Location – ArchenLand Plains, South of the Golden Plateau | Year – 6999 NY
The once-serene field now bore the scars of power unleashed. Patches of scorched grass and overturned earth told the story of the struggle, while the remnants of Darius' Mana Blast still hung faintly in the air like an echo refusing to fade. It was not just a battlefield anymore—it was the crucible in which two young warriors were being reforged.
Adam's gaze remained locked on Trevor, whose frame was haloed by the dissolving shimmer of his newly formed Grand Weapon. The Maymum Staff, though fading back into mana, had made its mark—on the field, on Kopa's measured expression, and most significantly, on Trevor himself.
Inside Adam's mind, a strange cocktail of awe and anxiety churned. 'He actually did it... He summoned it without transforming. That staff—it's real. Not just energy, not just symbolism. That's mastery... And I haven't done it yet.'
Kopa's form remained still, almost blending into the breeze that swept across the battered plain, but his thoughts were anything but calm.
'This rate of growth... it's beyond standard progression. Trevor's aura was chaotic, but now? Now it flows like it's obeying him.'
That's what separates instinct from command.
Trevor stepped forward, his steps lighter, as though the staff had not just been a weapon—but a channel. A release. His usual smirk returned, softened by a new steadiness. For the first time, his humor wasn't a shield.
"Are you alright?" Adam asked, his voice low, almost uncertain. It was rare to see Trevor go that far, rarer still to see him so... silent.
Trevor tilted his head, his grin crooked but genuine. "Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, but the tone—measured, focused—was foreign even to Adam. "But... I feel different."
Adam watched the translucent outline of the staff shimmer out of existence in Trevor's hand. The afterimage didn't disappear—it lingered like a memory branded into the air. Adam could almost feel it thrum against his skin.
And then came the words from Darius, heavy with meaning:
"He's already mastered the False Staff technique of the Maymum Clan. Faster than I expected."
The statement should've inspired relief. It didn't.
It pressed heavier on Adam than the blast that had knocked him back moments earlier. It was a compliment to Trevor, yes—but it was also a challenge.
Trevor turned to Adam again, and there was fire in his eyes—not playful, not taunting. Steady. Grounded.
"This isn't over yet, though," he said. "We have to keep going."
Adam hesitated, his body remembering the pain of being flung across the field, the humbling clash against Darius' precision. But this wasn't about pain anymore. Not for either of them.
He accepted the False Staff Trevor extended—mana-formed yet solid as steel in his grip. As his fingers closed around it, Adam's eyes widened.
It was his first true connection to a manifested weapon. And it didn't come from himself—it came from Trevor.
A strange thought crept into his chest as he felt the energy move through his palm and into his body:
'If he can do this… then what's stopping me?'
The battlefield was quiet, for now. But within Adam, a storm had begun.
___________________________
Momentum—it was the only word that described what was building between Trevor and Adam. Not just in their attacks, but in the harmony of their movement, the silent communication between them, the mounting rhythm of a new kind of strength.
Trevor's movements were blinding now—his body a blur, his strikes precise and unrelenting. With every swing of the False Staff, his form carved through the air with rising confidence. It wasn't just training anymore—it was instinct becoming intention.
When his staff met Baltaçek again in a thunderous clash, the force of it sent a quake through the field. The impact rippled outward in rings, rattling the dirt and stirring the grass. Trevor didn't falter. He pressed harder.
Darius, his expression unreadable but eyes gleaming with calculation, noted it instantly:
'That wasn't mere speed… that was Mana reinforcement. And not unconscious, either. He meant it.'
Trevor's grip, his footwork, the way his tail twisted for momentum—it all spoke of someone stepping into the current of mana rather than being swept by it.
Behind the thunder of that strike, Adam appeared—not as a shadow, not as support, but as a second front. He surged with the staff Trevor had created, driving forward with his own burst of speed. Not trained, not refined—but raw, and full of hunger.
Adam dug the staff into the ground to launch himself forward, catching the angle Darius hadn't yet fully turned to face. They were working in tandem now, like two dancers accelerating toward the same beat.
Trevor pivoted midair, using a grounded staff as a pivot point, his tail curling to hurl himself like a sling toward Darius. Adam, meanwhile, spun from the opposite side—his strike low and sweeping, cutting across the range Darius had left exposed in his deflection.
Darius blocked both, but his footing shifted slightly—only slightly. Yet it was enough. 'They're forcing me to move,' he realized, intrigued. 'And that means they're thinking.'
As he parried Trevor's airborne assault, he noticed something subtle—False Staffs planted around the perimeter. A circle.
