The afternoon sun slipped behind layers of gray cloud, leaving the air sharp enough to sting bare skin. Snow began to fall, draping the Student Council building in pale white.

  Yet around Rein, the atmosphere remained scorching.

  Residual heat from the clash still bent the air around him, twisting it into shimmering waves—an impossible mirage in the heart of winter. The crimson flames that had engulfed his body faded at last, leaving only thin wisps of smoke curling from his black cloak.

  “So… it snows here too.”

  Rein murmured as he extended his hand. A few snowflakes slipped through the veil of heat and touched his palm, melting into droplets in the blink of an eye.

  “That’s impossible… The Guardian Unit commander was a third-year—a Troposphere Master! How could he be taken down with a single blow?!”

  Panicked voices broke out among the surviving Guardians. The group that had been brimming with confidence moments ago now stood disoriented and afraid—some already breaking formation and fleeing.

  They had always been the ones who hunted others.

  Never the ones being hunted.

  This was the first time the Guardian Unit—over fifty strong—had been nearly wiped out in minutes.

  “What kind of spell was that?” one of the Twin Vipers asked. His voice was calm, yet a faint twitch at the corner of his face betrayed something far less controlled.

  “It didn’t feel like an ordinary Troposphere-tier spell,” the other replied, eyes narrowing with caution.

  Rein glanced at them from the corner of his eye. Beneath their threatening posture, he sensed hesitation.

  “Get him treated. Now, and he might still make it.”

  His voice was cold as his gaze shifted to the fallen commander slumped beside one of the massive stone pillars.

  “I didn’t strike to kill.”

  A translucent blue system window from LIZ slid into view at the edge of his vision.

  [ Ignis Drive: Field-Combat Test Assessment ]

  Status: Target Neutralized (Non-Lethal threshold confirmed)

  Output Power: 54.2% (Reference Model: Kairos’s Flame Strike)

  Thermal Shielding: Stable

  Levitate-Insulation Layer: 98% Efficiency

  Bio-Feedback: Bronze Warrior chassis within safe

  G-force margins

  [Analysis: Mana Flow Rate within CUBE Module experiencing bottleneck. Kinetic ignition has not reached saturation.]

  [LIZ: You’re only hitting about half of Kairos’s output. Also… your cloak’s slightly scorched.]

  Rein skimmed the data in silence.

  If it had matched the real thing… that man wouldn’t still be gasping for air.

  Integrating six spells into a single CUBE had exceeded his expectations. It allowed him to reproduce a Stratosphere-tier finishing move—despite his base power still being firmly locked at Troposphere Master.

  He checked the Mana Core Circles bound by Dragon’s Speech. The flow was smooth and orderly—no backlash, no scorching heat, none of the bone-deep agony he remembered from earlier failures.

  This real-world test clarified the nature of the curse.

  Mana output meant nothing to it.

  The only thing that made it bare its teeth was spell tier.

  As long as he confined himself to Troposphere-level spells, the curse was nothing more than a chain without fangs.

  He also confirmed a critical safety margin: as long as his remaining mana stayed above twelve percent, the curse had almost no room to inflict severe backlash.

  The concept of C.U.B.E.—Combination Universal Binding Engine—had come from a simple observation. Warriors and spellswords fused physical techniques with magic as a matter of course. Yet he had never seen a mage—Troposphere or even Stratosphere—bind multiple spells into a single, coherent construct.

  Is it because the complexity exceeds the limits of the human brain…

  Or because of outdated dogma about “pure spell lines”?

  Even the tomes he’d devoured over the past month mentioned nothing like this. Perhaps their authors had simply lacked the strength—or access—to higher-tier knowledge.

  He pictured the Five Disciples of Arcadia, each rumored to wield Mesosphere-level power, and exhaled quietly.

  In this world, high-tier mages were walking missiles—capable of shaking kingdoms with a gesture. Kings and nobles would trade anything to control or counterbalance such forces.

  No wonder Arcadia was hailed as a continental superpower.

  After all… they had twelve nuclear warheads stationed inside their walls.

