“Damn! Damn! DAMN!!” Victor pressed his hand hard against a deep, dark wound on his stomach. His acolyte robe and the clothes underneath were drenched in blood as he used his inverted mana to try to control the bleeding. “Fuck, are those bastards on my tail?” he cast a sidelong wary glance all around.
The forest loomed, dark and foreboding, with tall trees casting long, sinister shadows across the narrow pathway below the moon. A cold wind whispered secrets through the leaves as he limped through. But the fact the poison-infected wound was inflicted by the very fellow acolytes he once called friends beat the fear brought by the eerie surroundings.
Victor took a deep breath, wincing at the continuously spreading wound. The sound of the forbidden spell breaking over him flashed in his mind, and he froze as he remembered the scene. He was at his peak of anticipation while holding the broken artifact to open the pocket dimension when the attack activated and shattered the defensive magic tool his family gave him. The shock of the betrayal had frozen him in place back then as well. How naïve he’d been. Granted, the artifact held unimaginable value that even Nexus Temporal Magi would covet, but he hadn’t expected his friends to turn on him like this. He felt his face twist into a grimace, and he looked about the forest fiercely.
“Mark my words!” Victor growled, his voice laced with determination and an unyielding resolve. “Once I’m out of this wretched place, I swear I will take revenge!!” Gritting his teeth, he summoned every last ounce of strength, pushing his body to its absolute limits.
As a third-stage Initiate Attunement acolyte, he had a better-than-average constitution, but he couldn’t last like this forever. The vast expanse of the Thornwood Forest made it increasingly difficult to discern the path to the exit, and the poison in his system from the spell was causing his consciousness to flicker in and out, leaving him disoriented and unable to distinguish left from right.
But then, a clearing materialized before his eyes, a respite from the oppressive darkness of the forest. An old building stood within the heart of this eerie woodland, captivating his attention.
“A-An academy?” Victor’s weary eyes widened as he took in the sight before him. Another person might have confused the old building for something else, but he was an acolyte. Simply looking at magical traces here allowed him to deduce what the building was. This didn’t erase the strange, out-of-place feeling, however.
“Why’s there a Magus academy here, of all places? No… it looks like it has been abandoned, and there’s only one building.” The structure, strangely well-preserved, held an aura of mystery and intrigue. It seemed to beckon to him, promising shelter and, perhaps, answers to his troubles.
Right now, he had no choice but to check out the building and maybe look for an antidote, or else he would just die here… The poison he was afflicted with wasn’t any normal poison, but something so insidious that it would definitely kill him if not cured.
Gathering his last bit of strength, he moved forward, and as he drew closer, the details of the structure became clearer. Constructed out of marble, the walls looked majestic. The crystal-clear windows reflecting moonlight made no indication of it having ever been abandoned at all.
Victor’s eyesight and mind were hazy after he ventured into the building. He just walked and walked and walked, his steps guided solely by his instinct to press forward. It wasn’t until he saw a peculiar sight that he stopped. A floating cuboid structure, encircled by intricate ring-like magic patterns, stood atop a pedestal. Its presence broke through the fog in his mind, offering a momentary clarity.
“What is this—?” Victor coughed, his breath catching as the poison finally took its toll. Dirty blood dripped from his mouth as his body fell, his hand touching the edge of the pedestal.
Is this it for me…?
As his consciousness waned, a brilliant light became the final fleeting image of his memory.
***
Victor’s eyes fluttered open, revealing a ceiling of dark bricks above him.
“I didn’t die?” Victor uttered as clarity gradually seeped in. “It… wasn’t a dream?” He gazed at the pedestal-like structure in front of him, perplexed.
He clambered to his feet, noticing that his body didn’t hurt in the slightest. The bleeding wounds all over his body, especially his stomach, had gone without a trace; even the poison coursing through his body was gone. Stranger still, his blood-stained perforated robe and clothes looked as good as new.
Suddenly, an intense headache assaulted him, and he clutched his head as he rolled on the ground in pain. “Aaagh!!” Foreign memories flooded his brain like a torrent of water bursting from a dam. From childhood to adulthood, the memories were so clear and vivid, as though they were his own.
When the pain subsided, Victor stared at the ceiling. He blinked and took a deep breath, sobbing ever so slightly from his aching head. “Who am I? Am I Simon or Victor…? Why have I a memory of a place called Earth…?” His mind was a mess. The feeling was similar to the hypnopompic state, where one would hallucinate and perceive themselves as two or more individuals.
