Two hours later, the adrenaline had faded, leaving behind a cold, hollow ache in Adrian’s chest. He found Serena standing in one of the academy's quiet, arched corridors overlooking the western courtyard. She was staring out at the sunset, her posture relaxed, holding a cup of warm tea. Adrian walked up beside her. He had cleaned the blood off his face, but his skin was still pale from the severe mana drain. "Serena," he said quietly. She turned, offering a small, exhausted smile. "Hey. Are you okay? You looked pretty pale after the fight.""I overexerted my channels keeping Darius's ribs from collapsing," Adrian said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. He looked at her, searching her eyes. "Why didn't you say anything?"Serena’s smile faltered. She looked back out the window. "Say what?""To the instructor. To the crowd," Adrian said, his throat tightening. "You both took all the credit. You know the only reason that attack worked was because I forced your mana into alignment.

“Nothing without us.” The thought repeated in his head like a drumbeat. For a year, he had sacrificed everything. He had bent his will to theirs, refined his abilities to suit their egos, and kept their secrets. He was the ghost in the machine. And they had just locked the door.The humiliation didn't stop at the office door. Darius was efficient. Within the hour, the "news" was plastered across the academy’s student network. By the time Adrian stepped out into the main corridor, he could feel the eyes on him. "There he is," a voice whispered from a group of second-years. "The 'Support Mage' who couldn't even support his own team.""Heard he was dead weight," another chimed in, louder this time. "Darius finally realized he was just a glorified mana-battery."Adrian kept his head down, walking past them. His heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. “I made them,” he thought, his internal monologue turning from sorrow to a sharp, jagged resentment. “I made them strong. I made them

The Academy’s Recruitment Hall was a cavernous amphitheater of glass and polished steel, buzzing with the frantic energy of a marketplace. Here, careers were made or destroyed in the span of a single conversation. It was the heart of the Academy’s social hierarchy, a place where the elite groomed their future subordinates and the desperate begged for a scraps of relevance.Adrian stepped into the hall, the weight of the previous day’s events still pressing against his chest. He clutched a folder of his own credentials, feeling like a ghost haunting his own life.He walked to the first booth, marked Iron Vanguard. A towering third-year student with a jagged scar across his cheek sat behind the desk, barely looking up."F-Rank Support," the student read, his voice dripping with condescension. "Adrian Yael. Didn't you use to be Blackthorn’s glorified battery?""I’m an experienced tactician," Adrian said, his voice level despite the heat rising in his face. "I managed the Resonance forma

The gravity within the circle wasn’t just physical; it was an abrasive, grinding pressure that clawed at the magical channels in Adrian’s soul. He gasped, his knees buckling as the binding formation sucked the ambient mana from the air, effectively turning his internal reserves into a stagnant, immovable pool.Beside him, Mira was faring worse. The silver energy in her veins was thrashing, responding to the suppression formation with the feral desperation of a trapped animal. Her skin was already beginning to shimmer with silver scales, her amber eyes wide and flickering with the onset of another uncontrollable surge."It’s not just a bind, is it?" Adrian gritted out, his voice strained as he fought to stay upright. "You’re triggering her transformation. You want her to lose control so you can harvest the artifact fragment from her bloodline."Victor Hale stepped closer, his boots echoing sharply against the stone. He didn't look like an elite student; he looked like a butcher. "You’r