  Compared to that, Rein was nothing more than a boxer sent into the ring with one hand tied behind his back.

  And CUBE was the only way to tear those rules apart.

  He drew in a lungful of freezing air. The heat radiating from his body vaporized the snowflakes that touched his cloak into pale mist.

  His gaze locked onto the Twin Vipers as they closed in—movements smooth, synchronized—like a pair of living shadows.

  “Standing there frozen like that…” one twin hissed, his voice rasping like a rattlesnake’s tail. “Starting to regret walking into your own death, are you?”

  “No need to rush,” the other licked his lips hungrily. “We’ll play with you… until we get bored.”

  [LIZ: Be careful, Rein. High-density Ice and Poison mana reactions detected—dual-source overlap confirmed.]

  A warning window unfolded at the edge of his vision, mapping the poisonous haze beginning to spread.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Dual-element mage, huh?” Rein murmured, eyes sharp as he tracked every subtle shift. “Interesting.”

  Without warning, the Twin Vipers moved in perfect unison—as if their minds were linked.

  Index and middle fingers pressed together. Bright green rings spun at their fingertips. As both raised their hands, thick Poison Bolts erupted from their palms—viscous, dark green, like liquid rot flung into the air.

  They had cast only twice.

  Yet four bolts flew.

  Dual-Hand Casting alone was already rare—akin to ambidexterity in Rein’s old world. But what made his brow tighten was the number.

  Through Mana Vision, he saw the truth.

  They had cast twice—clearly. But at the moment of activation, the spell rings duplicated themselves, doubling the output without consuming any additional mana.

  That was where Rein nearly miscalculated—and almost paid for it.

  He had prepared to evade four projectiles.

  Eight tore through the air instead.

  Thanks to the lingering charge of Haste still threading through his muscles and nervous system, his reaction broke past human limits. Rein twisted into a corkscrew midair, slipping past all eight by a hair’s breadth. A few grazed his cloak, leaving scorched, reeking burns behind.

  In that razor-thin gap between life and death, he kicked against the air itself—compressing it with Levitate into an invisible foothold beneath his foot. Using it to redirect his momentum, he shot toward one of the massive stone pillars, taking cover just in time.

  The poison bolts curved back toward their casters—

  But the Twin Vipers had anticipated it.

  Both snapped behind their respective pillars almost in perfect sync, as if yanked by the same invisible thread. The dark-green darts smashed into marble with a vicious hiss. Acid chewed through the stone in widening rings, toxic fumes boiling upward.

  The instant they leaned out again to fire—

  They froze.

  A storm of compressed mana rounds slammed into their cover. Stone shattered. Pillars were punched full of holes. The twins jerked back just in time, grit and splinters tearing across their cloaks.

  Rein wasn’t just hiding.

  The moment he’d taken cover, he’d begun Dual-Hand Casting—Pit Viper loaded at the tip of each index finger. With both hands shaped like pistols, he looked less like a mage and more like someone wielding a matched pair of pistols. Every time either twin exposed so much as an inch, Rein returned fire from alternating angles, pinning them down.

  This bastard… he can Dual-Hand Casting too? one twin spat through the telepathic link.

  Normally, telepathy came with constraints—range, tuning, resonance matching. But for twins who shared blood, affinity, and near-identical mana signatures from birth, mental speech was effortless… faster than words.

  It wasn’t in the intel, the other replied, watching his pillar crater under the barrage.

  And what is that impact? It’s drilling through solid stone. That’s not a cheap Magic Missile—what spell is he even using?

  Why do you care? the first snapped back, fingers brushing the dull-green gemstone earring that flashed once.

  We’ve got Crown’s unique-grade Double Cast. Pay mana for one spell, get two. Less cost. Longer game. He runs dry eventually.

  “Then let’s trade,” the other laughed—sharp, unhinged.

  Both shifted tactics, flooding the courtyard with Poison Bolt. Precision didn’t matter. Volume alone sealed escape routes, turning the space into a choking, corrosive killzone.

  But Rein wasn’t a target that stayed still.

