The night patrol passed with nothing more than the low wind and the distant hoot of an owl. Arion's boots still smelled of wet earth when dawn thinned into a pale ribbon across the walls. There was relief in the small mundanities now: breakfasts shared, predictable drills, and the clatter of the training yard. It felt like buying time with chores—and he would spend every coin.
He had barely finished his morning routine when Rowan barreled into the practice hall, breathless, grin already in place. "Arion! Master Loren wants you in the inner ring. Now. He said be quick about it."
Arion lifted an eyebrow. Loren called sparring sessions at random; sometimes they were tests, sometimes punishment. "All right," he said, rolling his shoulders. "Let's go."
They found Master Loren at the center of the inner ring, robe sleeves tied back, eyes calm as a surface of black glass. Loren's reputation as a practitioner of elemental-infused swordwork gave him a temper like forging steel: hot and exacting. He was not a large man, but when he moved, it felt as if wind and weight were folded into the same motion.
"Good," Loren said without preface when he saw them. "Both of you stand at the ready. Today you will attack me together. I want to measure your coordination and strength. No holding back."
Rowan's grin widened. "Finally. We'll show you what we've been at."
Loren's brow did not move. "You will not. I will show you where you fall short."
They took their places. The ring's packed earth held the scent of old sweat and practice. Arion flexed his fingers around the sword's hilt, feeling the familiar lines of the blade as if they were a map. He had trained yesterday, taken pills, read, and watched. Today he would be measured.
Rowan struck first—fast, loose, a string of blows designed to bait a defensive error. He favored aggressive feints and wide arcs that tested reach. His style relied on brute pressure and youthful confidence. Arion parried a swipe to the chest and stepped inside, answering with a quick jab that would have surprised many. Rowan laughed and pushed forward with a low sweep intended to knock Arion off balance.
Loren moved like water. He sidestepped Rowan's sweep and tapped the younger man's shoulder with the flat of his blade, a gentle reprimand that sent Rowan stumbling. "Predictable," Loren said. "Now both of you together."
Rowan launched himself again, this time synchronized with Arion. Two attackers—one bait, one strike—designed to collapse Loren's guard. The air hummed with the sound of colliding steel and the soft hooves of movement.
Arion remembered the rhythm of past life sparring and used it to set tempo. He feinted low, then sliced high, trusting the reflexes that were older than his present years. For a heartbeat their coordinated assault found a seam in Loren's defense. Rowan's elbow nicked Loren's forearm, and Arion's blade swept past Loren's ribs with a sound that made every head in the hall catch.
Loren did not flinch. He pivoted, using the attackers' momentum against them. In one fluid motion he dropped his weight, slammed his palm to the ground to redirect his balance, and used the small of his blade as a lever. He struck Rowan's wrist and shoved him off line, sending the younger man to the dirt with a yelp. His other hand flicked toward Arion, catching the end of the younger man's sword and spinning the weapon aside. The crowd exhaled.
Arion tasted the scrape of air as his sword was knocked from its arc. He stepped, rolled, and came up with his guard high. Loren's next move was a test—precise, probing, a single blade that would determine whether Arion could hold form under pressure. It came fast, as if the air itself had been sharpened.
Arion met the point of Loren's strike with both hands and felt a force that was not merely muscle. A pressure collared his chest. For a moment he saw starlight gathered in Loren's eyes—an edge of elemental inclination. The hit pushed him back two steps, but he did not fall. He tightened his center, and instead of resisting with raw strength he let Loren's force pass and redirected it into a counter. His blade found Loren's arm, not to wound but to test.
Loren's face altered—just slightly. Respect and calculation flickered across it. He tightened his grip, and in the next instant he released a small, audible sound and a wash of energy that made the hairs on Arion's arms stand up. The air around Loren's blade shimmered—the faint color of storm-cloud blue, like heat over metal—but inside Arion's chest the sensation was something else: a recognition.
They traded blows in a sequence that stretched, for Arion, into slow motion: block, step, thrust, parry, a sidestep, a direct stomp that Loren used to shift balance, and then an overhand arc that brushed Arion's shoulder. Rowan scrambled up, wiped dirt from his brow, and came in again, this time with two direct attacks that would have felled an inexperienced fighter.
Arion countered, and where his sword struck, Loren's movement slowed for a beat. The hall held its breath.
"Again," Loren said finally, not as a command but as a concession. "Both of you come at me as if your lives are on the line."
