The room told me this wasn't routine before Sir Aldred spoke a single word.
There were no markings meant for students—no training sigils worn down by boots, no banners or insignia meant to inspire. The stone here was darker, older, carrying the faint pressure of wards that had been laid with permanence in mind. This was a room meant for decisions, not discussion.
Class 2-S filed in without being directed. No one needed instruction anymore.
That alone said enough.
I took my place near the center instinctively, awareness already active, noting posture, breathing, the way everyone held themselves just a fraction more rigid than usual. Whatever the last trials had done, they hadn't faded with rest. The pressure hadn't left.
It had settled.
Sir Aldred stood at the table, both hands resting flat against its surface. He didn't scan us like an instructor counting heads. He already knew who was here.
"This is not a lecture," he said.
I didn't shift. Neither did anyone else.
"So don't wait for one."
Silence followed—not awkward, not uncertain. Attentive.
"You've been evaluated," Aldred continued. "Not academically. Not comparatively. In conditions designed to remove advantage and expose habit."
My mind moved ahead of his words, already aligning them with the trials we'd just endured. Control under pressure. Silence. Observation without correction.
"You are no longer operating within second-year parameters."
I felt that land—not as pride, but weight. Labels changed expectations. Expectations rewrote consequences.
"Measured objectively," Aldred went on, "your class now matches upper third-year capability. Several of you could already contest the weakest fourth-years."
I caught the subtle reactions—the tightening of Seraphyne's jaw, Kazen's brief stillness, Theon rolling his shoulders once as if testing something that wasn't there.
Aldred didn't give the statement room to breathe.
"That assessment is meaningless if all your experience remains within Okrith."
That was the line.
Okrith was controlled. Even its dangers were curated—mapped patrol routes, known response windows, predictable escalation. Monsters existed, but they lived within expectations.
Real combat did not.
"You will be deployed," Aldred said.
No emphasis. No ceremony.
Beyond Okrith, his tone implied.
I didn't look around. I didn't need to. I could feel the shift ripple through the room anyway—the collective recalibration as everyone began adjusting what they thought the next few months would look like.
"You will not be attached to a senior unit," Aldred continued. "You will not operate under a third-party command structure."
That sharpened my attention.
"You will not be supervised in the field."
Seraphyne's breath slipped slightly out of rhythm. Varein didn't react at all.
"You will operate as Class 2-S," Aldred finished.
That wasn't trust.
That was exposure.
"This deployment exists for one reason," he said. "To determine whether your strength persists when the ground beneath you no longer belongs to the Academy."
My fingers curled once at my side, then relaxed.
Then Aldred looked at us differently—not as students, not even as examinees.
As assets being moved.
"Your destination lies two hundred kilometers above ground."
That did it.
Someone inhaled sharply. Someone else let out a quiet curse before cutting it off. My mind moved instantly—air density, pressure gradients, temperature drop, atmospheric instability. Two hundred kilometers wasn't just altitude.
It was absence.
"The Sky Islands," Aldred said. "Anchored beyond conventional weather layers. Permanently elevated. Nearly invisible from the surface."
I pictured it without trying to—land suspended where it shouldn't be, pressure thin enough to punish mistakes, distance enough to make retreat meaningless.
"They are known collectively as Hyperanos," Aldred continued, voice steady, unaltered by the weight of the name. "The Sovereign Skies."
That name didn't feel poetic.
It felt territorial.
Questions pressed against the room. I could feel them forming, tightening, waiting for permission.
Seraphyne didn't even try to hide it. "And what exactly—"
"Classified," Aldred said immediately.
The word cut clean.
"You will not be briefed on mission parameters today. Or tomorrow."
A pause.
"You will be briefed on the day you depart."
That was deliberate. Information changed behavior. Aldred wasn't interested in seeing how we planned. He wanted to see how we prepared without certainty.
"Training begins now," he added, already turning away from the table.
No dismissal. No transition.
Just the removal of explanation.
I stood with the rest of them, the weight of altitude and secrecy already settling into place.
