The night in Val-de-Fer bit with a corrosive cold. Ash had slipped beneath the greasy tarp of a mineral transport cart, one of twenty vehicles forming the official convoy heading to the capital. His shoulder ached — the blow from the table against the Church guard had left a deep bruise, and his left arm was half numb.
Even though he could see the "faults," his body no longer followed.
The convoy set off at dawn. Ash, hidden between two crates of raw iron, felt every jolt of the road reverberate through his bones. He hadn't eaten since the stew yesterday, and his vision was starting to blur. The Atom Sight was demanding; it didn't consume mana, but it drew directly from his life force. Every time he forced his sight to analyze the surrounding structures, a piercing migraine shredded his temples.
The Limit of InstinctBy midday, the convoy stopped at a water point. Driven by unbearable thirst, Ash tried to slip out of the cart to reach a bucket.
"Hey! You rat!"
A whip cracked through the air, wrapping around Ash's ankle. He was yanked off the cart and slammed into the mud.
It was one of the convoy's sergeants — a man with arms thick as tree trunks, wearing studded leather armor. Not a street militiaman, but a veteran of the aura infantry.
"I knew we had a stowaway," the sergeant growled, pulling on the whip.
Ash tried to rise. His pale blue eyes flared reflexively. He saw the fault on the whip, the exact point to strike to sever it. He lunged, hand outstretched to tear the leather…
But he was too slow.
The sergeant, trained for combat, didn't let him near. With a swift motion, he infused the whip with Aura. The leather stiffened and heated. Before Ash could touch it, the sergeant delivered a crushing kick to his solar plexus.
Ash was thrown back, his lungs emptied instantly. He tried to focus on the "lines" of his opponent, but the pain was too diffuse. The Atom Sight revealed the sergeant's armor weak spot under the armpit, but Ash couldn't lift his arm.
"What are you staring at with those demon eyes, boy?" the sergeant said, grabbing him by the hair and lifting his head. "You think you're a warrior? You're just a starving frontier kid."
Ash tried to spit in the man's face, but received a brutal punch to the jaw instead. The taste of iron filled his mouth. His head hit the ground, and the world went black for a few seconds.
Intervention of the "Sold""Stop! He's a passenger under the protection of House Ironbound!"
The voice was familiar. Ash, vision blurred by the blood running from his brow, saw Lyra approach, flanked by two other "Sold." She held Ash's iron coin, which she had picked up after his escape from the inn.
The sergeant paused, eyeing the coin warily.
"This trash owns this?"
"He's a personal agent of Duke Korth on a secret mission," Lyra lied with incredible composure, though her hands shook beneath her sleeves. "If you kill him, you'll have to explain to the Duke why his delivery was interrupted."
The sergeant cursed under his breath. The politics of the Dukes were a minefield he preferred to avoid. He released Ash like a sack of grain.
"Throw him in with the other Sold. If he starves before the capital, not my problem."
The Reality of the DivideAsh was dragged to the cart of the young mages. He collapsed in a corner, gasping. Lyra sat beside him, handing him a canteen of water and a piece of stale bread.
"You're stupid, Ash," she whispered. "You almost got yourself killed for a bit of water."
"I could've… broken him," Ash mumbled, jaw throbbing.
"No, you couldn't," Lyra cut him off. "You might see the faults, but you have no strength. You're like a man who sees cracks in a dam but only has a needle to try to pry it open. Against someone using Aura, your peasant body is nothing but straw."
Ash said nothing. He hated that she was right. He looked at the other "Sold" in the cart — all cleaner, better educated. One blond boy, Kaelen, looked at him with blatant disdain.
"Why are we dragging this savage along?" Kaelen asked. "He doesn't even have a drop of mana. He'll slow us down when we reach the Dawn Gate trials."
"He has a Duke's coin," Lyra reminded him. "And he survived the frontier. That's already more than you've done in your luxury orphanage, Kaelen."
Learning PatienceThe journey lasted another two weeks. For Ash, it was a period of suffering and humiliation — but also of observation.
He learned that the "Sold" weren't that powerful. Yes, they had mana, but they didn't know how to use it. They exhausted themselves trying to levitate pebbles or create tiny sparks.
Ash, meanwhile, trained in secret. Not striking, but conserving. He realized that his Atom Sight devoured his energy like fire consumes wood. To survive the Academy, he would have to activate it for only a fraction of a second, at the precise moment of impact. He had to become a blade that only leaves its sheath at the last moment.
He spent hours staring at the convoy wheels, trying to locate the breaking point without using his power, just with normal vision. He learned to read the world organically, keeping his special sight as a desperate last resort.
The Dawn GateOn the fifteenth day, the landscape changed dramatically. Forests gave way to plains of white marble and hanging gardens. The sun was now a constant, oppressive presence, used by Imperial mages to power floating crystals along the road.
Then it appeared.
Magna Solis.
The capital wasn't a city; it was a carved mountain. Ivory towers rose so high they disappeared into the clouds. At the center, a dome of pure gold reflected sunlight with such intensity that Ash had to look away.
But what struck Ash most was the Dawn Gate — the entrance to the Aethelis Academy. Two statues of giants in armor, fifty meters tall, flanked a crystal arch.
"This is where it all begins," Lyra said, face pale. "The entrance test. Fail, and you're sent to the mines or sold as a domestic slave. No second chances."
Ash stepped down from the cart. He was thin, scarred, and his clothes were little more than dark rags. He was no longer the arrogant boy who had defied the Church guard. He was again the hungry predator of the frontier — but now, he knew he was the weakest in the arena.
He clutched the iron coin in his hand. Cold. His only friend.
In front of the gate, hundreds of young nobles arriving in luxurious carriages already mocked the Sold coming by the mineral convoy. One noble, atop a white horse, stopped in front of Ash and Lyra. He bore the Bloodworth House crest.
"Look at this pile of trash," the noble laughed. "The Academy is really turning into a public dump. And you, ghost… you expect to pass with your stench of carrion?"
Ash lifted his head. For the first time in two weeks, he did not look down. His Atom Sight activated for a fraction of a second, just enough to see that the noble's spine was misaligned due to his arrogant posture.
"I plan on stepping over your corpse if you stay in my way," Ash replied.
The noble's laugh choked off. Lyra closed her eyes, desperate. Ash's big mouth had returned — at the worst possible moment.
The test was about to begin. And Ash still had no idea what was expected of him.