The Academy Cafeteria was a sensory assault designed to break the spirit before the afternoon lectures even began. It was a cavernous hall that smelled aggressively of boiled cabbage, damp wool, and the simmering anxiety of a thousand students realising they were not the main character.
I sat at a scarred wooden table with the Slag Squad, staring down at my lunch.
"What is it?" I asked, poking the brown, gelatinous mound on my tray with a spoon. It jiggled threateningly.
"Student Stew," Grace replied, not looking up from the small clockwork spider she was dissecting. "It's mostly root vegetables and... optimism. Eat up. It's free."
Next to me, Kael was proving that "appetite" was a relative term. The giant Berserker had four trays stacked in front of him. He wasn't eating; he was excavating. He shovelled the brown sludge into his mouth with a rhythmic, terrifying efficiency, his grey eyes unfocused as he stared at a point in the middle distance.
'He eats like he's fuelling a furnace,' Ronan observed, sounding impressed. 'I suppose maintaining that much muscle mass requires a constant intake of biomass.'
'He eats like a wood chipper,' I corrected. 'Speaking of which, did I ever tell you about the brother who shoved me into one? Nasty way to go. If I ever see that little psycho piece of shit again, I really ought to give him a piece of my mind.' I paused, letting the grim pun hang in the air. 'Since he's probably the one who ended up wearing most of it.'
Ronan remained pointedly silent. He had a strict policy against encouraging the "gallows comedy."
I took a tentative bite. It tasted like wet cardboard and salt.
'We need money,' I muttered mentally. 'If only so I never have to eat this again.'
I glanced up toward the High Table, a raised platform where the noble houses ate. It was a different world up there—white tablecloths, crystal goblets, and food that actually looked like it had once been alive.
My eyes locked onto a pair of icy blue ones.
Vespera Winter-Moon was sitting with the other Aurelius students, her back straight as a rod. She wasn't eating. She was staring directly at me, her gaze intense and unblinking.
The moment our eyes met, she snapped her head away with a speed that would have given a normal person whiplash. She immediately became fascinated by the curvature of her spoon.
'She's doing it again,' I noted. 'That's the third time.'
'She is analysing you,' Ronan projected, his tone confident. 'She has declared you her Rival. She is likely calculating your threat level, searching for weaknesses in you.'
'Or she thinks I'm handsome,' I countered. 'In a strange, creepy kind of way, you know.'
'No offence, Murph, but I highly doubt it. More likely it's Elf for "I acknowledge your existence," Ronan argued. 'The line between "murderous intent" and "shy curiosity" is very thin with High Elves. Just ignore her.'
I turned back to my squad. "Hey. Hypothetical question."
Finn looked up, milk moustache lining his upper lip. "Yeah?"
"I need cash. Fast. Not a bank, and not a job. Is there... a private investor on campus?"
Grace stopped tinkering. She pushed her goggles up. "You mean a loan shark?"
"I mean a facilitator of liquidity," I corrected.
Finn lowered his voice, leaning in. "There's Henry Black. He's a Third Year in House Vermillion. Runs the underground gambling ring."
"Does he lend?"
"He does," Finn whispered, looking around nervously. "But the interest rates are... Predatory. And if you don't pay, he doesn't send a letter. He sends a guy named 'Knuckles'"
'Sounds charming,' Ronan noted dryly.
'Sounds perfect,' I thought. 'Predatory I can deal with. Bureaucracy I can't.'
"Where do I find him?"
"The Old Bell Tower," Grace supplied. "For an hour after class every day. Just follow the smell of cigar smoke and desperation."
I nodded, filing the information away. "Thanks."
I forced down a few more spoonfuls of the brown sludge.
A bell tolled, deep and mournful.
"Combat Class," Kael rumbled. It was the first thing he'd said all lunch.
The Training Hall was not a classroom. It was a museum of violence.
It was a massive, circular chamber lined with towering stone pillars and racks of weapons of every type you could imagine. But the walls weren't brick or wood; they were lined with massive, ancient stone arches. Each arch was carved from a single block of obsidian, etched with dormant runes that hummed with a low, subsonic vibration. At the back was the doorway to what looked like an office.
