Meditation wasn't optional if you wanted a real evolution.
You could brute-force circulation until your muscles ached and your veins felt like wire, but changing your core's quality—turning it into something that could hold a higher kind of force—was different. Effort only took you halfway.
The rest was stillness.
I sat cross-legged on the rug, back straight, hands resting on my knees. At first, my body complained about everything.
My shoulders wanted to sag.
My thigh went numb.
My thoughts ran in loops—rankings, merits, Maya, Lucas, the dungeon exam, the hundred ways this place could kill me if I made one dumb mistake.
Then the noise thinned.
Breath in.
Breath out.
Longer exhale.
My heartbeat slowed—not because I was relaxed, but because my body finally accepted I wasn't moving.
Good.
That's enough.
Core evolution wasn't just "more magic."
It was the foundation hardening. The container changing shape. The difference between someone with a big pool of water and someone who could turn it into a blade without losing half of it to spillover.
Families treated it like a milestone—not for tradition, but because force-control started growing quirks. Aspects. Weight. Density. Lightness. The kind of properties that decided whether you were a threat… or just another loud student.
I didn't know what my path would lean toward.
The novel didn't spell everything out.
It never did.
I let my eyes close.
And the room dissolved.
Not slowly.
Instantly—like I stepped off a ledge and fell into an ocean of black.
I stood in a void that didn't feel like imagination. It felt like space had been emptied and I was the only thing left inside it. No up. No down. No sound.
Then—
light.
Not a single beam, but dozens of colossal streams overhead—highways made of glass, each one carrying a river of crystal-blue energy. They twisted through the darkness, converging toward one point.
A circle.
Massive.
Silver.
It hovered there like a sealed star, pulsing—bright enough to wash the void in white—then swallowing its own glow back into itself.
The pulses sped up.
The shell trembled.
A thin crack appeared.
Then another.
Fractures spiderwebbed across the surface until the whole circle looked like broken porcelain.
CRACK.
The shell shattered, fragments dissolving before they could fall.
Beneath it—
gold.
A new core, gleaming like sunlight caught in metal.
And as it revealed itself, the darkness filled with tiny blue points—thousands of them—flickering into existence like a sky being rebuilt from scratch.
My eyes snapped open.
The points didn't disappear.
Even in my room, even with bland walls and the quiet hum of the building, they hovered faintly—like dust motes that didn't belong to physics.
A slow grin tugged at my mouth.
"…So that's how it is."
I lifted my arm.
Come.
The dots surged.
Not toward my body in general—toward my intention. They wrapped around my forearm like a living sleeve, gathering faster than I expected, condensing until the air felt thick.
Metaphysical energy.
It coated my arm in a bright, clean layer of force—too sharp to be called a glow. More like light that had decided to become solid.
My heart thudded once, hard.
I swung downward, testing it instinctively.
The energy extended past my fist, stretching into a thin translucent blade that snapped out through the air.
The moment it left my arm, my connection to it thinned—like grabbing a rope already slipping through your fingers.
Stop—
Too late.
KSHHH.
The slash hit the wall and carved a deep line into it.
Not a burn.
A cut.
I stared at the damage, then exhaled slowly through my nose.
"…Yeah. That's going to be a problem."
I dropped back into a seated position immediately. The excitement was real, but I couldn't afford to let it steer me.
Metaphysical control was an advanced course in the Triangle. Most students struggled for months just to form stable constructs. Some never managed it at all.
And I'd just done it by accident.
That wasn't only talent.
That was risk.
I checked my core.
…Almost empty.
My smile vanished.
"Idiot," I muttered.
I closed my eyes again and started circulating, pulling the river back together one thread at a time. It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't fast.
It was necessary.
And I stayed like that—alone in my room—until the night stopped feeling like night and started feeling like morning.
[March 19, XXXX — 06:40]
[Academy Dining Hall]
"Hey, Dreyden—what's your skill?"
"No way it's just copying stuff. Tell us already."
I stabbed at my food and kept my eyes down.
If I had to name what this was, it wasn't fame.
It was infestation.
Ever since the ranking climb, people who used to walk past me like I was furniture suddenly wanted my attention. Some tried friendliness. Some tried pressure. Some tried the fake laugh that meant they were testing how much they could take.
And under all of it, something uglier.
Jealousy.
Not because I'd hurt anyone.
