One after another students, commoners and nobles alike, kept on teleporting outside the gate. By the time the sun was about to set, around one thousand students had already gathered, with the bulk of them being, in some way or another, connected to the Noble Houses of Dravonne. They were either heirs of the Houses themselves, or the sons and daughters of aristocratic families who swore fealty to one of them.
Among the gathered stood about four hundred commoners — a remarkable number considering that the average intake was usually no more than two to three hundred in a year. Clearly, being born into nobility did not guarantee admission into the Great Academies.
The tall gates of the academy finally groaned open, revealing a tall man with a sharp chin, dressed in dark robes. His black hair was slicked straight back, gleaming faintly under the dying light of the sun. Damien couldn't help but notice that it was the first time he had seen someone with features so similar to his own.
He didn't know why, but among the new students he had yet to see anyone else with black hair. It made him stand out like a lone lantern in the dark. Black hair was rare, yes — but in his years at school, he had still seen a fair number of people with it. Among cultivators, however, it seemed to be far rarer still. There were a few with brown hair and eyes in the crowd, but hair as dark as midnight, paired with equally deep eyes? So far, only this man.
The stranger's gaze swept across the crowd, lingering for a brief moment on Damien. For those few seconds, Damien felt as though the man's eyes pierced straight through him, weighing, measuring. Then the gaze shifted away, and the man's voice carried out, deep and steady.
"I am Virelius Dreadmore," he said. "Professor at Gravemont, and instructor for your combat classes."
A ripple of murmurs ran through the students — excitement, nerves, and curiosity mixing together. Combat classes were the heart of any academy training, and the one who led them often held great influence over the students' growth.
"You stand now," Virelius continued, "at the threshold of the most grueling years of your lives. You will bleed. You will fail. And those who survive… will rise." His words weren't shouted, yet they carried, each syllable weighed with an authority that silenced even the most restless noble brats in the back.
"You will follow my instructions to the letter. You will not question the rules of this place unless you are prepared to bear the consequences. This academy exists to forge cultivators — not to pamper children."
Damien's eyes narrowed slightly. The professor spoke with the ease of someone who had seen many students come and go… and perhaps, never return.
With a small gesture, Virelius turned, and the gates opened wider. "Form into groups and follow. The orientation will begin soon."
As the crowd began to move, Damien found himself scanning the academy beyond the gate. The sprawling grounds stretched far into the distance, dotted with towering stone halls, wide courtyards, and shadowed pathways leading who-knew-where. High above, banners bearing the crest of Gravemont — a silver raven clutching a black spear — flapped in the wind.
Yet, even as he stepped through the threshold, Damien could still feel it — the faint, lingering weight of Professor Dreadmore's earlier gaze.
It wasn't just curiosity.
It was as though the man already knew something about him.
And that thought… refused to leave Damien's mind.
****
As the students began forming groups, the pattern became obvious within minutes — a pattern older than the academy itself. Nobles clustered with nobles, their fine robes and jeweled insignias gleaming under the fading light, while the commoners gathered in their own looser circles, bound together more by circumstance than by choice.
It was unspoken, yet the invisible line between the two groups felt as solid as a wall. Every now and then, a noble would glance toward the commoners with mild curiosity… or thinly veiled disdain.
Damien stood still for a moment, scanning the shifting groups. He didn't particularly care where he ended up, but he could feel eyes on him. A few were curious stares from commoners, but most came from nobles, their expressions flickering between confusion and calculation.
"Hey," a voice said beside him. Damien turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered boy with wind-tossed blond hair and a confident grin. "Name's Kael Varenth. House Varenth." His tone was casual, but there was a weight to the name — one of the old Dravonne Houses, if Damien remembered correctly.
Before Damien could reply, another voice cut in from behind. "House Varenth? Hah. Still not one of the Great Nine, is it?" The speaker was a lean noble with sharp cheekbones and a smirk that made Damien's knuckles itch. His silk-lined coat carried the crest of House Relmar, one of the more politically ambitious Houses in Dravonne.
Kael's grin tightened, but he didn't rise to the bait. "And you are?"
The smirking boy's eyes flicked past Kael to Damien. "I am Lord Silas Relmar. But more importantly…" His gaze narrowed slightly. "…I don't believe I've seen you before. Which House claims you?"
