“This is the inner academy?” Barley after making a few steps inside, Layn suddenly stopped in his tracks, unable to accept the reality that was sprawling before his eyes.

“Well, it’s not famous for the sights but for the opportunities, it gives to those talented enough to enter it.” Irea attempted to placate Layn’s mood, only making the situation even worse.

“But this? You people really have no sense of beauty at all…” Shaking his head, Layn sighed before picking up his pace. With the girl trodding right beside him, Layn originally intended to just scan the entire area with his eyes before directing his steps towards the fake sanctuary of patience that he expected those who snatched it to a position somewhere visible…

Sadly, the high-rise buildings reaching tens if not hundreds of floors turned his view to be quite obstructed. At first, Layn was stunned by the sheer scale of the buildings, something that he didn’t expect to see for the rest of the time he would spend in this timeline. But after just a moment of thought, Layn had no other choice but to acknowledge one simple thing.

Even in the modern times, he came from, creating such insanely huge structures like the one that filled the entirety of the inner academy would be a challenging task.

‘Just like that saying went, huh?’ With unlimited resources, unlimited time, and manpower, as long as one wouldn’t be shackled by human and civil rights, no feat that remained from the ancient civilizations would be impossible to be finished by modern means. Yet, contrary to what this saying presented at first, only those with at least minimal brains could see the sad truth hidden underneath the direct message of this saying.

Even after wrapping his head over this topic for a long while, Layn simply couldn’t come up with any way or procedure that the modern humans could build such things as the buildings he was staring at just now.

“What now?” Irea could follow Layn’s steps only for a short moment. Not because something was stopping her from doing so, but because the archmage himself had no other choice but to stop and stand down when the open area by the gate gave way to the dense grid of the inner academy.

“Well, I intended to look for that shrine so that we can report the fraud to the prince… But I don’t think there is any point in looking for it in a place like this.” Spreading his arms to the side, Layn smiled before pulling on the girl’s hand. Suddenly shaken out of her stable position, Irea wavered, unable to resist when Layn pulled her closer into his embrace.

“The alleys are tight. Stay close.” Letting go of Irea’s hand, Layn covered her shoulder with his arm as they set on and moved forward.

As soon as the two entered the urbanized area, the feeling that this place gave changed a lot. Rather than the eerie peacefulness that was ever present in the outer academy, in here, it appeared as if everyone was rushing towards their tasks, unable or at least unwilling to pay the two of them any mind.

“Wait, something is wrong…” As they continued moving forward, Layn suddenly stopped in his tracks. Standing still, he threw one more look at his surroundings only for his face to suddenly pale.

“This is actually great…” Letting go of Irea’s hand, Layn allowed for his killing intent to start seeping through his usually perfect guard. “Irea, don’t you find anything strange about this place?”

Initially impressed by the insane architectonical capabilities of the ancients, Layn no longer held them in any special regard. After this one, a small observation he made, his respect turned towards those who were responsible for this entire, fake world.

“Well, I never saw buildings like this in my entire life. But seeing how you were just surprised but not shocked, I assumed that it’s something common in the place you came from.” Shaking her shoulders, Irea didn’t seem to be as perturbed or excited as the archmage was right now.

“I see…” Turning his face back towards the huge buildings that filled the entire area around, Layn reached towards the bag he recently added to his belt. “Well, I won’t keep you in the dark. Right now, we are in the middle of an illusion. A test of sorts, I presume.”

With one look, one would be unable to notice it. Only when Layn actually started to tune in to the details of what he was looking at did the reality dawned upon him.

‘If this place is so hard to reach for your average person, how come there is such a crowd here?’ This single question that appeared in Layn’s mind was the first reason for the doubt to appear in his brain. And once it settled, more and more unreasonable things started becoming obvious to him.

In the end, the world was simply inconsistent. With such a crowd of people in such a hurry to go somewhere, there was bound to be some kind of mass transportation. Be it a magic broom, flying vehicle, or even a magic coach, there was absolutely no way someone wouldn’t use this opportunity to profit himself. And this was just a single of the things that ultimately proved how fake this world in Layn’s judgment.