Because I'd moved.
A student at the front table snapped, "He said he doesn't want to talk. Stop bothering him!"
He wasn't defending me.
He was annoyed I wasn't giving him what he wanted.
I didn't reply. They were weaker. They didn't outrank me. Fighting them would waste time and feed the exact story they wanted.
I finished eating, stood, and walked out while the questions followed like flies.
I should check on Maya later.
Today was supposed to be her first time using her skill. If she chose the identity I remembered, the change would hit fast—a different posture, a different confidence, like someone poured fire into her shape.
The thought almost made me laugh.
After class, then.
I had combat training today anyway.
And somehow—somehow—Lucas had gotten my number.
Now he wanted to "train."
I rubbed my face as I walked.
"Please don't turn into a problem," I muttered.
It absolutely would.
[Class A-1 Training Hall]
Swoosh—CLING—CLING.
Steel met brass in fast, clean bursts.
Lucas's sword against my knuckles.
No abilities.
No flashy skills.
Just footwork, angles, timing.
Lucas stepped in with a sharp cut toward my ribs. The blade hissed past my uniform close enough that I felt the air move.
"That one came close," I said, twisting away.
I didn't clash head-on. His weapon was higher grade—if we traded impact, mine would crack first.
So I hunted his grip.
Every exchange, I aimed for the same target: wrist, fingers, control.
Lucas adjusted mid-fight, of course. He always did. But my focus didn't shift.
A fraction of looseness appeared—
I took it.
I stepped inside, caught his arm, twisted it behind him, and drove a controlled strike toward the back of his head—just enough to make him stumble and drop.
Lucas hit the floor with a sharp breath.
He raised both hands immediately.
"Okay," he said, voice slightly strained. Then he grinned. "Two to two."
I grabbed his hand and hauled him up.
"Saying it like that," I said, "makes it sound like you're going easy on me."
"Believe me," he replied, rolling his shoulder, "I'm not."
"Good."
My lungs burned pleasantly. Sweat ran down the side of my face. I liked this kind of exhaustion—it was clean, honest.
But my eyes kept flicking to the way he moved.
The angles.
The pressure.
The footwork that didn't belong to Triangle basics.
I recognized it immediately.
Which made my stomach tighten.
Because I also knew when he was supposed to learn it.
And this wasn't then.
Lucas flexed his fingers, testing his grip. "You don't train in the holographic room?"
"The what?"
He blinked. "You seriously don't know?"
He pointed toward a side corridor. "Combat sims. Styles. Weapon disciplines. It's used for refining technique."
"I didn't even know that existed," I admitted.
He tossed me a water bottle. I caught it, drank—then noticed something worse.
A group of nearby students were watching. Whispering. Eyes wide.
Because now I wasn't just ranked.
I was training with Lucas.
"Aaah… this sucks," I muttered.
Lucas laughed like it was nothing. "You'll get used to it."
That laugh made me want to like him.
And it made me want to punch him.
I wiped sweat from my face with the towel he handed me, then finally said what I'd been holding in.
"Lucas. Why now?"
He frowned like he genuinely didn't understand. "I'm trying to be your friend."
I stared at him.
Then my mouth curved slightly. "So you gave up on making me your subordinate?"
He chuckled. "I knew you wouldn't accept that."
He dropped onto the bench, eyes drifting across the hall where Raisel was sparring—hard—like she was trying to erase something inside herself.
"As if," I muttered, sitting too.
We let the moment breathe.
Then I glanced at him again.
"Alright," I said. "Since we're apparently friends now…"
Lucas looked over.
I chose my words carefully.
"Be careful," I said quietly. "Using that swordsmanship so openly is dangerous."
His grin vanished.
His posture tightened.
"I—I don't know what you mean."
He shifted back half a step.
I caught his wrist before he could retreat—not hard, just enough to stop him from dodging the conversation.
"These idiots might not recognize it," I said low, "but if you use that style in front of the wrong staff here… you'll die."
I let go and stood.
Lucas didn't move. He stared at the floor like his brain was recalculating what "safe" meant.
I turned toward the exit, irritation thinning into something heavier.
Lucas wasn't supposed to have this yet.
And if the timeline was changing here—
then it was changing everywhere.
I exhaled once.
"…This is getting annoying."
And I walked out, already planning how to keep this from becoming the kind of change that got people killed.