The fortress rang with the echoes of training. Steel clashed against steel, shouted orders filled the courtyards, and the fresh recruits from the trials found themselves scattered across Fort Stonereach, each awaiting their final assignments.
For Sid, the waiting ended with a summons.
Scoutmaster Kelra met him and a handful of others near the southern wall. She was a sharp-eyed woman with weather-creased skin, short dark hair, and a voice that left no room for questions. Behind her stood a broad-shouldered veteran with a worn leather coat, a scar that split his brow and an eyepatch covering his left eye.
"You eight are mine now," Kelra said. "You're not here because you're the strongest or fastest. You're here because you might survive where others won't."
She gestured toward the veteran. "This is Garron. He'll be leading your field training."
Garron's gaze swept over them with no warmth, only calculation. "You'll call yourselves the Wild Talons. If you don't earn it, you'll lose the name."
The squad stood at uneven attention. A mix of commoners and quiet talents, each drawn from the batch that had survived the trials.
They began to introduce themselves.
"Mira Thatch," said a quiet girl with a sharp jaw and flinty eyes. "Scout-archer. From Frostmarch Basin. I use a recurve bow."
"Kellon Marr," said a thickset youth. "Used to mine in Ironcrest Ridges. Pickaxe still works."
"Nessa Varn," said a cheery voice. "I'm from Hollowshade. I enchant things. And people, if they need cheering up."
"Darnel Croft," came a flat voice. The speaker wore a hood and had twin knives strapped to his chest. Nothing followed his bland introduction.
"Juno Reeve," said a smirking young lady. "Dropped out of a merchant academy. Good with traps, better with sabotage."
"Eran Dimehart. Spearwall tactics." The speaker was tall, composed, and gave a short nod.
Then, Rian stepped up. "Rian. Long limbs. Big stick."
Finally, it was Sid's turn. He hesitated for only a breath. "Sid. Mana knight."
There was a small pause after his words. The term wasn't common in the North, especially for someone who used neither visible aura nor robes. To be exact, it is a word describing knights who use mana instead of aura in battle. One big difference comes with the physique.
Aura has the strengthening effect on one's body, improving its overall power while mana has an advantage in its versatility of use. Spells that enhance body and physique pale in comparison to aura's basic functions but the scale and utility of spells casted with mana far overshadow attacks made with aura.
This is why all known weapon grandmasters in history used aura. Due to this fact, mana knight became a term to insult someone who uses weapons with mana to support.
Garron didn't comment. He only nodded. "Good. Remember those names. You'll be bleeding beside them soon."
Later that evening, the group trained in the outer yard. Not to impress, but to begin learning how to move as a unit.
Rian had taken the lead in conversation, cracking jokes and exchanging light spars. Mira watched from the perimeter, loosing arrows at spinning targets without ever missing. Juno rigged a mock tripwire on a training dummy, which Nessa accidentally triggered to everyone's amusement.
Sid held back at first, standing beneath the overhang near the wall, slowly rotating his wrist, remembering how much his fingers had trembled after the last fight. His body still hadn't recovered, and Flicker Form still drained too much.
"You move like someone's shown you how," Garron said behind him.
Sid turned his head. "Someone did. A long time ago."
"Not many out here say 'mana knight'. You're either one or the other."
"I don't have aura," Sid replied simply.
Garron studied him for a moment. "Then you've got more to prove."
No more was said.
Over the course of a month, Garron led them to frost-covered patches of wilderness just outside the fort's east gate. Rain or shine, he would lead them through the lands as trees whispered with wind-carried frost.
"Surviving past the Wall isn't just about fighting," Garron told them, kneeling beside a squat, shriveled shrub covered in thin ice crystals. "You'll freeze, starve, or rot before the beasts get to you if you don't know your greens."
He dug beneath the snow and pulled out a clump of frostroot. "This'll stop bleeding if you chew and press it into a wound. Helps numb pain too."
He pointed to a vine curled along a tree. "Snowvine. Not poisonous, but bitter. Brew it if your gut's twisted."
For nearly four hours each day, he took them through the brushes around the fort, showing them what to burn, what to eat, and what would leave them coughing blood.
Garron stood at the edge of the outpost's northern overlook, one hand resting on the hilt of his curved blade, the other pointing toward the jagged skyline above.
"Look close, Talons. That's the Frostmarch Divide—sharpest damn mountains in the world and older than every noble house put together. See those two big bastards? Drazhale on the left. Covenant Fang on the right. Between them lies the only open road into our empire from the wastes."
