Dark Magus Returns

It was a bad habit one that Raze had picked up from his teaching days.

Whenever he listened to students explaining their answers, he would unconsciously shake his head every time they got something wrong.

It was the same with the X’s he scribbled down in the notebook in front of him. Being in a classroom again brought those old instincts rushing back. Every mistake he heard triggered an automatic reaction: an X.

It wasn’t something he could help. It didn’t matter that his position had changed, that his identity here was supposed to be different. The habit never left him.

Thankfully, it wasn’t something that carried over to battles.

What he hadn’t accounted for, however, was the student sitting beside him one who had been watching his every move. Piba had caught on, and he wasn’t shy about letting the rest of the class know.

As Raze turned his head, he saw that Piba was still wearing the same cheerful, amused grin.

“Well, am I wrong?” Piba asked innocently.

Raze didn’t say anything because, honestly, he couldn’t.

Piba wasn’t wrong, and judging by the expression on Moze’s face, the fifth-ranked student had noticed too.

“You were making corrections to my answer?” Moze said, narrowing his eyes. “If you knew what was wrong, then why didn’t you just say something?

“I’ll admit I might’ve missed a few things, but instead of just sitting there criticizing, why don’t you come up and showeveryone the answer?”

Panla clapped her hands and smiled.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “After all, we do need to know how much our new transfer students really understand. No need to be shy now, right?”

Reluctantly, Raze stood from his seat and made his way to the front of the room. As he approached the board, Moze moved to hand him the special magical marker.

But Raze simply raised a hand.

“No need,” he said calmly. “I think it’s better if you see what’s wrong, rather than just hear it.”

He turned to face the class, his tone shifting slightly now more like a lecturer than a student.

“All of you heard Moze’s explanation and thought it sounded perfectly correct, right?” he asked.

There were a few hesitant nods around the room. Only Piba raised his hand enthusiastically like a cheerleader.

“Right!” Piba beamed.

“But when Panla asked if anyone had noticed anything wrong,” Raze continued, “none of you could explain the strange feeling you had in your gut.”

He paused.

“Well… that’s because everything Moze said was technically correct.”

“That’s right!” Moze said proudly then frowned. “Wait, what do you mean… technically?”

All eyes turned to Panla, but her expression remained unreadable.

“Moze,” Raze began again, “your understanding of magical formations is clearly advanced. I could see it from the way you analyzed the formation.”

“You said it was a simple heating spell mana converted into heat. But you also said the formation was unnecessarily complex. You broke down each piece and explained their functions.”

Raze took a step forward.

“So, if I asked you to recreate the same spell in that exact complicated form could you do it?”

Without hesitation, Moze grabbed the magical marker and began drawing furiously on the board. Panla, anticipating this, had already used her magic to block the original diagram from view, ensuring Moze wasn’t copying it.

After a few intense moments, Moze stepped back, proud of his recreation.

But the rest of the class could already see it clear as day.

When Panla removed the magical shield, revealing the original formation, Moze’s smile quickly faded.

“They don’t look the same?” he said, scratching his head. “I mean… they look similar, but… not the same?”

“And that’s exactly what I meant,” Raze said. “Everything you explained about the magical formation’s components was correct. You understood each function well but you missed several small, critical details.”

Raze moved toward the board again, pointing at specific runes.

“When you broke down the formation, you were right about how each segment operates. But you disregarded some of the extra runes because on their own, they didn’t seem to add anything meaningful. You assumed they were just added to make the formation look more complicated.”

He turned to face the room.

“I’m sure you’ve had questions like that before. Trick questions. Ones with extra, unnecessary components to throw you off. That’s what most of you thought this was.”

He placed his hand gently over the original formation on the board.

“But it wasn’t a trick like that. This was something else entirely.”

Raze poured a bit of mana into the center of the spell, and all of the runes every single one lit up simultaneously.

Gasps filled the room.

It was suddenly obvious to everyone that every rune mattered.

If any of them had been extra, they would have remained dim.

None had.

The realization hit hard. Any one of them could have figured this out by simply copying the formation and testing it with mana.

Raze withdrew his hand.

“That’s why this was a double trick, and honestly, it was kind of cruel of Panla to throw this at you all,” he said.

He turned to walk back to his seat, but a voice called out from across the room.

“Wait!” Yolden said. “So… was Moze actually wrong? The task was to explain each part of the spell and its overall function. He did that.

“The only mistake he made was not replicating the formation perfectly.”

Raze and Panla almost in sync shook their heads.

“Have you forgotten your magical fundamentals?” Raze asked. “Sure, we often simplify spells and create more efficient versions. But when every rune and line in a spell is activated, it changes the spell’s output entirely.”

He summoned mana again, channeling it into the outer edge of the formation.

This time, only the outer ring lit up, and the heat concentrated solely in that zone rather than the center.

“If the goal was just to convert mana into heat, then yes, the simplified version would’ve worked fine,” Raze said. “But this version? This allows two modes of activation. That’s what makes this formation special and it’s one of the foundational breakthroughs used in advanced wind magic as well.”

With that, he stepped away from the board and returned to his seat.

Panla stared at him, stunned.

I couldn’t have taught it better myself, she thought. Who is this student who just appeared out of nowhere…?

As Raze sat down, he allowed himself a small smile.

I was the top professor at the Central Mage Academy. There are few people in this world who know more about magic than I do.

*****

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