The three weeks before the Inter-Cohort Tournament passed in a blur of focused training. Arlan's life became a three-part cycle: daylight hours with Dorian's team, nights honing his shadow skills, and secret dungeon runs with Selene and Blythe whenever they could find an opening.
Training with Team Ashcroft was… educational. Dorian was a demanding, brilliant tactician. Kaelen was pure, overwhelming power. Mira was a master of control, turning the battlefield into an ice-skating rink or a water prison with terrifying ease. Fen, the psychic, was their information network, whispering into their minds about enemy weaknesses, mana fluctuations, and hidden intentions.
Arlan's role was "problem-solver." Dorian would set up complex scenarios—four opponents with complementary affinities, or a fortified position—and Arlan's job was to find the one move that broke it. He used small spatial folds to redirect powerful attacks into each other. He created tiny portals to deliver Mira's ice shards behind enemy shields. He used spatial compression to momentarily lock a key opponent's limb, creating an opening for Kaelen's lightning.
He never used his shadow affinity in these sessions. That was his secret weapon.
His own power grew steadily. The beast cores and herbs from the dungeon runs, sold discreetly through Selene's contacts, funded a steady supply of Ironbone Root and Mana-Densification Pills. His physique solidified at a strong B. His mana pool grew to 350/500. His Umbral pool reached 180/200, its potency deepening. His spatial control became sharper, though the instability remained a constant, managed 34%.
He learned new applications. Spatial Anchor: he could mark a point in space and, for a short time, create a one-way portal back to it—a limited recall function. Dimensional Slash: his first real attack. By rapidly compressing and then releasing a line of space, he could create a cutting edge of warped reality that could slice through most 2nd Order defenses. It was mana-intensive and left him with a headache, but it was a weapon.
The night before the tournament registration deadline, Dorian called a final strategy meeting in a private training room.
"Alright. The tournament bracket is out," Dorian said, projecting a complex chart. "Sixteen teams of five. Single elimination. Fights are in the Grand Arena, full environmental simulation. No holds barred except lethal intent. Our first match is against Team Emberheart."
A collective groan went up. Kaelen cracked his knuckles. "Borin's team. He's been boasting for weeks about crushing us."
"Specifically, about crushing you, Thorne," Mira added, giving Arlan a cool look. "You made him a laughingstock. He wants revenge, publicly."
Arlan felt nothing. Borin was an obstacle. Emotions were irrelevant.
"His team is fire-heavy," Fen whispered, his eyes unfocused as he recited information. "Borin, 3rd Order, Rank 4, pure inferno. Two other 3rd Order, Rank 2s—one a flame-whip specialist, one a heat-haze illusionist. Two 2nd Order, Rank 8 supports—a barrier mage and a mana-battery. They fight as a blazing phalanx. Overwhelming frontal assault."
"Our standard formation won't work head-on," Kaelen grumbled. "We can't match that raw power."
"We don't have to match it. We have to dismantle it," Dorian said, a sharp grin on his face. He looked at Arlan. "This is your moment, scalpel. How do we cut the thread?"
Arlan studied the team layout. Blazing phalanx. All forward momentum, reliant on their barrier mage for defense and their battery for stamina.
"Cut the supports," Arlan said flatly. "The barrier mage and the battery. They'll be at the back, protected by the phalanx. We need to get to them without going through the fire."
"Easier said than done," Mira said.
Arlan pointed at the schematic. "You and Dorian create a massive diversion. A forest of ironwood and an ice storm on their left flank. Make it look like our main push. Kaelen pretends to charge that side, building up his lightning. It will draw their focus, their barrier, their fire."
"Meanwhile?" Dorian asked, eyes gleaming.
"Meanwhile, Fen locates the exact positions of the two back-line supports for me. I use a Spatial Anchor here, at our starting point." He marked a spot. "Then, I use everything I have to make one long-range Dimensional Slash, not at their fighters, but at the ground between their front line and their back line. The slash will tear a trench in the arena floor, creating chaos, dust, and a momentary break in their visual and sensory field."
"And then?" Kaelen urged.
"And then, in that moment of confusion, I use the second part of my Anchor—the recall. I don't recall myself. I recall them." He looked at Dorian. "You have vines that can grab, yes? At the exact moment of the slash, your vines need to snag the two supports and pull them into the space where my recall portal opens."
Understanding dawned on Dorian's face. "You anchor a point. You create chaos. My vines grab the targets and yank them to your anchor point… which is behind our lines. You'd be teleporting the enemy supports right into our midst."
"Exactly. Isolated, without their team. Fen hits them with a mental blast. Mira freezes them solid. Game over for their back line. Their phalanx collapses without barrier and mana fuel."
The room was silent for a moment.
"That's… insane," Mira said finally. "The timing has to be perfect. The mana cost for you, Arlan, would be enormous. One shot."
"It's a good plan," Fen whispered, a hint of excitement in his voice. "The chaos… it will sing."
Dorian slammed a fist on the table. "We do it. It's brilliant, risky, and exactly the kind of thing no one expects from a bunch of legacy kids playing by the rules. We practice the timing. Now."
They practiced the complex maneuver for hours. The hardest part was the coordination between Arlan's spatial slash and Dorian's vine grab. They had to be simultaneous. Arlan's mana drained rapidly each time he performed the slash. He went through three mana-restoration pills in the session.
