I didn’t remember the walk back to the dorm.

  One moment I was in the training hall, lungs burning, muscles trembling, vision dim at the edges from overexertion. The next, I was standing in front of my room door with the keycard already in my hand.

  Autopilot.

  Inside, I shut the door, dropped my bag, and leaned back against the wall.

  Everything hurt.

  Not sharp pain. Not injury. Just the deep, heavy ache of a body pushed well past what it considered acceptable.

  I slid down until I was sitting on the floor.

  “…Maybe Varek was pushing harder than usual,” I muttered.

  Or maybe that was simply what training under Rank Two felt like.

  Hugh and Jain had struggled too — but they hadn’t looked like they were negotiating with gravity just to stay upright.

  “…Or maybe it’s just me.”

  I forced myself up, showered, changed, and collapsed onto the bed without bothering with the blanket.

  Just ten minutes.

  That was the plan.

  My eyes closed.

  A quiet alarm vibrated on the nightstand.

  I opened one eye.

  Dark room. Dim clock glow.

  9:12 p.m.

  Right.

  Ada.

  Behind the Dorm — Tree Line

  The same place.

  Dense trees. Uneven ground. No lights. No witnesses.

  Ada was already there, leaning against a trunk, arms folded, looking like she had been waiting long enough to lose patience with time itself.

  “You’re late.”

  “I’m early.”

  She didn’t check. Didn’t argue. Just clicked her tongue.

  “Whatever.”

  Her sword remained sheathed at her hip.

  She stepped forward.

  “I’ll teach you the way I was taught.”

  I frowned. “And how was that?”

  She smiled.

  It wasn’t friendly.

  “By surviving.”

  Then she moved.

  No warning. No stance. No visible preparation.

  She was simply in front of me.

  The scabbard struck first.

  CLACK—

  I barely raised my sword in time. The impact jolted through my arms, teeth snapping together.

  “Too slow.”

  She pivoted and swept low. I jumped back — barely — bark tearing under my heel.

  Silent Eclipse.

  The world snapped into focus. Movement sharpened. Balance shifts revealed themselves before they fully happened.

  Her shoulder dipped. Weight shifted. A strike from the right—

  I moved to intercept.

  The scabbard stopped mid-arc.

  Changed direction.

  And slammed into my ribs from the opposite side.

  WHUMP.

  Air vanished from my lungs as I staggered.

  Reading the attack didn’t matter if my body couldn’t keep pace.

  She didn’t pause.

  Another strike — high.

  I raised my guard—

  The blow vanished halfway through.

  The real impact came from below, hammering my forearm and nearly tearing the weapon from my grip.

  “Your eyes are fast,” she said flatly. “Your body is not.”

  I forced myself upright.

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  She advanced again.

  This time I reacted earlier — saw the shift in her hips, the minute tightening in her wrist, the exact line her attack would follow—

  I moved before it began.

  For a fraction of a second, it worked.

  Then she adapted.

  The scabbard rolled along my guard, slipped past it, and slammed into my shoulder.

  Pain exploded down my arm.

  She wasn’t just attacking.

  She was adjusting in real time.

  Every movement I made gave her new information.

  The pressure never stopped. Strikes came from every angle, relentless, efficient, economical. No wasted motion. No emotion. Just experience compressing my options until none remained.

  Time stretched.

  Then the clarity began to fade.

  Edges softened. Motion blurred. Pressure built behind my eyes like something pushing outward from inside my skull.

  Silent Eclipse ended.

  Immediately, everything became worse.

  Her movements became impossible to track cleanly. A strike clipped my thigh, dropping me to one knee. Another tapped my shoulder — light, deliberate, controlled.

  Proof, not damage.

  She stepped back.

  I dragged air into my lungs.

  Ada studied me.

  “You slowed down.”

  Not a question.

  I forced a shrug. “Fatigue.”

  Her gaze stayed on me.

  “If you don’t want to answer, say so.”

  No threat. No pressure.

  Just permission.

  “…I’m tired,” I said.

  Technically true.

  “Fine.”

  She stepped forward again.

  “Up.”

  I pushed myself to my feet.

  Round two lasted seconds.

  I hit the ground.

  “Don’t chase the weapon,” she said. “Control the person holding it.”

  Again.

  “You react after the decision is made. That’s why you’re late.”

  Again.

  “Protect your center. Limbs heal. Organs don’t.”

  Again.

  “You’re trying to win. Stop. Survive first.”

  Each fall earned exactly one correction.

  No praise. No sympathy. No anger.

  Just data.

  Between strikes, she spoke without looking at me.

  “And stop staring.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “You stare at anything you think matters.”

  She tapped the scabbard lightly against my chest.

  “That’s how predators identify prey.”

  My pulse spiked.

  Ada continued as if discussing the weather.

  “Ether users are rare.”

  Silence.

  “They’re also the only ones who can reliably identify Hollowed.”

  Her eyes lifted to mine.

  “If a Hollowed realizes what you are, you become priority one.”

  A beat.

  “They don’t argue. They don’t threaten. They erase.”

  I swallowed.

  “So even if you know someone is Hollowed,” she continued, circling me slowly, “you don’t expose them. Not publicly. Not privately. Not unless you’re prepared for everything that follows.”

  Another light tap against my shoulder.

  “And don’t look at them like you know.”

  She stepped behind me.

  “Predators notice recognition. It changes how you breathe. How you stand. Where your eyes rest.”

  Her voice lowered slightly.

