Ren woke before the academy did.
The dormitory was still—one of those quiets that only existed when most people were asleep and the few who weren't had learned how not to disturb it. Pale light crept through the narrow window, thin and hesitant, brushing the stone floor like it wasn't sure it belonged there yet.
Ren dressed without rush.
The sword lay where he'd left it, resting against the wall beside the desk. Even sheathed, it felt… present. Not watching. Not waiting.
Just there.
Ren lifted it carefully, fingers closing around the grip the way they had the stick for years—measured, respectful, thumb settling where it felt right without conscious thought. The weight pulled down immediately, familiar from the day before.
Heavy, but not clumsy.
Honest.
He slipped out of the dorm before anyone else stirred.
The academy had places meant to be seen.
Courtyards framed by marble. Training yards ringed with runes. Elevated platforms where instructors demonstrated techniques meant to impress.
Ren didn't go to any of them.
He followed narrow paths instead, stone walkways that curved away from the main flow of foot traffic. Past quiet arches and half-forgotten stairwells—routes people rarely used, like they were meant for those who didn't want to be seen.
He remembered Lior's offhand comment about a quieter terrace beyond the east wing and kept walking until the noise thinned, replaced by birdsong and the faint rustle of leaves.
He found it tucked against the outer wall, just where Lior had said it would be.
Nothing special.
A flat stretch of stone. A low railing. Beyond it, the land sloped gently downward toward distant fields, still hazy with morning mist. Not the hill. Not the tree.
But open.
Ren set the sword down and took a slow breath.
He didn't draw it immediately.
Instead, he sat, back straight, hands resting loosely on his knees. He let the quiet settle into him the way it always had—no forcing, no expectation.
Just awareness.
When he finally reached for the blade, he did it deliberately.
The sword slid free of its sheath with a muted sound. No song. No shimmer.
Just steel meeting air.
Ren studied it.
The edge was blunt enough to catch the light without reflecting it sharply. The spine was thick, weight distributed unevenly toward the center. No ornamentation. No flourish.
If he hadn't known better, he might have thought it unfinished.
"That's fine," he murmured.
He rose and took position.
No mana.
No techniques.
Just movement.
Ren stepped forward, adjusting his stance until his feet felt grounded. He lifted the sword slowly, feeling the pull in his shoulders, the strain along his arms. He made a single cut—controlled, clean, stopping the blade exactly where he intended.
Too slow.
He reset.
Again.
The sword resisted slightly, not in defiance, but in inertia. Like it wanted him to be honest about how much effort he was using.
Ren breathed out and adjusted.
The next strike flowed better.
Not faster.
Better.
He moved through the same simple forms again and again—cuts, guards, transitions—each one careful, precise. He wasn't trying to impress the blade.
He was introducing himself.
Sweat gathered at his temples. His arms began to ache, a deep, steady burn rather than sharp pain. The sword's weight never changed—but his handling of it did. Subtle shifts. Cleaner angles. Less waste.
Once, as he adjusted his grip, a faint static prickle brushed his palm.
Ren froze.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
The sensation was gone as quickly as it had come—nothing dramatic, nothing visible. Just a fleeting shock, like touching metal after building up static.
Ren looked down at the blade.
"…You felt that too?" he asked quietly.
No response.
Of course not.
Still, he didn't pull his hand away.
He continued.
By the time the sun had fully cleared the rooftops, Ren's breathing had steadied into a familiar rhythm. His movements weren't graceful. They weren't fast.
But they were consistent.
At one point, he stopped and lowered the sword, resting the flat against his forearm as he wiped sweat from his brow. He inspected the blade automatically, fingers brushing along the metal—not checking sharpness, just… making sure it was alright.
The habit surprised him.
Then didn't.
"Sorry," he muttered, adjusting his grip again. "I'll get better."
The sword didn't answer.
But it didn't feel heavier either.
Ren sheathed it carefully and sat back down, letting the morning settle around him once more. Somewhere deeper in the academy, bells would ring soon. Classes would start. Eyes would turn his way again.
But for now, there was only this.
Quiet.
Steel.
And the slow, steady work of learning how to move forward without breaking what he carried.
The bells rang sooner than he expected.
Ren wiped the blade down, returned it to its sheath, and followed the sound back into the academy's inner halls. The quiet paths gave way to wider corridors, foot traffic increasing as students emerged from dorms and training yards alike.
By the time he reached the lecture wing, his earlier calm had thinned into something tighter.
The classroom was already half full when Ren arrived.
Stone desks curved gently around a central teaching space, tiers rising just enough that everyone had a clear view. Light spilled in through tall windows along one wall, catching faint dust motes that drifted lazily in the air. Chalk diagrams from an earlier lesson still ghosted the slate boards—half-erased circles, arrows, notes written in a precise hand.
Ren felt it immediately.
The pause.
Not silence.
Attention.
A few students glanced his way, then looked back to their desks. Others didn't bother hiding it—quick assessments, curious rather than cruel. The kind of looks that asked why are you here without needing to say it.
Ren took an empty seat near the middle and set his things down carefully.
He breathed out.
The door at the front opened without ceremony.
Professor Veyne entered like someone who had never needed to announce himself.
He wasn't old, but his hair was threaded with silver, pulled back neatly. His robes were plain by academy standards, functional rather than decorative. His eyes, however, were sharp—alert in a way that suggested he missed very little.
He placed a thin stack of notes on the desk, glanced once at the room, and smiled faintly.
"Good," he said. "You're all awake. That already puts you ahead of last year."
A few students chuckled.
"My name is Professor Veyne," he continued. "I oversee foundational theory: meridians, mana flow, and nature classification. If you dislike thinking, you will dislike me."
More quiet laughter.
He lifted a piece of chalk and turned to the slate.
