14 - Slipping Out

The examination room had fallen into a steady rhythm, quills scratching parchment, pages turning, the faint cough of a nervous student.

The supervising professor sat at his desk near the front, a book open before him but unread. His senses were elsewhere, stretched thin across the room like the roots of a tree probing the soil.

It was the instinct of an earth mage, honed over decades. The subtle vibrations of stone and timber whispered to him as clearly as sound carried by air.

That was why, when the faintest tremor rippled through the hinges of the back door, he immediately knew something was wrong.

The students noticed nothing. Their heads were bent low, their focus consumed by the weight of questions and the ticking of time. But the professor’s brow furrowed.

There were fifty applicants in this room when he had counted them at the start. Now… he scanned the rows quickly, his trained eye flicking over the bowed heads and stiff shoulders. Forty-nine.

Where is the fiftieth?

He turned toward the back, his gaze fixing on the door that now hung open by the faintest margin. A whisper of air moved through it—subtle, deliberate, careful. Too careful.

The professor rose from his seat. His boots struck the floor with quiet authority as he strode toward the disturbance.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, his voice firm but not loud. The kind of tone that carried weight even in its calmness.

The students glanced up, startled by the interruption. Quills hovered uncertainly, their tips dripping ink onto half-finished answers.

Anna’s head whipped around, her heart lurching as she realized exactly what had happened.

Luna froze in place, her hand still resting against the doorframe.

The Mist cloaked her body, but the professor’s voice cut through the concealment like a blade. His senses had picked her out regardless of the veil.

Damn it, she cursed inwardly. I should’ve remembered—the door. Of course an earth mage would notice the vibration when I opened it. Stupid. That was sloppy.

She lowered her hood in a swift motion, pulling it low until only the shadowed curve of her face showed, her eyes barely visible beneath the brim. With a quiet sigh, she dismissed the Mist.

Her body shimmered back into visibility, as though the air itself reluctantly gave her up.

Anna’s quill slipped from her fingers, clattering onto her desk. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, her mind a storm of worry.

The professor stopped ten meters away, his gaze falling upon the small figure now revealed at the back of the hall. He blinked once, his composure cracking for only a heartbeat.

A child?

No, that was too simple. His mind, sharpened by years of vigilance against trickery, refused to accept the sight at face value.

A child could not have walked past him unnoticed. A child could not have cast a spell so subtly that even his trained senses only caught its aftereffect.

Not human, he thought instantly. His mind sifted through possibilities.

Elves? No. He peered closely—no elongated ears, no subtle resonance of sylvan aura.

Dwarves? Equally unlikely. The dwarves of the mountain were masters of craft and forge, not the weaving of mists

Demons? Impossible. If a demonic presence had entered the academy, Headmistress Lucia herself would have already descended upon the hall.

Angels, perhaps? Yet angels radiated light, a divine resonance unmistakable to even the dullest mage. The being before him was cloaked in nothing but silence.

He frowned, each discarded theory leaving him more unsettled.

Finally, he straightened, his voice steady but edged with caution. “What are you?”

The question struck Luna like a stone tossed into still water.

Her eyes widened beneath her hood. What am I? I’m human, obviously. Why would he even— She faltered.

The words clung to her throat, heavy, uncertain. The longer she hesitated, the more ridiculous the question became.

If she spoke, she risked drawing the wrong kind of attention. If she argued, she risked trapping herself further.

Better not to answer at all.

Slowly, she raised one finger to her lips in a silent gesture, shh.

And then, before anyone could react, she vanished once more.

This time she did not bother with subtlety. The air itself swirled around her, a ripple of mist curling upward like smoke. Her figure dissolved into nothingness, gone in the space of a breath.

Gasps broke through the silence. Every student in the room had seen it.

The professor’s calm mask cracked, his eyes widening as he lunged forward, crossing the distance to the back of the room in seconds.

He slammed the door open fully, the wood groaning under his grip. But there was nothing there. Only the faint chill of mana still clinging to the air.

For a heartbeat he considered pursuit. His duty screamed at him to chase the anomaly, to identify it, to bring it before the Academy’s elders.

But another duty weighed heavier still.

Vice Principal William Terra himself had entrusted him with the supervision of these applicants. To abandon them now, to leave them vulnerable even for the sake of pursuit, would be to betray that trust.

His hands clenched at his sides. His jaw tightened.

Vice Principal William will handle this, he decided, his thoughts heavy. That girl… or whatever she is… she is no ordinary trespasser. He must be the one to face her.

He closed the door slowly, turning back toward the rows of wide-eyed students. Their gazes clung to him, a storm of confusion and fear. He forced his face back into neutrality, his voice calm as if nothing had happened.

“Return to your examinations,” he ordered. “Do not concern yourselves with distractions.”

His tone left no room for argument.

Luna sprinted through the academy corridors, the Mist shrouding her once more. Her footsteps fell soft, muffled by layers of magic. She didn’t dare look back, though her instincts told her the professor hadn’t followed.

Bursting through a side door, she emerged into the sunlight. A wide lawn stretched out before her, an open field fringed by manicured gardens. The academy’s white spires rose beyond like fingers pointing skyward, casting long shadows across the grass.

She ran like her life depended on it, until the weight of tension melted away beneath the sun’s warmth.

Finally, she slowed, collapsing backward into the grass. The blades tickled her cheeks, the earth cool beneath her body.

For a moment she simply lay there, chest rising and falling, laughter bubbling unbidden from her lips.

