Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 989: Up to you

“…Sigh…”

Professor Varnen’s exhale this time was heavier, tired in a way that had little to do with age and everything to do with experience. He glanced sidelong at Lucavion, as though measuring not his power—but his patience.

“Your attitude in this matter will be important.”

Lucavion’s eyebrows lifted with almost theatrical innocence. “Why?”

Varnen didn’t flinch. “Because the Academy will need to investigate this.”

There was no threat in his tone. No heat. Just inevitability.

“I don’t know what you’ve done—yet,” he said, “but it appears you’ve already made quite a few enemies by simply walking through the door.”

Lucavion’s lips curled, not quite into a smile. “I did no such thing. People simply choose to be my enemies. I don’t force anyone.”

A beat of silence.

Then Varnen muttered under his breath, “…I can see why people choose to be your enemy.”

Lucavion blinked once. “Really?”

Another sigh—this one laced with reluctant amusement.

“I’ve seen students burn too brightly before,” Varnen murmured. “But they usually flicker out just as fast. You… you’re different.”

He glanced down the corridor briefly, scanning for eavesdroppers—not suspecting Elara’s stillness behind the pillar.

“If the spheres fail to register your affinity again,” he continued, voice lower now, “and the Academy still can’t categorize you… then the Tower will likely want involvement. The Arcanist Circle, perhaps. Or worse—the Dominion Archive.”

Lucavion tilted his head, lashes half-lowered. “I’ve always wanted to be the subject of a state-sanctioned dissection. How flattering.”

“Don’t be flippant,” Varnen said sharply. “You are a rare specimen.”

And Lucavion—ancestors help them all—did not take that as a warning.

He took it as acknowledgment.

His chin lifted slightly, his gaze sharpening with the kind of quiet that usually preceded storms. He didn’t thank the professor. He didn’t preen. But something behind his eyes flickered—dark and resolute.

From her hiding spot, Elara could feel it even from a distance.

’So that’s what happened…’

Her mind, always fast, pieced the fragments together:

No affinity shown.

A rare fire.

A void in the sphere.

’That’s why they think he cheated.’

Varnen exhaled once more, the sound brittle against the quiet tension stretching between them.

“For now,” he said, straightening the edge of his robe, “you’ll need to wait for word from the Academy. Official review protocol. I’ll be submitting a formal report.”

Lucavion didn’t respond—just watched, head tilted slightly like he was listening to a song only he could hear.

“It’s highly likely this will all be resolved during your mana control examination,” the professor continued, his voice returning to its clipped, measured register. “Assuming you don’t… explode or set anyone on fire.”

“No promises,” Lucavion murmured.

Varnen gave him a sharp look, but ignored the quip.

“Regardless,” he said, more sober now, “you should expect more eyes on you from now on. Not all of them friendly. Some of them very old.”

Lucavion’s expression didn’t shift, but the air around him seemed to still.

“I’m used to it, Professor,” he said simply.

Not boastful.

Not weary.

Just… true.

Varnen studied him one last time—this strange student who walked like smoke and smiled like a blade—and then, with a small nod, turned and left down the corridor. His footsteps echoed once, twice, and then faded beneath the hum of ambient enchantments.

Lucavion didn’t move.

He remained by the archway, posture loose but still—not the stillness of hesitation, but of patience. Purposeful. Intent.

Then, with no shift in breath or tone, he spoke into the air without looking up.

“How about showing yourself now?”

The words didn’t echo, but they landed with precision.

Sharp.

Unmistakable.

Elara let out a quiet breath through her nose.

Of course he’d noticed.

There was no use pretending otherwise—the man had a hunter’s intuition, one that reached far beyond ordinary mana sense. Even the professor had likely known she was there, simply choosing not to expose her.

Stepping out from behind the pillar, she straightened her posture and walked forward, the echo of her boots light against the marble.

Lucavion didn’t turn immediately. He waited until she was beside him before glancing over, his mouth curving faintly. “Thought you’d left.”

“I didn’t,” she said simply.

He hummed, almost approving. “I see.”

And then silence.

Not an awkward one—more like the kind that filled the air after thunder, when the world was still remembering how to breathe again.

They fell into step together, leaving the corridor behind. The path toward the dorms stretched ahead, washed in the pale light of the late afternoon wards. The chatter from the Hall had long since faded into distant noise.

Elara glanced sideways at him as they walked, her tone careful, quiet.

“What happened in there, Lucavion?”

He didn’t answer right away. The wind stirred, brushing against the loose strands of her hair, and when he finally spoke, his voice came low—measured.

“Depends on what you mean by what happened.

“

Her brows drew together slightly. “They were accusing you of cheating. Of using an artifact.”

He tilted his head, eyes catching a shard of light that made them seem darker, deeper.

“Ah,” he murmured. “That.”

Elara stopped walking for half a heartbeat, her curiosity outweighing her caution. “So? Did you?”

Lucavion stopped walking.

Just enough that the space between them caught the fading light. He turned his head, the faint trace of humor leaving his face. When he spoke, his voice was quieter—cut with that slow, deliberate tone he used when he wanted a question to land.

“What do you think, Elowyn?”

His gaze held hers, steady, unreadable. “Do you think what you saw in there—what you’ve seen from me—comes from an artifact?”

Elara met his eyes, her throat tightening around the words she didn’t want to admit. The black in his irises wasn’t opaque. It moved, faintly, like smoke curling behind glass.

Her mind offered the logical answer first—no, it didn’t make sense. An artifact couldn’t channel mana like that, couldn’t mimic the resonance that lived inside the body. Not with that level of synchronization. Not with that pulse that seemed to breathe with his veins.

Even when they’d fought—if you could call that clash a fight—she had felt it. Those cold flames hadn’t come from a focus or conduit. They had come from him. Raw, controlled, yet utterly unnatural.

An awakened body could move fast, could amplify reflexes—but Lucavion’s movements went beyond that. His speed, the precision in it, had the same rhythm as his fire: too clean, too fluid. The kind of mastery that didn’t belong to someone borrowing power.

She remembered the moment the black flame had brushed her barrier, that instant of freezing heat crawling up her arm. It hadn’t burned. It had bitten. Like it was alive, aware, deliberate.

Artifacts couldn’t do that.

Elara exhaled slowly. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t think it came from an artifact.”

Lucavion’s mouth curved—faintly, almost kindly, but there was an edge there too. “Then I suppose you’re ahead of the academy in that conclusion.”

He looked forward again, the hint of amusement returning to his voice. “But don’t sound so certain, Elowyn. People tend to fear what they can’t categorize. Makes them eager to invent explanations that sound neat.”

“So I should doubt you.”

Her voice came even, but there was something sharper in it—a deliberate test, the kind she didn’t always realize she gave until it was already spoken.

Lucavion’s head tilted just slightly, enough for his grin to ghost back into place. “…Maybe.”

A pause, just long enough for his gaze to flick toward her again. “I’d prefer you didn’t, though.”

Elara huffed through her nose, a sound between a scoff and a laugh. “Should I, or should I not? Choose one, bastard.”

That earned a real smile this time—the kind that almost looked sincere if you didn’t know him. “Hehe… it’s up to you to choose.”

His tone had that lazy warmth again, but beneath it she caught the same undercurrent that had followed him since the test—something unsettled, deep, deliberate.

And as the two of them continued walking toward the dorms, the air between them felt like a balance held on the edge of a blade—neither trust nor suspicion, but the strange, fragile rhythm that lived somewhere in between.