2026-05-13 14:27:29Knox woke to a voice inside his head.
‘Hungry.’ He jerked upright, his heart pounding, and looked around the empty dorm room. Early morning light filtered through the window, grey and cold. The voice came again. ‘Knox... I'm hungry.’ Knox's breath stopped. He looked down at Ignis, who was still curled beside him on the bed. The creature's ember-orange eyes were open, staring directly at him. "Did you just—" Knox started. ‘The…. bond,’ Ignis said, his voice clearer now but still halting. ‘I can hear your thoughts. Your words. I learned them from your mind.’ Knox stared at the creature in shock. Ignis tilted his head. ‘I just hatched. Everything is new. But your mind is loud.’ "You can hear everything I think?" Knox asked quietly. ‘Not everything. Only when you think loud or feel strong emotions.’ Knox ran a hand through his hair and took a slow breath. The bond allowed communication. That made sense, but hearing another voice in his head was still unsettling. "How long have you been awake?" Knox asked. ‘I don't sleep the way you do, Ignis said. I felt you were sad. Alone.’ Knox's chest tightened slightly, but he pushed the feeling down. "I'm fine," Knox muttered. Ignis made a soft sound that felt like disagreement through the bond. Knox shook his head and stood. His body ached from sleeping against the wall, and his muscles felt stiff. He walked to the window and looked out at the academy grounds. "Ignis," Knox said quietly. "The system showed your attribute as Gravity. Do you know what that means?" ‘There's something inside me, Ignis said slowly. Something heavy. But it's …sleeping. I don't know how to wake it.’ Knox's mind raced. Gravity was not just weight. It was the force that pulled worlds together, bent space, controlled movement. If Ignis could manipulate gravity, even a fraction of it, the power would be terrifying. But right now, neither of them knew how to use it. Knox turned away from the window and froze. Words appeared in the air before him, glowing faintly. [Daily Keeper Trial: Foundation] Time Limit: 12 Hours Objective 1: Complete 50 push-ups Objective 2: Complete 50 sit-ups Objective 3: Complete 50 squats Objective 4: Run 2 kilometers Reward: Strength +1 Stamina +1 Dragon Points +3 Knox stared at the notification. A training quest. The rewards were real. But there was no penalty listed. Knox's jaw tightened. Every system story he had read on Earth taught him one thing: when the penalty was not shown, it meant the system was hiding something worse. Refusing was not an option. "I have to do this," Knox said to Ignis. "Stay here." ‘Be careful,’ Ignis said, worry pulsing through the bond. Knox dropped to the floor and started the push-ups. The first twenty were manageable. By thirty, his arms were shaking. At forty, his chest burned and sweat dripped onto the floor. His body was weak, and every movement felt like it was tearing his muscles apart. But thoughts of being weak and what he had to prove to everyone who shit on him pushed him further. Knox finished the push-ups and collapsed onto the floor, gasping. [Objective 1 Complete: 50 push-ups] He forced himself up and started the sit-ups. His stomach cramped after fifteen. By thirty, his core was on fire. He finished barely holding himself together. [Objective 2 Complete: 50 sit-ups] The squats came next. His legs burned with each rep, and by forty, his knees were shaking. He finished the last ten barely standing. [Objective 3 Complete: 50 squats] Knox leaned against the wall, breathing hard. His entire body screamed at him to stop. One more. The run. Knox stepped into the hallway and started running. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the empty common dorm building. Students were mostly still with their families, so the hallways were empty. He ran down the stairs, through the corridors, up and down the floors until the distance tracker in his mind hit two kilometers. His legs trembled. Nausea rose in his throat. But he kept moving until the notification appeared. [Objective 4 Complete: Run 2 kilometers] [Daily Keeper Trial: Foundation COMPLETE] [Rewards Granted] Strength +1 Stamina +1 Dragon Points +3 Knox stopped and collapsed against the wall, gasping for air. His whole body shook and sweat poured off him. But something changed. His breathing steadied faster than it should have. The burning in his muscles faded slightly. His body still ached, but when he stood, his movements felt smoother and his steps felt less heavy. The system reward was real. Knox walked back to the dorm room, exhausted but functional. He cleaned himself up quickly and got dressed. As he pulled on his academy uniform, he thought about the Dragon Vault and where Ignis had come from. "Ignis," Knox said. "You came from the Vault, right? When I bonded with you, I saw the fortress." ‘No,’ Ignis said. ‘I came from the Other Side. The place humans call the Other Side. I saw the Vault for the first time when you did.’ Knox frowned. That did not make sense. If Ignis came from the Other Side like every other summoned beast, then why did the awakening connect him to the Dragon Vault? Why did the system choose him as Keeper? He had no answers. And no time to investigate. Knox checked his reflection in the mirror and straightened his uniform. Today was the suitability test. If he failed, the academy would send him home regardless of the Dragon Vault's power. He looked at Ignis. "Ready?" ‘Ready,’ Ignis confirmed. Knox opened the door and stepped into the hallway. The academy testing ground was massive. A wide stone courtyard stretched out before Knox, surrounded by tall stone walls and observation platforms. Hundreds of candidates filled the space, most of them clustered in groups, talking nervously or making last-minute preparations. Ignis hopped onto Knox's shoulder, his small body settling around the back of Knox's neck. His weight was barely noticeable, but his warmth was comforting. Knox walked through the crowd alone. Whispers spread as Knox passed. "That's the Aston failure." "I heard he got disowned." "He spent last night in the common dorms." "Look at that grey lizard. It's even smaller than I thought." Knox ignored them and found a spot near the back of the courtyard. He leaned against the wall and waited. Across the courtyard, Noah stood among the noble candidates. His Frost Wyvern was not summoned yet, but everyone treated him like he had already passed. Instructors nodded to him respectfully. Other nobles greeted him with polite smiles. Knox looked away. A voice called out from the crowd. "Well, well, well. If it isn't the discarded noble." Knox turned. A tall candidate with slicked-back hair and an arrogant smirk stepped forward. He wore expensive academy robes with a family crest Knox did not recognize, but his eyes gleamed with malice. "I heard you got kicked out of the noble dorms," the candidate said loudly, making sure others could hear. "Sleeping in common housing now, are you? With a dull lizard and no sponsor? How pathetic." Several candidates turned to watch. Want me to bite him? Ignis asked through the bond, irritation flickering across their connection. Knox stayed calm. "Are you done?" Knox asked quietly. The candidate's smirk widened. "Done? I'm just getting started. A failed noble is an easy—" "I don't care," Knox said, cutting him off. "Move along." The candidate's face flushed red, but before he could respond, the entire courtyard went silent. The Instructor in charge had arrived.
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Chapter 128 — What the Battle Cost
The releases were at seven.Knox hadn’t known that was a thing they did formally until Neris came and got him. Four summons were too broken to keep bound and their summoners had signed for it overnight, and there was a piece of open ground behind the medicine tents where it was done, and the custom at Blackridge was that anyone who could walk came and stood there.Knox could nearly walk. He stood.It took about ten minutes. Each summoner went out alone to their beast and put a hand on it and said whatever they said, and then the light took it apart, and the summoner walked back and somebody else went out. Nobody talked. A boy from the third company got halfway through and couldn’t finish and a sergeant went out and stood next to him until he could.Ignis watched all of it from where he lay.They can’t call them again.No.Ever.No.The drake put his head down.Then it’s the same as dying.It’s not the same, Knox said, because it wasn’t, and then he stopped, because he wasn’t sure the
Chapter 127 — The Tide Breaks
Knox never got to answer her.The field answered first.It started somewhere out past the third company and came across the whole line inside a minute — a change in the noise that Knox felt before he could name. Then a Hollowvein Stalker came out of the dust forty yards away, alone, stopped, and stood there turning its head like something that had just woken up in a place it did not recognise.Behind it, along a mile of front, the Tide stopped pushing.“Signals,” Laura said, and she was already moving. “Every horn. Now.”Knox got up because sitting down and watching it was worse.He had one arm and no mana and his ribs made a noise when he breathed, and Neris found him somewhere in the middle of it and put a hand on his chest and told him to stop, and he stopped for about ninety seconds.From where he stood he could see maybe a third of it.The controlled beasts had come apart. Not all at once and not the same way — some of them simply stopped, some of them turned round and went north
