Chapter 2:
Sung Min didn't remember how he got back to his dorm.
One moment, he was in the forest, blue flame curling around his fingers. The next, he was sitting on his bed, breath fogging in the cold night air, his coat damp with morning dew.
He stared at his hands. They were empty now. No flame, no heat. Just the faint memory of power thrumming under his skin.
Had it been real?
He reached into his coat pocket and froze.
There, wrapped in a strip of black cloth, was a stone shard , chipped from the pillar. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
Morning came with sharp bells and tired footsteps. The academy returned to life around him, but Sung Min moved through it like a ghost within a ghost. He barely heard Baek Joon's usual taunts, barely noticed Kim Jing-Woo's smug smirk in the halls.
But something had changed.
People didn't see him, not really. But they hesitated a second longer now. Glanced his way with narrowed eyes. A few gave him wide berth, as if they sensed something ,something they couldn't name.
In Ancient Lore class, Professor Lian was lecturing on the "Fabled Orders" , the legendary magical guardians who had supposedly existed before the Founding of Daesan Academy.
"There were once Five," she said, tapping the board with a glowing pointer. "Each aligned to a force beyond the known elements, Flame, Time, Bone, Echo, and the Void. Their power was said to shape empires."
Sung Min blinked.
Flame. Void.
His heart pounded.
"The Fifth," Lian continued, "was never recorded by name. Some say they vanished. Others say they betrayed the rest. The histories are…incomplete."
He raised his hand before he could stop himself.
Professor Lian looked surprised. "Yes… Sung Min, is it?"
"What if they didn't vanish?" he asked quietly. "What if the Fifth was hidden?"
A few students snickered.
Professor Lian raised an eyebrow. "That would be quite the discovery. But our job is to study records, not myths. The Fifth is lost to time."
Sung Min lowered his hand, cheeks burning. But he caught the flicker in her expression, not dismissal. Curiosity.
Or worry.
That evening, he found a note slipped under his door. Unmarked. No seal.
"Meet me at the Hall of Shadows. Midnight. Come alone."
His breath caught.
The Hall of Shadows was forbidden to first-years. Abandoned after a magical accident decades ago. They said echoes still walked the halls — not ghosts exactly, but memories. Trapped spells.
He clutched the stone shard tighter in his hand.
Something was calling him again.
And this time, he wouldn't run.