Pristine Academy: Singularity's Manifestation

The Singularity's Polarity

Patricia looks at the familiar professor in front of her, “You seem a bit in a rush, huh? You look like you came from a wooded area.” The student suddenly rushes to fix herself which made Cassidy laugh, “I know classes will be pretty tiring for you, but we have much more important matters to discuss. Your control over your power.” Patricia nods as they went inside the stadium-like classroom. “This is a whole classroom just for one class?” Her professor nods, “This is only used by the first years, so don’t worry about any elemental residual. Besides, Sir Rohan didn’t start teaching everyone how to fight using elements yet. If that’s another cause of your uncontrolled power, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Elemental residual? What do you mean?” Cassidy smiles, “Some of the elemental attacks or anything that uses your elemental ability will have most likely elemental residuals. Magic couldn’t be created nor destroyed, it is only transferred from one medium to another. So, any magic that isn’t received by someone or something will be left in the air. It is known to cause some bad implications to irregular Mentiels.”

“Irregular mentiel? Am I one?” Cassidy shrugs, “Maybe so or no. It depends on what really is your problem, but it is a big possibility. Taking into account that you are an Armientel and an Arthean Mentiel, there is a huge chance you are one.”

“What’s the difference between them? It seems like the prior is just the short version of the other.” Cassidy giggles, “Armentiel is rather a short term for Arthiel-Mentiel. It refers to a subrace of Mentiels determined by one’s parents. Arthean Mentiel is a term for a Mentiel who spent most of their lives have been on the earth and have not been exposed to Thereal magic.”

She rubs her chin, “One another reason it might have been the magic leak that recently happened. Your body might have been shocked at receiving such magic since you have never got in contact with one, correct?”

“My mom was a mentiel, she died when I was still young. Does she have any magical radiation to her?” Cassidy laughs, “Magical radiation, interesting wording. It depends, it’s a long story about how magic worked if it’s on the Earth. It will be a future lesson in your classes. At least, it will be talked about some time. Anyway, let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

“One question, Miss Cassidy. What is this magic leak you are talking about?” The professor looks at her, a bit disappointed. Patricia doesn’t know why she was disappointed, but it made Cassidy freeze in her place. She sighs, “I assume that no one in your immediate family has told you this?”

“Well, sihsih was cryptic about it. She’s just saying that everything will be much better if I stay here and continue my education here.” Cassidy looks at her, “The simplest reason for it is the thing that holds the magic together and prevents it from leaking to the Earth is malfunctioning.”

“Why is it malfunctioning, and why do you need to prevent it from leaking to Earth?” Cassidy sighs, “It’s malfunctioning because… reasons. I am sorry, that’s all the things I could tell you, but they are the things you needed to know. It’s much more complicated than that, but you do not need to think of it anymore. It’s being fixed now, and I hope everything will be back to normal sooner.”

They walked up to the center of the classroom. “Anyway, as I was saying…” She stops for a bit and looks at her, “Say, have this incident happened before? Apart from the one in the school, did you experience one before you got into the academy?”

Patricia was frozen, she doesn’t know whether to say that she almost killed two other people. She was silent for a while until she heard Cassidy’s voice among the thoughts that are running in her head. “Patricia?” She jolted and looks at her, “Yes, M-miss Cassidy?” Her concern was written all over her face, “Is something wrong? Are you okay? You seem to have spaced out suddenly. Did you see something in the building?”

“No, I am fine, Miss Cassidy. I’m just thinking if there are any instances that I have been like this. As far as I am aware, none.” Cassidy wasn’t convinced, “Are you sure? The sudden shift of your tone says otherwise. Don’t hide anything from me if you want to fix your problem, Patricia. Communication and understanding between us are the keys to preventing further incidents from happening. Now, tell me, what’s wrong?’

Patricia was still undecided as to whether to tell it or not. For years, she has not been the one who is telling her problems to someone. “It’s… quite awkward to tell, Miss Cassidy.” She sighs, “I don’t want to relieve what happened before. I… just can’t.”

Cassidy sighs, “If you insist, but tell me when you are ready. Inner problems and regret could disturb your inner tranquility needed to have more control over your ability, especially those that will send you into a spiral of emotions.” She sighs once more, “Anyway, we shall begin—“

The door suddenly shuts open, “Miss Cassidy, we need your help!” Cassidy looks at the person who arrived, with a huge concern on his face, she knew what happened. She sighs and looks back at Patricia, who was confused by the sudden and terrifying arrival of a person unknown to her. “I’m afraid that we need to hold the special class for a while. Are you up to waiting for me here or do you want to postpone it? This is an urgent matter at hand, and I will be gone for a moment.”

