CHAPTER 295: EXPERIMENTS (3)

Merlin reached into his satchel and placed one of the shattered gauntlet pieces onto the desk. The surface of the metal still pulsed faintly, residual mana trapped inside the fracture lines, unstable but fascinating. Morgana studied it without touching, her eyes scanning its mana imprint.

"This isn’t academy-level craftsmanship," she murmured. "This is military design, at least, what’s left of one."

Lysandor’s jaw tightened. "We should raise security across the second-year testing sites."

"Already in motion," Morgana replied. She turned to Merlin and Elara again. "And you two, you acted beyond your orders. You disobeyed the retreat protocol."

Elara’s breath caught, but Merlin didn’t flinch.

"I didn’t think we had time to wait," he said. "And if we had, there’d be a body count."

Morgana’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment. The room felt smaller, like her presence alone filled every corner. Then, finally, she sighed.

"I’m not fond of disobedience, Mr. Everhart," she said softly. "But I’m less fond of losing students."

That, from her, was as close to praise as anyone could get.

Eira moved forward, handing them both small restorative charms. "Wear these for the next few days. You both pushed your affinities too far."

Elara nodded, slipping hers on. Merlin took his silently.

Morgana’s attention, however, didn’t waver.

"You’ve been drawing attention lately, Merlin," she said at last. "Not just from your classmates."

His brows twitched. "Meaning?"

"Your recent performance in the exams, your combat reports... certain external forces have begun requesting data about you."

Merlin met her gaze steadily. "And you told them no."

"I told them nothing," Morgana said. "But I don’t appreciate outside interest in my students."

Her voice was soft, but the undercurrent was pure steel.

Then she stood, her full height casting a shadow across the desk. "You’ll continue your duties as normal. However, if anything, anything, unusual occurs again, you come directly to me. Not the instructors. Not the council."

Merlin inclined his head. "Understood."

Elara followed, bowing lightly. "We’ll keep watch, Headmistress."

Morgana’s eyes softened briefly, only briefly. "Good. And, Merlin..."

He paused at the door.

Her gaze sharpened again, unreadable. "Try not to make a habit of rewriting the rules."

He allowed himself a small smile. "No promises."

The faintest twitch of amusement ghosted across her lips, and then they were dismissed.

Outside the office, the hallway air felt lighter, less suffocating.

Elara exhaled, brushing a loose strand of silver hair behind her ear. "You really like testing her patience, don’t you?"

Merlin smiled faintly. "I think she enjoys it."

"She doesn’t," Elara said flatly, but the hint of a smile crept across her lips anyway.

They walked side by side toward the courtyard, where the evening light spilled through the glass ceiling, tinting the marble gold.

For a brief moment, it felt peaceful again, quiet, normal.

But Merlin’s thoughts lingered.

That gauntlet. That organization.

They weren’t supposed to appear this early in the story.

Something, or someone, was accelerating the timeline.

And that thought made his chest tighten.

Because if the Obsidian Veil was already moving...

then the world he’d read about wasn’t going to unfold the way he remembered.

It was changing.

Faster than he could control.

And Merlin Everhart, the reader who knew everything,

was now standing in a story that had started to rewrite itself.

The academy looked normal.

Students walked the paved paths between courtyards, laughter rising faintly from the gardens where second-years rested after the morning’s trials.

Professors passed by with clipboards and faint smiles, the hum of mana circuits in the walls giving off that steady, comforting thrum that had always marked Starpower as the safest place in the Empire.

But to Merlin Everhart, everything felt wrong.

The air. The light. Even the sound of footsteps around him.

Like the world was breathing differently.

He stood near the west courtyard balcony, overlooking the long stretch of stone gardens below, arms folded loosely, the wind stirring his dark hair.

Elara approached quietly behind him, her presence soft but certain.

"You’re thinking too much again," she said.

He smiled faintly without turning. "You make it sound like that’s new."

She moved beside him, resting her elbows on the railing. The faint scent of her perfume, something floral but faintly sharp, like rain on leaves, brushed past. "You’ve been like this since the meeting. You didn’t even eat lunch."

"I’m not hungry," he lied.

"Merlin," she said flatly.

He sighed. "Alright, maybe I’m overthinking. But the Obsidian Veil shouldn’t even exist at this point in history. They’re three years ahead of schedule."

"Schedule?" she repeated, frowning.

"Timeline. I mean... pattern," he corrected quickly. "The way their operations grow. This isn’t supposed to happen until after the eastern city conflicts."

Elara gave him a long, quiet look. "You talk like you’ve read this before."

He met her eyes for half a second too long, then broke the gaze, forcing a chuckle. "Guess I just have good intuition."

Elara didn’t look convinced, but she let it go, turning her attention back toward the horizon. The academy grounds shimmered under the light, mana flowing through faint runes embedded in the stone paths. Everything looked so tranquil, but to Merlin, that calm only made the undercurrent of danger louder.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small fragment Morgana had handed back to him for observation, a shard of blackened alloy from the gauntlet. Its edges pulsed faintly, as if breathing.

Elara leaned closer, her lavender eyes narrowing. "You brought that with you?"

"Morgana wanted me to analyze its structure using affinity resonance," he said. "I already ran it through a scanner. It’s still charged with external mana, but not from the user."

"What does that mean?"

"It means someone is supplying these weapons with an artificial energy source," Merlin replied quietly. "Something that doesn’t drain the wielder, it feeds them."

Her brows knit. "That’s impossible. That kind of control would require—"

"An external stabilizer crystal," he finished for her. "One embedded into the weapon’s design and connected remotely."

Elara blinked. "Remotely? You’re saying there’s a controller?"

"Exactly." Merlin turned the fragment in his hand. "Someone was pulling the strings during the exam."

For a long moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the wind through the stone garden below, the laughter of students fading behind them.

Elara exhaled slowly. "So what do we do?"

Merlin pocketed the fragment again. "We start by finding where the weapons were made. If this group’s back in play, they’ll have left traces, forged mana signatures, modified runes, trade records. The academy’s archives keep copies of everything that enters or leaves through official channels."

"You think they smuggled it through Starpower?"

"Not exactly," Merlin said. "But whoever made these gauntlets had access to someone inside."

Elara frowned. "An insider..."

"Yeah." His voice dropped lower. "And if that’s true, the academy’s security isn’t just compromised, it’s leaking."