'By the Light...' Ronan breathed, his mental voice hushed with reverence. 'The Pocket Dimensions. I haven't seen these active since the War.'
'Pocket Dimensions?' I asked, eyeing the dark, swirling mist inside the nearest arch.
'Ancient spatial magic,' Ronan explained. 'They aren't just rooms, Murphy. They are stable micro-realities anchored to the stone. You can fight inside with full force, destroy the terrain, burn the forest... and when you leave, the runes reset the space. It is the only way to train high-level mages without destroying the school every day.'
'If the city has these safe rooms,' I asked, thinking back to the two men fighting in the dirt outside the Dawn Gate, 'why do people bother duelling in fields outside the walls? Why not just rent one of these and save the collateral damage?'
'Because these aren't public utilities,' Ronan corrected, 'These Arches are likely very rare. The resources to build them would be staggering. They are the most valuable assets in the entire city. You don't let two angry merchants settle a debt in a priceless artefact.'
He paused, his tone turning grim. 'Besides, the Arches have safety protocols. They prevent death. In a Duel of Honour, the risk of death is the entire point. You cannot settle a blood feud in a padded room.'
The students gathered in the centre of the hall, a mix of nervous First Years and arrogant nobles checking their reflections in their polished armour.
Then, the teacher entered.
He didn't march in. He didn't make a grand entrance. He sort of... drifted in.
Master Elrend was a High Elf, but he didn't look like the pristine, statuesque figures in the history books. He looked like a silver blade that had been left out in the rain for a century. His grey hair was tied back in a messy knot. He wore robes that had once been fine silk but were now faded and brown.
He leaned heavily on a cane made of black wood, but he moved with a fluid, careless grace that suggested the cane was more of an accessory than a crutch.
He stopped in front of the class, took a swig from a silver flask, and sighed.
'No...' Ronan's voice stopped dead in my head. It wasn't a thought; it was a gasp of pure, heartbroken shock.
'Ronan? You okay?'
'That's Elrend,' Ronan whispered, his spirit trembling. 'That's... he was a squire to General Romanis. During the Siege of the White Spire. He was later assigned to be my first lieutenant during the war. I knew him. He was just a young man, Murphy. He was bright-eyed... full of songs...'
I looked at the cynical, hungover elf wiping his mouth with his sleeve. 'Well, he's not a boy anymore. He looks like he's seen the world end twice.'
'He has,' Ronan said softly. 'He survived the Fall. He is a ghost.'
"I am Master Elrend," he said, his voice raspy and bored. "I am here to teach you how to inflict violence without embarrassing yourselves. The rules are simple."
He waved his cane at the stone arches.
"Inside the arches, death is temporary. The runes will catch your soul before it departs and knit your body back together outside the portal. It is unpleasant. It feels like being pulled backwards through a keyhole. Try to avoid it. Now grab a weapon and step through."
I picked up an average-looking short-sword off the rack closest to me and made my way through the portal.
Stepping through the obsidian arch was like walking through a curtain of cold, static electricity. The sounds of the Training Hall—the chatter, the shuffling feet—cut out instantly, replaced by the low, humming silence of the Pocket Dimension.
We all stood on a massive circular arena floor made of pale, smooth stone.
When Elrend finally came through, he said, "Pain dampeners are set to fifty per cent. Enough to teach you a lesson, not enough to cripple you mentally. Find a partner. Hit them until they die. It is time to grow up, children. Today, you will face your fear of death. There is only one way you pass this class, and that is by dying here today. Anyone who leaves the rift without dying today will not be allowed back in my class. If you kill someone, you must find a new partner. Fight until you die. If you are the last one left. I will be your opponent."
He turned his back, dismissing us.
I looked around. Most of the students were pairing off. Some simply dropped their weapons and started sobbing. A few simply left via the exit portal, resigned to failing the class.
I spotted Finn looking terrified near the arena wall.
'Finn,' I thought. 'Perfect. Low risk. He can decapitate me, and we can get this over with quickly.'
I started walking toward him.
A shadow blocked out the light.
I stopped. Standing in my path, clad in heavy plate armour that gleamed under the magelights, was Garrick Stone-Hollow.
