In the end, the tour turned out to be a waste. Accompanied by the sound of inane, boring advice about curfews and other informal rules, the young mages had been led through dormitories, libraries, mess halls and classrooms. At least the places seemed innocuous enough, but we neither found a way deeper into the towers, nor did we find Eileen. Most importantly, we found no trace of the horrors the Mystic had warned us about. Beyond reason, I hoped the old man had been wrong. This way, both Eileen and Amy would be safe. If only I could find big sis, maybe I could clear up any misunderstandings. Then our family could fit in with our new classmates and live a happy life here in the towers.

After the students had been led around for a while, they arrived back in the central foyer, in front of the large, sealed door at its end. Even now, Sophie and I were right behind them, finally with a chance to go deeper. If we wanted to explore the tower’s innards, this would be the place to do it.

“And in here, you will find the heart of the academy,” the fake teacher said. “Forget about all the theoretical lessons, here is where the fun starts. You might have already asked yourselves: 'All we have seen so far are lecture halls. If we are not allowed to use magic on the premises, where would we practice?' Well, the answer lies behind this door.”

Surefoot, the fake teacher walked over to the sealed gate and put a key card through a slit atop the carved stone. Magic forces on the doorway danced and spun, before they moved aside to open a channel, taking the physical doors with them. Without a sound, the gates slid open to reveal another white, sterile corridor. Multiple channels lead away from the hallway, with a second sealed door on its opposite end. This time however, the door was flanked by two red guards, alerted to the presence of the students.

The fake continued, unfazed by the new observers. “Beyond these corridors, you will find your individual training booths. If you want to take a look inside the rooms real quick, my explanation will make much more sense. Please pick a corridor to explore and we can continue the explanation once you come back.”

The students did as asked, and so did me and Sophie. Although I wanted to take the chance and contact Amy, Sophie dragged me over to a channel without any students instead. Of course she was right to be careful, yet I couldn't help but resent her for it. Always correct, always rational. As cold and sterile as the halls of the towers. That was Sophie.

At the end of the short hallway was a small room with minimalist furniture. At least the atmosphere here was much more inviting than outside. A potted plant in the corner brought some life, while walls in warm colors and a beautiful chair with a wine-red upholstery did their best to brighten and calm the mind.

However, the centerpiece of the room was the large, soft-looking bed, as well as the additions which had been made to it. First, I noticed the straps, like ones on hospital beds. Out of place in the serene room, they exuded a sinister atmosphere. Even more, the bed connected into the wall through a row of cables and tubes. We had already seen similar constructions before. All the back rooms were filled with similar connections, to span the distance between the black machines.

Finally, on top of the bed we found a VR-helmet, with another cable leading into the bed frame. What kind of training would the aspiring mages undergo in here? With fascination, my fingers brushed over the warm, smooth plastic of the helmet. Somehow, the mundane object filled me with dread, as if an icy cold was hidden beneath the surface.

After a moment, I looked up and motioned Sophie to get back. No matter how long we stayed here, we would learn more from the source, so we made our way back out to catch the fake's explanation.

“Okay, you should all have seen the VR-set by now. Is everyone here? Yes, no? Everyone have their buddy with them? Good. Now then, here is where the magic happens,” the fake teacher showed a sly grin. “This is our VR training center. To be exact, the one for the first year apprentices. Here you will get the chance to show your talents and the chance to experiment with your gifts under controlled conditions. Now, what did I say before was the most important rule within these walls?”

With an open smile, the fake looked around. A proper looking student with a stiff posture answered those expectations without fail. From the young man's appearance, he might have done nothing else all his life.

“Never use magic outside of training.”

“Darren Bailey, correct?”

“Yes, sir!” the valedictorian replied with pride in his voice, chest puffed out.

“That's correct. Very good. And can you guess why we don't want you to use magic outside of the VR-simulations?”

“...is it to ensure our safety, sir?” Faced with a more advanced question beyond memorization, the go-getter seemed a lot less confident.