Two hundred kilometers above ground.
No instructors.
No safety net.
And whatever waited for us in Hyperanos…
We wouldn't know what it was until we were already on the way.
Sir Aldred didn't wait for questions.
He stepped away from the table, already moving toward the outer doors, and the implication was clear enough that no one tested it. We followed, boots striking stone in rhythm that wasn't planned but wasn't accidental either. Whatever shock the words two hundred kilometers had carried, it was being swallowed by motion.
The doors opened onto one of Lionhearth's inner training expanses—vast, enclosed, and already awake.
The air hit first.
It wasn't thin yet, but it was wrong in a way I felt immediately, like breathing through fabric stretched just a little too tight. The pressure wrapped around my aura before I consciously summoned it, testing for gaps.
Aldred stopped at the center of the field.
"This is not preparation for altitude," he said without turning. "This is preparation for instability."
The ground shifted.
Not visibly—no tremor, no jolt—but the balance under my feet subtly loosened, the way it did on a ship's deck before the waves grew rough. The training field's wards activated in layers, each one stacking a different kind of resistance.
Wind came next. Not directional. Chaotic. It tugged at cloaks, pulled at limbs, disrupted stance rather than threatening force.
"Hyperanos does not sit quietly," Aldred continued. "Neither will you."
The pressure increased.
I drew my aura in reflexively, water tightening close to my skin, white thunder pulsing just beneath, testing the boundary like a live wire pressed against insulation. The field responded immediately, resistance thickening wherever my output rose even slightly.
Control. Not strength.
I adjusted my breathing, shortened it, compressed everything inward.
Around me, the others did the same—some faster than others.
Seraphyne's fire flared instinctively before snapping back under her will, leaving a faint shimmer of heat in the disturbed air. Kazen's mist thinned violently, torn apart by the erratic currents, forcing him to anchor it close instead of spreading it wide. Varein shifted his footing, abandoning precision for balance as the wind refused to behave.
"Move," Aldred said.
No formation. No pattern.
We moved anyway.
Running under unstable ground was different from sprinting under weight. The field didn't slow us—it punished hesitation. Steps taken with uncertainty slid. Turns taken too sharply unbalanced. Momentum mattered more than speed.
I pushed forward, letting my body find rhythm before my mind interfered. When the wind tore at my balance, I angled into it instead of fighting back, using the pull to carry me forward rather than resist.
White thunder flared once as I leapt, instinctively overcompensating.
The pressure snapped tight around my chest.
Not pain—compression.
I forced the aura back down mid-motion, landing harder than intended but upright. The resistance eased immediately, like a warning delivered and retracted.
Aldred noticed everything. He always did.
"Again," he called.
The drills blurred into one another after that.
Weapon work under fluctuating gravity fields.
Aura activation timed against sudden pressure spikes.
Sparring rotations layered into environmental disruption.
I crossed blades with Liam first. Strength against restraint. His blows were solid, grounded, but the shifting footing forced him to adapt, shorten swings he would've committed to fully days ago.
I felt Seraphyne's heat at my flank before I saw her—controlled, precise, nothing wasted. When she struck, the air distorted, but the flame never bloomed past what she intended.
Progress.
Kazen sparred while walking—literally never stopping movement—forcing his mist to remain present without anchoring to stillness. Varein redirected attacks rather than blocking them, letting the wind pull strikes past him instead of meeting them head-on.
No one dominated.
That was the point.
Time stopped meaning what it usually did. Training bled past what should've been breaks, past meals that never came. Someone collapsed once—Arion, gasping, aura flickering—and was dragged clear long enough to stabilize before being set back in line.
No reprimand.
No praise.
Just expectation.
Night fell without ceremony. The field's light adjusted automatically, dimming without fully darkening, mimicking the endless twilight Aldred would later say dominated the upper sky.
We didn't stop.
Muscles burned in unfamiliar ways—not from exertion, but constant correction. Balance never settled long enough for instinct to relax. Every step demanded awareness.
At some point, I realized something quietly important.
