Lux Arcanum sits on the crags above Kessune Bay. From ground level, it even looks impossible. Glass wings on each tower crackle with azur light, feeding on sunrise. You might ask, who gets to learn at a place like this? Not most folk. Lux is for prodigies, scions and heirs to secret names. To step through the arch at its gates, you need more than good grades.
Touma Ashiki never wanted any of this. He’s short for his age, almond eyed, and thinks better alone. But his mother pressed the gold invitation into his palm that cold day; debts needed payment. Touma needs to place well—his family’s sick bookstore won’t last another season. If he fails at Lux Arcanum, the last fragile hope just dies out.
But get this. At Lux the test isn’t some math exam. It’s called the Entrance War. Each new prospect is thrown into the Nexus Atrium with three cards. You don’t know what the cards are; could be storm, illusion, abyss. It’s less a war—a storm funnel, where groups form and friends betray friends in a snap. Survive the night. Earn a place. Or take the slow shuttle back out of sight.
Touma clutches his three and starts low by the faultline stairs, heart racing as glass spires hum overhead. Around him, voices cluster fast. “Who has wind or fire? Let’s talk!” That’s Lana Esprit—a sharp-tongued heir with a barbed grin. She snaps her own deck, jostling right past Jinaya Corlin, the top-scoring illusionist from Twelve Rivers College. Nearby, a quiet pale boy tails Touma silently. The word is, he’s from an old line, but his record’s blank. Everyone wonders, is he a threat or a tool?
Around the ground floor, kids already test bonds. Lana whirls toward Touma, cornering him with her cards. “Show me yours. Or I’ll show you how fast I can end this.”
Touma shakes. This is a rough start. Still, he flashes what he holds: Spark, Mirror, and Plunge. Lana cackles, tossing her own in pool of blue sun: Flame, Shadow, Mirror. They’ve got one card in common. When Mirror hits the field twice? Anyone’s next move becomes anyone’s guess. Who would you trust here, when every eye is searching for one slip?
The teachers watch from the painted glass wall above. Their voices squawk on old radios. One teacher, Maestra Estuvié, leans too far to see. “See that? He dares go alone.” Another, tall and grave, shakes his head. “Guts won’t save him.”
There’s risk written across each second. From a landing, the pale boy slides past both Lana and Touma—silent, sliding closer to the puzzle’s center. Should Touma just trust his instinct or pull a dark card of his own?
Traps waken in corridors. Down one hall, Jinaya bends water into fog, walks unseen, passing a trio fighting with flares of blue kinetic light. Shouts echo off cold stone. Each candidate wants one thing. By dawn, either a room will be won for study, or they fade out as a footnote—if they’re that lucky. how far would you bluff when stakes like this are in play?
Midway through the trial, alliances fracture. Touma and Lana start to help each other—he reshapes Mirror to trap outsiders while she lights up enemy tokens. “You think we can break through as a pair?” she whispers, dare flashing in her eyes. Touma nods, sweat running alien over his brow; trust is risk, but that’s what stands between him and hope.
Cameras shoot from the ceiling corners, every angle tracked by the teachers. “One boy, two mirrors,” sighs the Maestra. “He can win, if luck holds.” Now shadows start hunting near the garden steps; all cards look different at night.
The test rages to dawn. In the glass arboretum, the pale boy blocks Lana and Touma with a double: Void and Chain. He hasn’t spoken once, but shows perfect command. Through new partnerships and new suspicion, what’s really hidden? Touma has only one card left, and the sun’s starting to bleed across stained panes. Even now, his dream balances on a hairpin: win here, enroll, save the family. Lose, take the tiny shuttle home.
Cliffhanger. The bell rings, but two locks remain. Someone’s played a card Touma isn’t ready for—the Night Mask. Dana, now revealed as Maestra Estuvié’s child, grins from the dusk. “One move left. Choose wrong, and only I step through.” Before Touma can answer, the lights go out, glass rain hissing down.
Did your hands start to sweat? Which card would you have played?
