The Legendary Method Actor

As Ray looked at the calm Bastian he turned his gaze away from him and looked toward the grieving matriarch.

"Lady Jane. You stated that a junior maid named Hannah ran into the ballroom, frantic and terrified, to report the attack on Mr. Ramada."

Lady Jane nodded slowly, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

"Yes. She was trembling. She said there was blood..."

"Unfortunately the person that talked to you at that time was not Hannah, before I gathered you all here, Headmaster Andrade, Master Alvon and I discovered Hannah’s body hidden within an abandoned secret passage in the guest wing. She had been manually strangled to death. And based on my examination, she had been dead for at least six hours. She died long before Mr. Ramada."

Ray stated, his voice ringing with absolute finality.

A wave of horrified murmurs rippled through the circle.

"The terrified maid you spoke to was an imposter. It was someone wearing a dead girl's face to establish a false timeline of the 'discovery' and plunge this estate into chaos."

Ray said as he pivoted, his golden eyes locking directly onto the aristocratic senior sitting perfectly still in his chair.

"Which brings us back to you, senior Bastian."

Ray manipulated the Tactical Projection Table again, his fingers danced across the hard-light interface, accessing a document he had already saved in the artifact earlier. A massive, scrolling text document materialized in the air above the table.

"This is your graduation thesis proposal, pulled directly from the College of Alchemy's database."

Ray said.

For the first time all night, the pristine mask of aristocratic calm slipped from Bastian's face. His eyes darted from the floating text to Ray, a crack of genuine worry finally bleeding into his voice.

"Wait... how did you gain access to that? Graduation thesis proposals are strictly confidential! Only professors, Department Heads, and the Headmaster have clearance to view those archives before they are officially published. No one else should have access to it!"

Ray didn't miss a beat. He kept his golden eyes locked on Bastian, offering a faint, mysterious smile.

"Let's just say I have my ways."

Standing at the edge of the circle, Headmaster Andrade kept her expression completely neutral, though she hid a secret, knowing smirk.

With the Custodian Crest in his possession, he is one of those people that have access to such information in the academy. The boy's security clearance is only a single level below my own.

Andrade thought to herself,

Ray ignored Bastian's panic and continued. He initiated Partial Immersion and activated the Eccentric Scholar’s ‘Theoretical Authority’ and ‘Deductive Reasoning’ skill.

Ray’s posture straightened, his demeanor shifting instantly from a cold investigator to an impossibly arrogant, hyper-educated academic. The 'Theoretical Authority' skill laced his words with an undeniable conviction, while the 'Deductive Reasoning' rapidly connected the logical dots.

"You claimed that your argument with Mr. Ramada was over access to the Moonpetal Flower, however, upon cross-referencing the foundational alchemical matrices of your graduation thesis, it is glaringly obvious that the Moonpetal's inherent properties are fundamentally incompatible with the exothermic catalytic reactions required for your application testing. Introducing it would cause a catastrophic phase separation."

Ray lectured, his vocabulary becoming razor-sharp.

Master Alvon, who had only basic knowledge about alchemy, blinked in surprise as the way Ray presented it, he was actually able to have some idea about what he was talking about.

"Even if this version of your graduation thesis is old, and you might already have a newer updated version of it, I was able to extrapolate the necessary reagent parameters. And there is no alchemical basis in which the Moonpetal Flower would even be in the running for a critical ingredient. Your argument is a complete fabrication."

Ray said as he calmly dismantled Bastian’s narrative.

He let the statement hang in the air before the corners of his mouth curved into a dark, teasing smile.

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"You lied about the Moopetal flower. I wonder what the argument was actually about? Let's find out."

Ray tapped the interface of Tactical Projection Table again, collapsing the graduation thesis from the holographic display and pulling up the video files from the Scrying Ward. He selected a timestamp from the previous evening.

The hologram shimmered to life. The entire room watched as a crisp, three-dimensional rendering of Warren Ramada appeared, meticulously packing bottles of wine into a crate. A knock echoed from the hologram. Warren stood up, walked over, and opened the cellar door.

Bastian Sterling stepped into the holographic room.

In the real world, sitting in his chair, Bastian’s aristocratic mask continued to crack. The calming drug he had taken earlier had worn off hours ago, and the terrifying reality of his exposure was setting in. He twitched, his hand moving subtly toward his coat pocket, but a massive shadow immediately eclipsed him. Svane was standing directly behind his chair, radiating lethal intent.

The Gold Aegis didn't draw a weapon; he simply gave a slow, terrifying shake of his head. Bastian froze.

On the projection, the audio feed from the memory crystal kicked in perfectly.

"I told you we have nothing left to discuss, Lord Sterling. Unless you are here to tell me you have changed your ways, then you can just leave."

The holographic Warren said coldly.

The room gasped as the aristocratic, usually composed Bastian suddenly dropped to his knees on the holographic floor.

