The first fifteen minutes of the Trial passed like a blood-soaked fever dream.
From his perch behind a half-collapsed glyph tower, Cassian crouched low, hood drawn, as mana cracked and screamed through the air. The stench of scorched stone and burning flesh drifted toward him with every gust of chaotic wind.
A massive crater, still glowing with embers, smoked not far from where he'd stood when the battle began.
He didn't flinch.
Instead, he watched.
Carefully. Patiently.
Cassian wasn't a coward. But he wasn't a fool, either.
A thousand students, most of them trying to prove something. Their power, their superiority, their bloodline. And the moment you tried to "prove" something in a battlefield designed to punish you for standing out?
You got wiped off the map.
No. He'd made his decision.
He'd survive this trial not by overpowering it—
But by outlasting it.
Above the arena, on floating stone platforms laced with protective sigils, stood the Academy's faculty and a select few upper-year students. Their eyes swept across the battlefield, silently studying the chaos.
Flashes of fire and lightning illuminated their faces. Each explosion, each collapse of stone, each duel that ended in sudden silence—marked another evaluation point. But their focus was on the overt—on power, performance, bloodline flare.
Cassian was none of that.
Not yet.
Not by their standards.
And that was exactly how he wanted it.
A crack of thunder drew his attention.
Someone had just detonated a tier-2 sigil—too early, he noted. The caster got overwhelmed seconds later. Cassian shook his head and leaned further behind cover.
Another one down.
He tapped the inner corner of his eye, activating low-tier detection. Threads of mana lit up across the battlefield, snaking like wind trails through the ruins. One surge—northwest quadrant—rose sharply above the rest.
That's someone dangerous.
He adjusted his angle and saw her.
A girl with crimson and gold streaks woven into a sharp braid, flames dancing from her palms with eerie precision. Armor plates sewn into her uniform shimmered as she moved—light, fast, clean.
Saria Drelheim.
Talent Limit: S.
Bloodline: Scion of the Phoenix.
Cassian recognized her from the novel—an unpredictable variable. At her worst, she was a walking explosion. At her best?
A precision flame.
Right now, she was the latter.
Saria flowed like fire made human. A sweep of her leg dropped one opponent. A palm strike sent a ripple of heat that disarmed another. The third tried to blast her from behind—only to end up screaming, his weapon melted into slag.
Cassian watched silently.
She's good.
He moved. Slipping through debris and broken monuments, he shifted positions. Always shadow to shadow, never lingering. A student rushed past not ten feet from him, too focused on the fight behind to notice the observer crouched just out of reach.
Let them exhaust themselves.
Let the spotlight chasers fall.
Cassian wasn't going to be anyone's side character. But he wasn't ready to become a main one either—not yet.
A section of the arena collapsed in on itself. Dust and fire burst into the air, blotting out vision for dozens of meters. Screams followed. Dozens of students scattered.
Beneath the dust cloud, something pulsed.
Cassian paused mid-step.
His fingertips twitched. A thrum, deep and alien, crawled across his skin like cold static.
The Codex inside him—dormant since the beginning of the trial—shivered.
He glanced toward the collapsed structure.
Stone runes flickered like blinking eyes.
Then—just for a second—his status screen flickered into view.
[Codex Notification – Sub-System Resonance Detected]
⚠ Access Denied – Authorization Incomplete
Estimated Fragment Depth: 162 meters below current level.
Cassian exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing.
Something was buried beneath the arena.
Something only he could sense.
He crouched by a splintered slab of obsidian, brushing his hand over the glyphs. No one noticed. The battle surged on around him—shouts, magic, steel, fire. But here, in this corner, the world was hushed.
He didn't smile.
But his eyes sharpened.
This isn't just a trial. It's a map.
Across the arena, Saria disappeared into a cloud of dust as three new opponents engaged her.
Cassian didn't follow. He turned instead toward the outer perimeter. He needed space. Time. More patterns to observe.
A duel broke out on the upper ledge between two students wielding gravity sigils. The ground cratered beneath them. One was knocked unconscious as their feet gave out.
The other screamed in triumph.
Cassian barely gave them a second glance.
One less to worry about.
The Trial continued to unravel.