The sun was shining brighter than usual, probably because summer was just around the corner. Not that it mattered to me. Today promised only one thing: hellish embarrassment.
After a few hours on the bus, we finally arrived at the training grounds, better known as the Camp Grounds. It doubled as both a wilderness camp and a high-level training facility. Each student got their own room to prepare. I picked the most secluded one I could find, hoping no one would bother me. I had barely begun unpacking when the door creaked open.
Alice.
She stepped in silently, her blue eyes cold and unreadable. My rival in homeroom and defense class. She always had something to prove when it came to me. We just stood there. Silent. Locked in a contest of wills
.
Just as I opened my mouth to speak, James barged in. "I'm sorry, did I interrupt something? I just wanted to see Ty," he said with a grin that screamed trouble.
Great. This was going to bite me later.
"Ty, how ready are you for the exam? 'Cause I know I'm not," Bruce chimed in, snapping me out of my stare-down.
"I'm aiming for an A-rank, maybe," I replied with a shrug.
"I can't say the same for some people," Phil said, giving the rest of us a playful glance.
"Now that we're all here," James began, "let's settle it—Tyrone and Alice. You two have danced around this for too long."
"I agree," Bruce added. "It's been far too long."
"I thought Tyrone was into Aria," Mike said.
"It's Eria, you moron. And she's too shy to even speak to him," Phil jumped in.
"Wait, how do you even know that?" I asked.
"The walls have ears, brother," Robert said with a smirk.
"I thought it was Sage," Phil added. "You know, the Azure Guild Master's daughter? You trying to get your butt roasted?"
While they bickered, I slipped out the door. I needed peace.
Creak. Bang. "Ahh!" I clamped a hand over my mouth.
"Ty, you good?" Robert called from inside.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied.
Standing before me was a short girl with soft features and a quiet energy. Eria.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," she said, voice shaky. "You looked unwell on the bus. I just wanted to check in."
"I'm fine, just tired," I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Ahem!" a voice echoed from behind. My blood ran cold.
The boys.
"Hi, Eria," Mike said, eyes wide with mischief. "We didn't expect to see you here."
Bruce grinned. "We heard Ty talking, so we thought we'd check. Anyway, we'll be leaving—"
Before he could finish, Eria turned invisible and fled.
Finally, some quiet.
I took a walk around a secluded area of the grounds, headphones in, mind wandering. That's when I bumped into a security guard.
"Sorry, sir, I didn't see—"
"No worries, kid," he said with a calm smile, keeping his face turned away.
Weird. And why did my arm sting? I looked down. A fresh cut. He had sliced me—on purpose?
My instincts kicked in. I followed him at a distance, ducking behind trees and hiding when needed. Eventually, he met someone else, a tall figure in a hood, at a restricted area not on the camp map.
"You fool!" the hooded figure shouted. "The boy is the key. He has the power of creation and destruction. With him, we own the world. He's smarter than you think, he's probably already suspicious."
"He didn't see my face," the guard said nervously.
"That makes it worse, idiot." The figure punched him. "Wait for the task force. They'll handle it."
I was shaking. That hand, it was too dark. Not normal. I turned and ran.
When I returned to my room, it looked like the boys had moved in. I packed up and headed for the instructor's office, but then I saw him. The same guard. Laughing with the camp instructor like old friends.
He saw me. I bolted.
I didn't stop running until I found Robert and Bruce. Gasping for air, I told them everything. We decided to lay low and wait until after the exam. Then, we'd report it directly to the school authorities.
The next day came hard and fast.
We were woken up before sunrise, herded out into the Camp Grounds, and told to train until our bones felt like rubber. The ranking ceremony was close, and they wanted us at our peak. No excuses.
The instructors gave us everything: sparring matches, power drills, endurance tests, tactical simulations. It was like they wanted to drain every last drop of energy out of us before we even got ranked.
I was used to it by now, being the outlier. The Null. But my friends? They were on fire.
