That night, Clayton lay awake in his room. The faint glow of arcane wards shimmered against his ceiling. His containment box still held Mirage Cascade, and now, with everything he'd heard, it felt more like a story hook than a tool.
He remembered again: "What if I'm not the protagonist?"
But what if someone else was trying to make him one?
The idea chilled him more than the card itself.
If Haltright was behind this—if a professor with diplomatic reach was choosing who got nudged, who got noticed—then this wasn't just academy politics.
This was grooming.
Targeting potential pieces for a game no student had officially joined yet.
And worst of all, the academy was allowing it. Or turning a blind eye.
That meant one of two things: either Haltright was acting under the radar… or someone far above him was letting it happen.
He remembered Haltright in the novel; he was just a very minor character who was blackmailed by Eric for some information, and the only reason Clayton remembered it was because it was one of the coolest moments of Eric in the novel.
Everything is so messed up now; minor characters whose names are barely mentioned are changing the entire storyline but Haltright does not have his own motives. Someone sure is pulling his strings
Clayton rolled onto his side and muttered to himself:
"Great. I didn't transmigrate to a novel. I transmigrated to a multi-layered chessboard… with half the pieces hidden."
Back in the dorm hallway, Eric sat alone in his room, tracing Haltright's name over and over in a conjured notebook. There were too many gaps. Too much silence in the records. Even the Black Veil's private files had only fragments.
But the most telling detail?
Haltright had once worked in the eastern councils. The same region where the Warwick Union was barely holding itself together.
Eric's fingers tightened around the pen.
He wasn't just helping Clayton and Asher out of goodwill. He was watching them because they were part of this strange current, this manipulation of rising talents. And Eric hated not being in control.
But if Haltright thought he could play with Eric without consequences, then he'd underestimated the Ashfords.
The wind carried a faint chill across the courtyard of Vyrith Academy. Morning light spilled through rune-glass towers, filtering down in soft gold, but Clayton barely noticed it. He moved through the corridor steps with quiet precision, the weight of last night's revelations still pressing on his mind.
Eric was already waiting by the benches—back straight, hands resting on the hilt of his arcane cane like a bored noble forced into formalities. But Clayton knew better. Eric Ashford was rarely bored and never idle.
"You're early," Clayton said.
Eric gave a nonchalant shrug. "You're just late enough to seem considerate."
Before Clayton could respond, Asher emerged from the central stairwell, his uniform impeccable, his posture as crisp as ever. But his eyes were tired—focused in that calculating way Clayton was starting to recognize.
"Asher, morning," Clayton said.
Eric didn't look up. "It's worse than we thought."
Asher met Clayton's eyes. "We've been digging into Haltright's record."
Clayton leaned forward. "And?"
Eric expanded the projection with a flick of his fingers. "Meet Professor Aldric Haltright. Senior administrator, Head of External Arcane Relations, currently overseeing Vyrith's cross-faction programs and the international apprentice exchanges. And a man with far too clean a profile."
"Too clean?" Clayton repeated.
"No published bias. No voting history on faculty issues. But somehow he's present on the approval logs for over two dozen elective expansions in the last four years." Eric scrolled through data logs. "Marvin's class was just one of them. All small electives. All slipped in through official channels."
Asher added, "He doesn't lead major lectures. Doesn't supervise duels. But he sits on every committee that matters—recruitment, artifact import, curriculum oversight, even security auditing."
Clayton blinked. "So… a bureaucrat?"
"Not just that," Eric said. "He's a political node. Vyrith doesn't belong to a single country—it's a convergence of many. Haltright is the one who manages the academy's public face. Diplomats know him before they know our professors."
"Let me guess," Clayton said. "He's untouchable."
Asher's tone turned clinical. "Not untouchable. Just layered. He's made himself boring on paper. Uninteresting. But that's a shield. He's playing long-term power."
Eric zoomed in on a portion of the projection—a faculty schedule grid. "This is what tipped me off. I accessed his meeting logs for last semester. Look here—two unscheduled visits to Marvin's old research lab. No justification entered. And one meeting—off-record—with a visiting cardsmith two weeks before Marvin's elective was expanded."
"Was the cardsmith affiliated?" Clayton asked.
Eric shook his head. "No faction flag. Registered under a minor smithing guild in the Warwick region. But the guild's since dissolved."
Clayton narrowed his eyes. "Clever."
Asher added, "It's enough to know the card chain passed through official hands. Everything looks clean, but it was curated that way."
Clayton leaned back, exhaling slowly. "And Marvin?"
"Haltright signed his contract renewal personally. Twice," Eric said.
That wasn't normal. Instructors were usually handled by junior deans or elective coordinators.
"So either Marvin is his project," Asher said, "or Haltright needed someone disposable."
Clayton's fingers drummed on the table. "Either way, he's more involved than he should be."
Eric pulled up another pane. "Student reports. Cross-referenced from electives Marvin taught. Attendance spikes, then dips. But here's what's strange—his best-performing students all applied for external placement programs. Haltright's department."
Asher raised an eyebrow. "So Marvin prepares them, and Haltright filters them out."
"And distributes them," Eric finished. "Most obscure apprenticeships. Very few return."
Clayton's expression darkened. "He's planting assets."
"Or testing control thresholds," Asher murmured.
They were quiet for a moment, the scope of it all settling over them. What had started as untraceable illusion cards now looked like a systemic grooming operation. Legal on the surface. Devastating underneath.
Clayton broke the silence. "So what's our next step?"
"There's an open panel this evening," Asher said. "Haltright is presenting updates on cross-faction initiatives. Public, but limited seating. Mostly upper-rank students and aspiring externs."
"We got in?" Clayton asked.
Eric smirked. "I sent applications from three fabricated students. Easy to replace, and our IDs are masked underneath."
Clayton blinked. "That easy?"
"I grew up in a political union held together by bribes and etiquette," Eric said, deadpan. "You learn to bend the surface without snapping it."
Clayton chuckled despite the tension. "Fair."
Asher continued, "We attend quietly. Listen, watch who he interacts with. I'll speak to him after—lightly, as myself. He won't expect me to ask anything pointed."
Clayton frowned. "And if he smells something off?"
"Then we'll adjust," Eric said. "But if we push now, we lose access. This is just a survey, not a confrontation."
Clayton tapped the table. "Still... it doesn't make sense."
"What doesn't?" Asher asked.
"This level of operation. The risk. The cards. Even if they're clean, refining them costs resources. Why run this through a middle-tier instructor? Why not just recruit students the normal way?"
Eric folded his arms. "Because this isn't about recruitment."
Asher finished the thought. "It's about engineering outcomes. You can't control who a student becomes—but if you give them the right kind of power early, you influence who they listen to."
Clayton looked down at his comm-band, at the Mirage Cascade still locked in his containment box.
A tool. A whisper. A string waiting to be pulled.
Eric waved a hand and dispersed the projection. "We'll meet an hour before the panel. Reconfirm veils. No direct questions. Just observation."
They rose, gathering their satchels.
Clayton paused. "One more thing. Do you think the academy knows? That someone higher up is letting Haltright run this?"
Asher's voice was quiet. "If they didn't, he wouldn't still be here."
"And if they did?" Clayton asked.
But no one replied because all three of them knew the answer.