He looks at me, very much annoyed, and says, “So you’re the one who broke out originally.”

“Half the potential heroes died because of you.”

Well, whatever. If they couldn't gather enough neurons to figure out they should have run away after being spotted, it’s their fault. Frankly, they would have made lousy heroes anyway.

Henbrick shakes his head like he has the moral high ground here.

“Moral high ground?” he says. “You’ve killed three innocent nobles in cold blood, just because you wanted to learn magic.”

Maybe I wouldn’t have done that if you had made magic publicly available.

“You could have gone to Evermyst, magic is publicly available there, that's why thay call that place the land of mages. Most of our mages were originally Evermyst mercenaries.”, he says like it’s not a big deal. Where the hell did this even come from?

The bugger looks at me, “Did you not do your research before breaking into the academy.”

Every commoner I talked to about magic all pointed me to the damn academy.

He breaks down laughing, after which he looks back at me hysterically “You did the equivalent of breaking into a fully defended stronghold just to steal a bite of food because you were a little hungry.”

I curse every undereducated idiotic commoner this damned empire created and the damned bastard shakes his head once more and says this time with a more calm voice, “Well, no matter, you are going to face a bad end. I would have killed you here, but the noble families will want to make an example out of you.”

He walks up to me and lifts up the cheap shirt these people dared to put on me. He starts moving his fingers in the motion of some spell.

After a little time, he hovers his hand over my chest. A searing pain suddenly bombards my mind, and the overwhelming pain makes me scream for the third time today.

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After some time, he removes his hand, and I look down. I see a magic circle branded onto my chest. I don’t have much brainpower to analyze it or just curse at the wizard because of the damned pain.

Henbrick once more starts moving his fingers and touches my chest, which also brings a lot of pain. Though his next spell apparently makes it fade away, as my body starts to heal and leaves scars in the places where previous burns had been.

With my mind a bit less chaotic, I look down at my chest. There lies some sort of triple-layered magic circle, which I didn’t even know could exist.

While I examined my chest, Henbrick, the absolute bastard, casts another spell and touches my chest.

This time the effect isn’t physical but spiritual. I sense my soul shifting and expanding to cover the exposed scars. This process should take much longer, but the wizard pulled some shenanigans to speed it up.

As my soul fills the shape of the magic circle, I feel my imprinted mana get forcefully pushed into it.

It activates, and I feel some sort of distorted wave of my own imprinted mana emanate from the circle.

It travels through my whole soul, passing through the mana core and the spinal cord. It feels weird at first but not much more. But after it hits the inner shell blocking me from atmospheric mana, it reflects back. While this is happening, the circle keeps releasing more and more waves.

After a minute or so, there are so many waves bouncing around that I begin to lose focus on my soul entirely. I try to stop this, of course, but my mana control is not strong enough.

Eventually, it spirals out of control. My sixth sense doesn’t feel the familiar shape of my soul anymore; it merely feels static, like the feeling of not having enough blood flow in your hand.

I look at Henbrick, and he smiles. “What did you think, that I would just throw you into a cell all willy-nilly? I’m not stupid. Scheming people like you always think of some sort of plan. That’s why I’m removing any chances. Your magic will stay suppressed until you face your—”

Suddenly, I feel a sensation go through my soul. It’s like a force I never noticed inside me died out suddenly.

For a little time, my vision turns blurry, and my consciousness wanes. Though, after an unknown amount of time, I snap back into focus.

Henbrick’s still in front of me. My probably bloodshot eyes see him open his mouth, yet an unknown tongue comes out: “Verathin drumas keledon myrath, zenthra lorian kestum. Soria ventir kalom, dravith meros tundar.”

I look at him, very confused, my suddenly tired mind struggling to keep my consciousness.

Henbrick sees me look at him, with a face of incomprehension. Then his eyes widen for a moment. He clears his throat, and he says in a horrible accent, “Ahh, I see your gift has been…,” he pauses for a moment, “anti-activated?”

I don’t reply, on one hand not giving him a chance to improve his English out of spite, and also to ponder what happened.

My gift? Does he mean the one from the gods? If that’s so, then I don’t have my magic translator. That is not good. Also, I am vulnerable to the diseases this world boasts. But worst of all, my face. My soul has been shifting slowly to adapt to my face's current condition, though this process is happening slowly, which I now realize is thanks to this “gift”.

But now that I’ve lost it, this means that my soul would hurry up its shifting, and… my beauty could forever be lost! This simply can not happen!

I spitefully look up at the wizard, “You monster!”. He shakes his head and says something in his stupid language that sounds like a choir of dying kittens. After which he turns his back abruptly and leaves.

For a second, I thought this place would be my holding cell or something before some guards come in a couple of minutes later.

They promptly untie me from the chair and start to drag me away.