Ciprins

Biodata

Power Progression

Ciprins’s development is shown through greater control, endurance, and inherited magical resources rather than a documented sequence of modern spell-level promotions 71 140 179 186.

Background and History

Childhood captivity

Ciprins was an orphan whose education was funded by the Federation. During an elementary magic-school event, terrorists kidnapped him and several other children. He was rescued seven years later as the group’s only survivor. In footage later obtained by Reynold, he emerges barefoot and trembling, thanks his rescuers, and remarks on the beauty of sunlight 88 110.

His memories of captivity include a dark mage laughing while trampling children’s corpses. These experiences underpin his hatred of people who use power to indulge in cruelty. Even after that abuser becomes a servant responsible for cleaning the mage tower’s toilets and fertilizing its flower fields, Ciprins remains painfully aware that punishment cannot restore the murdered children 195.

Research career and Reynold

After graduating from the Monastery of True Knowledge, Ciprins joined the National Magic Research Institute as an academician. His work generated little revenue, and his superiors treated him as an unproductive junior researcher. Reynold likewise mistook his quiet manner and low institutional standing for evidence of limited magical ability 3 88.

Reynold courted him with books and repeated dinner invitations, but Ciprins regularly prioritized experiments, reading, notes, and assistant instruction. Once they became lovers, Ciprins brewed calming and restorative potions for him while refusing to use Reynold’s position to settle his workplace disputes 93 96 109 110.

Their relationship ended after Ciprins discovered that Reynold regarded him as a substitute for Mephistopheles. A truth potion secretly substituted by Moli led Reynold to reveal his feelings; Ciprins then ended the relationship calmly and decisively. Around the same period, the institute suspended him without pay 6 110 203.

Appearance

• Eyes: Normally pale gray-blue. During extreme mental concentration, they shine bright silver strongly enough to obscure his pupils 93 144.
• Hair: Light-colored; when he and Mephistopheles wear matching robes and hairstyles, Mephistopheles’s hair is slightly longer 110 111.
• Hands: Slender fingers, frequently emphasized during spellcasting 96 144.
• Expression: Reynold considers his features gentle rather than intimidating, even when he is angrily reprimanding an assistant 96.
• Habitual gestures: Rubs his fingertips together or turns a ring when nervous, angry, or uneasy 96 196.

Personality

Ciprins organizes his life around the pursuit of knowledge. Experiments, reading, and teaching routinely take precedence over social engagements. He considers time spent retaliating against petty workplace harassment better spent reading another book, and he values magical study for its own sake rather than merely for practical or military results 72 96 110.

His patience is not a lack of confidence. He remains independent despite institutional pressure, rejects Reynold’s attempts to move him into an office-assistant position, and ends their relationship without wavering once he understands the deception. Reynold eventually recognizes that Ciprins’s gentleness rests on the self-assurance of an archmage, not the helplessness of a junior researcher 6 28 109 111.

He is far less forgiving of careless scholarship. He bans technological devices from his laboratory, demands precise terminology, and punishes Moli’s elementary casting mistakes with extensive copying assignments. Later, his insistence on competent magical education earns him a fearsome reputation among students 1 96 200 203.

Ciprins distinguishes lethal force against enemies from cruelty for amusement. He acknowledges enjoying the destruction of his enemies, yet strongly condemns using superior power to torment the weak. When he mistakenly believes Ruiduo is torturing a prisoner, he demands an explanation, then apologetically comforts her after learning her intentions 81 195.

With Mephistopheles, he becomes openly affectionate and readily indulges his partner’s theatrical jealousy. He credits Mel with giving him companionship beyond enemies and Black Magic, allowing him to use his powers without fearing that they will consume his life 144 154.

