And then, there was light.
That had been a very, very long time ago—or perhaps just a moment ago.
After all, if Argraed's astrologers were correct, the birth of this universe might have happened only recently. Though by the time scale of the beings within it, it might have been an event from "billions of years ago," on another scale of time that stood above all things in the universe, a span of billions of years was merely an insignificant parameter.
But who cared? Certainly not a useless fourth-year student who spent all day scrambling to finish his biology graduation thesis and had already cut his daily sleep to under six hours. Such "matters of the heavens" were probably the concern of the astronomy club next door, and that was another matter entirely—their credits depended on it.
Borno hugged a towering stack of materials he had just borrowed from the library and hurried across the broad walkway on the upper level of Academy City, seeming to stir up a gale behind him.
He ran past a messy-haired elven gentleman who looked severely sleep-deprived, nearly crashing into him.
"No running on the upper walkways!" The messy-haired elf staggered and loudly warned the short young man who had appeared out of nowhere. Judging by his size and his distinctly feline ears, he was probably a Gipro student. That race was always so reckless.
"I'm sorry, sir!" Borno hurriedly stopped, turned around, and bent over sharply in apology, nearly flinging the stack of books in his arms at the gentleman before him. "I'm in a rush to see my advisor—I spent too long at the library, and when I looked at the time, I realized I was almost half an hour late! I'm terribly sorry. I didn't hurt you, did I?"
The young