GameDev Reincarnated into His Own Creation

Vol 2 - Chapter 22.3: Class Constructor

"Sorry," he mumbled, moving toward a desk on the opposite side from Vel. "Got lost twice on the way here."

Mira Telsin entered just behind him, her auburn hair neatly combed and pinned back with a simple bronze clip. She offered a small wave to the group before taking the last empty desk, completing their semicircle.

"Now we're all here," she said, arranging her notebooks carefully in front of her.

With all five seats filled, the classroom settled into comfortable silence. Thick stone walls muffled the Academy's distant bustle while sunlight streamed through tall windows.

Spacious. Quiet too. This would make a good reading room, Vel thought, appreciating the tranquility that seemed almost impossible to find in other parts of the Academy.

Vel looked around at his small group. Tomas fiddled with his quill, Enya reviewed notes, Mira lined up her notebooks and quills in neat rows, and Rohen stared out the window, lost in thought. Unstable, they called them. Inconspicuous among hundreds of other students.

The Academy had mislabeled them. Discarded them as flawed. Yet here Vel was, placed among them by his own choices.

He'd come to the Academy to understand this world, to uncover the mystery of his arrival here. Yet here he was, sitting with the Academy's discards instead of pursuing the elite classes where real answers might lie. Does being here actually help his true goals?

But as he looked at these mislabeled students, something familiar stirred. This was what he'd always done—found the bugs in the system, debugged what others couldn't see. Maybe this wasn't a detour from his mission. Maybe this was exactly where he belonged, doing what he'd always been meant to do: solving the problems everyone else had given up on.

The door opened with a soft click, and Instructor Lyvenna entered carrying a leather satchel and a small wooden case. Her brown hair was pulled back in its characteristic style, and she wore simple but well-tailored robes in deep blue. Despite her youthful appearance, something in her bearing commanded immediate attention.

"Good morning, class," she said, setting her belongings on the podium. Her voice carried clearly through the room without seeming raised.

The five students straightened in their seats, offering various forms of greeting in return.

Lyvenna opened the wooden case, revealing a collection of crystal prisms in different shapes and sizes. Each one caught the morning light differently, casting tiny rainbows across the classroom's stone walls.

"Today we begin with focus crystals," she announced, lifting one of the prisms. "Before you can cast spells effectively, you must understand the tools that will aid your development."

She held up a clear, hexagonal crystal about the length of her palm. "This is a basic training focus. It will help stabilize your mana flow while you learn proper techniques."

Lyvenna moved around the room, placing one crystal on each student's desk. When she reached Vel, she paused for just a moment, her eyes meeting his with what seemed like recognition.

"These particular focus crystals are attuned to work with unstable attunements," she continued, returning to the front. "They provide additional stabilization that standard foci cannot offer."

Vel picked up his crystal, feeling its smooth, cool surface. It was heavier than he'd expected, with a slight warmth that seemed to respond to his touch.

"However," Lyvenna added, "don't expect miracles. Even with these focus crystals, your spells may still fizzle or destabilize without proper practice. The crystal helps, but it doesn't solve the underlying issue."