On the sixth day of the journey, it was announced: tomorrow, the capital. And right after that, the Academy.

  Finally. A little longer, and I would have started putting down roots right into the carriage upholstery. A week in an enclosed space is a trial that life had not prepared me for.

  The capital of the United Nations emerged from the haze like a hallucination. The City of Wonders, they called it. Massive boulders hung suspended in the air before the walls, defying all laws of physics. The walls themselves periodically muttered something to the passing caravans—I suspect magical loudspeakers were built into them for advertising or interrogations. Even the bridge over the moat arched and breathed like a living creature.

  "Beautiful," Lianel exhaled. I squinted, examining the "wonders" with my black eye. "An illusion. A good, high-quality imitation. It's all running on a couple dozen powerful accumulators. Decorations for tourists."

  Zevlud sniffled offendedly. "Maybe they're decorations to you, but I look at them like it's the first time every time!"

  The Academy was located further on. A forest separated the city and the academic buildings. But it wasn't a simple forest—it stood as a solid wall. A border zone. Nature here had clearly gone mad under the pressure of mana.

  I stuck my hand out the window, cracking my knuckles, when suddenly...

  SNATCH. A fluffy red shadow flashed past. A squirrel. A perfectly ordinary-looking squirrel, except it had three tails and the audacity of a professional thief. It snatched a piece of candy right out of my hand, jumped onto a branch, and stuck its tongue out at me.

  "Hey!" I protested. "That was the last raspberry-flavored one!" The squirrel just clucked mockingly and vanished into the foliage. The forest definitely did not like guests.

  And then she appeared. The Academy. The scale was astounding, even to me. Two massive buildings didn't touch the ground at all, drifting lazily in a steady orbit a couple of hundred meters above the forest. Mages on griffons darted back and forth between them and the ground. Two other buildings stood on solid earth. One was perfectly normal, and the other... the other was built at a forty-five-degree angle. It just stuck out of the ground sideways.

  "Mages live there," Zevlud explained, noticing my gaze. "They have their own concepts of 'level' ground."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The world around us had officially descended into magical chaos. Walking through a field next to the road was an ordinary-looking cow. On two legs. Just strutting along confidently, human-style, but as soon as it got hungry, it plopped down onto all four hooves with a sigh and started chewing grass with the most ordinary bovine expression.

  In a lake near the gates, birds dove into the water and swam around for several minutes chasing fry, while fish, their scales flashing, leaped out of the depths and glided over the surface on wide fins like a flock of swallows.

  "Does anyone here actually remember how normal nature works?"

  The carriage rolled to a stop. The doors swung open, and we finally tumbled out into the fresh air. They were already waiting for us. Standing in the center was the Headmaster—a distinguished man wearing a robe of such complex tailoring that you could probably hide a small army inside it.

  "I am the Headmaster of this Academy!" he proclaimed, throwing his arms wide. "The place where the greatest minds gather, the most talented mages, and those upon whom the entire civilized world relies!"

  "The world relies," yeah right. I've heard that before. It usually ends with "the world" going out for a beer, leaving someone else to clean up the mess.

  The Headmaster interrupted his dramatic monologue and stared at me. More precisely, at the plastic of my mask. "Excuse me... may I ask the reason? Why is your companion hiding his face?"

  I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic about an allergy to stupid speeches, but Lianel reacted faster. "Oh, he has a terrible disease!" she delivered in a tragic tone. "Scars, ulcers... It's simply impossible to look at his face without shuddering. We are protecting your psyche, Headmaster."

  I froze under the mask. "Scars? Ulcers?" Thanks, Lianel. Now I'm officially not just a "distant relative" but a walking plague.

  The Headmaster nodded understandingly, even recoiling slightly. "Alright, alright, let him wear it. Psychological safety comes first. Our students will escort you."

  Two people stepped out from behind his back. The first was a beastman. Imagine an ordinary guy, but instead of feet, he had powerful horse hooves. Fur, a tail, pointed ears—he had a lot of horse in him, but his torso and arms remained human. He looked as if nature had started assembling a centaur but got lazy halfway through the process.

  The second one was even more interesting. Demonoid, covered head to toe in fine, shimmering scales. He had no tail, but his knees bent backward, like a grasshopper's. And his arms were long, with webbing between the fingers, clearly designed for swimming rather than turning the pages of textbooks.

  They both smiled broadly (the scaly one had about three times the normal number of teeth) and waved at us cheerfully. "Right this way! We will escort you to your rooms."

  "Yeah," I muttered, trailing behind. "Wardrobes talk, fish fly, and the guides look like figments of an imagination."

  I looked at the hooves in front of me and the backward-bending knees beside me. It seems that in this Academy, my mask is the most normal thing here.