The caretaker shoved me into a classroom without much ceremony. I felt incredibly awkward when I realized it was full of students a few years younger than me. They all stared at me in astonishment, probably wondering what I was doing among them. I was wondering the same thing. Unlike me, the students were dressed in well-tailored, elegant uniforms. I felt like an intruder who had stumbled into a party for the rich.
At the front of the room stood a teacher dressed in a black robe embroidered with intricate golden patterns that shimmered in the bright light. She didn't look older than fifty, and her silver hair was tied in an elegant bun.
Without acknowledging my greeting, she fixed me with her green eyes, which sparkled with both pride and severity.
I hadn't even had time to sit down before the magic teacher spoke.
"Open your textbook to the first lesson. Read the spell carefully."
I opened the book and flipped through its tattered pages until I reached the spell titled "The Coin Toss."
"As you know," the teacher said, "when you toss a coin, it randomly lands on either heads or tails. Over many tosses, the results tend to even out — roughly half heads, half tails.
The spell in the book influences the outcome and causes the coin to always land on the same side, whichever one you choose."
I read the spell carefully. Apparently, all you had to do was say it aloud — or in your mind, if you were more experienced. Once cast, the coin was supposed to repeatedly fall on a single side.
"What are you waiting for? Do you have a coin on you, or should we lend you one?" the teacher asked sarcastically, and the students burst out laughing.
I dug through my pockets and found a half-dollar coin. I began to recite the spell and then tossed the coin several times. As I had expected, the results were completely random. I couldn't influence which side it landed on at all.
"It seems you're a rather… special case," the teacher sighed, feigning regret. "Most mages get it right on their first or second try. We'll have to take a different approach. To avoid embarrassing each other, you'll return to your room and practice the first lessons in private until you can perform them flawlessly. For now, there's no need for you to attend classes. You'll only show up for the final exam at the end of the semester. Perhaps you have some sort of blockage that's preventing you from accessing your magical abilities," she added, unconvincingly.
"What blockage? He's obviously a non-mage!" someone shouted from the room.
An uproar broke out in the classroom. Any trace of respect the kids might have had for me disappeared in an instant. A chorus of screams, whistles, and jeers echoed off the walls.
"Go away, non-mage! You don't belong here!" I managed to pick out among the shouting voices.
I looked around in desperation, searching for a hint of understanding or sympathy. But I found none on their young faces. They were all laughing at me and shouting insults. All of them. Without exception.
No — there was one exception. A pretty girl sitting in the front row wasn't laughing. She had dark eyes and looked at me seriously, though with a hint of disdain. She wasn't mocking me, but she didn't seem particularly concerned for me either.
I picked up my magic textbook and awkwardly headed for the door. A piece of chalk thrown from the back whizzed past my ear and hit the wall. I turned to face the culprits and raised my fist in warning. The classroom noise quieted for a moment, but the teacher motioned for me to leave quickly. "Open the windows. Let's air the room out," I heard her say just as I closed the door behind me.
I walked out feeling humiliated and defeated. It seemed like I had just started one of the worst days of my life.
I stopped in the Academy's main corridor to get a better sense of the place where I'd be spending the next few months. At that early hour, it was nearly deserted — most students were already in class. At first glance, nothing hinted at the presence of magic. If I hadn't known where I was, I could've sworn I had enrolled in an entirely normal school.
I began walking down the vast corridors, but not toward my stone cell — instead, I made my way to the main entrance. With a bit of effort, I found it. More than ever, I felt the need to breathe, to calm my thoughts.
It wasn't until I stepped outside that I fully realized the grandeur of the building I'd been inside. It looked remarkably like a Gothic cathedral — the kind I'd seen on school trips through Europe.
On either side of the central structure rose two massive towers, reaching skyward with quiet authority. Their surfaces were covered in sculpted figures — a chaotic blend of humans and fantastical beings. Gods, titans, centaurs, fauns, gorgons, and chimeras — all seemed to have gathered together in a sprawling story carved into the stone facade.
Tall windows adorned with stained glass stood along the outer walls, filtering in light through complex geometric patterns. For those curious enough to study them, the stained-glass panels offered a masterful fusion of art and mathematics.
A true cathedral of knowledge, I thought to myself.
