When I woke up the next morning I was immediately summoned.
I didn't know where but I was led by a group of elite knights. They led me to a chamber, where they stood and I entered.
The doors closed behind me with a weighty thud.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't dramatic.
But it felt final.
The meeting chamber beneath the academy was older than the academy itself—stone walls etched with faded runes, pillars worn smooth by centuries of hands and history. Mana lamps burned low along the perimeter, their pale glow casting long shadows that stretched and twisted across the floor like living things.
I stood near the center of the room, shoulders stiff, hands clenched at my sides.
Sir Zenite was silent beside me.
Ma'dam Korrina leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, sharp eyes unreadable.
Commander Mordred stood at the far end of the chamber, hands clasped behind his back, his presence alone pressing down like gravity.
Instructor Aldred sat on a stone bench nearby, his arm wrapped tightly, black aura faint and unstable. He looked exhausted—but alert. Always alert.
This wasn't a congratulatory meeting.
This was an assessment.
"You understand why you're here," Commander Mordred said at last.
His voice didn't echo—but it carried.
"Yes, sir," I answered immediately.
Zenite glanced at me briefly, then back forward.
Mordred turned slightly, eyes locking onto mine.
Not unkind.
Not gentle.
Evaluating.
"You were not ordered to engage the Gaiadrake alone," he said.
"You did anyway."
I swallowed. "Yes, sir."
"You awakened an Inner World," Ma'dam Korrina added coolly. "Something knights train decades to even glimpse."
My fingers twitched.
"And," Aldred said quietly, "you severed a foreign control mark embedded into a forest guardian without killing it."
That one made the room go still.
Mordred turned his gaze away from me and toward the stone slab at the center of the chamber.
Resting atop it was the object recovered from the battlefield.
A gem.
Roughly the size of a clenched fist. Faceted unevenly, like it had been grown rather than cut. Its surface was a deep, unnatural purple—too dark to be amethyst, too vivid to be natural mana crystal.
Even now, sealed within layered suppression runes, it pulsed faintly.
Not like a heartbeat.
Like something waiting.
"This," Mordred said, "is the reason we called this meeting."
I felt my chest tighten.
Korrina pushed off the pillar and approached the slab. "The symbol you destroyed on the Gaiadrake's back was a conduit. A leash. This gem was the anchor."
Zenite frowned. "Jaki."
"Yes," Korrina replied. "But not the kind you read about in beginner texts."
Aldred spoke next. "This wasn't mass corruption. It was precision. The guardian was intact. Intelligent. Still fighting the control."
I remembered its eyes.
The pain.
The hesitation.
"It didn't want to fight us," I said before I could stop myself.
No one reprimanded me.
Mordred nodded slowly. "Which makes this far more troubling."
He gestured—and the runes around the gem shifted, revealing more of its surface.
For a brief moment—
The air bent.
My aura stirred violently in response, white thunder crackling faintly beneath my skin before I forced it down.
Zenite noticed.
So did Mordred.
"This gem reacts to you," Mordred said flatly.
My throat went dry. "I… didn't touch it."
"You don't need to," Korrina said. "It's reacting to your core."
Aldred exhaled sharply. "That explains why the guardian prioritized him."
Silence fell again.
Then Mordred asked the question that split the room.
"So tell us, Rain."
He turned fully toward me.
"Do you believe this artifact is a threat—"
The gem pulsed once.
"—or a treasure?"
I stared at it.
Images flashed through my mind.
The forest dying.
The Gaiadrake's roar.
The symbol burning into its back.
The Inner World.
The faceless figure.
The words: come find me when you get stronger.
"I think," I said slowly, carefully, "it's both."
Zenite's lips curved faintly.
Korrina smirked.
Mordred's expression did not change.
"A correct—and dangerous—answer."
He stepped closer.
"This artifact is not crude corruption. It amplifies, overrides, and binds. In the wrong hands, it could enslave guardians… knights… even cities."
My chest tightened further.
"But," Mordred continued, "in the right hands… it could change the balance of power entirely."
Aldred shifted. "You're not suggesting—"
"I'm suggesting," Mordred interrupted, "that we do not yet know whether this was meant to be a weapon—or a test."
My pulse spiked.
"A test?" I echoed.
Korrina nodded. "Someone wanted to see who would respond. How they would fight. What would awaken."
Zenite finally spoke. "And Rain passed."
That landed heavier than any accusation.
Mordred studied me again. "You broke the control without destroying the guardian. You awakened something ancient within yourself. And you survived."
He turned back to the gem.
"The question now is not what this artifact is."
He faced us once more.
"It's who else is looking for it."
The mana lamps flickered.
Far above, the academy continued on—students laughing, training, unaware that something far older and far darker had just brushed against their world.
Mordred straightened.
"This matter is classified," he said. "Only those in this room—and the royal council—will know of its existence."
He paused, then added:
"And Rain."
My breath caught.
"You will be watched," he said calmly. "Not as punishment. As precaution."
Zenite placed a hand on my shoulder.
Korrina's eyes gleamed with interest.
Aldred met my gaze—tired, proud, worried.
Mordred's final words settled over me like a storm cloud.
"Because whether you like it or not… you have stepped onto a path where the line between weapon and key is dangerously thin."
The gem pulsed once more.
And somewhere deep inside me—
Something answered.