A heavy silence pressed down on the training grounds, broken only by the whistling wind and the pained groan of Joric pushing himself up from the dust. He was helped to his feet by his friends, his face a mask of humiliated fury. Lin Fei, his usual sneer gone, watched Ren with cold, calculating eyes; the look was more threatening than his earlier, open contempt. He now saw Ren not just as a freak, but as a problem to be solved.
"Class dismissed!" Instructor Borin's roar shattered the quiet. "Get back to your studies! You're all weak!"
The crowd of students scattered, eager to gossip about the bizarre outcome of the spar. They shot glances at Ren—a mixture of awe, disbelief, and fear. He was no longer just the dud; he was the dud who could somehow win without fighting. It was a new and unsettling kind of strangeness.
"You," Borin grunted, pointing a thick finger at Ren. "Stay."
Ren's muscles screamed in protest as the other students filed out, leaving him alone in the center of the dusty arena with the scarred instructor. The adrenaline of the confrontation was fading, replaced by a deep, throbbing ache in his ribs and shoulders. His passive resilience was miraculous, but it did not negate pain entirely.
Instructor Borin circled him slowly, his heavy boots kicking up small puffs of dust. He moved like a great, lumbering bear, but his eyes were sharp and intelligent, missing nothing. He stopped and crossed his massive arms.
"Explain," he said. It wasn't a question; it was a demand.
Ren kept his gaze steady, his mind carefully selecting his words. He owed this man a degree of respect as an instructor, but he owed Elder Tian absolute secrecy. "He was stronger and had Aetheric enhancement," Ren stated, his voice flat. "A direct confrontation would have been foolish. I chose to defend and observe."
"You did more than observe," Borin countered, his voice a low rumble. "You endured. I saw the hits you took. A Rank 3 Earth-series Initiate laid into you for ten straight minutes. A normal boy, even an Initiate, would have been spitting up blood after the first few blows. You barely flinched. How?"
This was the question Ren couldn't answer. He could feel the lie-detecting pressure in the instructor's gaze, the scrutiny of a man who had survived countless battles by reading his opponents. "I am durable," Ren said simply. It was the truth, if not the whole truth.
Borin stared at him, the silence stretching. Ren expected a reprimand, another accusation of being a freak. Instead, the hard lines of the instructor's face softened almost imperceptibly.
"In the Sunken Coast, during the campaign against the Tide-Reavers, we had a saying," Borin said, his voice distant, lost in a memory of mud and blood. "The strongest wall isn't the one that pushes back; it's the one that's still standing when the cannon runs out of shot." He looked Ren up and down again, a new understanding in his eyes. "You didn't fight like a student. You fought like a survivor. There's a difference."
He grunted, shaking his head as if to clear the memory. "That trick you pulled—using his own momentum—it was clever. But it will only work once. Next time, they'll expect it. They'll be smarter. Your path in this academy will not be an easy one, boy." He clapped a hand on Ren's shoulder, a gesture so forceful it nearly sent him stumbling. "The Elder has summoned you. Don't keep him waiting."
Ren gave a stiff nod and made his way back towards the academy's serene heart, his body aching with every step. The quiet respect from a man like Borin was a small, unexpected victory, but the summons from Elder Tian filled him with a cold sense of apprehension.
He found the Elder in the same secluded courtyard garden, seated on a stone bench beside the trickling stream. The air here was thick with Prime Aether, and Ren could feel his body instinctively trying to drink it in, forcing him to redouble his focus on the suppression training.
"You wished to see me, Elder?" Ren asked, his voice quiet.
Elder Tian did not open his eyes. "Report."
Ren recounted the events of the combat class, sticking to the bare facts. He described the challenge, Joric's assault, his defensive strategy, and the final, unconventional move that ended the fight. He did not embellish his victory or complain about the setup. He simply presented the data, as if describing a problem and its solution.
When he finished, the Elder remained silent for a long time. His spiritual sense, a force far more potent and subtle than Instructor Borin's, washed over Ren, examining the network of deep bruises already beginning to fade, feeling the quiet, thrumming vitality in his flesh.
Finally, he opened his eyes. They were as calm and deep as ever. "You were commanded to suppress your power. You were provoked, physically assaulted, and publicly humiliated. Yet you did not circulate your Aether." He paused. "You obeyed the spirit of my command under extreme duress. This is… acceptable."
Ren felt a sliver of relief, but it was short-lived.
"However," the Elder continued, his tone turning sharp as glass, "you have failed in a different respect. Your path requires subtlety. It requires you to be underestimated, to be overlooked until your control is absolute. Instead, you won a public match in a way that defies explanation. You have turned yourself from a laughingstock into a puzzle. Puzzles invite scrutiny. Scrutiny invites trouble from those who, like Lin Fei, have power, and from those who, like myself, have questions."
The Elder rose from the bench, his presence seeming to blot out the sun. "Your control over your passive assimilation is still rudimentary. Your will is stronger than an average boy's, but it is not yet the iron required for this task. The gentle environment of this garden is no longer a sufficient training ground."
His gaze was cold, holding no room for argument. "Tonight, you will not sleep. Beneath this courtyard lies the Aetheric Font that feeds this Nexus Point. The concentration of Prime Aether there is a hundred times denser than it is here. You will meditate within it until dawn. It is a torrent that will scour your skin and attempt to force its way into you. It is a test that will either shatter your will completely, or forge it into steel."