Training at the Great Crucible began at noon.
Phantsin woke up in The Forge, the dormitory of the Ignis faction. Carved directly into the base of the southwestern cliffs, its heat was constant. The din of the mechanical workshops, punctuated by controlled explosions, never ceased. Situated almost at the academy's entrance, it served as the first line of defense—the burning shield of Arcanum Bellator.
After getting ready, Phantsin ascended the steep basalt stairs, leaving the stifling subterranean air behind to emerge onto the vast artificial plateau that made up the Central Level.
The contrast hit him immediately.
Before him opened Dawn Square, the geographical and social heart of the academy. It was paved with immaculate white Valorian stone and illuminated by streetlamps where aetherite crystals hummed with perpetual light. In the center, the majestic Founders' Fountain poured cascades of crystalline water. Cadets from all factions hurried across the square, converging from their respective dormitories toward their destinations.
Phantsin joined the flow of students heading south, entering the Preparation Pavilion. The spacious locker rooms were bustling with noise. Lockers slammed open and shut as the freshmen stored their pristine uniforms to don their combat gear.
Phantsin adjusted his gray canvas shirt and trousers—a thick, coarse fabric designed to resist tears and minor cuts. The only thing that stood out in that sea of gray were the sashes tied firmly around their waists: red for Ignis, blue for Aether, purple for Umbra, green for Terra, and black for Caelum.
He pushed through the heavy rear doors of the pavilion, and the unforgiving, blinding midday sun struck him as he stepped out into the Great Crucible.
The training coliseum was the widest structure in the academy, situated at the southern edge of the central level and extending dizzily right to the cliff's edge. Its perimeter was defined by colossal runic pillars that sustained invisible yet vibrating abjuration barriers, designed to contain the lethal spells and explosions of the Equinox Tournament.
Today, however, the packed earth and stone floor was hot, and the air smelled of dust, sweaty leather, and the residual ozone of magical shields.
Fifty first-year students stood in formation. Phantsin adjusted the knot of his red sash. He was trembling with a tension that wasn't fear, but rather a physical need to hit something to release the excess violet energy roaring inside him.
"Pain! Pain is the only teacher that doesn't lie."
The voice sounded like gravel being crushed in a mill, echoing against the pillars of the Crucible.
Commander Brynja Stonefist, Head of Physical Prowess, paced in front of the formation. She was a dwarf from KHARAD-DÛM, the Dwarven Depths. She stood barely four and a half feet tall, but with a shoulder width that would put a bull to shame. Her arms were like granite blocks covered in intricate blue runic tattoos, and her steel-gray hair was braided in a complex war style that clinked with metal beads. She carried a heavy ironwood training staff as if it were a mere twig.
"Welcome to hell, recruits," Brynja growled, stopping in front of the students and looking them in the eye without blinking. "Here, your parents' gold and your fancy last names don't matter. Here, the only currency is pain. And today, you are all going to pay."
Brynja struck the packed dirt with her staff. The impact produced a dull thud.
"Hand-to-hand combat! No magic. I want to see your instincts before I see your sparks. Pair up!"
The Commander began pointing at students with her thick, scarred, and calloused finger.
"You, with the elf ears. You, with the fat one."
Then, her finger stopped on Phantsin, and a cruel, anticipatory smile curved her lips.
"Phantsin Dawnfire. The arsonist. You need someone who can extinguish your stupidity."
Brynja turned her finger to the right.
"Eliana Dawnshield. Step forward."
An instant murmur rippled through the ranks.
"Dawnshield? Is she Queen Elara's niece?" whispered an Umbra boy behind Phantsin's back.
"They say she wields Aether magic as easily as she breathes," replied a Caelum cadet.
Eliana Dawnshield stepped forward. She wore the same gray attire as the rest, with the blue Aether sash cinched at her waist, but on her, the training clothes looked like a dress uniform. She was about five foot three, slender yet strong, with the defined muscles of a dedicated warrior who moved with lethal grace.
She was the picture of Valorian perfection. Her hair, blindingly blonde like the sunlight, was pulled back into an intricate yet practical braid that fell to the middle of her back.
Her eyes, a piercing sapphire blue, evaluated Phantsin with clinical coldness. But without arrogance. She was the heir to the Heroine's legacy, and she carried the terror of not measuring up in the tension of her shoulders.
"It will be an honor to instruct him, Commander," Eliana said, her voice clear, melodic, yet laden with ironclad authority.
"Don't instruct him, Princess," Brynja barked. "Destroy him."
