<div> Chapter 194: A name carved twice
 I didn’t leave my quarters the next morning.
 Which, for a man like Lucian Drelmont, was cause for gossip.
 A dozen students probably whispered that I’d drunk myself unconscious. Others might’ve guessed I’d finally snapped from the stress of pretending to care about their futures.
 They were wrong.
 I was simply being careful.
 There’s a saying in Sūyara: "If your reflection starts speaking first, stop listening second."
 Smart advice.
 Especially now that I was beginning to suspect mine was doing just that.
 I sat on the cold stone floor, legs folded, fingers dancing across the Grimoire. The ink still pulsed—softly, faintly—with a second heartbeat.
 Not mine.
 Not anymore.
 "MIRRORMAKER," the title whispered. "Crafted by accident. Wielded by choice."
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</div> The book kept changing. Evolving.
 The new sigil tree branched from Echochain like a spider’s web.
 One node glowed faintly: "Phase Echo."
 Project a delayed mirage of a chosen reflection. Delay: 3 seconds. Risk: Psychological echo drift.
 I scribbled the rune on the shard again, this time with powdered coal and salt.
 Focused.
 Chanted.
 The mirror shimmered—then my reflection blinked three seconds after I did.
 It smirked when I didn’t.
 I ended the spell instantly.
 "Alright," I muttered, standing. "We’re done playing."
 I arrived in class late.
 My students stared. Not with surprise. Not anymore. Just the usual cocktail of fear, admiration, and the resignation of people who knew I’d make them regret being here.
 "Sorry I’m late," I said casually, dropping a cloth bundle on the desk. "Took a detour through a cursed dimension. Picked up souvenirs."
 Julien opened his mouth. Closed it. Mira leaned sideways to whisper something, but Leo beat her to it.
 "You look like crap, Professor."
 I gave him a slow smile. "Good. Means I’m still me."
 His brows creased. "What—?"
 "I’ve got an exercise for you all. Rune theory, advanced application. I’m going to project a duplicate of myself. Your job? Identify the real one."
 Wallace raised his hand. "Wait, what?"
 I snapped my fingers.
 The classroom shimmered.
 Two Lucians stood at the front now—me, and the delayed projection.
 We moved almost in unison.
 Almost.
 "Identify me," I said—we said, together.
 They stared.
 The illusion smirked. I stayed still.
 Mira’s eyes narrowed.
 Felix was already halfway under the table.
 Garrick looked at both versions, then punched one square in the face.
 Unfortunately, it was me.
 "OW—Brick-for-brains, what part of ’identify’ implied violence?!"
 "Sorry!" he said quickly. "You twitched! That one flinched weird!"
 "That was the projection."
 He looked confused. "Then why’d you grunt?"
 "Sympathetic echo. It’s a real thing." I straightened, rubbing my jaw. "But you raise a point. The deeper the link, the harder it is to tell who’s in control."
 Cassandra finally spoke.
 "I saw your reflection blink before you did."
 I froze.
 The room went silent.
 I turned to her slowly.
 "...You saw that?"
 She nodded.
 Mira leaned toward her. "And you’re not freaking out why?"
 Cassandra didn’t answer.
 She didn’t have to.
 Because I was starting to freak out.
 My own spell was slipping.
 Which meant either the Grimoire was evolving too quickly—
 Or something inside the mirror was starting to act on its own.
 Elsewhere – Unknown Domain
 The mirror rippled like black water.
 And from its depths, a shape watched.
 Not Lucian.
 But it wore his face.
 Smiled with his mouth.
 Tilted its head with the same casual arrogance.
 It pressed a hand against the glass.
 And the glass cracked.
 Once.
 Then twice.
 Then stopped—waiting.
 It wouldn’t escape yet.
 But it was learning.
 Mimicking.
 Perfecting.
 Waiting for the moment when Lucian blinked just a second too long.
 I couldn’t sleep that night.
 Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my reflection blinking after me.
 Not late. Not delayed.