This wasn't sharpening a blade.
It was pressure-testing a structure.
When Aldred finally called a halt, no one dropped where they stood. We'd already learned not to—relaxing too quickly would let the remaining pressure snap back hard.
The field deactivated in stages, resistance peeling away layer by layer until the air felt almost too open.
I exhaled slowly.
"Rest," Aldred said. "Briefly."
No further instruction followed. We dispersed instinctively, collapsing near walls, stretching cramped joints, sharing water in silence.
My hands still buzzed faintly from compressed lightning. I watched it fade, noting how long it took this time.
Two hundred kilometers above ground.
Hyperanos.
Whatever waited for us there wouldn't care how well we fought inside Lionhearth.
And judging by Aldred's expression as he watched us recover…
Neither would he.
"Up."
Sir Aldred's voice cut through what little rest we'd managed to claim.
Not loud. Not sharp. Just precise enough to pull every nerve taut again.
I opened my eyes before my body wanted to respond. Muscles protested in quiet, coordinated complaints—calves tight, shoulders heavy, fingers slow to curl. Around me, the rest of Class 2-S stirred in much the same way. No groans. No complaints. We were past that stage.
Aldred didn't wait to see if we'd stand on our own.
The field activated again.
This time, the resistance wasn't uniform.
The pressure arrived in pulses—rolling waves of force that surged without pattern, rising and falling like uneven breaths. One moment the ground felt steady beneath my boots, the next it tilted just enough to punish complacency.
"This is closer," Aldred said. "The upper sky does not maintain consistency."
I pushed myself upright as the first pulse hit. My aura reacted a fraction too late, water tightening after the shift instead of anticipating it. My foot slid half an inch before I caught myself.
Mistake noted.
I adjusted my stance, knees bent, weight distributed low. White thunder stayed coiled, silent, refusing to surface unless needed. Power wasn't an advantage here. Prediction was.
"Move," Aldred said again.
We didn't run this time.
We advanced.
Slowly, deliberately, each step placed with intent while the pressure rolled through the field unpredictably. Someone stumbled—Kai this time—recovering before Aldred could speak. Seraphyne reached instinctively toward him, then stopped herself when she realized assistance would unbalance them both under the next surge.
Good.
Aldred watched without comment.
The drills changed again.
Altitude conditioning followed—not through thinning air, but through constriction. The field compressed around our auras, forcing us to maintain function under simulated oxygen deprivation while remaining mobile.
Breathing turned shallow.
The edges of my vision dimmed for a moment as my lungs struggled to find rhythm. Panic flickered—brief, involuntary—but I pushed it down, focusing on cadence instead of volume.
Short breath in.
Long breath out.
Aura tight, stable.
The pressure eased slightly, responding to control rather than resistance.
Around me, the others adapted in their own ways.
Liam slowed his movements but never stopped, conserving energy through efficiency rather than force. Theon planted himself during surges, letting them pass before advancing again. Aelira reduced ice output to a thin layer instead of full constructs, preventing fractures before they could form.
No one spoke.
We didn't need to.
When sparring resumed, Aldred layered the pressure again—this time selectively.
My match was Varein.
Wind already behaved poorly under unstable conditions. Against pressure waves, it turned unpredictable, tearing at formation faster than intention could correct.
I didn't rush him.
I kept my movements compact, blade close, forcing him to react instead of shape the field. Each time he attempted to redirect space around me, the pressure distorted it, scattering currents he relied on for control.
He adapted quickly—abandoning finesse in favor of timing, striking only between pulses.
We traded clean blows, neither committing fully, both conserving aura like it was air itself.
When Aldred halted us, neither of us was breathing hard.
That felt intentional.
The final drill came without warning.
The field collapsed.
All resistance vanished at once.
My body pitched forward instinctively, balance thrown off by the sudden absence of pressure. I dropped low, catching myself before the fall, aura flaring reflexively to compensate.
Around me, similar movements echoed—hands slapping stone, boots scraping, someone grunting as they rolled instead of landing clean.
