After the lady in the monument’s announcement is over, Selica feels an uneasy elation. Is it really over? Selica asks herself. She looks around the cave and the same question is also being asked by every mage inside. They’ve been too wary about everything that believing a word from the city has actually made them doubt even more.

However seeing the Silencers outside the cave be relieved with the entire situation makes Selica believe it to be true as well. Too relieved she thinks as they’re not even defending themselves and some are even lying in the rain as it is.

“Something is coming.” Despi, who is still on lookout despite the announcement, marks a certain individual jumping down from the top of the hill. It’s human-like and very lithe in its appearance, and it didn’t even make a sound when it landed near them. The first thing Selica notices about it is its body, it’s fully coated in armor similar to Karroun. But its movement is eerie, it’s like a mannequin being slowly string along as it steps forward.

”What in the sand pits?” Despi tries to aim her gun, but the creature seems unfazed by her ill intent. As it gets closer, Selica gets a better look on the creature’s head. Instead of the normal head, the creature is covered with a helmet and once it’s inside the cave, it opens it revealing a skull. A human skull.

“Everyone!” The familiar voice speaks again, this time coming from the human skull. Selica can trace the voice near the skull’s mouth piece. “This skeleton is mine, it will be releasing a sleeping smoke to calm everyone's nerves and put you to sleep. I promise, in the name of this proud city, you will be safe.” Suddenly the skeleton exhumes a yellowy smoke from every orifice in its metallic body. Almost everyone tried to escape, but the smoke was very potent, lulling them immediately to sleep within seconds.

“Selica!” Gallian immediately grabs her by the hand. Selica hazily looks around and sees Ashlin already out as Gallian carries her by the shoulder.

Selica grabs her friend’s hand, hoping to make a difference. Unfortunately just as she does, the smoke overtakes her and puts her and her friends to sleep.

*

As sleep takes hold of our little Selica, she shrugged off her nightmarish reality to dream of verdant pastures and lively hillside of Heroes’ Hill. She recalls the beautiful birds singing outside of her window. The fresh morning breeze entering her room, and the childish banter she can hear when she studies.

Selica then finally realizes that everything she has experienced back then all happened inside her room. Behind the confines of her towering tomes, she has lived most of her life in solitude aside for her parents, nose down on her books. Only leaving them to do chores or when her parents forces her to do some exercise under the sun. At the time she was contended with it, she taught herself to be superior to the rabble rousing kids that used to play mock battles outside of her room, recreating the great stories their parents have told them. Thinking that the value of knowledge she is gaining through other mage’s discoveries is far superior than the folk tales retired heroes used to tell in drunken stupors inside the tavern.

But now, she looks at her past self with pity. Not because the knowledge she gained was actually inferior, but rather on how she sees herself. She may not be as haughty as the other mages she has met in Magecraft City, but she can see the seed of disparity she placed herself amongst others deep within her sprouting, growing magnificently. She pauses. Would she have eventually become someone like Dimas if she had never confronted him today? Would she still become one eventually even after all of this?

She...doesn’t want to. But does she have a say on it? Obviously yes, right? Selica’s mind swim unmoving through the sea of her consciousness, full of the recent events that has just happened right now.

“I wonder what will my parents say if they find out about this?” Selica doesn’t know how mage parents would react to it, but she’s kind of sure that her parents will go on an outrage the moment they found out about the test. Especially her father, Barnabus Bursnan is a well known hero from whom Selica recalls based from his stories. She didn’t really pay mind to the details, but she at least knows her father is a hero that once stopped an evil lich from destroying a city.

And mother...well. Selica really doesn’t recall any stories from mother. She often assumes that her mother, Cynthia Bursnan, has been a small-time adventurer who just happened to be my father along her journey. She was the only person in Heroes’ Hill who has never boasted about her exploits, and it's because of that reason that Selica eagerly asks her mom to tell her so.

It would have been their little secret, two Bursnan ladies passing down an adventurous tale that only they could know. But Selica’s mom simply avoided the topic, saying that it wasn’t anything amazing like her father’s.

Selica recalls the sadness, as if her mother kept something from her despite the usual supportiveness towards her every endeavor.

“You could read this instead, my love.” She recalls her mom handing her a small tome of magical spells to distract her from asking about her past. Her mother says it’s one of the tomes she collected during her travels. It was actually Selica’s mom that started her to seriously pursue being a mage. It was a way for Selica to both know about mother’s past, and to find acceptance to her own mother’s hidden self.

But somehow, she ended up here: In a city far away from her mother. Selica wonders when she lost sight of her goal? Was it because as a mage studying magic truly resonated with her. Or is it because she was content and happy to have her mom be as her, secret or not.

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Selica ponders as her consciousness continues to swim in the blankness of the void, until suddenly.

“Ouch!” A familiar voice pierces her meditation. Her dialect sounds so unique for Selica’s ears that she can only assume one person to have that voice. “So you were lying!”

“Gallian?” Selica swims up towards the sound, knowing full well that her friend might be in danger.

“For the last time, Gali, I wasn’t lying.” Another familiar voice. This time the voice is more somber, cooler rather than cold. It’s Ashlin. “I am your friend! I just don’t know what is happening with your magic?”

”Magic?” Selica finally rises from the water of her unconscious mind and wakes up. The first thing she sees are her friends, sitting on a single white bed, inside an ominous looking cerulean crystal room.

“Oh please!” Gallian immediately retorts. “If I can do it with Selica, why can’t I do with you, “friend”.” The sarcasm is spilling out from Gallian’s lips as Selica groggily awakes from her slumber.

