Huge white crystals hung from the ceiling.
Stacks of thick books and papers littered the floor, leaving no room to step. Three cups of tea sat on a large white table.
A woman with long, lemon-yellow hair and white robes sat across from two black-haired figures. She wore distinct earrings.
"The reason I called you here is a bit complicated. First, take a look at these."
She tossed two sheets of paper in front of us.
One had my name on it. It showed a graph. The arc fluctuated sharply above and below the horizontal line, the values climbing higher and higher. Looking at the numbers, these were my measurements from the previous lesson.
I took a sip of the purple tea from the cup in front of me. Its sharp fruity taste strangely filled me with a sense of peace.
Max, sitting next to me, was studying another sheet. After a moment, we swapped.
The graph on the other paper moved up and down with much smoother transitions, but unlike mine, the values diminished with every cycle. Other than that, they weren't much different.
"These are our measured values from class, but the absurdity of Nox's numbers is insane," Max said.
"Is it really that important? It doesn't look that different from yours."
"It is very different. In fact, it's almost completely the opposite," the blonde woman said.
"Yeah, the fact that we share the same curse makes the situation even weirder." Max scratched his messy hair while looking at the paper.
"That is exactly why I called you here. I need your help."
"Professor Alice, how can we possibly help someone of your level?" Max asked.
"You stand before me as the living, breathing proof of the project I'm working on," Alice said.
She looked at me. When I turned my head, I realized Max was looking at me too.
"It's Nox's Soul Core, isn't it?" Max asked.
"My Soul Core?"
"Lady Alice, are you there?" Max asked.
Alice didn't take her eyes off me, whispering and muttering something to herself.
"Yes, the Soul Core. Instead of dimming like normal, Nox's is strengthening," Alice said.
"It's getting stronger? You mean it's increasing its own mana distribution?" Max asked.
Alice still didn't look away from me while speaking to Max, as if she were scrutinizing something deep inside me. I pretended to look at Max's graph and continued drinking my mandrake tea. I could feel her gaze piercing through the back of the paper.
"Yes, it defies the traditional laws of cores as we know them," Alice said.
"Neither Arthuria, the Church, nor any researcher could solve the curse. That's why I hoped to find something at Hexian, but I didn't expect to see someone who was already stable," Max said.
"Yes, cursed individuals are already a rare occurrence. On top of that, we only started understanding the Soul Core in this century," Alice said.
"Wait a second. Don't you know Core Particle Physics?" I asked.
"Core Particle Physics?" Max and Alice asked in unison.
Wait a second. Do people not know particle physics? Isn't that something very basic? Isn't it the first thing taught?
Hold on. How do I know that?
Particle physics is the reaction of mana breaking down at a micro level. How do I know this information?
I ransacked the inside of my brain to understand where this piece of information came from. Nothing came up except a memory of learning it from a book while drinking mandrake tea in a dark room.
"Isn't the core simply the part where the soul resides and emits mana?" I asked.
"Yes, it emits mana, but it never exceeds its own emission value," Alice said.
"Yours, on the contrary, manages to exceed that value," Max said.
"You know how core mana emission works, right?" I asked.
"The core vibrates at its own wavelength, causing the emission," Alice said.
"But the curse lowers the wavelength of this vibration every time," Max added.
"True, but there is a point you are overlooking," I said.
"You say there is a point we missed? Are you saying centuries of research and the history of the academy are incomplete?" Alice's eyes went beyond just looking at me; they were like knives cutting directly into me.
"With every vibration, the core disintegrates at a micro level, and these shattered fragments turn into mana," I said.
"So, mana emission is a product of the core's own fragmented pieces," Max said.
"I don't know where you learned this, but I actually observed a similar situation in my own experiments. Every vibration produced fractional errors I couldn't make sense of," Alice said.
"Then what Nox says is really true." Max started pacing around the room, whispering to himself.
"Yes, what he says could explain the error in the calculations. But how does he know this?" Alice asked.
"Nox, does this explain how you managed to stabilize it?" Max asked.
"More importantly, where did you find those earrings? And who taught you these things?" Alice asked.
"The earrings are the last things left from my family," I said.
"Those earrings are the heirloom of the Quartz family. And it is absurd that you have them because..."
Alice took off her own earrings and placed them on the table. They were the exact same earrings, belonging to the same symbol.
"...the inheritance passed down to me last. There shouldn't be another pair."
Alice glared with fury from her chair. She grabbed me by the collar and pulled me towards her.
"Who are you?"