The world was built on lies — that's what Kyle learned first.
Beneath the glittering towers of Erevale Academy, where students from the five continents came to learn the "pure arts of magic," there pulsed an older truth — one whispered through the corridors and buried beneath the marble floors. Magic wasn't born from light, but from control.
And no one knew control like Kyle Valen did.
He stood at the center of the training hall, his fingers twitching slightly. Around him, six straw mannequins moved like dancers caught in a silent opera — spinning, bowing, and striking with wooden blades. Their movements were too precise to be human, too graceful to be random. Every flick of his wrist sent invisible threads glinting in the air, thin as moonlight.
His classmates watched, half in awe, half in unease.
"Kyle's doing it again…" someone whispered. "The Puppeteer's Curse."
He smirked. Curse? Hardly. It was art.
The final mannequin lunged — and in one fluid motion, Kyle made it bow instead, then drive its sword into its own chest. The hall filled with the soft thud of straw collapsing. Silence followed, thick and heavy.
"Show-off," muttered a voice behind him.
Kyle turned. Lira, the top summoner of Class A, leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, her silver hair shimmering like frost. Her eyes held challenge… and curiosity.
"You call it showing off," he said softly, "I call it practice."
"Practice for what? Controlling the world?" she teased.
Kyle's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Something like that."
The bell rang, echoing through the ancient stone halls. Students scattered, and Kyle let his puppets drop limp to the floor. As he walked away, one of them — the last mannequin — twitched on its own, just slightly.
Lira noticed.
Her heart skipped. That… shouldn't happen.
But Kyle didn't look back. His shadow stretched long across the corridor, threads of unseen power dancing at his fingertips like whispering spirits.