Excerpt from the Diary of Yunar of Violet, headmaster of the Academy of Mura during the Great Reconstruction

  The damned swordsman has beaten us completely. He didn't beat us through one-on-one combat or through some great strategical battle. No, he did what he had always done: went onto his knees in front of the right people and begged them to lend him their strength. I don't even know if I should feel angry at myself or at the patheticness of Jonathan the legendary swordsman.

  I had spent so many years trying to improve the ways of magic, trying to select only the best teachers to teach the future generations. Already, there was some progress, especially after Meriel the mage had shown us how to improve some of our techniques. But it all came crashing down with his "we should have heeded the warnings". It wasn't like we had no idea that this was coming.

  Most of my colleagues had already left. I can't even blame them. Of course they have to prioritize the safety of themselves and their families. It's only a matter of time before the church stops asking nicely for us to stop teaching our ways and switch to theirs, to Jonathan's.

  How can they not see how this will spell the end of Mura? The end of Lavarza itself? I shake my head at their stupidity. They would sacrifice this kingdom just for a fraction of power. For the opportunity to rule over people they deem lesser than them. I can only pray that one day this great tragedy will be overturned back.

  John watched the door from which the little runt had just gone away from about ten minutes ago. His duel was coming soon, but he felt jittery, and considered following after the two kids.

  There were many reasons why he would do so, but the most important one was the reason he was here: to watch for any abnormals, like herself, the little elf, and their grown-up master. John didn't like spying on other people, but it was the single quest they sent him here with. Apparently, the Temple always had someone to catch and report about any unsightly activities. Having grown up in one of the temples, it was his time now for the next several years.

  And he hated it. Hated every second of it.

  He felt like a little rat scouring through the halls of the Academy, and instead of being able to focus on improving himself or his connection with his sword, he had to watch as the others studied while he had to travel back and forth from the temple like a courier.

  Worst of all, unlike all of his predecessors that had this task, he actually saw something worth reporting: someone not using a spell-blade to cast their spells. At first, he thought that they would quickly fail the university and be thrown away during their first days. Some foolish mages over their head. Maybe they’d fail right at the entrance ceremony.

  But instead, the adult male beat one of the professors of the Academy, and it wasn't like the mage had even broken a sweat. It seemed like the professor a child fighting his parent. It was the first time John felt such shock, and he’d seen a lot of things.

  How could someone achieve something like that? Ever since then, he began questioning what the temple taught him even more. Not that he wasn't thinking about what they were teaching him before, of course, but everyone seemed so convinced of the temple's teachings that not using a sword seemed ridiculous to most of them.

  When he reported this man to his superiors, they seemed more interested in that than in anything else he had ever told them. That's when John began seeing through their agenda. Finally, the temple's enchanters near the capital started making sense. It wasn't about protection; probably never was. They only wanted to keep the secret of how they enchant items to themselves.

  It made him sick to his stomach.

  There was probably a great conspiracy going on, and he had no one to share it with, no one he could trust. He looked back on the door from which the two children walked away from and remembered their supervisor, the long-haired man most people here called Mev. He needed to follow them. He needed to talk to them, and he would need to ask more.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “John versus. Imric!” The booming voice of Brugus sounded from somewhere on the other end of the hall, and it snapped him back to attention.

  Just a quick duel then, and he would follow after.

  John swept through the halls, looking around at every intersection, yet seeing no trace of his quarry. Where could they have gone? He knew that they stayed somewhere in the dorms, but there were so many rooms that searching for them could take the rest of the day.

  Definitely not the way to go about doing this. At this point though, he was not getting any better ideas. Should he go back into the training hall and ask Brugus where he'd find them? He remembered the older man taking them to their room on the entrance day.

  But no, he didn't want anyone to know. He didn't want anyone to know why he was searching for the two children.

  A memory flashed through his mind—a hard bed, leather straps binding him to it, his lungs burning with every sharp breath. Two priests standing above him, looking into his open chest cavity, and planting something there. Something he didn't understand back then, but he understood very well now.

  He bit his cheek, trying to shove the memory away. A damned experiment was all he was to them, and once he was no longer useful, they threw him away into the backwater that people called Mura.

  But it might have all been worth it. He remembered the first time he saw the man, Mev. He remembered how every cell in his being called at John to talk to him. But he fought back against it, distracted by the fight he had with the department head just days earlier.

  Oh he so regretted it now, but if Mev wasn't here now, he had to talk to his students at the very least. Maybe they would know something about where he comes from. How different casting without a sword is.

  John tried doing so himself, but he found the experience frustrating if anything else. It was like trying to ride a horse without a saddle. Probably possible, but very hard to do without proper training.

  He turned another corner, smelling the cured meats being served in the canteen not far away. Could they have gone to grab an early lunch? Kids love eating, right? At least, he sure did so when he was younger. He once again turned back towards the training hall, wondering if he should take a different path or maybe try to sprint towards the dorms. To try to catch them before they entered one of them. But there was no use in doing that.

  No, towards the canteen he would go.

  As he often did these past few weeks, he once again thought on the way that the man cast his spells. It didn't seem too different from himself and the teacher cast theirs. An incantation followed by a sweep of mana, but the sweep seemed so clean and the spell seemed too powerful to be low-level.

  John himself had some spells already in their 20's, some even in the 30's now, but without his blade, he would struggle to gather enough mana to cast most of them properly. And something told him that they wouldn't be quite as strong anyway. His hunch about the temple, the church weakening the magic once again became even stronger.

  He thought on the origin of spell-swords, and it just didn’t make sense. Jonathan was the one who brought these changes, showing the ‘correct’ way to the mages of that age. But weren't Jonathan and Meriel the Great mage good friends? Why would Jonathan do something that destroyed Meriel's legacy? He wondered, trying to think back on the histories he studied about how the spell-swords became the norm.

  He looked up and realized that he let his nose guide him after all. The canteen smells were even stronger now, and he recognized this particular corridor. It was two turns away from the canteen.

  Perhaps he should stop looking and try to approach them tomorrow, or the day after, when they’d have some combined classes. John hid some of his talents when they were examining him, trying to appear as uninteresting as he could make himself be. Not incompetent, but not interesting either. That sadly meant that he wouldn't get to meet the two of them very often, only sharing some history classes that every single one of these other kids already knew.

  He still stood in one place, deciding where to go, when a sight of something strange took his eye. A leaf placed on the ground next to the wall. But what was even stranger was the fact that there was something moving the leaf as if there was a soft breeze pulling it.

  Strange. He thought to himself and almost began walking forward again when he finally made a connection.

  The elf had some leaves on him, stemming from his skin like if he were a plant. John placed his ear on the wall and felt it; the soft sounds of wind just behind. He began grabbing one brick after another trying to push them, pull them, when finally he pushed one in with his foot and the wall began opening.

  Inside, there were stairs leading down into the ground. Were there cellars in the academy? He had never heard of such a thing. Only two torches placed next to the stairs alighted the darkness below, and he could not see the end of the stairwell. But if those kids were here, maybe they were in danger?

  They seemed confident in themselves, but they were not strong enough, especially not the girl. He would help them if need be. He gulped, grabbed the handle of his sword to reassure himself and stepped down.