  The instant mana density tightened like a noose, he sprang away from the pillar—snapping into a high-speed zigzag through the forest of columns. Between steps, he fired Pit Viper backward in short bursts—not to kill, but to keep the distance.

  Marble hissed and blistered with every impact. The Academy’s pristine courtyard stained and charred, the air thick with sulfur and rot.

  Too dangerous, Rein thought, eyes narrowing.

  One clean hit in the wrong place—one—and even high-grade healing would arrive too late.

  “Hah! Keep dodging!” one twin jeered, firing without pause.

  Yet neither advanced closer than fifteen feet.

  That distance wasn’t random. It was a calculated Safe Zone—the minimum buffer they believed would keep Rein from closing in and unleashing that monstrous physical force.

  Right now, the twins were doing what they always did.

  Only play the game you’re built to win.

  “End it.”

  One twin shifted spells—Ray of Frost.

  A lance of blue-white cold tore into the base of Rein’s last pillar. In a blink, the ground crystallized into jagged ice—a frozen trap meant to lock movement and punish a single misstep with certainty.

  The other twin held Poison Bolt at the ready, aiming at Rein’s blind side. The plan was simple: force him out. The moment Rein showed even a fingertip, they’d drown him in poison.

  But nothing moved.

  Even as the pillar turned into an ice-cage, the silence didn’t break.

  Did he freeze? one twin sent, uncertain.

  Don’t assume, the other replied instantly. We flank—both sides—then dump spells until there’s nowhere left to dodge.

  “Go.”

  They launched from opposite directions, cloaks snapping, hands already raised—poison ready to erase whatever hid behind that frozen cover.

  They cleared the pillar.

  And found—

  Nothing.

  Only empty air… and the reflection of their own stunned faces in the ice spikes erupting from the ground.

  Then four sharp cracks snapped overhead.

  Pit Viper—four shots, from above.

  Both twins jerked their heads up on instinct.

  Too late.

  The compressed mana rounds punched clean through both their arms. Blood sprayed across the marble. The half-formed Poison Bolt circuits in their hands shattered violently, triggering Mana Backflow—an ugly recoil that tore the spell apart from the inside.

  They hit the marble almost together, sprawling hard.

  And that was when they saw Rein.

  He was there—leaning against the same pillar—except he wasn’t on the ground.

  He hovered more than fifteen feet up, suspended in midair, both hands still shaped like pistols, aimed straight down. His eyes were cold enough to make the snow feel warm.

  “You… cheating bastard,” one twin rasped, forcing the insult through clenched teeth—

  Rein answered with a shot.

  A Pit Viper round drove into his right thigh. Bone cracked. The leg buckled as if the joint had forgotten how to work.

  “Oh?” Rein said, smiling—sharp, cruel. “I thought you said you wanted to have fun until you got bored.”

  He descended—step by step—like invisible stairs had formed beneath his feet. He paused, turning toward the other twin, who was shaking so hard it looked like his body might snap, sweat streaking down his face as he begged without words.

  “Me too.”

  He fired.

  The other twin’s left leg screamed with pain as the shot drove in.

  “AAAGH! You bastard! I didn’t even get to trash-talk you like he did!”

  Rein’s smile softened at the corner—almost polite.

  “But you’re twins, right?” he said, voice calm, eyes merciless. “If you’re going to limp after this… do it symmetrically. Don’t you think?”

  A translucent HUD window flickered at the edge of his vision.

  [LIZ: If you’d aimed for a vital point, those two would be dead.]

  I’m not trying to kill them, Rein answered silently, dispersing the lingering mana at his fingertips with a flick of his hand.

  [LIZ: Wow. You’re kind—considering you didn’t blink when you dealt with the intruders… and “Kellen.”]

  Rein’s brow tightened.

  Not the same thing, LIZ. The intruders were professional assassins. If we didn’t kill them, they would kill us. And Kellen… I didn’t kill a “person.” I destroyed something that had already slipped beyond humanity.

  His gaze dropped to the twins writhing on the marble, blood staining the ice-lit courtyard.

  These two are just pawns used by a noble house. I didn’t finish them because what comes after that is… annoying.

