The next morning, Elijah was up before the sun.
His limbs still ached, and his pride still had dents, but the memory of Kat Gravelle's cold dismissal had ignited something in him. He wasn't sure if it was defiance, ambition, or plain stupidity—but it got him out of bed and into his uniform before the alarms even rang.
Their first mentorship session was scheduled for an hour before classes began. The room assigned to them was small and reinforced, marked for advanced dueling and private training. Elijah stepped in and blinked. The air felt heavier—thick, like wading into syrup.
Kat stood in the center, back to him, her hand slightly raised. A faint shimmer hung in the air around her.
"You're two minutes late," she said without turning.
"I'm two minutes early by my standards," Elijah replied, rolling his shoulder. "That might be a personal record."
He didn't even know why he said it. The moment the words left his mouth, a flicker of panic crossed his mind. He wasn't normally like this with people he didn't know. But he found himself defaulting to something Tim might've said—jokey, casual, a little shameless. False bravado, probably. A shield against the weight of standing next to a prodigy.
Kat finally turned, eyes narrowed.
"I don't care about your standards," she said. "I care about results."
Elijah clapped his hands together. "Then I'll make sure my results are early too. Deal?"
Her expression didn't change.
She slowly lowered her hand, and the weight in the air lessened—but didn't disappear.
"That was a controlled gravity field," she said. "I can increase or decrease it across localized zones. We'll be using it for resistance training."
"Oh. Neat," he said, trying not to sound out of breath already. "Do I get a code word if I pass out?"
"Yes," she said flatly. "It's 'get up.'"
Elijah exhaled, rolled his shoulders, and stepped forward. "Right. So what's on the menu?"
"We start with control calibration. Show me Sticky Fingers."
He crouched, pressed his palm to the wall, and activated his ability. The adhesion effect clung to the mat instantly. With a grunt, he lifted both legs off the floor and hung there awkwardly, body trembling under the subtle but constant pull of her gravity.
Kat circled him like a judge inspecting a flawed sculpture. "Your mana flow is unstable. But the grip itself is unusually tenacious. How long can you maintain this under stress?"
"Guess we're about to find out," Elijah said through gritted teeth.
"Good. Walk along the wall. Then the ceiling."
"The ceiling?"
"I can make the pull go sideways. Try not to throw up."
With a flick of her wrist, the pressure shifted again. Elijah grunted as the direction of gravity twisted—his body slid awkwardly along the wall before he found a foothold.
"You are so lucky I didn't eat breakfast," he muttered.
Kat didn't reply, but her eyes narrowed in concentration. Not at him—but at what he might be capable of.
They spent the next forty minutes locked in brutal drills. Kat's control of gravity was terrifyingly precise. She was perfectly capable of controlling the gravity in a way that forced his ability to work to its absolute limits to hold firm. She dialed the force up or down like a dimmer switch, forcing Elijah to adapt every second. There was no rhythm to it—only chaos and adjustment.
She wasn't cruel, exactly. But she was relentless.
"Stick faster."
"Redirect that fall."
"You're compensating with your shoulder. Again."
He failed more often than not—but he kept trying. Every time he felt like quitting, he cracked a dumb joke. Every time she barked a correction, he tossed a line back. Not because he wasn't taking it seriously—but because if he didn't, he might fold under the pressure.
Kat eventually called for a cooldown. Elijah dropped to the mat in a sweaty heap.
"Is it… over?" he gasped.
"For now," she said, seated on a bench, sipping from a matte-black canteen. "Your stamina's better than expected. You held up longer than half the first-years would under focused gravity."
"Wow," he wheezed. "So that's what a compliment sounds like in your language."
She glanced at him. "Don't get used to it."
"You say that like I didn't just spend forty minutes playing reverse pin-the-dummy-on-the-wall."
Kat almost smiled. Not quite—but her voice lost a degree of its usual chill.
"Same time tomorrow."
Elijah lifted a hand in a shaky thumbs-up.
At the door, Kat paused and looked back.
"I saw your fight with Claro," she said. "Sloppy. Reckless. But… you didn't panic. That matters more than you think."
And then she left.
Later – Lunchtime
Elijah dropped his tray across from Tim's with a sigh that could have flattened a mountain.
Tim looked up, mid-bite into a protein bar. "You look like you got run over by a rhino."
"Gravity-enhanced rhino," Elijah corrected, setting his drink down. "Name's Kat."
Tim grinned. "You survive your mentorship date?"
"If by survive you mean humiliate myself with dignity, then yes."
"Hey, that's the only kind of victory that counts around here."
They tapped drinks.
"So what's next?" Tim asked.
"I keep training," Elijah said. "Try not to pass out. Maybe climb a rank or two before I die."
"Small goals. I respect that."
Elijah smirked. "What about you? Going for Top 100?"
Tim nodded, eyes glinting. "Yeah. Claro's hanging on by a thread. I'm gonna knock him out of the double-digits before the exams."
"That'll push him right off the edge."
"Good," Tim said. "About time someone showed him his ceiling."
They both leaned back, watching the shimmering leaderboard above.
Elijah glanced at Kat's name at the very top, then at his own buried at the bottom.
One step at a time.
- - -
In a quiet upper wing of the Academy, long after the leaderboard update had faded from public view, Kat Gravelle sat across from a stern-eyed man in a dark gray uniform. His badge bore the insignia of the Educational Oversight Division, but she knew he had ties beyond that.
