The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 650: Teaching at The Orphanage (3)
With all five present, plus the other ten children filling out the corners of the room, the place hummed with soft chatter and restless energy. The dusty morning light filtering through cracks in the walls made motes of dust swirl lazily overhead, giving the air a golden haze. It was messy and maybe a little chaotic, but Amberine couldn't deny it felt alive.
They split up, each teacher taking their station. It was a practiced routine by now: Elara took Vera and Lina to a cluster of dusty tomes that, despite their battered bindings, contained surprisingly advanced knowledge of glyph structure. Vera liked to act unimpressed, but Amberine had caught her sneaking a reading session once or twice, scribbling her own notes at night. Lina, on the other hand, thrived on detail, devouring each glyph with a hungry mind. They formed an odd duo: the cool older sister figure and the little genius with a mouth as sharp as a newly forged dagger.
Maris corralled Nico and the more boisterous children. Immediately, illusions began fizzing around them like sparks from a bonfire. One child wanted to create a pink thundercloud above Maris's head, another insisted on an entire set of miniature illusions reenacting a fairy battle. Maris maintained that calm, warm patience that had replaced her old timidity—a transformation Amberine still marveled at. She liked illusions because she knew exactly how they could soothe or enrage, distract or amuse. The kids, for better or worse, thrived on her gentle guidance. And if they stepped out of line, she could throw illusions back at them in an instant, the ultimate deterrent.
Amberine gathered Tamryn and Fennel. She led them to the far side of the orphanage's single wide window, where the dusty rays of morning sun offered a bit more illumination. She laid out three small practice orbs, each one capable of detecting and reflecting a child's mana frequency. Hers was a slight variant of the orb she'd invented for the Arcane Symposium, though simpler and cheaper to maintain. The children always seemed entranced by their mild glow.
Fennel set down his satchel carefully, eyes darting around as though expecting a surprise explosion. Tamryn, more composed, tried to steady his breath. He flicked a glance at the practice orb, then to Amberine, as if silently asking for permission to start. She gave him a nod and offered a reassuring half-smile. Not too big—she knew Tamryn sometimes crumpled under direct, overwhelming positivity.
They eased into mana projection exercises, each child placing a palm against the orb's surface. Soft pulses of color shimmered in reaction to their unique flows. Fennel's orb flickered with watery blues and shy violets before sputtering out. Tamryn's glowed a gentle gold, but a ripple of tension made it jump with white sparks.
They were about halfway through the first practice—basic projection and shape control—when it happened. Tamryn inhaled, eyes closing to concentrate, and the orb lit up with a pale, swirling glimmer. For a moment, it looked almost perfect, the color stable. Then abruptly, the glow intensified, spiking with an erratic flash of brilliance. His breath caught.
Amberine's senses snapped to full alert, the hair on her arms prickling. She saw his hands trembling, knuckles turning white as his mana tumbled out of alignment. The swirl of color in the orb twisted, sparks dancing violently in the air, threatening to surge into a short but dangerous overload. Tamryn froze. He stared wide-eyed at his own magic, which refused to obey his timid will. That fragile hush of concentration shattered.
He blinked, fists clenched at his sides, as though he wanted to yank his power back but didn't know how. The orb fizzled, flaring bright for a split second before dimming entirely, leaving an awkward hush in its wake.
"Hey," Amberine said gently, crouching next to him. Her voice was soft enough to cut through the thick tension in the cramped classroom. The kid—Tamryn—looked on the verge of tears, his breath coming in ragged little gulps, eyes flicking anxiously between his trembling hands and the half-lit orb that had just fizzled out in a crackle of mana. "You're okay," Amberine repeated, calmer this time, willing him to breathe as she did. "It's not a fail. It's just static. Here. Hands."
He hesitated, gaze darting sideways toward Fennel, who was also watching with a mixture of concern and relief that he wasn't in Tamryn's place. Then, slowly, Tamryn offered his hands. Amberine took them, palms up, feeling how cold and clammy his skin was. It reminded her uncomfortably of the first time she tried to present a research paper in front of Draven—a bone-deep fear that froze reason and magic alike.
"Feel that?" she murmured, voice dropping low as she guided his hands closer to the orb's faint glow. Her thumbs lightly brushed the underside of his wrists. "That rhythm—right there, in your pulse." She waited until he focused, watched his eyes dull with self-conscious confusion. "That little flutter under your skin? That's mana trying to listen. But you're shouting at it. Talk softer."