Literally, in Sage's case.
Her Azure Flame swirled around her as she stepped into the circle, cloaking her in radiant blue light. With a sharp gesture, she released it in a wide arc. The flames didn't burn, they shimmered, purifying everything in their path. The target dummy dissolved into silver dust. She didn't even look proud. Just focused. Like she was holding back.
Mike flexed his fingers beside me. "And that's why you don't piss off an Azure."
"Noted," I muttered.
Mike stepped forward for his turn, summoning metal shards from the nearby dummy graveyard. They hovered around him like orbiting stars, controlled by his magnetic pulse. Then, with a grunt, he shot them toward a reinforced wall. They embedded like bullets.
Phil zipped by, a blur of motion and static. He ran a full lap of the field in five seconds, then skidded to a halt at a crashed training bot.
"Let me try something," he said. He tapped a panel, and the bot's lights flickered on. The thing rebooted. Phil grinned. "Super speed and tech manipulation. I'm basically a one-man pit crew."
"Show-off," Alice muttered from her lane, lifting a dozen training pins with nothing but her mind. Her precision kinesis made each pin hover with perfect symmetry before she fired them through a needle-sized target at twenty meters.
Robert was next. Calm, steady, and impossible to hit. When one of the instructors fired a pulse shot at him, his resonant shield absorbed the blast, vibrated, and sent it right back. It cracked the practice barrier.
Bruce stood behind him, heat rippling off his skin. He touched a chunk of stone, and it began to glow. "Back up," he warned. Then he slammed his fist into it. The rock exploded in molten chunks.
Eria was weaving through a maze of targets with her Ghoststep, vanishing between blinks and appearing behind opponents with whisper-soft steps.
James had copies of himself sparring each other. They moved in sync, almost too real. One of the instructors tried to disrupt the illusion and got knocked flat by a fake punch. Or maybe it wasn't fake.
I trained, too. Hard. Even though I didn't have powers to push. I could still throw a punch, block a hit, outthink someone in a fight. But the pressure was building again, right in the center of my chest. Like something inside me was rattling its cage.
"All examinees, proceed to your testing pods," the loudspeaker blared. "Channel your powers until instructed to stop. Your scores will determine your ranks."
The results came in:
5 S-rankers.
10 A-rankers.
20 B-rankers.
10 C-rankers.
5 D-rankers.
And 1 Null. Me.
The auditorium echoed with the sounds of shuffling feet as we lined up for the inauguration ceremony.
As we lined up, I scanned the other students. Some faces I recognized from class. Others, not so much.
"Looks like we've got some monsters this year," James muttered beside me.
Near the front stood Lena Voss, one of the newly revealed S-Rankers. Quiet. Pale. And always wrapped in a strange shadow that moved even when she didn't. Word was, she once tied up three seniors in combat class without lifting a finger.
A few spots behind her was Darius Holt, one of the more silent A-Rankers. His boots hovered slightly off the ground, like gravity didn't fully apply to him. He clenched his fists, and the tiles beneath his feet cracked. Subtle but heavy.
Nova Clarke was standing to the side, arms crossed. Her ranking was only C, but people gave her a wide berth. Her power didn't explode or slice things, it turned off everything else. The area around her felt weird. Like your powers didn't want to work near her.
Then there was Riku Blaze, B-Ranker, and already looking like he wanted a fight. His gloves were heat-resistant, his eyes burning with literal sparks. Someone said he once blew up an entire practice room because someone touched his sandwich.
And beside him stood Selene Myra, fingers pressed lightly to her temple. She didn't say much, but her eyes glowed faintly, scanning everything. Her power let her see energy patterns, weaknesses, even emotions.
Probably knew everything we were thinking.
"Don't mess with that batch," Mike whispered. "They're not just students.
They're guild material.
I nodded slowly.
Even surrounded by friends, I'd never felt more small.
BOOM! A tower exploded. The training grounds were under attack.