The bell rang, signaling the start of the free block. To most students of Zenith, this was a time of curated luxury. They moved through the halls toward high ceilinged libraries filled with ancient grimoires, or toward the private lounges where they could network over alchemical teas. Vane moved against the flow. He kept his head down, his grey eyes fixed on the polished stone floor, heading straight for the Administrative Wing.
Crossing the threshold into the faculty sector felt like stepping into a different world. The ambient noise of the student body—the laughter of nobles and the low hum of practiced cantrips—faded instantly. It was replaced by a heavy, oppressive silence. The wide marble concourses of the main campus gave way to narrower corridors paneled in dark, expensive wood that smelled of beeswax and old authority. The air was cooler here. It felt still, as if the oxygen itself were afraid to move without permission. This was where the real power of Zenith resided, tucked away from the performance art of the classrooms.
Vane felt the familiar weight of being an intruder. It was the same hollow sensation he used to get while sneaking into merchant villas in Oakhaven, waiting for a floorboard to creak or a guard to turn a corner. He pushed the feeling down. He was not sneaking today. He was a student of Class 1-A. He was demanding what he was owed by the institution that had seen fit to rank him at the top.
He found Instructor Rowan Draeven's office. The door was heavy oak with a simple brass nameplate. It was ajar, allowing a sliver of cold, blue light to spill into the hallway. Vane nudged it open.
Rowan was inside, sitting behind a desk that looked carved from a single slab of granite. He was reviewing streaming combat data on a holographic display, his face illuminated in the flickering light of a dozen tactical simulations. The room was sparse and military in its precision. There were no trophies, no books of theory, and no family crests. There was only the data.
Vane knocked sharply on the doorframe. "Instructor."
Rowan did not look up from the data stream. "You have a free block, Rank 1. Use it to study theory or condition your body. Do not use it to bother me. Every minute you waste in here is a minute someone else is using to close the gap you have so precariously established."
"I am here to study," Vane said, stepping inside and letting the door click shut behind him. The sound of the latch was deafening in the quiet office. "I need remedial training for the spear. My baseline assessment yesterday was a zero. You said it yourself during the introduction. I have no foundation. I need instruction to fix that before the practical evaluations begin."
Rowan finally paused the data stream. The blue light froze on a frame of a student being thrown by a kinetic burst. He looked up, his steel grey eyes flat and unreadable.
"And you are under the impression that I am the one to provide this?" Rowan asked.
"Yes," Vane said, holding his ground despite the pressure radiating from the man. "I chose the weapon based on my physical profile. I am a Body dominant aspect. I need reach and leverage to compensate for my lack of initial mana capacity. It is the logical choice. I just lack the technical history that the others in this room were born with."
Rowan leaned back in his chair. The synthetic leather creaked loudly. He studied Vane for a long, uncomfortable moment, as if he were assessing a piece of faulty equipment that had somehow passed quality control.
"You misunderstand the fundamental nature of this institution, Mr. Vane," Rowan said quietly. "Zenith Academy is not a preparatory school. We are not tutors hired by anxious parents to fix a child's lack of discipline. We are evaluators. We take finished weapons—students who have already mastered their fundamentals through years of expensive private training—and we sharpen them for war. We do not teach you which end of the spear is pointy. That is presumed knowledge."
"I did not have access to that knowledge before," Vane argued, frustration leaking into his voice. "I am asking for access now. You have the facilities. You have the instructors. If the goal is to create the best assets, then ignoring a gap in my training is a waste of the Academy's resources."
"Access is earned here, not requested," Rowan said coldly. "If you are behind, catch up. Find an old manual in the archives and bleed until you understand it. Hire an upperclassman desperate for credits to show you how to stand. Figure it out. If you cannot solve a simple problem of personal logistics, you will be useless on a battlefield where the problems are lethal."
Before Vane could argue further, the air in the small office seemed to thicken. A heavy, musky scent of ozone and animal aggression filled the doorway behind him. A low growl vibrated through the floorboards, rattling the pens on Rowan's desk.
"Is the street rat still whining about holding the stick wrong?"
General Kael squeezed his massive Beastkin frame through the door. He loomed in the small space, his golden lion eyes narrowed at Vane. He wore a simple tank top that seemed ready to burst at the seams of his shoulders, exposing arms that were thick as tree trunks and covered in fine, tawny fur.
"He wants private lessons," Rowan said, turning back to his data.
Kael snorted. The sound was like a small explosion in the confined space. "Lessons? Words do not teach your kind anything, boy. You think you can talk your way into competence? You think the spear is something you can understand with your head?"
Kael reached out a massive, clawed hand and grabbed the back of Vane's uniform collar. It was not an aggressive shove; it was the casual, dismissive handling of luggage. He dragged Vane backward out of the office.
"Come with me. Let us see what you are actually made of."
Vane did not have a choice. Kael hauled him down the corridor to a nondescript metal door, threw it open, and tossed Vane inside.
It was a tactical padded room, barely twenty feet square, used for private corrections or containment. The walls were thick, sound dampening foam. The air was stale and smelled of old sweat. Kael kicked the door shut, sealing them in. There was a rack of wooden training weapons embedded in the far wall. Kael snatched a blunt practice spear and tossed it to Vane. He grabbed a heavy, iron shod quarterstaff for himself.
