FBPRN 16

Chapter 16: Falling Forward

“Hello.”

Su Cheng greeted him politely. “That’s me.”

The man tilted his head, looking her over with open scrutiny.

His expression was lazy, almost careless, but the lines of his features were sharp as blades. Three flame-shaped crimson-gold sigils gleamed at the corners of his eyes, their glow echoing the pigeon-blood rubies hanging from his earrings.

“You’ve always been Special Grade?” he asked casually, glancing at the insignia on her chest. “Then why are you only Rank Two?”

Su Cheng: “…No.”

Most people’s resonance rank was fixed after their first evaluation. Only a tiny minority experienced a second awakening as they grew older.

And when that happened, it only ever increased.

Still…

Even for someone born with Special Grade talent, becoming an apprentice mage by seventeen or eighteen, without guidance from a famous teacher or access to rare resources, was already considered impressive.

Elemental magic demanded more than talent. It required insight, comprehension, instinct.

Some people had extraordinary affinity yet still failed to learn magic properly simply because they lacked the brains for it.

But Cross Star Academy was packed with geniuses. Their standards being harsher was only natural.

“I used to be Advanced Grade,” Su Cheng explained. “Later I started feeling something different, so I went for another test. Turns out it really had increased.”

The red-haired man nodded. “Wind specialization? Can you use third-tier magic?”

Su Cheng: “…No.”

If she could, she would’ve upgraded her rank already instead of showing up wearing an apprentice badge.

He gave her another look. “And your apprentice insignia clearly isn’t brand new. Why haven’t you tried learning third-tier spells?”

“I’ve been busy.”

Busy killing someone right at the start.

Busy dealing with succubi and dragon knights.

Busy getting dumped and fulfilling a contract with a god.

What else was she supposed to say?

The red-haired man frowned, visibly unimpressed with the answer. His gaze swept over her again.

“Tch,” he remarked offhandedly. “You don’t look like much, either.”

Su Cheng stared at him for a couple seconds. “So this is how your academy’s entrance test works? Just judging people by how they ‘look’? Pretty efficient system you’ve got there.”

The room instantly fell silent.

The mages sorting scrolls nearby all looked over. Some wore expressions of delighted anticipation. The grand mage who had led her in earlier even smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

“Hm?”

The red-haired man folded his arms. He didn’t seem angry, only amused.

“Fine, then. Let’s see what you can do besides run your mouth.”

He paused briefly.

“My name is Xiao Yun. You’ll probably see it in a few textbooks someday. You can call me Professor or Your Excellency. Whichever you prefer.”

His half-open robe shifted as he spoke, exposing part of a tattoo across one side of his chest.

Black lines curved over the swell of firm muscle, delicate yet intricate, tracing the shape of wide rounded wings. The pattern spread outward from the base like veins branching through a butterfly’s wings.

A butterfly?

Su Cheng’s gaze stalled.

Then, almost involuntarily, drifted lower beneath his collar.

Mainly because she wanted to see the rest of the tattoo.

Xiao Yun snapped his fingers.

“Miss. Eyes up here.”

Su Cheng looked up immediately.

The red-haired man was watching her with a half-smile that carried a distinctly knowing edge.

She coughed lightly. “Right. Yes. Of course. You can have me call you whatever you’d like…”

Around them, the mages in the lounge exchanged looks. Someone failed to suppress a snort of laughter.

Xiao Yun stared at her for two seconds. “Then perhaps I should also be informed how I ought to address you?”

Only then did Su Cheng realize that after she’d used an honorific, he’d switched to formal speech as well.

The distant murmurs continued.

“Lord Xiao Yun seems to be in a surprisingly good mood today. He rarely talks this much to new students…”

“Triple-element Special Grade is rare enough already. And her affinity happens to match his…”

“She might become one of his beginner students later on…”

“But the deans may have other plans…”

“Triple-element resonance is uncommon, sure, but she’s still only Rank Two. Probably not that exceptional…”

They whispered among themselves.

