Over the next few days, Adam walked the halls of the Academy like a ghost. He kept his head down, but his dead, dark brown eyes saw everything. His new baseline perception was terrifying. He did not need to activate a spell to see mana anymore. He could just see the truth of the world. He watched the students in the cafeteria. He saw a young girl laughing with her friends. She pretended to be a weak, Rank 1 healer. But Adam’s eyes saw her true mana flow. Deep inside her chest, her magic was thick, sharp, and deadly. She was an assassin hiding in plain sight. He watched a math professor teaching a class. The professor spoke softly. But Adam saw tiny, invisible strings of purple magic floating from the professor’s mouth, entering the students' ears. The professor was using subtle mind-control to change their thoughts. Paranoia became Adam’s new normal. The school was not a safe place. It was a nest of vipers, and everyone was wearing a mask. But Adam’s mask was the best. On Friday e

Adam did not answer. He stepped forward. Mr. Silas panicked. He dropped his timid mask completely. He gathered all of his dark red magic into his hands, preparing to shout and cast a massive, loud explosion spell. But Adam was faster. Adam did not punch the old man. He did not use a spell to cut him. Adam needed this to look like an accident. Adam dropped low to the ground. He kicked the heavy iron wheel of Mr. Silas’s wooden cart. But it was not a normal kick. Adam used a technique he called kinetic manipulation. He focused all of his dense, incredible physical strength into a single, sharp burst of force. CLANG. The heavy iron cart flew sideways across the floor like a fired cannonball. The cart smashed directly into the base of the massive, thirty-foot-tall wooden bookshelf standing right behind Mr. Silas. The old, rotten wood of the shelf groaned loudly. The kinetic force from the cart shattered the bottom supports completely. Mr. Silas looked up. "No—" Mr. Silas gasped.

The dark hallway was completely silent. The tall boy in the dark blue uniform had vanished into the shadows. Adam Cook lay on the cold stone floor. The rain beat against the glass window. On his chest sat the small, heavy iron coin dripping with fresh blood. It was a cursed artifact, a challenge from the Blood Cult. Adam did not panic. His hollow mind worked like a perfect, cold machine. He reached up and picked up the bloody coin. He let a single, microscopic drop of pitch-black Void magic leak from his thumb. Hiss. The cursed coin dissolved into nothing. Adam wiped the real, red blood from his cut lip. He stood up and walked back to his small, drafty dormitory room. When he closed his wooden door, Adam sat on the edge of his bed in the dark. He stared at the blank stone wall. He was facing a terrible choice. It was the hardest dilemma of his life. He knew the truth. The Marquis was dead, but the Blood Cult was alive. They were hiding inside the school. They were putting glowin

Emily sat alone on a cold stone bench in the Academy courtyard. She watched Adam Cook from far away. Emily had known Adam for a very long time. They grew up together in the dirty, starving streets of the Lower City. She remembered when Adam was just a skinny boy who shared his stolen bread with her so she would not starve. They used to be the same. They used to be weak, scared, and poor. But they were not the same anymore. Emily watched Adam talk to Lyra and Kael. Adam was pretending to be normal. He was playing the part of the "lucky underdog." He fumbled with his books. He laughed a clumsy, fake laugh. He looked like a weak, average student. But Emily saw the truth. When a heavy wooden training dummy accidentally fell toward Lyra, Adam caught it. He only used one hand. He did it so fast that no one else noticed. Then, Adam quickly pretended to struggle, using both hands and groaning like it was heavy. Emily’s hands formed into tight fists. Her fingernails dug into her palms.

The red lightning in the dark, underground room suddenly changed color. It did not stay bright red. It turned into a violent, dark-purple flash of pure void-energy. Emily screamed. The Cursed Lexicon did not give her "Instant Ascension." It did not make her a god. The ancient artifact was a trap. It was hungry. The jagged, rusty iron shard on the cover of the book shot forward. It slashed violently across Emily’s right forearm. The pain was worse than anything she had ever felt. It felt like a hundred angry wasps were stinging her skin all at once. The dark-purple void-energy poured out of the book and burned directly into the deep cut on her arm. "Ahhhh!" Emily cried out, falling to the hard stone floor. The heavy black book dropped onto the ground next to her. The dark-purple light faded away. The book looked completely dead and normal again. But Emily was not normal. She held her right arm. The cut was not bleeding normal red blood. Instead, a jagged, dark-purple scar was p