Darrick fell to his knees. His head was spinning but his hand was still on the orb, he was not in the right mind, or any mind to be exact, he was in a state similar to a coma. A wet sensation spread to his nose, and then a drop of red liquid fell to the floor. After the sound of blood dripping, an ear-piercing sound followed from the orb which had thin cracks all over it now.

Professor was alerted and tried to hold the inevitable in place with her oozing thick red magical energy but it wasn't enough as the orb shattered to pieces with a shock wave. The intensity of the wave was not strong so no one was injured but the shock of the event alone made the whole room descend into chaos.

Darrick who was on his knees slowly leaned forward involuntarily with the gravities call, almost falling face first to the ground but a soft wing of light gave his body a support to stay still. Then it enveloped him in a warm sprinkling glow of blue light.

Darrick who had become a husk for a few seconds was now back to life with vigor. There were no wounds on him but his face had looked a bit like a dried-up mummy a few seconds ago now he was back to his best condition in body but his mind was roaring with questions.

What in the actual fuck was that all about? Who was that? Where was I? And what is this thing blanketing me?

Darrick touched the wings of light and before he could examine it more deeply he coughed. Not just normal coughs but bloody coughs. Possibly to let out the bad blood from his body that was there because of some internal injuries.

Professor was very busy with checking the spirit channel and he realized that he was in the soft embrace of the spirit fairy, Akly'sgyd. He couldn't determine any facial features of the spirit but it was not necessary to begin with. He just had to say a word of gratitude and he did.

"Thank you, fairy. Thanks for healing me."

"No need to worry about it." Darrick heard a voice so similar to the one he heard in the white space. This was slightly different but the similarities were enough to make Darrick shudder. That voice, it was the one that made him fall into those cracks in the world where he kinda died to return here.

"Who?" Darrick looked around to see if he was back but he wasn't, he could see people here but he was listening to some voice, like any self-aware logical person he concluded that this was just a hallucination.

"It's me Akly'sgyd. The one who saved you from your death at the hand of a protector spirit. It's a surprise that you just didn't explode with a string of his voice. How fascinating of you to anger him so much."

It's not a hallucination!

"Who are you talking to Akly'sgyd? Is there anyone else here who can listen to your voice?" Professor interrupted as she had finished her check-up on the situation.

"It turns out there is someone, this boy can hear me loud and clear so I got another person to pass the time with." She fluttered her wings scattering the sparkling dust towards the audience, it was helping everyone with their injuries and anything else really.

Darrick who thought he was about to die a few minutes ago was now back with nothing threatening his life but that did nothing about how jumbled his thoughts were after experiencing this first-hand. He would have asked for answers but there was no question popping up. He just stood there staring at the fairy spirit.

"You seem very exhausted after what happened to you. It may also be a bit taxing for you to listen to my voice in this state. Hmm... I'll talk to you later, sometimes very soon." She said as she floated back to her place and made another orb out of her powers.

"Students, no need to panic. It was a small mishap and everything is alright. We will continue after ten minutes so be ready." Professor announced as she turned towards Darrick. "And you. You have gained the spirit so congratulations and whatever happened can't be blamed on you alone so rest ease, we will take care of this. If you want you can rest or you can head for your ME class."

"Uh... Yes. I'll head for ME class." Darrick said simply. It was like he forgot how to thank and apologize so he skipped the process and then left the spirit hall immediately. He had some more plans to bother Quadath but now he would be one to be bothered if he stayed here so he didn't take any chances and left.

There wasn't much time left to start the ME class. The time passed in spirit hall felt like minutes but it was already more than an hour. Also, the spirit ceremony was not even close to completion in the next hour, a big chunk of the day was dedicated to the ceremony and now no one would miss their classes too.

Argh! My head is still heavy. I hope I can do something about this before I reach the class. Also that stench. It's gonna be a disaster with that stench and the headache, I won't be able to follow half an instruction for shit. Dammit!

Darrick mused about his situation internally as walked slowly towards the class hoping to relieve his heavy head before the class.

***

He was in the class and was not sitting alone, he thought he would be sitting alone but his great noble friends sat with him. It was Jasmine herself who led Leon towards where Darrick was resting. And they weren't the only ones who sat with him, Aulia and Quadath were also seated with the group.

Aulia was the first to sit with him, if she had arrived after Leon and Twins then she would have been too scared to sit but since it was Darrick she had no problem. After those three sat Quadath also entered the classroom only just a few minutes later. He probably finished his spirit contract and ran here judging from his ragged breath.

When the guy entered Darrick gestured for him to come to him, the guy obediently obeyed and sat beside Aulia. Both were shifting in their place to be comfortable but were not comfortable yet judging from their reactions and it was not difficult to guess why they were like that either.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

This is so fun. Both are trying to act natural but they probably forgot what's normal in the face of the situation. I should definitely not laugh, I want to see more.

Darrick turned towards the other side. On Leon's face, it was something like 'what are you even doing' look and Darrick shrugged in response. It was the only thing he could do right now without too much meddling.

"I thought Jasmine won't sit anywhere close to me but maybe I was wrong or was I right from the start?" Darrick asked implying something more than what met the eyes. Not just Leon but both Jasmine and Jasper also understood.

Jasmine simply turned her head, Jasper didn't care enough to give a reaction but Leon was different. "We are somewhere better about that than yesterday so we will talk after the class. We have come to a soft agreement so later at the usual place."

