The academy did not slow after the joint duels.
If anything, it accelerated.
By the following morning, the training grounds had been reset with unsettling efficiency. Boundary pillars were re-aligned. The elevated platforms were dismantled and stored away. The faint scarring left behind by dozens of wooden blades—chips in stone, shallow grooves etched by repeated footwork—had been scrubbed clean until the floor returned to its uniform, indifferent gray.
It was as if the duels had never happened.
Cain noticed this before most.
Students gathered early, moving through the corridors in steady streams, their voices lower than usual. Some spoke quietly about techniques they had seen. Others replayed moments under their breath, adjusting imaginary stances while walking. A few laughed, but the laughter was restrained, controlled—less relief and more nervous energy.
No one argued openly.
No one bragged.
The academy had absorbed the event and redistributed its weight.
Cain walked with the flow, his pace even, his posture unchanged. Rei fell into step beside him halfway down the corridor, yawning widely as he tightened the strap of his satchel.
"I swear," Rei muttered, rubbing at his eyes, "I thought today would be light. At least a recovery lecture or something."
Cain kept his gaze forward. "Recovery isn't part of the curriculum."
Rei glanced at him. "You say that like it's obvious."
"It is."
Rei exhaled through his nose. "This place really doesn't care how tired you are, does it?"
"No," Cain replied. "It cares whether you adapt."
That earned him a quiet laugh.
They reached the lecture hall with the rest of Class 1B. The room filled quickly, students settling into familiar seating patterns without instruction. Cain took his usual place near the center, resting his forearms lightly on the desk.
Around him, the atmosphere felt… sharpened.
Yesterday's duels had not created unity. They had created awareness.
People knew where they stood now.
Instructor Halden entered precisely on time.
He did not greet them.
He did not acknowledge the noise fading at his arrival.
He simply stepped to the front of the room and spoke.
"Today," Halden said, voice level and unembellished, "you will be observing curses."
The effect was immediate.
Not fear.
Curiosity.
A few students straightened in their seats. Others leaned forward slightly. Someone near the back inhaled sharply, then caught themselves.
"Before all this, let me tell you about curses."
Halden turned toward the board and drew a rough spiral with a single piece of chalk. No summoning array. No activation glyphs. Just a layered curve that folded inward on itself.
"Curses are not summoned entities," he said. "They are not beasts. They are not spirits."
The chalk tapped the board once.
"They are residue."
He added a second line, thickening the spiral.
""They are residual mana given form by intent."
A pause.
"Hatred. Regret. Obsession. Fear."
The chalk traced inward. "When mana lingers long enough with purpose, it condenses. When it condenses, it resists dispersal. When it resists long enough—"
The chalk tapped the center of the spiral.
"It becomes a curse."
There was no fear in his voice. No mysticism.
"The academy uses low to mid-grade curses under strict containment for training purposes," Halden continued. "They are sealed, regulated, and monitored. You will not engage them today."
A ripple of murmurs moved through the room.
"You will observe how they are handled."
Halden turned toward the doors. "Senior students will demonstrate."
---
The observation chamber lay beneath the academy proper, accessed by a wide stone stairwell that descended gradually, its steps worn smooth by centuries of passage.
Cain felt it the moment he crossed the threshold.
Not danger.
Not hostility.
Density.
Mana behaved differently here—thicker, slower to respond, as though the space itself resisted rapid fluctuation. The walls were reinforced with layered sigils, subtle enough that most students missed them entirely. Cain did not.
This place had been reinforced again and again.
Rei leaned closer as they descended. "You feel that, right?"
"Yes."
"It's like the air's heavier."
"Mana saturation," Cain said quietly.
Rei whistled under his breath. "Figures they'd keep this underground."
The chamber opened wide at the base of the stairs. Stone pillars ringed the perimeter, each etched with containment runes. Instructors positioned themselves evenly around the space, hands clasped behind their backs, expressions unreadable.
At the center stood three senior students.
Calm.
Composed.
Their presence alone quieted the room.
An instructor raised a hand.
A containment seal activated.
Within it, mana began to gather.
The curse did not erupt.
It formed.
Dark, unstable, pulsing faintly—not with intention, but with the echo of one long since gone. It twisted slowly, reacting to presence rather than initiating action, like smoke drawn toward movement.
Cain watched closely.
The curse was low-grade.
But cleanly stabilized.
The seniors moved.
One anchored the curse's movement, using controlled mana flow rather than force. Another disrupted its internal pattern, unraveling the condensed loops that held it together. The third sealed the residual core with practiced efficiency.
The entire process took less than a minute.
No shouting.
No excess motion.
When it was done, the curse dispersed cleanly, leaving nothing behind.
"Remember this," Halden said quietly from behind the first-years. "Curses are not fought with power. They are dismantled with understanding."
Cain absorbed every step.
The technique was sound.
The seals were intact.
And yet—
Something did not sit right.
Not with the curse.
Not with the seniors.
With the space beneath.
His gaze drifted briefly to the stone floor under the containment seal. There was nothing visibly wrong. No crack. No distortion.
Still, his fingers tightened slightly against the fabric of his robe.
The demonstration continued. Another curse was introduced. Another dismantled. Each execution flawless.
Too flawless.
By the time the class was guided back toward the upper levels, the initial tension had eased. Conversations resumed, speculation replacing silence.
"Did you see how clean that seal was?"
"They barely even touched it."
"That's senior-level control…"
Cain followed with the others.
The sensation did not follow him.
But it did not vanish either.
It lingered.
Deep.
Unresolved.
Far below the academy's foundations, containment systems older than memory remained intact—holding something that had been sealed long before Cain ever arrived.
For now.