Test Time! My little secret!

Of course! Here's a long,

"It's time to start, huh…" Aether whispered under his breath, his voice nearly lost to the low rumble of anxious conversations filling the hall. All around him, dozens of other new students — bright-eyed, nervous, determined — were lining up to take their placement tests. The long rows snaked across the stone floor, one line marked clearly for the mages, and another for the non-mages.

There was a subtle but unmistakable tension in the air, like the hum before a lightning strike. The mages' line crackled with energy, many of the gifted students subconsciously leaking little flickers of elemental power: stray sparks, faint breezes, tiny motes of glowing dust. Meanwhile, the non-mages stood quieter, their line almost heavy with the unspoken truth that in this world, power meant magic, and without it, you were something less — at least in the eyes of most.

Patiently, Aether waited his turn, hands tucked into the pockets of his simple dark tunic. His expression was calm, almost blank, the sort of look that gave away nothing. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of shuffling feet and hushed murmurs, his name rose above the din.

"Aether Ryens, come in."

The tester's voice echoed slightly off the high stone arches, carrying easily across the crowded hall. Aether exhaled slowly, feeling the breath steady his chest, then began to walk forward. Each step felt oddly deliberate, as if time itself slowed just a fraction to mark the moment.

But of course, he couldn't take a step in this academy without drawing some eyes — for better or worse. Off to the side, a small knot of girls had turned toward him, whispering with barely-contained excitement.

"Hey! Hey! Look at that boy going in to take the test — he's so handsome!" one of them gasped, practically bouncing in place.

"Yeah, he really is," her friend agreed with a dreamy sigh, fingers absently twisting a lock of hair. "But too bad he's a non-gifter. Imagine that face with actual power behind it…"

"Haha! What's the point of being hot if you can't even use magic?" a boy nearby snorted loudly. His friends burst into exaggerated, jeering laughter, as if that were the cleverest joke in the world.

Aether heard it all, of course. Hard not to, with how pointedly they weren't bothering to lower their voices. But he didn't flinch, didn't frown, didn't even change the rhythm of his steps. If anything, he looked a touch bored, eyes drifting lazily past them as he muttered to himself with a faint smirk, "Tch. Background characters…"

Yes — in case you were still wondering, dear reader — they were very much talking about Aether Ryens, who even now was heading into the room reserved for the non-gifter trials. It was his fate, after all. Born into a world where magic ruled everything, he had been marked from the start as someone without it… or so everyone thought.

Now, hold on. Before you leap to conclusions or think this is just some sad tale of an underdog with no power, let's clear something up. This is not the story of a powerless boy scraping by. Nor is it some cheap fantasy where a lack of magic miraculously becomes a strength. Oh no — I see you, smart reader, already starting to piece things together. Some of you might even be whispering, "Ah, I think I get where this is going…"

And you'd be absolutely right. But for the rest who might still be scratching their heads, allow me to rewind the clock a bit — or, well, narratively speaking at least.

Magic was born into this world thousands of years ago, so long ago that its true origin was lost beneath countless layers of myth. In that time, it had blossomed into a dazzling array of forms. The five foundational elements — fire, water, lightning, earth, and wind — formed the bedrock upon which entire civilizations built their philosophies, wars, and arts. From these sprang even stranger magics: ice, forged from water and wind; magma, born of fire and earth; storms, dancing from wind and lightning.

But not all magic was meant to flourish. Among all the known arts, there existed a single type of magic so dangerous, so fundamentally beyond the natural order, that it was outright forbidden. A magic so rare it had only ever been wielded by a single man in all recorded history. That man was long dead, and his story twisted into a cautionary legend. In his wake, the ruling magic councils of every legion came together and declared with united voices: any who awakened this power would be executed on the spot, or shackled forever under unblinking watch.

This was Time Magic, also called by the old poetic name: Stairway of Heaven. A power without equal, without natural predators, without any balancing flaw. The ability to step outside the stream of time, to stop it, to reverse it, to skip across it as easily as one might step from stone to stone across a creek.

Was such magic truly so dangerous? Could it really shatter kingdoms, unravel reality, or turn gods themselves into puppets? No one living knew. Because no one living dared allow it to exist long enough to find out.

And now we circle back — to our dear protagonist, Aether Ryens.

By now, I suspect most of you clever readers are putting two and two together. Yes. Aether did indeed have magic. Not just any magic, but the very magic the entire world feared. The forbidden magic. Time Magic. The Stairway of Heaven itself, reborn quietly in the heart of a boy who had done nothing to deserve such a terrifying gift — or curse.

He had discovered it by accident. At twelve, two years after most children awakened their mana, Aether finally felt that telltale surge. A slow, burning coil of energy unfurling in his chest, followed by the sudden realization that the world around him had… stopped. Birds frozen mid-wingbeat. A leaf caught forever halfway to the ground. Even the wind seemed trapped, hugging the sides of buildings in silent stillness.

When it finally started again, Aether stood gasping, alone with a truth that would haunt him for years to come. Because unlike other boys his age, who ran excitedly to show off their first sparks of fire or playful gusts of wind, Aether did nothing. He hid it. Perfectly. Because he knew — somehow instinctively — that if anyone ever discovered what dwelled inside him, it would mean chains at best… and a blade at worst.

His family continued believing he was a non-gifter. So did his neighbors, his friends. By some twist of fate, the fact that he hadn't awakened at ten like most children had made it even easier to keep his secret. For three long years, he trained himself in silence. Practiced tiny manipulations of time alone under starlight, stopped droplets of rain to watch them hover like jewels in the air, learned how to reverse the fall of a dropped cup just long enough to catch it before it shattered.

He had chosen to come to Himwarrry not out of pride or ambition, but necessity. Because deep down, Aether understood something grim — secrets like his could never stay buried forever. Better to be inside the very heart of magical society, where he could learn the world's defenses, its expectations, its blind spots. Where, should the worst happen, he would at least have a fighting chance to decide his own fate.

So there he was, standing before the heavy wooden doors of the testing chamber, his heart oddly steady despite everything.

Inside, he was greeted by a small panel of robed examiners. They barely looked up as he entered — to them, he was just another non-gifter. One by one, they ran him through mundane checks: mana resonance crystals that remained stubbornly dull, small charm circuits that failed to react to his touch. As expected. On the outside, he was precisely what they all believed.

"Thank you, Aether Ryens," one of the mages said at last, marking something down on a parchment.

Aether offered a polite bow, turned, and left the room. As he walked back through the corridor, voices from other students drifted to him once more.

"Haha, see? Totally non-gifter. Could've told you that just by looking at how calm he was. Not even a spark of talent."

"That face, though. Shame it's wasted…"

Again, Aether kept walking. If anything, there was a faint, knowing smile at the corner of his lips. Because while they saw a harmless non-gifter, only he knew the truth. Inside his chest pulsed a power ancient and boundless, the Stairway of Heaven itself. A power that — if revealed — could tip the world into chaos or reshape it entirely.

And that, dear readers, was precisely why Aether Ryens continued to keep his secret. For now, at least.

Because some secrets were too dangerous to trust to anyone else's hands.