Prologue Story

At first, it seemed like my friends were just planning to watch me create a large mana crystal.

But as we kept going, everyone ended up trying to make one themselves.

Thump. Crackle. Roll…

The shapes were all different.

Min-hee created a large, perfectly round mana crystal.

In-ha’s crystal looked like a star candy.

Hyun-ho made several small, bead-like crystals and rolled them across the desk.

Han-soo’s crystal was shaped like a long rod.

‘Well, I guess it reflects the shape of their mana.’

As their magic developed, the shape of their mana changed little by little.

Min-hee typically formed round bullets when using magic.

Hyun-ho’s mana spread out in tiny droplets, like splashes of water.

Han-soo’s mana extended like tree branches.

In-ha’s mana combined light and lightning, making it both round and spiky.

And my mana spread out like mist.

But my crystal was just an ordinary oval shape.

I felt slightly disappointed.

As for Shia… Shia was the only one among us who hadn’t been able to create a crystal yet.

I stopped working on my crystal and tilted my head as I looked at Shia.

“Can’t you make one?”

“Huh? Yeah… I’m not very good at it.”

“It’s okay. It’s amazing that they managed to do it so quickly. Normally, people our age can’t make one yet.”

“Really…?”

Shia nodded with a slightly dejected expression.

After a moment of thought, I decided to help Shia a little.

I took one of Hyun-ho’s stray crystals and placed it in Shia’s hand, covering it with both of mine.

“Here, remember this feeling. Most crystals are round, so this will help.

Now, try without the crystal.

Bring your hands together and imagine a tiny bead in your palms.

Think of mana coiling and filling that bead.”

Shia focused, trying several times.

After a short while, Shia opened his eyes and spread his hands.

“Ah, I did it…!”

A very tiny mana crystal, no bigger than a bead, rolled around in Shia’s palms.

Wow! Everyone was impressed.

Shia smiled brightly.

“Thank you, Eun-ha. It’s all thanks to you!”

“No, it’s because you did well.”

That was the truth.

I had given him some guidance, but without talent, he wouldn’t have succeeded.

Shia kept practicing making crystals, thanking me repeatedly.

He failed a few times but succeeded as well.

Shia’s face grew brighter with each attempt.

As for me, I had been working on something new instead of properly making a crystal.

I had tried shaping crystals into forms several times before.

I had even made heart shapes or comma shapes.

Some of those crystals I kept in a drawer, while others I reabsorbed into my mana.

This time, I wanted to take on a more challenging task.

Previously, I had only created flat, simple shapes.

This time, I aimed to create something three-dimensional.

I let go of the round crystal I had been holding in my hand.

A crystal, roughly shaped like a tree, appeared.

Its branches numbered only five, and it had just about ten leaves.

It was very small, no longer than my index finger.

But it was a significant improvement.

“Wow, is that a mana crystal?”

“Hey, it’s pretty impressive!”

My friends were amazed.

I beamed at them.

This was what I had wanted to try today.

Even after we parted ways, I continued shaping crystals into various forms—a rabbit, an unrecognizable shape, and even a small building model.

My friends tried to imitate me, but it wasn’t easy.

Min-hee managed to succeed once.

After making a lot of crystals, most were reabsorbed as mana.

Some we gave to each other as gifts.

For reference, after everyone left, I used the tiny crystals to create a small floral decoration.

In-ha’s crystal became the stamen, while the other unique crystals were arranged as petals around it.

It wasn’t very pretty, but it was decent.

I smiled softly as I looked at the crystals placed in front of my accessory box.

A few days later, our class had a lesson on creating mana crystals.

But it was just a lesson; hardly anyone succeeded in making one.

I didn’t demonstrate either.

The teacher said that making mana crystals was surprisingly difficult.

Most people only succeeded at around fourteen or fifteen years old.

The school average was about twelve years old.

At our age, failing was expected.

It seemed the goal was just to familiarize ourselves with the process.

In the end, only one person in our class succeeded in making a mana crystal.

Just one person.

You know, that girl who bragged to me before.

She was the only one who succeeded.

For a while, I spent my days focused solely on magic training.

In particular, the intensity of my evasion training suddenly increased.

I had a hard time adjusting for several days.

“Ah!”

Even though I couldn’t quite grasp the trajectory, I managed to narrowly dodge most of the time.

How should I describe it?

It felt like I could ‘sense’ mana entering a certain range.

Not just with my eyes, but with my awareness, I could track and feel the mana’s trajectory.

The more I practiced evasion, the more natural it became.

It was a fascinating sensation.

In the past, I wouldn’t have been able to track or dodge that.

Besides, in my previous life, my eyesight was so poor it was practically negative.

But now, my eyesight was the strongest of all my physical senses.

Thanks to the heightened sensitivity from evasion training, there were rare moments when the world seemed to move in slow motion.

For instance, during a critical moment, it felt like something approaching me was in slow motion.

I began to feel like I could consciously and quickly control this perception.

This was probably because my body was gradually changing due to mana.

Like a master martial artist ascending an invisible level, I was climbing a metaphorical staircase.

Magicians grow faster and faster as they become stronger.

How do they track such incredible speeds?

How do they sense and think about what’s next?

It must be because they develop this sense as they grow stronger.

Sometimes, I also met and talked with upperclassmen.

Not just Senior Ji-hyun or Eun-hee unnie, but also Yoo-jung unnie and In-ho oppa, who were a year ahead of us.

However, unlike Senior Ji-hyun, who was connected to Min-hee, I naturally started seeing less of the two.

☆

Winter came again.

Thanks to the effects of magic and science, I struggled to stay awake in the warm classroom.

That’s when I overheard an unpleasant conversation.

“It’s true!”

“Really? That’s amazing.”

