If there’s one thing Arclight Academy doesn’t do, it’s surprise enrollments.

  Transfers are basically a myth at Arclight. Okay, that’s probably dramatic, but hear me out. You might see a guest sciononce in a while if two noble houses are trying to secure an alliance or smooth over a political slight. Occasionally, a celebrated spell-performer comes and goes—bards of illusion, ritual prodigies, or mana idols whose patrons insist they keep up appearances between tours and convocations. Sometimes a Master’s Disciple of Aura or Arcanum drifts in under special dispensation, training here for a term before vanishing back into whatever closed circle they belong to.

  But even then, it never happens quietly.

  There are announcements. Formal welcomes. Ceremonial introductions. Gifts exchanged in public halls so everyone knows exactly how rare and important the event is—even if it happens more often than the Academy likes to admit.

  So when the whispers started in the cafeteria that morning—There’s a transfer student—nobody believed it.

  When people swore it was a sophomore transfer into Class One, half the year thought it was a prank. By the time I made it to Halden’s lecture hall for homeroom, the entire place was buzzing.

  “Do you think it’s a girl?” one of the girls in the front row asked her friend, clutching her rune-sketched tablet like it might give her answers. “I heard Seliah Veyne might be coming to our school.”

  “That’s crazy,” the other giggled. “She’s way too popular right now. There’s no way she’s coming back to school.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “It’s probably another guy. How boring.”

  “Unless he’s handsome.”

  That got half the girls giggling and leaning forward like the universe owed them a mysterious prince to spice up second term.

  Meanwhile, the guys weren’t much better.

  “Bet it’s some rich merchant’s kid who couldn’t cut it at the Aura College,” muttered Darren Vale as he dropped into the seat next to me. Darren was tall, loud, and always convinced he knew more than he did—which was impressive, considering he was an idiot. My friend, but still an idiot. “It’s dumb to establish your core too early. Everyone knows the closer you are to twenty, the better your chances of developing more than one.”

  Mikel Thorne slid into the row on my other side, noble crest stitched on his uniform like it had a personality of its own. He snorted. “That’s wrong. Establishing your core closer to fifteen gives you a far better chance of stabilizing it. You can’t develop a second core if you never manage the first. As for the transfer, it’s probably another commoner. Scholarship kid. We could use more of those. We don’t need more pretty-boy nobles.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You two sound terrified he might actually be better looking than you.”

  Darren jabbed me in the shoulder with a grin. “Someone as handsome and charming as myself would never be worried about my place in civilized society.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I feel like you practiced that.”

  He ignored me. “What about you, Rade? I bet you’re already planning how to recruit him for your dungeon team.”

  “Please,” I said. “I only party with reliable players. I don’t need some mystery newbie dragging down my DPS.”

  They laughed, but the truth was I was curious. Really curious. Not because of the gossip, but because new students meant new variables. And in dungeon games—like in life—variables could break the meta.

  The chatter in the room swelled.

  “What if he’s from a lower plane?” one girl whispered. “Like the Wastes—wouldn’t that be crazy?”

  “Probably someone who deferred enrollment,” another scoffed. “You girls are overthinking this.”

  Meanwhile, the guys argued about whether he’d have noble blood, whether he was good with a sword, or if he’d even formed a core yet. Nobody actually knew anything, which made the whole exercise pointless—though apparently speculating was more fun than knowing.

  Go figure.

  Then the door at the front of the hall opened.

  Professor Halden strode in, his long coat snapping behind him. He was tall, with streaks of gray in his black hair and an expression that looked permanently carved into a scowl. You could always tell when Halden was in a mood, because even the nobles shut up.

  Today, nobody needed telling. The room went silent before he even cleared his throat.

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  “We have a new student joining us today,” Halden said. His voice was like a sword being drawn—sharp, metallic, final. “Unusual circumstances, but you’ll treat him as one of your own.”

  He turned toward the door. “Come in.”

  Every head swiveled. Even mine.

  The kid who walked in didn’t look like much at first.

  Plain jacket. Nondescript trousers. Dark brown hair, short and neat. Ordinary features—the kind of face you’d forget the second you looked away. Muddy brown eyes. Unremarkable lines.

  Actually, it was weirder than that.

  He wasn’t just forgettable. He looked like someone who wanted you to forget him, if that was even possible.

  It was unsettling.

  He might have looked bland, but there were other things about him. He was tall, for one. Broader in the shoulders than most of us, arms clearly strong beneath the uniform. The way he carried himself wasn’t sloppy like a scholarship kid who didn’t know how to wear a uniform, or stiff like a noble trying too hard to impress.

  It was… balanced. Relaxed.

  The way you move if you’ve been in more high-pressure situations than classrooms.

  Whispers rippled instantly.

  “He’s older—”

  “I heard he’s eighteen, same as us.”

  “Who transfers into sophomore year?”

  Halden cut them off with a glance that could silence an avalanche.

  “Class,” he said, “this is your new classmate. Introduce yourself, Mr. Arcanus.”

