Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 163: A Crazy Friend

Baswara stared at the notification glowing in his crystal and thought, quite frankly, that the girl was joking.

That, or she was desperate.

A moment’s cross-reference with the academy registry confirmed it was neither.

Cecilia Araceli. Top Student, Unique Magic Department. Telekinesis Specialty/Intention. Five consecutive yearly initiations completed. Exemplary record.

The data was impeccable. Which made her request utterly nonsensical.

Why, in the name of all structured magical pedagogy, would a top-tier specialist want to undertake her final, career-defining initiation with him?

Professor S. Baswara (Emeritus). Noted scholar, yes. Former Headmaster, certainly. But his published works, his entire philosophical bent, could be summarized in one endlessly reiterated thesis. ’The Importance of Flexibility: Why Overspecialization is the Bane of Adaptive Thaumaturgy.’

He was the champion of the all-rounder. The generalist. The mage who could weave a shield, cast a diagnostic ward, and light a fire with equal, if not masterful, proficiency. One who could physically fight like a Force Mage, and conjure things from thin air like Vision Mage.

He was the antithesis of everything her academic record stood for.

Strange! Exciting!

And most importantly—

Arrogant!

What breathtaking, glorious arrogance! To look at five years of meticulously crafted specialization and think, ’You know what? For my grand finale, I’ll go study with the old man who thinks my entire approach is fundamentally flawed.’

"Hah!" The laugh barked out of him in the quiet of his study, a room overstuffed with books, strange geological samples, and the faint, permanent scent of ozone and pipe tobacco. He stared at the crystal, his craggy face lit by its blue glow.

Was she crazy?

So bafflingly, intriguingly crazy that he found his finger stabbing the ’ACCEPT’ rune almost before the thought was fully formed.

Administrative processes were triggered, notifications sent. She was available to start tomorrow? Splendid! Let it be the day after! No time to waste!

This was unheard of for several concrete, academic reasons.

The entire point of a magic initiation was to gain a focused, prestigious certification. It was a stamp on your soul, declaring to the world, ’This is my magic.’ You chose a master or an institution whose life’s work resonated with your own burgeoning path.

For five whole years, Cecilia Araceli had walked a razor-straight line.

Year 1: The Guild of Levitational Arts – focusing on precision object manipulation and sustained lift.

Year 2: The Myrkwood Sanctuary – specializing in telekinetic fine-control for surgical and alchemical applications.

Year 3: Master Kaelen of the Silent Tower – an initiation in combat telekinesis, focusing on kinetic deflection and projectile control.

Year 4: The Astral Chain Consortium – exploring the theoretical limits of telekinetic range and multi-target coordination.

Year 5: The Vault of Unseen Hands – an advanced practicum on telekinetic force application in structural engineering and artifact handling.

A perfect, escalating ladder of telekinetic mastery. Each certificate a brick in the wall of her expertise.

And now, for her sixth and final initiation, she wanted to... tear the whole wall down and plant a garden?

She hadn’t just chosen a different flavor of specialist. She had leaped across the philosophical canyon to land at the feet of a generalist. An all-rounder! A complete, polar opposite!

That wasn’t even counting the most damning, hilarious fact of all, that nO ONE would ever choose HIM as someone to initiate their magic under!

It was true. In his decades as a professor and later Headmaster, countless students had attended his lectures on adaptive theory. Many had found them interesting, even enlightening.

But when it came to the sacred, career-making ritual of initiation? They went to the masters of fire, the mappers of realms, the guilds of elemental fury. They sought to become more of what they already were, not to question its foundation. He was a philosopher, a theorist, a retired administrator. Not an initiator.

Until now.

This girl, Cecilia Araceli, would be the first. The very first mage to formally undergo a Baswara Initiation.

Crazy.

Crazy!

Impressive!

A wide, unhinged grin spread across his face. He wanted to meet her. ASAP. That was what the youngsters said, wasn’t it? Immediate. Urgent. He wanted to look this boldly contradictory creature in the eye and ask her why.

Ohoho, his grin turning sly, Oathran would be so intrigued...

The thought of his young charge being confronted by this whirlwind of a girl with the audacity to upend her own destiny... it was a drama almost too delicious to contemplate.

Slowly, the crazed, academic delight on Baswara’s face softened, melted, and settled into something quieter and more somber. The crystal’s light dimmed as the notification timed out. His gaze drifted from its empty surface to the only picture frame on his cluttered desk.

It was a simple photograph. In it, a much younger Baswara, his beard more salt than pepper, had a hand resting on the shoulder of a boy. A boy with hair as white as mist and eyes that held a gravity far beyond his years, even then. The boy wasn’t smiling, but he looked... present.

