The hours wore on inside the bustling mechanical lab of Himwarry Magic Academy. Outside, sunlight streamed across tall stained-glass windows, bathing the scattered tools, spools of wire, and delicate mana-infused crystals in radiant colors. The room was alive with energy—hammers tapping metal frames, mana welders sparking with blue light, voices rising in confused chatter.
It was their first true day working on the mechanisms. Spirits had been high that morning; students had clapped each other on the backs, smiling and laughing, fueled by the simple thrill of building something that would stand before nobles and even royalty. But as time marched on, what Aether expected began to unfold with almost cruel inevitability.
"Ehh! Why though?" came a strangled moan from across the lab. One student hunched over his half-assembled frame, shoulders slumped in defeat. His hands, smeared with graphite from rune sketches, fumbled with a delicate crystal relay. "I read the manual carefully. I followed each line exactly—but this still doesn't come together. Did I mess something up without realizing?"
Nearby, another group echoed his frustration. "Yeah… me too," one girl sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her partners hovered anxiously over a half-collapsed conduit array that looked suspiciously like it wanted to explode.
"Ohh! I managed to build something, but…" said a boy with trembling hands. He lifted up his device, only for it to whine ominously and emit a faint puff of black smoke. "I'm sure that's not how it looks in the manual."
"Arghh! It's so confusing… Aether, help!" another group finally cried out, voices tinged with desperation.
The words tumbled over one another until they filled the entire lab like a heavy fog of shared struggle. Everywhere he turned, Aether saw the same—clenched jaws, eyes darting nervously between blueprint and mechanism, heads scratching until hair stood on end. It was almost funny. Almost.
Because the truth was, he'd been waiting for exactly this.
Standing off to one side, arms folded across his chest, Aether allowed himself a small, knowing sigh. From the very start he hadn't interfered—intentionally holding back to see just how far his classmates' own talents and hard-earned basics would take them. They all knew their fundamentals by now; in theory, they were more than prepared. But this was reality, and creating a complex mechanism from the ground up, handling mana resonance arrays and triple coil regulators with live cores for the first time… it was an entirely different beast.
Of course they would struggle. How could they not? Even he had stumbled again and again when he built his very first mechanism. It hadn't been half as intricate as this project—yet it had felt like scaling a sheer cliff with bleeding hands. He still remembered the sting of that learning curve vividly.
So he waited, patient as a hawk, until one by one his classmates lifted their heads, eyes wide, hope drained, and voices pleading for his help.
And then… his time came.
"Alright," Aether said at last, voice low, calm, and almost wickedly pleased. "Let's get started."
He moved through the lab like a dark tide, weaving between workbenches, peering over shoulders, his sharp gaze catching mistakes in an instant. One student had misaligned a stabilizer plate by barely half a millimeter—enough to throw the entire resonance off. Another group had reversed their polarity wires. Yet another had packed their mana sand too tightly in the containment pod, risking a pressure burst.
Aether corrected each error with surgical precision—but never simply doing it for them. Instead, he forced explanations from their lips first.
"Why did you slot the rune crystal this way?"
"B-because the manual diagram—"
"Not good enough. What happens if the flow reverses mid-circuit?"
"Uh—uh—it… it would short out?"
"Short out? It would collapse the entire mana web, idiot. Try again."
They squirmed under his icy stare. And he only smirked.
Soon the whole lab was echoing with groans, sighs, and exhausted mutters. The once-cheerful Technomancy 1 classroom had become a crucible under Aether's unrelenting scrutiny.
"Aether… I'm tired. Let me rest—just for a bit," one girl finally whined, wiping sweat from her brow.
"Nope," Aether shot back instantly, expression devoid of pity. "Not until you can complete this step perfectly."
"Aether, please, we've been at it for hours—"
"No."
They stared at him like he'd grown horns and a tail. Someone in the back muttered darkly under his breath, "Demon…"
"I heard that," Aether drawled, a cold smirk curving his lips. "Call me whatever you want—I don't care. I'm not letting a single one of you out of this lab until you can do it right."