' He did that… in the moments between attacks?' Darius's eyebrow lifted. 'This one's using the battlefield. Not just fighting on it, but with it.'
The overhead crash came a breath later, and Darius tilted to avoid it—only for Adam's glowing eyes to cut into view from the left, his follow-up swing gliding toward Darius's flank. The wolf's posture was low, feral, focused.
Darius sidestepped, but it was closer than expected. Adam's mana was beginning to pulse through his strikes—there was a thrum of pressure now, faint, but growing.
'Good,' Darius thought, the corner of his mouth twitching. 'The wolf is finally waking up.'
They weren't just improving—they were accelerating.
Their strikes no longer interrupted one another. They flowed. When Trevor missed, Adam filled the gap. When Adam paused, Trevor surged in. False Staffs on the ground allowed for sudden pivots, acrobatic rebounds, even a kind of terrain manipulation. Darius, though still in control, had been put on the defensive.
He felt it now—their instincts were beginning to catch up with their potential.
Darius' smile was the kind a seasoned warrior wore when he had seen enough—enough to be impressed, and enough to know the gap was still vast. "Now," he murmured, barely above a whisper, "it's time for you to see what a Narn Lord can do with Mana Reinforcement."
The change was instant.
Before breath could catch in anyone's chest, before thought could form behind blinking eyes, Baltaçek was already in motion—hurtling down toward Adam like a meteor fallen from heaven.
Adam ducked, just in time.
The axe-hammer tore into the earth behind him, erupting in a cacophony of shattering rock and screaming wind. The very bones of the land cracked beneath the weight of that strike, throwing dirt and stone skyward in a violent plume.
Trevor reached out instinctively, snatching one of the planted False Staffs from the soil, eyes darting toward his friend. His grip tightened—but before he could move, the world shifted.
Darius' form surged forward—his entire body suddenly outlined in a corona of green flame-like energy. It wasn't just mana. It was dominance made visible. Power condensed so tightly it bent the air around it.
The wave of pressure hit Trevor like a falling wall.
He didn't even register the impact—he was just suddenly airborne, his body flung backward like a leaf in a storm, rolling over the churned field. The grass seemed to gasp beneath him as he skidded to a halt.
He groaned, blinking stars out of his vision, just in time to hear the words that sent a jolt of terror through him.
"50% Output: Mana Barrage."
Darius' voice rang across the field with calm finality.
Twelve orbs of seething green energy materialized in perfect formation—each one humming with the fury of compressed mana. They shimmered like vengeful stars, and all of them were pointed directly at Adam.
Trevor's blood went cold. Time seemed to slow, and in that fraction of a heartbeat, panic almost overtook him. 'He's going to kill him.'
But his limbs moved before his mind could reason. Through grit teeth and burning lungs, he slammed his palms together.
"50% Output: False Staff Barrage!"
Six ethereal staves burst into being—summoned not with ease, but desperation. They flew at the orbs like arrows loosed from the bowstring of fate.
The collision lit up the sky.
Six blasts vanished in twin bursts of light and smoke—but six remained.
Adam stood his ground.
There was no time to flee. No shield. No spell. Only resolve.
The ground beneath him glowed faintly. The remaining mana blasts struck like meteors—an eruption of force that shook the horizon. Earth screamed. Wind howled. Dust shot upward in great spirals.
Trevor threw up an arm to shield his face. His heart thundered.
"Adam!" he shouted, but his voice was swallowed in the roar.
Then silence.
Only dust remained—thick, clinging, hiding everything. Trevor's pulse hammered in his ears. His limbs trembled—not just from exhaustion, but from fear.
He stepped forward, the air acrid with mana residue.
And then—
A faint light.
Through the murk, a shimmer. A slow-moving silhouette emerged from the smoke, upright and walking. Each step was calm. Deliberate. Unshaken.
As the light cleared, Adam stood there—unscathed. His eyes no longer burned with fear or strain. They glowed with a cold, cerulean clarity, unnatural and resolute. And across his shoulder rested a weapon Trevor had never seen before—but recognized instantly.
Segmented. Elegant. Laced with golden ridges and royal blue runes.
Canvari.
The three-segmented staff of the Wolf Arya—manifested fully in his grip.
The staff pulsed once, softly, like a heartbeat made of mana. Its presence silenced the air around it, like the world was bowing.
Trevor's breath caught. His knees nearly buckled from disbelief and sheer awe.
Adam stood still, gazing across the field with newfound purpose. He said nothing—but he didn't need to. The weapon in his hand, the calm in his steps, and the glow in his eyes said everything.
He had done it.
He had awakened Canvari.
From the opposite end of the field, Darius smiled—not the smile of superiority, but something rarer.
Pride.