"Lady Hazel, what do you remember about magic?", Lian Groff, her recently-appointed magic and history teacher asked as he placed an open book in front of her.

Instinctively, she lowered her eyes to look at the object but Groff intercepted her, "Don't look at it just yet, tell me what you remember first."

It seemed Sophie had let him in on their little secret, however, since he spoke to her like she had amnesia, Hazel assumed it was the lie Sophie had told him when he was hired.

"Um... I know that it exist", she offered uncooperatively.

She didn't mean to be rude, it was just that she wasn't a morning person, she had never been. That was the reason why she was never reactive during her morning classes. She'd just come to class, sit down and take 2 to 3 hours to fully wake up before doing anything productive. Although she was now in another body, that trait of hers remained.

Knowing that her short answer wouldn't be enough to satisfy her eager professor, she parroted what she had read in the book, hoping that it was still accurate. "I also know that people can either be fire mage, water mages, wind mages or earth mages. If they're not, then too bad for them, they have any magic."

"Oh...", Lian Groff replied. Judging by the look on his face, it wasn't the answer he had expected. "I guess we'll have to start from the very beginning then... I'll have to teach you the basics of magic before we go anywhere near the foundation of Prath. That will be for tomorrow."

Hazel let out a heavy sigh. She thought having read the book would spare her having to sit through the basics for 5 hours.

How complicated could this magic system possibly be? You either have magic or you don't, and if you do, you are either a fire, wind, water or earth mage. Pretty simple, right?

For Hazel, the basics shouldn't be something that required her to wake up at 6am and sit on this chair till 1am. She was already tired just thinking of the long day that awaited her.

What made it worse was the fact that she only had 3 hours of sleep before she was cruelly yanked out of the comfort of her bed.

Every night since she landed in the villainess’ body, she had had trouble sleeping. All day long she felt strangely jittery and tense, her heart pounding like she had tachycardia, but it got worse at night, to the point that it kept her awake. When she’d finally manage to fall asleep, she’d have the strangest dream. These dreams featured people she had never met, she had theories as to who they might be, but she chose to ignore that voice in the back of her head that kept pestering her. These dreams -- she was determined to keep calling them that -- were like flashes of scenes that played in her mind with a worrying degree of immersion. None of them were particularly fun, if anything, they left her with a slew of foreign, overwhelming emotions she didn’t know how to deal with.

She didn't know what was with this body but she hoped she'd wake up in her own body before she had to find out.

"So!...", Lian Groff exclaimed in an attempt to regain her drifting attention. "In your opinion, where does a person's magic ability come from?"

What Hazel wanted to say was [How the hell would I know?]. But what she replied was, "I don't know... the brain?", she speculated. "... the air, maybe?", she added, vaguely waving her hands in the air.

It's not that she wasn't interested, actually she was, but not now. Not when she felt like she wasn't dying inside and out, from fatigue and whatever condition Hazel Vedar had contracted.

"Not exactly!", Lian Groff answered, not discouraged by her obvious lack of enthusiasm. "A person's ability is contained and determined by the Core which is embedded in the soul. Do you know what a core is?"

Hazel shook her head.

"What about a soul?"

Hazel paused a bit. It wasn't a foreign concept like the 'core' but she never believed in it either. In the end, she merely nodded, not wanting to elongate his explanation any more.

"Then I'll explain the Core", he beamed. "Well, the core is a nebulous concept for scholars too. Some say it is as tangible as the body and others think it is intangible and closer to the soul. Researchers have dissected countless corpses in order to find it, but, as of today, no one has ever been able to find it."

"Maybe it just doesn't exist then", Hazel offered, sitting straighter and paying closer attention to his exposé.

"That's what we thought at first. Many have questioned the existence of the Core until the creation of the Temple."

[Why until then?], she wanted to ask. Lian noticed her inner inquisitiveness and simply offered her a smile as he proceeded to answer her unasked question.

"It's because the first High Priest invented a revolutionary magical artefact that was able to detect a person's Core and predict what type of magic they would wield even before their awakening. The artefact could also determine other things, like whether a person had any active magic or whether their magic was non-elemen—"

"What is active magic?", the word had caught her attention.

Looking at Hazel now, gone was her lazily slouched posture and dismissive general attitude, she had even taken out her pen and notebook and started taking notes.

"Everyone possesses a core, so everyone has and can manipulate mana to a minimal degree. Mana is like blood, necessary and vital not just for us humans but also for plants and animals. Without it, nothing can live. That basic mana that is required for life is called passive mana. It doesn't enable a person to use magic but it enables them to use magical objects and magic stones imbued with any element. As for active mana, it is the mana that is filtered through an active core."