Damien met his stare evenly. "None."
That one word landed like a small stone dropped into still water. The surrounding nobles exchanged faintly amused or dismissive glances, while a few commoners within earshot smirked with quiet approval.
Silas's smirk widened. "A commoner then. And yet you stand here as if you belong."
Before Damien could speak, a dry voice interjected from somewhere to his left. "If he's here, then he does belong. Unless you're saying the academy's selection process is flawed."
The speaker was a slender girl with dark amber eyes and short-cropped hair, dressed simply but with an unmistakable sharpness in her gaze. She didn't look at Damien after speaking — she didn't need to.
Professor Dreadmore's voice cut across the murmurs before the exchange could escalate. "If you are done posturing, form your groups now. You have ten seconds before I assign them myself — and you will not enjoy that."
The crowd moved with sudden urgency. Damien ended up in a mixed group of six — Kael Varenth; the amber-eyed girl, who later introduced herself as Selene Cross; two quiet commoners who stuck close together; and, surprisingly, Silas Relmar himself.
As they began walking toward the academy proper, Damien noticed Silas's eyes flick toward him more than once, as though measuring something unseen. At the same time, Selene's occasional glances carried no hostility… but something sharper. Interest, perhaps.
The air between the group members was taut, unspoken tensions threading through each step. Damien said nothing, but his mind was already cataloging faces, names, and the weight of each gaze.
To be honest, Damien had already sensed there was more at play. There was no way an heir of one of the Nine Great Noble Houses would single him out just because he was a commoner. No way the scion of a rising House like Varenth would so casually approach a stranger without reason. And certainly not by coincidence would a sharp-tongued, aristocratic girl step in to "defend" him while making it clear she held no personal interest — at least, not the kind she showed on the surface.
He wasn't naive enough to think this was chance.
Still… remembering Miss Beckar's private lessons, he knew when to keep his cards hidden. He schooled his expression into a polite, almost disarming smile.
The only thing that seemed genuine in this entire arrangement were the two other commoners in their group — both keeping their heads down, clearly wishing they'd ended up anywhere else but surrounded by nobles with too much power and too much pride. Yet fate, or perhaps the academy's quiet machinations, had left them no choice.
Around them, the forming lines began to take shape — 160 groups of six students each, arranged in perfect horizontal rows. The groups moved forward in sync, the shuffling of feet creating a strange, unified rhythm. It was a display of order, the kind the academy clearly valued.
Damien walked with them, silent, observing. Every word spoken, every glance given, every subtle posture — he absorbed it all.
As they passed under the looming shadow of the gate, the two quiet commoners in Damien's group finally seemed to muster the will to speak.
The shorter of the two, a wiry boy with sun-browned skin and calloused hands, glanced between the others before giving a small nod. "Taron Williams," he said, his voice low but steady. "From Hollowford."
The other, a round-faced youth with nervous eyes, shifted his weight before blurting, "Bran Smith. Uh… from Southmere." He rubbed the back of his neck as though unsure if anyone cared, then fell silent again.
Kael, ever the easy talker, offered a reassuring grin. "Well, Taron, Bran — looks like we're all stuck together for a while. Might as well make the best of it."
Selene's amber gaze flicked over them briefly, then she returned her attention to the path ahead, saying nothing. Silas, however, smirked faintly, as though cataloging the names for later use.
Then Kael turned toward Damien. "And you?"
The question was simple enough, but Damien could feel the weight behind it. The momentary lull in the surrounding chatter, the faint lean of Silas's head in his direction, even Selene's eyes sliding his way — they were all listening.
For a heartbeat, he considered giving them nothing. But instead, he met each of their gazes in turn, his tone calm, measured.
"Damien."
Just that. No family name. No birthplace. Nothing else.
The air between them shifted ever so slightly. Silas's smirk deepened, Kael's grin took on a shade of curiosity, and Selene's expression… didn't change at all, though something sharper flickered behind her eyes.
They walked on, the sound of their footsteps swallowed by the echoing expanse beyond the gate. Yet Damien could feel it — the single word he'd given them now hanging in the air like an unsheathed blade.
And he knew… before the day was done, someone would try to test its edge.