Chapter 89
After separating from Lin Yue, Nille quietly changed direction and headed toward the administrative wing of the academy where the instructor offices were located.
More specifically, toward the office of Caelum Verdanis.
As he walked through the quieter hallways, Nille found himself thinking more deeply about everything he had experienced over the past few days.
The more encounters he survived, the more he began noticing gaps within the academy's teachings.
Or perhaps, not exactly gaps.
But limitations.
Most academy lessons heavily focused on practical shamanic application:
Combat.
Spiritual control.
Spell structure.
Barrier theory.
Core extraction.
Survival procedures.
Threat identification.
All useful.
All necessary.
But very little time was spent discussing deeper behavioral analysis regarding supernatural races themselves.
How they thought.
How culture shaped them.
How environment influenced their evolution.
How intelligence changed over generations.
Or how some beings adapted differently depending on the lands they inhabited.
Nille smiled faintly to himself while walking.
It honestly surprised him that these questions only truly began forming now.
Perhaps because before entering the academy, survival had always mattered more than curiosity.
But after meeting beings like King Lykos, Eruko, and even the Dalisay Fairies living around his warehouse property, his perspective gradually shifted.
Not all supernatural beings behaved identically.
Not all evolved in the same direction.
Some adapted to isolation.
Some adapted to coexistence.
And others adapted directly to human influence itself.
The Diwata and fairy clans staying around his warehouse land were perfect examples.
Their behavior changed depending on safety, spiritual environment, emotional atmosphere, and even the intentions of the humans around them.
They laughed.
Built routines.
Developed preferences.
Protected territory.
Formed emotional attachments.
That was far beyond simple "monster behavior."
Even the Malignants inside the sectors displayed signs of ecological and social adaptation that the academy rarely discussed in depth.
It wasn't that the academy completely ignored these concepts, it simply introduced them much later in the curriculum.
At this stage, students were still considered too early in their development to properly analyze such complexities. The focus of the introductory phase remained on survival basics, classification, and controlled engagement rather than deep behavioral ecology.
In other words, the information existed, it was just not yet prioritized.
Nille realized this as he walked, adjusting his understanding of what he had been taught. What he had been observing in the field, territorial behavior, adaptive hunting patterns, social grouping, even restraint in certain Malignants, was likely part of a higher-level curriculum that third or fourth-year theory classes would eventually cover.
For now, most instructors framed Malignants in simpler terms:
hostile entitiesdangerous threatsranked combat targetscore resources
That structure was intentional.
Because for beginners, overthinking the nature of what they were fighting could lead to hesitation, and hesitation in the field often meant death.
Still, Nille couldn't ignore what he had already seen firsthand.
Some Malignants were not just reacting to instinct.
They were adapting to environment, memory, and prolonged conflict exposure.
Some even showed patterns that resembled early forms of social structure, especially in border sectors where long-term survival required cooperation.
And that raised a deeper question in his mind:
If adaptation was already happening inside isolated sectors…
then what would these beings become if they were ever fully integrated, or released, into the wider world?
Some organized into hierarchies.
Some respected territory.
Some negotiated.
Some retained warrior cultures.
Some evolved language.
And others became violent precisely because they had spent centuries trapped in isolated conflict zones.
The academy classified most of them broadly under the same dangerous category, but Nille now questioned whether that classification was incomplete.
As he continued walking toward Professor Verdanis' office, Nille's curiosity only deepened.
Because if the supernatural world was truly this complex, then understanding it required more than simply learning how to fight it.
When Nille arrived at the office of Caelum Verdanis, he stopped briefly in front of the door.
Before he could even raise his hand to knock, it opened on its own.
No sound of hinges.
No visible mechanism.
Just a smooth, silent response, as if the room itself had recognized his presence.
Inside, the office was nothing like a normal academy instructor's space.
It carried unmistakable High Elven design principles.
The interior was wide and open, yet structured in a way that felt both natural and deliberately arranged. The walls were not made of ordinary material, but of pale, living-like stone infused with faint golden and silver vein patterns that subtly pulsed like breathing roots.
Floating crystalline fragments hovered near the ceiling, rotating slowly in quiet orbital paths, casting soft layered light that shifted between warm daylight and cool moonlight tones.
Instead of a conventional floor, the ground resembled polished white marble intertwined with faintly glowing botanical engravings, patterns that looked like ancient tree roots and celestial maps combined into one continuous design.
At the center of the room stood a circular workspace surrounded by semi-transparent floating panels containing shifting glyphs, spatial diagrams, and layered magical equations that continuously restructured themselves.
And behind it, a large arched window.