They both entered the dueling circle marked with chalk in the center of the arena. They took wooden practice swords from the nearby weapon rack.
Phantsin gripped the oak hilt. It felt good. Solid. Tangible. Much better than the volatile magic he constantly had to repress in the back of his mind. He was used to fighting.
"Stance," Eliana ordered, adopting the high guard of the Dawnblade school. Feet spread in perfect balance, sword vertical protecting her center—an impeccable defense.
Phantsin didn't adopt any scholarly posture. He simply bent his knees and crouched slightly, like a beast ready to pounce.
"Begin!" Brynja shouted.
Phantsin shot forward, kicking up a cloud of dust.
He lunged with an explosive speed that drew gasps from the onlookers. He attacked with rage, throwing a horizontal slash aimed at the girl's ribs. A fast, brutal, street-brawler strike.
Eliana simply flicked her wrist. Her wooden sword intercepted Phantsin's at the perfect angle, deflecting all of the boy's brute force into the ground with exasperating ease.
"Too open," she said with clinical calm.
Phantsin grunted and launched a backhand, aiming for her neck. Eliana blocked it without flinching.
Phantsin thrust a lethal strike at her chest, which Eliana deflected with a fluid, elegant sidestep, as if she were at a ballroom dance and not in the bloodstained arena of the Crucible.
"Your feet are poorly positioned," she lectured him, blocking another furious blow. "You're fighting with anger, not purpose."
"Shut up and fight!" Phantsin roared.
Frustration erupted within him, threatening to break his mental barriers. He hated that perfection. He hated her damned calm and her polished technique. It reminded him of how broken and dangerous he was inside.
He attacked faster, becoming a wild whirlwind of slashes. Left, right, high.
Eliana retreated rhythmically before the boy's aggression, her breathing growing slightly ragged from the effort of containing so much kinetic force, yet she blocked every impact with pinpoint precision.
"A sword is not a club, Dawnfire," Eliana said, her sapphire eyes shining with competitive intensity. "It's an extension of your will. And your will is an absolute disaster."
"I said shut up!"
Phantsin's vision blurred with blind rage, and he made the worst rookie mistake: he put all his weight into a massive downward strike, seeking to shatter the girl's unbreakable guard through sheer brute force.
Eliana saw the opening long before the sword fell. She took a quick step forward, boldly entering Phantsin's guard. She caught his right wrist with her free hand and used Phantsin's immense momentum against him.
With a masterful twist of her hips and a precise trip, Eliana sent Phantsin flying.
The world spun for him.
Phantsin landed heavily on his back against the hard dirt of the Crucible, driving the air from his lungs in an agonized groan.
Before he could even blink to regain his vision, the blunt tip of Eliana's wooden sword was already pressed gently against his throat.
"Dead," she dictated.
Phantsin gasped, looking up. The midday sun formed a golden halo around Eliana's blonde head, making her look like an avenging angel.
She withdrew the sword and, to his surprise, offered him a leather-clad hand to help him up.
Phantsin stared at her hand, hesitating for a second and licking the blood from a split lip. But ultimately, he took it and let her pull him to his feet.
"You have strength," Eliana conceded in a low voice, making sure only he heard her, her tone devoid of mockery. "And you have speed. But without discipline, you'll only be a danger to yourself and your squad."
She let go of him immediately and turned to Brynja, offering an impeccable military bow.
"Winner: Dawnshield!" the dwarf barked. "Next pair!"
Phantsin stood there, dusting the gray dirt from his clothes. He could feel the pitying stares of the other students and spot the cold, silent smirk of Vlad Blackthorn from the ranks.
He had lost spectacularly. And what burned his insides the most was that the damn princess was right.
Nightfall brought much-needed coolness to the Academy. The Aetheric Lamps began to flicker on along the stone paths, bathing the Central Level in a magical, bluish glow.
After passing through the showers at the Preparation Pavilion—silently blessing the thermal magitech system that instantly provided scalding water for his bruised muscles—Phantsin had changed into the standard Arcanum Bellator uniform.
He wore dark gray trousers, a pristine white shirt, sturdy black boots, and over it all, a high-collared black jacket with sharp lines and a deep red tie, visually marking him as an Ignis cadet.
But he didn't want to return to the ovens of his dormitory just yet.
He sat alone on a secluded stone bench in one of the Resting Gardens. These small oases, scattered at the intersections between classrooms, were brimming with exotic vegetation, phosphorescent moss, and quiet little fountains. Meticulously maintained by the Terra faction, they were the only real respite from the suffocating atmosphere of pressure and stress that permeated life at the academy.
