The training field still smelled of scorched stone and sweat. The crater Elio had made remained, a blackened scar in the earth. A reminder.
Elio sat alone on a broken pillar, his hand trembling as he stared at it.
Ronan hadn't spoken a word since the incident. Just a nod. Not praise. Not warning. Just acknowledgment.
The silence after that was louder than any applause.
He flexed his fingers. The flame hadn't returned since. That strange, violent burst of energy—no aura techniques, no chant. Just raw instinct. Fear. Rage. And something... deeper. Something not his.
He felt it still, under his skin. Like embers sleeping beneath ash.
Later, back at the mountain quarters Ronan called "home," the old warrior finally spoke.
"You touched it, didn't you?" Ronan asked, pouring tea into two clay cups.
Elio didn't answer right away. His eyes were dull, sunken. He hadn't slept.
"I don't know what I touched."
Ronan slid the cup across the table. "That's the first honest thing you've said since you got here."
Elio looked up, startled. Ronan's gaze was calm, but his tone... guarded.
"You didn't just burn through stone. You cracked your limiter."
"My what?"
Ronan leaned back, exhaling through his nose.
"Everyone's born with walls inside them. Shackles. Keeps their soul from tearing itself apart. Most never break them, because they never need to."
Elio's voice dropped. "So what I did…"
"You forced a piece of yourself open. Not gently, either." He paused. "That fire wasn't your aura. It was your will bleeding through. Raw. Wild. If you do that again without control…" Ronan didn't finish.
Elio stared at the table. "Then teach me."
Ronan studied him. The boy's voice wasn't arrogant. It wasn't desperate.
It was determined.
The days that followed were brutal.
No more sparring. No more fancy drills. Ronan changed everything.
Now it was meditation, soul reinforcement, aura visualization. Elio sat under freezing waterfalls, walked blindfolded across narrow ridges, and practiced holding his aura in place without flinching.
The goal was simple: Control.
But in the silence of those long nights, while the fireflies danced and the wind whispered, Elio could feel it stirring again.
That power. Watching. Waiting.
One morning, as dawn peeled across the valley, Ronan tossed Elio a black cloth.
"Put this on."
Elio frowned. "I can't see with this."
"You're not supposed to," Ronan said. "The fight today isn't with your eyes."
They walked to the lower cliffs, where another figure was waiting—a girl Elio hadn't seen before.
She wore the academy crest. Older. Confident. Her aura shimmered with green-white light—steady, polished.
"Elio," Ronan said, "meet Rhela. You'll be sparring today."
Rhela bowed slightly. "Heard you made a crater. Let's see if it was luck."
Elio didn't respond. He tied the blindfold.
The fight was clean.
Precise strikes. Measured footwork.
And Elio… was calm.
Even blindfolded, he felt her aura. Her presence. Every breath, every movement, every feint—like subtle ripples in water.
He danced between her attacks, evading, parrying, slipping in counters like flowing smoke. Nothing flashy.
Just sharp.
By the time he removed the blindfold, Rhela was on one knee, chest heaving.
Ronan didn't smile. But his eyes gleamed.
"Good. Now you're starting to see."
That night, alone under the stars, Elio looked at his hands again.
Steady now.
No flame. No fear.
Just control.
But in the shadows of the cliffs, unseen by him, a figure stood cloaked in gray. Watching. Whispering into a crystal shard.
"He's awakened."