Ezra glanced at his paper.
Question two.
“Explain the relationship between mana compression and spell velocity. Include the risks associated with over-compression.”
He exhaled.
“Mana compression determines how dense the mana is when forming a spell. The denser the mana, the faster and more forceful the spell becomes.”
Vanitas nodded, motioning for him to continue.
“However,” Ezra added, “over-compression increases the risk of spell destabilization, which can lead to misfires or backlashes.”
Silence.
The class held their breath, waiting for Vanitas’s response.
Vanitas’s voice broke through their quiet exchange.
“Acceptable,” Vanitas finally said, though his tone was devoid of praise. “But your explanation lacked detail.”
Ezra opened his mouth, but no words came out. He wanted to retort, but refrained from doing so.
In his whole life, he had never been humiliated this much before.
He lived his whole life showered with praise, but none of those were present here.
The classroom grew noisy with students discussing for some reason, completely forgetting they were taking a test.
Vanitas, seated at his desk, leaned back and propped both feet onto the table with a loud, resounding thud, completely silencing the room.
“Thirty minutes remain,” Vanitas said coolly. “Each whisper I hear will subtract one minute.”
“…..!”
The murmurs stopped instantly.
Vanitas leaned further into his chair, watching the students scramble to refocus on their tests.
Ezra clenched his fist under the desk, his eyes fixed on the paper before him.
This wasn’t just a test. It felt like a public execution.
The questions weren’t just complex. They required knowledge he hadn’t even encountered yet.
He glanced at the diagrams, the mana flow equations, the theoretical constructs of magic circuit efficiency.
None of it made sense!
“Shit,” Ezra muttered under his breath.
The student beside him nudged him with an elbow, whispering, “Dude, just write something down.”
Seriously, who is this guy?
Ezra scrawled half-hearted answers.
Vanitas’s gaze swept over the room.
Every now and then, his eyes landed on a student, freezing them in place as if they were prey caught in the predator’s trap.
Astrid, seated near the front, kept her focus entirely on the test.
Her pen glided across the paper with confidence, though even she occasionally furrowed her brow.
“Five minutes deducted,” Vanitas announced suddenly.
The tension in the room spiked.
Ezra’s heart sank. Someone had whispered, and now there were only 25 minutes left.
“Are you serious?” someone mumbled, immediately realizing their mistake.
“Four minutes,” Vanitas added without missing a beat.
Ezra’s pen snapped in his hand.
“Fuck this,” he muttered as quietly as he could, grabbing another pen from his bag.
“Language, Ezra,” Vanitas said without looking up.
Ezra froze.
How the hell did he even hear that!?
Vanitas stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor.
He walked to the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back.
“Your performance today,” he began, “will set the tone for the rest of this semester.”
His voice carried across the room.
“I’m not here to babysit. If you can’t handle the pressure, leave now.”
No one moved.
Ezra gritted his teeth, gripping his pen tightly.
The last thing he wanted was to be singled out again.
“Fifteen minutes remaining,” Vanitas announced.
The sound of pens scribbling against paper grew frantic.
Karina, seated at the side of the room, shuffled nervously, her hands gripping her clipboard.
Even she seemed intimidated by Vanitas’s presence.
Ezra stared at the last question, sweat dripping down his temple.
It was a complex problem about mana alignment during high-tier spellcasting.
“Come on, think….” he whispered to himself.
The room was dead silent now, save for the occasional scratch of a pen.
Vanitas’s gaze lingered on Ezra for a moment before moving on.
“Ten minutes.”
Ezra’s heart pounded. He scribbled down whatever came to mind.
“Five minutes left.”
The tension was unbearable.
Vanitas returned to his desk, sitting down with a calm, detached expression.
“Time’s up,” he said finally.
“Place your papers at the front and leave the room.”
“But Professor, there’s still thirty minutes left before the lecture ends—” a student, who sat at the front along with Astrid, said.
“Are you questioning my decision?”
The student faltered, shaking their head. “N-No, Professor.”
“Good.”
The student gulped and hurried to the front, placing their paper on the growing pile.
One by one, the rest of the class followed.
Astrid, with her head held high, marched confidently to the desk.
Her paper was filled and neat, a complete contrast to the messy or half–finished papers of her peers.
She glanced at Vanitas briefly, but his eyes didn’t meet hers.
Instead, he flipped through the stack of papers already placed on his desk.
“Ezra.” Vanitas called without looking up.
Ezra froze mid-step, his paper clutched tightly in his hands. For some reason, Vanitas’s attention was always on Ezra.
Astrid briefly glanced at Ezra before leaving the classroom.
“Y-Yes, Professor?”
“Hand it over.”
Ezra approached cautiously and placed his paper on the desk.
Vanitas’s fingers tapped the stack and lifted his gaze to meet Ezra’s.
“Interesting.”
Ezra opened his mouth as cold sweat beaded from his forehead, but no words came out.
What did the Professor want now?
“Dismissed.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Is…. that it?”
“Yes, do you have something else to say?”
“N–No, I’ll be going now.”
Just like that, Ezra left the lecture hall.
***
“Karina, could you bring these over to my office? I have somewhere to be.”
“Okay, but, why did you end the lecture early?”
“Not now, I’ll tell you later.”
Vanitas got up and rushed out of the lecture hall.
Karina stared blankly at the space where Vanitas once stood. For some reason, he seemed to be in a hurry.
Karina occasionally noticed the subtle twitch in his movements, but chose not to comment.
Despite his strict demeanor, she could sense an unusual tension in the Professor.
He was definitely nervous.
Even four years of teaching experience wasn’t enough to completely compose oneself.
“I can do it too.”
Just from that fact alone left Karina inspired.
Karina looked at the paper atop the pile.
“Ezra Kaelus.”
For some reason, the Professor had never thrown him out of the lecture hall.
In the past, she had heard stories of Vanitas immediately failing students like him on the first day, despite them being able to answer his questions perfectly.
But that didn’t happen today at all. In fact, he had offered him advice.
It was truly odd.
“I wonder what the Professor’s so busy with, though.”
***
“Fuck, I managed to held it in.”
Vanitas bolted into the nearest bathroom, barely managing to lock the stall door before collapsing onto the seat.
His stomach churned violently, and he let out a shaky breath.
“Haaa…..”
The earlier lecture played back in his mind as he buried his face in his hands.
He’d distributed the test purely as a diversion, desperately needing a way to cut the time during the sudden crisis.
“Shit, why now of all times?”
The sound of students chatting faintly echoed through the hallway outside.
Vanitas groaned, clutching his stomach.
“A ‘terrifying’ Professor stuck in a stall while taking a shit. Amazing.”