Andrea chuckled as she saw the rotating fireball hovering above her palm. It was a cool sight, but what was even cooler was how she wasn’t struggling to maintain the spell in the slightest.

  She had been capable of performing spell incantations before, but now—she didn’t feel strained, and she didn’t have to struggle to keep it active.

  The maximum time she could keep two incantations active before was five minutes. Ten minutes had passed, and they still remained. Double the time of her highest record, and she felt she could keep going far longer than that.

  “All right, that’s enough.” It was time for her to turn the two-incantation spell into a three-incantation spell. She could do that as long as the spell was active and she said another spell word.

  She chose one of the many from below the branches of the second incantation. As she did, the fireball grew in size, much larger than its previous form.

  Before, the fireball was about the size of a water balloon that could barely fit into Andrea’s hand if she tried to grab it. Now, it was about the size of five basketballs.

  Andrea’s grin widened to her ears. Before, two incantations were her limit, and she could barely manage a third. This was a massive improvement.

  In the midst of Andrea feeling good about herself, she started to feel somewhat fatigued, with sweat pouring down her face.

  Her grin disappeared. “Is this it? Is this my limit?” No. It wasn’t. She could feel it. She could still keep going. The first and second incantations may not have troubled her, but that didn’t seem to be the case for the third incantation.

  At this stage, she was starting to feel the pressure from her mana usage. After all, each incantation step used a significantly greater amount of mana than its predecessors.

  But despite that, Andrea knew she could keep going. She called a fourth incantation. The large fireball then divided into three, and their sizes lessened. They all rotated above Andrea.

  Now, she really started to feel the pressure. She panted heavily and gritted her teeth. “I can still keep going,” Andrea said stubbornly.

  She called a fifth incantation. The fireballs started to rotate faster and faster by the second, and it looked like they were about to launch off.

  “Wait!” The fireballs vanished, and Andrea landed on her knees. “Five incantations. Not bad. That’s not bad at all.”

  Andrea was unsure if she had deactivated the spell herself or if the spell ceased due to her exhaustion. It didn’t matter to her. She had found her limit, and she couldn’t be happier.

  She was exhausted but happy. She laid on the rocky ground of the forest, looking up at the sky. She decided to rest due to her exhaustion from using up so much mana.

  Her mana would replenish by itself. It always did. The same went for all mages.

  Up until now, Andrea had given up hope that her mana reserves would ever increase. It did for most mages as they grew up, some more than others—especially for mages who belonged to any of the descendants’ disciples’ families.

  But Andrea was a special case. Her mana stopped growing at the same time she stopped growing. It was a strange condition, which had no explanation. She went to the best healers in the academy, but none of them could explain it. They called it an anomaly, but Andrea just thought it was a fancy way of calling her a freak.

  A tear appeared on one of her eyelids, but she quickly rubbed it off using the fabric of her hoodie.

  “No! You promised you wouldn’t cry. Besides, things are different now. I have this grimoire now, and I’ve got more mana. And... only a year to graduate. Only a year to do something worthwhile at the academy.”

  Was that enough time for her? Andrea turned her head to the grimoire while still lying on the ground. She smiled. It was a fake smile to hide what she was truly feeling.

  “If I only have a year, then I’d better make the best of it. I’m going to unlearn everything I can about this grimoire. Even if all my dreams don’t come true, I have to try anyway.”

  Andrea had been praying for a chance like this for as long as she could remember. A chance to be a better mage. A chance to stand up to Caroline. A chance to be great.

  Maybe this grimoire was the answer. She hardly knew anything about it, but she was willing to stake everything she had that it would help her. She was done feeling sorry for herself.

  She jumped up to her feet and grabbed the grimoire. “Let’s learn some more spells.”

  ONE WEEK LATER

  A door opened, and in its place, a blue swirling portal appeared. Stepping out of the portal was a woman with long fiery red hair and emerald-green eyes, wearing the academy uniform: a mage’s robe.

  A man sat behind a counter and noticed her. “I’ll need you to sign in. It’s the rules, you know?” the mage said.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “No problem,” Andrea said.

  “State your name,” the mage ordered.

  “Andrea Wildfire,” Andrea said.

  Andrea’s file appeared in front of the mage. When he looked at it, he squinted his eyes—not because he had problems seeing, but because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  A photo of Andrea, along with some other details, appeared on the file. She looked almost nothing like the person in the picture.

  The picture showed a scrawny kid, while the woman in front of him was anything but scrawny.

  ‘Wait! Isn’t this the kid from last week? The one who looked all sad and depressed?’ the mage thought. He looked at the photo in the file and at Andrea, repeatedly.

  ‘Nah, it couldn’t be. Although I can’t think of a single reason why this woman would want to impersonate that kid.’