At first glance, Nille assumed it was simply a viewing illusion, perhaps a projection of a controlled environment used for meditation or teaching.
But that assumption quickly collapsed.
Because the view outside the window was not part of Yamatai Academy at all.
It showed an entirely different landscape.
A vast expanse of luminous forests and floating land formations drifting beneath a pale sky, where bioluminescent flora shimmered in slow waves across distant terrain. The horizon itself looked too vast, too foreign, too detached from the island's known geography.
It was not a projection.
It was real.
Nille's expression shifted slightly as he focused.
After reaching Spiritual Level 10 and beyond, his sensitivity to spiritual energy had sharpened significantly. He could now distinguish between illusion-based constructs and genuine spatial distortion.
And what he felt coming from the window was unmistakable.
Flowing energy.
Stable yet foreign spatial currents.
A continuous atmospheric pressure that did not belong to Yamatai's island structure.
This confirmed it.
Professor Verdanis was not simply using illusion magic.
He was manipulating space itself, linking this office to another real location, likely through a High Elven spatial domain or anchored dimensional bridge.
Nille exhaled slowly.
What he had first thought might be a simple office now clearly revealed something far more advanced.
This was not just a room.
It was a controlled intersection between spaces.
A fragment of another world attached to Yamatai through precise elven spatial engineering.
And standing inside it, Nille became even more aware of how much larger the system he was operating within truly was.
Nille stepped further into the High Elven office, his eyes briefly scanning the shifting spatial window before focusing on Professor Caelum Verdanis.
The door closed silently behind him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Nille finally broke the silence.
"Professor… I have questions."
Caelum Verdanis did not look surprised. He simply gestured calmly toward the circular workspace.
"Ask."
Nille paused briefly, organizing his thoughts. Unlike combat, where decisions were instinctive, this required structure.
"First…"
"Why are Malignants categorized so broadly in the academy system if their behavior varies so much depending on environment, intelligence, and evolution?"
Caelum leaned slightly back, listening without interruption.
Nille continued.
"Second… are Malignants truly fixed as 'enemies,' or are some of them capable of long-term coexistence under stable conditions like Sector 1's higher evolved zones?"
A faint flicker passed through the floating elven glyphs above the professor's desk.
Nille didn't stop.
"Third… the beings I encountered, Lycan King Lykos, Eruko, even others—some of them showed reasoning, structure, and restraint."
"Are those anomalies… or part of a larger evolutionary spectrum the academy doesn't openly teach?"
Caelum's gaze sharpened slightly, but he still said nothing.
Nille pressed on.
"Fourth… Dream Spaces."
He glanced briefly toward the spatial window outside.
"Are they purely artificial constructs, or do they borrow or anchor real dimensions like the one connected to your office right now?"
A subtle pause followed.
Nille's voice remained steady.
"Fifth… my own abilities."
"Nyx says I am still Level 20. But my perception of energy flow, especially after Level 10 threshold awareness, has changed."
"Why can I sense real spatial energy variations more clearly than before?"
He exhaled lightly.
"Is that normal progression… or something unusual?"
Caelum finally moved.
He stepped forward slightly, folding his hands behind his back.
His tone remained calm, but now more precise.
"You are asking the correct type of questions."
That alone confirmed to Nille that he had not overstepped.
The professor continued.
"Malignants are categorized broadly because the academy is designed for operational clarity, not ecological accuracy."
"Students require survival classifications, not philosophical complexity."
He gestured slightly.
"But yes, your observation is correct. Malignants are not uniform. They are adaptive systems shaped by environment, restriction, and conflict history."
Nille remained silent, listening.
Caelum continued.
"Some are hostile by instinct."
"Some are hostile by conditioning."
"And some… are no longer truly Malignant in the traditional sense."
A brief pause.
"Sector 1 exists precisely because of that complexity."
Nille's eyes narrowed slightly.
The professor answered the next question without waiting.
"Coexistence is possible."
"But only under strict ecological balance and mutual deterrence systems."
"The High Elven territories are not peaceful. They are regulated."
"There is a difference."
Nille slowly nodded.
Caelum continued again.
"Dream Spaces are not purely artificial."
"They are constructed by anchoring controlled spatial layers onto real dimensional fragments."
"Which is why certain individuals, like you, can feel inconsistencies between illusion and reality."
Nille's expression tightened slightly at that confirmation.
Then Caelum addressed the final question.
"Your perception has changed because your spiritual core is stabilizing after repeated exposure to high-density environments."
"Sector-level conflicts, Malignant cores, and repeated survival stress accelerate sensory refinement."
He looked directly at Nille.
"But there is another possibility."
A pause.
"Your core may not be entirely standard."
The room grew quiet.