“What are you two fighting about?” Selica wipes her eyes.

“Selica! You’re awake!” Gallian immediately rushes into her and holds her arm. “Ashlin is not our friend! She’s been lying to us all this time.”

Ashlin disappointingly sighs. “I am your friend, you idiot. It’s just that your magic doesn’t work with mine, for some reason.”

“What?” Selica didn’t want to talk about magic right after she woke up. “What are you two saying?”

“Well you see...” Gallian then begins her tirade campaign against Ashlin. “Since we’ve been awake for a while, I’ve asked Ashlin if I can borrow her magic with mine. You know, just like what I did with yours. But every time I try to do it, Ashlin either shocks me with electricity or pulls it back before I can pull her magic from her.”

”For the last time, I wasn’t shocking you, or holding my magic back.” Ashlin shakes her head. “Maybe there’s a problem with your magic instead.”

”Of course not!” Gallian exclaims, but her voice suddenly falls somber. “...I think.”

”See!” Ashlin points at Gallian in frustration. “Don’t pin this on me!”

“Ughh enough. My head hurts just listening to both of you.” Selica is massaging her temple, how are these two idiots more concerned about their magic than the crystal room they are in. She sighs and looks at her two friends. “Okay then, show me. I’ll be the judge.”

”Fine.” Gallian readies herself by going back to where Ashlin is. She places both of her hands on her friend’s chest and a familiar white light radiates from Gallian’s hands as she tries to borrow Ashlin’s magic.

Selica focused on the flow of mana itself rather than the ritual of the magic. She’s also been curious how Gallian’s magic works ever since she did it during the test. That’s why she initially concentrates on Gallian’s mana first. From her initial observation Gallian’s mana flows normally, only reacting towards her hands where she is making physical contact with Ashlin. There Selica then focuses on Ashlin’s mana as it comes into contact with Gallian’s. She can clearly feel the two flows of mana interacting with one another through Gallian’s hand. Selica notices that while Ashlin’s mana is neutral and indifferent, Gallian’s mana is...copying her mana? It’s like Gallian’s mana is forging its own duplicate of Ashlin’s mana signature.

But after a while, Selica notices Gallian is struggling. While Ashlin’s magic is still being copied, Gallian’s mana is struggling to copy her friend's entire mana signature for that specific spell she's aiming for. When Selica takes a closer look it’s not as if Gallian’s magic is faulty, it’s still doing what it has been doing earlier, but the reason she's struggling is because the spell she is copying is too complex for her mana to duplicate. It’s as if the spell’s signature is so long and complicated and Gallian’s mana only has a finite amount of ink to copy it. After a few seconds, Gallian’s twitches back and gets pushed away from Ashlin.

“See!” Gallian immediately points at Ashlin. “She won’t let me!”

“It...wasn’t Ashlin.” Selica concludes. “I mean...it’s not that Ashlin isn’t letting you. It’s just that the spell you’re copying is too complex for you. Ashlin. How long has your spell been with you?”

”Oh this?” Ashlin looks at herself and to her hands. “Ever since I was a child, but the spell itself is way older than me. About a couple of generations is my estimate? It’s a passed down Spellgraph from my ancestors so I guess that’s why it’s complex?”

When Gallian hears that her face slumps hard. “So that’s why.” Selica guesses that even Gallian now understands why she can’t copy it. The spell is too old, and has evolved so many times that simply copying it through her Pact Magic isn’t enough. If the spell is to be compared to living things, Selica’s spells are like insects, while Ashlin’s is akin to a century old beast.

”Man this is lame.” Gallian comments immediately. “Don’t you have other spells with you?”

”Sadly, I don’t.” Ashlin answers back. “I’ve only practiced with this Spellgraph and this alone for my entire life. I didn’t have any time to learn other magic in between those moments.”

“So...umm.” Selica, now that the mystery of Gallian and Ashlin’s magic is resolved, has turned her mind to more pressing matters. “Are we really not going to talk about the blue crystal room we’re in?”

”Oh, right. You were asleep when we were freaking out.” Gallian lies on the other bed after Ashlin’s. Apparently there are three beds inside the room instead of two. “We’ve been trying to get out of here for hours already. Even used magic as well. Spoilers, your magic doesn’t work here either.” Gallian adds.

“Good news however. We seem to have recovered all our stuff.” Ashlin points at the ground behind the bed. Selica looks towards that direction and sees her backpack neatly placed by the side. But instead of bulging through the seams, the excess books and tomes are neatly placed by its side. Selica quickly rushes towards her books and inspects them carefully. Every page she turns reminds her of the familiar room she has just dreamt about. ”But, who brought it here?” Selica looks back to her friends, and they shake their heads, not having the answer either. Was it Enyi? Probably. She’s been very helpful despite being a Silencer in that test.

The crystal room begins to shake. The girls immediately huddled together as they stared at the ceiling to avoid any imminent cave-ins. But instead, a portion of the crystal wall opens and a greasily-dressed woman appears. She wears a leather jacket on top of her red overruns and a pair of denim pants and boots for her bottom. She’s also wearing a brown cap that contains most of her brown hair inside while she holds a piece of paper on one hand and a pen on the other. ”Okay.” The woman looks through a list of papers. “Ah yes, the natives.” She looks at both Selica and Ashlin. “Acclodia Una, Senioras' ' She says in a weird dialect. “The name is M. We have a lot to talk about.”