Four months had passed since the terrifying night on the riverbank. The encounter with the Shadow Hand had been a brutal baptism, cementing two irreversible truths for Kaela: her meager Ember Aura was not a weakness, but a catalyst for precision, and Master Hagar, for all his despair, was the last true Grandmaster of efficiency. The sight of her own sword in the hands of the mercenary had been a chilling lesson in vulnerability that she would never forget.
The immediate threat of the Shadow Hand had vanished as quickly as he arrived, but the fear he instilled drove Kaela and Hagar into a deeper, darker commitment. Their training moved beyond the rickety warehouse to the unpredictable flow of the crowded slums. Hagar forbade her from using Rust-Eater in practice, forcing her to rely on the wooden staff to internalize the Formless Style's core philosophy: the weapon is an extension of the will, and the will must be silent.
Kaela's speed was now alarming. She could navigate a crowded market street, pivoting and weaving through scores of people without touching a single soul, her movements becoming less about stepping and more about flowing around obstacles. She learned to spend her Ember Aura only when absolutely necessary—a thread of spiritual energy used to align her spine for perfect leverage, or to momentarily nullify the weight of the sword for a lightning-fast draw. Her mind, constantly performing the Calculus of Survival, estimated distance, trajectory, and momentum in mere fractions of a second. She had become an apex predator of the close-quarters environment.
The day of the Guild Academy entrance exam finally arrived. The Bastion of the Seven, the colossal headquarters of the Sword Guild, dominated the central district of Aethelgard. Its marble walls shone under the mid-morning sun, a brutal contrast to the filth-caked brick of the Dregs Kaela called home. Thousands of youths milled about—the sons and daughters of nobles dressed in gleaming steel, and the wealthy commoners clutching polished, high-grade iron. Kaela, dressed in her patched leather tunic, stood out, her weathered gear and the dull, rusted sheath of Rust-Eater marking her as an outsider.
"Nervous, brat?" Hagar materialized beside her, sober for the first time in a week. He wasn't wearing his beggar rags; he was wearing slightly cleaner beggar rags.
"No," Kaela stated, her voice steady. "They can't hurt me worse than you have."
"Good. Because this whole farce is designed to test your Aura projection, which is your weakness," Hagar muttered, his eyes scanning the surrounding crowd with a weary disdain. "Remember the rules. They will expect you to blast fire. Don't. You are the knife in the dark. Your Ember is reserved only for the final, finishing blow. Move like the shadow."
The examination hall was a sprawling arena lined with testing fields. The first three stages were simple Aura tests, which Kaela barely scraped through, managing only a small, pale orange flicker—barely registering on the Guild's draconian meters. Her score earned her sneers from the noble examinees, especially a cold, handsome youth named Silas Corvus, a high-ranking noble dressed in polished black steel who boasted a blazing Flame Aura.
The final stage was the Obstacle Field Combat Trial. The test was designed to gauge a warrior's ability to maintain focus and technique while under duress. The applicants were placed one-on-one against automatons—heavy, steel-plated dummies controlled by internal clockwork and enchanted with minor protection charms. The goal was simple: disable the automaton within three minutes, using only the weapon provided.
Kaela was paired against Automaton 7, a lumbering beast with thick plating. Her heart hammered, not from fear, but from the realization that the crowd, the lights, and the time limit were all distractions, exactly what Hagar had trained her to ignore.
Her name was called. She stepped onto the field, drawing Rust-Eater. The murmur of the crowd was immediately judgmental.
"Look at that thing. Is that even steel?" someone laughed.
Automaton 7 lumbered toward her, its steel arms swinging wide in a slow, powerful motion.
Kaela didn't move backward. She darted forward, her feet executing a blistering series of shallow pivots. She flowed past the first crushing swing, bringing Rust-Eater up not to cut, but to tap the inside of the automaton's elbow joint. The tap was precise, enough to jar the clockwork, throwing the dummy's predictable rhythm off by a hairsbreadth.
The automaton's second swing was too wide, exactly as Hagar had predicted. Conversion. Kaela used the automaton's own momentum, pivoting hard and slipping beneath its guard. The Formless Style wasn't about power; it was about the Unseen Strike.
She found her target: the small, recessed activation rune hidden beneath the joint of the automaton's lower back—a weak point designed by the engineers. She poured her conserved Ember Aura into the blade. It wasn't a visible flare; it was a silent, controlled application of force, making the rusted edge feel like a diamond-tipped chisel.
Rust-Eater struck the rune.
The automaton did not explode. It did not shatter. Instead, the small, recessed rune simply cracked, and the magnificent, clanking machine froze instantly, its heavy steel arms stopping mid-swing. The silence was deafening.
Kaela stood completely still, her back to the frozen automaton, Rust-Eater already sliding smoothly back into its sheath. The entire maneuver had taken less than ten seconds.
The crowd remained silent for a stunned moment, then erupted in baffled confusion. They had expected fire and sparks, not a surgical, silent execution.
The judge, a hardened Knight named Dame Elara, stared at the frozen automaton, then at the girl. She squinted at the shattered rune, rubbing her finger over the precise, clean hairline fracture. She could barely believe the force was concentrated enough to crack an enchanted rune without damaging the surrounding steel plating. It was impossible accuracy.
Dame Elara finally looked up at Kaela, a flicker of something she hadn't felt in years—respect—in her eyes.
"Time: 9.8 seconds," the judge announced, her voice booming across the arena. "Disadvantage: Overcame."
Kaela had done it. She had passed the final trial and earned the right to step into the world of the Sword Guild. As she walked off the field, she glanced at Hagar, who was already disappearing into the shadows. He gave no nod of acknowledgment, but his lips twitched, the slightest hint of approval that meant more to Kaela than any cheer from the crowd.
Her future had just begun, forged not in gold, but in iron and rust.