The training field was quiet at the morning, filled with the morning mist that curled like serpents across the grass.
From the eastern terrace, golden sunlight poured in beams through the cracked walls of the Sanctum's upper dormitory as it scatters over the sharpened edges of the practice grounds.
Kelvin stood still with his face looking focused and his chest was rising and falling in a calm movement. Away from him stood Darius, his thick arms were crossed, a grin tugging at his lips. To their left, Lyra adjusted her gloves, her silver hair were braided tightly behind her back.
"Tell me again," Darius said, tilting his head at Kelvin, "how were you able to survive Soul Convergence without combusting or wasting away?"
Kelvin smiled faintly and said. "My stubbornness and maybe….. fate."
Darius chuckled. "No way, you can't be kidding me, I watched the replay. You looked half-dead but as scary as hell."
Xerion's voice hummed faintly in Kelvin's mind. You did not look half-dead. You looked majestic.
Kelvin's lips twitched to a smile. "Even the dragon thinks that I am a showoff now."
Lyra rolled her eyes. "Enough of the talk Instructor Mealin said we are to run the coordinated relay today and remember, no shortcuts."
"Then let's give them a performance that they will remember," Kelvin said, rolling his shoulders.
They began the Tri-Core Beast Synchrony Drill, a simulation designed to test the synergy between beast tamers and their contracted companions in real-time battlefield environments.
Xerion burst forward with a roar with flames spiraling in controlled arcs as Kelvin surged alongside, his movements was like crisp and fluid. From the sky, Lyra's avian beast Silaris, a brilliant golden falcon with mana-tipped wings, dove in harmony with her caster's elemental commands, her light was slicing through magical projectiles.
Darius bellowed from the ground and his beast Rhoam, a thick-skinned armored panther, knocking through one of the reinforced training dummies that simulated Rift fiends.
"Watch left!" Lyra called as a row of dummies animated with spectral energy surged toward Kelvin.
Kelvin didn't hesitate, with a silent command, he and Xerion unleashed a burst of synchronized flame and movement, Kelvin ducked low as he slide beneath a spectral spear while Xerion's tail whipped through the cluster, smashing it into fragments. Like a breath, Darius later leapt over Kelvin, driving his beast-summoned mace into the final construct.
Dust settled all over the place. The three of them stood there panting, with sweat flowing down their foreheads.
"That is the fifth perfect drill this week," Darius said with a laugh. "Are we getting good or is the training just too easy now?"
Kelvin let his breathing slow. "Neither of the two is correct we are adapting. This is what it means to move as one."
Lyra wiped her brow. "Still… It feels like more than just practice. Something's coming."
They looked at each other, unspoken understanding threading through the silence.
Later that afternoon, inside the Sanctum's historical archive hall, Kelvin stood across from Mr. Mealin who is a tall, sharply dressed man in his late sixties whose gaze held both scrutiny and pride.
The older man ran his fingers along his jaw, studying Kelvin with an almost fatherly intensity. "You have grown." He said.
Kelvin nodded quietly. "I wouldn't be here if not for you."
Mr. Mealin waved that away. "You earned it. I just opened the door. You are the one who walked through and burned a Rift Lieutenant on the way."
Kelvin smiled faintly at his compliment.
"Still," Mealin added, "I never expected this much progress so soon. Grandmaster Belrick asked me if I knew what you were before you arrived. I told him the truth: I saw a scared, angry young man who wanted to survive more than anything else. But now…"
"I want to do more than to survive," Kelvin said with his eyes firm. "I want to protect the world that still has something worth saving."
Mealin's gaze softened. "Then protect it and never lose the fire that brought you this far."
Evenings at the Sanctum had their own rhythm. In the east garden, beside the reflective mana pools, Kelvin, Lyra, and Darius would often sit there after their training, tired, laughing, and sometimes in silence.
On this particular night, Lyra nudged Kelvin with her shoulder. "You have been quiet."
"I am just… thinking," Kelvin replied.
"About the Rift?" Darius asked, lying back with his arms behind his head.
Kelvin shook his head. "About us, about how strange it is that in a place like this, I found something like… friendship."
Darius snorted. "Be careful, beast boy, you are sounding sentimental."
Lyra smiled. "It is okay to feel like that. You are not just a weapon, Kelvin."
He looked at her then, really looked again.
Lyra's eyes met with Kelvin's eyes and immediately their color was deepened by the reflection of light in the pool that was beside them. She leaned forward, trying to pull away a strand of hair from Kelvins face.
"I am proud of you and what you are becoming," she said softly to Kelvin.
Kelvin felt that something was stirred up in his chest, something that was warmer than fire, deeper than the Soul Convergence.
He reached out for her hand and said.
"Thank you so much for reminding me that I am not alone, now I know that you two got my back."
At that point Darius cleared his throat loudly. "You two should better not start kissing unless I am given a warning first."
Lyra threw a pebble at him. "Shut up, Darius."
The next morning, they returned to training.
New constructs, tougher sequences. A gauntlet trial that required each of them to summon everything they had learned so far.
And when Kelvin finally executed a partial Soul Convergence mid-combat, searing through the constructs in a burst of flame and light without losing control, the instructors watching from above exchanged looks of stunned approval.
Grandmaster Belrick whispered to Nalia, "He is indeed stabilizing."
"Faster than we expected," she murmured. "And morealso, he is not alone anymore."
As the sun dipped once again behind the great stone towers of the Sanctum, Kelvin stood alone.
At the top the eastern battlements, Xerion was beside him. You trust them now, the beast said.
"Yes I do."
And he?
Kelvin glanced over his shoulder toward the garden where Lyra and Darius sat.
"…I think I am starting to…..."
Good, that is a strength worth forging. Xerion said.
Kelvin nodded his head in agreement to what Xerion said and added. "Then let's keep forging it together."