“That is certainly part of it,” the fake nodded. “However, there is a much more important issue to consider: We don't want you to waste your mana. Unfortunately, all of us are born with a finite pool of magic power. For some it's a bit more and for some it's a bit less, but all of us here have a limited reservoir we can draw from. Even after we awaken our powers, we don't have the ability to refill that reservoir from the ambient mana in the air. The conversion of ambient mana into your own has been the main topic of academic research over the last few decades.”

Right away, my curiosity was piqued. I had never heard of ambient mana before. This must have been what the old Mystic had searched all his life: The method to replenish mana. With no time to waste, I began to sense in my surroundings for this elusive energy, while the teacher continued his explanation.

“In recent generations, the problem of mana conversion has gotten much worse. Some years ago began what is now known as the mana blight. For unknown reasons, ambient mana was corrupted, no longer as easy to absorb as it had been. By now, we understand much better what caused the blight and how to reform and absorb the blighted mana, but the process is much more difficult than before.”

While I listened with one ear, my senses found the treasures. Thin and weak, slivers of energy were all around us. In an attempt to catch them, I tried to train my senses on one of them. In response, my head stung, as if a giant claw had burrowed into my mind. Shocked, I retreated my senses and returned to the hallway, just in time to see multiple hands raise up from among the new mages. Of course the students would have many questions about the blight as well.

“Please leave your questions for later, especially on this topic,” the fake teacher said. “The mana blight will be covered in detail during your magic theory classes, so please withhold your curiosity just for a bit. For now, I will give you some more broad information.”

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Bit by bit, the students lowered their arms again. Their guide, happy with their obedience, continued his explanation.

“Since conversion of ambient mana has become so difficult, you apprentices are in a race against time. Once you run out of mana reserves, your interior channels will atrophy and you will cease to be a mage, forever. The only way to halt this process is to refill your mana through the environment. This is where the VR-simulations come in. Within a virtual environment, you will be able to use your magic power as much as you wish, without tapping into your actual reserves.”

The teacher looked around his eager students, all of them glued to his lips.

“In this manner, you can improve your skills without risk, and at the same time you have the greatest chance of becoming a full-fledged mage. Once you pass the simulated tests, you will be allowed to take a practical test and move on to the next year. Unlike the classes in the outside world, the mage society works on merit alone, so not everyone will advance after one year. Instead, you will only become a second year once your instructors, that's me and my colleagues, believe you are ready for the next step. This might sound harsh to you, but our first goal is to make sure you don't waste any of your precious inherent mana.”

Again, the hands of the students shot up. However, this time the fake didn't ignore their questions. With a smile as fake as his body, he pointed towards a girl in the front row who had raised her hand in trepidation.

“What happens if we don't make it? If our reserves run out before we can draw ambient mana? We won't be sent back, will we?” she asked in a disappearing voice.

“Good question. You don't need to be worried about that. Once you enter the Towers of Knowledge, you will be a member of the mage society no matter what. Even if you fail to become a full-fledged mage, you can still fulfill important functions. For example, the guardians of peace recruit themselves from among failed students.” He pointed over to the masked guards by the sealed gate.

“There's other positions as well. If you excel in theory but lack practical talent, you could work on research or in the libraries. There's all kinds of tasks around the towers and no one here will ever be without purpose. Still, out of all your options, being a mage is the most fun, you can believe me that. So you best try hard and make that simulator your second home,” the apparition finished with a wink.

Maybe the fake teacher had thought – if it could even think – that it had put too much attention on the students in the front, so the next question it answered came from the back of the crowd, from one I hadn't expected to raise her hand at all. The question came from Amy, who had spent the entire tour alone, never engaging with anyone or joining in on anything.

“Magister Sandow, I was wondering if you maybe know my sister. She's also a mage here, but she joined three years ago. Maybe you know what happened to her?”

For a while, the fake made a thoughtful face. Before it replied, I could sense some magic connection get established between it and the wall.

“What's your sister's name? And yours, if you would be so kind.”

“I'm Amy. Amy Rovis. My sister's name is Eileen.”

