The game I loved and hated. The origin of my scientific obsessions, my hollow academic accolades, and ultimately, my plummet from a 36th-floor balcony. Elenos Arcane Academia: The Legend of the Light—a clunky title for a clunkier RPG.
A magic academy simulator masquerading as a dating sim, where the protagonist, some blank-slate overpowered everyman, seduces three heroines with all the romantic subtlety of a concussed peacock. Awkward library encounters, training montages intercut with beach episodes with a world-ending threat resolved via the power of polyamory.
God, it was trash.
But the magic...
The magic sang.
EAA's combat system wasn't about button-mashing or grinding levels. It demanded ritual. To cast even a basic gust spell, you had to align pseudo-scientific mana channels, recite incantations phonetically, and time your inputs to the game's mana pathways.
Most players ignored it, relying on auto-battle and skipping cutscenes to reach the harem endings faster. Why bother mastering Arcanic Thermodynamics when you could just give heroine 1 enough chocolate to trigger her "Blushing Confession" event and eventually, her "Do you wanna do it" event?
But I'd been the exception. The obsessive. Although tempted by the "galge" aspect of the game. I'm the one who combed through every pixelated bookshelf, decoding the game's arcane lore like it held the secrets of the universe.
Maybe because it was the last thing my mother gave me before the cancer took her—a battered second-hand copy she'd scrounged for, despite the medical bills piling up. "Magic's real, you know," she'd whispered during those final morphine-hazed nights. "You'll find it someday."
She'd meant metaphorically. I took it literally.
Now, hurtling through an alien sky, I don't hate you mom, but I curse you for being right.
Wind screams past my ears. The cliff face blurs—a jagged tapestry of obsidian rock and bioluminescent fungi. Not Earth. Not even close. My stomach lurches as I force my limbs into the skydiver's pose: elbows high, legs splayed, spine arched. Drag bites into my borrowed body, slowing the descent.
22 seconds.
Panic threatens to fracture my focus. This isn't how magic worked in EAA. Players didn't feel the spell craft—they clicked menus, optimized stats, and watched pretty animations. But the boy whose body I'd stolen? His muscles remember. His nerves thrum with dormant pathways, like cables waiting for a current. Wind affinity. Think. How did the professors teach the first-years?
… A memory surfaces: pixelated lecture halls, a crotchety NPC droning about "Aetheric Alignment."
"Mana isn't a resource, you idiots! It's a negotiation. You ask the world to bend. If it likes your argument, it complies."
Bullshit philosophy. But the game's code backed it up—spell success rates depended on environmental factors. Cast fire magic during rain? Penalized. Wind magic mid-fall? Enhanced.
I claw at the air, as if grasping invincible reins.
"Float"
I rasp, the Novice-Class Spell's trigger word tasting absurd on my tongue. Nothing happens.
"13 seconds."
The ground rushes closer—a kaleidoscope of towering mushrooms, their caps glowing neon violet. My mind races. In EAA, spellcasting required three components:
Intent (The mental blueprint)
Incantation (The "request")
Invocation (The physical catalyst)
But this isn't a game. There's no UI to guide me, no helpful tooltips. Only a stupid system and primal terror with the nerd-rot lore stuck in my brain.
Intent. Focus on the outcome. Not "cast spell," but "slow fall." I visualize air thickening beneath me, becoming a cushion full of density.
Incantation. The game used English for magic. "Float" No, that's a Novice-Class Spell. Too advanced.
"8 seconds."
Mushroom caps explode beneath me as I pass through their spore clouds—glittering toxins that burn my eyes. Invocation. The body's role. In EAA, wind mages flicked their fingers in precise movements. But this body's muscle memory...
"5 seconds."
My fingers twitch involuntarily, grasping the air again, ripping it apart like a curtain. A spark ignites in my sternum, racing down my arms.
"Veil!!!"
The words tear from my throat unbidden.
The world wrenches.
The wind erupts beneath me, increasing viscosity into a liquid like state rather than a gas. My descent slows—not gracefully, but violently, as if the air itself is punching upward. Blood trickles from my nose and possible broken bones. But I will live.
"0 seconds"
I slam against a tree branch, the impact knocks the breath from my lungs. Then another… And another… one more… And finally the ground. Instead of silence, my new voice erupts like a triumphant cry.
"YES!!!"
The blue interface agrees:
[ New Title: "Adept of the Howling Void" ]
[ "You've negotiated with the storm. It finds you… amusing." Good boy ]
[ Element Affinity: Wind (1-Star → 2-Star) ]
[ Remaining MP: 126/250 ]
"Negotiating my ass,"
I wheeze, spitting mud.
"More like a shakedown… And fuck you mean good boy?"
But it worked. The magic—the real magic—worked.
As I stagger upright, the interface notifies:
[ Run ]
A guttural screech echoes above. The goblins are climbing down, their green eyes gleaming like poisoned emeralds.
I glance at my trembling hands—the hands of a stranger, now crackling with residual wind energy—and laugh. It's a broken, manic sound.
Elenos Arcane Academia was a shitty game. But this? This is worse.
This is it, coming to life.