FALLEN ORACLE

**Chapter 1: The Forsaken (2)**

Morin frowned. Chen Yi wasn't a careless person. He should have taken better care of something as important as his spellbook."When did you lose it?""I'm not sure. But definitely before the Rongqi Tournament."Strangely enough, Chen Yi looked at his spellbook every day, yet he couldn't remember exactly when it went missing.Morin thought it over. The tournament was yesterday. So he'd lost it recently.Stealing someone else's spellbook was pointless. And Chen Yi got along with most people at the academy. Sure, a few might resent him for being allowed to stay despite the rules, but would they really take that kind of risk?The headmaster turned away and sighed quietly. "Your luck really is terrible."Chen Yi had nothing to say. He didn't know how to answer that.On the continent of Alpha, almost every young person with magical talent experiences a mysterious event in their dreams called "Divine Communion."During the communion, a god from the upper realm personally teaches them high-level magic.In other words, without being chosen by a god for Divine Communion, it's nearly impossible to learn high-level magic. Generally speaking, the more talented you are, the sooner a god chooses you.Chen Yi's experience was the opposite. When he first entered the academy years ago, everyone—students and professors alike—agreed that his magical talent was the greatest Rongqi Academy had seen in a thousand years.And yet, that same person had never been chosen by any god.If you said Chen Yi was unlucky, heaven had still given him talent that others could only dream of.But if you said he was lucky, the gods refused to choose him. Without the boost of Divine Communion, his peers quickly surpassed him.Like today at the Magic Tournament. All he could do was squeeze every drop out of basic spells just for a chance to win.Seeing Chen Yi couldn't answer, the headmaster walked to a corner of the office, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of orange-red distilled liquor and a glass.He poured himself a drink, took a sip, and asked, "What do you think magic is?"Chen Yi's eyes widened. The most powerful mage on the continent—also one of its top magic researchers—was suddenly asking him that?"Well... magic is a phenomenon where humans use their willpower, through media like magic rings, to draw mana from the Magic Net and produce effects that can act on the physical or spiritual world," Chen Yi recited."That's the textbook definition. I want *your* thoughts." Headmaster Morin seemed dissatisfied.Chen Yi took a deep breath. It looked like, on this particular day, the headmaster wasn't going to let him off easy."Headmaster, could I close the office door first?" Chen Yi asked.The headmaster waved his left hand, and the door swung shut on its own. Now only the two of them remained in the room.And they were about to discuss some "ultimate questions" that the church might not tolerate."Now. Your thoughts?"Chen Yi nodded. "Headmaster, you might know my family runs a bakery."The headmaster didn't interrupt what seemed like a non-sequitur. He gestured for Chen Yi to continue."If you take wheat of similar quality, put it through the same process, and bake it in ovens with similar heat for the same amount of time, you'll get loaves that look, taste, and feel the same."The headmaster nodded in agreement."Once you master that process, it doesn't matter if it's me, my parents, or some classmate who's never baked bread before—they'll all produce almost identical bread. We call that a 'law.' It's the foundation of all research.""But magic isn't like that at all," Chen Yi said. "The magic the gods taught you—you can't teach it to me the same way. The symbols in your spellbook are just meaningless scribbles to me.""To cast the same spell, your process of mana manipulation is useless to me. Because to cast that same spell, I need a completely different process.""So-called 'laws' don't apply to magic.""So in my view," Chen Yi paused, "magic is the law of chaos."*Clap, clap, clap.*Headmaster Morin applauded. "Truly my finest student. Your understanding of magic is deeper than most of the professors here. Even though many don't want to admit it, even we can only teach the *use* of magic, not magic itself."Rongqi Academy was the largest and most powerful magic academy on the continent. Almost every mage of note had trained here.And yet the headmaster of such a school had just admitted, with resignation, that he couldn't teach magic.Chen Yi looked down. "I'm just an intermediate trainee. And your finest student already..."They both fell silent. Only now had they truly arrived at the heart of today's conversation.The headmaster took out another glass, poured a small amount of wine, and handed it to Chen Yi. He took it."To Lisa.""To Lisa."Their glasses clinked. No further words were needed. Their shared grief spoke for itself. Today was Lisa's memorial day.Lisa had entered Rongqi Academy the same year as Chen Yi. Her magical talent matched his. In the early years, they'd been good friends, often holed up in the library together, studying, pushing each other to improve.Unlike Chen Yi, Lisa had been chosen by a god early on. After her Divine Communion, her strength grew by leaps and bounds. Two years ago, she became the youngest professor in Rongqi Academy's history, specializing in psi-based magic.For Headmaster Morin, Chen Yi and Lisa were his two favorite students. Not only were they exceptionally talented, but they also had an uncommon passion for learning and research.The three of them often set aside their statuses and discussed deep, sometimes impractical questions ranging far and wide.But tragedy struck a year ago. Lisa died quietly in her faculty dormitory, without a sound.They found her body in the morning. She looked like she was just sleeping.There were no wounds. No signs of psychic attack.The only suspicious detail: guards at the dormitory had seen Lisa leave alone late the night before, her destination unknown. She returned about an hour later.And she'd apparently used magic to hide her trail, which brought the investigation to a dead end.A genius, fallen silently in her sleep.