Abilities & Skills

Black Magic and Hellfire

• Controls black Hellfire precisely enough to surround fleeing cyborgs from multiple directions 46.
• Describes Hellfire as effective against undead creatures, including their bones; ordinary attempts to pat out its flames do not extinguish it 46.
• Uses the Hand of Hellfire to overpower the sorceress who mishandles Hailianna’s staff 184.
• Regards Hellfire as an introductory spell within Hailianna’s tradition, despite the modern Shadow Moon priestess’s difficulty controlling it 197.

Necromancy and Soul Magic

• Commands undead and evil spirits, directing them to attack exposed living tissue rather than waste attacks on armor 144.
• Releases spirits that devour the Electronic Demons’ consciousnesses. Their mechanical bodies continue fighting afterward, limiting the immediate effectiveness of the attack 81.
• Uses a forbidden spell to consume the souls aboard a mothership, leaving it a silent grave in the sky 179.
• Summons a former teacher through a purple-black gate 81.
• Repairs and reassembles undead bodies, including Damala and the tower’s banshees 194 202 203.

Mental Magic

• Uses Mental Piercing to disrupt an enhanced cyborg, creating the opening for Mephistopheles to kill it 17.
• Recognizes Reynold by his mental power rather than relying solely on his appearance 93.
• Communicates and observes Mephistopheles’s actions through Mind Link 91.
• Concentrated mental power produces the silver light in his eyes associated with archmages 144.

Movement, Defense, and Force Manipulation

• Casts Flight Spell, classified as an eighth-level spell under the modern system 71 91.
• Uses teleportation for rapid movement around and beyond the mage tower 196.
• Uses gravity magic against airborne cyborgs and launches a bomb-bearing section of wall into the sky, where it detonates away from civilians 46.
• Deploys Air Shield to push Reynold out of a battle and later knock Duoji clear of an attacker 46 154.
• Uses Mage Hand to eject students challenging him at his tower 204.

Transformation and Utility Magic

• Transforms intrusive reporters into colorful sheep and reapplies the spell when a magically resistant reporter returns to human form 196.
• Uses a Silence Spell to stop Reynold interrupting him during combat 46.
• Produces conjured magic bread when economizing during his unpaid suspension 6.
• Entertains Ruiduo with decorative illusions after upsetting her 195.

Potions and Magical Research

• Brews restorative, calming, sobering, and hangover remedies that Reynold judges superior to shop-bought alternatives 110 134.
• Limits Reynold’s supply of calming potions because prolonged dependence could damage his health 110.
• Researches magic arrays and proposes simplifying an ancient guardian rune 1 93.
• Works with ancient magical texts, including an elvish research notebook annotated by Hailianna 195.

Teaching

• Teaches at the Royal Magic Academy alongside Mephistopheles as a visiting professor 200.
• Reforms graduation requirements; subsequent students demonstrate markedly improved protective magic, even while protesting his standards 204.
• Requires underqualified mages and Shadow Moon priests to undertake remedial study 200 205.
• Protects his apprentices’ freedom to pursue their own interests and academic choices, although misconduct can result in additional classes 204.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Hailianna’s staff — A relic containing a preserved magical memory of the ancient high priest. After Ciprins’s farewell to that memory, it accepts his power as its new imprint. Temple historians later identify it in battle footage, revealing his connection to Hailianna 184 186 193.
• Hailianna’s notebook — A spellbook containing the high priest’s accumulated knowledge. Restoring its missing pages releases a memory echo of Hailianna 205.
• Shared mage tower — Mephistopheles acknowledges Ciprins as a fellow master. Their joint ownership signifies that their mental powers have been bound together as partners 134.
• Spatial ring — Stores personal belongings, including his phone 196.
• Plain gold ring — An early accessory he turns when uneasy. Later, Reynold observes Ciprins and Mephistopheles wearing wedding rings 96 144.