“I’m fine with waiting for you, Miss Cassidy. While at it, I could go to the town and have some snacks for myself and even explore the school. With how this mister sound, it seems very urgent.” Cassidy smiles, “Thank you for understanding me. See you later, I will not belong.” She turns to the man who called her attention and follows him out of the class building.

Patricia watches them leave and an idea struck her mind. Her curiosity conquered her thinking as she thought of following Miss Cassidy to see what happened. She peeks from the door of the building she’s in. She can still see her professor but seemingly running towards the back part of the school. It piques her curiosity more and followed them, avoiding herself to be conspicuous by the people around them.

Even with a map, the school was still big to grasp her. She arrived in what seems to be the area for 4th-year students. The buildings were much different from the area for the lesser years, they are much more unique to one another instead of the same old buildings. There is an obvious division between the areas of the seniors, seemingly holding different courses if she got to her last years.

In her eyes she caught Miss Cassidy going to a gate that was secluded among the buildings. It seems that it was intentionally hidden away, especially having it at the very back of the school. When the teacher arrived, she was escorted by some uniformed guards that were watching the gate. What must be beyond the gate is something crucial and/or dangerous for students to pass through.

The guards unknowingly left the gate unguarded which gave Patricia more chance to see what was happening. She sneaks behind the wall, looking beyond the school’s ‘premises’. She could see a wooded area, a forest at the back of her school. It was no ordinary forest. The color of the tree’s leaves was much more vibrant and lively than what she had seen, even with the trees that were most cared for and looked out for. They were not packed densely, they were spaced enough for Patricia to see the foggy inside of the forest. With the atmosphere like this, it sent shivers down Patricia’s spine. It was a chilling feeling, but she feels the forest call for her.

She looks around for any person that could catch her going out of the school. She’s already there, it will be a waste of time for her to not go further. She steps outside of the school, a chilling breeze welcomed her into the forest.

In the distance, she could see the silhouette of the people she saw just moments ago. She decided to follow them at a distance, hiding among the trees. She could hear their conversation among the tree trunks.

“Miss Bethel-Craith already ordered the Wardens to guard the Monadentro.” She could hear her Pristinity professor sighs, “Then why did the Monadentro burst again? We will get scolded by the COIC and the Thereal High Governing Ministry again. If this problem persists, there are a lot of problems that will branch out of this.”

“We understand the weight of the situation, Miss Stanton. The Wardens did their best to stop the tree from bursting again. We even came to the point that we communicated with the previous wardens and even the ones that are still studying. The Wardens we have don’t have enough power to stop the tree, that’s why we called to you Miss Stanton. You’re the only one who could control the situation. Miss Bethel-Craith couldn’t even do anything.”

“Then you should have said it to me when the situation was still mild.” She sighs, “There’s no point in arguing about this. I supposed you seek my help at the right time, not when everything is irreversible, right?” A guard nods, “One of the interns already said to seek help from you, but Warden Clarissa said that they could handle it.” “Then they can’t…” Cassidy sighs, “Clarissa hasn’t learned her lesson before. I need to have a word with her again.”

Patricia carefully listens to their conversation, she was surprised by everything that was happening. Her mind’s getting curioser and curioser, she couldn’t turn and step back anymore.

After minutes of trekking in the forest, they have arrived at an open area where in the middle, a huge and thick tree stands tall. It’s imbued with different colors on every side, mainly bright red, sky blue, yellow, and silver. Its roots were visible and extends towards the ground below the hill it was standing on. Its canopy was brimmed with leaves, ones with streaks of the four colors that she sees on the trunk. In the middle of the truck were particular wisps of magic that are compacted in the holes of the trunk. It has the common four colors with one that was unique, it was bright white, probably the most eye-catching of all.

Around the tree were people that are wearing stylized robes, all imbued with what seemed symbols of the main elements with one big symbol on the chest that seems to represent something. Patricia can’t get the context of what it was, but she listens closely for any information to catch.

“Miss Cassidy! We are glad that you have arrived. We hope that we didn’t disturb you.” The professor sighs, “Matters like these will never be a disturbance for me. Besides, I have just been out for a day or two. I will not complain about going back to the usual work once I arrived from Greensward. Explain to me clearly what happened.”

A lady that seems older than everyone else steps forward, “The matter at hand has already been fixed days before. I was so content that the Monadentro will not go and malfunction once more. I even reported to the COIC that the problem was fixed and the usual exchange of people from Thereal to the Earth should resume.” She sighs, “I miscalculated how much damaged that tree was.”

“The Singularity, is it still intact?” Patricia looks at Miss Cassidy who was looking at the big tree. “The Singularity?” She asks herself.