She wondered, as she said it, who had taught her that. It certainly wasn't from a neat academy text. Maybe an older mentor, or maybe she'd discovered it herself the first time her own magic had threatened to lash out in a wave of sparks. Either way, it felt important to pass on now.
Tamryn stared at her, uncertain. Up close, his face was thin, cheeks still round with a childhood softness that only half-disguised the tension lurking beneath. For a moment, she worried she was pushing too hard. Kids like him often withdrew when singled out. But then he nodded, just a small tilt of his head. It was enough.
"Alright," Amberine said, exhaling. "Together, okay?" She steadied her own breathing, made sure he could see her chest rise and fall. "Inhale... exhale... let your heartbeat set the pace."
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They did it again. One breath. Two. The workshop's hum of background noise—childish chatter, the shuffle of old desks, the faint bubble of leftover stew on the cooking stone—seemed to fade behind the gentle pulse of mana. A minute passed, maybe two. She could almost sense his fear loosening, his posture settling. The orb flickered to life again, soft and pliant, swirling gold laced with a flicker of white that was no longer violent but curious. Tamryn's mana, she realized, was like a hesitant bird that needed coaxing instead of force.
The second time he channeled, his magic moved. Gently. Not perfectly—there was a tremor near the edges, a slight hiss of energy that refused to vanish completely—but it wasn't about perfection. It was about calmness and self-control. Amberine watched color bloom in the orb, a swirl of subdued brilliance. She allowed herself a small, crooked smile.
"Now that's magic," she said quietly, pride threading her voice. She let go of his hands, noticing the faint tremors still dancing along his fingertips. With practiced stealth, she sketched a rune on his sleeve—a minor regulator, subtle, hidden in the ragged fabric. Just enough to help if he wavered again.
Tamryn's eyes widened as he sensed the faint glyph tingle against his forearm. He glanced up, and Amberine gave a conspiratorial wink as if to say, No big deal—just a cheat sheet. His shoulders relaxed another fraction. She hoped it would embolden him, if only a little.
Meanwhile, chaos brewed across the classroom like an incoming storm. Echoing shrieks of laughter and mock outrage erupted from the other side, where Maris was valiantly trying to corral the "chaos crew." Amberine heard a voice cut through the noise:
"WHY IS THERE A FROG?"
A moment later, the entire left portion of the room seemed to ripple with greenish illusions. She saw a shape bulge outward like a massive toad gaping wide, swallowing Maris from the waist up, leaving only her legs comically visible. The children—particularly Nico—shrieked with laughter, the sort of wild cackle that seemed to vibrate off the walls.
Amberine caught a glimpse of Maris's face. She didn't flinch, though her expression said she'd had enough illusions for one morning. Maris blinked once, then calmly dispelled the amphibian spectacle in one smooth wave of her own magic, an emerald shimmer that dissolved the toad's flickering image into harmless sparks.
Her eyes landed on Nico, who beamed with pride, his chest puffed as if he'd just performed an award-winning trick. Maris, however, was unimpressed. "One day," she said with eerie composure, "I won't cancel your spell. Then you'll live in a frog belly forever." Her tone was light, but her gaze carried enough of a warning to make even Nico squeak a little.
Still, the kids around him squealed with delight, some rolling on the floor, others bouncing in their seats at the spectacle. If anything, Nico looked delighted he'd pushed Maris that far. He thrived on the adrenaline of illusions, and the class was his playground.
Across the room, at Elara's makeshift station, Lina was hunched over her parchment, scribbling furiously. Amberine could sense an undercurrent of focus so intense that not even the rampaging illusions or the frog fiasco rattled her concentration. Amberine's curiosity got the better of her. She ambled over, stepping between the chaotic tables, giving Tamryn a reassuring nod to indicate she'd be right back.
She leaned over Lina's shoulder, noticing the lines and curves taking form in the margins of the girl's paper. A suspicious glyph, shaped like a small circle flanked by spiky loops. Amberine frowned thoughtfully. "Is that a modified repulsion loop?"
Lina's grin was wolfish, a sharp contrast to her usual stoic expression. "Nope," she said with a satisfied glint. "It's a trap glyph to banish boys."
