(A/N: Hey everyone, I just wanted to say sorry for the unexpected break in uploads. Something major happened in my life recently, and it left me in a tough headspace. I needed a bit of time to process and recover, but I'm doing better now. Thanks for your patience, it really means a lot. I'll be back to posting daily again in just a couple of days. Stay tuned!)
"You must be new," the receptionist remarked, her voice crisp and direct, skipping over pleasantries.
Alaric nodded.
"Registration is twenty tokens," she continued, getting straight to the point. "Leasing a training room for two hours costs ten tokens. A full day is a hundred. I'm assuming you know what these rooms are for, unless you somehow wandered in thinking this was the cafeteria?"
She glanced up, brow arched just enough to qualify as professional skepticism.
"The academy won't issue spells until next week," she added. "Or did you grab one early from a branch instructor?"
"No, nothing like that," Alaric replied. "Just working with the one I've already got."
She shrugged, unimpressed. "Half the rooms are under maintenance. You'll need to head deeper into the inner wing. That a problem?"
Her eyes flicked up again, scanning him like a grocery item that didn't quite scan.
"Not at all," Alaric said.
Without another word, she processed the transaction. "Room 14B," she said, handing back his card. "Follow the signs. Try not to blow yourself up."
"Thanks for the warm hospitality," Alaric replied dryly.
'Charming,' he thought, heading off.
He navigated several long corridors, turning so many corners that it felt like a maze. Luckily, the overly detailed signboards made it impossible to get lost unless you were completely clueless.
The place was mostly deserted, save for the occasional guard he passed. This made sense, this was only the beginning of the session, and few students had likely ventured into the training facilities yet. The hallways were eerily quiet, the kind of silence where you could hear a pin drop.
Eventually, he reached Room 14B and stepped inside.
The interior was spacious, much like the rest of the building, with reinforced walls. The only furniture was a metal table against the wall, while a few targets and straw dummies stood to the side, awaiting practical exercises.
Alaric placed the pouch of items he had bought on the table and stepped toward the center, where a dummy had already been set up.
"Alright, let's begin."
A few minutes later…
Alaric stood in the center of the training room, his hand slightly raised, focusing intently on the energy gathering in his palm.
Moments later, the room's lighting dimmed as though shadows had swallowed the space, blotting out the light and creating a blotch of darkness around him. A weak flicker of black lightning crackled on his palm, barely sparking before fading out—leaving the shadows lingering around him.
A moment later.
He cast the spell again, and the surrounding darkness thickened further. The lightning flared back to life in his palm, stronger this time. He willed it to draw in the shadows, and they responded, curling inward like smoke and getting devoured by the bolt itself. As the darkness fed into the lightning, the spell grew denser, heavier, more menacing. Light slowly returned to the room.
Alaric stared at the dark bolt for a moment… then let it fade.
'Not bad,' Alaric mused. 'Enough to stun at base form, but it deals damage when amplified with the darkness.'
The Shadow Bolt spell had two distinct traits. The first—and most obvious—was the bolt itself: a lance of black lightning that could be fired at enemies, dealing focused damage. The second was subtler but just as important, the veil of darkness it summoned. That shroud could linger in the area for a few minutes, creating cover, or be reabsorbed into the bolt to amplify its power.
This was the current limit of the Shadow bolt spell, as with most spells of its level and rank. It would only grow stronger as he did.
It was the same execution he had displayed during the academy's entrance exam.
He hadn't had a chance to properly train it before. The chaos of his awakening had forced him to rely on the residual Nether spikes inside him, burning through his reserves in moments. And afterward, neither the city, the healing pavilion, nor the academy allowed casual use of such spells. Proper testing had to be done either in the wilderness, or in controlled rooms like this one.
It was part of how organizations regulated Etherists. Dangerous spells required oversight. Breaking those rules could bring harsh consequences, and Alaric had no interest in giving anyone an excuse to inspect his core too closely.
The only reason he'd pulled it off so well during the exam was because of Luthor's surprisingly detailed memories of the spell.
'Luthor might've been clueless about a lot of things,' he thought, 'but the kid wasn't completely useless. This spell's one of the few things he got right.'
Some might question why it was labeled a dark elemental spell when it unleashed bolts of lightning.
The answer lay in the nature of certain spells. While rooted in one element, they often adopted traits of another. A fire or ice spell, for example, might spark and crackle like lightning, yet still burn or freeze upon impact. In Alaric's case, his spell also had zero electrical effects, the real damage came from its corrosive effect on the body and essence, classic Darkness.
Truthfully, many spells defied clean categorization. Fire and light often blurred together, and earth spells could mimic magma, glowing red-hot before melting into molten fury. Such quirks made spells more complex, and far more dangerous than they appeared at first glance.
Returning to the task at hand, Alaric opened his palm.
One of the gold rings on his finger pulsed with light, and with a faint shimmer, three glowing purple stones materialized in the air. They hovered briefly before landing gently in his hand. The ring was a storage artifact, handy for carrying small but valuable resources.
The stones were Ethereal Stones, crystalline and faintly luminous, like moonlight caught in solid form. Each one pulsed softly with energy, roughly the size of a robin's egg.