“I secretly saw it. They used not just one but two elemental magics!”

“I’m not very good at elemental magic… Even if I’m told to imbue mana with an attribute, I don’t know how to do it. Spell magic is easier.”

“But that person could do it, you know? Their name… what was it? Oh right, Ha Jin-seong?”

It was an unpleasant conversation, enough to make me frown even as I was dozing off.

Who in the world would so confidently break the rules and talk about it like this?

Other kids, even when they talk about it, usually whisper or try to hide it because of the rules.

Aren’t there magical restrictions in place? Aren’t there supposed to be measures to prevent it?

Come to think of it, I’ve never spoken about this, so I don’t know what kind of punishment it involves.

Could it be that this so-called “Confidentiality Policy” isn’t a big deal, since rumors can still spread among the kids?

I frowned as I watched other kids gathering around the person.

“What? Who can use two types of elemental magic?”

“That’s what I’m saying, this kid named Ha Jin-seong…”

“Hey, wait a second, that’s against the rules. I’m sure there’s supposed to be magical restrictions…”

“Oh, that? Apparently, not inside the school. My older sister told me, so it must be true. It’s fine.”

“But it’s still a rule…”

“I’m telling you it’s fine! I saw it with my own eyes. What’s the problem? Ha Jin-seong was using two types of elemental magic!”

The child’s voice echoed loudly.

Even though Ha Jin-seong wasn’t a kid from my class, I turned pale.

The thought of my abilities being revealed like that was terrifying.

But right after that, something unusual happened.

The student ID bracelet on the arm of the kid who had shouted began glowing brightly.

“Huh? What’s this? What’s going on?”

“Why is your student ID glowing all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know! What’s happening?”

The girl looked flustered as she grabbed her student ID.

However, it didn’t respond to her will or movements, and its light grew brighter and brighter.

“What? W-Wait…”

The light engulfed the child.

When we came to our senses, the child was nowhere to be seen in the classroom.

We stared, stunned, at the spot where the child had just been.

“What’s going on? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know.”

The kids whispered among themselves.

Even after the bell rang, we were still in a state of panic.

It was our homeroom teacher who calmed us down when he walked through the front door.

With a much sterner face than usual, he looked around at us and said,

“Quiet. Son Min-ju has been summoned to the chairman’s office. I need to go there too, so this period will be self-study.

You’re free to move around the library or practice room, but make sure to stay quiet in the hallways. Understood?”

The teacher gave his instructions quickly and left the classroom with a grim expression.

We looked at each other, confused.

I, alone, stiffened with a sinking suspicion.

In the end, the whole class period was a mess.

We were dismissed much earlier than usual.

My friends didn’t understand why we suddenly had shortened classes.

“Classes ended early today.”

“Who cares? It means more time to play! Where should we go now?”

“…Sorry, I’m going to head back early today. I’ve got some things to think about…”

“Huh? Really?”

My friends looked noticeably disappointed, but I nodded pale-faced.

“Then I’ll…”

“No, In-ha. Go play with the others. You want to, right?”

“But…”

“It’s fine. I just need to think about something. It’s about magic…”

“Is that all?”

“Yeah.”

Because this kind of thing had happened before, my friends quickly accepted it.

“If that’s the case, okay then.”

“Let’s go.”

Han-soo gave In-ha a push as she hesitated.

Though she looked slightly upset, In-ha turned away and joined the others.

As I watched them go, I lowered my head with a dark expression.

I hadn’t said anything to my friends, but I already had a rough idea of what was going on.

“Today’s sudden self-study… the shortened class schedule… it’s probably all because of that girl who exposed Ha Jin-seong’s abilities.”

The Confidentiality Policy is there because it’s necessary, a rule for a reason.

Yet that child treated it as if it were nothing.

Her student ID had glowed, and she vanished.

Does that mean there’s a spell on the student ID?

“So that’s how it works. It’s more reliable than casting something directly on the body.

Outside of leveled classes, I’ve never felt any magical restrictions…”

It’s not certain.

I’m more sensitive to mana than others, but I can’t detect all magic.

“But what about Ha Jin-seong? Is he okay?”

I found myself worrying about the boy who had become the subject of the rumor.

If it were any other situation, I probably wouldn’t have cared much.

I might have just felt sorry for him and moved on.

But this was Daehyun, and like me, he was hiding his abilities.

That’s why I couldn’t ignore it.

I tried to recall the boy’s face.

If I remember correctly, we were in the same class last year.

He was an ordinary kid.

I remember seeing him playing soccer enthusiastically on the field.

Walking toward the school gate, I let out a small sigh.

What worried me more was how many rules that girl, Son Min-ju, had broken.

She might not have been the only victimizer.

Thinking about that left me feeling helpless.

Seriously…

“Sigh…”

I thought it was something that could all be avoided by just staying quiet.

But it turns out that hiding your abilities is more complicated than I imagined.

Honestly, I’m grateful, but sometimes I wonder.

Why is this school so insistent on keeping kids’ magical abilities secret?

I know it’s to prevent the kids from being exploited.

But is it really necessary to go this far?

Even after hearing Eunhee unnie’s and Aunt Suna’s stories, I still don’t fully grasp it.

“I mean, I don’t mind.”

But even with that thought, my heavy mood didn’t improve at all.

No matter how I looked at it, that situation earlier was the worst.

It was one of the worst ways for someone’s abilities to be exposed.

Our school has the Confidentiality Policy in place.

In a situation where someone’s abilities are exposed by another person’s words…

Would other kids even care that much? Would they?

Maybe not.

How many kids are like me, so determined to hide their abilities just to avoid standing out?

Most of my friends and their guardians only hide it because they’re told to.

My head was filled with thoughts.

I sighed once more.

The truth was revealed the next day.