His entire body ached, but his pride hurt a thousand times more.
He looked at his calloused hands in the moonlight. How was he supposed to protect Flower from the horrors of the world if he couldn't even touch a girl with a wooden sword?
"You look like you've been chewing on basalt gravel."
Phantsin startled, yanked from his gloomy thoughts.
A stout figure emerged from the shadows of the emerald foliage.
It was a dwarf. Another dwarf.
The young dwarf wore the same standard uniform as Phantsin, but the black jacket was painfully tight across his massive shoulders and was unbuttoned at the collar, ignoring protocol. His green tie, the color of the Terra faction, was loosened and stained with dark soot, revealing a broad, hairy chest.
Standing just over four and a half feet tall, he was short and wide as a solid anvil. His hair and thick beard were a fiery red; the latter was meticulously braided and interwoven with thick iron rings and a heavy clan token from KHARAD-DÛM. His gray eyes, steady and evaluating like chips of pure granite, looked at him with a rugged honesty. His nose was broken and crooked, likely from an old fight, and his hands were covered in burn scars, revealing a forge artisan.
Slung across his back, despite it being after class hours, hung an enormous warhammer.
The dwarf sat on the bench next to Phantsin without asking permission, and the white stone creaked dangerously under his extreme density.
"That fall in the Crucible was ugly," the dwarf commented abruptly, pulling a dented metal flask from inside his jacket. "The Little Princess has good technique, I'll give her that. Classic Dawnblade. A lot of fancy magic, boring... but effective."
"She humiliated me," Phantsin muttered, looking away toward the garden fountain.
"Nah. She schooled you," the dwarf corrected, frowning. "I saw the fight. Most of the posh kids in this academy would have surrendered in tears after the third block. You kept attacking. You've got guts, Fire Boy. We dwarves respect that above all else. Stone breaks, iron bends, but will... will is what forges the world."
The dwarf unscrewed the cap of the flask with his calloused fingers. An overpowering smell of high-proof alcohol, subterranean minerals, and bitter moss filled the garden air.
"Ironroot Ale," he offered, extending the flask. "My grandfather's recipe. It's got enough proof to strip the rust off a thousand-year-old hinge or make you forget your ass hurts from kissing the dirt."
Phantsin looked at the flask. The smell was strong, but tempting. He wanted to forget the humiliation. He wanted to numb himself and stop thinking about how pathetic his martial debut had been.
But then he felt that familiar tingle. The Void. Alcohol clouded the senses and loosened control. And if his judgment failed, even by a millimeter, the intricate mental wall containing the destructive purple fire could crack. Being an indiscriminate danger was a luxury a protector couldn't afford.
"No," Phantsin said, pushing the metal flask away with a gentle but firm gesture. "Thanks, but... I need to keep a clear head."
The dwarf held the flask in the air for a second, his gray eyes evaluating Phantsin in silence. Then, a broad smile curved his lips beneath the thick red beard, revealing strong teeth.
"Respectable. A sober warrior is an efficient and long-lived warrior."
The dwarf brought the flask to his lips and took a long, endless pull without blinking. He wiped his beard with the back of his rough hand and sighed deeply, satisfied.
"I'm Korbin. Korbin Ironfoot. But my friends call me Korb."
"Phantsin. Phantsin Dawnfire."
"I know. The madman who blew the Resonance Crystal into a thousand pieces at the trials." Korb gave him a friendly slap on the back that, given his colossal strength, nearly sent Phantsin face-first into the grass. "You're going to be someone very interesting to watch in this academy, Phantsin. Just... try not to burn my beard in the future, all right? It took me three years of good underground weather to let it grow like this."
Korb stood up from the stone bench, winked a gray eye, and walked away toward the illuminated paths. His steps were heavy and rhythmic, making the tools on his belt clink as he disappeared into the night, humming an old dwarven tune about veins of pure gold and dragons of the deep.
Phantsin was alone again.
The silence of the Resting Garden returned, but surprisingly, the night breeze and the stone bench now felt a little less cold.
He looked up toward the northeast. There, silhouetted against the starry sky and defying gravity atop its rocky pinnacle, rose The Spire, the imposing dormitory of the Aether faction where Eliana was surely resting.
Then he turned his gaze to the southwest, toward the base of the cliff, where the reddish glow and the distant noise of the hammers from The Forge called him back.
He clenched his bloodied fists, feeling the faint heat of repressed flames.
"Discipline," he whispered to the night wind. "Fine, Princess. If that's what it takes to win... I'll learn."