Ray absorbed the grim report on Drennan, the cold, hard facts confirming his own internal analysis. Headmaster Andrade paused, letting the finality of Drennan's fate settle in the room. Her expression grew even more grave. The initial, grim business of the meeting was concluded; now came the true purpose.

"This brings me to the true purpose of my visit,"

Andrade said, her voice dropping to a low, serious tone.

"Your information on K forced me to activate a protocol I had hoped to never use. I traveled to the capital to meet with a contact... someone who knows some of the Argent Hand's deepest secrets."

She paused, her emerald eyes locking onto Ray's.

"The intelligence I received concerns our adversary. 'K.' Although they do not know when K started appearing, 'K' is not a single person. It is a title. A legacy. A 'boogeyman' passed down from master to apprentice for, my contact’s records suggest, a very long time. The operative you faced is just the current K."

The information hit Ray with the force of a physical blow. A genuine, unfeigned shock rippled through him . He thought he had been hunting a ghost, a singular legendary operative. But this... this was something else. This was an institution.

His archetypes reacted instantly in his Ambient Presence.

Veteran: "A legacy...That means their training, their techniques, are perfected over generations. This is worse. Much worse."

The old Grizzled Veteran's voice was grim.

Courtier: "It's an institution of assassins. We're not fighting a ghost; we're fighting a rival protocol. An unending line of them."

The Scheming Courtier's analysis was cold and sharp.

"This is why no one knows K's true appearance,"

Andrade continued, her voice heavy with the weight of the revelation.

"The identity is disposable. The title is what matters."

She took a step closer, her gaze no longer just that of a Headmaster, but of a commander assessing her most dangerous and valuable asset.

"Which brings me to you, Initiate Croft. You have done the impossible. You captured one. You wounded one. You have, in one night, become their single greatest existential threat,"

she paused, letting the final word land with chilling finality,

"And you have now possibly become their primary obsession."

Andrade's expression became grim, analytical.

"My contact also confirmed that K's record was perfect... until now. You are the first person to ever trap one and force K to retreat."

Her sharp, emerald eyes fixed on him, her gaze a physical weight.

"I must know how,"

she demanded.

"I guess it has something to do with the... extensive... requisition you filed with the Quartermaster a while back. I need to see the trap you built. Now."

Ray, seeing he could not refuse, gave a simple, silent nod .

"This way, Headmaster."

He led her from the main living area into his study. Rina had already restored the room to perfect order ; the heavy desk was repositioned, the books were neatly shelved, the rug was straight. It was, once again, a picture of quiet, scholarly peace.

Headmaster Andrade stepped inside and stopped, her eyes narrowing. She scanned the floor, the walls, the ceiling, her powerful mage-senses searching for any trace of a ward, a rune, or a magical construct . She saw... nothing . The room felt clean, stable, and completely mundane.

Her patience, already worn thin, finally snapped. Her voice was sharp and annoyed.

"Well? Where is it?"

Ray stood calmly in the center of the room, his gaze steady. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

"We're standing in it."

Headmaster Andrade's eyes narrowed as she realizes the true, invisible nature of the ‘heretical’ magic she's up against. Her pride as a 6th-Circle Master Mage was clearly pricked.

"You're claiming a room-wide containment array is active?"

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she scoffed, her voice sharp with disbelief.

"Impossible. A ward of that magnitude would have an immense Mana draw. I would have felt it the moment I stepped into this wing, let alone this room."

She didn't wait for his response. She would disprove this childish fantasy herself. To humor him, she began with the most basic diagnostic spell.

"Revelare!" (Reveal!)

she commanded, her voice crisp.

She performed the simple somatic gesture for the 1st-Circle spell, Detect Magic, passing her open palm in a slow, scanning motion in front of her face. Her powerful mage-senses opened, and her perception of the room shifted. She expected to see a faint, crude web of an initiate's spell, or, more likely, nothing at all.

Her brow furrowed. She saw... nothing. Nothing except the faint, familiar, and entirely harmless hum of the suite's standard privacy and anti-scrying ward. The room was clean. There was no trap.

Ray watched her, his expression placid. But in his mind, there was a quiet analysis.

Scribe: "Her spell failed, as predicted. She is searching for a bonfire in a fog bank. ‘The Silent Warden Array’ is not Mana-based, it's an Aether-Infused construct. And the camouflage runes are perfectly mimicking the room's natural Aetheric background. She's using the wrong tool to look for the wrong energy."

A flicker of visible annoyance crossed Headmaster Andrade’s face. Her 1st-Circle spell had failed, but it only confirmed that the boy's trick was not a simple, amateurish ward.

"Fine,"

she said, her voice clipped.

"If it's not a simple ward... then it's a trap. A pressure plate? A tripwire?"

She changed her tactics, moving from broad detection to a specific search. She clenched her fist and then thrust her palm forward, as if sending an invisible, probing wave across the room.

