Two weeks had passed.
Sai no longer woke up in a panic, trying to remember where he was. The Academy walls no longer felt like a prison, as they had on the first day—they had become a kind of fortress, protecting him from the chaos of the outside world.
In the morning, the corridors were filled with the hum of footsteps and voices—hundreds of students rushing to classes. The white, almost sterile walls reflected the soft light from the crystals embedded in the ceiling. Everything here was precise, perfectly calibrated—not a drop of chaos.
Sai walked alongside Lars—a tall guy with red hair and a perpetual smile that was sometimes irritating, sometimes a saving grace from a gloomy mood.
"Hey, have you smiled even once in these two weeks?" Lars asked, clapping him on the shoulder.
"Perhaps," Sai replied without looking.
"Oh, horrors… he can joke!" Lars gasped theatrically. "That's it, now I can die happy."
Sai twisted his lips slightly—almost a smile.
They entered the large training hall. The floor was metal, made of a special alloy capable of withstanding the impact of magic and physical energy. On the walls were protective symbols, glowing faintly blue.
The air was thick with power—a mix of mana, tension, and excitement.
"Today, paired sparring," the instructor announced. "No forbidden techniques, no rank superiority. The goal is to demonstrate control."
Control. That word always put Sai on edge.
Grandpa had spoken of it too often.
"Without control, power is just a beast."
Sai took a deep breath. He didn't plan to stand out.
"Lars and Sai, you are a pair," the instructor said.
"Excellent!" Lars was delighted. "Don't hit too hard, okay?"
"Depends on how you behave," Sai replied.
They took their positions.
At the command, the match began.
Lars moved quickly, like flame—explosive, unpredictable. His energy was bright, open.
Sai—the opposite. Quiet, precise, like a shadow gliding through the air.
"Don't hold back!" Lars shouted, parrying his lunge. "I want to see what you're capable of!"
But Sai didn't want to. He remembered Grandpa's advice: "Don't show everything at once. The world isn't ready."
And yet—when Lars struck with particular sharpness, Sai instinctively blocked the attack, and for a split second, a wave of shadow ran across the floor.
Darkness, barely noticeable, like the breath of the wind.
The instructor raised his eyebrows.
"Interesting…"
Lars, feeling the surge, froze for a moment. "What was that?"
"Just… a reflex," Sai answered shortly.
The fight ended. Both were breathing heavily but smiling.
"You're strange, Sai," Lars said, wiping sweat. "But damn interesting."
Sai didn't answer. Inside him, that feeling flared up again—a light, cold response from the Echo, as if his power was reminding him: 'I'm here.'
The instructor walked past and said quietly:
"Not bad control… for a beginner."
He walked away, but his gaze lingered on Sai for a long time.
After training, he and Lars returned to their room. Lars plopped onto his bed, while Sai took a notebook from his locker and began writing something down—observations, sensations, flashes of power.
Grandpa had taught him to record everything—understanding is born from that.
"Seriously, you even keep a diary?" Lars smirked.
"Not a diary. Analysis," Sai replied.
"Yeah, yeah. Still boring. But I like it," Lars yawned. "Someday, you'll surprise everyone."
Sai looked up for a second.
"I'm not sure I want to."
——
Night enveloped the academy.
Silence descended upon the white buildings, broken only by the occasional footsteps of the mage-overseer patrols. Lights flickered in the upper-floor windows—some were finishing their notes, others trying to sleep after a hard day.
Sai sat by his bed, not turning on the light. The room was bathed in semi-darkness, only the faint glow of the magical crystal on the desk reflected in his white eyes.
Lars was already asleep, snoring softly in the adjacent bed.
But Sai couldn't.
He looked out the window—at the endless night sky, studded with stars—and felt a strange, barely perceptible pressure.
Not pain. Not fear. Something else.
The shadow.
It moved not from outside, but inside him.
Quietly, smoothly, as if testing the boundaries of his soul.
'Do you feel it?..' a familiar whisper sounded.
Sai clenched his fists. He had long understood that this voice wasn't a hallucination. It was the Echo. What he had gained back then, in the Wastelands.
A fragment of a monster. A fragment of something ancient.
"Shut up," he whispered, not taking his eyes off the glass.
'You reject what saved you?'
"I didn't ask to be saved."
Silence.
For a moment, it seemed the air grew thick, and the crystal's light flickered.
'You will call for me again. When you become afraid. When you remember what it's like—to be weak.'
Sai closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"No. This time, I will decide what happens to me."
The voice vanished.
But it left behind a dull, cold trace.
He lowered his gaze to his hand—on his skin, near his wrist, a shadow flickered faintly, like a breath of black smoke. Sai ran his finger over it, and it disappeared.
"Control," he whispered. "Control and intent…"
He stood up, walked to the desk, and took out one of the textbooks—a thick volume on combat synergy. The pages smelled of old ink.
He opened the book at random—and his eyes fell on a line:
'Power is not something you choose. It is something that chooses you. But a human is the only one who can refuse.'
The words cut him deep inside.
Sai closed the book and stood for a long time, staring into the room's darkness.
He knew: there was something within him that no one at the Academy would understand.
A shadow that lived on its own.
And if given free rein—it would consume him.
But somewhere deep inside, a resolution was already forming—not now, not tomorrow, but when the moment came, he would refuse the Echo.
He would refuse the borrowed power, even if it granted him authority.
He would choose darkness, but—his own.
Outside, the bells chimed—the signal for lights out.
Sai lay down on his bed, still in his uniform.
Sleep didn't come.
Grandpa's voice echoed in his head, like a reverberation from another world:
'When you learn to master yourself, you won't need another's power. You will become your own shadow.'