Professor Eisen's heels clicked briskly against the polished stone floors as she moved through the academy's central corridor.
The late evening light threw long gold beams through the arched windows, casting crisscrossed patterns along the ground. Eisen's sharp eyes flicked over the notes in her hand, her brow furrowed. She had been called from her chambers to check on something in the Class A sector, something about a sudden magical surge.
She wasn't pleased.
The academy had its rhythms. Its flow. Surges happened — after all, the institution trained dozens of elite combatants and mages across multiple classes. But this wasn't the usual training spillover. The message she'd received had been vague:
— strange mana pulses in the Class A sector, rapid expansion of magical flora, possible lockdown of section gates.
Eisen's lips pressed into a thin line.
She hated vague.
As she passed through the central gate linking the general academy wings to the elite Class A areas, she paused.
