Ch 4 Walking Dead

He wandered the outer grounds, letting the afternoon sun warm his shoulders.

Students were everywhere.

They dotted the rolling, emerald-green lawns like scattered wildflowers in their crisp blue uniforms. Some were practicing minor spells, conjuring flickering embers of light that danced between their fingers. Others were clustered together in animated groups, chatting loudly about their weekends, and a few were even lounging on ornate stone benches, casually snacking on sweet pastries that smelled fainly of cinnamon and burnt sugar.

Asterion watched a young man playfully toss a half-eaten apple core into the air and incinerate it with a snap of his fingers, earning a giggle from the girl beside him.

Looking just at this, it’s unmistakably an… ideal school, Asterion thought, a complex knot tightening in his chest.

Part of him was profoundly relieved. This was what he had bled for, wasn’t it? A world where magic was used to impress a crush rather than to cauterize a missing limb on a battlefield.

But another, older part of him—the battle-scarred mage who had survived the war with a goddess—felt a creeping sense of absurdity.

Could this really be real? There must be a catch.

But if this was…

Asterions used to squabble with one of his late friends about this exact topic.

His friend’s dream was to build a public school to teach magic to anyone with talent when the war was over. Asterion, knowing the history of Earth, scoffed and told him it was centuries too early for that to happen. If ever.

Looks like you were right, friend.

Against all the odds, the rigid societal hierarchy and the elite that did not want to share their power, his friend’s dream had been realized.

If he was alive to see this.

Asterion distracted himself by catching snippets of conversation from a group of students passing by on the cobblestone path.

“Did you guys prep for the practical at all?” a tall boy groaned, running a stressed hand to ruffle his hair. “They want us to capture a goblin alive. Are they insane? What if it bites off our fingers while we try to bind it?”

A goblin? Asterion thought, incredulous, unconsciously following the group to listen to their gossips about the school.

They were their main meat source when the rations ran out during the Winter Siege.

What was the point of catching a live goblin? To keep the meat fresh? It seemed they were now handled with… animal protection laws or something?

“Meh, to be honest, the entrance exam was harder than the practicals,” a girl next to him replied, shaking her head as she flipped her long hair behind her. “At least a goblin has predictable movement patterns. The entrance exam is so random.”

“True, the entrance exam was brutal,” a third chimed in, shivering at the memory. “Did you hear? There are over a hundred thousand applicants for the upcoming exam—”

When the girl stopped abruptly to pick some luminescent blue herbs from the garden border, Asterion strolled right past them.

“…Was that a breeze?” the tall boy muttered, looking around with a confused brown. He rubbed his arms. “I just got a chill.”

“What? According to the weather controller’s weekly reports, the atmospheric runes are locked in for mild weather until Treeday,” the girl replied, showing off the herb she had just picked.

Asterion’s [Camouflage] spell was so seamless that he could weave right through the crowded courtyard without a single person batting an eye.

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Are all these kids 3^rd-circle or lower? he wondered, casting an analytical gaze over the sea of blue robes.

Because [Camouflage] was a 4^th-circle spell, it was completely invisible to anyone below that threshold of magical perception. To them, he was nothing more than a trick of light, a fleeting draft of cool air.

Well, it’s not to the point of being terrible. They aren’t copletely hopeless.

Asterion conceded, watching a student successfully maintain a water-bubble shield for more than ten seconds.

From a century-old archmage’s perspective, they were basically toddlers stumbling around in the dark.

They probably had the theory, but none of the survival instincts that even children had in his days. Instincts that came from having your life depend on casting a spell a fraction of a second faster than the monster trying to eat you.

At this level, slipping by unnoticed is going to be a piece of cake.

Asterion passed through the white marble main gates that separated the outer recreational grounds from the academic heart of the campus.

He crossed the meticulously manicured gardens and headed deeper into the campus.

As he went further in, the ambient noise of the students began to fade, replaced by a humming vibration in the air. Another structure loomed ahead.

The white, ivory tower he saw before entering the campus.

That seemed to be the center of the academy. He tilted his head back to take in the sheer scale of the architecture.