Chapter 13: reminisces

Knowledge is both a weapon and a burden. A double-edged sword that, when wielded correctly, can cut through ignorance, yet when misused, can lead to destruction. I have spent my life accumulating it, absorbing everything I could, because in my world—both the one I came from and the one I now stand in—ignorance is the first step toward death. I do not have the luxury of complacency. I never have.

Magic. It is the foundation upon which this world stands, the invisible force that governs life and death. It is not a simple thing. People like to categorize it—elemental magic, divine magic, forbidden magic, runic magic, and so on—but these labels are nothing more than attempts to tame the untamable. Magic is not just fire, wind, or ice. It is will. It is knowledge given form. A fireball is not just fire—it is the understanding of heat, of movement, of expansion, of destruction. Ice is not just cold—it is entropy, stagnation, the slowing of molecular motion, the freezing of time itself. To manipulate magic is not just to recite incantations or to channel mana. It is to grasp the fundamental truths of reality and twist them to your will. And I have studied those truths.

I have read tomes filled with theories of magic so intricate they would drive lesser minds to madness. I have dissected the spells of ancient mages, deciphered the runes of civilizations long gone, and witnessed firsthand the raw, unfiltered chaos that magic can bring. There are spells that bend light, altering perception itself. There are spells that manipulate gravity, turning the battlefield into a shifting nightmare. There are spells that break the very concept of space, severing limbs from miles away as if distance itself is an illusion. The deeper you go, the more you realize magic is not just a tool—it is a language, a philosophy, a force that obeys only those who truly understand it.

And then there is death.

Most fear it. I do not. Death is the only certainty, the only constant that has remained unchanged across every war, every civilization, every world. I have seen it more times than I can count. I have caused it more times than I can remember. It does not faze me, nor does it weigh on my conscience. I do not take life lightly, but I also do not hesitate. Death is neither good nor evil—it simply is. I have studied necromancy, not to raise the dead, but to understand what it means to be alive. I have studied curses, not to spread suffering, but to recognize when they are used against me. I know the exact point where a blade must be placed to ensure instant death. I know how long it takes for a body to bleed out from a severed artery. I know how to stop a heart, how to prolong suffering, how to make death an inevitability rather than a possibility.

War is no different. War is not just the clash of weapons or the spilling of blood. War is strategy, deception, logistics, psychology. A battle is won long before the first strike is made. I have studied the great wars of history, analyzed the tactics of conquerors and tyrants, dissected the minds of generals who turned the tides of battle with a single maneuver. There is no honor in war. There is no fairness. There is only victory and defeat. I have memorized the principles of warfare—how to break morale, how to force an enemy into retreat, how to wage war without ever drawing a sword. There are a thousand ways to win a battle without fighting, and I know them all.

Battle itself is something I understand as intimately as breathing. Every movement in a fight is a calculation. Every attack, every block, every feint is a decision that leads to an outcome. The inexperienced fight with their bodies alone. The skilled fight with their minds. I have trained myself to see every possibility in a fight before it even begins. I can read an opponent's stance and know their next move. I can predict their attack patterns, their moments of hesitation, their breaking points. Strength is important, yes, but knowledge is what determines the victor. A warrior with unmatched strength but no understanding of combat is nothing more than a beast swinging blindly.

I do not believe in luck. I do not believe in fate. I believe in knowledge. The more you know, the fewer surprises there are. The more you understand, the less you fear. That is why I seek knowledge in all things—not just magic, not just war, but everything. Politics, economics, history, philosophy, science, technology. Every piece of information is another weapon in my arsenal, another tool that ensures I remain in control.

And control is everything.

There is no such thing as true peace. There is no such thing as eternal safety. But knowledge—it is the closest thing to an advantage this world has to offer. And I intend to have all of it.

It is absurd. Truly, undeniably absurd.

A nineteen-year-old professor. The thought alone should make me laugh, yet I find no amusement in it. I know how young I look, how young I technically am in this life, and how out of place I must seem standing before a room of students who, by all logic, should see me as a peer rather than an instructor. But logic has never dictated my path. Age is nothing but a number, a marker of time that fails to account for experience, wisdom, and the weight of a life lived twice. To the world, I am a nineteen-year-old prodigy, a young professor with an unnatural understanding of magic and combat. But in reality, I am far older than any of them could ever comprehend. I died at fifty-five, a lifetime away from the boy they believe me to be. My body may be young, but my mind carries the burden of years spent in war, in study, in survival.

I have outlived men who were stronger than me, smarter than me, more righteous than me. I have watched friends grow old while I remained unchanged, have buried those who once called me their equal. I have seen generations rise and fall, cities reduced to ash, and empires crumble under the weight of their own arrogance. I have been a soldier, a strategist, a scholar, and a killer. I have held power and lost it, have shaped history and been forgotten by it. And now, after everything, I am here—standing before children who see me as just another instructor, unaware of the blood-soaked path that led me to this moment.