His eyes glittered with challenge. And as he prowled on to the next bench, the collective spirits of his classmates began to crumble. Their faces looked haunted. A chorus of tiny despairing noises—"helppppp…"—rose all around him, as though they were peasants cowering before a tyrant's boots.
No gods would come to save them now.
Still, for all their misery, none of them truly quit. Even as hours dragged by and their limbs grew heavy, determination glimmered behind the fatigue in their eyes. If they were really the type to give up so easily, they wouldn't have chosen this path at all. They wouldn't have landed in Technomancy 1 under a madman like Aether to begin with.
So they kept pushing. Hands trembling, hearts hammering, eyes stinging from sweat, they forced their way through each mistake until understanding dawned at last—painfully, stubbornly, triumphantly.
When the day finally ended, it felt like someone had flipped a lever that drained all the mana from the room. The students trudged out of the lab with hollow stares, uniforms rumpled and hair a chaotic mess. They were walking corpses of their former excited selves.
"Gosh, it's tiring," Morgan groaned, leaning heavily against the courtyard railing as the group made their way back toward the dorms under the rising moon. "How in the world did Aether manage to do all that stuff alone before? It's insane."
That question seemed to ripple through them. Heads nodded slowly, each student falling into thoughtful silence as they remembered how much Aether had always handled without complaint—always three steps ahead, always carrying more than his share.
Then a spark of new resolve lit up in Morgan's eyes. He pumped his fist, even though it shook a little. "Yosh… we've gotta be like him too."
"We're only starting," another girl whispered. "There's still a long way to go."
"Yeah… but seriously," someone else shivered, wrapping their arms around themselves, "Aether's teachings are scary as hell. If he ever becomes a teacher for real, may the gods help the students under him."
"Ahh, don't talk about that—it makes it worse!"
Their laughter was weak, but it was laughter still. Thus, the first day of their grand endeavor came to a battered, successful end.
Meanwhile, back in his solitary dorm room, Aether leaned against his desk, rubbing at the back of his neck. Papers, tiny spare gears, and a glowing mana regulator lay scattered before him. He exhaled a long breath.
"Fuh… we didn't progress much. Well, it's only the first day, so no problem, I guess."
He closed his eyes. In the quiet, he allowed himself to feel just a touch of worry—because he knew the hardest parts were still ahead. But then he smirked faintly. If his classmates could endure today, they could endure anything.
Morning broke again over Himwarry. The birds heralded another round of torment.
Inside the mechanical lab, things were different from the first day. Yesterday, the room had been filled with excitement, curiosity, naive optimism. Today it was more like a condemned barracks before a battle. Students shuffled in with grim determination etched across their faces.
They had even invented a bleak little motto for themselves.
"Another day… another hell," one muttered under his breath.
"Another hell," someone else echoed with a weak salute.
And then, like seasoned soldiers, they didn't waste time waiting for orders. They got straight to work—tinkering, calibrating, rechecking every rune circuit with almost fanatical care. All of this without Aether even being present yet.
So when he finally arrived, arms stretching lazily over his head, jaw cracking with a yawn, he blinked at the sight of them already hard at work.
"Woah… what's this?" he said, a laugh bubbling in his throat. "You're all working even before I show up?"
Morgan glanced up from tightening a mana line and fixed Aether with a baleful glare. "You're late."
Aether stopped dead, then pointed dramatically at them, smirking with devilish delight. "You guys… want me to show you hell twice as bad as yesterday, is that it?"
"Hell no!" came the unanimous shriek. Their eyes went wide with horror, hands clutching half-finished projects like shields.
"Haha… scared, huh?" Aether snickered. Beneath it all, though, warmth bloomed quietly in his chest. Seeing that they hadn't given up, hadn't fled—seeing them tackle these challenges even without his direct pushing—it made something fierce and protective curl inside him.
Just as he settled into his own workbench, ready to begin the second day of merciless tutoring, the door at the back of the lab slowly swung open. The door was locked by default—only two people had keys at this hour. Aether held one.
Which meant the person standing there, framed by the sunlight spilling in from the corridor, could only be—