Darrick nodded and just placed his head on the desk to rest a bit more, just until the professor arrived. He barely rested for ten more minutes and even that was not peaceful as the friends on the right were trying to talk with friends on the left, then the professor arrived to put his rest to an end.

When Professor Wargel entered Darrick instinctually clutched his nose expecting a horrible stench but to his surprise there was none. Professor felt like any normal person, questioning the previous day's events and Darrick's senses.

"Huh?" Darrick said it out loud, not so loud that everyone could hear but the people around him heard the sound as clearly as they could. Darrick was sitting upright now and observing the professor with his keen eyes, hoping that whatever was happening now was just a small slip-up of his senses.

Darrick began to chew on his fingernails while his eyes flickered hard. There was a random emotional spike that came out of nowhere at the wrong time. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to his right only to see Leon looking at him.

"Is there something wrong? You seem a bit off."

"Yes. I will tell you about it afterwards. It's a big variable in the plan." Darrick answered as he tried to calm his nerves with deep breaths. He wiped the sweat on his forehead and tried focusing on what Professor was saying but his mind drifted somewhere else.

Is this it? I can sense criminals but the criminals can hide their aura entirely. There is not even an ounce of that aura, it's so clean like it never even existed. If we miss the spies then the fate of Astoria...

Darrick shook his head to kick out these thoughts. Thinking about big things while he missed small things that helped when the big things came to his door was a big move of idiocy. He forcibly focused on the Professor's words.

"-is the future and you lot are here to learn it from me. This is my responsibility to teach you a lot to be a competent magic engineer so I won't tolerate anyone slacking off in my class but if you do slack off be sure to back it up with your performance. That's all for the introduction now moving on to the topic."

Professor Wargel was as charismatic as Darrick perceived him to be from yesterday's brief meeting. He was in a formal three-piece appropriate for the official businesses. He talked in a friendly soft tone towards the class making sure to cement his image in the students positively.

"Hmm..." Professor flipped the pages of the book in his hand and checked a page or two with scrutiny, then threw it back on the table there. "Well, those books are useless when I'm the one teaching you. You may think my teaching methods are different from what the book suggested and you are right. I focus on your personal development more than just slapping together a few parts to make an artifact."

"Attendance is never necessary in the Academy, only results but here in my class you will face everything from a different angle so just reading books won't be enough to pass my classes. Is that clear?" Professor asked it like a military commander's question to his soldiers and surprisingly he was returned with soldiers agreement.

"Yes sir!" Easily more than half of the class was in on it. Some were confused and some were a bit embarrassed to say it out loud. Darrick was confused but he caught on to it and shrugged it off.

There's something like that. Darrick thought as he sagely nodded to himself in his mind.

While the student's reactions varied a lot from each other, the professor was just gently smiling at the class. He didn't try to mask his joy and continued with a smile on his face still present.

"Today I'll give you the basics of my style and syllabus. In the next class, you will be grinded in the lab to apply this theory practically so look forward to your next class but don't get distracted from this class now." Professor said as he placed his hands on another book.

"To start with, what are some basic aspects of magic engineering? Don't overthink the question, answer with what comes to your mind first. I'll choose a random student and you just have to say what comes to your mind. Let's start with you." The professor pointed at the student who sat in the corner of the classroom.

She was momentarily surprised to be chosen but quickly recovered and answered, "Magic."

"Good. That's an admirable answer. This is just a general questioning session and I appreciate all kinds of answers. Magic as you answered is a must needed aspect of 'Magic' engineering. Anything else?" The professor urged others to come up with answers.

He chose students one after the other and answers also came one after the other. The answers varied but they were never wrong. Metals, flames, tools and many more requirements were named then some became a bit specific on the topic of magic. Mana imbuements, and artifact cores made with the help of magic and magic control were the few that were mentioned.

"Excellent. We are getting a picture of what we want now but is this complete? There could be a crucial part that may be missing and I won't move on to the next topic until one of you answers it or all of you fails to answer it. You can raise your hands to answer, no need to wait for me to call you." Professor said.

He was still smiling after so many answers. Many students answered but for some reason, their answers were denied. After a few more people Professor decided to speak up.

"Are you sure you can make the artifacts with just raw components laid bare in front of you? It's simple but hard for you younglings who have just stepped on this path but if you can figure out what this is then you may be able to walk faster than most."

Jasmine raised her hands. Professor gestured for her to answer, "Is it knowledge?"

That should be it. Without knowing how to connect the parts how can we even make an artifact, right?

But Professor shook his head. "Very close but not quite what I want to hear. If you had ever made an artifact only then would you know. What you did do while creating it? Did you do something special that no one does or did you not do something that everyone does? The answer to this question would have taught you so much but sadly none of you are there where you can understand this, from now on I'll bring up this question in every class so be prepared to answer then-"

My best artifact is Fulminar and the only other artifact I made is the wand. What's the difference between them? There are many differences but what did I do special that resulted in that big of change between them? First of all, I made Fulminar with nothing but my imagination but...

Darrick placed his chin on his hand as it supported his head on the desk, then he leaned ahead a bit to think a bit more deeply and realized,

I tried to put the pieces together of the wand but I was unsuccessful it only succeeded when I understood it and communicated with it by threatening it to be good and it did. Fulminar was completely from my own realization and imagination. Then that means...

"Professor!" Darrick blurted out. Professor looked at his face and said,

"Yes, Darrick. Do you have an answer?"

"I think I do."

"Then say it so everyone else could hear it." Darrick nodded to what the professor said.

"Is it INTENT?"