It took a few minutes for him to finally organize his new memories… or his past life — a graduate from an average university named Simon Anderson who had just joined an IT company. Who would have thought that an excessive intake of caffeine and an overdose of spreadsheets could catapult him into a whole new dimension? Victor smiled in irony that the same fate had almost befallen him there again.
He had lived in a world of Magi called Seraphia as Victor from the Magus family of Asteriscus for eighteen whole years… The identity of Simon Anderson was of little concern to him. But still, how come he remembered his past life? Was this really his past life memory or just someone else’s memory that was inserted into him? More importantly, why was he still alive after what he had gone through?
These three unanswerable questions were superseded by the two lines of text that suddenly appeared in front of him.
[Magus Academy System integration successful.]
[You have been registered as the headmaster of this academy. Since it has no name at the moment, you are free to give it a name.]
“Whoa! What is this, a hologram?” The sudden notification took Victor aback, but he remained inwardly calm and stood up. After all, he had regained his past life’s memory, and all the novels he had read in the past made him feel that there was nothing strange about this development.
“Congratulations, Master! You have been chosen as the headmaster of this academy. I’m happy to give you every assistance I can!” Like a bolt from the blue, a high-pitched voice appeared from behind him.
“Who’s speaking?!” Victor stumbled backward a step this time. He turned on his heels in haste and couldn’t help but have his jaws drop.
“It is I, a cute ol’ me!” The floating creature who pridefully hit her chest was a fairy. A mythical being said to have disappeared tens of millennia ago. “Surprised to see a fairy?”
The fairy stood petite, just a tad smaller than a Barbie doll, with flowing hair split evenly between striking black and luminous white. Her delicate, doll-like face radiated beauty, with porcelain-white skin, which was covered by a pretty dress in a color similar to her hair. Her eyes captivated all who beheld them, adorned with brilliant golden pupils that mysteriously gleamed. Furthermore, the pair of beautiful, pristine butterfly wings on her back fluttered erratically.
Despite her appearance, Victor was sure of one thing: This fairy had the answers he was seeking.
“Of course! More importantly, who are you…? Why do I remember my past life, and why am I alive? Not that I’m complaining.” In addition, what did she mean by being chosen as the headmaster? What academy was she talking about? Victor’s head was piled up with questions.
“So impatient, are you?” The fairy giggled. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lizbeth, an assistant to the headmaster of this academy. I shall guide you in your endeavor to make this academy the greatest there is in the whole universe! Oh, and I will also elucidate every facet of the Magus Academy System to its very core.”
With a mischievous glimmer in her golden eyes, Lizbeth continued, “But first, I will commemorate this moment with a speech… …Together, we shall weave a legacy that will shine across—”
“I see…” Finding that there was no end to the speech, Victor interjected, “Is there no way to refuse?” Usually, people in Victor’s previous world would undoubtedly accept such an offer, thinking that it was a “cheat.” However, as someone who was reincarnated into this world, he knew better than them.
As if being rinsed by a bucket of icy-cold water, Lizbeth snapped. “Whaaat?! Of course not! How long do you think I’ve been waiting for this moment?!”
“Calm down… I mean, after all, I’m only at the third-stage Initiate Attunement.” Even the academy he studied at — the Arcane Radiance College — had Elemental Adept Magi as the lowest level of professors.
To put it into perspective, no one would be stupid enough to join an academy with an Initiate Attunement acolyte as the headmaster. Never mind recruiting geniuses, even the most desperate candidates would be repulsed by the idea of joining.
“Look, the moment you are registered as the headmaster of this academy, your life is intrinsically tied to its existence. Should the academy fall, your own demise shall follow. Consider this: Why do you think you still draw breath despite enduring severe poisoning and sustaining grievous wounds?”
“Seriously?!” Victor’s heart sank. What if some high-ranking Magi battled around this place and inadvertently razed it to the ground?
“I’m dead serious.” She smiled at him. A smile that said a thousand words and was more menacing than everything Victor ever saw. Scary…
But after thinking for a long time, this wasn’t a totally bad thing for Victor. It was a System cheat, after all; there was no way for it to be useless. All he had to do was man up and face the challenges coming his way so that he could one day claim what was his — the broken artifact as well as the treasure that it led to.
Finding the silver lining to it, Victor asked one thing, “But how am I supposed to gather acolytes for this academy?” Well, he couldn’t just recruit some random peasants, could he?
As if waiting for that question, Lizbeth’s mouth turned into a condescending arc, and she answered, “Hmm-hmm! Simple! You can summon ‘players’ into this world.”
