Fallen Mage Regressor

A coded message was a great thing. If both sides knew the key, then you could arrange transportation of the message and avoid anyone else listening in. Even if they did listen, they wouldn't be able to understand it.

But encoding an entire spell for your personal notes was somewhat insane..

Mal scratched the side of his temple. He’d taken several blank sheets of paper and tried multiple keys, and none of them were working.

The problem with encoding long, extended documents was that those documents were meant to be used and read as a reference.

As such, if you were going to create a code for a document, you had two options. You could either make the code incredibly simple, such that you would be able to mentally translate the notes as you’re reading, or you could use some sort of illusion spell that does the work on the back end and make the code as complicated as you want.

Mal was making a bet.

He was making a bet that Cornelias was either too lazy, or thought he was too high-thinking of himself to rely on an external aid.

If Mal was right, then Cornelias would have had to use a relatively simple key to encode the documents. And if it was simple, Mal would be able to crack it.

But the past thirty minutes had shown that Mal’s dream was quite a bit out of reach.

Mal wasn’t an expert in ciphers. He’d encoded his own messages at various points, and he knew the basics because of that. But code-breaking was a different skill entirely. The person he’d relied on for that... was an eldritch horror with infinite knowledge that he should really avoid contacting if at all possible.

I won’t rely on Golial again, Mal thought. I only did it that one time because it was an emergency. I refuse to fall into the same trap that I did before.

But without Golial, Mal was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He tapped his quill against the paper.

Maybe he was thinking about this all wrong.

What if he could find the likely output and then reverse engineer the code?

From what he remembered, Cornelias was a bit of an egoist. The man was a traditionalist when it came to most things in academics, but there was one thing that he always insisted on in all of his papers. It had been so noticeable, that even now, Mal still remembered it in the second timeline.

He always signed his work at the very end with his name.

He flipped over to the final page and traced his way to nine random characters at the very end.

Jackpot.

With some tinkering, he managed to get a rough way to reverse engineer the code, then excitedly, he translated the pages working backwards. It was clearly legible and readable and spoken in the common tongue.

And then, as he got further back, as soon as he made it to the page before, it stopped making sense.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Mal thought.

Cornelias had encrypted each page with a separate code.

“What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

The sheer level of effort when you have such a simple code for the final page... Cornelias truly was the worst sort of narcissist.

In frustration, Mal shoved the papers back into his desk and slammed his forehead against the desk.

Mal’s days for the next week or so rotated on a consistent, predictable schedule. He would train Philo, Nima, and Rolam. He would go to classes, then he would spend his nights and early mornings trying to crack the code. As expected, he didn’t really make much progress with the code. But with Philo and Rolam, he was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly they were coming along. Rolam had gotten to the point where he could semi-consistently cast a basic Arcane Sphere. Philo had stopped freezing up as much as he used to. With more work, Mal was pretty sure he’d be able to grind away their flaws and turn them into capable warriors.

In between these sessions, he'd worked with Lusia to practice her mana circulation. She wasn't able to do very much except for that mana circulation, but she'd already seen it as a boon—the passive physical enhancement made her movements quicker and stronger.

She applied that to her kitchen work and ended up breaking all the dishes.

Mal deeply hoped that he wouldn’t go back to being an endbringer solely for the sole reason that he would find it quite strange if he were defeated by people that he taught. There was something poetic about that, but it was also a little bit offensive to imagine himself getting defeated by his own students.

Or sorry, the people he was “tutoring”. He wasn’t teaching them, that was the job of the professors.

Mal didn’t expect that he would have a chance to see his work in action as quickly as he did.

“I think it’s about time for sparring to resume.”

Mal internally sighed. Now he would have to figure out the best way to draw or throw the match, and given his previous attempts, he wasn’t sure if he would be successful.

Vigil had delivered the phrase with all the gentleness of an executioner leading someone to their death. A cold grin formed on Vigil seemingly at the looks of discomfort that had appeared on all of the students.

“Did you really think we’d be spending all this time doing nothing but learning how to throw a punch and all of that theory stuff? No, you’ve got to apply it.”

Rolam’s eyes had lit on fire. “I’m going to crush anybody who stands in my way!”

“Philo will not engage in any crushing, but he is certain that he will do well.”

“I’m glad we have so much confidence on our side," Nima said.

As people were pairing up, Mal caught sight of ice blue eyes locking onto his own.

Savaly stepped toward him and Mal saw his life flash before his eyes—

A hand laid on his shoulder. “Mal, can I talk to you?”

Mal turned and looked at the person who’d spoken to him. Vigil.

He nodded. “Of course.”

Out of the corner of Mal’s eye, he spotted Savaly with a tight frown. He pretended that he hadn’t seen her and walked step in step with Vigil.

“Here’s the deal,” Vigil said when they came to a stop. “I wanted to pair you up with Savaly—”

Oh, crap.

“But given your injuries and the fact that we’re still monitoring your health, I decided it would be a good idea to pair you up with someone a little weaker."

Oh, thank goodness.

"Who?" he asked.

"Are you okay with fighting Hypode?”

