Morning drills never felt like mornings.
They felt like verdicts.
The kind that arrived before the sun, before warmth, before the body had fully remembered what rest was supposed to feel like. The air still carried the bite of night when the horns sounded, sharp and unforgiving, echoing between stone barracks like a sentence being read aloud.
The military exercises resumed without ceremony.
No speeches. No encouragement. No illusion of fairness.
Just shouted orders, boots slamming into formation, and the quiet, grinding realization that surviving yesterday meant nothing today.
Cadet Squad 28—my squad—stood assembled in tight rows. Twenty-five of us. Some with bandaged arms, some with sleepless eyes, some gripping their gear a little too tightly, as if it might vanish if they loosened their hold. Faces hardened by exhaustion, eyes sharpened by fear, ambition, or desperation.
Before the sun had fully climbed, orders came down swiftly.
Joint training.
Cadet Corps 34 .Cadet Corps 56.
Seventy-five bodies in total.
Seventy-five variables—colliding histories, different instincts, different thresholds for pain.
We were marched out beyond the barracks, past the outer drill yards, into the extended training grounds. The land there bore the marks of repeated violence: scorched soil, fractured stone, shallow craters already filled in by repair Axiom. Layered barrier pylons ringed the field, humming softly, ready to catch lethal mistakes before they became deaths.
Observation towers loomed at the perimeter.
Instructors and officers watched from above, silhouettes unmoving, eyes cataloging everything.
The Vanguard Concord did not train specialists.
It trained survivors.
Different instructors oversaw different aspects of combat, and none of them overlapped in mercy.
General Ignis commanded weapon combat and bodily maneuvering.Court Mage Roseanne oversaw Axiom manipulation and magical discipline.
Both tracks ran in parallel.
Both escalated relentlessly.
Neither slowed for anyone.
—
I stood within the Axiom training circle, my squad arranged around me in wide concentric arcs. The ground beneath our feet was etched with dense runic lattices—feedback grids designed not to assist, but to punish. Any imbalance, any inefficiency, any hesitation would be reflected back into the caster.
Magnified.
Court Mage Roseanne paced before us, hands clasped behind her back.
Her presence was sharp. Controlled. Absolute.
She was neither young nor old—silver streaks threaded through raven hair pulled tightly behind her head, her court robes reinforced with subtle Axiom conductors sewn into the seams. She carried no staff.
She did not need one.
"Control," she said calmly, voice cutting through the morning air without effort, "is not power."
Her gaze swept across us, lingering only briefly on each cadet—just long enough to make the weak shift uncomfortably.
"It is restraint."
She raised a single hand.
A wave of pressure surged outward.
Not raw force—resonance.
Axiom tuned precisely to disrupt internal circulation.
Several cadets flinched instantly. One collapsed to a knee, choking as their internal flow spasmed violently.
"Again," Roseanne ordered, already turning away.
We raised our hands.
I did too.
And immediately felt it—
The imbalance.
My Axiom surged in uneven pulses, familiar pressure building too fast, too violently, as if the pure half of it refused to wait for the impure side to stabilize. I forced my breathing to slow, tried to shape the flow through the internal circuits Roseanne had drilled into us.
Failed.
The runic grid beneath my boots flared crimson.
Feedback struck.
Pain lanced through my arm—not burning, not sharp—just wrong, like a foreign frequency vibrating through bone.
"Incorrect distribution," Roseanne said without even looking back. "Again."
I adjusted.
Slower intake. Tighter limiter.
Failed.
Again.
The spell collapsed mid-formation, logic unraveling before structure could stabilize. The runes dissolved into static light, dispersing uselessly into the air.
"Again."
Sweat slid down my temples, stinging my eyes. My teeth clenched as I forced myself to reset.
Around me, cadets began succeeding. Small constructs formed cleanly. Stabilized flux held steady. Controlled output shimmered briefly before being dismissed.
I lagged.
Always lagged.
My half-impure Axiom resisted refinement. The pure half surged ahead, overwhelming it, creating interference patterns that shredded delicate control.
Weeks passed like this.
Not skipped.
Endured.
Each day brought new drills—compression exercises that crushed internal flow into painful density, split-casting that demanded simultaneous control of opposing vectors, layered limiter formations designed to fail unless executed perfectly.
Roseanne made us dismantle spells mid-cast, rebuild them backward, sustain unstable constructs until our hands shook, then release them without backlash.
I failed more times than I succeeded.
And every failure etched itself deeper into muscle, mind, and instinct.
—
By noon, Axiom drills ended.
Bodies did not rest.
They transitioned.
The hum of magic gave way to the clang of steel.
General Ignis awaited us on the weapon grounds.
No ceremonial armor today.
Just training gear.
And presence.
Weapons racks lined the field—swords, lances, halberds, shields, weighted batons. Ignis moved among them as if they were already part of him, fingers brushing grips, feet adjusting unconsciously to balance and reach.
He demonstrated first.
Sword into lance—distance closed instantly.
Lance into halberd—momentum redirected, not resisted.
Halberd discarded—bare hands flowed seamlessly into joint locks and throws.
Each movement was precise.
Efficient.
Lethal.
No wasted motion. No flourish.
At his right belt hung a gun.
Steampunk in design—brass inlays, reinforced barrel, etched channels faintly glowing with dormant Axiom conductors.