'The oaf has the same last name as House Stone-Hollow, what gives?' I asked Ronan.
'Stone-Hollow is an old name. I believe it comes from the original Earth mages, who built the empire nearly two hundred years ago. Most likely, he is a distant descendant.' Ronan explained.
He loomed over me, a cruel grin splitting his face. The noise in the hall dropped as students noticed the confrontation.
"Going somewhere, scab?" Garrick rumbled.
"I was going to pair with Finn," I said, keeping my voice even. "Unless you want to dance?"
"Ahh, your power must be mind-reading," Garrick sneered, cracking his knuckles. "I want to see if you bleed as loud as you brag."
"What?! You know that makes no actual sense, right? Aren't you a Second Year?" I asked, tilting my head. "Did you fail Finger-Painting? Why are you in the intro class?"
The insult landed. Garrick's face flushed a dark, angry red.
"I was held back for 'Disciplinary Reasons, '" he growled, stepping closer until he was in my personal space. "My duty to House Thorne supersedes academic timelines. And my duty right now... is to teach a scab like you your place."
'He's baiting you,' Ronan warned, his voice tight. 'He wants to hurt you, Murphy.'
'Thanks for stating the obvious there, Ron!' I said to Ronan as I looked around. The entire class had stopped. Elrend was watching from the corner. He had taken a seat on some arena steps while nursing his flask.
I couldn't fight him properly without revealing the Clones, but in here, I had nothing to worry about. Fifty per cent pain would feel like a warm, gentle bath for me.
"Fine," I said, drawing a practice sword. "Let's get it over with."
Garrick cracked his neck. The sound was like a gunshot.
He took a breath, and his skin changed. It started at his neck, a wave of dull, gunmetal grey spreading rapidly across his face and down his arms. His veins bulged, turning into rigid cables. Within seconds, he wasn't a man anymore; he was a living statue of iron.
'Ferro-Skin,' Ronan analysed, his voice tight with professional assessment. 'High physical defence, significant weight increase. He is slow, Murphy, but he is unstoppable. If he grabs you, he will crush bones.'
'Great,' I muttered, rolling my shoulders. 'He's a tank. And I'm... a guy with a bucket.'
I couldn't use the Clones. Too many eyes. I couldn't match his physical strength either. I may be twice as strong as a normal kid my age, but in the end I was just a fit teenager against a monster.
"Come on then!" Garrick roared, charging.
He didn't run; he thundered. Every footfall shook the stone floor.
I raised my hands, palms out. I focused on the Inventory, picturing the millions of gallons of river water I had stored. I didn't open the portal wide—that would unleash a tidal wave. I opened it a crack, increasing the pressure.
'High-pressure wash,' I thought. 'Let's see if he rusts.'
PSSSHHHT!
Two jets of water erupted from my palms with the force of a firehose. They slammed into Garrick's chest with a deafening roar of spray.
It slowed him down. He grunted, leaning into the blast, his iron boots skidding an inch backward. But that was it. The water didn't cut him; it just splashed off his metallic skin in a spectacular, glittering fan.
I wasn't hurting him. I was cleaning him.
The crowd burst into laughter. I glanced at the audience. The noble students were pointing at us. "Is he fighting him or giving him a bath?" someone shouted
Scrub behind the ears, Sunstrider!"
'This is humiliating,' Ronan seethed. 'Switch tactics! Use the water to blind him! Aim for the eyes!'
I tried to adjust my aim, but Garrick was done playing. He lowered his shoulder and ploughed through the stream.
"Tickles," Garrick laughed.
I tried to strafe right, to circle him like a boxer. But I had made a critical tactical error. I had flooded the arena. The smooth stone floor was now covered in an inch of slick river water.
My boot hit a puddle. Friction waved goodbye.
My legs went out from under me in a cartoonish blur. I flailed, my arms windmilling, and I went down hard on my hip.
'Get up!' Ronan shouted.
Too late.
Garrick closed the distance instantly. He didn't bother with a weapon. He just swung his backhand like a club the moment I got up.
CRACK.
His iron fist connected with my chest.