 Wrong.
 I’d seen illusions before. Used them. Designed better ones than most conjurers could dream of.
 But what was in that mirror wasn’t mine anymore.
 It was thinking.
 And worse?
 It was waiting.
 Morning found me in the West Wing, tucked beneath the spires that smelled of old paper, oil-lamps, and salted ink—the Academy’s Archive.
 I didn’t ask for permission. No one stopped me.
 Drelmont name still held weight, even if I wore it like a noose.
 I found what I was looking for under ’Reflected Hexes’—a leather-bound log, centuries old. Written by someone called "A.S."
 "The mirror does not show the soul. It remembers its own."
 "Avoid names. Avoid eyes. Avoid acknowledgment."
 The last entry was scrawled in a rushed, shaking hand:
 "If you see yourself moving first, it’s already too late."
 I closed the book and stared at the empty space behind me.
 There was nothing.
 No phantom. No duplicate.
 Just shadows.
 Still...
 Something felt wrong.
 Meanwhile, in the undercellars of the Drelmont Estate...
 Cassandra knelt at the edge of the sealed well.
 Not a drop of moisture remained. Just dry stones, etched with runes so old they looked fossilized.
 She wasn’t alone.
 She felt it.
 Not footsteps. Not breath.
 But awareness.
 Her fingers drifted toward her satchel. Not for a weapon—but for the letter Lucian had slipped her after class.
 One line.
 "If something calls you by name—don’t answer. Not even mine."
 Her lips thinned.
 "Too late, Professor," she murmured.
 Because something had called her.
 Not with words.
 With a memory.
 The well had shown her a version of herself—older, bloodied, standing over a battlefield of ash. Her eyes were void-black, her hands radiant with chains of light.
 And beside her, standing too close, was Lucian.
 Except he hadn’t blinked at all.
 He just smiled.
 And his reflection smiled wider.
 Back at the Academy, Roderick Vaughn slammed a tankard onto the faculty lounge table.
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</div> "You look like a man who’s either cursed, sleep-deprived, or freshly divorced," he said.
 "Let’s go with all three," I replied, taking the other seat.
 He grunted. "Which is it really?"
 "...I need your help with a mirror problem."
 He raised an eyebrow.
 "That some kind of poetic metaphor, or are we dealing with an actual artifact?"
 I reached into my coat and placed the shard on the table.
 The air dimmed.
 The shard didn’t glow.
 It drank light.
 Roderick went still.
 "...You idiot."
 I took a long drink from his tankard. "I know."
 "That’s not just any cursed relic. That’s borderline soulcraft."
 "Got it from a hidden vault beneath the Academy."
 He swore. "And your first instinct was to use it?!"
 "Trial and error, Roddy. Heavy on the error."
 He stared at me, deadpan. "And let me guess: now it’s echoing you, developing a will, and trying to replace you when you blink?"
 I paused.
 "...Wait. That’s an actual thing?"
 "Oh for the love of—yes, it’s a thing! It’s called a Specter Echo. Mirror-anchored, unstable, feeds off repetition and identity confusion. Didn’t you study anything?!"
 "I taught battlefield strategy. I thought mirrors were for diviners and vain nobles."
 "You are a vain noble."
 "Low blow."
 He leaned forward. "You need to suppress the echo. Not break the shard—that’ll just free it. Anchor yourself. Reinforce your core identity."
 I frowned.
 "You’re saying I need to... believe in myself?"
 "Not believe. Define. Who are you, Lucian?"
 I didn’t answer.
 Because the truth was—
 I still didn’t know.
 Elsewhere
 In the dark between glass and memory, the reflection that was not Lucian smiled.
 Not because it was winning.
 But because it had time.
 And Lucian?
 Lucian had doubt.
 Which meant the game had already begun.
 I stared into the mirror again that night.
 This time, I didn’t flinch when my reflection didn’t mimic me.
 I just watched.
 It tilted its head.
 I tilted mine in the opposite direction.
