Lorraine pulled out the gear from his mouth and only then did Silas cough out, saliva dripping down his chin.

His breathing was rough and ragged.

"What… the… fuck?" he muttered between breaths.

His eyes were still wide with disbelief.

When he was facing his clone, he had been completely outclassed.

The thing had matched his fighting style, his speed, even his voice but it didn't even stop there.

It used his magic too, and magic he couldn't use.

He had never felt so helpless in his life.

'Is that how monstrous these clones really are?' he thought, shaking his head.

Azel crossed his arms, staring down at him.

"How did you let yourself get beaten?" he asked.

Weren't Representatives supposed to be among the strongest students here? Or was there something he was missing?

Silas gritted his teeth and sat up slowly as Lorraine worked to untie his wrists.

"He… he was too strong," he said, breathing heavily between his words. "I managed to wear him down, but he could use spells I can't even touch."

Azel's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I can only use sound magic," Silas replied. "But that thing… he had fire, and lightning too. It's impossible. He's supposed to be me, so how the hell can he do that?"

Azel sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

If Silas just stopped panicking and thought for a second, he'd realize it.

The blood samples… that had to be the answer.

They could be mixed and merged.

As long as Drake had enough of them, the clones could combine different abilities making them far more dangerous than their originals.

"It's probably Drake's fault," Silas muttered, trying to stand.

He wobbled for a second but regained his balance. He turned toward the clone's body, but what met his eyes made him freeze.

The clean corpse from before was gone.

All that remained was a withered husk with its skin blackened and clinging tightly to bone, collapsing in on itself.

"What the hell…" Lorraine whispered, staring down at it.

'Does it decay faster than regular humans?' Azel thought.

The blood-based structure of the clones… maybe it wasn't stable outside of magic.

Maybe when the source mana was destroyed, the body couldn't sustain itself.

He really wanted to know how these things worked.

The three of them walked past the shriveled remains, and Lorraine's nose scrunched immediately.

'They really smell,' she thought, waving her hand in front of her face.

The stench was unbearable.

They reached the body bag that had been resting near the wall.

"So the professor is in here?" Silas asked, crouching beside it.

"It's a clone," Lorraine said.

Silas hesitated, then grabbed the zipper and pulled it open.

What stared back at him made him flinch. Inside the bag was nothing but a hollow skull with empty eye sockets staring at him.

He blinked, then unzipped it all the way open.

The full skeleton was inside, white and perfectly clean, as if the flesh had been eaten away by acid.

'He died?' Azel thought.

The ice around the skeleton was still there, glowing blue.

But the bindings that had sealed the mana earlier were hanging uselessly by the bony wrists, they had deactivated…

He turned his gaze toward the other corpse on the ground… the decaying clone.

The flesh was almost gone, reduced to bones already.

'So they weren't real humans after all,' Azel thought. 'They can't even hold themselves together for long without mana.'

"Did you guys manage to see a list of people that got cloned or something?" he asked, hoping for any kind of lead.

Lorraine shook her head. "We weren't able to."

Azel exhaled through his nose, deflated. "Of course not."

"But…" Lorraine continued. "We were able to find a weapon that can take out the clones in one hit. It'll knock them out."

She lifted the strange machine she had found earlier, the gun-shaped device without a nozzle. "We wanted to ask if there was someone who knew about technology and could change the output—"

Before she could even finish, Silas was already on his feet.

"I have someone like that!" he said quickly, and without another word, he ran out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Lorraine and Azel exchanged glances, both sighing almost in sync.

"Do you think he's going to bring back a clone?" Lorraine asked dryly.

"Wouldn't even be surprised," Azel muttered.

Minutes passed.

Azel spent it by checking on the weapon, It looked old but functional, clearly something that could be modified easily by someone that wasn't him.

Finally, the door creaked open again. Silas returned, dragging someone behind him.

To Azel's surprise, the person looked like a female version of Silas.

She had the same hair color and same sharp eyes but just softer features.

The resemblance was uncanny.

Azel didn't waste any time, he raised the gun and fired.

A spark of blue electricity shot through the air, striking both of them.

The arc jumped from the woman to Silas in an instant, lighting up the room for a split second before fading.

Neither of them reacted.

They just flinched slightly, blinking at him.

The weapon was harmless to humans… he knew that.

But he had to be sure.

"Alright," Azel said after lowering the gun. "You're free to come in."

The woman took a cautious step forward, then froze the moment her eyes landed on the skeleton in the body bag… and the other one lying on the ground.

Her face went pale.

Then she screamed.

The sound was loud enough to make Azel wince.

"Oi!" Azel snapped. "Are you trying to pull attention here?"

He sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Silas reached out and patted her on the back, trying to calm her down.

"See, Jewels, they're not real," he said, walking over to the clone's skeleton.

To prove his point, he placed his boot on the arm bone and pressed down hard.

The bone didn't even crack.

'It's too strong,' he thought, frowning.

Azel, meanwhile, had already motioned for Jewels to come closer. She hesitated, then walked over to the nearest table.

"Good," Azel said.

He placed his hands on the table and, with one clean sweep, shoved everything onto the floor with a loud clatter.

Metal pieces and glass tubes rolled away.

He set the gun down on the cleared surface.

"I need you to increase the electricity it generates," he said firmly. "Enough for the current to spread across the entire academy. It's urgent. If you can't do it…"

"I can," Jewels interrupted with a nod. "This is easy."

Azel blinked, slightly surprised at her confidence.

Silas, who was still trying to crush the clone bone, raised his hand.

"That's my sister, Jewels," he said proudly. "She's the one who helped make the forcefield that prevents you from leaving class."

Azel slowly turned his head toward her, his expression deadpan.

'Ah… so it was you,' he thought.

He gave her a sideways glare.

She was the reason he was suffering at the hands of Mynes!

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