BOOM!
The stone didn't shake. It hummed. A low frequency vibration crawled from the soles of Alvian's boots to the roots of his teeth. Another pulse, a deep, sonorous thrum, passed through his bones. His hand found the hilt of the blade hidden beneath his cloak, a reflexive gesture against a world made of sound.
He was a statue at the edge of a great plaza, neck stiff, mouth agape.
Sky-Reach. The name was a lie of omission. This was not a city; it was a wound in the sky, a monument to arrogance. Spires of solidified moonlight stabbed a bruised twilight, clawing past the cloud layer. Aether-veins of raw energy, some pulsing a healthy blue, others a feverish, flickering violet, connected the towers. Silent, gleaming vessels drifted on unseen tides between them, their occupants remote, graceful silhouettes.
The air, thick as unshed tears, tasted of lightning and something else, something like burnt sugar and ambition. It was a pressure cooker, the atmosphere of a million Aether-powered hearts beating out of sync. His home, the dusty streets of Siji, felt like a faded map in another man's memory.
The city's true heart, a maelstrom of raw commerce, exerted its own gravity. A vortex pulled him in.
The world dissolved into a riot of noise and light. A physical blow of a thousand shouted bargains, the scream of Aether-forged steel, the angry hiss of alchemical reactions. A clashing sea of auras—predatory reds, serene blues, venomous greens—threatened to drown him. He smothered the nova in his chest, the Prismatic Heart, banking its inferno to the weak flicker of a Rank II gutter-mage. He became a ghost, a void in the machine.
His focus snapped from detail to bleeding detail. A stall of beast cores throbbed with caged life. A smith's hammer struck a blade, showering the air with weeping, molten light. Enhancers in silver armor moved as one, their auras a cage of disciplined energy.
The chaotic tide of bodies spat him out, a piece of driftwood, into a sudden pocket of quiet. Tucked between a stall selling caged lightning and another displaying weapons that wept light, was a shadowed alcove. The sign was stark: 'Knowledge for Coin.' An old man sat behind a bare counter, polishing a single, dark coin. His eyes, chips of obsidian, didn't look up.
They didn't have to.
"Lost, little bird?" the man rasped, his voice like grinding stones. "Or just looking for a branch to land on?"
"Information," Alvian said, his voice flat. He didn't have time for games. "The powers that run this territory."
The merchant's smirk widened. He tapped a thin, crystalline slate on the counter. "The Wyrdwood Primer. Costs you, but ignorance costs more."
Alvian slapped the coins down. He didn't bargain. He snatched the slate and melted back into the throng, finding a forgotten corner in the shadow of a massive pillar.
The world went blurry. Focus. Crystalline slate. A trickle of Aether.
Glowing text bloomed, cold and precise. The first entry felt like a beacon in the storm.
┌──────[ Faction Profile ]───────┐
➽ Name: The Valerius Academy
➽ Alignment: True Neutral
➽ Description: The preeminent institution for Enhancer education in the Wyrdwood Territory. Unmatched in resources, legendary for its instructors, especially in swordsmanship. Values merit above all else. Accepts any and all with talent. Its decennial entrance exam is a crucible designed to forge champions and break the unworthy.
└───────────────────────────┘
"There you are." A path. A sanctuary that rewarded strength. A place to forge his own.
He swiped to the next file. The air grew cold.
┌──────[ Faction Profile ]───────┐
➽ Name: The Crimson Covenant (Local Chapter)
➽ Alignment: Lawful Evil
➽ Description: A military-theocratic order obsessed with Aetheric purity. Views unique or "aberrant" abilities as cosmic heresies to be violently purged. Feared for their ruthless Inquisitors and fanatical Justicars. Their power grows like a cancer. Too strong to oppose, too zealous to ignore.
└───────────────────────────┘
Ice slid down his throat. The slate creaked in his grip, spiderweb cracks appearing on its surface. Nyx, his shadow, deepened at his feet, a pool of absolute darkness that seemed to drink the light.
"'Heresies.'" The word was a razor blade sliding under his tongue. "That's what they called her power. That's what they'd call mine."
His mother's face flashed in his mind—her smile, her warmth, then the fire. The scent of burning wood and ozone. He forced the memory down, locking it in a cage of cold fury. Not yet. You are not strong enough. Not yet.
A final entry, an enigma.
┌──────[ Faction Profile ]───────┐
➽ Name: The Sisterhood of the Azure Iris
➽ Alignment: Mysterious / Isolationist
➽ Description: An ancient, all-female order of Aether adepts. Masters of unique soul-based arts. Famed for their lethal grace and otherworldly beauty. They remain secluded in their sanctuary, their motives and true strength a matter of myth and speculation.
└───────────────────────────┘
He dismissed it. A curiosity for another time. He needed a plan, a timeline. He bought a second slate, the official Academy Exam Guidebook.
Ding!
A date glowed on the crystalline surface. Three months. The decennial exam was in three months. A surge of adrenaline, sharp and electric, shot through him. It wasn't just an opportunity; it was fate, screaming in his face.
His eyes devoured the details, his mind racing, dissecting the trials like a battlefield.
═『 Valerius Academy Decennial Entrance Examination 』═
┏━━━━━━━[ Examination Stages ]━━━━━━━┓
➽ Stage 1: Aether Root Assessment
Survive the pressure wave of a senior Archon. Your very soul judged for purity and strength. The weak are shattered. The unworthy are discarded.
➽ Stage 2: The Gauntlet
One-on-one duels. A brutal, single-elimination tournament against thousands of other desperate applicants. A test of skill, strategy, and the will to dominate.
➽ Stage 3: The Beastwood Trial
Survive one month in a sealed, high-danger forest teeming with Aether-mutated horrors. Your performance dictates your future. Or your death.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
"Pass with the Prismatic Heart's full power? A death sentence." The thought was cold and clear. The Covenant's Inquisitors would be on him before he saw the inside of a classroom. He had to thread a needle through a hurricane. Pass, but not too spectacularly. Show talent, but not impossible genius.
He had to be a ghost. A whisper. Just good enough.
He spent his last coins on a room. A grimy, cramped box in an inn on the city's frayed edge, smelling of stale ale and desperation. It was perfect. Far from the gleaming spires, far from prying eyes. For three months, this hole would be his crucible.
That night, he stood by the single grimy window. Rain began to fall, streaking the glass, blurring the city into a watercolor painting of neon and shadow. In the distance, one tower rose above the rest, a gleaming needle of white crystal that pierced the storm clouds, impossibly remote, impossibly bright. The main spire of the Valerius Academy.
The fear that had chased him for years was gone. Burned out. In its place was a purpose as cold and sharp as forged steel. The pain wasn't a burden anymore. It was fuel.
He closed his eyes, focusing inward, feeling the dual cores of his heart—one radiant light, one abyssal shadow—spinning in perfect, terrifying harmony. He was ready.
A faint, ethereal chime echoed, not in the room, but inside his own head. A new light bloomed behind his eyes, text scrolling in his mind's eye.
┌─[ New Main Quest Issued ]──┐
► Quest: The Path of Shadows
► Objective: Successfully enroll in the Valerius Academy without revealing the true nature of your Aetheric Core (Prismatic Heart of Duality).
► Conditions:
Achieve a final ranking sufficient for admission.
Maintain a public Aether signature of Rank III or lower.
Avoid detection by any high-ranking Inquisitors or Truth-Seers.
► Rewards: [Undisclosed], Title: The Faceless One, System Authority Upgrade.
► Failure: Annihilation.
└────────────────────────┘