“Damn! Damn! DAMN!!” Victor pressed his hand hard against a deep, dark wound on his stomach. His acolyte robe and the clothes underneath were drenched in blood as he used his inverted mana to try to control the bleeding. “Fuck, are those bastards on my tail?” he cast a sidelong wary glance all around.
The forest loomed, dark and foreboding, with tall trees casting long, sinister shadows across the narrow pathway below the moon. A cold wind whispered secrets through the leaves as he limped through. But the fact the poison-infected wound was inflicted by the very fellow acolytes he once called friends beat the fear brought by the eerie surroundings.
Victor took a deep breath, wincing at the continuously spreading wound. The sound of the forbidden spell breaking over him flashed in his mind, and he froze as he remembered the scene. He was at his peak of anticipation while holding the broken artifact to open the pocket dimension when the attack activated and shattered the defensive magic tool his family gave him. The shock of the betrayal had frozen him in place back then as well. How naïve he’d been. Granted, the artifact held unimaginable value that even Nexus Temporal Magi would covet, but he hadn’t expected his friends to turn on him like this. He felt his face twist into a grimace, and he looked about the forest fiercely.
“Mark my words!” Victor growled, his voice laced with determination and an unyielding resolve. “Once I’m out of this wretched place, I swear I will take revenge!!” Gritting his teeth, he summoned every last ounce of strength, pushing his body to its absolute limits.
As a third-stage Initiate Attunement acolyte, he had a better-than-average constitution, but he couldn’t last like this forever. The vast expanse of the Thornwood Forest made it increasingly difficult to discern the path to the exit, and the poison in his system from the spell was causing his consciousness to flicker in and out, leaving him disoriented and unable to distinguish left from right.
But then, a clearing materialized before his eyes, a respite from the oppressive darkness of the forest. An old building stood within the heart of this eerie woodland, captivating his attention.
“A-An academy?” Victor’s weary eyes widened as he took in the sight before him. Another person might have confused the old building for something else, but he was an acolyte. Simply looking at magical traces here allowed him to deduce what the building was. This didn’t erase the strange, out-of-place feeling, however.
“Why’s there a Magus academy here, of all places? No… it looks like it has been abandoned, and there’s only one building.” The structure, strangely well-preserved, held an aura of mystery and intrigue. It seemed to beckon to him, promising shelter and, perhaps, answers to his troubles.
Right now, he had no choice but to check out the building and maybe look for an antidote, or else he would just die here… The poison he was afflicted with wasn’t any normal poison, but something so insidious that it would definitely kill him if not cured.
Gathering his last bit of strength, he moved forward, and as he drew closer, the details of the structure became clearer. Constructed out of marble, the walls looked majestic. The crystal-clear windows reflecting moonlight made no indication of it having ever been abandoned at all.
Victor’s eyesight and mind were hazy after he ventured into the building. He just walked and walked and walked, his steps guided solely by his instinct to press forward. It wasn’t until he saw a peculiar sight that he stopped. A floating cuboid structure, encircled by intricate ring-like magic patterns, stood atop a pedestal. Its presence broke through the fog in his mind, offering a momentary clarity.
“What is this—?” Victor coughed, his breath catching as the poison finally took its toll. Dirty blood dripped from his mouth as his body fell, his hand touching the edge of the pedestal.
Is this it for me…?
As his consciousness waned, a brilliant light became the final fleeting image of his memory.
***
Victor’s eyes fluttered open, revealing a ceiling of dark bricks above him.
“I didn’t die?” Victor uttered as clarity gradually seeped in. “It… wasn’t a dream?” He gazed at the pedestal-like structure in front of him, perplexed.
He clambered to his feet, noticing that his body didn’t hurt in the slightest. The bleeding wounds all over his body, especially his stomach, had gone without a trace; even the poison coursing through his body was gone. Stranger still, his blood-stained perforated robe and clothes looked as good as new.
Suddenly, an intense headache assaulted him, and he clutched his head as he rolled on the ground in pain. “Aaagh!!” Foreign memories flooded his brain like a torrent of water bursting from a dam. From childhood to adulthood, the memories were so clear and vivid, as though they were his own.
When the pain subsided, Victor stared at the ceiling. He blinked and took a deep breath, sobbing ever so slightly from his aching head. “Who am I? Am I Simon or Victor…? Why have I a memory of a place called Earth…?” His mind was a mess. The feeling was similar to the hypnopompic state, where one would hallucinate and perceive themselves as two or more individuals.