"You think you are a spearman because you tapped a button on a screen?" Kael growled, spinning the heavy staff in one massive paw with terrifying velocity. The wind of it hissed in the small room. "Show me. Right here. Come at me with everything you have. Do not hold back, because I will not."
Vane caught the spear. His heart hammered against his ribs. He knew his basics were trash. If he tried to fight Kael conventionally with stilted stances and clumsy thrusts, the General would just humiliate him. He could not win a technical fight. He had to prove he had power.
Vane gripped the spear. He dropped into a low crouch, his breathing tight. Internally, he reached into the deepest part of his soul, accessing the [Usurper] Authority. He located the muscle memory of a mercenary he had neutralized weeks ago—a technique refined over a lifetime of violence.
He triggered the borrowed reflex.
To Vane's perception, an alien intelligence took over his motor functions. His muscles snapped into a pre-programmed, flawless alignment that felt completely unnatural to his own body. The mana in his legs exploded in a specific, rhythmic sequence. He launched forward in a blindingly fast, low lunge. The spear thrust forward with incredible velocity, a perfect, lethal kinetic chain.
To Kael, watching with the eyes of an Expert, Vane suddenly shifted from a clumsy amateur into a blur of deadly, linear speed.
Kael did not blink. He did not try to block the raw power of the thrust with force. He just shifted his weight, pivoting on his back foot with the casual grace of a dancer. The spear tip, moving fast enough to punch through plate armor, sizzled past Kael's ribs, missing by less than an inch. It slammed into the padded wall behind him with a deafening thwack.
The borrowed reflex ended. The ghost let go.
Immediately, the unnatural perfection vanished. Vane was no longer a master spearman. He was a student horribly overextended in a deep lunge, completely off balance, holding a weapon embedded in the wall.
"Gotcha," Kael grunted.
Kael brought the butt of his iron shod staff down hard on Vane's exposed spine.
WHAM.
Vane's legs buckled. He hit the mat face first, the breath driven from his lungs in a pained gasp. The taste of copper filled his mouth. Before he could scramble up, Kael planted a heavy boot in the center of Vane's back, pinning him to the floor.
"There it is," Kael growled, leaning down so his voice was a low rumble right next to Vane's ear. "That thrust. It is fast. It is powerful. For about half a second, you looked like a killer. But look at you now. You overcommitted. Your back foot is floating, giving you no anchor to recover. You poured everything into one strike with no thought for the second, or the third. The moment that burst of speed ended, you fell apart."
Kael stepped back, removing the pressure. Vane gasping for air, shakily pushed himself to his hands and knees.
"Listen to me, boy," Kael rumbled. "If you want the basics, I can help you. I can show you how to stand, how to breathe, and how to hold your center so you do not fall over like a drunkard every time you miss. I can teach you the foundation of the spear."
He looked Vane dead in the eye, his golden pupils glowing with a faint, predatory light.
"But that is all I will teach. I will not pass on my personal Combat Art to you. A Combat Art is a legacy. It is a philosophy of mana and movement that has been refined through generations. I do not think of you as my disciple, and I do not waste my family's heritage on strays. You are on your own for the rest. You will have to either create your own Combat Art from scratch or find some other way to inherit one. Do you understand?"
Vane looked at the floor. His hands were trembling, not just from the pain, but from a surge of dismissive arrogance. The basics. He thought of the princes and princesses in Class 1-A. They were already practicing complex elemental arts. They were learning how to manifest their mana into weapons of mass destruction. He did not have time to spend months learning how to stand in a line. He had an Authority. He had the Usurper. He could just take what he needed. Why waste time on the foundation when he could just steal the roof?
"I understand," Vane said, his voice cold.
Kael snorted, sensing the boy's lack of sincerity. "You understand nothing. You think you can shortcut the soul. You think you can build a tower on a swamp."
The door opened. Rowan was standing there, looking bored, leaning against the frame. "Done playing with the freshman, General?"
"He knows where he stands now," Kael grunted, tossing his heavy staff back onto the rack. "He has power, but he is hollow."
Rowan looked down at Vane, who was wiping blood from his split lip. "You are in Class 1-A because the Headmistress thinks you might survive the crucible. Not because you deserve to be here yet. Nobody in this building is going to hold your hand, Vane. Sink or swim."
The two instructors turned and walked away, the door clicking shut behind them. Vane was left alone in the sudden silence of the padded room. He crawled over and yanked the practice spear out of the wall.
Kael was right about one thing: the stolen thrust was a crutch. It was a powerful weapon, but without a foundation to support it, it was just a desperate gamble. However, Kael was wrong about the rest. Vane was a survivor from the gutters. He had spent his whole life finding shortcuts because the "proper" way was reserved for people with names and gold. He did not need a teacher to show him how to stand. He needed more power to steal.
He walked out of the Administrative Wing, his back aching and his pride stinging. He would find his own way. He would find a Combat Art that didn't require him to beg for the crumbs of a noble's table.
As he walked back toward the main campus, he saw the other students laughing, their movements fluid and confident. They had their foundations. They had their families. Vane had only his hunger and a broken spear. He would show them all. He would build his tower, and he would build it on the bodies of everyone who told him it was impossible.
He didn't need the basics. He needed to find a master who was desperate enough to be picked clean.