Dawn at Training Sector Gamma was a world of silver light and sharp shadows. Lyra Solara was already there, performing a flowing sword kata with a simple, unadorned blade. Her movements were not just precise; they were efficient. Every motion had purpose, no energy wasted, her form a perfect expression of control. Her 3rd Order Captain's aura was a contained supernova, humming just beneath her skin.
She stopped as Arlan approached, her stellar eyes assessing him like a piece of complex machinery. "Your stance is too defensive. You hold your center of gravity low, bracing for impact. That is for surviving a blow. We are not learning to survive. We are learning to cut."
She demonstrated. A single, forward step, her body becoming a straight line from back foot to sword tip. The thrust was blindingly fast, the air cracking with displaced energy. "Power from the ground, through the legs, spiraling through the core, released through the arm. It is not a push. It is a wave. Your spatial slash should be the culmination of that wave, not a separate action you tack on at the end. Again."
For two hours, she drilled him. Not on spells or affinities, but on fundamentals. Footwork. Balance. Breath control. She corrected the angle of his elbow by a degree, the turn of his wrist by a fraction. It was meticulous, frustrating, and revelatory.
When he finally executed a Dimensional Slash as part of a full lunge, the silver crescent that flew from White-Crack was thinner, sharper, and traveled twenty percent farther with ten percent less mana. The spatial recoil in his core was a clean jolt, not a ragged tear.
"Better," Lyra said, a hint of approval in her voice. "Now, the second part of our exchange. Manifest your spatial instability."
Arlan tensed. Showing her the cracks in his soul felt more vulnerable than any combat.
"It is for data, Thorne," she said, her tone clinical. "I cannot analyze what I cannot perceive. I give you my word: this stays between us."
He closed his eyes, lowered his mental shields, and allowed the fractured, silver energy of his spatial affinity to become visible to her senses.
Lyra's breath caught, just slightly. He felt her awareness—cool, sharp, and incredibly intelligent—sweep over his spiritual landscape. It wasn't invasive; it was observational, like a master astronomer mapping a strange new nebula.
"Fascinating," she whispered. "The cracks are not random. They follow the stress lines of your original, dormant core structure. Your shadow affinity... it acts as a binding matrix, containing the leaks. And there is a new element. A purifying, purple energy intertwined with the cracks. A stabilizer you did not have before. You found something in Haven's Fall."
It wasn't a question. Arlan didn't confirm or deny.
"The instability is at low percentage than before," she stated, her accuracy unsettling. "The standard Academy stabilization method is like pouring glue on broken glass. It holds, but it clouds the structure and prevents true repair. Your method... the shadow bind, this purple energy... it is more like annealing. Heating and cooling the glass to heal the cracks from within. A more dangerous, but potentially perfect, solution."
She opened her eyes, her gaze intense. "I will not teach you to hide your power. I will teach you to understand it. Every crack, every fluctuation. You will learn to predict them, to ride them, to use the instability itself as a source of power. That is my tuition."
It was a radical, terrifying proposition. Instead of fighting the flaw, embrace it. Weaponize it.
He gave a single, slow nod.
Their routine was set. Three mornings a week, brutal physical and swordsmanship training. Two evenings a week, theoretical sessions in a warded study room, where Lyra used complex stellar-mana models to chart the ebbs and flows of his spatial energy, teaching him to sense the build-up before a destabilizing surge.
He learned to feel the "weather" inside his own soul. He began to anticipate the unstable spikes, and instead of clamping down, he learned to channel that excess, jagged energy into a more powerful, if less controlled, spatial effect—a Spatial Burst that could shatter defenses in a wide radius.
In return, she asked endless questions. She had him perform minor spatial manipulations while she scanned him with stellar senses, collecting data on mana resonance, dimensional friction, and energy loss. She was building a model, and he was the blueprint.
One evening, as they pored over a light-screen filled with equations describing the "torsional shear" of his dimensional slashes, she spoke without looking up.
"The Silent Accord seeks perfection through control. They erase anomalies to maintain their perfect, static world. They are fools." Her voice was cold with contempt. "Perfection in the universe is not static. It is dynamic. It is the balanced chaos of a star's fusion, the predictable unpredictability of a quantum field. Your instability is not a flaw to them. It is a higher form of order they are too blind to see."
You know about the Accord, Damien asked with a wary expression
Yeah. They came after me once, Lyra replied
It was the most personal thing she'd ever said to him. It wasn't empathy. It was a statement of shared philosophy.
Arlan looked at her. "Is that why you're helping me? To prove them wrong?"
Lyra finally met his gaze. "I am helping you because you are the most interesting variable I have ever encountered. Proving anyone wrong is a secondary benefit. Do not confuse this for sentiment, Thorne. This is science."
He didn't. And that was why it worked.
Weeks passed. His control improved dramatically. His swordsmanship, under Lyra's merciless tutelage, evolved from clumsy hacking to something approaching art. His synergy with Lance Ashcroft deepened; they took on C-Rank missions from the board, clearing monster nests and securing artifacts, their teamwork seamless.
One such mission took them to a derelict observatory in the mountains to recover a corrupted star-chart crystal. The place was infested with Frost-Wraiths, creatures of cold and lingering anguish.
During the fight, Kaelen was surrounded, his lightning sputtering in the intense cold. Mira's ice magic was useless against them. Dorian's vines froze and snapped.
"Thorne! We need an opening!" Dorian yelled.
Arlan didn't use a slash. He remembered Lyra's lesson on energy waves. He planted his feet, took a deep breath, and focused not on cutting, but on pulsing. He channelled a wave of spatial energy through White-Crack and slammed the pommel on the ground.
A Spatial Tremor erupted from the point of impact. The very reality in a ten-meter radius shivered. The semi-corporeal Frost-Wraiths, whose existence relied on stable dimensional boundaries, screamed as they were violently dispersed. The opening was created.
Kaelen blasted free, and the team secured the crystal.
Afterwards, Dorian clapped him on the shoulder. "New trick? That was useful."
"An experiment," Arlan said.
It was a technique born from understanding his power's rhythm, not just its force. A gift from his tutelage.
As the second year settled into its rhythm, Arlan stood at the intersection of three paths: the strategic brotherhood of Lance Ashcroft, the hidden-world alliance with Selene and Lance Umbra, and the intense, intellectual partnership with Lyra Solara. An atmosphere of competition.
And in the quiet moments, he would feel the gentle, purifying warmth of the Void-Heart Flame in his blade, and the cold, analytical gaze of the star who taught him, and he knew the climb was accelerating. The summit was still distant, but the next ledge was firmly within his reach.