Mal tilted his head. “Why Hypode?”

“I believe that the boy needs another chance at you. If we set you up as his target, it’ll act as good motivation.”

Mal didn’t really understand Vigil’s logic here, but he also didn’t really see any reason to argue against it.

“I’m fine with it, professor.”

“Good man.”

Vigil’s gaze remained locked on Mal, like he was trying to peer behind Mal’s face and into his brain. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

“Professor?” Mal said.

Vigil remained silent for a few seconds.

“Nothing,” he finally said. “You go tell Hypode that you and him are paired for the third batch.”

Mal walked away from Vigil, replaying the encounter in his head. Could Vigil know? If Headmaster Puck knew, it was possible he told the other members of staff about who Mal was. But for some reason, Mal suspected that Puck would keep that information close to his chest. Puck didn’t seem like the sort to spread something as earth-shattering as proof of time travel unless there was an exceptionally good reason.

Mal resolved to himself that in this next fight, he would be as average as possible and hopefully try to get some of the attention off of himself.

This time, Mal thought. This time, I won’t screw it up.

He went over to Hypode and nodded at him. “You and I are paired up after the other fights..”

Hypode made a face like he’d just smelled excrement.

“Great,” Hypode looked away and shook his head. “I’m looking forward to it.”

The first fight that Mal had any interest in was the one between Rolam and—

One of Hypode’s circlemates.

Huh, Mal thought, what are the odds?

A funny smile crossed Hypode’s face. “You recognize them, then?”

“He’s the one who was following you around when we first met, the big guy,” Mal said. "The one who’d gotten his jaw broken by Rolam."

“Your elven friend only managed to pull that off because he was taken by surprise. Now that my ally is aware of your friend’s capabilities, the battle will be decided in an instant.”

“I just hope Rolam learns something from it,” Mal said.

Hypode’s smug smile transformed into a look of vague irritation.

“Your teammate is about to have the crap beaten out of him,” Hypode said. “You’re not concerned?”

“If it happens, it happens. It’ll be a good experience for him.”

Hypode slammed his mouth shut and looked onto the fight.

The two faced off and immediately, the Hypode’s teammate—the big student—launched an Arcane Sphere sparkling with some sort of effect right at Rolam's head. Probably a push spell, if Mal had to guess.

“And that’s it,” Hypode said.

The Arcane Sphere blasted forward and it looked as if it was too fast for even Rolam to dodge.

And then there was a burst of light.

The Arcane Sphere impacted against a shield spell and blasted backward in every direction.

Hypode jolted in place and stared at Rolam in disbelief.

“Put your guard up!” Hypode shouted.

The big student quickly brought his fists up to block against a sudden jaw strike.

An Arcane Sphere launched from behind the cover of the sparkles and light created by the shield. It was too fast, too sudden, and the big student clearly hadn’t been expecting a magical attack.

The Arcane Sphere smashed into the older student’s arms and jolted them to the side. Rolam rushed forward at incredible speeds and launched a kick directly into the now exposed jaw.

The big student achieved an airtime of several seconds, his entire body lifting off of the ground and into the open sky for a few seconds before he landed with a loud thud.

Hypode made a choking noise.

“What the hell was that?!” he screeched.

Mal rubbed his ears. The sheer noise had been enough to cause a small amount of pain.

“A fight, apparently.”

“You.” Hypode dropped his tone. “The next one isn’t going to go your way.”

Mal really didn’t care who won these fights before, but he was quickly beginning to root for Philo in the next one solely to cause further pain to Hypode.

I really need to kick this habit of bullying teenagers, Mal thought.

After another round, it was Philo and another student. This one was shorter and a little bit more stout looking than the tall, big student.

“He knows exactly how your draconid friend seizes up under pressure,” Hypode said. “And he knows exactly how to take advantage of that.”

Mal hummed in response. “Interesting.”

Hypode ground his teeth together in response.

As soon as they faced across from each other—

A cloud of dust kicked up from Philo dashing forward and right at his short, stout opponent. The short opponent scrambled to cast a spell, but Philo had already gotten too close. The battle was over.

Philo landed a scaled fist against the short student and he crumpled like a rock.

Mal inspected his nails. “That was three seconds, I think. I’m not sure what the academy record is, but I’m sure he came close, there.”

“I—there’s no formal start because of the way Vigil does it, so really Philo cheated and—”

“Really?” Mal raised an eyebrow. “You’re really going to use that defense?”

Truth be told, Mal was a bit surprised himself. He’d honestly believed that they were still underperforming compared to the average student. But based off what he’d just seen, Rolam and Philo were already light-years ahead of the others after only a few short weeks of extra work.

It was a little bit disquieting.

On the negative side, they would be attracting more attention here soon. On the plus side, he was pretty sure it wasn’t actually his fault this time. It was probably due to them being Heralds or something and having some nonsense ability to learn fast.

There was no way that they could have grown that quickly solely because of the occasional tips that Mal had been dispensing during their training sessions together.

Right?

Hypode stormed to an open part of the field and glared at Mal.

“We’re up,” he said.

Mal shrugged and followed him over to an open part of the field.

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