  He ended the exchange there, then turned his attention to the remaining Guardians—those who hadn’t fled—now scrambling to help the frozen and wounded.

  “Get them treated,” Rein said, voice flat, final. “If you still want them alive. You’ve got under three minutes before they bleed out.”

  No one dared meet his eyes. They rushed forward immediately, hauling the Twin Vipers away like broken luggage.

  Rein didn’t look back.

  He walked straight toward the massive metal doors of the Student Council building.

  Black iron, engraved with ancient spellwork—grim and heavy like the mouth of a waiting beast.

  He stopped for a beat.

  Then, without using magic, he shoved.

  The doors groaned—deep and metallic—before swinging inward.

  The corridor beyond opened into view.

  These entries expand the lore and mechanics introduced in this chapter.

  Completely optional—read only if you enjoy diving deeper into the system.

  A modular spell fusion system developed by Rein that binds multiple spells into a single construct.

  – Purpose: To maximize combat flexibility and overcome Rein’s spell-tier restrictions without triggering the mana curse.

  – Advantage: Allows a Troposphere-tier mage to mimic Stratosphere-tier finishing moves.

  – Limitation: Output bottlenecks occur when flow within the system isn’t saturated.

  – Reference: Rein uses it to perform a non-lethal takedown on a Guardian commander with a 6-spell fusion mimicking Kairos’s Flame Strike.

  An internal combat analytics display operated by LIZ, Rein’s AI assistant.

  – Tracks: Power output, shielding efficiency, mana flow, and biomechanical strain.

  – Feedback: Compared Rein’s output (54.2%) to Kairos’s legendary Flame Strike.

  – Application: Helps Rein track efficiency and limitations in real time.

  A highly advanced combat casting technique in which a mage uses both hands to simultaneously channel and deploy separate spells.

  – Mechanics: Unlike traditional single-hand casting, this technique requires each hand to function as an independent conduit—allowing different spell circuits to be formed and stabilized in parallel.

  – Requirements:

  – Exceptional mana control and mental focus.

  – Deep familiarity with both spells being used.

  – Often enhanced with magical gloves, focus rings, or artifact implants.

  – Strategic Benefit: Allows for multi-element attacks, rapid combo chains, or defensive-offensive duality in combat (e.g., shielding with one hand, attacking with the other).

  – In-Story Use: Rein uses Dual-Hand Casting with Pit Viper shots in both hands, mimicking a gunslinger. The Twin Vipers also use this with synchronized Ray of Frost and Poison Bolt.

  – Difficulty: Extremely rare among students. Usually mastered only by Stratosphere-tier mages or those trained in high-speed combat environments.

  – Trivia: Sometimes confused with Double Casting, but the two are different:

  A troposphere expert-tier spell that launches corrosive green projectiles.

  – Appearance: Thick, dark green sludge resembling rotting liquid.

  – Effect: Corrodes marble and poisons upon contact.

  – Used en masse by the Twin Vipers to create a killzone.

  A dangerous magical recoil resulting from interrupted spell circuits.

  – Trigger: When a caster is struck while a spell is mid-formation.

  – Effect: Internal damage, mana loss, and disruption of further casting.

  – Seen when Rein shoots both twins mid-cast, causing their Poison Bolts to rupture internally.

  The ability to simultaneously wield and cast two different elemental magics.

  – In this chapter: Ice and Poison.

  – Noted as rare, akin to real-world ambidexterity.

  – Seen when one twin casts Ray of Frost while the other prepares Poison Bolt.

  A unique-grade enhancement artifact used by the Twin Vipers.

  – Effect: Allows the user to cast one spell and duplicate its output without additional mana.

  – Result: One cast = two projectiles.

  – Strategic Use: Enabled the Vipers to overwhelm opponents through raw spell volume.

  Codename for a high-level spellcasting pair with mirrored abilities.

  – Traits: High-level coordination, telepathic link, Double Cast artifact.

  – Specialization: Poison and Ice magic, used for tactical suppression and lethal pressure.

  – Defeated through Rein’s combination of aerial combat, precision magic, and mobility.