. Alaric Thorne stood at the center of the arena, surrounded by a circle of admirers. He moved with an effortless arrogance, conjuring spheres of heat that danced between his fingers like pets. On the other side of the field, Mina worked with the Water Masters, her movements fluid and rhythmic as she shaped pillars of ice that captured the sunlight like diamonds.
And then there was Kael.
Because he couldn't generate even a flicker of mana, he had been assigned the role of "Resonance Monitor." It was a polite way of saying he was the class servant. His job was to stand at the edge of the training circles, holding a heavy copper measuring device, to record the power levels of his classmates' attacks. He wasn't a student anymore; he was a piece of equipment.
"Still taking notes, Valerius?" Alaric called out, intentionally letting a streak of fire pass just inches from Kael's face. The heat singed a few stray hairs, and the smell of ozone filled Kael's nose. "You should be careful. Paper burns so easily. Especially when it's the only thing you'll ever have."
The other students laughed, a sharp, cruel sound that echoed off the stone walls. Kael didn't say a word. He didn't even flinch. He just looked down at his wax tablet and coldly recorded the thermal intensity of Alaric's blast. Rank A. High output. Terrible efficiency, he thought to himself. He could see how much energy Alaric was wasting, how messy his "code" was. But in this world, a messy fireball was still a fireball, and Kael had nothing.
Mina caught his eye from across the arena. She looked like she wanted to come over, but she was surrounded by teachers who were praising her latest achievement. She was a prodigy now, a rising star, and he was the "Zero" who held her measuring tape. The gap between them felt wider than the ocean.
As the sun began to set, the lead instructor, Master Thorne, Alaric's uncle, called the class to the center of the arena. He was a man with a face like a scarred mountainside, and he didn't waste time on pleasantries.
"Listen up," he barked. "Next week, you will have your first field excursion. We are leaving the safety of the city walls to visit the Echo Ruins on the edge of the Forbidden Forest."
A wave of excitement and fear rippled through the students. The Echo Ruins were ancient, built by a civilization that had mastered magic in ways the modern world had forgotten. It was also a place where the mana was unstable, wild and unpredictable.
"The goal is simple," Thorne continued. "You will be divided into teams. You must locate and resonate with the Source Crystals buried in the rubble. It is a test of your survival instincts and your ability to control your mana in a chaotic environment. If you fail to stabilize a crystal, it will shatter, and you will return with nothing."
Kael felt a cold pit form in his stomach. An excursion. Into the wild, where accidents happened and "mana-less" children were nothing but dead weight. He knew exactly what this meant. He wouldn't be looking for crystals. He would be carrying the supplies, cleaning the camp, and serving as a target for Alaric's boredom away from the eyes of the city guards.
"Teams will be announced on Monday," Thorne said, his eyes lingering on Kael for a split second with a look of pure disgust. "Dismissed."
The students began to file out, talking loudly about the treasures they hoped to find. Alaric was already bragging about how many crystals he would claim, while Mina walked silently, her head down. Kael stayed behind for a moment, slowly packing the heavy measuring devices back into their wooden crates.
The arena was quiet now, but the air still felt heavy with the residue of magic. Kael looked at his hands. They were covered in small nicks and scratches from the day's work. He thought about the Echo Ruins. He thought about the "wild mana" the Master had mentioned.
In the back of his mind, he remembered a passage from one of the forbidden theory books he had found in the back of the library. It said that in places like the Echo Ruins, the "Laws of Magic" weren't as solid as they were in the city. They were flexible. They were... glitchy.
Kael didn't have mana. He didn't have fire or water. But he had spent his life studying the structure of the world because he had nothing else to do. He knew the ruins were dangerous, and he knew that Alaric would likely try to push him to his breaking point once they were in the woods.
But as he walked out of the fortress of light and into the dim twilight of the city, Kael didn't feel only fear. He felt a tiny, dangerous spark of curiosity. For the first time, he wasn't just going to be a witness to someone else's power. He was going to a place where the rules didn't always work.
And if the rules didn't work, maybe a "bug" like him finally had a chance to do something more than just survive.