Chương 105: CHAPTER 103: THE DISSECTION OF PRIDE

The heavy glass canister hummed with trapped, violent energy upon the cold granite slab. Inside its thick transparent walls, the purple necrotic bile churned furiously against the bands of dark alchemical silver. Every drop of the lethal fluid remained locked behind the negative-pressure seal, yet the visual memory of the bubbling poison was seared into the minds of every student in the basalt hall. The air in the subterranean room still carried the sharp tang of burnt ozone mixed with bitter juniper berries.

Valerius did not move a single muscle. His outstretched fingers remained locked in place, trembling softly as the skin across his palms turned a blotchy, irritated red from his own backfired flames. He stared through the glass at the boiling venom. If that container had not intercepted the spray, the skin across his face would have melted down to the jawbone.

His grand ducal lineage, his reputation as an elemental prodigy, and his standing in the imperial court would have ended in a single puddle of corrosive slime on a basement floor. Behind him, the fifteen noble students on the upper tiers slowly crept back down the stone steps. Their embroidered silks rustled against the basalt benches, but the earlier sneers, arrogant chuckles, and dismissive whispers had vanished entirely.

They kept their hands tightly pinned to their sides, staring down into the dissection pit at the quiet scholar standing behind the stone table. On the far right side of the amphitheater, the five commoner scholarship students leaned forward over their desks with quills poised in midair. Their inkpots were steady now. Their eyes were wide, tense, and laser-focused, tracking every breath and gesture Shin made. Shin reached out his right hand, taking the fine iron scalpel from the edge of the granite slab. Clink.

The small metal tool produced a crisp, hollow ring against the polished stone.

"Tier 4 Conflagration Wave," Shin began, his voice flat, steady, and devoid of anger.

"A standard frontline war spell. Designed to burn through wooden barricades and incinerate light infantry across open ground." He pointed the blunt end of the scalpel toward the charred, torn chest cavity of the drake carcass.

"Who taught you to apply wide-area siege magic to biological tissue?" Shin asked, his gaze settling squarely on Valerius. Valerius swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly in the dead silence of the room.

"In the House of Ignis... all corruption is met with total fire. The elemental heat purges impurities before they can spread." Rudra looked at the noble boy with dry, weary patience. Abe yaar, these battle mages think every problem in the universe is a nail because they only carry a sledgehammer. Shin did not raise his voice to mock the boy. He simply tapped the torn edge of the black dragon scale with the scalpel tip.

"A living body is not a wooden wall," Shin said calmly.

"Tissue is a composite structure of fluid pathways, delicate membranes, and pressurized channels. When you forced raw fire mana into this carcass, the radiant heat raised the internal temperature of the fluid pocket by over eighty degrees in less than two-tenths of a second." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! He laid the scalpel down and picked up the pair of spring forceps.

"The trapped gas inside the main vessel expanded exponentially," Shin continued, indicating the torn violet capillary wall.

"The membrane was already weakened by necrotic rot. Its limit was less than forty grams of outward pressure. By pouring raw flame into the surface, you did not purge the poison. You turned a contained medical blockage into a biological fragmentation bomb." Valerius's pale cheeks flushed with sudden, desperate shame.

"I am a battle mage! My duty is destructive output! Fine cutting is the task of lowborn craftsmen and field butchers!" Shin let out a slow, quiet breath. Rudra shook his head slightly behind his impassive face. Inki ego toh hospital ke senior consultants se bhi badi hai. (Their ego is even bigger than the senior hospital consultants.) Shin did not argue with words. Instead, he lifted his left hand. [System Core: Micro-Mana Channeling Active] [Precision Calibration: 0. 05 micrometer thread density] [Energy Output: 0. 02% of total reserve] A soft, pale azure light condensed at the tips of Shin's fingers. It was not the roaring, blinding spectacle of Valerius's high-tier fire. There was no heat, no smoke, and no deafening roar. The ambient mana in the air simply condensed into five hair-thin luminous threads extending from his fingertips. The threads were so fine and transparent that they were nearly invisible beneath the yellow glow of the hanging iron lamps.

The commoner scholars gasped softly, leaning forward until their chests pressed hard against their stone desks.

"True control is not measured by how much energy you blast into a room," Shin said quietly.

"It is measured by how little energy you waste." Shin flicked his fingers forward. Swoosh. The five micro-threads entered the torn, blackened chest cavity of the drake with absolute precision. The mana did not burn the rotten meat. It did not tear the fragile edges of the weeping tissue. The luminous blue threads wove themselves beneath the secondary necrotic vein running along the right side of the beast's heart.

Working with mechanical rhythm, the threads wrapped around the base of the vessel, instantly constricting the flow of toxic fluid like microscopic surgical clamps. With his right hand holding the fine scalpel, Shin made a single, clean incision along the outer membrane. There was no explosion. There was no hissing eruption of gas.

A tiny, controlled stream of dark purple bile flowed out through the opening, caught instantly by a thread of blue mana and guided safely down into a small glass test tube resting beside the slab. Within three seconds, the pressurized swelling in the drake's chest went completely flat, leaving the primary mana conduit intact and fully drained. Shin released the mana threads. The pale blue glow faded into the cool air, leaving the granite table clean and completely dry.

"One hundredth of a mana unit," Shin stated, laying the clean scalpel back down on the stone.

"Zero heat. Zero airborne contamination. Total preservation of the surrounding tissue." The lecture hall was so quiet that the faint dripping of water in the distant drainage pipes could be heard beneath the basalt floor. The noble heirs stared at the clean, perfectly drained carcass with stunned disbelief. They had grown up believing that true magical power was defined solely by the width of an explosion and the volume of a roar.

Yet in front of their eyes, a plain scholar using less energy than a candle flame had solved a lethal crisis with total perfection. Valerius looked down at his own shaking hands. The raw crimson aura around his fingers felt clumsy, heavy, and childish. Everything he had been taught by his high-ranking ducal tutors was reduced to reckless butchery by a man who had not even broken a sweat. His breath grew shallow, his chest heaving under his embroidered coat.

The heavy weight of his family crest, his arrogance, and his absolute failure crushed down upon his shoulders all at once. Thud. Valerius's knees struck the cold basalt floor hard. He dropped his silver-plated wand, letting it roll across the stone, and clutched his bruised, trembling fists tightly against the ground right before Shin's boots. The premier heir of the Grand Duchy of Ignis bowed his head until his forehead nearly touched the stone dust, his voice cracking with raw desperation.

"Professor Shin... please," Valerius choked out, his arrogance completely shattered.

"Teach me... teach me how to control mana like that!"