Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users - Chapter 423

Chapter 423: Elira Korrin

“This is where you will come tomorrow,” the teacher said, the word tomorrow landing in the air and holding its shape.

“You’ll bring your packs. Dress to move, not to pose. No charms unless you made them yourself.

No luck unless you earn it. Carry water. Carry respect for the realm and for the people who keep it steady.

Pride will cut you on the first stone it finds. That isn’t a threat. It’s a law that existed before any of us.”

They turned slightly, gaze lifting toward the shut gate as if listening through it. The quiet stretched long enough for every chest in the class to notice the breath it was taking.

Whatever they heard out there, it settled their shoulders and set their weight in a way that said they were done bending to anything that didn’t deserve it.

“Last thing,” they added, voice easing for a heartbeat without losing the edge inside it. “If fear finds you, tell your partner.

Find someone who knows it and learn how to listen if it doesn’t. Fear counts exits. Courage counts when you are still with you. You need both.”

They held the room with their eyes for one breath, then turned back toward the hall. “Inside,” they said. “We finish there.”

The walk back felt shorter, like the building had decided to help. The pairs moved with less shuffling and more rhythm.

People stopped trying to step on the quiet. They let their boots make the small sounds buildings like to hear.

When the classroom doors closed behind them, the air inside felt clearer, as if the long rectangle of space had taken a sip of water and found its shape again.

The teacher stepped forward, not behind the desk but just to the side of it, where the light caught enough of their face to matter. “Names now,” they said. “I am Elira Korrin.”

No fanfare. No list of titles. The room looked and listened instead. Early forties, tall, the kind of height that makes everyone assume you can reach the top shelf and lift the heavy box without needing to set it down halfway.

Auburn hair bound in a braid that had been tied fast enough not to be pretty and still somehow was.

Brown eyes with thin streaks of silver that were not decoration. Lines at the corners that said she had smiled honestly when it counted and frowned when necessary.

Robes that moved easily, the hems reinforced where it made sense, no needless trim, armored bindings at the shoulders and ribs.

A teacher who dressed like someone who expected the hallway to test her patience and did not plan to be slowed by fabric when it did.

“I am responsible for you as a unit,” Elira said. “You will have subject tutors. They will teach you languages, crafts, techniques, and history.

I will watch how you fit together. How do you count for each other? How do you move when you don’t get to choose the map? Strength matters.

Judgment matters. I test both. I do not award points for charm. I do not penalize you for not having it.”

A small pressure eased through the rows. It was not relief, exactly, but the feeling a room gets when it learns the rules and finds they can be followed.

“If you worry about fairness,” Elira went on, “worry less about it and more about clarity. I will be clear.

When I am not, you will ask. We will keep questions brief and answers shorter when they can be.”

A hand lifted near the back. The boy from earlier, chin a notch lower than before. “Why aren’t there more of these group classes?” he said.

“Astralis does one-on-one so well. This feels like a different machine.”

“It is,” Elira said. “Astralis believes in craft and in learning at human speed. It trains specialists and then puts them in rooms where specialization is not enough.

Group tests show how you behave when your talent shares a wall with someone else’s. It shows whether you know how to be ordinary in a way that saves lives.

You will be tested that way rarely. But the rare tests weigh more than the common ones.”

The boy nodded, the kind that comes with understanding, even if you don’t want to admit you needed to hear it.

Another voice, closer to the front. A girl with tidy notes and the careful calm of a person who had never let a pen run dry in her bag.

“Does this affect ranking?” she asked, not coy, not fishing, just practical.

“Yes,” Elira said. “This will shape your starting positions and your access to tools. But lists cannot measure everything that matters. I will notice what lists miss.”

Chairs creaked, pencils clicked, and the murmur that followed was the small water sound of people settling into the shape of a new truth.

Ethan sat with his hands folded, elbows off the desk, eyes on Elira. Now, he tracked tone more than words, filing the rest in the space where good advice waits until it turns into habit.

Elira wasn’t wasting anyone’s time. No crushing aura. No parade. The authority she carried felt clean, like a floor you can walk barefoot without thinking about where your feet land.

He found that refreshing.

Evelyn’s pen rested against her thumb, not moving. She wasn’t taking notes. She was listening with the part of her that made maps without needing lines.

Everly leaned forward just enough to look like she might be planning to whisper, and then didn’t. Her eyes stayed on Elira, steady and bright.

“Good,” Elira said, as if she had heard the room think and approved. “Now look.”

She lifted her hand, and the far wall darkened. The holo that climbed over it didn’t flash or crackle.

It rose quietly, like fog, until suddenly, it was there, and everything else belonged to it.

A field unfolded across half the classroom: forest blocks in layered shadow, ridgelines like the spines of sleeping beasts, a lattice of ruins cut by thin paths that led nowhere until you convinced them otherwise, stubby towers with broken tops, a sliver of marshland that looked boring until you pictured what lives under water that isn’t sure it wants to stay water.

Ridges, swamps, a scatter of riverbeds that only filled on someone else’s schedule, one narrow canyon with edges too neat to be natural and too old to be new. A simulation, yes. But not a toy.

“This is where your next trial begins,” Elira said. “Not the midterm itself. The floor you will stand on before it.

You go in teams. You come out together. How you move here shifts where you begin there.”

The room made the sound a room makes when it understands it finally has to stand up and go: a ripple of breath, a thin line of chatter that never got loud, debt and excitement mixed into something like resolve.

Ethan’s gaze traced the forest blocks first. He didn’t stare at the center. He marked edges.

The space between the first tree line and the broken road that framed it. A snag of brush where an ambush would love to live if it had a sense of humor. He looked for water, then for high ground, then for sight lines that weren’t obvious.

Evelyn pointed with one knuckle, not tapping, not underlining, just nailing two spots in place in her mind.

Everly’s eyes went to a narrow bridge made by a collapsed overpass, lip jutting over a shallow drop.

She smiled to herself, a quick little curve, like she had already heard the complaint someone would make about it and was ready to carry them across anyway.

Elira watched their faces, not their hands. Satisfied, she dimmed the map and brought up a softer grid, overlaying the terrain with a faint weave of lines and circles that marked zones the class would be assigned to at random.

“No arguments about placement,” she said. “You will not get the slice you want. You will get the slice you need.

If you land in water, you will learn to walk in wet conditions. If you land in ruin, you will remember that edge chip. If you land in trees, you will remember that trees listen.”

A hand in the second row. “Will proctors be visible?”

“Sometimes,” Elira said. “Sometimes you will only feel them when you choose something foolish and a hand takes your collar before the ground does. Do not count on the collar.”

“Allowed equipment?” someone else asked.

“Standard packs. Medical basics. Two flares. One pull-tag. Tools you made yourself, if you can prove you made them.

No artifacts you cannot explain. No heirlooms that belong to your mother’s mother unless you accept that if it breaks, we will not look for a replacement.”

The list drew a few winces and one stubborn tilt of a chin near the back. Elira let them have their feelings and kept going.

“Pair discipline,” she said. “You do not swap partners unless commanded. You do not compete with your pair.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!

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Creation is hard, cheer me up!

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