Chapter 241 - Effort Spent

The last of the tests ended without ceremony. No applause, no announcement. Students filed out of the exam halls—some whispering about their performance, others trudging in silence.

For the witches, it was a quiet kind of exhaustion. Not the exhaustion of failure, but the weight of effort expended.

The blue witch adjusted her sleeves, rolling the tension from her shoulders. Beside her, the green witch stretched with a groan. 

"That was brutal," she muttered.

"It was fair," the blue witch replied.

A few feet away, the brown witch exhaled sharply through her nose, hands tucked into her robes. "Fair or not, it's done."

That much was true. The results would come later. For now, the academy had no more demands of them.

Vell and Sonder were waiting outside the hall. 

With pipe in hand, Vell gave them a look. "You all look miserable."

They shot him a tired glare.

"We just finished three exams," the red witch said.

"And I'm saying you should look happier." He took a slow drag from his pipe, then exhaled. "Come on. I'm taking you all out."

"For what?"

Vell smirked. "To celebrate, obviously. You worked hard. That should mean something." He tapped out his pipe and tucked it away. "Come on. I know a place."

Jouska watched from the headmaster's office window as they left.

"Not even with years of training," he murmured. "They shouldn't be this good."

His mana unfurled and reached.

Jouska hadn't summoned him, but Vell arrived anyway. He had expected the meeting.

This time, their presence did not merely brush against one another—it formed.

The world around the headmaster melted away. In its place, something else took shape.

They sat across from each other, not in the physical world, but in a space of magic, thought, and presence.

Vell leaned back in his chair—a conjured thing, simple and sturdy, like something from a village tavern. He smirked, pipe in hand. "So, what's really bothering you, oh headmaster?"

Jouska's seat was taller, more refined. A scholar's chair, dark wood with carved details. He steepled his fingers, studying Vell in this space where truth was harder to mask. "Their control is beyond what should be possible," he said. "Even among prodigies, progress has limits."

Vell tapped his pipe against the chair's arm, releasing a slow breath of smoke. The wisps curled unnaturally, moving like ink in water. "You're asking the wrong question."

Jouska arched an eyebrow. "Then give me the right one."

Vell chuckled, leaning forward. The space around them pulsed subtly, responding to their focus. "You assume it's about how much they've learned," he said. "That's not it. It's about how they learned."

Jouska remained silent.

"I didn't teach them spells. Didn't drill them on theory or repetition." Vell rested his elbow on the chair's arm, voice calm but certain. "I taught them how to listen."

The headmaster had heard of such things often, though such talk annoyed him.

"Most mages force magic into shape," Vell continued. "Like taming a wild beast. But magic isn't a beast. It's a language. It speaks. And if you learn to listen—really listen—it stops resisting." He smirked. "That's the trick, Headmaster. It was never about training. It was about understanding."

Jouska sat still, his presence pressing outward, testing. The magic of this space flickered between them, shifting in unseen ways.

Vell held firm.

Finally, Jouska sighed, breaking the connection. The conjured space dissolved, and the world reformed around him again—solid, real.

Jouska's expression remained unreadable, but something in his gaze settled. "Regardless of how you did it, the results remain the same. We'll see what becomes of them."

Vell stood, looked up at the window, and gave the headmaster a lazy salute before turning away with the girls.

And then he was gone.