The month following his confrontation with Anya Volkov was one of deliberate, suffocating quiet. Ren became a master of mediocrity. He attended his classes, handing in assignments that were intentionally average. In combat practice, he was clumsy and reactive, his only "skill" being the stubborn resilience that had become his trademark. He was the ghost in the back of the classroom, the dud everyone had learned to ignore again, his previous impossible feats fading into the realm of bizarre, unexplained history.
But in the silence of his room, after the academy slept, his true work continued. The destruction of the Grade-4 Spirit Core was a statement of purpose. He did not need external aids. His progress was fueled by his own will and the endless Aether his body drank from the air. He moved beyond sculpting stone. His new training, devised by himself, was far more delicate. He learned to manipulate water, to hold a single drop suspended in the air and then, with a thought, to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, a feat of molecular sundering that left his mind scoured and his body trembling. He was learning to unmake the world at its most fundamental level.
His research in the archives bore grim fruit. He found what he was looking for in a banned treatise on Aetheric Toxicology: a historical account of a Raijin ancestor who was not a warrior, but an assassin, capable of using their "Aetheric Dominion" to destabilize the very Aether within a cultivator's body, causing their own power to turn on them like a poison. It was a terrifying thought, a dark mirror to his own burgeoning abilities.
It was during a public lecture on Herbology that the ripples of his past actions finally returned to shore. The head instructor, a wizened old master, cleared his throat and made a formal announcement.
"By decree of the GAMA High Council and in cooperation with our esteemed colleagues from the Spirit Lumina Pagoda," he announced, a note of excitement in his voice, "the academy has been selected to host a pioneering research initiative. The 'Aetheric Purity and Resonance Field' will be installed campus-wide to study local environmental fluctuations. All students are to cooperate fully with the Pagoda technicians during the installation over the coming week."
Ren's blood ran cold. Project Aegis. They weren't just testing it here. They were deploying it under the guise of a research grant. The Elder's warning had come to pass. The net was about to be cast over the entire academy. He kept his face a perfect mask of disinterest, just another bored student, but inside, his mind was a whirlwind.
The true attack, however, came from a different, more personal quarter.
Later that day, in the sparring grounds, Instructor Borin announced a special, competitive exercise. "For the upcoming Grand Mid-Year Tournament, the academy is selecting its primary team," he bellowed. "Selection will be based on a series of elimination spars. Our top seed, as is her right, is Anya Volkov."
Anya stepped forward, her expression calm and professional.
"As the top seed," Borin continued, "she has the privilege of choosing her first opponent for a demonstration match."
A hush fell over the assembled students. This was a great honor. Anya could pick another top student for a spectacular display of skill, or an easy target for a decisive, morale-boosting victory.
Anya's clear, intelligent gaze swept over the crowd. It passed over a dozen powerful scions of noble houses, over every promising student in the top ranks. And then, with deliberate, surgical precision, it landed on the one student no one was looking at.
"I choose Ren," she said, her voice ringing with unshakable confidence.
The crowd erupted in a wave of confused murmurs and outright laughter. The academy's greatest genius was choosing its greatest dud for the opening match of the most important tournament of the year. It was either an act of supreme insult or sheer madness.
Lin Fei, standing with his cronies, laughed the loudest. "She's finally going to put the freak in his place!" he crowed.
But Ren understood immediately. This was not an act of arrogance. This was a declaration of war. She had tried to study him with incentives and failed. Now, she would study him with force. In a formal, public duel, he would be forced to react. He couldn't just stand there and endure. To do so would be to forfeit, an act of cowardice. To fight back would be to reveal something. She had trapped him again, not with logic this time, but with the unbreakable rules of the academy.
He looked at her, standing serene and powerful in the center of the arena. Her expression was not one of malice. It was one of absolute, clinical determination. She had cornered her specimen, and now, in front of the entire academy, she was going to begin the dissection.