“I’m Su Cheng.” The girl curved her lips into a smile. “And if you’d prefer to address me as ‘Your Excellency’ or ‘my lady,’ that would also be acceptable.”

More laughter erupted from the other side of the room.

An apprentice mage with no noble title saying something like that in front of the famed Archmage Professor of the Secret Institute sounded more than a little outrageous.

Of course, everyone assumed they were joking.

Xiao Yun studied her thoughtfully.

“…Kidding,” Su Cheng added with a cheerful smile. “Just call me by my name.”

He neither agreed nor disagreed. Instead, he turned and kicked open the door to another room.

“Follow me.”

Su Cheng steadied herself and walked after him.

Lin Yun wasn’t a proper elemental mage. He’d practically cheated his way through with his old-man cheat code.

She couldn’t rely on anything like that.

She had to take this seriously.

Beyond the door was a vast open hall.

These were temporary spaces created through magic. They only existed inside the guild during recruitment season and would disappear afterward.

Even so, the sight still stole her breath for a moment.

Hexagonal stained-glass windows lined the walls, layered in emerald, gold, and sapphire light. Crystal lamps blazed high overhead, scattering brilliant colors across the hall like liquid fire.

White jade pillars wrapped in carved palm leaves rose toward the ceiling. The obsidian floor shone like a black mirror, reflecting the two of them perfectly.

“Since you already have a rank and your resonance level qualifies, let’s test your comprehension instead.”

Xiao Yun walked to the center of the hall, the ruby pendant at his ear swaying gently.

He drew a line through the air with one hand.

Instantly, dense rows of glowing golden text appeared overhead.

“This is a wind-element spell created by our former headmaster. You’ll learn it on the spot. Timing starts in five seconds.”

The moment he finished speaking, ripples of light spread across the obsidian floor. A massive cyan magic array emerged beneath them.

Wind spirits came laughing into existence, darting and dancing along the edges of the circular formation, multiplying rapidly.

Su Cheng’s expression sharpened.

A formation that gathered elemental spirits drastically lowered the difficulty of casting.

But…

This spell looked absurdly complicated.

She didn’t dare waste even a second. Standing beneath the floating text, she began reading with complete concentration.

The projection included not only the incantation itself, but spell analysis, methods for channeling mana, casting techniques, and countless details besides.

“All right.”

About ten minutes later, the text vanished.

That amount of time had barely been enough to memorize everything. She hadn’t even had the chance to try casting it.

Su Cheng inhaled sharply and flexed her fingers. “Can I start now—”

“No.” The man crooked a finger at her. “Next, I’ll attack you. You’ll defend yourself while casting the spell you just learned.”

Su Cheng froze.

For elemental mages, especially low-tier ones, environment mattered immensely.

Standing still and focusing fully on chanting increased success rates dramatically.

Combat was a completely different story.

But this was an exam. She had no room to negotiate.

She had only just frowned and nodded when three wind blades shot straight toward her face.

Su Cheng threw herself sideways in panic. She felt the blades scrape past her arm, slicing her sleeve open instantly.

Su Cheng: “…”

She activated Windstep and sprang several meters away.

The incoming wind blades only accelerated after that. Countless sharp currents slashed toward her in relentless waves.

She dodged while attempting to cast simultaneously.

But the spell was far from simple. The slightest lapse in concentration caused the barely gathered wind spirits to scatter and return to the formation on the ground.

And Windstep only made her body lighter. It didn’t remove physical exhaustion.

After only a few minutes of frantic movement, Su Cheng was already breathing hard.

She was dividing her focus between dodging and casting, and fatigue made things worse by the second.

The new spell became harder and harder to complete.

There might not technically be a time limit on this test, but she would only grow more exhausted. At this rate, sooner or later she wouldn’t even be able to avoid the wind blades anymore.

Normally, once a mage mastered a spell completely, they could cast silently.

But a newly learned spell absolutely required chanting aloud, and not too quickly either.

She ran through the incantation mentally.

At minimum, she’d need seven or eight uninterrupted seconds.