  “And the dangerous ones are already watching for it.”

  She moved back in front of me.

  “Control your reactions. Control your gaze. Control your breathing.”

  She shifted her stance.

  “In crowds, use your peripheral vision. In combat, track intent, not eyes.”

  Then she attacked again.

  “Move.”

  The scabbard blurred toward my head.

  I barely raised my guard in time.

  Pain rattled through my arms.

  “Again.”

  And the lesson continued beneath the dark canopy — not elegant, not heroic, not cinematic.

  Just survival, delivered one strike at a time.

  The Next Morning

  I woke with the dull, full-body soreness that meant yesterday had not been a hallucination.

  For a few seconds I stared at the ceiling, trying to remember why every muscle felt like it had been individually insulted.

  Then it hit me.

  Ada.

  Varek.

  Training.

  Poor life choices.

  I rolled onto my side—

  —and froze.

  “…The egg.”

  The sphere.

  The reward artifact from the museum.

  I sat up immediately.

  I hadn’t checked it.

  Hadn’t infused Ether.

  Hadn’t even taken it out since bringing it back.

  A celestial incubation core that required careful handling for an entire year… currently being treated like a forgotten paperweight.

  Fantastic.

  I pulled it from its hiding place.

  The surface was still cold, smooth, faintly metallic — unchanged, at least visually.

  No cracks. No dimming. No ominous signs of imminent failure.

  “…Good.”

  Then a second thought surfaced.

  If I had started caring for it on Sunday… Akira might have sensed it.

  And if Ada had found out—

  Yeah. No.

  Accidental negligence may have just saved me from extremely complicated questions.

  “Let’s call this strategic incompetence.”

  I fed a small thread of Ether into the sphere.

  It absorbed the energy quietly, like dry sand drinking water.

  I put it away carefully.

  Theory Class

  The results were already projected across the board when I entered.

  Rankings by group.

  I scanned quickly.

  1st — Varek’s Group

  Ours.

  Huh.

  2nd — Seraphina Vale’s Group

  3rd — Zane Warry’s Group

  4th — Selene Nightbloom’s Group

  5th — Aric Vayne’s Group

  6th — Tyrion Blackthorn’s Group

  7th — Iris Umbra’s Group

  Then the rest.

  Random clusters of mid-tier results.

  I leaned back slightly.

  If theory and combat had equal weight, this would matter a lot.

  But they didn’t.

  Twenty percent theory.

  Eighty percent applied combat.

  In other words: intellectual excellence was a bonus, not a survival tool.

  A small sound broke my thoughts.

  “Hic.”

  I turned.

  Seraphina stood near the board, staring at the rankings with absolute stillness.

  Like someone had just been informed gravity was optional now.

  Her group had placed second.

  For anyone else, that would be exceptional.

  For her—

  Catastrophic.

  She blinked once, straightened, then noticed me looking.

  For a fraction of a second, something vulnerable flickered across her expression.

  Then it vanished.

  She gave a small, formal nod.

  And left.

  No drama. No visible frustration.

  Just controlled retreat.

  Royalty does not sulk in public.

  Lecture — Mana Beasts

  Professor Voss entered with unusual energy.

  “Today we begin essential field knowledge,” he announced. “Mana-beast ecology, behavior, and threat classification.”

  The room sharpened instantly.

  “Understanding mana-beasts is not academic,” he continued. “It is survival. You will not be permitted to hunt without demonstrating baseline competence.”

  Diagrams appeared on the board — anatomical variations, mana gland locations, aggression patterns, territorial behaviors.

  I took notes.

  Actual notes.

  Not everything needed Silent Eclipse.

  Days Passing

  Days blurred into a relentless cycle.

  Combat Training

  Varek drilled formation discipline like a battlefield commander.

  No wasted movement. No tolerance for errors. No praise.

  Only correction.

  Night Training

  Ada’s lessons remained brutally consistent.

  Predict. Fail. Adapt. Fail differently.

  “Experience,” she called it.

  “Assault with educational intent.”

  Theory Classes

  Mana-beast taxonomy.

  Tracking methods.

  Environmental hazard analysis.

  Team survival doctrine.

  Information layered until my brain felt like an overstuffed filing cabinet.

  The Reward Egg

  Each night, I fed the sphere a measured amount of Ether.

  No visible progress.

  No feedback.

  Just silent absorption.

  Either it was working…

  Or I was watering a very expensive rock.

  Saturday — Behind the Dorm

  I lay flat on my back, staring up through the canopy, chest rising and falling like a malfunctioning machine.

  “I don’t think this is working.”

  Ada stood nearby, leaning on her sheathed sword.

  “What isn’t?”

  “Training. Progress. Improvement. Survival as a concept.”

  She didn’t answer immediately.

  Then:

  “You expected to become world rank one in six days?”

  “…When you put it like that, it sounds unrealistic.”

  “It is.”

  She glanced down at me.

  “You’re improving.”

  “Am I?”

  “You’re still alive.”

  Encouraging.

  She turned slightly, preparing to leave.

  “And tomorrow is a rest day.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “No physical activity. No training. No experiments.”

  “My schedule—”

  “Will kill you if you continue.”

  Flat. Absolute.

  “Your body needs recovery to adapt. Without it, you’re just accumulating damage.”

  She stepped toward the trees.

  “Rest.”

  She vanished into the darkness.

  I lay there a moment longer, listening to my heartbeat slowly normalize.

  Rest day.

  …That sounded suspiciously like a luxury.