My water bolts were splashing harmlessly against his chest, washing over the grey iron like a gentle drizzle on a tank. I needed more pressure. I needed teeth.
I dodged a clumsy haymaker that sounded like a falling tree, backing away to create distance.
'Physics lesson, meathead,' I thought desperately.
I didn't bother looking for debris. I had prepared for this. I accessed my Inventory.
I pulled a kilogram of coarse, jagged grit from the storage space and dumped it directly into the water stream swirling in my palm. I channelled the mana into a tight, spiralling jet around the stream, feeding the sand into the high-velocity flow.
It wasn't just a water gun anymore; it was an industrial sandblaster.
"Have a drink!" I shouted, thrusting my palm forward.
The pressurised stream of water and stone slammed into Garrick's outstretched hand.
SCREEEEEEECH.
The sound was hideous—like a rusty saw biting into sheet metal. The mixture didn't splash; it dug. The grey Ferro-Skin on Garrick's palm sparked and then shredded, unable to withstand the erosion. The water turned pink as the jet bored through the metal layer and carved a ragged, bleeding hole straight into the meat of his palm.
Garrick roared, snatching his hand back. He stared at the wound, his blood dripping onto the wet stone, looking more confused than hurt.
"You little rat," he growled.
It worked. But it wasn't enough. It was like trying to tunnel through a mountain with a teaspoon. I had hurt him, but I hadn't stopped him. If anything, I'd just pissed him off.
He didn't bother with technique this time. He just charged.
I tried to scramble back, but he was deceptively fast for a moving statue. He lowered his shoulder and rammed me.
Even with the pain dampeners set to fifty per cent, it felt like getting hit by a hatchback. The air left my lungs in a violent whoosh. I flew backwards, skipping across the wet floor like a flat stone, until I slammed into the arena wall.
I slid down, gasping for air that wouldn't come, my vision swimming with black spots.
I lay on the wet stone, staring at the spinning ceiling. My chest throbbed with a dull, heavy ache.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Garrick walked over, taking his time. He loomed over me, blocking out the magical light of the arena. He looked like a grey mountain.
"End of the line, scrub," Garrick sneered, spitting on the floor next to my head. "Elrend says we have to die to pass. I'm going to make sure you feel every second of it."
Time seemed to slow.
In the quiet space of my mind, Ronan exploded into action. The Paladin took over the tactical analysis, projecting a wireframe diagram of Garrick over my vision.
'He is overconfident!' Ronan roared, highlighting a weak point on Garrick's leg. 'His stance is wide. He thinks you are finished. He has exposed the back of his knee! The Ferro-Skin is thinner at the joints!'
'Grab the sword! Roll forward! Hamstring him! Even with blunt steel, a strike to the tendon will buckle him! We can drop him, Murphy! We can end this!'
I looked at the sword lying three feet away. I looked at Garrick's exposed knee.
Ronan was right. I could do it. Or rather, he could do it. A Ronan clone would tear this bully apart in ten seconds.
But then what?
Everyone in the class was watching. They had all seen the Resonance Crystal glow when I touched it. They all thought I was some hidden powerhouse, a loot drop waiting to be cracked open. That crystal had put a target on my back the size of a billboard.
If I fought back now—if I moved like a Paladin and dropped a tank like Garrick—it would confirm their suspicions. They would keep hunting me.
I needed them to see a coward. I needed them to see trash. If I looked pathetic enough, the predators would lose interest.
Winning this fight meant losing the war.
'No,' I thought, my voice flat.
'What?!' Ronan sounded betrayed. 'He is right there! Strike him!'
'I can't,' I said. 'I need this heat off me. I need to be the loser.'
I let my head fall back against the stone. I let my limbs go limp. I looked up at Garrick and forced a weak, pathetic cough.
"Just... just get it over with," I wheezed, curling into a ball and covering my head with my hands. "Please."
The laughter from the students swelled. I could hear the jeers. Coward. Weakling.
'Murphy!' Ronan screamed, his pride agonizingly wounded. 'Do not accept this shame! Get up! Die on your feet at least!'
I ignored him. I shut the door on his shouting.
Garrick looked down at me. He saw the surrender in my eyes. He saw the fear I was pantomiming perfectly.