"Let's start with something you should already know," Veyne said, glancing back over his shoulder. "But experience suggests that assumption is risky."
With a flick of his wrist, chalk lines drew themselves across the board—clean, deliberate. A human outline formed, crisscrossed by branching pathways.
"Twenty," Veyne said. "That is how many major meridians run through the human body. You all have them. Birth doesn't care about talent."
He tapped the diagram.
"What matters is flow."
The chalk moved again. Lines brightened, arrows appearing to show direction.
"Mana is generated, circulated, and expressed through these channels," he said. "But it is not enough to possess mana. You must move it. And movement requires stability."
A hand rose.
Veyne nodded. "Yes—Thane."
The student straightened slightly. Noble posture, Ren noted without thinking.
"So more mana just means stronger techniques, right?" Thane asked.
Veyne didn't sigh.
Instead, he smiled and adjusted the diagram.
One channel swelled, thickening unnaturally—then fractured.
The chalk snapped in half with a sharp crack.
"More mana," Veyne said evenly, "means more strain. Strength comes from control, not volume. If you force mana through an unprepared channel, you don't get power."
He gestured to the broken line.
"You get damage. Sometimes permanent."
Ren's chest tightened faintly.
Veyne set the chalk down, picked up another as if nothing had happened.
"Now," he said, "close your eyes."
There was a moment of hesitation—then chairs creaked softly as students obeyed.
"Breathe," Veyne instructed. "Not deeply. Normally. Feel where your breath settles. Then follow the sensation inward."
The room quieted.
Ren closed his eyes and focused.
At first, there was nothing.
Then—movement.
A faint pull beneath his sternum. A sense of something trying to rise.
He followed it.
And hit resistance—hard.
The pressure built suddenly, sharp and wrong, like a muscle being twisted the wrong way. Pain flared briefly behind his ribs.
Ren gasped softly and pulled back.
Around him, he felt it—subtle shifts in the air. A faint warmth from one direction. A cool ripple from another.
When he opened his eyes, it wasn't light he noticed so much as motion.
Something thin and indistinct clung close to certain students—flickers at the edges of movement, distortions that bent space just enough to be felt rather than seen. Some were unsteady. Some pulsed and faded.
Across the room, Lior sat perfectly still. A faint sheen traced along his arms and shoulders, like clear water sliding over glass—so subtle Ren might have missed it if he hadn't been looking.
Around himself, Ren felt nothing at all.
Veyne moved between the desks, hands clasped behind his back.
"Good," he said quietly. "That discomfort is instruction. Remember it."
He returned to the front.
"What you just practiced," he said, "is awareness. Without it, technique is guessing."
The chalk lifted again.
"To understand yourselves further," Veyne continued, "you must understand what your mana becomes when you move it."
The diagram dissolved, replaced by six symbols arranged in a circle.
"Fire. Water. Wind. Earth. Lightning. Metal."
He tapped each once.
"These are categories," he said. "Not identities. Each nature divides into three variants—and one apex variant."
A murmur rippled through the room.
"Apex variants," Veyne went on, "are naturally stronger. More expressive. And far less forgiving. They reward mastery and punish impatience."
Another hand rose.
"Yes?" Veyne said.
Mira leaned forward slightly, light hair catching the windowlight. "Do variants rank higher than others?"
"An understandable mistake," Veyne replied. "Variants are not tiers. They are expressions. An inferior variant mastered will outperform an apex variant abused."
He turned slightly. "Thane—step forward."
Thane did so without hesitation.
"Manifest," Veyne instructed.
Bright yellow lightning snapped into existence around Thane's hand—chaotic arcs flashing sharply, alive with speed. The energy crackled violently but never drifted far from his skin, each spark collapsing back into itself as fast as it formed.
"Stormspark Lightning," Veyne said. "Fastest movement and reflex enhancement among lightning variants. Excellent for burst acceleration and close-range dominance. Dangerous if overused."
He nodded once. "You may sit."
As Thane returned to his seat, Veyne let his gaze sweep the room.
"This," he said, "is why you should all identify your variant as early as possible. Not to chase strength—but to understand yourselves."
The chalk wrote a single title on the slate.
Foundations of Nature Expression — Vol. I
"It outlines the markers most variants exhibit," Veyne added. "Emotional triggers. Physical feedback. Mana behavior. Read it carefully."
As Thane settled back into his seat, another hand rose.
"Yes—Sylvi," Veyne said.
Her voice was curious, not anxious. "Is it possible to not have a nature at all?"
The room stilled.
Veyne considered her for a moment.
"There are two cases," he said. "True Natureless individuals—extremely rare. Their mana does not externalize, instead reinforcing the body. Stronger bones. Faster recovery. Exceptional physical resilience."
A few students exchanged glances.
"And the second," Veyne continued, "are those with mutated meridians."
He adjusted the diagram again. This time, the channels warped, twisting into unfamiliar shapes.
"These meridians refuse elemental resonance entirely," he said. "Instead, they produce singular abilities."
Alden leaned forward. "What kind of abilities?"
Veyne smiled faintly.
"Communication with monsters. Spatial distortion. Memory binding. Summoning. Things that do not fit neatly into categories."
The room buzzed quietly.
Veyne let it settle before adding, "They are uncommon, unpredictable, and rarely kind to those who pursue them carelessly. That is all you need to understand for now."
He set the chalk down.
"That's enough for today."
Students began to gather their things, conversation spilling back into the room.
Ren stayed seated.
After a moment, Veyne noticed.
"Yes?" he asked.
"I'm behind," Ren said simply. "I want to catch up. What should I read?"
Veyne studied him—really studied him.
Then he nodded.
"Good question," he said. "Come by later today. I'll give you a list."
Ren exhaled quietly.
I'm behind, he thought.
It wouldn't be enough to turn him back.