For three days, Arlan navigated the underbelly of Haven's Fall. The city was in an uproar. The "real incursion" had been contained by academy reinforcements and city guards, but the aftermath was chaos. Search parties scoured the ruins for missing students. The Silent Accord, their lab destroyed, had vanished like ghosts, leaving no trace.
Arlan avoided them all. He used his Umbral Sight to stay unseen, his newly tempered body to endure hunger and fatigue, and his wits to find water and avoid the pockets of real monsters that still lurked. He lived off concentrated nutrient paste from his survival kit and the pervasive, energizing warmth of the Void-Heart Flame sleeping in his blade.
The flame's influence was subtle but profound. His spatial instability, scoured by its purifying energy, had dropped to 25%, the lowest it had ever been. His mana regeneration was faster. When he channeled energy through the cracked blade, it now carried a faint, cleansing white edge that seemed to make his spatial cuts cleaner and more precise.
On the fourth day, he found a way to the surface—a collapsed sewer line that opened into a ravaged park on the city's outskirts. He emerged under a grey sky, looking like a phantom: covered in grime, uniform torn, but eyes sharp and blade glowing faintly in its scabbard.
He was immediately spotted by an academy patrol skiff. They landed, weapons trained on him until they saw his academy ident chip. A harried-looking 4th Order proctor he didn't recognize hurried over.
"Cadet Thorne! By the stars, we thought you were KIA or captured. Report!"
"Separated during the initial real explosion. Evaded hostiles. Survived in the sub-levels. I'm intact," Arlan stated, his voice rough from disuse.
The proctor looked him over, eyes lingering on the cracked, faintly glowing sword. "Your energy signature is different. What did you encounter, Cadet?."
"Found a source of pure mana in the ruins. Used it to survive." It wasn't a lie, just not the whole truth.
The proctor nodded, too relieved and exhausted to probe. "Get on the skiff. You're the last missing student. We're returning to the academy immediately."
The flight back was silent. The other students on the skiff, all wounded or shell-shocked, looked at him with a mixture of awe and pity. He had been left behind and survived alone for days. It marked him, even among the survivors.
Back at the Celestial Ascent Academy, the atmosphere was somber. The Promotion Test had been a disaster. Five students dead, a dozen seriously injured. The Silent Accord's involvement was a tightly kept secret among the faculty, but rumors of "sabotage" ran wild among the student body.
All first-year students were given a week of mandatory rest and evaluation. Arlan was debriefed extensively by Head Proctor Vance and Archivist Torvin. He told them everything except the heavenly flame. He described the Accord lab, the rift-core, the Null-Suits, and his sabotage. They listened with grim faces.
"The Accord grows bolder," Torvin muttered, fiddling with a cog on his staff. "Experimenting on a live core in an active city... they're playing with apocalypse to fuel their research."
"You acted correctly, Cadet Thorne," Vance said, her lake-like eyes deep with concern. "You prevented a catastrophic breach. But you are now a direct witness to their operations. Your status has changed. You are not just a 'person of interest' to them. Expect escalation."
She upgraded his Aegis Network clearance and assigned him a permanent security detail—a discreet, rotating watch by trusted 4th Order proctors.
The official results of the Promotion Test were announced. Despite the catastrophe, evaluations were based on performance up until the real attack. Arlan, based on his effective squad work and his solo survival (officially labeled a "successful evasion and endurance exercise"), was granted promotion. He was now a Second-Year Apprentice.
So were most of his peers. Dorian, Mira, Kaelen, Selene, Jax—they all passed. The tragedy had united the year in a shared, grim experience.
With the new year came new structure. Second-years had more elective focus, more responsibility, and access to higher-tier resources and missions. They were also expected to form or join official Combat Lances—permanent, five-person teams for advanced training and off-campus missions.
Dorian immediately moved to formalize their tournament team into Lance Ashcroft. He invited Arlan, Mira, Kaelen, and Fen.
Arlan accepted. It was the logical choice. They were effective.
Selene formed her own lance with Blythe and two other Arcanum outliers—a shadowmancer and a bone-shaper. They called themselves Lance Umbra. An unspoken alliance existed between Lance Ashcroft and Lance Umbra.
The first month of the second year was a time of consolidation. Arlan focused on integrating the Void-Heart Flame. Under Archivist Torvin's guidance, he learned to draw minute traces of its purifying energy to temper his body further, slowly raising his Physique toward A. He also worked on his Spatial Stabilization Bracer, the flame's energy helping him inscribe more stable, complex runic arrays.
He also began properly learning swordsmanship. His broken Focus Blade, now a unique artifact he called White-Crack, was his constant companion. He trained in the academy's martial halls, learning basic forms and how to better channel his spatial slashes through movement.
It was during one of these public training sessions that he encountered his rival.
He was practicing a flowing kata that ended with a dimensional slash, the purple light in his blade's crack flaring as he cut the air.
"An interesting technique. Powerful, but inelegant. You're putting too much shoulder into it. The power should come from the hips, and the intent should lead the blade, not follow it."
The voice was calm, analytical, and familiar.
Arlan stopped and turned. It was Lyra Solara. She stood at the edge of the training floor, dressed in simple training gear, her silvery hair tied back. Her stellar aura was contained, but her presence was still immense. She was now undoubtedly a 3rd Order, Captain-rank. The gap between them had widened, yet she was here, critiquing his form.
"Why?" Arlan asked, his voice flat.
"Because waste offends me," she said, stepping onto the floor. "Your spatial affinity is a rare gift. You use it like a bludgeon. A precise tool used crudely is still a bludgeon. I have studied spatial theory. The principles of folds, anchors, and compression. My stellar magic deals with cosmic forces—gravity, radiation, the fusion of matter. The underlying laws are... adjacent."
She picked up a practice blade from a rack. "Your duel in the tournament showed potential. But potential untrained is just latent failure. I propose an exchange."
Arlan remained silent, waiting.
"I will instruct you in advanced energy control, channeling, and swordsmanship principles refined by my family for generations," she said. "In return, you will be my... test subject."
"For what?"
"For understanding spatial anomalies," she said bluntly. "Your instability, your dual-core nature, the unique signature of your power—it is a puzzle. I wish to observe it, to understand it. Not for the Academy, not for the Accord. For my own knowledge. A purely intellectual exchange."
It was a cold, clinical offer. No friendship. No camaraderie. A trade of skills for data. It was a proposition he understood perfectly.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you will continue to waste your potential, and I will find another anomaly to study. The choice is yours."
Arlan looked at her. She was prideful, brilliant, and saw the world as a system to be mastered. Just like him. She wasn't a friend. She might never be. But she could be a powerful partner in advancement. A rival who pushed him to be better, for her own reasons.
"Agreed," he said. "On one condition. No sharing of your observations with anyone else. Not your family. Not the Academy."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Lyra's lips. "That is acceptable. My research is for my eyes only. Beginning tomorrow, dawn, Training Sector Gamma. Don't be late."
She turned and left, leaving Arlan alone in the hall.
He looked at White-Crack in his hand. The path had just forked again.
The second year had begun. The games were over. The real climb had started. And he had just gained a new, brilliant, and demanding teacher.