And he smiled.
"Pathetic," Garrick whispered. "I thought you were special. You're just a stain."
He didn't make it quick. He lifted his massive, iron-shod boot.
"Open wide," Garrick laughed.
He brought his heel down.
I didn't flinch. I didn't try to dodge. I just closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.
There was a crunch, and then another, and another, over and over again. A minute seemed to pass until a flash of blinding white light, and then... nothing.
Dying inside a Pocket Dimension didn't feel like fading into the light. It felt like being sucked through a straw.
My consciousness snapped. One moment, I was getting my skull caved in; the next, I was standing outside the obsidian arch in the Training Hall, gasping for air like a man who had just surfaced from deep water.
My hands flew to my head. It was whole. No blood. No indentation. But the phantom pain of my skull collapsing was so vivid I nearly threw up.
I sat there as the entire class slowly appeared outside, one by one, dying in their own duels. There was a lot of crying, and a few were even throwing up.
Garrick finally appeared, and he pointed at me. "Clean yourself up, scab. You've got my boot on your face."
The class erupted. It wasn't polite applause; it was the raucous, jeering laughter of predators who had just watched a prey animal get mauled. Clearly, the only way some of them could deal with what they went through a moment ago.
"Did you see him curl up?"
"Begged for it! Absolutely folded!"
'You let him kill us,' Ronan said.
His voice wasn't loud. It was a whisper of such concentrated, diamond-hard fury that it chilled my blood more than death had. This was the anger of a man who wasn't used to losing or being embarrassed.
'You lay down,' Ronan continued, his tone trembling with a mixture of betrayal and disbelief. 'You had the weapon. You had the opening. And you chose to be a doormat.'
'I chose to be a survivor,' I shot back, my own anger flaring. 'If I fought back, they would keep coming for us. Now? Look at them. They're laughing. They don't fear me anymore. We're safe.'
'Honour is not a game!'
'Survival is!'
I pushed off the pillar, intending to grab my bag and get the hell out of there.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of a heavy cane hitting the stone floor cut through the laughter. The room quieted down as Master Elrend limped toward us.
The scarred elf stopped in front of me. He took a long, slow pull from his flask as his grey eyes seemed to stare right through my skull.
"You fight like a man wearing a straitjacket, boy," Elrend rasped.
I flinched, keeping up the act. "I... I'm just weak, Master. I have no physical fighting abilities. I couldn't—"
"Bullshit," Elrend interrupted softly.
He leaned in, the smell of expensive wine clinging to him.
"I have trained thousands of students," Elrend whispered, his voice too low for the others to hear. "I know what weakness looks like. Weakness flinches. Weakness panics. Weakness closes its eyes when the boot comes down because it hopes it won't hurt."
He tapped my chest with the tip of his cane.
"You didn't close your eyes. You watched him do it. You calculated the impact."
He pulled back, his expression shifting from boredom to a sharp, predatory curiosity.
"You aren't afraid of pain," Elrend diagnosed. "And you clearly aren't afraid of dying, considering how easily you accepted it."
He paused, letting the words hang in the air.
"You are afraid of winning," he concluded. "Why?"
I froze. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. He had seen right through the performance.
Elrend didn't wait for an answer. He snorted, took another drink, and turned his back on me.
"Dismissed," he called to the room. "Get out. Your dishonesty is giving me a migraine."
The students filed out, chattering about the fight. Inside my mind, the shouting match had stopped. Ronan had gone unnervingly quiet.
'Ronan?' I projected tentatively as we walked back toward the dorms. 'Look, I know you're mad. But I made the tactical call. We live to fight another day.'
There was no answer.
'Ronan?'
'I am here,' he replied finally. His voice was calm. Cold. It sounded like a judge delivering a sentence. 'You made your choice, Murphy. You chose to let them mock the Sunstrider name.'
'For good reason,' I corrected.
'Perhaps,' Ronan mused. 'Or perhaps you have simply forgotten what it means to stand.'
He fell silent again. But it wasn't a peaceful silence. It was the silence of a man checking his equipment before a mission.
I ignored it. I was exhausted, my head throbbed, and I had a laundry business to launch.