“An illusion? Well, it wouldn’t be that hard to accept. After all, the elders can invite anyone they want to the inner sect, so they are bound to have some means of testing the newbies here.” Not even bothering to refute Layn’s words, Irea simply took them at face value, instantly switching her mindset from ‘is he actually right’ to ‘what should I do if he is right?’

“Well, breaking the illusion should suffice as proof, don’t you think?” Finally managing to pull out the correct stone from his pouch, Layn made sure to confirm that it was the right one for one more time, before smiling openly. “In the end, I only have one worry.”

Stepping forward and intentionally leaving the girl a few steps to the back, Layn looked up before taking a long breath, holding it in and releasing it a moment later. With all the tension now gone from his flesh, his eyes turned into slits as he started channeling his energy into the stone.

“I never told you, but there are several types of formations.” Up to this point, Irea was already relaxing, unwilling to be bothered by such a simple test. Especially with Layn’s assistance, she could hardly imagine any trouble capable of stopping the man, and thus, in extension, herself. But once the archmage brought this relatively simple and meaningless word, her entire body tensed up as the critical emotions she felt when he first used that word once again reappeared in her soul.

“First off, we have the passive formations. Once set in place, they will operate for as long as the land around them won’t change.” Taking another step forward, Layn took a closer look at the stone in his palm. “Obviously, they are pretty robust and hard to set. In fact, being the layman I am, I don’t think I would be able to set even a simple one without committing quite a lot of mistakes.”

Step by step, Layn moved further away from the girl, constantly changing the vector of his journey. But once the explanation of the first type of formation concluded, his movements came to an end.

“Then, you have the active formations. Due to how specific they are, they are often called burst formations. In contrast to the passive formations, they are super easy to set, yet extremely hard to prepare materials for.” Raising his hand, Layn shook the small pebble he was busy carving before they even went to visit the old lady.

“What you saw back on the desert, when I killed all those so-called experts, was the actual simplest form of formation. Its name is just as simple – a mixed formation.” Leaning his face upwards, Layn allowed a smile to surface on his lips. Perfectly aware that every single word of his was most likely recorded by more people than he would ever have a chance to pursue, the archmage wasn’t going to stop. Rather than that, he was set on pushing the situation to an even greater extreme.

“While it combines the features of passive formation – extreme power and huge burden to set it up, it also uses the benefits of the burst formation to make up for the shortcomings of the passive one like slow activation or relatively low output of power within a timeframe set.”

Lowering his head, Layn looked at an empty square that opened up right at the mouth of the alley they were in. Just a single step more, and he would enter it. Yet, the Archmage didn’t move even an inch.

“As I said, I’m unable to set the passive formation and there is no point to go out of my way and set a mixed one here when we just need to deal with the illusion.” Shaking his shoulders, Layn rubbed his thumb against the carved side of the pebble, before gently tossing it towards the middle of the square in front of him.

Snap.

The pebble broke in half. Then its halves broke in two again. From four pieces, it split into eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two. With each division happening with every Layn’s heartbeat, the parts of the pebble quickly became too small for anyone to be able to spot them.

And right at that moment, Layn pushed his hand forward before opening his up just a bit.

“Break.” Following the flow of the magic energy etched into every single atom of the pebble when the spell structure was first carved into it, each of the minuscule parts suddenly started to suck on the energy from their surroundings as if there was no tomorrow.

And as if someone turned up the most powerful vacuum cleaner in the world on, the entire area around them suddenly rushed into the square, leaving nothing but a barren plain with some spare huts here and there.

And right in the middle, right where the pieces of stone were now brimming with all the power they consumed, a huge group of people dressed in the same kind of robes that Layn and Irea received from the old lady a few moments ago, was waiting.

“So you managed to break through the illusion… Not going to lie, it’s a great feat. I think it will be around two hundred years ever since…” Not surprised by his presence suddenly being revealed, an old man supporting himself with a crane spoke up.

“Huh? Another layer of illusion?” Ignoring his words despite knowing that the illusion was now gone as there was no delicate magical interference that he could feel before, Layn smiled before putting up the most devious expression he could on his face. “I guess I need to bring out the heavier ammunition then!”