If circumstances had been different, I might've actually enjoyed studying here.
Unfortunately, I wasn't on a school trip. I needed to find a way to survive in a place that clearly didn't want me.
The building was aligned with the four cardinal directions, the main entrance facing east. I imagined the best dorm rooms were probably on the north side, with views of the sea. My room, of course, was on the exact opposite side — facing the desert.
About fifty paces from the entrance stood a semicircular sundial, its arc marked with the twelve hours of the day in Roman numerals.
A bronze pillar at the edge cast a sharp shadow across the stone, pointing precisely at the third hour of the day — which would've meant 9 a.m. by a standard clock. The dial was large enough to be seen from nearly any window in the Academy.
And yet, despite its overwhelming grandeur, a closer look revealed unmistakable signs of decay. The front steps had worn down over the years, and a deep groove had been carved by the daily footsteps of thousands of students.
Sections of the facade had crumbled away with time, leaving behind empty gaps and deep cracks.
The entire front of the building was coated in a thick layer of dust, and the stone had taken on a yellow-gray hue — almost sickly in appearance.
The once-intricate sculptures were now weathered, many of them reduced to vague outlines. But even in their eroded state, they still whispered of the original magnificence.
On either side of the main doors, I noticed four marble statues placed in niches. I walked up to them for a closer look. They were undoubtedly works of art—once magnificent—but now they were horribly mutilated.
The first statue was easy to identify by the spear and shield she held: Athena, no question. Unfortunately, the statue of the goddess of wisdom was missing its head entirely. I couldn't imagine how such a precise destruction could have occurred.
A few steps away stood the statue of a blindfolded woman. Without hesitation, I recognized her as the personification of Justice. I noticed that the statue's left arm, where she should have held the scales, was completely missing. The right arm, however, which held the sword, had remained intact through the years.
I moved on to the third statue, on the right side of the entrance. This one was harder to identify. The entire upper half, from the waist up, was missing. After some scrutiny, I realized it must have been Aphrodite. All that remained were her legs and a portion of one hand, still clutching the folds of her garment to keep it from slipping.
The last statue had, somehow, been spared almost entirely. It was Demeter, goddess of abundance and agriculture. To my surprise, her head and arms were still intact, though the bundle of wheat she held had long since crumbled away.
I walked around the enormous building, stepping over piles of trash and rubble that had clearly been abandoned long ago. Bits of masonry, splinters of wood, and fragments of stone were scattered everywhere. Several windows on the southern wing were broken and had been boarded up, apparently awaiting repairs that never came. On the northern side, scaffolding and a wooden crane stood in place, but not a single worker was in sight. I suspected that the repair work, started long ago, had been stopped due to a lack of funds.
Disheartened by the state of things, I kept walking, seeing nothing but cracked walls and debris. Even the royal flag fluttering above the entrance had faded from sun exposure to a dull, washed-out blue, and the coat of arms on it was barely visible.
The bronze doors were covered in a greenish patina—salt air from the sea, no doubt—and the once-gilded royal crest had lost all its luster. Where gold had once shimmered, only a dark relief remained, etched into the metal. Just one tiny spot in the corner still glinted faintly with gold—a pale echo of former glory. At that moment, I fully understood why the dean was so desperate to squeeze those 6,000 sesterces out of me.
And yet, the students didn't seem to care about the Academy's decay. I saw them scattered in small groups across the campus—laughing, talking, chasing each other— seemingly unconcerned about the state of the buildings or the surroundings.
Behind the main Academy building, I noticed another massive structure made of stone: a cluster of four thick towers built close together. From what I could tell, it served as a dormitory for students who didn't live in the main complex. Even though it was still morning, I could hear laughter and music drifting from inside. It sounded like the students there were enjoying a charmed life.
I sat down on a stone bench, facing away from the Academy. I didn't smoke, but if I'd had a cigarette, I would have lit one right then and there. Resting my head in my right hand, I began to consider my options. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see a way out of my situation. Returning to my own world seemed—at least for now—impossible. And if I truly wasn't a mage, I realized that my future in this mage-dominated world would be grim.
A hundred unanswered questions surged through my mind, but I pushed them aside. For now, there was only one priority: survival.