“Ah, yes, I remember Eileen.” The fake smiled, as the magic connection first flared up and then disappeared. “A very bright student. She passed her first examination in her second year, but has since been in intensive training, as she has yet to fully master ambient mana absorption. She's done very well so far, but it might take a little while longer for you two to meet again. It'll be bad to interrupt her training now, when it has reached its most critical phase. Please be patient and study hard. I'm sure your sister would expect nothing less of you.”

Rather than answer, Amy returned a silent nod. Maybe because of my own bias and her inherent misanthropy, I thought a glimmer of suspicion had appeared within Amy's eyes.

Of course my little sister would notice! That fake was so suspicious already, and then it claimed that our big sis had failed at something. That just didn't sound like Eileen at all. However, rather than focus on my younger sister who seemed fine for now, the fake's words had returned my attention back to the older one.

For a while the questions continued, but soon the group got ready to split up and funnel into the dorms which would be their private quarters for the next months. On the other hand, Sophie and I got ready to go on another tour of the facility. Now that we had a vague idea of the layout, we decided to follow the teacher's husk to see where it was headed next.

After he had said his goodbyes to the hopeful new students and my little sister, the fake walked over to the restricted door, us on its heels. The apparition led us straight through the hallway for the first year VR-training and brought us to the second sealed door. Behind it, we would find the facilities for the second-year students.

Perfect.

Wouldn't this be where we would find Eileen?

Vigor renewed, I followed the creature through the second door as well. Again, things were going far smoother than we had thought. How could a simple light-bending barrier be enough to fool everyone in the towers, especially one cast by a complete beginner? There was an obvious answer lodged in my head, one I couldn't shake.

Maybe the guards weren't expecting anyone to be able to cast this type of spell. Not only were students discouraged from using their mana, at this point I wasn't even sure whether or not they learned any proper magic at all. If nothing else, their senses seemed extremely dull compared to an amateur like me.

None of them seemed to be aware that their ‘Magister Sandow’ was in fact not a real person, but a simple magic construct. Even with just rudimentary mana senses, it should have been easy for students to see through the facade. Even I, who barely had training, had noticed the truth within seconds. With each layer of the curtain we pulled back, more and more questions piled up.

One idea wouldn't leave my mind, a devious notion to haunt me: There were deliberate gaps in the training of the students, to make sure they would never question the true nature of their teacher.

However, I pushed the uncomfortable thought away. If I accepted the idea, the next conclusion became inevitable. For the last three years, Eileen had been tricked and abused. To me, that was still impossible. Until I found big sis, I wouldn't even consider it an option. No matter what the actual reason was, there were large holes in the defenses of the tower. Thus, Sophie and I waltzed past the alert guards and into the second stage of mage training.

Again a hallway stretched before us, similar to the first. Clean, white panels, with dozens of corridors branching off. However, unlike the first-year training rooms, human-sized pods lined every inch of the walls. Not only inside the branches, but also along the central hallway, the white, mechanical structures stood in rows like a robotic army ready for combat. Like with the VR-helmets before, the now-familiar connections behind the pods led into the walls, to backstage of the tower. When I came up to one of the pods, I found a small, translucent window to see what, or who, was hidden inside.

What lay there, upright and bound, could only be a second year apprentice. A bit thin, and in an uncomfortable posture, the young man twitched in his sleep. In order to beat the clock and become an official mage before his mana ran out, he had locked himself in intensive training. At the sight, a shudder ran down my spine. Unwilling to spend any more thought on the training practices of the mages, I hastened after the fake teacher.

Magister Sandow walked at a brisk pace, first through one corridor and then through another, as we entered deeper and deeper into the maze of frozen people. Compared to the total number of Astralis citizens, the pods seemed far too many. There couldn't have been anywhere near this many mages-in-training. Indeed, another look showed me that this far into the second training center, most of the pods were empty. Finally, once the uncomfortable mood threatened to cut off my breath, the fake reached a small, innocuous door in the wall between two pods.

Again, the apparition took out its personal card, maybe the only thing real about the entire construct, and proceeded through the gateway. Like the guard from before, the fake let the door swing closed without care and again, we were allowed to squeeze inside, deeper into the tower, and closer to its secrets.