Aldred let us recover on our own before speaking.
"That is what happens when conditions change faster than expectation," he said. "Hyperanos will do this without warning."
He turned, gaze sharp.
"Adaptation is not reacting faster. It is remaining functional when your assumptions fail."
The field disengaged completely.
For the first time since this began, silence felt earned.
Night had fully set in by then. The air outside the training wards felt almost unreal—too light, too forgiving. Sweat cooled quickly against my skin, leaving a dull ache beneath.
We were dismissed without ceremony.
No instructions for the morning. No warning of what would come next.
As I walked back toward Akris Hall, fatigue finally settled deep enough that it blurred the edges of thought. Still, one realization stayed sharp.
This wasn't about surviving Hyperanos.
It was about ensuring that when the ground stopped behaving like ground…
None of us hesitated long enough to die for it.
And whatever came next—travel, monsters, distance—it was already clear.
The Academy was done sheltering us.
Morning didn't arrive with a bell.
It arrived with motion.
We were moving before the sun climbed the inner walls of Lionhearth, packs secured, weapons checked on instinct rather than instruction. No announcement marked our departure. No line of instructors watched us go. The Academy simply opened a path and let us pass through it.
Sir Aldred walked with us as far as the outer road.
"You have one to two weeks to reach Jishu," he said, stopping where the stone gave way to packed earth. "Choose your pace."
That was all.
No warning. No encouragement.
He turned back toward the towers without another word, leaving us standing on the road as the Academy's silhouette loomed behind us, familiar and suddenly distant.
For a few breaths, no one spoke.
Then Seraphyne exhaled loudly. "Well. That's ominous."
The tension broke—not shattered, just loosened—enough for sound to return.
Theon rolled his shoulders. "One to two weeks? That's generous."
Liam glanced down the road, already measuring distance. "If we don't stop unnecessarily, we can shorten that."
Kazen nodded once. "Terrain will decide that more than we will."
Varein added, "Weather too."
I didn't comment. I was already moving, boots falling into rhythm as the road carried us forward.
The Academy, and Lionhearth. fell behind us quickly.
Without its walls, the world opened in a way that felt almost unfamiliar. The land beyond Okrith wasn't hostile—but it wasn't curated either. The road stretched long and steady at first, then gradually degraded into narrower paths, terrain shifting from stone-packed trade routes to soil and grass worn thin by travel.
The first few days were light.
Not easy—but lighter.
Training followed us naturally rather than being imposed. Morning sparring broke out before breakfast more often than not, weapons clashing in controlled bursts while breath still fogged in the cool air. Footwork adjusted instinctively to uneven ground. Aura flowed tighter, conserved for endurance rather than expression.
Seraphyne sparred me on the third morning.
No bravado. No excess heat.
Her fire stayed close, focused, snapping into being only at the moment of contact before vanishing again. She'd learned quickly what the training fields had demanded—control first, power second.
"Getting slow," she remarked as we disengaged.
"Getting efficient," I replied.
She grinned and didn't deny it.
The road lengthened.
So did our days.
Someone joked—eventually—that if we kept this pace, we'd reach Jishu early. It became a quiet challenge after that, unspoken but shared. Routes were chosen more aggressively. Breaks shortened. Night watches rotated faster so rest didn't stretch too long in one place.
Training adapted.
Weapon drills while walking.
Aura suppression exercises mid-conversation.
Sparring matches that ended only when the terrain itself forced separation.
We didn't stop fighting monsters either.
They found us on the seventh night.
Dire wolves.
I recognized them the moment the howls broke through the tree line—low, coordinated, testing distance. The memory surfaced unbidden: early patrol routes near Lionhearth, messy formations, shouted warnings, hearts racing faster than our blades.
This time, no one panicked.
Kazen's mist rolled out first—not wide, not theatrical—just enough to blur perception and break line of sight. Varein redirected the charge with wind that never fully manifested, guiding momentum into empty space rather than pushing back.
I stepped forward as the first wolf cleared the haze.
One strike. Clean. No wasted motion.
