The Academy was a world woven of rules—unspoken and written. Every student was a thread, assigned a place in a tapestry far older and more intricate than any could fully grasp.
Kael moved through the corridors like a ghost, not quite belonging but never quite invisible. His black robes made him stand apart—not a declaration of path, but a silent refusal to be boxed in. The other students carried their colors like armor: fiery reds, shimmering silvers, deep blues—each hue a badge of power and expectation. They walked with certainty, guided by the System's decree. Paths were destiny, not choice.
Kael knew this well. His family, the Ashwins, sat just outside the roar of power and politics—Marquises with influence, their name a shadow on many tongues but rarely a banner raised in battle. The Ashwins held secrets others craved: ancient knowledge, forbidden rituals, Corestones that could twist fate.
Yet none of that belonged to Kael—at least not yet.
His Rite of Awakening had been a quiet failure. The System scanned him with cold precision and found… nothing. No affinity. No Path. Just a blank slate.
That silence screamed louder than any failure.
But Kael didn't despair. His mind was different, sharper. Where others saw walls, he saw cracks. Where others accepted the System's verdict, he hunted for the exceptions.
He was obsessed with understanding the System—not as a prisoner, but as a cartographer mapping an uncharted labyrinth.
It was said there were three great branches of Paths: Elemental, Aspectual, and Primal. Elemental wielders were the soldiers and stormcallers, raw and visible in their power. Aspectual wielders manipulated minds, illusions, souls—the unseen arts that bent perception. Primal Paths were whispers of legend, bending reality itself, guarded jealously by the Noble families.
Kael suspected that the Ashwins had once mastered a Primal Path, one tangled in illusions and veils. That was what his uncle hinted at—veiled words about bloodlines that could twist what was real.
But the System buried these truths deep. For most, power was a simple formula: discover your Path, train, ascend. For Kael, it was a question without answer.
His days were spent in half-lists of classes, half-empty training grounds. Teachers ignored him. His peers dismissed him.
Yet Kael was learning in silence.
In the shadows of Fellcrest's ancient halls, he poured over System logs and fragments, pieces no one else thought to collect.
Glitches that flickered and vanished. Echoes of forgotten data. Patterns that defied explanation.
The Veil—an elusive concept most scholars treated as myth—was something Kael felt brushing the edges of his mind. It was a barrier between the known and unknown, a thin membrane where perception wavered. Where illusion and reality tangled.
Some nights, he caught himself staring into mirrors, watching his reflection ripple like water, questioning which version was true.
Kael knew the noble families wielded more than titles and gold—they wielded control over this Veil. They held secrets to paths the System would never willingly reveal. That was their power, their safety, their weapon.
And Kael, standing on the fringe, held nothing but questions.
But he was no longer willing to be nothing.