Nille did not react outwardly, but internally he registered the implication.
Caelum turned slightly toward the spatial window.
"For now, do not rush conclusions."
"Continue observing. Continue testing limits safely."
Then, more softly, "And most importantly, do not assume the system you see is the complete system."
Nille lowered his gaze slightly, absorbing everything.
The third day had not given him answers.
It had given him something more dangerous.
A clearer understanding of how many questions he still hadn't thought to ask.
Professor Caelum Verdanis looked genuinely confused after hearing Nille's question.
"What do you mean nobody can sense your level?" he asked calmly.
"I can see it clearly."
Nille blinked slightly.
Caelum continued without hesitation.
"Your current spiritual level is approximately Level 2 by external reading standards."
For the first time in several seconds, Nille became completely silent.
Level 2?
That made no sense.
He had already surpassed Level 20 internally through repeated core absorption and direct combat growth.
Yet Professor Verdanis, someone highly skilled in spiritual perception—was only seeing Level 2.
Nille immediately understood something important.
The Celestial Cloth.
More specifically, its concealment functions were still active automatically.
He kept his expression neutral outwardly, but internally his thoughts rapidly connected together.
At that moment, Nyx's voice quietly echoed within his consciousness.
"The Celestial Cloth was never designed as simple clothing."
"Its original purpose was much larger."
Fragments of old memories and inherited knowledge flowed through Nille's thoughts as Nyx explained further.
Long ago, before the realms became separated and before the supernatural world fractured into isolated systems, the complete Celestial Cloth had once been considered a legendary dimensional artifact.
Not a weapon.
Not armor.
But a living adaptive support construct designed to regulate, protect, conceal, and stabilize beings capable of interacting with multiple layers of reality.
Nyx herself had seen it once in its complete form when she was still a young wingless drake, during the ancient era when Earth remained spiritually unbound and supernatural races openly coexisted.
Back then, the Celestial Cloth was far beyond anything modern shamans could recreate.
Even the fragment Nille possessed now was only a tiny incomplete piece of the original whole.
Yet despite that, its remaining functions were still terrifyingly advanced.
Nyx began listing them calmly inside his mind.
Spiritual Core Concealment Layering 40%
This was the primary active function currently protecting Nille.
The Celestial Cloth automatically layered false readings over the user's spiritual core, masking true output levels and preventing accurate external sensing.
To outside observers, the user appeared weaker, ordinary, or spiritually distorted depending on the concealment setting.
The stronger the concealment percentage, the harder it became for enemies, detection systems, curses, or even spiritual perception users to properly evaluate the wearer.
This explained why Professor Verdanis only saw Nille as Level 2.
His true spiritual density was being buried beneath layered false readings.
Spell and Magical Language Defense & Attack Output Management 15%
The Celestial Cloth could regulate spell construction, magical language flow, and energy discharge efficiency.
In simple terms:
It stabilized unstable spells.
Reduced backlash.
Improved casting structure.
And protected the user against hostile magical interference.
It also helped optimize energy output so the wearer would not waste excessive spiritual power during combat.
Nyx explained that this was why Nille's disintegration abilities sometimes behaved far more efficiently than expected for his actual experience level.
Dimensional Noise Diffusion
Whenever dimensional movement, spatial distortions, or supernatural fluctuations occurred around the user, the Celestial Cloth could partially scatter or hide the "noise" created by those events.
This reduced detection chances during abnormal spatial interactions.
Which likely explained how Nille accidentally crossed through the Mirror Realm without immediately triggering catastrophic alarms.
Authority Suppression Field
The cloth weakened external spiritual pressure exerted by higher-ranking entities.
Kings.
Ancient beings.
Domain rulers.
Reality-linked spirits.
It did not make the wearer immune, but it reduced instinctive suppression effects that would normally overwhelm weaker individuals.
Selective Control
The artifact could selectively decide which functions remained active depending on danger, environment, and user compatibility.
Meaning even Nille himself was not fully controlling it consciously yet.
Some functions activated automatically for survival purposes.
Dimensional Storage
A limited internal storage layer connected to folded spatial space.
Not a true infinite inventory—
but enough to store artifacts, materials, or objects without normal physical burden.
Structural Management of Skills
The Celestial Cloth stabilized irregular abilities and prevented spiritual collapse caused by incompatible power growth.
This was especially important for Nille, whose evolution path no longer followed standard academy systems.
Knowledge Gathering, Reformation, and Forging
Perhaps one of its most dangerous functions.
The artifact could observe spiritual structures, collect information, analyze patterns, and slowly reform internal understanding over time.
Not true omniscience, but adaptive learning.