“That…” She wheezed between chuckles, “…was amazing.”

The adrenaline still surged in her veins.

She replayed the sequence in her mind—the way she had slipped past nearly an entire hall of students, the way the professor had sensed her too late, the rush of vanishing before dozens of wide-eyed witnesses.

In her old world, such a stunt would have been impossible. Skipping a university exam had never been more than a half-formed fantasy.

Responsibilities, obligations, the suffocating weight of expectation had chained her down.

But here? In this world, in this body, she had danced on the edge of danger and come out laughing.

She stretched her arms wide, letting the sun soak into her skin. The sky above was endless blue, unmarred by the gray monotony of her past life.

“This is the first time I’ve ever slipped out of an exam,” she murmured to herself, pride swelling in her chest. “First time ever.”

Her smile grew broader, brighter. The grass cradled her like a bed, the moment suspended in perfect contentment.

And it was in that moment, basking in sunlight and victory, that a voice broke the silence.

“You look happy, young miss.”

The voice drifted over the field, calm and warm, yet carrying the weight of someone used to being obeyed.

Luna’s eyes snapped open. Her body tensed instinctively, every muscle poised as if ready to vanish into mist again. She turned her head slowly toward the source.

A man stood a short distance away, his hands folded behind his back, posture as straight as the stone pillars of the academy.

His robes were simple but finely made, the deep green of moss after rain. His hair, streaked with silver, caught the sunlight like polished steel.

Lines etched his face, not from weakness but from decades of experience.

And his eyes—brown, deep as freshly turned earth—watched her with a patience that was almost grandfatherly.

Recognition struck her like lightning. She had seen him earlier, towering over the applicants in the grand hall. She remembered his name whispered in reverence by the other students.

William Terra. Level 8. One of the pillars of the Academy.

Luna sat up slowly, brushing stray blades of grass from her cloak. Her heart hammered, but her smile remained bright, almost cheeky.

“I am happy,” she admitted, tilting her head at him. “That was my first time ever slipping out of an exam. In my old world—” She caught herself, her words fumbling. “I mean, in my old life, I never dared. This was… refreshing.”

William’s lips curved into the faintest smile. He had heard every excuse, every desperate plea, every nervous justification from applicants and parents alike during entrance exams.

But this? A little girl, beaming with pride over escaping a test? It was new even for him.

“It sounded fun,” he said simply, his tone neither condemning nor praising, merely… curious.

Luna laughed, the sound bubbling from her chest. “It was! I didn’t think it would be, but—” She leaned back on her hands, her grin widening. “Thrilling. I felt like I stole something precious and got away with it.”

William’s brow arched. Interesting, he thought. Most children—or young mages of any sort—would cower under his gaze, scrambling for excuses or trembling with guilt.

Yet this girl looked at him as though he were a kindly elder rather than the vice principal of Celestial Academy.

He took a step closer, the grass bending beneath his boots. “Tell me, child. Why slip out? You were not one of the applicants?”

Luna hesitated. She could feel his gaze boring into her, steady as bedrock.

To lie would be pointless, a man of his caliber would read falsehood in her tone as easily as script on a page.

“I wasn’t,” she confessed. “I was supposed to be a guardian. But… things happened. A professor mistook me for a student, and I just… went along.”

Her hands fiddled with the hem of her cloak. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just didn’t want to sit through a test that wasn’t mine.”

William regarded her in silence for a long moment. His presence pressed against her like a mountain looming over a hill, not oppressive, but undeniable.

Then he chuckled softly. “With your strength, little one, you don’t need to enter any academy. Not even this one.”

The words struck Luna deep. She froze, blinking at him, her lips parting in surprise.

He saw it. Of course he had. Even though she had cloaked herself, even though she had been careful, he had glimpsed enough to know.

And instead of suspicion or fear, he offered… acknowledgement. Respect.

Something within her stirred, something that had lain coiled since the day she entered this world.

Her competitive fire. Her pride. The relentless drive that once pushed her to the top of the game’s global rankings.

Her smile shifted. No longer playful, no longer childish. There was a glint now—sharp, hungry, alive.

She leaned forward slightly, studying him in turn. The way he held himself. The calm in his stance. The power that radiated just beneath his skin, like molten stone waiting to break free.

Yes. He was strong. Stronger than anyone she had faced since arriving here.

William caught the change in her expression. His smile deepened. He knew that look. He had seen it on prodigies before, the gaze of someone measuring, weighing, yearning to test themselves.

He said nothing. He merely waited.

Seconds stretched. The field grew quiet, save for the rustle of grass and the distant cry of a bird.

Finally, Luna drew a breath and spoke. “Grandpa…”

The word slipped out naturally, not as a jest but as a kind of instinct. He had the aura of one, after all, a figure both formidable and strangely comforting.

Her next words were steady, clear, and filled with anticipation.

“Will you spar with me?”

For the first time in years, William Terra’s composure cracked into genuine surprise. Then laughter rumbled deep in his chest, warm and resonant.

Of all the things he had expected from this encounter—fear, excuses, flight—this was not among them. Yet it delighted him all the same.

He nodded, eyes gleaming. “Very well.”

His voice carried the certainty of earth itself, unshakable and absolute.

“I will.”

Because the moment he had laid eyes on her, he had known, this was no ordinary child.

The aura of mastery in her movements, the precision of her spellwork, the fearless spark in her gaze—she might stand equal to him, or perhaps beyond.

And William Terra, pillar of Celestial Academy, was nothing if not curious.