Alaric glanced at the straw dummies standing idly in the room. His hand flickered with a dark shadow as he readied himself to test the next phase of his experiment.
"Well, let's start by seeing how well it works as a half-assed defensive spell."
---
Two hours later, the door to the training room creaked open, and Alaric staggered out. His face was pale, and each breath came in labored bursts. The session had been a success, though it left him utterly exhausted.
He'd pushed himself. Hard. Drained his core, refilled it, then drained it again. Five full cycles. Every Ethereal stone he'd brought was spent.
Running out of ether had the same effect as running out of energy, exhaustion crept in, and his body screamed for rest.
"Well, at least now I know my core can handle four castings before crying uncle," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. "Each shot burns twenty-five percent. More if I amplify with the shadows. Less if I half-ass it. That's pretty… tempting."
He trudged back toward the front, each step fueled by stubbornness and mild self-loathing. The receptionist was still at her desk, eyebrows rising slightly as he returned the room card.
"Well, you're looking better than I thought you would," she said dryly, a faint smirk tugging at her lips.
Too exhausted to muster any snark, Alaric simply shrugged.
"So, are you done with your training, or planning to burn through all your free tokens in one go?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll be back next week."
She nodded. "Just don't go killing yourself, kid."
Without a word, Alaric turned on his heel, his small rucksack slung over his shoulder as he headed out of the building.
Twilight had settled across the academy grounds, the sky a canvas of purples and deep blues. Most students were already in their dorms. The paths were quiet. Peaceful.
He stopped at a canteen to grab a quick meal, nothing fancy, just something to keep him upright, then made it to the dorms just in time to avoid curfew.
Inside, the common area buzzed with low energy. Boys chatted, roughhoused, and generally acted like they hadn't a care in the world. Alaric passed through like a ghost, the chatter quieting as heads turned.
He didn't flinch.
'Well, congratulations,' he thought. 'You've officially made yourself an outcast before the semester even started. Efficiency, thy name is Alaric.'
He headed straight to his room.
Once inside, he locked the door, tossed the bag on the floor, and made for the small practice chamber tucked behind a wall panel.
He wasn't done yet.
At the desk, he unpacked dried purple Mascara Flowers, followed by a vial of blue liquid that shimmered like bottled lightning.
He uncorked the vial, stripped off his shirt, and carefully removed the cursed rings and pendant. Each item was placed gently on the table.
He dipped his fingers into the cold liquid, a sharp sting biting his skin. Then he began.
The Pure Essence wasn't exactly rare—but it wasn't cheap, either. Etherists used it to increase focus, stimulate recovery, or just power through exhaustion. Some even used it recreationally, which... said a lot about their priorities.
A faint purple-blue mist rose the moment he cracked the lid open. Alaric instinctively turned his face away, wincing at the putrid, eye-watering stench. It was like rotting fruit mixed with burnt copper. He gagged once, then held his breath.
He really didn't want to throw up this early into the night.
But there was no time to waste. Alaric dipped his fingers into the viscous blue liquid, feeling a cold sting as it met his skin. He hesitated for a moment, then pressed on.
"I better hurry this up."
Pure Essence was a staple among Etherists—a shortcut for those looking to enhance physical output, extend training sessions, or cheat their way through cultivation plateaus.
The real draw, however, was its ability to act as a conduit. Once absorbed, it pulled ambient Ether directly into the body, intensifying core circulation. It was popular, effective, and dangerously addictive.
Not that Alaric cared much. He had been using it for years, long enough to establish a careful routine.
"Still… I shouldn't overdo it," he muttered, more to keep himself in check than anything else.
He began inscribing a chain of intricate characters around his navel, each stroke precise and deliberate. As he worked, the air around him started to hum softly, the faint winds in the room shifting as they were drawn toward him.
Inside his core, which was usually a calm, dormant pool of Ether, began to churn. Waves rolled through it, the brightness and density increasing with every passing moment.
For fifteen minutes, Alaric held his concentration, the Ether purifying and strengthening his core at a rapid pace. His body grew warmer, his reserves rising and falling like a tide under the moonlight.
Finally, light headed and drained, he snapped his eyes open and pulled himself out of the trance. As exhilarating as it was, he knew better than to push his limits.
Taking a deep breath, Alaric assessed the results. His core had settled, and the once-roiling Ether was now calm, though visibly brighter and more refined. The pool within him was clearer, purer than it had been just minutes ago.
His eyes drifted toward the table where his rings and pendant lay. The cursed pendant drew his attention like a dark beacon. He stared at it for a long moment, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his gaze.
Ever since stepping into the academy, Alaric had felt a faint tug at the back of his mind, a nagging sense that he was being watched. This feeling wasn't confined to his dorm; it seemed to follow him almost everywhere he went. Sometimes the sensation would come and go, but it always remained fixed, as if a pair of unseen eyes were tracking his every move. Though he had a few ideas about why, he preferred to keep his plans hidden for now, pushing them further into the future.
Exhaling slowly, he tore his gaze away from the pendant. "Not now," he reminded himself. "Not yet."