  “Is there a problem?” Andrea asked.

  “Not really, but I'm going to have to take your blood to confirm your identity. You don’t mind, do you?” the mage asked, trying to be nice.

  Andrea didn’t have any choice in the matter, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be polite about it.

  “Sure, I don’t mind,” Andrea answered. A mage brought a metallic tray containing a needle and Andrea’s records, which had been provided to the Academy. This was an identity test.

  This test existed to catch students who might use illusion spells to pretend to be someone else. It was rarely performed, but still, it was better to be careful.

  “You’re not afraid of needles, are you?” the mage asked.

  Andrea winced. “Only a little bit,” she answered.

  She brought out her index finger, and the mage pricked it with the needle. A single drop of her blood fell into the tray. A green cloud of smoke puffed into the air from the tray.

  “Morgan’s staff! It really is you!” the mage exclaimed. “You’re looking a lot better than before. And you don’t seem sad anymore.”

  “Oh… trust me. You don’t know the half of it,” Andrea said with a smirk on her face.

  The mage gave her permission to go. Andrea walked through many of the courtyards of the academy. She was getting a lot of looks from the other students.

  “She’s hot! Does anyone know her name?” a male student asked, quite loudly.

  “I sure don’t. I think this is the first time I’m seeing her. I know there are thousands of us, but I think I’d remember someone as stunning as she is,” another male student said.

  “I know I definitely would,” a third male student added.

  Even the female students were commenting on her. Some were admiring how she looked, while others were bad-mouthing her, saying she wasn’t that beautiful.

  Andrea stopped in her tracks and looked at the stone pathway she was walking on. She clenched her fists and then loosened them. She slowly brought her head up, her face revealing a catlike smile, with her eyes closed and her cheeks blushing.

  Finally! Andrea screamed internally. She had wanted this. She had wanted this so badly for so long. To be complimented, admired, and envied at the same time.

  The compliments she heard now weren’t disgusting and degrading like the ones she received from those losers a week ago. These ones just boosted something that needed boosting after years of being stomped on.

  Her ego.

  Andrea continued walking and tried her best not to skip all the way to her destination. She had finally reached it—a hall, but not like the summons hall that was mostly empty.

  This hall contained statues of great beasts carved into the left and right walls.

  The beasts followed an order: Griffin, Chimera, Hydra, Dragon. She had to stand in a queue of other students.

  The queue shortened over time, and she was finally at the front. In front of her was a mage sitting behind a wooden desk with a quill and ink, along with stacks of papers and books on both sides.

  Behind the mage was a stone-carved statue of a phoenix. It wasn’t carved into any of the walls but stood prominently in the hall, far larger than the rest of the beasts.

  “State your name and your business, young witch,” the mage commanded.

  “Andrea Wildfire. I am here to partake in the Witch Trials,” Andrea said.

  Meanwhile...

  In one of the top chambers of the academy, five individuals—no, five mages—stood beside each other, and a sixth stood right in front of them. The one in front had jet-black hair, with his skin almost sinking into his body.

  “Thank you for answering my call,” the black-haired mage said. “Now I’ll show you the reason we’re all here today.”

  He pointed his palm to the ground, and a purple magic circle appeared on the floor beside him. Something—or someone—started to slowly rise above the magic circle.

  It looked like a student. They were bound by chains, also emerging from the circle. When their body came fully into view, they hissed, screamed, and chomped their teeth at all the mages present.

  It turned out to be more of a something than a someone. It was a male student with pale skin that was flaking off. Parts of his skeleton were clearly visible. His eyes were completely white, he stunk like a corpse, and he didn’t seem capable of uttering a single word except for “GRRRRRh” or “AAAHHHHHH.” Sometimes it was a combination of the two.

  “Another one?” a mage asked. “So this proves it. She has returned.”

  “This doesn’t prove anything,” another mage said. “There must be another explanation for why this is happening.”

  “Another explanation?” the first mage asked. “Use Revealo on it. It has traces of her mana in it.”

  “We banished her and bound her. She shouldn’t be able to escape. It’s impossible. And besides, if she were here, why doesn’t she come after use instead of a few students? It doesn’t make any sense,” the second mage argued.

  “That’s enough!” the black-haired mage exclaimed. “It doesn’t matter why this is happening. All that matters is that we stop it.”

  “First and most importantly, the disciples’ children are to be kept safe at all costs.”

  “I have already taken care of that,” Vivian Vesper said. “The children of the disciples’ descendants will be protected from harm, and for the rest of the students, I have set up new rules to prevent… this.”

  Vivian looked at the student in chains. “...From happening again. I made it very clear to them all the consequences for not following the new rules.”

  Unknown to Vivian, there was a red-haired girl that day who didn’t listen to a single thing she said.