This explained why Nille's understanding of supernatural systems was evolving unusually fast.
Symbiotic Defense
The Celestial Cloth could temporarily reinforce the user defensively during lethal danger situations.
Not enough to guarantee survival, but enough to slightly shift impossible situations toward survivable outcomes.
Nyx finally concluded quietly:
"The complete Celestial Cloth was not made for battle alone. Long ago, before the human world and supernatural world were separated, many realms existed together and often caused chaos. Spirits, monsters, and different races could cross between places freely, which sometimes damaged reality itself. The Celestial Cloth was created to help keep balance between these worlds."
"It could stabilize space, control dimensional energy, and prevent realms from collapsing into each other. Even though Nille only has a small fragment of it, the artifact still has powerful abilities. It can hide his true spiritual level, help control spells and energy, protect him from strong spiritual pressure, store items in a hidden space, and reduce the chances of being detected when moving through dimensional areas."
Because of this, strange things keep happening around Nille without him fully realizing it, such as accidentally entering the Mirror Realm and avoiding detection from powerful systems and beings.
"The fragment you possess only uses a fraction of that authority."
"Even now, most of its functions remain dormant."
Nille remained outwardly calm while listening internally.
But his thoughts became heavier.
Because the more he learned, the more he realized the artifact Granny Amparo left behind was not simply legendary.
It was something no other realm longer fully understood.
Nille paused at the door after thanking Caelum Verdanis.
He had already turned slightly, ready to leave, when the professor's voice stopped him.
"Nille."
Caelum reached into his desk and pulled out a thick, worn-looking book.
It did not look like an ordinary academy manual.
The cover was dark, reinforced with faint sealing runes that pulsed softly under the light of the floating crystals. When he placed it into Nille's hands, the air around it felt heavier—like the book itself carried weight beyond its physical form.
"I made this when I was still a student," Caelum said calmly.
Nille looked down at it, then back up.
Caelum continued.
"It contains recorded classifications of Malignants that are considered Vile-class entities."
"Not the ones that evolve into structured civilizations."
"Not the ones capable of negotiation."
"But the ones born from pure malice."
He stepped slightly aside, allowing Nille to open it.
"These beings do not grow toward understanding."
"They do not adapt toward coexistence."
"They exist to consume, destroy, and spread corruption wherever they appear."
Nille slowly opened the book.
The pages were dense with information.
But what made it different from the academy library was immediately noticeable.
Each entry had a faint lingering imprint.
Residual spiritual signatures embedded into the pages themselves.
As if the beings described were still partially "present" within the book.
Nille turned the page.
Dark sketches and structured notes appeared:
Flesh-eating Malignant variants.
Corrupted demonic remnants.
Imps born from collapsed curse fields.
Evolved dark elves who abandoned all civilization and turned predatory.
Wraith-like entities that consumed emotional energy and memory fragments.
Even rare records of beings that once lived as intelligent species before collapsing into irreversible madness and cannibalistic instinct.
Some entries were marked with warning seals.
Others with location notes tied to the deeper sectors of the island.
Most students would have considered this information unnecessary.
Because these creatures were either too rare, too dangerous, or already confined to the lowest, most unstable regions of the 12-sector system.
But Nille understood something else immediately.
This book was not just documentation.
It was a tracking interface.
A historical imprint archive.
And a behavioral reference guide.
Nyx's voice quietly surfaced in his mind.
"The enchantment is preserving residual identity echoes."
"These pages are storing fragments of their spiritual signatures."
"If used properly, I can map their frequency patterns and identify current or near-active locations."
Nille's grip tightened slightly on the book.
That meant this was not just knowledge.
It was a hunting tool.
A system for identifying real threats with far higher accuracy than standard academy classifications.
He turned another page.
More entries.
More darkness.
More structured violence.
And yet, also clarity.
Caelum's voice broke the silence again.
"The academy already has this information in its archives."
"But students do not normally access it in this form."
He looked at Nille directly.
"You are different from most students."
A short pause.
"So I am giving you something more practical."
Nille slowly closed the book halfway, still reading as he listened.
Caelum continued.
"Consider it repayment."
"You have provided value to this academy in ways that are not officially recorded."
"Much like your benefactor Rume Ironbark supports your material needs…"
"I will support your understanding."
Nille understood what he meant.
This was not charity.
It was acknowledgment.
A balance of contribution.
Nille finally closed the book completely and gave a small nod.
"Thank you, Professor."
Caelum simply nodded back.
"Use it wisely."
Nille turned toward the exit once more, this time actually leaving the office.
But as he walked away, he could already feel it, the world around him had become a little more defined.
Not safer.
Not easier.
Just clearer.