2026-10-29 15:45:07
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 15: The First Duel
Adrian picked Corwin Hale because Corwin was easy to read.Not easy to beat. Second-year, B-class, a fire-swordsman with a reputation. Three students had gone into the ring against him that month. Three had come out holding their ribs.But Adrian had spent five days sitting on a stone bench at the edge of the training yard with a bad cup of tea, and he had watched every one of those bouts. He had watched Corwin fight twelve times.Twelve times, Corwin had opened the same way.*Analyze.***[Target: Corwin Hale.]****[Level: 19. Class: Flame Duelist.]****[Observed habit: Opens with Rising Flame, right-hand slash. 12 of 12 bouts.]****[Observed habit: After first strike, steps left. 11 of 12 bouts.]**He had written it all in his head like a ledger.The nights were for Seraphina. She had taken a broom handle from the dormitory kitchen and beaten him with it, methodically, in the cramped little room. Don't flinch. Guard the head. Roll with it. Take the hit on the meat of the arm, never t
Chapter 14: An Unexpected Skill
Dormitory Nine stood at the back of the east wing, behind the kitchens, where the Academy kept the things it didn't want visitors to see.Grey stone, green at the foundations. A roof that sagged in the middle like a tired horse. Inside, the hallway smelled of damp wool and boiled cabbage, and the one window at the end was nailed shut.The room they gave him had a narrow bed, a table with a broken leg, and a hole in the plaster the size of a dinner plate. Nobody else had been assigned to it. Somewhere down the corridor, a door slammed and someone laughed. The sound did not feel friendly.Seraphina bolted the door behind them and looked around."I've slept in worse," she said."Where?""A well. For two nights.""Why?""Long story." She dropped into the only chair. "Talk. Whatever you saw out there, you're sitting on it like a hen on an egg."Adrian sat on the edge of the bed. His legs shook a little. Outside, a bell tolled the hour, slow and dull.He closed his eyes.*Okay,* he thought.
Chapter 13: The Impossible Assessment
The Assessment Hall was round, high, and loud.Rows of stone benches climbed up the walls like seats in an arena. A hundred new students sat shoulder to shoulder in white-and-gold, whispering and fidgeting. Down on the floor, in the middle of a pool of sunlight from the glass dome overhead, stood a pillar of milky crystal as tall as a man.The Sunstone.Seraphina had stayed outside. Retainers weren't allowed past the doors. She'd given him one look before they parted, flat and brown-eyed, and said, "Don't do anything stupid." He had nodded. He wasn't sure he'd meant it.He sat in the back row. Nobody sat next to him."Rin Ashford!" a voice rang out.A girl with a long braid walked down to the pillar and laid her palm flat on the crystal. The stone glowed a soft blue, steady as a lamp. A ring of light swelled around her hand."Water affinity. Capacity, one hundred forty. B-class!"Polite applause. The girl bowed and went back to her seat, pink in the face."Tobin Marsh!"A broad boy wi
Chapter 12: Humiliated Before the Nobles
The Royal Academy of Valdris looked like a wedding cake built by someone who hated the poor.White towers, five of them, stacked up against a clear blue sky. A wall of pale stone three men high, with gold banners hanging down it. Two stone lions guarded the gate, their jaws open, and from somewhere inside the wall came a low hum that Adrian felt in his back teeth.Wards. Real ones, the kind that kept out armies and anything with horns."Stay close," he murmured."I'm your retainer," Seraphina said. Her voice was dull and polite, nothing like the one he knew. "I'm always close."The glamour pin sat at her collar. Her horns had gone soft and vanished into black hair. Her eyes were the color of strong tea. If he hadn't watched the change happen, he'd have taken her for any tall, bored servant.Sweat ran down his spine anyway.A guard in a silver breastplate stopped them at the gate. Beside him stood a tall pillar of grey crystal, waist high, pulsing with a slow green light."Name?""Adri
Chapter 11: The Academy Invitation
Someone was shouting at the gate.Adrian opened his eyes to a bright, ordinary morning. Dust floated in a stripe of sun across the quilt. His ribs still ached, but the ache had dulled into something he could stand on, and when he sat up the room stayed where it was.The chair by the window was empty.He found her in the courtyard, standing in the shadow of the broken gate with her arms folded. She had pulled a hood up over her head. From behind, she looked like any tall girl waiting for a coach."Who is it?" he asked."A man on a mule." She didn't turn. "He's been yelling your name for ten minutes. I told him you were dying. He said that was fine, he only needed you to sign.""Sign what?""I don't know. I stopped listening around the part where he called me *your woman*.""Please don't stab him.""I'm thinking about it."Out past the wreck of the gate, a thin man in a black coat sat on a very small mule. Ink stains on his cuffs. A leather satchel strapped across his chest. He was hold
Chapter 10: A Demon Makes a Promise
"Who wears that mark?" Adrian asked again."Later.""Seraphina.""I said later." She yanked the collar of her coat straight and picked up her sword. "I've got a hand to save first. You said you'd find a way out. Find it."He wanted to push. Her knuckles were white on the hilt, though, and a muscle jumped in her cheek, and the black band on her wrist had begun to crawl in small tight circles like a dog before a storm.**[01:41:09 until collection.]**Adrian took the contract out of his shirt and unfolded it on the quilt.He didn't need to look. He shut his eyes and let the pages roll up behind them, clause by clause, and this time he wasn't reading for cracks. He was reading for the thing every contract has and every contract hides.*Guild law requires it,* he thought. *Every contract. It has to be in there somewhere.*He found it at the bottom of the second page, in letters half the size of the rest."Clause twenty-seven," he said."Boilerplate.""Read it to me.""I know it." She spok
You may also like
East Meets West (Cultivation World)
OROCHIsBLADE32.2K viewsUltimate Harem System
Sam Shelby25.5K viewsRebate System: From Poor Student To Billionaire Playboy
FOCA23.8K viewsMy Sniper System
kuhaku_sora26.0K viewsTHE LAST GOD SYSTEM
Kain290 viewsThe Trillionaire’s Rise: Powered by a System Ring
Inspirasi Kopi69 viewsBurned But Not Broken
Fathia MG141 views“Reborn With the Future in My Hands”
MD KASHIF148 views