"Monstra periculum!" (Show the danger!)

she commanded, casting the 2nd-Circle spell, Find Traps.

Her head snapped up, her senses on high alert, expecting the tell-tale cold pang of a magical trigger or the sharp mental flash of a physical mechanism.

The result was a profound, deafening nothing.

The array wasn't a mechanical trap. It wasn't a wire, a pit, or a pressure plate. It was a metaphysical construct, an Aether-based ward that operated on principles her spell was not designed to even look for. Her spell, designed to find wires and pits, was completely blind to it.

Her sharp annoyance was now visibly mixed with a deep, unsettling confusion. She had just used two foundational detection spells, and both had failed utterly. Sergeant Svane, standing by the door, watched this entire exchange in grim, respectful silence.

Headmaster Andrade's deep suspicion was now palpable, a cold front radiating from her. Her annoyance had been replaced by a sharp, analytical focus that was far more dangerous. She had exhausted the standard, low-level diagnostics.

"No runes. No traps,"

she murmured, her voice low, thinking aloud.

"Then it must be invisible. A high-level illusion."

She was no longer asking; she was concluding. She reached into a small, discreet pouch at her belt and produced a pinch of fine, shimmering powder, a mixture of talc and silver dust.

Her movements were precise. She dipped her thumb into the powder and, with her eyes closed, anointed each of her eyelids with a single, smooth stroke. As she performed the anointing, she spoke the two-word incantation:

"Vela scinde." (Tear the veil!)

She cast the 3rd-Circle spell, See Invisibility.

She opened her eyes. They now glowed with a faint, silvery light as she scanned the room, her gaze piercing the mundane spectrum. She expected to see the shimmering, watery outline of a hidden ward or a ghostly, grey construct.

She saw nothing.

The array was not invisible; it was camouflaged. It was physically part of the walls and floor, woven into the wood grain and varnish. Her spell, designed to find things that were hidden, was useless against something that was disguised as the room itself.

Headmaster Andrade’s composure finally cracked. The silver light in her eyes faded. She looked at Ray, her expression no longer angry or annoyed, but genuinely unsettled. She, a Sixth-Circle Master Mage, had just used three different, escalating detection spells, and all of them had failed completely. The very foundations of her arcane knowledge were being shaken by the quiet, polite boy standing before her.

Headmaster Andrade's face was pale. She knew the trap was real; The report from Sergeant Svane and her Shadow Guards of K’s capture was proof. Yet, three of her own detection spells, from 1st to 3rd Circle, were utterly useless against it. This was more than an academic puzzle; it was a profound, personal blow to her authority and her very understanding of magic.

She was a 6th-Circle Master Mage, the Headmaster of Solhaven Academy, and she was completely blind in her own academy, while this... boy... watched her fail.

Her jaw tightened. She would not be defeated. She would bring the full weight of her power to bear. She decided to use her trump card.

From a hidden pocket in her robes, she produced a small, ornate, jet-black vial. She uncorked it, revealing a dull, earthy-smelling salve. This was not a tool for a simple test; it was a high-level arcane reagent.

Ignoring Ray and Svane, she dipped two fingers into the precious ointment. With a ritualistic, somatic gesture, she gently, almost reverently, anointed her own eyelids, tracing a line over each closed eye. As she did, she spoke the complex, powerful incantation for the 6th-Circle spell, True Seeing.

"Veritas, oculos aperi! Nihil me celabit!" (Truth, open the eyes! Nothing shall hide from me!)

She opened her eyes. The world transformed.

The mundane study of wood and stone was gone, ripped away by the spell's absolute perception. In its place, she saw the ‘true form’ of the room, and she gasped. The ‘solid’ walls and floor were ablaze with a ‘web of violent, golden fire.’ She saw the ‘Silent Warden Array’ in its true, Aetheric form, an impossibly complex, beautiful, and utterly alien schematic that seemed to breathe. It was a living, pulsing web of golden light, woven from an energy that was not Mana, and it was integrated so perfectly into the physical structure of the room that they were one and the same.

She was cold, silent, and deeply shaken. After a long moment, she let the 6th-Circle spell fade, the mundane, ‘false’ world rushing back in.

Her voice, when she spoke, was a low, grim whisper, all pride and anger gone, replaced by something new.

"So that's why..."

she breathed.

"Even with True Seeing, I could... barely see it. The complexity... it's a new school of magic."

She turned, her gaze locking onto Ray. It was a look of profound respect, but also a new, deep, cold fear. This child, this ‘heretic,’ was wielding a power that was utterly invisible to her most powerful institutional spells.

"Show me,"

she commanded, her voice quiet but absolute.

"Activate it."

Ray, who had watched her entire performance with a calm, analytical gaze, simply nodded. He calmly walked to his desk, his hand moving toward the hidden master rune under the wood, ready to give the Headmaster her private demonstration.