CHAPTER 40: Bronze and Crimson
Jax Rowan was not supposed to be in this corridor.
B-Class was housed in the northern wing of the academy. The S-Class training grounds were in the western wing. There was no logical reason for someone from B-Class to be walking through the western corridor at this hour unless they were specifically looking for someone.
Jax was specifically looking for someone.
He found them outside the seventh training ground — Lucius walking out with Hans a step behind him, both of them carrying the particular quietness of people who had just spent several hours being genuinely tested.
Jax raised a hand in greeting.
"Took you long enough," he said.
Hans's face shifted immediately — the focused, cataloguing expression he wore during training replaced by something warmer and more natural.
"Jax. You walked all the way from the northern wing?"*
"It's not that far," Jax said. He shrugged. "Besides I wanted to see what S-Class looks like up close. Very intimidating corridor. Very serious stone floor."
Hans pushed his glasses up. "It's the same stone floor as everywhere else."
"Exactly," Jax said. "Very serious."
Lucius looked at him.
Not with the analytical distance he used on most people. Just — looked. The way you looked at something familiar.
"You're earlier than yesterday," Lucius said.
Jax's eyebrow went up slightly. "You noticed."
"You came by yesterday evening too. You didn't knock."
A brief pause.
Jax scratched the back of his neck. "I wasn't sure if you were busy."
"Next time knock," Lucius said simply. And kept walking.
Jax fell into step beside him without being invited. Hans took the other side. The three of them moved through the corridor together with the easy, unspoken rhythm of people who had been through something real together and didn't need to announce it.
---
They found a quiet corner of the outer courtyard — a stone bench beside one of the academy's older walls, far enough from the main paths that conversations stayed private.
The evening air was cool. The last of the daylight was fading from the sky in long horizontal streaks of amber and grey.
Jax sat with his elbows on his knees, turning his bronze spear shaft slowly between his palms. A habit Lucius had noticed before — he did it when he was thinking seriously about something but didn't want to appear like he was.
"B-Class is different from what I expected," Jax said.
"Different how," Hans said.
"The instruction is solid. The students are serious." He paused. "Some of them are genuinely strong. There's a girl in my class — Mira. Earth Talent, Rare tier. She hit me with a wall of compressed stone in our first session and I didn't see it coming until it was already moving."
"What did you do," Lucius said.
"Took it," Jax said simply. "Then figured out how she was setting it up."
A brief silence.
"And the second time?"
Jax's mouth curved slightly. "Didn't take it."
Lucius said nothing. But something in his expression shifted — barely visible, just a slight easing around the eyes.
Hans nodded with visible approval. "You're adapting faster than most people do in the first week."
"I don't have the luxury of adapting slowly," Jax said. The humor had dropped out of his voice. Not dramatically, just quietly, replaced by something more honest underneath.
"You two are up there. I'm down here. That gap doesn't close by itself."
He looked at his spear.
"I asked the instructor for access to the heavy density chambers. For extra training after hours."*
"Did he approve it," Hans asked.
"Said he'd think about it." Jax's jaw shifted slightly. "Which means probably not."
Lucius looked at him.
"I'll speak to Voss," he said.
Jax turned. "Voss is an S-Class instructor. He doesn't have jurisdiction over B-Class resources."
"He has influence,"Lucius said. "That's more useful than jurisdiction."
A pause.
Jax studied him for a moment. Then nodded once — a short, genuine nod that didn't have any of his usual performance around it.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
Lucius turned back to the courtyard. "Don't thank me. Get stronger."
"That's the plan."
---
They sat in comfortable silence for a while. The courtyard emptied gradually around them as other students filtered back toward the dormitories. The torches along the walls came alive one by one as the last daylight faded.
Hans was the first to speak again.
"How is the rest of B-Class? Beyond Mira."
Jax leaned back slightly. "Mixed. Some nobles who think being placed in B-Class is an insult they need to correct by making everyone around them feel it. Some commoners keeping their heads down." He paused. "And a few who are just quietly working. Those are the ones worth watching."
"Anyone unusual," Lucius said.
The question was casual. His eyes were still on the courtyard.
Jax thought about it.
"There's one," he said slowly. "Transfer student. Came in three days ago. Didn't come through the standard evaluation process apparently — the instructor just introduced him one morning and that was it. No explanation."
Hans frowned slightly. "A transfer without evaluation? That's unusual. The academy has strict intake protocols."
"Yeah," Jax said. "I thought so too. He doesn't talk much. Sits at the back. During sparring he held back so much that the instructor called him out for it."
"And when he stopped holding back," Lucius said.
Jax was quiet for a moment.
"He won in about four seconds," he said. "Against someone with a Rare tier Talent. Cleanly. No visible effort."
The courtyard was very still.
"His name," Lucius said.
"Cael," Jax said. "No family name given. Just Cael."
Lucius said nothing.
But his mind had already started moving.
"Transfer student. Came in three days ago. Didn't come through the standard evaluation process apparently."
To something like:
"Late enrollment. Came in three days ago. From one of the outer kingdoms apparently, the instructor mentioned something about administrative delays with the distance."
The academy's intake process was rigorous. Bypassing it required either extraordinary circumstances or someone with enough influence to make the paperwork disappear.
The same way the students who had opened the Red Dungeon had disappeared from all records.
He didn't say any of that out loud.
"Tell me if he does anything else unusual," Lucius said.
Jax glanced at him. He had known Lucius long enough to recognize when the tone shifted from conversation to something more deliberate.
"You think something is off," Jax said.
"I think it's worth noting," Lucius said.
Which, from Lucius, was the same thing.
Jax nodded slowly. "I'll watch him."
"Carefully," Lucius said. "Don't make it obvious."
"I'm not obvious," Jax said.
Hans and Lucius both looked at him.
Jax paused. "I can be not obvious."
"Practice," Lucius said.
Hans covered his mouth briefly. Jax pointed at him.
"I saw that."
---
They stayed in the courtyard until the torches had fully taken over from the daylight. The conversation drifted back to lighter things —
Hans describing a mana circulation technique he had been refining, Jax complaining about the B-Class dining schedule being twenty minutes later than S-Class, the general texture of being new somewhere and still finding your footing.
Lucius said less than either of them. He usually did.
But he was present in the way that mattered — not performing attention, just giving it.
When they finally split for the evening Jax stood and stretched, his joints popping in sequence.
"Same time tomorrow," he said. Not a question.
"You know where to find us," Hans said.
Jax nodded. He picked up his spear and turned to go.
Then stopped.
He looked back at Lucius.
"Hey," he said.
Lucius looked at him.
"I'm going to close that gap," Jax said. "I'm not saying it for you. I'm saying it so I have to mean it."
A pause.
Lucius held his gaze for a moment.
"I know," he said simply.
Jax turned and walked away into the torchlit corridor. His footsteps faded gradually until the courtyard was quiet again.
Hans watched him go. Then looked at Lucius.
"You're going to help him get the chamber access aren't you," Hans said.
"Yes," Lucius said.
"Even though it costs you something to ask Voss for a favor."
"Jax closing the gap faster is worth more than the cost of asking," Lucius said simply.
Hans was quiet for a moment.
Then nodded once. "I thought so."
They walked back toward the dormitories together in comfortable silence.
Lucius's mind was already elsewhere.
Cael. No family name. No evaluation. Four seconds against a C-rank Talent without effort.
Another thread.
Another space between things that didn't quite fit together.
He filed it carefully alongside everything else he was building.
Patience, he reminded himself.
But the picture is forming.
---
To Be Continued…..