 It blinked once. Deliberately.
 I didn’t blink back.
 The air between us went still. Dense. Like standing in a prayer hall before a funeral pyre was lit.
 Then the reflection smiled.
 And spoke.
 Not with words. Not with breath. But the glass vibrated—just enough to whisper one thing into my mind.
 "You are not Lucian Drelmont."
 My stomach twisted.
 It knew.
 It knew.
 I raised my hand slowly, channeling mana into my palm until the light traced the first lines of a binding rune. The Grimoire of Patterns flared open in my mind like a living library, flipping to the sigils I’d buried in instinct.
 If this was a Specter Echo, then I had one chance to trap it—
 "Stop," it mouthed.
 I froze.
 Not because of fear.
 But because I felt it inside the pattern already.
 Like it had slithered into the rune before I could shape it.
 And it smiled again.
 "Try again tomorrow."
 Then the reflection became me once more.
 Perfectly in sync.
 Perfectly false.
 I scribbled the failed rune onto a parchment and torched it, pacing the chamber like a caged beast.
 Roderick had said I needed to anchor myself. Define who I was.
 That meant... memory.
 Identity.
 The truth.
 Which was a problem, because the real truth wasn’t Lucian Drelmont. It was Allen Cross. Office drone. Black company survivor. Night owl gamer with back problems and caffeine dependence.
 That truth couldn’t survive here.
 And the reflection knew it.
 So I did the one thing I hadn’t tried yet.
 I wrote.
 Not a spell.
 A letter.
 "To Allen Cross—"
 Meanwhile, in the Dorne Estate marshes...
 Felix stood on a rickety bridge, watching the mists curl over dead water.
 He’d received word.
 His mother had fallen ill. His father was missing.
 And the land was shifting—a quiet rot was spreading through the estate’s veins.
 His cousins whispered of curses. Of the drowned coming back to knock at windows.
 But what Felix feared wasn’t ghosts.
 It was expectation.
 The idea that maybe, just maybe, he was expected to become the next head of House Dorne.
 And all he wanted was to run.
 Then a splash echoed under the bridge.
 Not a fish.
 Not a frog.
 Something with hands.
 "Professor?" he called out nervously.
 No reply.
 Only the faintest whisper, carried by mist:
 "Wrong mirror, boy."
 He ran.
 Back at the Academy...
 Roderick paced through the restricted wing, gripping a lamp and muttering protection prayers beneath his breath.
 He’d pulled strings to find the original records of Specter Echo containment.
 And what he found chilled him.
 There wasn’t just one echo.
 There were twelve.
 All bound under different names.
 All forgotten by time.
 Except one.
 The thirteenth.
 The one that didn’t need a mirror to escape.
 Its name?
 "The Selfless Twin."
 A being that devours your identity not by copying—but by offering you something better.
 In my quarters, I finished the letter.
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</div> Folded it.
 Sealed it.
 Burned it.
 And as the ashes curled into the fireplace, I said aloud—
 "I am Lucian Drelmont."
 The mirror didn’t react.
 I leaned closer.
 "And I’m Allen Cross."
 The reflection blinked.
 And this time... it looked confused.
 I grinned, tired and a little mad.
 "Try mimicking that, bastard."</div>
 

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Chapter 194: A name carved twice

Chapter 194: A name carved twice I didn’t leave my quarters the next morning. Which, for a man like Lucian Drelmont, was cause for gossip. A dozen students probably whispered that I’d drunk myself unconscious. Others might’ve guessed I’d finally snapped from the stress of pretending to care about their futures. They were wrong. I was simply being careful. There’s a saying in Sūyara: "If your reflection starts speaking first, stop listening second." Smart advice. Especially now that I was...

Villainous Instructor at the Academy

Chapter 194: A name carved twice

Villainous Instructor at the Academy - Chapter 194: A name carved twice