  Cale gave a short nod. “Cale. Sophomore.”

  That was it. No speech. No noble lineage. No charming anecdote.

  Just the bare minimum.

  What is with this guy?

  Half the class groaned. You could practically hear the disappointment from the girls in the front row. Darren leaned closer and muttered, “Called it. Merchant kid for sure. Zero charisma. Poor guy’ll probably die a virgin.”

  Mikel smirked. “No wonder he got kicked out of his old school.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  There was something about the way he stood there—shoulders straight, eyes steady but searching, like he was already marking exits and cataloging threats—that made my stomach twist. It felt like the opening of a cutscene in a game I knew was about to change everything.

  Halden studied him for a long moment. Too long. The silence stretched until the back of my neck prickled.

  Then, in that razor-edged voice of his, Halden said, “Mr. Arcanus. Remove the glamour.”

  The room exploded.

  “Wait—glamour?”

  “He’s hiding something?”

  “I knew it—nobody looks that plain on purpose.”

  “Bet he’s ugly under there.”

  “No, bet he’s scarred. Like Wastes-scarred.”

  The girls’ voices overlapped, sharp with curiosity. The guys jeered, already mocking. It was chaos—like the start of a boss fight before the raid had decided on a strategy.

  Cale didn’t move. He stood at the front of the room, jaw tight, eyes locked on Halden.

  Halden didn’t blink. “Mr. Arcanus. Remove the glamour.”

  The room fell silent again. Thirty students leaning forward at once, hungry for the reveal.

  Cale froze. For a split second, he looked surprised—and it made him look younger.

  Halden continued, “This is Arclight Academy. We don’t hide here. Magic requires focus and honesty, neither of which you’ll achieve if you cloak yourself from your classmates.”

  Cale exhaled slowly, like he was resigning himself to something he’d hoped to avoid.

  Then he let go.

  The glamour peeled back like smoke burned away by wind. His plainness dissolved, edges sharpening into definition.

  The gasp that rolled through the room wasn’t polite or rehearsed.

  It was raw.

  The guy standing in front of us could have stepped straight out of a cinema reel.

  Blue-black hair, uneven and wild in a way that should’ve looked sloppy but didn’t. It looked dangerous—like he’d just walked away from a fight and hadn’t bothered to fix it. Then there were his eyes: stormglass violet, deep and shifting, pulling your gaze in and refusing to let go.

  And his face—sharp lines, clean angles, the kind of structure illustrators and directors dream about.

  This wasn’t a basic noble-pretty.

  This guy he was…magnetic. In a bad-boy, you-shouldn’t-stare-but-you-can’t-look-away kind of way.

  He wasn’t just handsome. It was devastating. Like star-power devastating. The classroom boiled over.

  “Oh my god.”

  “He’s gorgeous.”

  “Called it—totally a noble bastard hiding his face.”

  “No way—he looks like Darius Lane, the Mercenary King!”

  Even Darren coughed, looking like he’d swallowed his tongue. “Tch. So what if he’s got good hair.”

  Mikel sneered louder than usual, covering his own reaction. “Barbarian chic. I give it a week before he gets expelled for fighting.”

  I barely heard them.

  I’d seen characters like this before—just not in real life. In games, the hidden-stat protagonist always drops in like this. Everything about his story is ordinary until its revealed to be extraordinary.

  I took note of his features. Blue-black hair with a straight jawline and skin that was absoluytely flawless. His most notideable feature however, was the stormglass eyes.

  I think I am the only one who knew what Stormglass eyes meant.

  He had mana. A lot of it.

  This was straight out of a power fantasy—except it was happening in my lecture hall.

  Awesome. So freaking awesome.

  This guy is definitely going to be my friend.

  Halden gave the smallest nod, like a general satisfied that a soldier had followed orders. “Better. Now, why you’d hide a face like that, I’ll never know. Sit. We begin.”

  Cale’s jaw worked once, but he said nothing. He turned, scanning the rows.

  Every seat was suddenly either too full or too empty. People shifted, muttered, suddenly desperate not to look like they cared.

  Then his eyes landed on our row, halfway up—Darren on one side, Mikel on the other.

  My pulse jumped.

  Each step he took felt louder than it was, heavy with the weight of everyone’s stares. Girls whispered behind their hands. Guys muttered insults too low to be brave.

  He stopped at our row.

  The seat directly behind me was empty, next to the window overlooking the central plaza. He dropped into it without a word, back straight, shoulders squared, like he hadn’t just shattered the entire room’s expectations.

  For a second, all I could do was picture his messy blue-black hair, the line of his shoulders, the relaxed way he set his hands on the desk.

  Then Darren leaned in, whispering through clenched teeth. “Guess the transfer thinks he’s hot stuff.”

  Mikel smirked. “He’ll get chewed up. Wait and see.”

  Maybe they were right.

  But something in my gut told me this wasn’t a side character. Not a cameo. Not a background extra.

  No.

  This was a main-character drop.

  And the rest of us had just been cast as supporting players.

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