And during those seconds, she would need complete focus.

Preferably without moving at all.

What if she just endured getting hit?

As long as the blades didn’t strike anything fatal, injuries were manageable. The Church’s temple was nearby. A priest could heal her afterward.

She could afford the fee anyway.

But…

Su Cheng had the nagging feeling she was overlooking something.

As a wind mage, she was naturally more sensitive to wind-element spells cast by others. Watching the flashing green blades, she gradually sensed something strange.

Wind blades were made of wind spirits.

To a resonant mage, wind spirits had distinct rhythms. Different forms and distances created different patterns of feedback.

Even with her eyes closed, she could still sense them.

The blades looked dense and continuous, but they were actually arriving in separate waves.

She counted silently in her head and realized the attack rhythm never changed. The intervals remained perfectly consistent.

And yet…

Her perception of them fluctuated constantly. Sometimes clear, sometimes absent.

What did that mean?

…Some of these wind blades weren’t real.

Either they were disguised spells, or they didn’t exist at all. Illusions.

Su Cheng abruptly stopped moving.

“Wind of the heavens, hear my call…”

She began chanting softly.

More than a dozen wind blades flew straight toward her. Su Cheng didn’t dodge.

She stood perfectly still and let them strike her body.

The blades shattered instantly into pale green motes of light.

“At the convergence of raging currents, reveal yourself. Tear flesh apart. Drain blood dry…”

The wind spirits shrieked as they surged upward, drawn by some invisible force from every direction. They collided and intertwined into a massive vortex of violently spinning wind.

The vortex stretched nearly ten meters wide, rotating at the center of the hall, devouring the surrounding air. Every incoming wind blade was dragged into it.

Countless compressed currents scraped together, hissing like writhing serpents.

Su Cheng stared upward in shock.

…She genuinely couldn’t believe she was the one casting this spell.

The power alone looked easily fourth-tier.

Before she could even feel proud of herself, agony exploded through her skull. Her mana output snapped off abruptly.

The enormous vortex overhead immediately began collapsing. Chaotic currents burst outward in every direction, shattering stained glass and blasting apart sections of the ceiling and pillars.

She staggered backward several steps.

The world spun violently around her. Every ounce of strength seemed drained from her body. Dizzy and lightheaded, she nearly collapsed to the floor.

Forget it.

Su Cheng gave up struggling and simply sat down, pressing a hand against her forehead as she breathed heavily.

A few seconds later, the vortex finally disappeared.

“Barely passing.”

Xiao Yun walked toward her at an unhurried pace, leather boots clicking crisply against the obsidian floor.

Her vision was still blurry. She could only make out the hem of his elaborate robes swaying slightly, exposing long legs wrapped in dark leather beneath.

The red-haired man stopped in front of her, his tall figure casting a shadow over her.

“Can you still move?”

Su Cheng braced a hand against the ground and tried to stand, but her head swam violently again. She wobbled and dropped back down.

“No.” She held her forehead. “Please let me sit a little longer. I’ll recover soon.”

The red-haired man extended a hand toward her.

“Wait, seriously, don’t pull me up—”

Before she could finish speaking, Xiao Yun grabbed her shoulder and hauled her upright in one smooth motion.

The instant the future professor released her, Su Cheng’s legs gave out beneath her.

She stumbled forward instinctively, throwing out a hand for balance.

The distance between them was too small.

Her fingers caught the collar of his robe, tugging it open further as they slid across the sharp line of his collarbone before landing squarely against the firm muscle of his chest.

Warm.

Solid.

The muscle beneath her palm was taut and smooth, subtly rising and falling with his breathing, dense with restrained strength.

Her fingers unconsciously curled slightly, fingertips sinking into the grooves between hard muscle as she felt the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath her hand.

The red-haired man’s entire body stiffened.

Then, in the next instant, the previously supple warmth beneath her palm tightened sharply, hardening like molten metal suddenly forged into iron.

And the black butterfly tattoo poised across his chest, wings spread as though ready to take flight, was revealed completely.