But by the end, they could do it reliably. The two training dummies representing the supports would vanish from the "enemy" back line and appear frozen solid behind their own lines eight times out of ten.
Exhausted but confident, they disbanded. As Arlan left, Dorian caught his arm.
"Thorne. This plan hinges on you. If you fail, we're just three people and a psychic standing in front of a firestorm. Don't fail."
Arlan met his gaze. "I won't."
The day of the first-round match arrived. The Grand Arena was packed with hundreds of students, faculty, and even some off-campus spectators. The energy was electric. Team Ashcroft waited in their ready room. Arlan could hear the roar of the crowd for the match before theirs.
He sat in a corner, conserving his energy, running the plan through his mind. He felt a familiar cold calm settle over him. This was just another problem to solve. A dangerous, live problem.
Their match was called. They walked out into the blinding lights of the arena. The floor was a simulation of a rocky canyon. Across from them, Team Emberheart emerged. Borin led them, his molten hair seeming to glow with inner heat, a vicious smirk on his face as he locked eyes with Arlan. His team looked confident, their auras blazing like five small suns.
The arena proctor, a 5th Order General, explained the rules. "...yield or incapacitation. Begin!"
Borin didn't hesitate. "PHALANX! BURN THEM!"
His team moved as one. A wall of fire roared to life in front of them, advancing like a tidal wave. Behind it, the two 3rd Order fighters added their own streams of fire. The air shimmered with heat haze. It was an awe-inspiring, terrifying display of raw power.
"NOW!" Dorian yelled.
Mira and Dorian moved. A forest of thick, metallic vines erupted from the ground on the left flank, rapidly being coated in Mira's ice, creating a glittering, shifting wall of wood and frost. Kaelen roared, lightning crackling around him as he charged that side, making a huge show of it.
As planned, the Emberheart phalanx shifted, their wall of fire turning to meet the "main assault," their barrier mage raising a dome of shimmering heat to block Kaelen's lightning.
Fen's voice whispered in Arlan's mind. "Back-line coordinates locked. Barrier mage: two meters behind Borin's left. Mana battery: three meters behind, right. Ready."
Arlan took a deep breath. He planted his Spatial Anchor at his feet, a tiny, silent twist in reality only he could feel. Then, he raised both hands, focusing all his spatial mana, visualizing the line between the enemy front and back.
He slashed his hands down.
A silver line, thin as a hair, appeared in the air across the canyon floor. Then, the space along that line screamed. The very reality twisted and tore. A trench three meters deep and ten meters long ripped open in the rocky ground between the Emberheart fighters and their supports. Stone vaporized. A shockwave of distorted air and dust exploded outward.
The Emberheart phalanx staggered, their fire wall guttering in the sudden chaos. The barrier mage's dome flickered.
"GRAB THEM!" Dorian screamed.
From the ice-and-ironwood forest, two vines, thin and fast as snakes, shot not at the fighters, but through the dust cloud, directly at the two stunned support members at the back. They wrapped around their ankles.
At that exact moment, Arlan activated the second function of his Anchor—Recall.
The space around the two grabbed supports folded. One second they were yanked off their feet at the back of their team. The next, they were sprawled on the ground, disoriented and terrified, right at Arlan's feet, behind the Ashcroft team's line.
Fen hit them with a Psychic Screech. Their eyes rolled back. Mira flashed her hands, and both were encased from the neck down in solid, unbreakable ice.
It had taken less than four seconds.
The fire wall ahead died. Borin and his two main fighters turned, their faces masks of shock and dawning horror as they saw their supports gone, imprisoned behind the enemy.
Their formation was broken. Their mana battery was captured. Their barrier was gone.
Kaelen didn't give them time to recover. With a wordless roar, he unleashed the lightning he'd been building—not at the fighters, but at the ground beneath them. The canyon floor erupted in a web of electricity, shocking and stunning all three.
Dorian's vines erupted under their feet, binding them. Mira coated the vines in instant-freezing ice, locking them in place.
The fight was over.
The arena was silent for a beat, then erupted into deafening cheers and shouts of disbelief. The flashy, overpowering Team Emberheart had been dismantled like a clockwork toy, taken apart piece by piece with surgical precision.
The proctor announced the victory for Team Ashcroft.
Borin, trapped in ice and vines, stared at Arlan with pure, undiluted hatred. He mouthed a single word: "Dead."
Arlan turned away. The threat meant nothing. They had won.
As they left the arena to the crowd's roar, Dorian clapped him on the back, his face alight with triumph. "You did it! That was poetry! A dimensional slash and a teleport grab! Did you see their faces?"
Arlan nodded, already calculating his mana expenditure. He was nearly empty. He'd need to rest before the next round.
But as he walked, he felt a different kind of gaze on him. From the faculty observation box, he saw Head Proctor Vance watching him, her expression thoughtful. And beside her, barely visible, the void-like aura of the high-level Silent Accord operative was also focused on him.
His display hadn't just won a match. It had sent a message. He wasn't just a problem solver. He was a strategic threat.
He had stepped into the light. And the shadows, both friend and foe, were watching closer than ever.
The tournament had just begun. And Arlan Thorne had announced he was a player.