Baswara reached out, his calloused finger gently tracing the edge of the frame. The excitement of the new student faded, replaced by the old, familiar weight.

He sighed. The sigh of a guardian watching the sand drain from an hourglass.

Eight days left.

Tomorrow, it would be seven.

But the universe, it seemed, had decided his final days in this role wouldn’t be spent in quiet or solemn contemplation. No. They were going to be a spectacle.

Because the girl, the bafflingly arrogant telekinesis specialist, was apparently much, much crazier than he’d ever imagined.

He stood at the doorway of his private study, which doubled as a training salle, expecting a single, intense young woman. Instead, his gaze landed on two figures. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"You—" he sputtered, his bushy white eyebrows attempting to climb off his forehead. He pointed a thick, accusing finger at Cecilia, then swung it to the young man standing stiffly beside her, whose expression was... neutral. "—and you."

Oathran. Of course it was Oathran.

The girl stepped forward, unruffled. She offered a perfect, respectful bow from the neck. "Hello, Professor. My name is Cecilia Araceli."

Baswara’s brain scrambled to reconcile the scene. He had thought Oathran would be intrigued by her. The sheer gall of her application was the kind of thing to pique his young charge’s analytical, doom-laden curiosity.

But he hadn’t anticipated... this.

Them arriving together. A unit. There was a familiarity in the space between them, a shared, silent communication in the way Oathran stood just a half-step behind her left shoulder.

He took her in properly for the first time. The dossier had said ’top student.’ It hadn’t prepared him for the bearing.

She was... arresting. Tall for a girl, willowy without being frail, with a spine so straight it seemed to defy gravity. Her hair was a cascade of pale gold, neatly tied back but with a few artful strands that escaped to frame a face of startling, serene loveliness.

Not the pretty, vibrant beauty of youth, but something else. A clarity. A stillness in her blue-green-grey eyes that reminded him of deep, still mountain tarns or sea-glass. They were eyes that had seen complex equations and quiet sorrows in equal measure.

’Holy woman’ pretty, a part of his mind supplied, the kind of beauty that felt less about attraction and more about a strong unsettling rightness. Yes... as if she’d stepped out of a stained-glass window depicting a merciful saint, not a school corridor.

Oathran, sensing his guardian’s spiraling confusion, sighed. It spoke volumes of a very recent, very bewildering acquaintance. "She’s... my desk mate."

Desk mate. The most mundane of school relationships. The least likely explanation for the charge in the air between them.

Baswara’s mouth opened, then closed with a soft click. It opened again. "A... coincidence?"

The word felt feeble even as he said it. Nothing about this felt coincidental.

Cecilia’s lips curved into a small chuckle. "Perhaps, Professor."

Before he could dissect that loaded ’perhaps,’ she looked up at him again, those remarkable eyes sharpening. "Professor, since the semester is not over yet, and since there are still finals, may I request remote initiation? I still need to attend the classes."

Baswara blinked. Remote... what?

The reason for the coveted 10% credit bonus for break-time initiations was a pedagogical carrot. To encourage students to maintain perfect attendance, or at least avoid carving a two-week hole in their academic year every time they sought advanced certification.

And this girl, this absolute marvel of audacity, had apparently already done the math. She’d gone to Hargrave and negotiated. Could she keep the bonus if she didn’t take the two-week absence? Could she, in essence, have her initiation cake and eat her class schedule too?

Apparently, she could.

As she finished explaining this logistical coup, her tone polite and perfectly reasonable, Baswara could only stare.

So... her radical choice of initiator, her inexplicable connection to Oathran, and now this...

A demand to undertake one of the most grueling rites of a mage’s education not as a focused retreat, but as a side project, sandwiched between lectures on magical theory and final exams.

It was preposterous. It was insulting. It was...

"Hah!"

The laugh burst out of him again, louder this time, rich with disbelief and a kind of savage admiration. Such arrogance!

Not the blustering kind, but the calm, absolute kind that simply assumed the rules could be bent because her purpose was greater.

Remote initiation? While attending classes? On top of choosing him, the generalist, after five years of hyper-specialization?

He turned his head, his laughing eyes seeking Oathran’s. The boy met his gaze, and in those ancient-in-a-young-face grey eyes, Baswara saw a reflection of his own bewildered awe. He saw the intrigue he’d predicted, yes, but also... concern.

Baswara shook his head, his laughter subsiding into a warm, rueful chuckle. He reached out and clapped a massive hand on Oathran’s shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

"Boy..." he said, his voice thick with amusement and something like paternal sympathy. "You’ve found yourself a crazy friend."

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