After the garden, the path led into a new trial zone—an ancient cavern beneath the roots of the Skyborn Tree, where the pools of mind were kept. The place was dim, lit by bioluminescent waters that pulsed with a rhythm unknown to time. This was the Dream Pool, a place where one's spirit and vein affinity were revealed in illusions pulled from the soul's own depths.
Nocth had been escorted there without words. His success in the Garden of Testing had unnerved several instructors. Even they couldn't quite explain what had happened—no recorded technique, no apparent energy burst, just... threads.
And now, he stood barefoot before the pool's shimmering edge, its waters a mix of sky-glow and starlight, reflecting his face and something behind it.
A disciple's voice from behind spoke coldly.
It was Siran, one of the rising elites of the Sere Clan, veins already numbered at 330—just past the Class 5 threshold.
"Let's see if that garden trick was luck."
Nocth didn't respond. He wasn't even listening. His eyes were locked on the water.
Then, the waters rose, not by splash, but like lifting glass.
A perfect reflection of Nocth formed in the air, blinking with his timing, breathing with his chest. But then, slowly, the eyes changed.
They turned into deep purple irises with golden spirals—eyes he had never seen, yet felt were his own.
Who am I... really?
Why do I feel afraid when I sleep?
The illusion-Nocth reached a hand toward him, and from the ripples, shapes emerged.
---
A throne… cracked and floating in darkness.
A battlefield… with celestial weapons lodged in fallen moons.
A girl… crying in the rain, her face blurred but the feeling of loss unbearable.
A gate… chained shut with symbols that twisted even gods.
---
Nocth gasped. His hand clutched his chest.
But no one else seemed to react. To them, the waters simply shimmered faintly.
Siran stepped forward with a smirk. "Hmph. Broken illusions already?"
Before anyone could stop him, Siran tapped the pool—and his own trial began.
Immediately, a burst of red energy slammed outward. The water turned to flame, and a massive serpent of burning scales coiled upward. Screams echoed—Siran's past, his family's fall from higher nobility, the curse his blood carried.
He tried to strike the illusion, but it twisted with his rage. The more he fought, the more it consumed him.
Nocth watched silently.
Then, the pool calmed. The trial ended. Siran collapsed, panting. His eyes red. Pride shattered.
One instructor whispered, "The Dream Pool exposed too much… again."
Another murmured, "And that boy… his illusion didn't shatter. It obscured itself. As if the pool couldn't fully see him."
Shae', hidden behind a mist screen, exhaled sharply. "He's growing too fast…"
Ezrel, beside her, simply chuckled. "He's remembering, that's all."
---
As night cloaked the academy and the two boys were escorted away, the image of the blurred gate still lingered in Nocth's mind. It whispered not with words, but with emotions—
Something is sealed. And you were once the key.