Relationships

• Mephistopheles Madsen / Mel — Husband, research partner, and fellow tower master. Mel shares his knowledge, protects him during difficult spellcasting, and comforts him when the mine triggers distress. Ciprins accepts his public marriage proposal and later reassures him that he will not leave for the Shadow Moon Temple 81 134 144 191 197.
• Reynold — Former boyfriend and chairman of the Federal Magic Council. His treatment of Ciprins as a substitute for Mephistopheles causes their breakup. He repeatedly attempts reconciliation while underestimating Ciprins’s power, eventually recognizing him as the Flame of Fury 6 28 46 144.
• Hailianna — Revered teacher whose writings transmit ancient Black Magic to Ciprins. Their meeting through a preserved memory ends with Hailianna encouraging him to choose his own path rather than feel obliged to become a priest 140 184 186.
• Moli — Assistant and later one of the tower’s apprentices. Frequently reprimanded for poor spellwork, she nevertheless helps expose Reynold’s deception by substituting a truth potion 96 203 204.
• Anna — Apprentice and writer who works on a story about her two teachers before planning one about Crow and Reynold 204 205.
• Ruiduo — Young elf apprentice raised in the tower. Ciprins admires her talent, supports her research, and fiercely resists the Shadow Moon Temple’s attempts to recruit her 195 205.
• Angela — Druid friend who values his modesty, responsibility, and helpfulness. As the Flame of Fury, Ciprins is also her idol and the benefactor who avenged her parents 165.
• Shadow Moon Temple — Recognizes his inheritance from Hailianna and repeatedly seeks his leadership or his apprentice. Ciprins refuses both the high-priest position and the Shadow Moon surname, later imposing remedial training on its priests 193 197 203 205.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Prison Break and Summit Attack

• While imprisoned, Ciprins fights alongside Mephistopheles against an enhanced cyborg whose extensive mechanical conversion points toward a private military company 17.
• Reynold offers bail and access to his laboratory, mistakenly believing Ciprins has antagonized Mephistopheles over their breakup 28.
• During the summit attack, Ciprins saves civilians by sending a bomb into the sky and fights the cyborgs with Hellfire 46.
• News coverage praises the unidentified black mage but links him to Shadow Moon. Learning that the Dawn Alliance may be targeting Mephistopheles, Ciprins resolves to stop it 55.

Mining Platform No. 8

• Traveling toward the collapsed platform exposes the gulf between Ciprins and Mel’s understanding of ancient magic and the modern spell-ranking system 71 72.
• Distress in the mine gives way to a decisive embrace of his dark powers when the Electronic Demons threaten the group 81 144.
• His command of Hellfire and spirits finally forces Reynold to recognize the supposedly insignificant researcher as the Flame of Fury 144.

Federation Crisis and Hailianna’s Legacy

• Ciprins demonstrates improved endurance while destroying the souls aboard an enemy mothership 179.
• He confronts the sorceress wielding his teacher’s relic, meets Hailianna’s preserved memory, and inherits the staff 184 186.
• Following the final battle, he accepts Mephistopheles’s proposal before the assembled crowd 191.
• Broadcast footage allows Shadow Moon historians to identify his staff and publicly establish his connection to the high priest who died six thousand years earlier 193.

Marriage and Educational Reform

• Ciprins ends Mephistopheles’s confrontation with the Shadow Moon priestess by dropping transformed reporters onto the battlefield as sheep. He rejects the high-priest position and reaffirms his commitment to Mel 196 197.
• His later education reforms replace his romantic public image with student-given titles including Death Invigilator, Minister of Education of Fury, Master of Failed Courses, and Graduate Killer 200 203.
• After the temple tries to obtain Ruiduo, Ciprins recovers missing pages of Hailianna’s notebook. The resulting memory echo attacks the priests; afterward, Ciprins arranges temporary administration by his Banshee Troupe and compulsory remedial lessons 205.

Notable Quotes

“Thank you... thank you. The sunlight is beautiful.” 110

“There's no need. Wouldn't that be a waste of time? We'd be better off reading a new book.” 110

“Since we aren't truly in love, let's not waste each other's time.” 110

“You make it sound as if I could bear to part with you!” 197