Nyx was already at the table when Takeshi arrived.

She had three books open in front of her, each on different pages, and a notebook with notes covering both visible sheets. When she saw him enter the reserved section, she closed the notebook and moved one of the books aside to make space.

Takeshi set his backpack on the chair next to him and took out the book he had borrowed the day before.

"You won’t need that."

Nyx said, looking at the book.

"Not for now."

Takeshi placed it on the table anyway.

Nyx folded her hands on the surface and began without preamble.

"The two main types of magic are elemental and infusion. They differ in origin, application, and training method. I’m going to explain both before we do any exercises, because if you don’t understand the fundamental difference, the exercises won’t make sense."

Takeshi nodded.

"Elemental magic works directly with natural elements such as fire, water, earth, wind, and electricity. The user takes their internal energy, converts it into the desired element, and projects it outward, producing results like a fireball, a stream of water, or an electric discharge. Something that exists outside the user once it’s generated."

"Does the user choose the element, or does it depend on affinity?"

"It depends on affinity. Every person has a natural affinity for one or two elements and can learn the others with training, but performance with their affinity elements is always superior. They’ll have more power, lower energy cost, and better control."

"How do you find out what your affinity is?"

"There’s a standard test where they expose you to the different elements under controlled conditions and measure your internal energy’s response. The school does it in the first year, during the second month."

She paused.

"You haven’t taken it yet, I assume."

"No."

"Then for now you don’t know your affinity. That’s fine; what we’re working on today doesn’t depend on that."

Takeshi jotted in the margin of the notebook he had taken out: affinity test — second month — ask for date.

"The second type is infusion magic."

Nyx continued.

"Here, the energy isn’t projected outward as something separate. Instead, it’s transferred to an object, usually a weapon, and the object acts as the channel. A sword blade infused with fire doesn’t generate a fireball; it produces fire directly from the blade. The effect is linked to the weapon, not the user."

"What difference does that make in practice?"

"Several. Infusion requires contact with the object. You can’t infuse a weapon that’s across the room, but in exchange, the control is more precise because the weapon defines the range and shape of the effect. With elemental you have more freedom of range but more variables to control."

Takeshi wrote that down.

"And dissonant magic?"

Nyx didn’t answer right away. She adjusted one of the open books in front of her without looking at the page.

"Dissonant is a separate category. It’s not a third way of doing the same thing; it’s the name given to everything that doesn’t fit into the other two."

"How do you define what doesn’t fit?"

"By exclusion. If a magical effect can’t be explained as projected energy converted into an element or as energy transferred to an object, it falls under dissonant."

Nyx adjusted the book and closed it.

"The clearest example to understand the difference between the three: you want to incinerate someone. With elemental, you generate a fireball and throw it. With infusion, your weapon expels fire from the blade when you strike. With dissonant, you establish a set of rules in space, trap the person inside those rules, and the result is that they burn without any visible fire generated by you."

Takeshi stopped writing.

"Does the user define the rules?"

"It depends. That’s part of what makes it complex. There’s no standard procedure. Every dissonant effect has its own conditions that the user sets or that are already set before execution. If the conditions aren’t met, the effect doesn’t occur."

"And if the conditions are only partially met?"

"It depends on the effect. Some fail completely, others produce different results than expected."

Nyx paused.

"That said, it’s probably not something you need to worry about right now."

"Why?"

"Because dissonant magic was discovered relatively recently and is still poorly studied. There’s no established training program for it. No one knows yet what determines whether someone has dissonant affinity or how to develop it systematically. The most likely scenario is that you have affinity with elemental or infusion, which actually have structured training and measurable results."

She leaned on the table.

"If it turned out you had dissonant affinity, that would be a whole different level of problem with no simple solution, but it’s an unlikely scenario, so there’s no point worrying about it in advance."

Takeshi nodded and finished taking notes.

"Good."

Nyx said.

"Now the internal process."

She opened the book Takeshi had brought to Chapter four and turned it so he could read it.

"Did you read this last night?"

"Yes."

"Did you understand the concept of flow?"

"In theory... I think so."

"Normal. The book describes the sensation, but reading about it isn’t the same as recognizing it."

She closed the book and set it aside.

"Place your hands on the table, palms down, and do nothing. Just pay attention to whether there’s any difference in temperature or weight between different parts of your hands."

Takeshi placed his hands down.

He waited.

"Anything?"

"My palms are warmer than my fingers."

"Is that normal for you or different from usual?"

Takeshi thought.

"I don’t know. I don’t usually pay attention."

"Good. That’s exactly the point. The flow already exists, but most people don’t register it because there’s no reason to in daily life."

Nyx placed her own hand on the table.

"Now try to direct that temperature difference toward the tip of your index finger. Don’t generate it, don’t force anything, just move what’s already there."

Takeshi focused his attention on his right index finger.

Twenty seconds passed.

"There’s something."

He said.

"I don’t know if it’s real or if I’m imagining it."

"What do you feel?"

"Like a light pressure, very light."

"At the tip or in your whole hand?"

"At the tip."

Nyx nodded once.

"You’re not imagining it. That’s the flow moving toward where you’re directing it. It’s small because you have no practice yet, but the mechanism works."

She leaned back in her chair.

"The next step would be converting that flow into an element, but that step requires knowing your affinity. If you try to generate the wrong element, the flow disperses and you lose control of what you’ve accumulated."

"So without the affinity test I can’t go beyond this."

"You can advance in control—directing the flow to different points, keeping it stable, moving it from one place to another without it dispersing. That’s real training even if you’re not converting anything yet."

Takeshi processed that.

"How long does it take to develop basic control?"

"It depends on practice frequency and the person. With twenty minutes of daily practice, a few weeks to achieve stable control—sometimes less."

Takeshi was about to ask something else when the sound of a cell phone cut through the conversation.

Nyx took it out of the side pocket of her backpack and looked at the screen.

Her expression tightened slightly in her jaw and the line of her lips.

"One moment."

She said, and stood up from the table.

She walked three steps toward the side wall, partially turning her back to Takeshi, and answered.

"Yes."

She listened to what they said.

"When?"

A longer pause.

"I understand."

Another pause.

"I’m on my way."

She hung up and returned to the table. She put the phone back in her backpack and began gathering the open books.

"I have to go."

Her tone was lower than before. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Everything okay?"

"I don’t know yet."

She closed the last book and stacked it with the others.

"What we did today was enough to get started. Practice the flow on your own, twenty minutes a day, without trying to convert it into anything yet. Next time we meet we’ll pick up from there."

"Understood."

Nyx grabbed the stack of books, this time lower and better balanced than the day before. She looked at Takeshi for a second.

"Thanks for helping me with the books yesterday."

"It was nothing."

She nodded once and left the reserved section without saying anything else. Takeshi followed her with his eyes until she turned down the central aisle and disappeared among the shelves.

He left the library five minutes later, when the long break ended and the hallways filled with students again.

He walked toward his classroom wing without hurry.

The session had lasted less than agreed.

’What could have happened?’

It wasn’t as if Nyx owed him an explanation. It could be anything.

But the tone of her voice during the call hadn’t sounded minor.

Takeshi reached the door of his classroom and waited outside until the instructor opened it.

’I don’t have enough information to draw any conclusions.’

He entered the classroom and took his seat.

Whatever was going on with Nyx would become clear sooner or later, and there was nothing he could do about it right now.