The first two weeks at Aethelgard had been a clinical exercise in categorization. For the elite of the Apex Tier, the honeymoon period of induction was over, replaced by the relentless, humming pressure of the Placement Diagnostics. These weren't final exams, but they determined the Mana-Priority for each squad—essentially, who got the best equipment, the longest training hours, and the first pick of the upcoming Gate excursions.
Alaric sat in the Tier-One lecture hall, the morning sun casting long, sharp shadows across his desk. Beside him, Elara sat with a steady, quiet focus. She didn't look at him, but her posture was perfectly attuned to his movements, her own notes a mirrors-edge reflection of the lecture's core points.
On the far side of the room, Caspian was struggling. Alaric could hear the heavy, rhythmic tap of the Northerner's foot against the stone floor. To a man who had spent his life swinging a claymore in the frozen tundra, the abstract mathematics of Mana-Conductive Lattice Theory was a special kind of torture.
"Mana is not a constant," the Professor, a gaunt man named Hesper, droned from the dais. "It is a variable influenced by the observer's internal resonance. If your resonance is jagged, your output will be inefficient. Today's diagnostic is simple: stabilize a Grade-2 resonance crystal for sixty minutes while transcribing the Void-Geometric proofs on your tablet."
It was a test of multitasking—a core skill for any leader who needed to manage a squad's mana-pool while performing high-level spells.
Alaric reached for the resonance crystal on his desk. It was a jagged shard of translucent violet quartz that vibrated with a discordant, high-pitched hum. The moment his fingers brushed it, the vibration smoothed out into a low, steady thrum. To Alaric's Hyper-Intellect, the discord was just a series of misaligned frequencies. He didn't fight the crystal; he simply projected a telekinetic sleeve that forced the atoms into a symmetrical alignment.
With his other hand, he began to write. The stylus moved in a blur of silver light, transcribing the complex geometric proofs with a precision that bordered on the mechanical.
Observation: The crystal's oscillation suggests a 0.04% impurity in the quartz. Correcting for it requires a 2-degree shift in the telekinetic focal point.
He glanced over at his squad.
Leo was sweating profusely, his heavy hands looking clumsy as they tried to cradle the delicate crystal. Seraphina's crystal was glowing with a pale, stuttering white light—her Divine Clarity was making her too sensitive to the crystal's inherent noise.
And then there was Caspian.
The Northerner wasn't even using the stylus. He was staring at the crystal as if he wanted to headbutt it. His mana-output was a raw, volcanic heat that made the air around his desk shimmer. The crystal in his hand wasn't stabilizing; it was beginning to glow a dangerous, angry red.
"Lord Caspian," Professor Hesper remarked, his voice dry. "The goal is resonance, not combustion. If you crack that shard, the mana-backlash will take out the first three rows."
Caspian let out a low, guttural snarl. "The North doesn't stabilize mana, Professor. We use it. This is a waste of time."
"Is it?" Alaric asked softly, not looking up from his writing. "If you can't stabilize a shard of quartz, Caspian, how do you plan to stabilize the mana-circuits of your teammates when we hit a High-Rank Rift? A Berserker who cannot regulate his output is just a bomb waiting for a fuse."
The room went silent, save for the hum of the crystals. Caspian's head snapped toward Alaric. His eyes, usually clouded with a brooding darkness, flashed with a visceral, ancient hatred. It wasn't the look of a student being insulted; it was the look of a man being lectured by the ghost of his murderer.
"I've survived things your logic can't even name, Thorne," Caspian whispered, his voice a jagged rasp.
"I don't doubt your survival," Alaric replied, his stylus never stopping. "I'm simply questioning your efficiency. Pride is a poor substitute for a functioning mana-shield."
Elara's hand shifted on her desk. She didn't draw her blade, but the temperature in Alaric's immediate vicinity dropped. Her blue eyes locked onto Caspian with a cold, unblinking intensity.
"Enough," Hesper barked. "Focus on your tasks."
The diagnostic ended two hours later. As the students filed out, Alaric stayed behind to audit the peer-review sheets—a privilege granted to the top-ranked student to help the faculty identify outlier talent.
Most of the sheets were standard. High-born students with decent theory; commoners with raw power but no finesse. But as he reached the bottom of the stack, he found a sheet belonging to a student from the auxiliary wing—a boy named Valerius of House Vane.
Valerius was an A-rank, but his diagnostic sheet was... impossible.
He had solved the geometric proofs, but he hadn't used the imperial standard. He had used a derivation that Alaric recognized instantly. It was a theoretical framework Alaric had been working on in the privacy of his own mind—something he called the Shattered Sky Notation. It was a high-risk math designed to stabilize Rifts that were in the process of a Total Reality Collapse. It was incomplete, missing the crucial "Void-Matter" bridge to make it viable.
But on this paper, the bridge was there.
Alaric's heart skipped a beat. For a second, he felt a surge of professional jealousy. Had some other prodigy in the auxiliary wing beaten him to the punch? Had someone else seen the same patterns in the aether and found the solution first?
Then he saw it.
Tucked into the curve of a non-Euclidean vector was a specific, shorthand sigil. It was a Thorne family cipher, a linguistic quirk Alaric used in his private notes to represent the weight of gravity. It was a code he had never published, never spoken aloud, and certainly never taught to a member of House Vane.
How? Alaric thought, his pulse quickening. This isn't just a similar theory. This is my work. My specific, unfinished thoughts, completed by someone else's hand. It's as if someone reached into my head and stole the blueprints before I could even finish the building.
His eyes drifted to the back of the room, where Valerius was packing his bag. The boy looked gaunt, his eyes sunken and surrounded by dark circles. He didn't look like a student who had just achieved a breakthrough; he looked like a man haunted by a ghost.
Alaric looked at the sheet again. In the corner, scribbled in a shaky, frantic hand that was barely legible, were four words:
THE SPIRE FALLS FIRST.
Alaric felt a cold, intellectual chill. The Spire was the central administrative building of Aethelgard. It was the most fortified structure in the Empire. Why would a thief—someone who had somehow intercepted his private research—write a prophecy of doom on a diagnostic exam?
"Alaric?"
Elara was standing in the doorway, her golden hair catching the afternoon light. She looked perfect and calm. She noticed the way he was staring at the diagnostic sheet in his hand. She didn't ask what was on it.
"The Headmaster is waiting for our squad's synchronization report," she said, her voice a soothing, imperial melody. "We shouldn't keep him waiting over a few auxiliary papers."
Alaric looked at the completed Shattered Sky notations one last time before tucking the sheet into his inner vest pocket.
"Of course," Alaric said, offering her his arm. "Let's not keep him waiting."
As they walked down the hall, Alaric's mind was no longer on the curriculum. He was thinking about the logic of the world. He was thinking about Caspian's eyes, Seraphina's trembling hands, and a boy who was using his own secret math to predict the fall of the Empire.
I am the center of a system, Alaric realized, his silver hair shimmering as they passed a window. But someone else has already read my notes. Someone is playing with my own variables before I've even put them on the board.
He glanced at Elara. She was smiling, her step light and graceful. For the first time, he wondered if the logic he loved so much was being used against him by the very people he was meant to lead.
"Is something wrong, Alaric?" she asked, her voice like silk.
"No," Alaric replied, his smile steady and analytical. "I was just thinking that the curriculum is becoming... unexpectedly interesting."