Chapter 126 — The Two-Spike Falls
Knox walked the last forty feet because he couldn't run them.【 Mana: Critical 】He'd been ignoring that panel for a while. It sat in the corner of his vision and stayed there and there was nothing he could do about it, so he stopped reading it.The Vorul was on one knee in the dirt with black around both legs and one arm, fighting it, and winning slowly.Knox could see the restraints thinning where the shoulder worked against them. Nyxarion was holding, and Nyxarion had never held anything for longer than two seconds before today, and the cold coming off the bond had gone tight in a way Knox didn't have a word for.How long.Not long enough for you to walk."Ignis."The drake came up beside him on three legs, dragging the fourth, breathing wrong.Its stance, Knox said.It's kneeling. It hasn't got a stance.It's got one knee and one arm holding it up. Take the arm.Ignis put four fixed points down the length of that arm from the shoulder to the wrist.【 Pressure Control: 74% 】【 Fixe
Chapter 125 — Nowhere to Run
It went north-east and it went fast.Knox couldn't catch it. He knew that before he'd taken four steps — his left arm was dead weight, his ribs were grinding, and there was not enough left in him for Echo Step twice in a row. Half a mile of open ground and it was moving on a ruined knee faster than he could move on two good legs.Ignis couldn't catch it either. The drake got up and went three strides and the bad foreleg went out from under him and put him down on his chest.Don't chase him, Knox said. Look at the ground in front of it.I can't reach—You don't have to reach it. Put it where it's going.Ignis got his head up.【 Distribution: Four Fixed Points 】The ground buckled forty yards ahead of the Vorul, four separate lines sinking under pressure in ground the thing was already committed to. It came down into that and its knee folded and it went over hard and slid.It was up again in under two seconds.But it was two seconds.Knox turned to the shadow.Nyx.I heard him.I'm not
Chapter 124 — Cut the Connection
Knox couldn’t go.That was the whole problem and it took him about a second to work it through. The moment he pulled Ignis and Nyxarion off it, the Vorul would either finish the drake or walk into the wider battle and be gone, and Knox had no way to find it again in four hundred acres of dust and no way to make anybody believe him if he did.So it had to be somebody else.He got behind Ignis long enough to turn his head and find the western edge of the reserve ground.“Bael!”The man was fifty feet back with a broken company reforming around him — twenty-odd on their feet, six or seven summons up, most of them somebody else’s.“Morales—”“There’s a relay north-east. Past the third company front, up on the rise.” Knox pointed with the arm that still worked. “It’s feeding the thing. Every time it pulses, the wounds close.”Bael looked at him for about as long as it took to breathe in.“How far past the front?”That was all he asked.He didn’t ask how Knox knew, or what a relay was doing
Chapter 123 — The Unstable Spike
It wasn’t hurting.Knox had seen the thing hurt twice today and it had looked nothing like this. Hurt had made it laugh. What it was doing now was standing very still with its own blood on its fingers, looking at the blood, and not being surprised by it.It had known before Knox did.Then it came at them, and everything about the way it fought changed.The first exchange nearly killed Ignis.It didn’t circle and it didn’t wait for the angle. It came straight down the middle on a knee that shouldn’t have held its weight, took the fire full in the chest to close the distance, and put its shoulder into the drake hard enough to lift him. Ignis went over backward. The bad foreleg folded under him on the landing and he screamed down the bond.Left! Go left—Nyxarion’s lines came up out of the ground and got one ankle and held it for a second and a half.A second and a half was less than it had been.Knox got in under the arm and put a Spiral Quake into the ribs and felt the mana go out of h
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