It took a few minutes for him to finally organize his new memories… or his past life — a graduate from an average university named Simon Anderson who had just joined an IT company. Who would have thought that an excessive intake of caffeine and an overdose of spreadsheets could catapult him into a whole new dimension? Victor smiled in irony that the same fate had almost befallen him there again.
He had lived in a world of Magi called Seraphia as Victor from the Magus family of Asteriscus for eighteen whole years… The identity of Simon Anderson was of little concern to him. But still, how come he remembered his past life? Was this really his past life memory or just someone else’s memory that was inserted into him? More importantly, why was he still alive after what he had gone through?
These three unanswerable questions were superseded by the two lines of text that suddenly appeared in front of him.
[Magus Academy System integration successful.]
[You have been registered as the headmaster of this academy. Since it has no name at the moment, you are free to give it a name.]
“Whoa! What is this, a hologram?” The sudden notification took Victor aback, but he remained inwardly calm and stood up. After all, he had regained his past life’s memory, and all the novels he had read in the past made him feel that there was nothing strange about this development.
“Congratulations, Master! You have been chosen as the headmaster of this academy. I’m happy to give you every assistance I can!” Like a bolt from the blue, a high-pitched voice appeared from behind him.
“Who’s speaking?!” Victor stumbled backward a step this time. He turned on his heels in haste and couldn’t help but have his jaws drop.
“It is I, a cute ol’ me!” The floating creature who pridefully hit her chest was a fairy. A mythical being said to have disappeared tens of millennia ago. “Surprised to see a fairy?”
The fairy stood petite, just a tad smaller than a Barbie doll, with flowing hair split evenly between striking black and luminous white. Her delicate, doll-like face radiated beauty, with porcelain-white skin, which was covered by a pretty dress in a color similar to her hair. Her eyes captivated all who beheld them, adorned with brilliant golden pupils that mysteriously gleamed. Furthermore, the pair of beautiful, pristine butterfly wings on her back fluttered erratically.
Despite her appearance, Victor was sure of one thing: This fairy had the answers he was seeking.
“Of course! More importantly, who are you…? Why do I remember my past life, and why am I alive? Not that I’m complaining.” In addition, what did she mean by being chosen as the headmaster? What academy was she talking about? Victor’s head was piled up with questions.
“So impatient, are you?” The fairy giggled. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lizbeth, an assistant to the headmaster of this academy. I shall guide you in your endeavor to make this academy the greatest there is in the whole universe! Oh, and I will also elucidate every facet of the Magus Academy System to its very core.”
With a mischievous glimmer in her golden eyes, Lizbeth continued, “But first, I will commemorate this moment with a speech… …Together, we shall weave a legacy that will shine across—”
“I see…” Finding that there was no end to the speech, Victor interjected, “Is there no way to refuse?” Usually, people in Victor’s previous world would undoubtedly accept such an offer, thinking that it was a “cheat.” However, as someone who was reincarnated into this world, he knew better than them.
As if being rinsed by a bucket of icy-cold water, Lizbeth snapped. “Whaaat?! Of course not! How long do you think I’ve been waiting for this moment?!”
“Calm down… I mean, after all, I’m only at the third-stage Initiate Attunement.” Even the academy he studied at — the Arcane Radiance College — had Elemental Adept Magi as the lowest level of professors.
To put it into perspective, no one would be stupid enough to join an academy with an Initiate Attunement acolyte as the headmaster. Never mind recruiting geniuses, even the most desperate candidates would be repulsed by the idea of joining.
“Look, the moment you are registered as the headmaster of this academy, your life is intrinsically tied to its existence. Should the academy fall, your own demise shall follow. Consider this: Why do you think you still draw breath despite enduring severe poisoning and sustaining grievous wounds?”
“Seriously?!” Victor’s heart sank. What if some high-ranking Magi battled around this place and inadvertently razed it to the ground?
“I’m dead serious.” She smiled at him. A smile that said a thousand words and was more menacing than everything Victor ever saw. Scary…
But after thinking for a long time, this wasn’t a totally bad thing for Victor. It was a System cheat, after all; there was no way for it to be useless. All he had to do was man up and face the challenges coming his way so that he could one day claim what was his — the broken artifact as well as the treasure that it led to.
Finding the silver lining to it, Victor asked one thing, “But how am I supposed to gather acolytes for this academy?” Well, he couldn’t just recruit some random peasants, could he?
As if waiting for that question, Lizbeth’s mouth turned into a condescending arc, and she answered, “Hmm-hmm! Simple! You can summon ‘players’ into this world.”