"Requesting clarification," Kat said, posture perfect as always, but her voice edged with barely restrained tension. "My mentorship assignment. Why Elijah Eneri?"
The man didn't blink. "He is a late bloomer. Your responsibility is to elevate him."
"There are others more promising. His ability is Epsilon-tier—adhesive kinetic field. F-tier, effectively useless in combat without creative application."
"Precisely. That's why this test matters."
Kat narrowed her eyes. "A test for me or for him?"
The man's fingers tapped rhythmically on the desk. "For both. Your leadership development is under scrutiny. And if you cannot elevate someone with no prospects, how can your family be trusted with broader influence?"
The Gravelle name carried weight—she knew that. But lately, the pressure had shifted. It wasn't just about her strength anymore.
"There's something you're not telling me," she said, tone deceptively flat. "No one assigns a Gravelle to an Epsilon-tier unless there's more at stake."
The man smiled faintly. "Speculation doesn't suit you, Miss Gravelle. Focus on results."
Her eyes held on him a second longer, searching, then gave a small nod. "Understood."
As she left the room, her thoughts raced. That brief spike on the mana monitor during Elijah's sparring session… the sudden mentorship assignment… and now that cryptic response.
She didn't like being in the dark.
Not one bit.
⸻
Elsewhere, in a hidden compound beneath the city's western ridge, the Echo Project churned forward.
Dozens of sealed capsules lined the walls of a subterranean laboratory, each holding a restrained subject—some conscious, many unconscious. Tubes fed mana-infused serum into their veins, while glowing sigils etched into the metal pulsed with synchronized energy.
A tall figure in a pristine lab coat stepped forward, flanked by two armed guards wearing the insignia of a splinter division: Black Mark—a rogue offshoot operating under the fringes of the Hyuman government.
"Subject 17 has stabilized," the technician reported. "Baseline compatibility between primary and Echo imprint is holding… for now."
The figure checked the vitals on a monitor. "What about cognitive stability?"
The technician hesitated. "Intermittent. Lucid for brief windows, then erratic aggression. Classic Echo Syndrome signs."
"I see," the figure muttered. "Increase neural dampening for now. We can't afford another breach like what happened in Site Twelve."
"What about the wild card?" another assistant asked, pulling up a new file on the display.
Elijah Eneri – Age 14 – Epsilon Tier – Echo Potential: Latent
Status: Passive Monitoring
Assigned Proximity Anchor: Kat Gravelle
"Still latent. No contact. No signs of dual resonance," the technician confirmed.
The lead researcher narrowed their eyes. "But the resonance spikes are increasing."
Another tech frowned. "You think it's going to happen naturally?"
"If it does," the lead said, "we won't need to induce anything. Just wait."
They looked up at the screen where Elijah's sparring footage played back in slow motion—the moment where he flung Claro to the mat.
"F-tier," the researcher whispered. "What a joke."
Then they smiled.
"Let's see how long he stays that way."
⸻
As Elijah and Tim walked the long corridor toward the class halls, the lingering aches in Elijah's legs had gone from sharp to dull—almost rhythmic. Every step reminded him of the morning session. Of the gravity pressing down on his chest like an invisible weight.
He hadn't realized how exhausting being mentored by Kat Gravelle could be. Not just physically, but mentally. She didn't yell or insult him outright, but every word was precise, every command calculated to expose his weakest points. He'd thought maybe she'd warm up once they trained. Instead, she became more focused. Sharper.
More dangerous.
"I get now why she's at the top," he muttered.
"Huh?" Tim glanced over, juggling a mana bar in one hand and his schedule in the other.
"Kat. It's not just power. She's relentless. Like she's trying to beat the world before it notices she showed up."
Tim raised an eyebrow. "And she's stuck training you. That's gotta sting."
"Thanks for the reminder," Elijah said flatly.
But even as he said it, a strange pride flickered in his chest.
She hadn't wanted him. Thought he was a waste of her time. But she still trained him seriously. Didn't hold back. Didn't coddle.
That had to mean something.
He looked at his own hands. Sore. Scratched. Still trembling from the weight training.
"Maybe she's right," he murmured. "If I'm going to claw my way out of dead last… I'll need more than luck."
Tim gave him a sideways glance. "You know, for a guy who sticks to things, you sure are slippery when it comes to compliments."
"I'm working on it," Elijah replied. "Little by little."
Tim paused as they reached the hallway junction. "Seriously though—don't burn out. This school chews people up."
"I don't plan on being digestible," Elijah said, flashing a wry grin.
Tim barked a laugh, then nodded and jogged off toward his class.
Alone again, Elijah continued down the quiet hall, the chatter of students fading behind him. His body still ached, but a small part of him—deep down—felt something else.
Stirring.
He paused beside a sunlit window, stretching one shoulder.
And that's when it hit him.
A hum.
Faint. Internal. Like a whisper under his skin.
Not a sound, exactly—more like a shift. A moment of pull, like something invisible trying to drag his awareness sideways. The air felt… thicker. Like his own mana signature had brushed against something foreign and familiar at the same time.
"What the…?"
He turned. Nothing.
No students nearby. No fluctuation in the lights. Just a soft breeze through the open windows.
But the feeling lingered, just long enough to raise goosebumps.
Then it was gone.
He stood there for a second longer, heart picking up pace.
"…Weird," he muttered.
And then the bell rang, snapping him back to reality.
He adjusted his bag and moved on, but the sense of being watched, of being weighed—echoed faintly behind him.