Of course, the Imperial Palace isn’t some friendly town hall where you can just waltz in. Even Duke Erbe, the Elector of the Empire and the most powerful warlord in the vicinity, had to wait months to get permission to enter without any issues.
Normally, an Elector’s request for an audience wouldn’t take that long. This meant that the Imperial Palace was currently under such tight security that it was almost like a fortress.
Given the situation, knocking on the palace gates and demanding entry was out of the question. And with the Church openly hostile to the Emperor at this point, trying to enter under the guise of a cleric was also impossible.
‘But a little experiment wouldn’t hurt.’
Fernandez cracked his knuckles and looked straight ahead. Paltennoia was the center of modern civilization, a place that could rebuild even if half of it turned to ashes within half a century, thanks to the knowledge it held.
Moreover, the Empire possessed the greatest magical forces of the time. Combining these conditions, there were more than enough options to work with—enough to overflow even if you counted them on both hands.
‘How have you all been?’
Fernandez smirked as he stepped into the dark alley.
The seventh alley, third door on Bastis Street. Fernandez felt a wave of nostalgia as he looked at the blue door with patches of paint missing. It wasn’t the first time he’d visited this place, but he had spent a considerable amount of time here once.
In his previous life. Before he went by the name Faijashi. It was during his early days as a wandering mage, having barely escaped the clutches of his master, that he had sought refuge here.
This was the very place where the grand name “Calmburg Magic Academy” was born. Among the numerous magic academies within Paltennoia, it was a gathering spot for those who couldn’t make it into the mainstream academies.
Known as the Shadow Academy. Despite its grand name, this place was a haven for mages who had been cast out by their respective schools. Wandering mages, dark mages, and disciples who had broken the rules or tried to steal secrets—they all flocked here.
– Creak.
Given its nature, the place was extremely wary of outsiders. Most of the people staying here were wanted criminals, and many of them were serious offenders with bounties placed by the Church.
“Welcome… who are you?”
The interior was simple and shabby, nothing more than a typical inn. A single employee wiping tables with a dry rag, an old man dozing by the campfire, and a bartender fiddling with cups at the kitchen bar.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Does this look like a detective agency to you?”
“Then do you have a room?”
“No rooms for you!”
The employee grumbled. Ordinary travelers wouldn’t come here, so if a stranger showed up, they were most likely a mage. And to those exiled from mage society, a strange mage was no different from an enemy.
“Marline. You’re being too harsh.”
“!! Who are you?”
The employee’s eyes sharpened instantly. She quickly stepped back and pulled out a short wand from her pocket. At the same time, the man in the kitchen and the one dozing by the fireplace began to glare at Fernandez.
The hideout of exiles, wanted criminals, and wandering mages—the Shadow Academy. If someone came here and dropped their real name instead of an alias or title, it was no ordinary matter. The atmosphere in the room froze in an instant.
Fernandez calmly surveyed his surroundings. Two people watching from the second floor, one in the kitchen, one at the counter—four in total, preparing spells in hiding, while two in front were just distractions.
A familiar, almost textbook setup. It was a time-honored tactic used even in the early days of the Calmburg Magic Academy.
The flow of magical energy was clear to his eyes. All types of magic leave some kind of trace. Even if it wasn’t a signature spell, you could find the caster’s unique “habits” in a spell you’d experienced before.
The way they bent the strokes, the bias in combining elements, the direction between circuits…
Fernandez smirked and pointed into the air. First, the guy casting the visual obstruction spell.
“Gilson Lignas. You’re slow with the second transformation clause.”
As he drew his finger downward, the weaving magic scattered. A terrible scream came from above. The backlash from the forced interruption during the spellcasting had struck.
“And what is this crude application? You should fix that habit. The mana leakage is severe, and it’s not effective. Bram Petas. Try again.”
He raised his other hand and sent a mana wedge. Everyone here was a mage, and they could at least vaguely sense or see the flow of mana. They immediately realized how clean and refined the technique was.
Using magic isn’t hard if you just learn it. As long as you can form the circuits needed to channel the required mana for a set spell, anyone can do it.
But dismantling an activated spell mid-cast was a high-level skill that required at least two levels of mastery.
If you compare mana to arrows and magic circuits to bows and strings, a mana wedge is like deflecting an incoming arrow with another arrow. Timing, understanding, and sense—all of it had to be perfect.
And yet, the two hiding above had been neutralized in an instant. Overwhelming skill. With just two wedges, he had disrupted the entire magical formation.
With that level of skill, no one here could stop him if he decided to cast combat magic. As those preparing to ambush lost their will to fight, the tense atmosphere in the room deflated.
“Who… are you, sir?”
Marline forced down a groan and barely managed to speak. It was a level of skill rarely seen outside of academy heads, yet the man before her looked no older than his late twenties. The mana he emitted was barely a handful, yet the techniques he used were beyond belief.
“Always the same questions. Who are you? What’s your identity? Well, does identity really matter to our kind?”
“…No. Power is more important.”
“And profit is even more important than that. Right?”
“My question was foolish.”
Marline was the head of the Shadow Academy. She had spent nearly a decade as a wandering mage in this region and planned to hold her position for at least another ten years.
According to history, that was how it was supposed to be. And ten years later, when Fernandez was approaching middle age, Marline would meet a man and begin a new leap forward.
Fernandez at 29. Under the command of a man known as Faijashi Wildcast. An early member of the infamous “Calmburg Magic Academy.”
She was not foolish.
“What do you want from us?”
A foolish wandering mage would surely die. Therefore, a wandering mage who survived for a long time had to be wise. It meant they knew how to survive.
Fernandez smirked as he watched her quickly lower her guard.
“I need manpower for an experiment.”
On the evening after the strategy meeting, Abel had expressed her concerns while listening to Fernandez’s story.
“Won’t it be difficult? Will they even acknowledge the Church’s authority?”
“Not a chance. Even third-rate dark mages hiding in the market would resist if an Inquisition Officer showed up.”