They did. The clash intensified—steel against steel, feet thudding, the ring of blades singing. Arion felt his muscles burning, his breath ragged, but a strange calm threaded through him like a new chord. He could sense the small currents of energy where the others could not: the way Rowan's anger tightened his shoulders, the way Loren's breath set a timing into his strikes. He began to move not only with memory but with a faint hum that answered the drum of his heartbeat.
His hands were steadier. A strike that would have faltered now connected with measured force. He did not overpower Loren—no novice could—but he found openings and exploited them with a cunning that surprised even him. He avoided a sweep that would have toppled him and instead slid under Loren's guard to deliver a low strike at the leg. The impact was clean; Rowan followed with a jab that would have ended a lesser man's balance.
But Loren's recovery was immediate. He spun, blade a blur, and redirected both of their forces with a smooth wall of metal that shuddered with contained energy. The hall felt the shock; mentors glanced at each other. It was one thing for two apprentices to push a master. It was another for the master to respond with an elemental-scented strike that left the air cold.
Arion could not match Loren's elemental output, but he could feel the hint of Spirit Qi inside himself responding. He drew it inward—a small, practiced coil that pulsed in his abdomen like a newborn ember. He leaned into a parry with that energy backing his muscles and pushed three deliberate steps forward, each step a small drumbeat of will. The motion did not create lightning or flame. It created something smaller but significant: weight.
Loren's eyes widened at the change. Not because Arion had unleashed a showy surge—he had not—but because the young man's body carried more intent, and the blade's edge landed with a force that showed cultivation behind it. For a split instant, the master saw the outline of what the boy could be.
Arion realized he had pushed a little too far. The strain lined his face. His breath came quicker. The Spirit Qi he had opened earlier with the Ade pill was not a reservoir; it was a current that had to be coaxed, not spent. He felt the edges of exhaustion clip the heels of his movement.
Loren's expression softened and then sharpened. He stepped in close, palm against Arion's chest to test the beat of the pulse, a teacher searching for a student's threshold. The contact sent a ripple through Arion—a tiny electric shock of acknowledgement. For a second, as Loren's palm rested, Arion felt the hum of his new vein of Spirit Qi and the faint trace of elemental resonance that someone like Loren could sense.
"Spirit Initiate," Loren said quietly, more to himself than to anyone. The words made the room breathe out. Rowan paused in his stance, confusion and curiosity warring on his face. Some of the older masters leaned forward, their eyes narrowing.
Arion's spirit vein thrummed like a newly struck chord. He was not a master, not by half. He had barely opened the doorway to the Spirit Realm. But under Loren's fingers, the proof was evident: a ripple of cultivated energy, small but authentic. It explained a precision that memory alone could not justify.
Loren's jaw moved. "You've reached the beginning of Spirit cultivation. Barely." His gaze hardened with a teacher's edge. "Not enough to throw a battle yet. Not even enough that I would consider you safe if you walked alone into a real fight. But enough to change how you train."
Arion swallowed, cheeks flushing at the exposure. He had expected nothing dramatic—no lightning, no elemental cloak. He had expected slow climbs and the steady ache of work. To be recognized, even softly, felt like a small victory and a sharp warning.
Loren stepped back and raised his voice. "Enough show. Rowan, you did well for a young man—work on control. Arion, you have potential, but it is raw. You will train under me for cultivation basics. We begin with breathing forms and grounding postures. We focus on channeling the Spirit Qi so it does not burn you out."
Rowan threw Arion a playful scowl. "Beginners' tasks, then?"
Arion let himself smile despite the fatigue. "Beginners' tasks that matter."
As the session broke and apprentices gathered around to whisper and speculate, Arion felt an odd mixture of elation and sobriety. He had taken a step—no, a toe—onto the long ladder. Loren's elemental signatures had not been a show of superiority that crushed him; they had been a measuring rod.
He thought of the chart he had written in his journal: Mortal, Spirit, Elemental—each rung a carrying beam. Tonight he had found the first bolt that would hold his ascent. He was still weak. He had more to build than to claim. But where before he had carried only memory, he now had a true current inside him to shape.
Loren pulled him aside as the crowd dispersed. "You will not waste it," he said simply. "If you do, the current will scorch you and leave you worse than before."
"I won't," Arion promised, feeling the vow settle like armor.
Loren's eyes softened, something like respect along with the teacher's vigilance. "Good. Then begin."
Outside the hall, the sky was clearing. The Valeheart banners stirred. Arion sheathed his sword with care and felt the small, humming center in his chest like the first ember of a fire that, if tended, might one day blaze bright enough to burn through any conspiracy. For now, the fire was small. For now, he would learn how to keep it alive.