Lian probably saw how confused she was since he paused a bit, his expression showed pity for her. It was a lot of information and not much made sense at the moment.

"I know it is a lot to learn in such a short time so if you have any question, feel free to ask, we have all the time we need for that."

"Thank you", Hazel grinned back, reassured.

"To simplify the concept of an active core, think of it this way, there is mana all around us, it's constantly there but unless you're a mage, you don't feel it. An active core is one that possesses its own passive mana, thus allowing its owner to live, but it can also absorb surrounding mana and transform it into a new kind of mana : active mana able manifest as magic."

Hazel felt like she got it but her brain had been scrambled in the process.

"It's a bit complicated, isn't it? It's also really fascinating!" His eyes were twinkling with the excitement of a person who had spent years studying a subject and was finally allowed to talk about it as much as he wanted. "It's a shame that no further researches have been done since the Temple was founded."

"What? Why not?"

It didn't feel like they had discovered everything there was to know about the core and magic in general, so why stop the research?

"The Temple has a monopoly on research when it comes to magic as well as the gifts and curses of the Goddesses."

Hazel had so many questions but Lian's expression seemed to say 'in due time'.

"We'll talk about all of that when tomorrow as we go over the founding of the Holy Empire of Prath. Be a little patient, my lady. Now, back to mana. Turn your book page 154, please."

She did. On pages 154 and 155, there were charts and numbers that she didn't understand yet.

"As you can see on the first chart, approximately 57% of the pratheen population possesses active mana. 80% of them are weak mages, 15% are average, 4% are considered talented mages and only 1% are extraordinary mages. Your Father, Elias Vedar is among those exceptional 1%, so is your mother, Maeve Vedar. Your brother, although he hasn't had the opportunity to show the full scope of his talent, is suspected to also be an exceptional mage."

Hazel knew why she wasn't mentioned. Hazel Vedar had no magic in the book. It was one of the things she was insecure about. Everyone around her, including her cousin, who she deemed inferior to her, were mages, but she wasn't. Needless to say, that fact filled her with envy and resentment.

Hazel also conjectured that Rianon, who would be elevated as a Saintess candidate, was one of those 'exceptional mages' he had talked about, and, judging by Lian Groff's uneasy expression, he had not mentioned her on purpose.

"There are reasons to think that magic abilities are genetic. The theory is very old and has never been fully verified but most people believe it, especially nobles. Through eugenics and selective marriages, nobles were able to maintain a relatively high level of magic ability. Although...", he paused, looking at her uncomfortably. "... there are a few cases when a noble is born with a very weak ability or without any magic."

This confirmed what she already knew. She was disappointed, of course, she was in a world where magic was a common occurrence but she was deprived from the opportunity of using it. Hazel didn't know whether she wanted to roll her eyes at her own misfortune or sigh.

"Approximately, 38% of Pratheens possess no active magic. There are more commoners in this case than nobles, of course. As for the rest of the population, the recent report of the Temple estimates that there are still around 5% of non-elemental mages hiding in Prath."

'Non elemental mages? Hiding?'

"I have so many questions", Hazel prefaced.

"I know, I know. But it is important that we do one thing at a time."

With a displeased huff, Hazel relented, turning it over to Lian Groff once more. He went back to his explanations, answering her question when they didn't veer too far off topic. 5 hours went by in a flash, the class had proven to be incredibly compelling.

Lian Groff, and his adorable glasses and purple hair, was her favourite teacher so far. He reminded her of those newly-graduated high school teachers who came in the first day of school full of hope and ideals, but everyone knew they would end the year broken and jaded. She had to admit, his enthusiasm was a bit contagious. He had this way of opening his eyes wide when he was lost in one of his tirade.

As Hazel left the first floor for the dining-room, her mind lingered on the information that her brains had just been pumped full of.

According to the Temple records Lian had shown her, earth was the most common type of magic, followed by water, fire and wind. Each element had its figure heads : for earth it was the marquis Norcrest, for water it was the emperor Damien Praetor, for fire it was Elias Vedar and for wind it was duke Sentry.

They had also gone over the specifics when it came to how people used their magic.

Although it is the most common element, earth was the hardest to create out of thin air, only proficient earth mages were able to summon it spontaneously. Water was one of the easiest to spontaneously create but a mage had to be very knowledgeable to change its state.

