I thought I'd be nervous on the first day. Turns out I was terrified.
The uniform they gave me didn't help. Too stiff, too clean. Brown cloth with silver threading around the collar and sleeves, the emblem of the Academy stitched over the heart like a weight. Mira tugged at hers like it was made of thorns.
"Looks good on you," I said.
She raised an eyebrow. "You say that like you're trying to convince yourself."
"…Still better than our old rags."
She snorted. "Fair."
We stood at the Academy gates with eighteen other new students, all of us freshly plucked from villages scattered across the valley. I recognized a few from the field trip, but most were strangers, some beastkin, some hybrids, a few oddities I couldn't quite place.
And then there was me. Still the only full human. Still the one no one could quite figure out.
Orientation was held in the stone amphitheater behind the main hall. A long platform stretched before us, where instructors stood in clean, muted robes marked with their disciplines, white for healing, red for martial, blue for arcane, black for administration, and green for wildcraft.
The Headmaster was the only one in silver. He was tall, lean, with hair the color of ash and eyes like pale iron. His voice was quiet but carried across the stone with the weight of command.
"You are here not because you are special," he said. "You are here because you showed potential. That alone is not enough."
He let the silence stretch. "Some of you will find your path. Others will break under it. That is not a threat, it is a truth." Someone behind me scoffed. I didn't turn to see who.
"You will be tested. Not just in mind or body, but in spirit. This Academy does not make legends. It tempers them. If you want to be remembered, survive long enough to deserve it."
Then he dismissed us with a nod.
Mira whispered, "Well, he seems fun."
Our days quickly fell into rhythm.
Mornings started with Theory of Magic, runes, spell structure, mana channels. Mira took to it instantly, her notes so clean they looked like printed text. I struggled. Not because I didn't understand the logic, but because magic still resisted me. Like I was trying to hold water in my hands and getting splashed every time.
After theory came Combat Drills. We were split into groups based on affinity, except for those like me, who had none.
They dumped us in the neutral group, where we trained with wooden weapons and basic forms. Our instructor was a beastkin woman named Instructor Rell, who had short gray hair, fox ears, and a voice that could cut through steel.
"Don't try to win," she barked on the first day. "Try not to die. If you can manage that, we'll build from there."
She made us run laps until I thought I might throw up. Then we learned to fall, rolls, landings, how to avoid snapping your own spine when tossed across a field.
By the end of the first week, my arms ached constantly, my legs felt like logs, and I had a bruise the size of an apple on my back.
Still better than chores. We met our first rival on Day Three.
His name was Calen Thorne, a wolf-eared noble brat from the city, with perfect posture, perfect teeth, and a mana score in the sixties.
"Humans aren't even supposed to have status screens anymore," he muttered during sparring drills. "It's like giving a sword to a squirrel."
I ignored him at first. But when he tripped Mira during a staff routine, I was pissed.
"You dropped your balance," he said smoothly, not even looking at her.
"You need to shut your mouth," I said, stepping between them.
He glanced at me like I was dirt on his boots. "Ah. The relic speaks."
That earned him a stick to the side of the head from Instructor Rell.
"Detention for Thorne," she said without blinking. "And you, Warren, good reflex. Next time aim for the knee."
Despite the occasional jerk, school wasn't all bad.
We had Enchanting Lab twice a week, where we learned how to charge simple objects with low-tier magic. I once made a rock that vibrated when it got cold. Mira made a quill that wrote faster when excited.
We also had World Studies, which I liked more than I expected. Our teacher, a dryad named Professor Orien, taught us about the borders between nations, the history of the Collapse, and the rise of monster classifications.
"Humans were the apex once," he said one afternoon, eyes drifting toward me. "Until the Rending. Then the beasts grew smarter, and we grew fewer."
He didn't say it like a warning. More like a reminder. Mira and I studied together almost every night.
We claimed a small nook in the library, behind the herbology section and just under the arched window where moonlight spilled in like silver water. She always brought tea in a wrapped cloth, and I always brought dried fruit from the orphanage satchel Yana insisted I keep.
"You're getting better," she said one night as I finished writing out a spell loop for flame insulation.
"I didn't burn the page this time."
"Progress."
We both laughed, quiet and low. Then she leaned back against the wall, her eyes softening.
"Do you really want to be a Monster Hunter?" she asked, not for the first time, but this time her voice was more thoughtful. Quieter.
"Yeah," I said, setting my quill down. "I think I do."
"Even after seeing how they treat monsters? The breeding pens? The collaring?"
"I don't want to be that kind," I said. "I want to learn about them. Work with them. Maybe even change how it's done."
She tilted her head. "You always do try to fix broken things."
"I'm a little broken myself."
She smiled faintly. "Then I'll help fix you too."
I didn't say anything to that. Just looked at her until the silence felt full instead of empty.
Our first big test came at the end of our second month, the Aptitude Assessment.
It wasn't just theory or combat. It was both. Each student was placed in a scenario based on their projected path.
Calen got to duel a fire golem. Mira was asked to identify and dispel a three-part illusion while under time pressure. I… got thrown into a forest pit with a blinded training monster.
They called it an Ogryn Pup. Still the size of a bear. More muscle than brain, but its claws were real, and its roar nearly knocked me off my feet.
They gave me a training sword. Dull. Heavy. No armor. No warning. The doors slammed shut behind me.
It charged. I rolled. Scrambled behind a boulder as its claws gouged stone. Heart pounding. Blood in my ears.
I remembered Instructor Rell's voice in my head. 'Don't try to win. Try not to die.'
So I didn't fight like a soldier. I fought like a rat. Ducking, baiting, moving.
I climbed a tree. Dropped on its back. Stabbed into its spine, not deep enough to kill, but enough to sting. Enough to make it turn on instinct. Enough to make it slam its head into the trunk trying to shake me off.
It knocked itself out cold. When the doors opened, I was standing, heaving, bruised and grinning.
Instructor Rell smirked at me. "Clever little bastard."
Mira was waiting for me outside the assessment yard.
"You're bleeding," she said, pushing my bangs back to reveal a cut over my brow.
"Just a scratch."
"You always say that."
She conjured a small light orb, focused it into a warmth spell, and pressed it to the wound. It sealed slowly, skin tingling.
"You did amazing," I said.
She smiled, but didn't answer right away.
Then, quietly, "I was scared you wouldn't come out."
I blinked.
"You were worried about me?"
She scoffed. "I'm allowed to care."
"…Thanks."
We didn't hug. We didn't hold hands. But as we walked back to the dorms, her shoulder brushed mine and didn't move away.
Mira, the spell prodigy, already being watched by the arcane division. Me, the human anomaly, catching whispers from the Hunter recruiters. We weren't heroes yet. Not even close. But something had started. A spark. A bond. And the world was watching.