Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 162: Magic Initiation

"Winter break is almost here."

Professor Hargrave, a mountain of tweed and disapproval, stood before the class, a ledger open in his massive hands.

"Whoever does their initiation in breaks will get a 10% credit increase by the end of the year. So, quick and register your initiation."

A collective groan rose and fell like a tide. Doing an initiation over break was the academic equivalent of volunteering for extra guard duty during a festival. Why would you sacrifice precious, unstructured freedom for more grueling, specialized magic drills? Breaks were for... well, breaks.

Hargrave’s gimlet eyes scanned the room, landing on Cecilia. "Miss Araceli, I hadn’t seen your initiation registration. You usually only do your initiation in breaks. Quickly register."

Cecilia offered a smile. "I have submitted my registration, sir."

The professor frowned, his bushy brows knitting together as he peered at his schedule crystal. "Huh?" He tapped it, the glyphs shimmering. Her name was there, registered before the break, but... "Tomorrow?"

His frown deepened. Initiations were planned weeks, sometimes months, in advance. Tomorrow was absurdly last-minute.

Magic initiation was the crucible of a mage-student’s year. It was where Vision Mages honed their ’specialties’ and Force Mages solidified their ’intention’.

Students would attach themselves to specialized magical organizations or renowned masters for short, intensive programs, emerging with a certificate that was more than a grade, it was a badge of proven capability.

It was often more grueling than the regular semester, and depending on the master or organization, could be perilous. This held true even for those undertaking their family’s own ’signature magic’ initiation.

Yes, a privilege reserved for ancient, well-established houses like the Imperial family, the Vasilievs, or the Edengolds, whose magical lineages were officially acknowledged to be rigorous and distinct enough to qualify.

Cecilia had unearthed all this in the library. She’d also found the physical proof in her dorm room. A small box containing five initiation certificates, one for each year of her attendance. Each was for a different telekinesis-related guild or master.

Perhaps one of the reasons she had been called a top nerd was because she had always had her initiation every year when long breaks happen. Especially winters.

The reasoning, when she pieced it together, was simple and a little sad. In this world, as in hers, she was an orphan. The ’Araceli’ name held prestige, but it offered no warm hearth to return to during the long, empty stretches of holiday.

Rather than be the lonely girl haunting the silent dormitories, a magnet for pitying whispers or worse, she chose the structured hardship of initiation. It was a shield of respectability and busyness.

She could guess she’d have wished initiations were biannual, to fill the summer break too. But apparently, summers were already booked with equally noble, lonely pursuits. A part-time job as a library assistant and student charity work.

A wistful thought brushed her mind. This was a good school. She’d want to go to this kind of school in the real world. The support, the opportunities, the sheer normalcy of its challenges were a world away from the cutthroat piety and political venom of the Temple Academy. Truly leaps and bounds.

But this year, she had a different mission. This wasn’t about filling empty time or stacking credits anymore, but about proximity. About secrets.

Information.

"You’re registering for Professor Baswara’s initiation?" Hargrave’s voice cut through her reverie, his eyebrows shooting up towards his receding hairline in pure astonishment.

The reaction in the room was, well, layered confusion perhaps. Most students just looked blank. Professor who? Their confusion was more about why the ever-reliable Cecilia Araceli was breaking her own tradition and not doing her initiation over the break, rather than about the obscure name.

Except for one person.

Cecilia didn’t need to turn her head. She could feel the shift in the air beside her. A sudden, focused stillness.

Oathran. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He had gone perfectly motionless.

When she risked a sidelong glance, his eyes were fixed on the professor, but they were... active. Emotions were passing through them too quickly to name. Surprise? Sharp concern? A flicker of alarm? Those, yes, and something else. A lot.

All professors were legally acknowledged to conduct their own initiations, provided they had the expertise. And unless they had a valid, pre-declared reason not to, they were required by law to accept any student who formally applied.

It was a law meant to ensure access to knowledge.

Cecilia had submitted her application via the school’s arcane administrative crystal the night before. She’d input her identity sigils, attached her past certificates, and selected ’Baswara, S. (Emeritus)’ from the dropdown list of available initiators.

The notification of her registration, and its subsequent approval, had pinged into Hargrave’s ledger, and presumably Baswara’s own crystal, near-instantly.

It seemed that Baswara was eager!

...and she still couldn’t wrap her mind over how fast she could register and get accepted in this world.

The bureaucratic machinery here was a dream of efficiency. Input, send, confirm. No weeks of waiting, no lost paperwork, no petty officials demanding bribes. As long as you had your credentials in order, the system worked. Was this utopia...?

Approved! This morning! And she just registered last night! Wow!

But the practical wonder was drowned out by the human reaction sitting inches away.

Oathran finally turned his head to look at her. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The question was clear in his gaze. Why? What are you doing?

Cecilia, of course, met his look with a calm, polite smile, the same one she’d given the professor.

There was no reason for her to delay anything.

The information extracted from Angela, paid for with a carefully edited anecdote about Eastiel that left out all unexplainable context, was more concerning than she’d ever thought.

There were no records. Not really.

No official entrance test scores in the archives, yes, that, they already knew. But also...

No legal paperwork. No formal registration beyond a single line in the Headmaster’s discretionary log, ’Oathran Alicei. Admitted.’ It was less an administrative process and more a... declaration. A fact inserted into reality.

He hadn’t navigated the system. He had bypassed it entirely. He had, as Angela’s network had reluctantly confirmed, simply appeared.

One day, he wasn’t. The next, he was a student in the Unique Magic Department, his presence accepted as seamlessly as if he’d always been there, his past a politely blank page no one dared or could fill.

Almost as if he was able to just disappear before anyone could notice.

It spoke of a power operating on a different plane from school rules and magisterial oversight. It echoed Eastiel’s description of the world ’filling in the blanks’ around a core prompt. But this felt more deliberate, more pointed.

Oathran wasn’t just a ’transfer student’ archetype with filled-in history. He was a void with a countdown.

So what if she was walking straight into the dragon’s, or rather, the retired headmaster’s den?

The question now felt laughably naive. The ’den’ was the whole point. It was the only fixed point in the strange, ephemeral cloud of Oathran’s existence here. Baswara was the connection, the only person in this fabricated world who seemed to have a substantive link to Oathran’s fabricated past.

If there were answers, if there was a reason for the blankness, they would be with Baswara.

As Professor Hargrave droned on about credit percentages, Cecilia let her gaze rest on Oathran’s profile. He was looking down at his desk, his fingers tracing the grain of the wood, a faint, pensive frown on his face.

He seemed... contemplative. Resigned, perhaps.

The anger that had once made her slap the real Oathran for his fatalism ignited again, but now it was cold and terrified.

So what if she was walking into the den?

She was already in the maze with him. And the walls were closing in.

Because the man beside her might not have enough time anymore.