As for fire, it was the most volatile element and also one of the easiest to summon. Most fire mages had an innate fire resistance, but it didn't mean they were immune to it since if exposed to fire for a long time anyone would burn, it just took longer for fire mages.

Hazel already knew a lot about wind magic since Lovely Goddess' Rianon was a wind mage but Lian's exposé added a bit of context. Wind mages could create their element spontaneously but they tended not to do it since they could simply control the air around them .

Lian had finished the lesson with the promise that she'd be able to see these types of magic at work during the Pradera parade.

For the first time in 4 days, she was excited about the Pradera festival.

 

 

---

 

 

Sophie was panicking.

She was one step away from having a complete breakdown.

At first she didn't believe it, but miss Hazel had been acting strange, she hadn't been herself. It made more sense that her soul had been swapped with someone else than the idea that she had somehow forgotten what kind of organisation the Havana Temple was.

It also meant that she had failed Miss Hazel. She had failed to protect her friend.

When Angela had offered they go out for drinks to celebrate Miss Hazel's coming of age, she had immediately known it was a bad idea. Ever since they had arrived in Demetria, they had been under intense scrutiny. The media wanted to capture a glimpse of the duke's daughter and the spies had been following their every move. She had known that letting their guard down would be unwise, it would jeopardize their plans and put the miss in more danger than she already was.

She regretted giving into Angela's puppy eyes, Alen's incessant whining and miss Hazel's almost imperceptible excitement. She had always been weak to these.

She should have followed her instincts. They wouldn't be in this situation if she had.

She felt the tears threatening to blur her vision.

She was the eldest of the group, she should have known better than to to be intoxicated in a place full of enemies.

She needed air.

Sophie got up from her desk and walked to the balcony of the room she shared with Angela.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

She needed a clear mind. They had to find a way to get Miss Hazel back.

She allowed herself a few minutes to let her emotions freely flow through her.

Then she went back to her desk, took out a notebook and proceeded to draw hypotheses of what might have happened to Miss Hazel.

Her first thought was that the imposter inhabiting Miss Hazel's body was responsible for the situation. Sophie did not trust that woman, not even a little bit. As far as she was concerned, that person, whoever they were, could have been sent by the Temple. That would also mean that they had Miss Hazel's soul hidden somewhere.

She shuddered at the possibility.

Her nails were getting shorter by the minute. If she bit them any more than that she would be eating her own flesh.

She didn't like the possibility of the Temple being involved. The 3 of them could not fight against the Temple alone. She doubted they would receive any help from the Vedars, they would never take on one of the central powers this soon.

If that imposter wasn't sent by the Temple, perhaps this was the result of a magic artefact. It was a little better but not by much since it also meant that the Temple was involved. But there was a possibility miss Hazel's soul was not in their possession, it could be in another world. Sophie really hoped that was the case. It wasn't great but at least there was hope.

She reminded herself to interrogate the imposter. If Miss Hazel was in that woman's body, Sophie wanted to make sure that she was safe and comfortable, she also wanted information on that world, perhaps the problem came from there.

There was also a possibility that a non-elemental mage was involved. She has never heard of magic that could swap souls, this was a prerogative of the goddesses. If there was truly a mage capable of doing that, they needed to find that person. They had to get them reverse the magic, even if it meant torturing them until the only thing they could do was breathe and blink.

At least it was certain that the mage did not work for the Temple. The bad news was that they could have been sent by another country aiming to disrupt the empire.

Needless to say they were potentially fucked.

It hurt her head just thinking about all the ways this could blow up in everybody's face.

"Should I just sneak into the Temple?" She said to herself.

She didn't need anyone to tell her this was a bad idea. She knew it, she did.

She was still considering it though.

It should at least be a last resort.

But before doing that, she'd get the information she needed another way. There wasn't many information guild she could go to, most of them were pricey and incompetent, the others were untrustworthy.

Sophie let her head fall on the table.

She was tired.

If it was any other situation, they could have used the Heindel information network. As annoying as she was, Miraella Velpassi was incredibly good at her job, they would have the information they needed in less than a week.

But they couldn't do that. They couldn't because the Velpassi woman was a cold-blooded reptile wearing the skin of a human and also because she would tell everything to the duchess.

Sophie got up from the desk once again. She got a black hood and wrapped it around her.

The previously short black hair had turned blond and long, her dark brown eyes were now green and her features had morphed into a face that wasn't hers.

"Ugh! Doing this always uses too much mana."

Thankfully, it was dark enough that she could discreetly leave the mansion. Even if someone saw her, they would not know who she was.