His finger dropped to the point at the long black scar of stone that cut across the pass like a knife. Even from here, the Wall of Vaulkurr shimmered faintly, a low, humming weight in the air.
"That there is Vaulkurr. Not just a wall. It's a line in the snow, literally and figuratively. Everything on our side of the wall lives. Everything on the other side is destined to die."
He turned to face them, his one good eye staring hard into their souls.
"If you'd ever think to climb the Frostmarch on your own, just don't. Not unless you've got a death wish and the strength of a grandmaster behind you. The air up there? Not normal. Only those at the pinnacle, good or bad, can survive there. Anything else freezes to death."
"Stick to the side that gets morning sun," he continued his lecture. "Rot tends to cling to shade. The things that grow wrong will look normal until they breathe."
"You mean plants breathe?" Kellon asked.
Garron narrowed his eyes on him. "Everything breathes. The forest just breathes differently."
On the walk back, Mira murmured, "I never knew how much I didn't know."
"You don't survive long in these lands by sheer luck," Sid said quietly. The air beyond the Wall of Vaulkurr shimmered differently. Ice-attributed mana was denser there, almost coiling in threads invisible to the eye and tangible to the senses. Like mist that refused to disperse.
No wonder Vaelan and Lysette felt like masters, Sid thought. They weren't just using their aura and mana. They were calling on the land itself.
As the squad settled again in the practice yard, small conversations began to replace the silence between drills. The cold air didn't stop Nessa from humming a tune. Rian leaned his staff against a post and started stretching, his joints popping with exaggerated groans.
"Reckon we'll get beast duty or patrol?" he asked.
"Patrol, probably," said Juno. "They wouldn't waste the fresh meat too early."
"They'd be wasting us if they waited too long," Mira muttered, pulling back another arrow.
"Damn," Rian muttered with a grin. "That one's feisty."
"You all talk too much," Darnel said, flipping a dagger in hand.
"Talking keeps the fear out," Nessa replied, smiling softly.
And through all of it, Sid listened.
He watched the flow of their movements, the rhythm of how they paired off, the small tells and habits that revealed far more than their introductions.
He didn't speak much, but he felt something shift. It wasn't quite belonging just yet but it was the beginning of something.
He scribbled something in the margins of his grimoire later that night. Half-formed glyphs. Theories about mana conduction through environmental threads. Nothing concrete, but a start.
"You never stop thinking, do you?" Rian asked from his bunk across the fire.
Sid didn't look up. "If I stop, I fall behind."
"Man, I just wish I could sleep without coughing up lightning burns."
"Serves you right for fighting a walking thunderstorm with a metal stick."
"Hey, I had style. You saw how I spun that thing."
Sid let out a faint exhale. "You spun it right into an infirmary tent."
Later that night, as the rest of the scouts drifted to sleep, Sid found himself staring at the ceiling of the canvas tent. The quiet was different here. Less sterile than the academy. More alive. Full of tension. His senses was starting to adapt over the past month.
Somewhere outside, the divine priest continued his rounds, hands glowing faintly as he moved from tent to tent. Sid watched him in silence, mind once again chewing on the puzzle of divine magic. So little waste. So much precision.
If I could incorporate that efficiency into construct formation…
His thoughts slowly gave way to a dreamless slumber.
Far to the north, deep in the wilderness where the snow no longer fell but curdled into black ash, lay a gaping maw of torn space. It oozed corruption into the air, just stopped barely by the immense ice mana in the air. Within the torn gate lay the lands of the demons, pitch black and desolate.
Three figures met beneath a sky painted with auroras of corrupted light. They stood upon a shattered hill surrounded by monolithic bones and crystalized spires of broken ley energy.
"The seal weakens slower than expected," one said, voice like grinding frost.
"Then we must act. More sacrifices will hasten the corruption. Let it flow freely to the border." one comments as he cleans off fresh warm blood from his claws.
"Fool," hissed the first voice. Their form cloaked in shadows twitched like a mirage. "Push too fast, and the defenders will rise in force. The Wall must not awaken fully."
The third, taller than the others, remained still. Then spoke, voice like thunder beneath stone. "We'll wait for more news from the other side. It seems like the youngest is planning something."
Their gazes turned southward.
The Wall had not fallen in battle for almost a millennia.
So they decided to change their plans.
It would rot.
Starting from the roots.