Seraphyne sealed the perimeter, fire tracing controlled arcs that deterred rather than destroyed. The rest fell in seconds, bodies hitting the ground before sound could carry.
Silence returned quickly.
We didn't celebrate.
We didn't need to.
As we moved on, I realized something quietly unsettling.
The road hadn't become safer.
We had just become competent enough to erase danger before it announced itself.
When we checked distance markers two days later, Kazen confirmed it without ceremony.
"One week," he said. "Five days."
That earned a look—or two—but no cheers.
Just acknowledgment.
The edge of Jishu rose on the horizon shortly after.
The land changed before the border ever announced itself.
I felt it first in the air.
Mana here didn't pool or linger the way it did around Lionhearth. It moved—thin streams sliding through the atmosphere like invisible rivers, orderly but constant. The soil underfoot grew firmer, packed with intent as much as traffic, the road widening until our formation adjusted without anyone saying a word.
"This is Jishu," Liam said quietly, as if naming it too loudly might disturb something.
There were markers eventually—stone pylons etched with script I didn't recognize, wards threaded so precisely into the roadside that even I could feel their alignment without trying. Nothing flashy. No borders meant to intimidate.
Just infrastructure that assumed competence.
Travel through the continent took days.
Not because the roads were slow, but because Jishu was vast in a way Okrith never tried to be. Settlements appeared with rhythm rather than rarity—outposts that blended into the land, towns built around mana conduits instead of wells, waystations humming softly with controlled power.
Everything worked.
Rain fell once, briefly, and evaporated before soaking cloth. Wind corridors guided travelers naturally, their paths suggested rather than enforced. Even the night felt organized—lights dimmed in careful gradients, never fully dark, never glaring.
I watched Class 2-S react to it in small ways.
Kazen studied the flow lines with open curiosity, mist responding to currents he'd never felt before. Aelira lingered near cooling pylons, watching ice form and dissolve without cracking. Varein paid attention to guard rotations, noting how few there were for how secure everything felt.
No one said it out loud, but we all sensed the same thing.
This place didn't rely on vigilance.
It relied on systems.
When Epoch finally came into view, it did so all at once.
The skyline rose from the land not as walls, but as layers—structures stacked vertically with intention. And above them, motion.
Flying brooms crossed open airways in smooth arcs, riders banking and adjusting altitude with practiced ease. Arcane vehicles glided between elevated thoroughfares, silent, precise, their paths dictated by invisible lanes carved into the sky itself. Even carriages moved differently here—suspended, stabilized, drawn by mana fields rather than beasts.
The city wasn't noisy.
It was alive.
Mana threaded everything.
I felt it most sharply when I looked up.
Two towers dominated the heart of Epoch, rising far beyond the rest of the skyline.
One glowed green.
The other, red.
They weren't decorative.
Mana radiated from them in controlled streams, flowing outward into the city in vast, regulated currents. I could trace it with my senses—how it fed ward networks, powered transit lanes, stabilized the airspace above the city.
They weren't monuments.
They were engines.
Seraphyne exhaled slowly beside me. "That's… different."
Different wasn't strong enough.
Okrith had felt cultivated.
Lionhearth felt disciplined.
Epoch felt designed.
Knights were rare here. I noticed that almost immediately. Authority moved through different channels—robed figures directing traffic from elevated platforms, crystal arrays pulsing in response to unseen demands, mage insignia everywhere, subtle and unashamed.
This wasn't a place that bent around physical force.
It flowed around magic.
As we were guided toward our lodging—efficient, secure, prepared well in advance—I looked once more toward the towers, watching the green and red glow bleed into the sky above them.
Hyperanos waited beyond that sky.
Two hundred kilometers up.
And suddenly, the thought landed with new weight.
The Academy had taught us how to fight monsters.
The road had proven we could survive without shelter.
But this place—this kingdom—made one thing very clear.
If knights were to matter in the world beyond Okrith…
They would have to prove it where magic already ruled the air.
And soon, we'd be leaving even this ground behind.