Date: April 14, 541, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
The rain promised by Master Koch arrived precisely on time. Ligra disappeared behind a gray, impenetrable curtain of water. Heavy drops crashed against the granite slabs of the estate's inner courtyard, turning the training ground into a cold, slippery lake. For Dur, this noise was like the rumble of an approaching army. His old fear of depth and the abyss of water, which he had so carefully hidden in the forest, here in Ligra's stone sack, blossomed with renewed force. Every contact with the icy moisture made his muscles clench involuntarily, and his breathing falter.
Master Koch stood under an awning, arms crossed. His copper skin seemed even darker against the gray sky. Today, there were no wooden swords on the yard. Instead, the recruits received "Energy Disks"—heavy round slabs of black obsidian that absorbed the heat and energy of anyone who touched them.
"Form a circle!" Koch roared, drowning out the downpour. "The Agrim family holds its borders not with swords, but with will! Today you will understand what true exhaustion is. Your task is to hold the disks above your heads until I allow you to lower them. Joran, Maël, Dur—into the center!"
Dur lifted his slab. It wasn't just heavy—it was icy. As soon as he touched it, he felt the cold begin to suck the life from his palms, rising up his forearms towards his very heart. Rain flooded his eyes, his clothes clung to his body, turning into an icy shell.
Beside him stood Joran. His "Stone Fist" Spirit was active: the skin on his arms had taken on a gray hue, helping him cope with the slab's weight. Maël, standing a little apart, looked focused. His Spirit of Adaptability was working overtime—Dur saw steam from Maël's body mixing with the rain, and his skin periodically paled and reddened, adapting to the temperature shock.
"The Law of Breakthrough is simple!" Koch slowly walked around the circle, his voice sounding directly in the recruits' heads, amplified by his own energy. "The power of the Spirit is not a gift. It's a callus on your soul, rubbed raw only through pain. When your body says 'enough,' your mind must say 'more.' Only on the verge of complete collapse do your channels expand!"
Half an hour passed. Two recruits were already lying in puddles, their disks having crashed onto the granite with a clatter. Dur felt his hands turning into pieces of wood. The pain in his shoulders became pulsating, sharp, as if red-hot nails were being driven into them. But worse than the pain was the fear. Water streamed down his face, ran into his mouth, and for a moment he felt he was falling again into that black icy abyss from his nightmare.
"I must… become stronger…" he repeated to himself, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached. "Kaedan wouldn't have given up. Gil would have found a solution. Ulvia… Ulvia would just have smiled at the rain."
His dream—that very Better World—now hung above him as this black obsidian weight. Dur understood: if he dropped this disk now, he would drop his oath too.
"Look at him," Joran, standing to the right, suddenly spoke, breathing heavily. His "stone skin" was beginning to crack from the strain. "The savage… still holding on. Where do you get… so much stubbornness?"
Dur didn't answer. He had no strength for words. All his energy, his entire being, was focused on one goal—not to let his arms drop.
"Dur, breathe with your belly!" Maël suddenly shouted. His voice was hoarse, but in it was that very support they both so desperately needed. "Don't fight the weight! Become a part of it!"
Maël himself was at his limit. His Spirit of Adaptability was frantically restructuring his metabolism, but even that wasn't enough. Maël knew that his father, the great Agrim Ma Rat, had once passed through these same trials. He remembered stories of how the Family forged its leaders. And he wasn't about to disgrace his name before a friend who believed in him more than he believed in himself.
An hour passed. Only four remained on the yard. Joran trembled all over, his Spirit flickering like a dying candle. Dur had stopped feeling his legs. It seemed to him he stood not on granite, but on the surface of that very ocean, and the water was about to close over his head.
At that moment, Master Koch approached Dur. His gaze was devoid of pity.
"Your dream, the one you whispered about on the terrace…" the master said quietly. "You think it's built from kind words? No, Dur. Worlds are built from the bones of those who could endure. Ligra is just the outskirts. In the north, the Order of Order burns outlaws for stability. In the south, wild tribes sacrifice lives to the forest. And in the east… in the east, the Cursed Tribe is awakening. Beings who know no pity, because their Spirits have devoured their humanity. If you can't hold this piece of stone, how will you hold the fate of millions?"
Koch's words struck Dur harder than the cold slab. The Cursed Tribe… Sarim had mentioned them. This threat was real, tangible. And it was far greater than his fear of water.
Something happened inside Dur. It was a breakthrough of will. His Energy, which had been chaotically darting through his body, suddenly concentrated. It didn't burst outward, but it began to fuel his muscles directly, burning fatigue in the furnace of resolve.
Dur straightened his back. His arms, which had been trembling, steadied. The obsidian slab no longer seemed icy—it had become a part of him.
Koch raised an eyebrow. He saw this change. Pure physical endurance, pushed to the absolute through the realization of purpose.
"Enough!" Koch waved his hand. "Lower the disks."
Joran collapsed immediately, his slab nearly crushing his toes. Maël slowly lowered his disk, staggering and leaning heavily on his knees. Dur lowered his slab smoothly, carefully placing it on the granite. His eyes burned with a cold, clear light.
"You have passed through the limit, Dur," Master Koch approached and, for the first time, placed a hand on the youth's shoulder. The master's palm was hot as a furnace. "Today you took the first step towards ceasing to be a victim of circumstance."
***
In the evening, when the rain had given way to a misty dampness, the friends sat in their room. Maël, surrounded by warm compresses, was trying to recover his energy.
"You were… terrifying out there," Maël whispered. "At one point, I thought you'd grown taller. Dur, you have no idea what potential Koch sees in you."
Dur sat by the window, looking at the wet roofs of Ligra.
"Ligra is a small city, Maël," he repeated his friend's words. "Small and cozy. But beyond it—there's darkness. I felt it today. The Cursed Tribe… Do you know more about them?"
Maël grew serious. His usual optimism momentarily cracked.
"In the chronicles of the Agrim family, they're written about as the greatest mistake of the past. People who wanted divine power and merged with their Spirits forever, losing their minds. If they've returned, then our Better World… we'll have to build it on ashes."
Dur clenched his fist. His dream was no longer a "beautiful fairy tale." It was becoming a necessity.
"I will become stronger, Maël. I'll find a way to use this Energy. I'll find my friends. And we won't let this ash bury the world."
Maël looked at his friend and saw in him that very leader people would follow into fire. He, the son of a great ruler, felt that this savage from the forest possessed something not even his father had—a primordial, politically untainted faith in justice.
"I'm with you, Dur," Maël said quietly. "Until the very end. Whatever that end may be."
They didn't yet know that tomorrow Sarim would invite them to his study to show them something found in the forest after their fight with the bandits. Something that would make Ligra shudder in anticipation of real war.