"Some things grow quietly. Others sting while blooming."
The quiet aftermath of the silent spiral lingered. Though no one had spoken it aloud, those who witnessed Nocth's interaction with the Vein Disciple from House Drel had whispered about the way space slowed—not bent, not crushed—around his palm. It wasn't elemental or conceptual. It was... resistance itself.
Yet Nocth himself felt none of this. His body was quiet. His breathing, steady. He had merely blocked, yet the air never restored itself fully where his hand had been.
---
Selun'Thael Garden Arena – Outer Glass Courtyard
This part of the Celestial Academy was ringed by floating prisms that spun without chains, refracting the skies. Here, many tests were administered in a veil of peace. It was a favored space for Veinkind Initiates to practice precision manipulation.
But today was different.
The instructors had set up the Glass Thorn Test, a rare calibration trial used to measure non-elemental disruption effects. The thorny glass growths react to every anomaly of energy—not based on intensity, but the nature of the disturbance.
Each participant was to walk barefoot across the mirrored path. If their aura or resonance was unstable, the glass would respond—cutting, piercing, or shifting the path in unpredictable ways.
Most students passed with only a few flickers.
Nocth stood next. His shoes off. His skin slightly pale beneath the soft cyan reflection of the mirrored floor.
"Begin," said the instructor.
He took one step.
The glass turned black beneath his feet—but didn't crack.
Another step.
The mirrored path blurred, not reacting—instead, it dimmed, flattened, as if something beneath it refused to be witnessed.
The instructors leaned forward, confused.
Then, on his seventh step—a single thorn rose, like a quiet spike, and retracted. A pulse went through the air.
He felt nothing. But the air behind him shimmered for a moment, and all the glass arcs stopped spinning in the courtyard. Not shattered—stilled.
"Instructor," murmured one noble disciple watching, "is that part of the test?"
"No," came the reply. "He… wasn't supposed to affect the frame architecture."
Someone else whispered, "Didn't even flare his aura..."
Elsewhere – Veil Observer Station
Far above the courtyard, hidden by spatial folding, sat an elder from House Morhanthe and a lady of House Vaelserine. They watched the mirror feed of Nocth's steps.
The Morhanthe elder, thick with pressure energy, growled, "No projection. No aura. But all the arcs stilled. Who the hell is this brat?"
The Vaelserine lady, young—21, prodigy, but wrapped in a green veil—just stared, fingers twitching once.
"…His steps don't cause waves," she murmured. "They cause voids."