Episode-715
Chapter : 1409
"I would rather share you than lose you," Mina said simply. "And I think... I think Rosa might feel the same, eventually. If the alternative is losing you completely."
Lloyd ran a hand through his hair. "This is insane. I am one guy. I like quiet evenings and building robots. I am not built for a harem."
"You are a builder, Lloyd," Mina smiled gently. "Build a family that works. Even if it is a strange one."
Lloyd looked at the sky. He looked at the Academy in the distance. He looked at Mina.
"Okay," he said slowly. "I won't say no. I won't say yes. I'll say... maybe. Let's survive the curse first. Then we tackle the impossible geometry of my love life."
"Deal," Mina said.
The move was completed by noon. Lloyd and Mina rode in the lead carriage, followed by the wagons of equipment. Ken Park rode beside them on horseback, looking alert.
They arrived at the Academy gates. The atmosphere was heavy. The usual bustling campus was quiet. Students walked in groups, looking nervous. The air felt thick, charged with a sickly static.
Headmaster Valerius met them at the gate. He looked relieved to see the convoy.
"You came," Valerius said.
"I brought my toys," Lloyd said, gesturing to the wagons. "Where is the lab?"
"The Old Tower," Valerius pointed to a stone spire on the edge of the cliffs. "It's isolated. Thick walls. Deep basements. Perfect for... whatever it is you do."
"Explosions," Lloyd said. "Mostly explosions."
They unloaded the gear. The tower was dusty but spacious. It had a main floor for the Aegis project and a lower level for alchemy.
"This will work," Lloyd said, surveying the room. "Mina, set up the library in the corner. Alaric, get the furnace running. We need heat."
Within hours, the tower was transformed into a command center. The Golem Heart was installed on a reinforced table. The Aegis chassis stood in the center of the room like a sentinel.
"Now," Lloyd said, rolling up his sleeves. "The curse."
He turned to Valerius. "Show me a corrupted artifact. I need to see what we're dealing with."
Valerius produced a small wooden box. He opened it carefully. Inside was a student's wand. It was blackened, the wood twisted like it had been burned. It pulsed with a faint, reddish aura.
"Don't touch it," Valerius warned. "It drains mana on contact."
Lloyd activated his [All-Seeing Eye]. He looked at the wand.
He saw the corruption. It wasn't just a spell. It was a living, viral energy structure. It looked like black veins choking the natural flow of magic within the wood.
"It's a parasite," Lloyd diagnosed. "It latches onto the enchantment and inverts it. Instead of projecting energy, it consumes it. And it sends the stolen energy... somewhere."
"Where?" Valerius asked.
"There's a tether," Lloyd said, tracing a faint, invisible line of dark energy trailing off the wand. "A connection. It's sending the mana to a central collection point."
He looked out the window, following the line with his enhanced vision. It led towards the main dormitory.
"The traitor," Lloyd whispered. "They aren't just breaking things. They are harvesting. They are stealing the Academy's power."
"Who?" Valerius demanded.
"I don't know yet," Lloyd said. "But I can track it. This line... it's like a breadcrumb trail."
He turned to Mina. "We have a new project. Forget the suit for a moment. We need to build a tracker. A device that can follow this frequency back to the source."
"I can adapt the Golem Heart interface," Mina suggested instantly. "Tune it to the frequency of the corruption."
"Do it," Lloyd said.
He felt a new urgency. This wasn't just sabotage. It was a feeding frenzy. Someone was getting stronger off the Academy's fear.
"Valerius," Lloyd said. "Lock down the dorms. No one leaves. No one enters. If the traitor realizes we are tracking them, they might try to flee. Or detonate the accumulated power."
"I will seal the gates," Valerius promised.
Lloyd looked at the blackened wand. This was Firefly's work. Or the Seventh Circle. It was efficient, cruel, and parasitical.
"We're going hunting," Lloyd said to Mina.
"I am ready," she said.
Lloyd looked at her. She was brave. She was loyal. And she was willing to share him with two other women just to keep him.
He felt a surge of gratitude. He didn't deserve her. But he would fight for her.
"Let's catch a rat," Lloyd said.
He picked up his tools. The Scholar's Mission was over. The Professor's War had begun. And class was officially in session.
Chapter : 1410
Lloyd Ferrum stood at the front of the classroom in the Old Tower. It was a dusty, circular room with high windows that let in too much light and not enough air. The stone walls were lined with chalkboards that Lloyd had installed himself because he hated the magical projection orbs the Academy usually used. Orbs were flashy, but chalk was reliable. Chalk didn't run out of mana in the middle of a lecture.
Sitting before him were the "misfits." These were the students the Academy didn't know what to do with. There were students who couldn't cast a fireball to save their lives but could calculate the trajectory of a falling rock in their heads. There were students who had strange, weak spirits. And then there was Airin, the scholarship student who looked too much like a ghost from Lloyd’s past.
They were all looking at him with a mix of fear and confusion. They had heard the rumors. They knew he was the man who had fought a demon in the arena. They knew he was the "White Mask." They expected him to teach them how to shoot lightning or summon monsters.
Instead, Lloyd picked up a piece of chalk and drew a large square on the board. Then he drew a line coming out of the square. Then another square.
"This," Lloyd said, tapping the board, "is a fortress. It is located on top of the Whispering Crag. It is surrounded by snow, ice, and very angry goats."
The class stared at him. A boy in the back raised his hand. "Professor? Are we going to learn how to blow it up?"
"No," Lloyd said. "Blowing things up is easy. Any idiot with a fire crystal can blow things up. We are going to learn how to keep the people inside alive. We are going to learn about supply chains."
The class groaned. It was a collective sound of disappointment that vibrated through the floor. They wanted war. Lloyd was giving them math.
"Silence," Lloyd commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the groans like a knife. "War isn't about swinging swords. War is about eating. If you can't eat, you can't fight. If you can't fight, you die. So, logistics is the art of not dying."
He turned back to the board. He began to draw a complex diagram. He drew the roads leading to the fortress. He drew the river. He drew the nearby villages.
"Here is the scenario," Lloyd said. "You are the commander of this fortress. You have five hundred men. It is winter. The roads are blocked by snow for three months. You have food reserves for two months. The river is frozen. The nearest friendly city is two weeks away by march."
He turned to face them. "How do you survive?"
A girl in the front row, whose spirit was a small, useless turtle, spoke up. "We use magic to melt the snow on the roads?"
"Good thought," Lloyd said. "But the road is fifty miles long. To melt that much snow, you would need a team of twenty high-ranking fire mages working non-stop for a week. You have one fire mage, and he has a cold. Next."
"We hunt the goats?" a boy suggested.
"The goats are magical," Lloyd said. "They breathe ice. If you hunt them, you lose ten men for every goat. The calorie trade-off is negative. Next."
"We fly supplies in?" another student asked.
"With what?" Lloyd asked. "We don't have airships. Griffins can carry maybe two hundred pounds. You need tons of grain. Do you have a fleet of a thousand griffins hiding in your pocket?"
The class fell silent. They were realizing that this wasn't a hero fantasy. It was a puzzle. A boring, deadly puzzle.
"This is the reality of power," Lloyd said, walking between the desks. "You can have the strongest sword in the world, but if your arm is too weak from hunger to lift it, you lose. I want you to look at this map. Look at the lines. Somewhere in this perfect plan, there is a flaw. A single point of failure that will kill everyone in that fortress."
He pointed to a specific line connecting a village to the main road. "This represents the Merchant Guild of Oakhaven. They have the contract to supply the grain before the snow hits. On paper, it works. The numbers add up. They have the wagons. They have the grain. So, why does the fortress starve?"