It is strange, this role I have taken upon myself. I never intended to be a teacher. Knowledge has always been something I sought for my own sake, a means of survival, a tool to control my fate. And yet, I find myself in a position where I must impart it to others. It is not sentimentality that drives me, nor is it a desire for recognition. My goal is far simpler than that: to ensure that this generation does not fall to the same weaknesses as the last. Strength is fleeting without knowledge. Power is meaningless without discipline. I have seen too many fools wielding magic like a blunt instrument, too many warriors who believe brute force is a substitute for strategy. They do not understand the battlefield. They do not understand war. They think it is about honor, about glory, about proving oneself. They are wrong.

War is not a test of strength. It is a test of survival.

I have fought in battles that lasted minutes and wars that dragged on for decades. I have stood on the front lines as blood soaked the earth, have led men into battles they would never return from. I have slaughtered enemies with my own hands and orchestrated their destruction from the shadows. I have seen the best warriors fall to the simplest tricks, have watched kings beg for mercy as their empires crumbled. I have learned that there is no such thing as fairness in combat. The battlefield is not a place for honor; it is a place for killers. The one who wins is not always the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the most skilled. It is the one who knows when to strike, when to retreat, when to let the enemy believe they have won. War is not about power—it is about control.

And that is why I am here.

These students, these so-called future elites, they do not know what it means to fight. They do not know what it means to make decisions that will cost lives. They believe themselves powerful because they can wield magic, because they can cast spells and swing swords with precision. But magic alone does not make one powerful. Strength alone does not make one untouchable. If they do not learn now, they will learn later—when it is too late, when the enemy is at their throat, when they realize that all their talent, all their pride, means nothing in the face of true experience.

So, no—I do not care that I am young. I do not care that I am seen as an anomaly, a prodigy, a mystery. My only concern is that when the time comes, when they stand on the battlefield, they do not become corpses before they even understand the fight they are in.

That is why I am a professor. That is why I teach. Not for them, not for recognition, not for some misguided sense of duty.

But because I refuse to let this generation be as weak as the last…hmm..

I remember Feros.

I remember the stench of salt and sweat, the endless sun beating down on our backs, and the feeling of iron digging into my wrists. The chains were never tight enough to cut, but they were heavy, unbearably so, pressing down on us like the weight of the entire world. We were less than people. We were labor, resources, tools to be used until we broke and were discarded.

The island was vast, but we never saw more than the stretch of land we were forced to work. The overseers—men who had once been slaves themselves—kept us in line with whips and starvation, their loyalty earned through the simple promise of an extra meal, an easier workload, the illusion of power over those who were just as powerless. It was not enough to simply endure; we had to be useful. If you could not work, you were dead.

And so, the elders told stories.

It was the only thing they had left. Their bodies were broken, their hands worn and useless, but their tongues still worked. They spoke of the lands they had once called home, of families lost to time, of freedoms that seemed more like fantasy than memory. They told us of cities with streets paved in gold, of mountains that touched the sky, of rivers so clear you could see your own reflection. They told us of laughter, of music, of love. They spoke of gods and kings, of warriors who never fell, of a world where men were not shackled like animals.

We listened because it was all we had.

But no story could fill an empty stomach.

I was seven when the first of them died. Starvation, exhaustion, disease—it didn't matter. The result was always the same. A body left to rot, a reminder of what awaited us if we grew too weak, if we stopped moving, if we dared to believe that we were more than slaves. But we could not afford to let the dead go to waste.

I remember the first bite.

I was too young to understand. Too young to question the morality of it. Too young to think of the man whose flesh I was tearing into as anything more than food. The others did not speak of it, did not acknowledge it, but we all understood: the dead would keep us alive.

I learned to stop thinking of them as people.

It was easier that way.

There was no honor in survival, no dignity in the way we lived. The elders who once told stories of freedom became nothing more than sustenance, their words silenced, their history devoured by those who had no choice but to eat. It was not cruelty. It was necessity. We did not cry for them, did not mourn. We simply lived another day.

And then another.

And another.

I do not remember when I stopped feeling hungry. Perhaps it was when I stopped feeling at all.

Mira's voice pulled me back to the present.

I blinked, shaking off the ghosts of the past as I turned to face her. She looked hesitant, shifting her weight from foot to foot, fingers drumming lightly against her arm.

"Professor," she said again, slower this time, as if gauging whether or not I had actually heard her.

I nodded, more out of habit than anything else. "What is it?"

She hesitated, clearly debating whether to ask me or not, before sighing. "It's… kind of a stupid problem."

"Most problems are," I replied. "Until they're not."

Mira exhaled sharply, either amused or exasperated—I couldn't tell which. "The girls' bathroom in the east wing has a plumbing issue," she admitted. "It's been overflowing since this morning, and the plumber called in sick."

I stared at her.

She stared back.

"…And you came to me for this?"

"Well, yeah." She gestured vaguely toward me. "You seem like the kind of person who knows how to fix things."

That was debatable. But I had read enough books on plumbing to have a rough idea of what to do.

Without a word, I started walking toward the east wing. Mira followed, falling into step beside me.

"So," she said after a moment, "what were you thinking about before? You looked completely out of it."

"Nothing important."

She hummed, unconvinced. "You always say that."

I didn't respond. Some memories were better left undisturbed.