The platform had become a theater of madness.
Every race below the blue sky was trying something different, desperate to scale down without being hurled back by the spell that guarded the place. The air shimmered with the remnants of failed magic — light, dust, and mana clinging like ash.
Ares stood near the edge, watching.
The orcs went first. Their massive bodies were marked with old runes that pulsed faintly beneath the skin — steady, rhythmic, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. Each movement they made drew in the raw mana from the air and stone around them. It flowed through the runes, filling their limbs with strength.
They moved slowly, but each motion was certain. Their fingers dug into the hard stone, their feet found purchase where none should exist. Their runes flickered softly, responding to the natural rhythm of their breathing.
It wasn't flashy magic — it was alive, primal, perfectly balanced.
The orcs didn't fall. They didn't scream or vanish. They simply climbed down, resting when their bodies demanded it, then moving again once their mana settled. Ares realized, with quiet awe, that they were the most successful so far.
Then came the dwarves.
They carried strange, round mechanisms made of metal and stone, covered in delicate channels that glowed blue when modern mana was injected into them. A single push of energy set the device humming.
Ares watched as lines of light rippled outward, forming intricate patterns — a perfect weave born from machinery alone.
No spell words, no gestures, no control from the caster.
It worked beautifully at first. The dwarves descended by creating stone slides using their mechanism, a stable channel of energy that held its shape longer than any elven spell. But they had greatly underestimated the height of the pillar. The pattern began to falter from the top; the glow dimmed as the modern mana dispersed. When the outer shell broke down, the top winds tore through the structure. Loud screams, curses, and a pile of beards and hammers appeared near the center of the platform.
"Dammit, we need to find a better mechanism. It's too long, making it too unstable," Brunna grunted. Her face was painted with frustration, but her eyes glinted with the thrill of the challenge. The vestiges of fright still clung to her. "If it wasn't for the safety magic, we would've been killed on our first attempt."
Torren, crouched beside the shattered mechanism, muttered, "The power channels are too wide. We're bleeding energy before it reaches the lower coils."
Brunna wiped the sweat off her brow. "You think narrowing them would hold the flow longer?"
"Not really," Torren said, tapping the cracked stone plate. "But it will save mana and help us push further untill the whole slide collapses again halfway down."
Brunna groaned, half laughing. "You always make it sound easy."
"Because it is — if you don't mind dying once or twice while testing."
She snorted. "Then you go first next time. but what about the disspersion...."
Ares couldn't help but smile faintly as he listened. The dwarves were already rebuilding.
His fascination only deepened.The dwarves had built something that could weave magic by itself, it was very much like the soul conduit that he used but their didn't rip appart after each use.
"If only I could get a closer look" Ares sighed in frsutration.
Then the elves stepped forward.
They refused to touch the stone magic of Instructor Ra'f. Instead, they turned to their own craft — hands raised, eyes half-closed — and spun threads of wind and sound. Thin, silver lines formed in the air, intertwining into luminous orbs that curved and shimmered down the side of the tower.
It was graceful to watch. They floated through the air as if dancing with the wind. The threads of air shielded them from the sharp gusts at the top, and gravity did the rest. They drifted downward, disappearing into the clouds.
But only if it was that easy, the mana hummed once again atop the platform and ejected elves, they were horrified. Their bodies were charred with lightning, their clothes torn with claw marks.
Ares could hear their voices rise and fall in distant arguments, but he noticed something else — the platform itself glowed faintly, and the mana hummed. He could see their wounds healing before his eyes, even their shredded garments mending.
Then came the djinns and faeries — radiant and self-assured. Their wings caught the faint light of the gray sky as they descended, laughing, confident in their flight. But halfway down, something unseen struck them. Their laughter turned to screams. They vanished midair and reappeared moments later on the platform, trembling, their clothes burned and their faces blank with terror.
The laughter ended.And the students finally understood the enormity of such a simple task.
Only a few of the orcs returned — their bodies littered with claw marks.
One of them, Grum, slammed his fist on the stone. "It wasn't the storm!" he roared. "Some bloody bird came at us — wings like a sail, teeth like a wolf! I punched it, but its damm claw caught me!" He rubbed a clawed shoulder, grimacing. "Next time I see it, I'll feed it its own feathers."
His companions growled in grim agreement, staring at the clouds as if waiting for the creature to reappear.
Ares stayed where he was. He had watched it all — the strength of the orcs, the precision of the dwarves, the elegance of the elves, and the disaster of the winged ones. Each attempt had its brilliance, yet every one had failed. He wanted to approach them, talk about their magic and find a solution, but he couldn't break the invisible hierarchies that had formed here.
He turned toward Kael.
The man was relentless — leaping, teleporting, falling, reappearing, and leaping again. Six hours had passed, and still he tried. His face was drained, his hands blistered, but his eyes burned with something wild. It earned him strange looks from the other races, but Kael didn't seem to notice. It was as if he didn't even see them.
Each time he vanished into the clouds and reappeared, the mana on the platform shifted and threw him back. But he brought with him new fragments of knowledge about the descent — the biting cold above, the lightning within the clouds, and the unknown beyond.
Ares watched in silence. Something in Kael's defiance stirred an old ache in him — a memory of Rodan, of being shoved back again and again, yet still refusing to stop.
Then he remembered the cloak that Rodan wore — a tool that could allow him to move unseen, gather information, and plan.
He turned his gaze inward, focusing through his sight weave.The world peeled away into the soft hum of the astral layer.
And there they were — the Freylings.
Countless motes of mana drifted lazily through the air, among it the freylings fluttered about, their forms constantly changing — now threads, now droplets, now strange half-forms that glowed and faded without pattern. They were neither alive nor dead. They simply existed — the quiet residents of the unseen world.
Ares raised his hand, guiding them gently with his will. The Freylings responded like dust caught in sunlight — drifting closer, swirling around his fingers. A shiver passed through him. He could feel their weightless touch.
He remembered the green mana string — the weave that could bind these beings into solid form. He had used it once before, but now, an idea stirred.
He sat near the edge of the platform, away from prying eyes.The Freylings hovered close, pulsing faintly like waiting stars.He separated them — the large from the small, the bright from the dim — arranging them into shapes in the air: a hood, a sleeve, a cloak that could wrap him whole.
His fingers moved slowly, the green thread forming between them — humming softly as it caught the first Freyling and stitched it to another. The tiny beings shimmered, their light dimming slightly as they became part of the weave.
It was delicate work — more delicate than any spell he had ever tried — but it filled him with a strange, quiet joy.
He smiled faintly.
"Well," he murmured under his breath, guiding another thread through the air, "this isn't how I planned to become a fashion designer…"
The weave pulsed, growing faintly translucent as the Freylings settled into shape.
"…but I can't complain."