"Please, Mr. Ramada, Do not report me to the authorities. If they find out I am dealing Night Whisper to the students and nobles, Not only that I will be expelled and be ruined, but I would also be imprisoned!"

Bastian begged, his recorded voice thick with desperation.

"You are peddling an illegal, highly addictive narcotic within the Academy! You do not know how many lives you have destroyed! You brought this ruin upon yourself."

Warren fired back.

"I had no choice!"

Bastian pleaded.

"The study of alchemy is a money void. The reagents just for my graduation thesis itself are exorbitantly expensive! My family is broke! I just needed the funds to be able to graduate. Please... My presentation is in five days. I will graduate, leave Solhaven Academy, and never come back. I swear I will stop selling the narcotic right now. Just give me this one chance."

The room watched in stunned silence as Warren stared down at the weeping student. Finally, the strict Head Butler let out a heavy sigh, his rigid posture softening with a rare, fatal moment of mercy.

"One chance, Bastian. If I catch even a whisper of that drug again, I will drag you to the Headmaster myself."

Warren warned.

"Thank you! Thank you! Let us toast to it. Please. Allow me to serve you, just this once."

Bastian said as he scrambled to his feet, wiping his eyes.

Warren nodded slowly, turning his back to return to the wine crate.

The projection showed Bastian walking over to a prep table to grab two crystal goblets. As his back shielded his hands from Warren's view, Bastian swiftly drew a small vial from his sleeve and tipped a few drops of clear liquid into one of the glasses.

He walked back over, handing the poisoned glass to the Head Butler with a warm, relieved smile.

"To second chances."

The holographic Bastian said.

Ray slammed his hand down on the Tactical Projection Table, freezing the hologram the exact second the rim of the glass touched Warren's lips.

The ballroom was plunged into an absolute, suffocating horror.

"He gave you a chance! He showed you mercy, and you poisoned him?!"

Dylan Starr roared, his voice cracking with betrayal. He had respected Bastian as a senior.

The sheer, crushing pressure of the room's gaze finally broke the alchemist.

"If that stubborn old fool had just minded his own business, none of this would have happened!"

Bastian snarled, his pristine composure shattering into manic, bitter rage. He glared at Dylan with unadulterated venom.

"It's easy for you to judge, Starr! You have bottomless resources to buy whatever you need! My family is on the absolute edge of financial ruin! Stopping the trade meant failing my thesis. It meant the end of my academic career. I couldn't afford to stop!"

Bastian let out a sudden, broken laugh, realizing everything was over regardless.

With blinding speed, Bastian snapped his wrist. He hurled a couple of small pellets directly at his own feet.

The pellets detonated with a deafening CRACK.

A massive, incredibly dense cloud of acrid, gray alchemical smoke erupted outward, swallowing the center of the room and instantly blinding the surrounding guards. Within the choking cover of the fog, Bastian whipped a vial of perfectly clear liquid to his lips, downing the Chameleon Extract in a single, desperate gulp.

"Do not let him escape!"

Master Alvon bellowed, coughing violently as he drew his sword blindly into the gray void.

Headmaster Andrade reacted with terrifying speed. Her eyes flared with a blinding, authoritative light as she stepped to the edge of the expanding cloud.

She brought her arm across her chest, mana gathering thickly around her fingertips, and then slashed it outward in a brutal, sweeping arc, as if physically backhanding the atmosphere itself.

"Sever the veil and scatter!"

Her voice cut through the chaos with the undeniable weight of pure mana as she cast the 2nd-Circle spell: Gust of Wind.

The air pressure in the ballroom violently inverted. A roaring, continuous corridor of gale-force wind blasted outward, following the exact sweeping motion of her arm. It wasn't just a breeze; it was a physical battering ram of solid air. The spell sheared through the room, rattling the crystal chandeliers and ripping the heavy alchemical smoke away into nothingness in just a couple of seconds.

The center of the circle was instantly exposed, bathed in clear light once more.

But Bastian’s chair lay overturned, an empty glass vial spinning slowly on the polished floor. He was gone.

"Secure the doors! He's invisible!"

Sergeant Thomas yelled, spinning in circles.

Ray immediately swapped archetypes and activated the Serene Cultivator’s ‘Aetheric Perception’ skill.

Ray’s golden eyes flared with a serene, pulsing light. The physical architecture of the ballroom faded slightly, replaced by the vibrant, flowing currents of ambient Aether. Invisibility bent physical light, but it could not hide the frantic, burning life signature of a panicked human soul.

To Ray's enhanced eyes, Bastian wasn't invisible at all. He was a glowing, human-shaped mass of kinetic energy sprinting silently across the marble floor.

"He is making for the doors on the east side!"

Ray shouted, pointing directly at an apparently empty patch of air thirty feet away.

Before Master Alvon, Headmaster or Svane could even make a move to intercept, three figures stepped forward in absolute, flawless unison.