The Unwanted Genius Escapes Her Dark Fate

The library was a cavernous space filled with the smell of old paper and dust motes dancing in the late afternoon sun.

Deep in the restricted section, hidden behind a towering shelf of ancient grimoires, Seraphina was sprawled across a velvet sofa. A massive copy of Aetherian History covered her face. She was snoring softly, a small bubble of spit forming at the corner of her mouth.

Elara stood at the edge of the aisle. She clutched a piece of parchment so tightly her knuckles ached. Drawn on the paper was a High-Tier Energy Convergence Array-a magical diagram so complex it looked like a spiderweb drawn by a madman.

Fifty feet away, hiding behind a marble pillar, Cedric Mallow gave Elara a frantic thumbs-up.

Elara wanted to scream. She took a deep breath, plastered on a hesitant smile, and walked over to the sofa.

She stomped her heel against the stone floor, hoping the noise would wake Seraphina naturally.

Seraphina didn't flinch. The snoring continued.

Elara gritted her teeth. She reached out and poked Seraphina's shoulder. "Senior?" she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "Senior Seraphina?"

Seraphina jerked awake. The heavy history book slid off her face and crashed onto the floor. She rubbed her eyes, smearing sleep across her face, and glared at Elara.

"What?" Seraphina grumbled, her voice thick with sleep. "Are you here to flood the library? Because I don't have an umbrella."

Elara's eye twitched. She swallowed her rage and held out the parchment.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Senior," Elara said softly. "But I found this array in a book, and I can't understand the central convergence node. It keeps blocking the mana flow. Could you... look at it?"

Seraphina squinted at the paper. It was a seventh-year level diagram. A first-year had no business looking at it. This was a trap.

Seraphina shifted her gaze past Elara's shoulder. In the distance, she saw the edge of Cedric's brass goggles peeking out from behind the pillar.

Ah, Seraphina thought. A setup.

She could easily point out the geometric flaw in the third rune ring. But that would prove she was still a genius. She needed to be an idiot. A confident, unhelpful idiot.

Seraphina sat up straight. She snatched the parchment from Elara's hands and stared at it with intense, exaggerated concentration. She furrowed her brow and nodded slowly, as if unlocking the secrets of the universe.

Elara watched her, a smug feeling rising in her chest. Seraphina was going to fail.

"I see the problem," Seraphina announced loudly.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a thick, cheap red quill.

"The problem," Seraphina said, pointing the quill at the incredibly delicate, intricate center of the array, "is that these lines are way too skinny. The magic is getting stuck because the pipes are too narrow."

Elara stared at her. "The... pipes?"

"Yeah," Seraphina said confidently. "And it's black ink. Magic hates black. It gets lost in the dark."

Before Elara could process the sheer stupidity of the statement, Seraphina pressed the thick red quill directly onto the center of the parchment.

She didn't draw a rune. She didn't trace a line. She just scribbled violently in a circle, creating a massive, ugly red blob that completely obliterated the core of the array.

"All that talk of 'resonance' is just nonsense the old mages invented to make themselves sound clever and overcomplicate the basics. Magic isn't that complicated. Keep it simple. Thick red lines. Trust me."

Elara looked at the ruined parchment. Her brain short-circuited. This wasn't magic. This was the logic of a toddler with a crayon.

"You ruined it!" Elara hissed, dropping her sweet act for a fraction of a second. "That has nothing to do with geometric resonance!"

Seraphina waved her hand dismissively. She shoved the ruined parchment back into Elara's chest, grabbed her history book, and flopped back down on the sofa. She threw the book over her face.

"Now go away. I'm busy." Within three seconds, the snoring resumed.

Elara stood frozen. She looked at the ugly red blob. She felt completely, utterly humiliated. Seraphina wasn't just broken; she was a moron.

Elara turned around to look at Cedric, expecting to see him shaking his head in disappointment.

Instead, Cedric was leaning out from behind the pillar. His eyes were wide behind his goggles. He was staring at the red blob in Elara's hand with the ravenous hunger of a starving man looking at a feast.