I stared longer than I meant to.
A co-squad member leaned toward me. "A gun, huh? Surprised?"
"…Is that standard military practice here?" I asked quietly.
He snorted. "Guns are for incompetents. Those who can't wield steel or magic."
Then he lowered his voice.
"But not the General. Story goes he took that from a pirate lord. Solo raid. That pirate was planning to assassinate King Eeza."
I looked back at the weapon.
So even norms could be bent.
If earned.
"You think you could wield one?" he teased. "Don't even try. We're not Ignis. We'd be laughed out of the Concord."
I didn't reply.
Training began.
Pair drills. Group suppression. Weapon swaps mid-engagement.
I had no assigned weapon.
Just my body.
Eyes followed me—some wary, some annoyed, some openly fearful. The reputation from the forest clung to me like smoke.
A maniac. A berserker.
During sparring, I was paired against a veteran cadet.
He advanced confidently, blade angled to intimidate.
I stepped inside his reach.
Redirected.
Struck.
Dropped him with a shoulder throw that drove the air from his lungs.
The ground shook.
Whispers spread.
Ignis watched.
I felt it.
—
By twilight, the final exercise commenced.
The sun had already begun its descent, bleeding orange and violet through the fractured clouds above the training grounds. Long shadows stretched across the scarred field, warped by craters, broken stone, and the faintly glowing runic pylons that marked the battlefield's limits.
Live combat simulation.
No restraints beyond survival.
Cadet Squad 28 versus Cadet Squads 34 and 56.
Seventy-five cadets.
Two opposing forces converging under fading light.
The signal flare detonated overhead—and the field erupted.
Explosions hammered against the barrier walls, dull thunder rolling outward as compressed Axiom slammed into invisible limits. Steel rang sharply, blade against blade, the sound cutting through the chaos like screams of metal. Shields flared into existence—hexagonal planes of light, circular wards, layered constructs—only to shatter or recoil as spells detonated against them.
Bodies were thrown across the ground.
Some rolled. Some skidded. Some barely managed to rise before another wave crashed into them.
This wasn't a duel.
It was a storm.
A controlled one—but barely.
Shouted commands overlapped. Warnings came too late. The air vibrated with residual Axiom, thick enough to taste—metallic, dry, almost bitter at the back of my throat.
Chaos.
But not random.
Controlled.
I forced myself to breathe.
In.
Out.
I remembered Roseanne's voice—calm, merciless.
Control is not power. Restraint is.
I planted my feet.
My right hand—bandaged, scorched, still aching faintly from earlier drills—rose slowly before me. The cloth was already darkened, brittle at the edges, as if it knew what I was about to do.
Carefully.
Deliberately.
I began constructing the spell.
Not rushing.
Not forcing it.
One individual magic circle at a time.
The Core Rune Circle assembled first—clean, defined, establishing the spell's identity. The runes locked into place with a soft harmonic pulse, like a heartbeat forming.
Next came the Vector Runes Circle—directional logic snapping into alignment, threads of intent reaching outward, defining trajectory and dispersal angles.
The Catalyst Runes Circle followed—compression matrices spinning slowly, gathering potential, shaping force into something coherent rather than wild.
I tightened the Limiter Runes Circle, layering safeguards into the structure. Output thresholds. Dampeners. Emergency collapse protocols.
Finally—the Anchor Runes Circle.
Stability.
The most delicate part.
My palm glowed faintly as the completed magic circle formed beneath it, runes interlocking in elegant symmetry.
ᛋᚱ ᚲᛉ ᛚᚨ(Serra Conflux Latus — Directed Blast)
(Axiom-compressed concussive release along defined vectors.)
I adjusted the output fractionally lower.
Limiter tightened.
Anchor reinforced.
For a brief moment—
It held.
Then—
Fluctuation.
A shudder rippled through the circle—not from poor structure, but interference.
My breath caught.
The pure Axiom surged.
Unbidden.
Unrestrained.
It flooded the system faster than the limiter could compensate, pressure spiking violently as the impure half lagged behind, failing to stabilize the flow.
"—No."
Too much.
The spell detonated.
Not outward.
Everywhere.
The explosion tore across the battlefield like a collapsing star, shockwaves slamming into barriers with enough force to make the pylons scream, their runes flaring bright as they absorbed the impact. Cadets were lifted off their feet, thrown back in arcs of armor and light, weapons ripped from hands as the ground cracked beneath the blast.
Dust and light swallowed everything.
For a heartbeat—
Silence.
Then the echoes came.
My bandage disintegrated.
Burned away in a spiral of ash.
The scorched skin beneath was exposed—red, raw, faintly glowing with unstable residue, the mark pulsing like an open wound that refused to close.
No screams.
No alarms.
The barriers had held.
No one was hurt.
But the field had gone still.
Too still.
I felt it before I saw it.
The fear.
Eyes turned toward me—wide, cautious, some filled with disbelief, others with something closer to dread. Whispers crawled through the ranks like insects under skin.
Then the voice came.
Amplified.
Cold.
"Elrin Mornye. Squad Captain. Report immediately."
My chest tightened.
The command center.
They had been watching.
Every rune.Every fluctuation.Every mistake.
I lowered my hand slowly, fingers trembling—not from pain, but from the weight of realization.
I knew it.