The sky opened like a blooming flower.
Artha had never seen the upper rings of Caelumaris. Not this way. Not from a floating transport sphere, drifting past titanic crystal towers and wind-laced gardens that hovered on nothing but magic.
His nose pressed to the sphere's transparent dome. He barely remembered to breathe.
The city shone in spirals and patterns he couldn't name. Holographic banners fluttered in the air. Great leviathan beasts flew among transport orbs, their wings humming with mana. And at the heart of it all—taller than the rest—stood Aetherion Academy, a fortress built of white stone and golden memory, suspended between sun and storm by ancient rings of force.
"Aetherion Academy... where gods are forged or forgotten."
Sariya floated beside him, arms crossed.
"You're drooling."
"No I'm not."
"A little bit."
He wiped his mouth and turned away quickly.
She smirked. "You'll get used to it. Or you won't. Either way, welcome to the sky."
As the sphere descended onto a landing platform of humming glyphs, Sariya pulled her hood low.
"From here on," she said, her tone shifting, "you have to walk alone."
Artha blinked. "What?"
"I'll be watching from the sidelines. But Aetherion isn't a place you can cheat your way through. You want answers? You'll earn them."
She nudged his shoulder, surprisingly gentle. "Don't worry. It's okay to be nervous."
He nodded, swallowing the fear.
As he walked past a line of statues, where every body gathered. a loud voice echoed throughout the hall—
"Every soul holds a Rudra…"
"Some burn fast. Some bloom slow. But all of them seek resonance."
He remembered what Sariya had said days ago:
"Power doesn't ask what you want. It just is."
A glowing display listed the known Rudra stages:
Dormant Spark
Kindling Vein
True Flame
Burst Core
Living Law
Resonant Soul
Cosmic Verse (in red—marked Theoretical)
Artha had no idea what his was. If he even had one.
He stepped forward anyway.
At the registration stone, an old examiner took his scroll without looking up. Then paused.
The man glanced at Artha—long and hard. The scanner glitched. For a moment, the air around Artha distorted, as if reality couldn't quite fit him.
Then, silence.
"…Pass," the man muttered, stamping the scroll. "Next."
The stone path leading deeper into Aetherion was worn, yet polished by the footsteps of those who had walked it before—legends, heroes, and the few who had touched the truth of the Rudras. Artha walked quietly among the crowd of new applicants, his cloak flaring behind him, his grip still tight around the scroll Sariya had pressed into his hands.
All around him, the architecture of Caelumaris loomed with a divine kind of arrogance—ancient towers etched with breathing glyphs, golden arches that shimmered faintly as if remembering spells cast long ago. Statues of long-dead champions lined the academy's outer walls, their gazes unyielding.
He paused to look at the inscriptions on a nearby pillar.
"Where power lives, purpose must follow."
These walls watched legends rise, he thought. And fall.
He stepped into the central plaza—and the world exploded into brilliance.
Hundreds of applicants had gathered, a chaotic blend of pride, nerves, and radiant power. Some were chanting spells. Others sparred with illusionary doubles. Every corner pulsed with elemental force—flames spiraling in synchronized drills, water blades dancing mid-air, gravity warped to form makeshift arenas.
And amidst it all, leaning lazily against a pillar, was a figure with unreadable eyes and a soft smirk.
Tivaan Al'Saroj.
Clad in the blue-and-gold of Aetherion's advanced students, he held an open book, runes glowing along its pages. As new candidates arrived, he muttered observations like a scholar mid-theater.
"Redhead. Rudra Ascendant. Storm crest aura. Definitely wind dominion—unrefined but volatile.""Sword guy with the floating blade... ah, Tier-3 mantra fusion. Rare. That blade sings like it's alive."
He clicked his tongue thoughtfully and kept watching, annotating his thoughts into the glowing book with a stylus of light.
Across the plaza, a magic swordsman stood tall, back straight, silver hair flaring behind him. The blade floated behind his shoulder, bound by invisible threads to his gestures.
"Peasants," he said aloud, with theatrical disdain. "Try not to embarrass yourselves when I pass the trial."
His name echoed—Varik d'Zamora.
Not far from him, a battle mage conjured swirling orbs of fire and frost, weaving gravitational tethers between them, keeping them suspended mid-air like stars.
Faryne Luthen, master of layered casting. Her fingers moved like a pianist's, her expression sharp.
"If you can't chant and dodge at the same time," she declared, "you're not Aetherion material."
Artha stayed near the edge, trying to remain unseen. But fate never liked leaving him alone for long.
He accidentally brushed into a hovering transport cart—a minor misstep—but enough to set off a chain reaction. The cart jostled forward, knocking over a stack of ornate crates belonging to a tall, sneering boy cloaked in green and silver.
Kaasik Ren.
His eyes narrowed with disgust as greenish-black mist trailed from his fingers. His Rudra aura dripped like venom.
"Tch," Kaasik snarled, brushing off his coat. "Who let gutter trash crawl into Caelumaris? This gate was supposed to filter out the insects."
Tivaan, still leaning against the pillar, scribbled in his book again.
"Poison affinity… Niravhira region. Aura consistent with acidic domain. Likely Tier-2 resonance." He looked toward Artha. "Let's see how trash handles toxin."
Kaasik didn't wait for permission. Tendrils of acid lashed toward Artha.
Artha flinched—his mind suddenly fractured. In a split second, two realities pulled at him:
One path—he dodged left and got burned.
Another—he stumbled by accident, and the tendrils missed entirely.
What… is this?
He followed the second.
The world slowed.
Everything blurred, like moving underwater—yet his body shifted with eerie precision, ducking in just the right direction, landing awkwardly but untouched.
A flicker—brief, silent—like Kala-Vritti whispering from a corner of time.
Spectators murmured, confused.
"He moved before Kaasik even struck.""No spell? No aura flare?"
Above, a silent figure observed. A woman with a moon-shaped earring, half-hidden beneath a hood. Her eyes tracked Artha like a hawk studying a puzzle.
"He doesn't know what he is yet," she whispered.
Tivaan tilted his head, amused. His pen danced again.
"No aura. No pre-cast. And yet—preemptive dodge. Either fractured time pathing or latent future-sense. Hm. Worth logging."
Kaasik snarled and backed off, humiliated.
"This isn't over, rat."
But Artha wasn't even angry. He was confused. Tired. Whatever had just happened—it wasn't something he understood. It didn't feel like his power. It felt… borrowed.
The duels continued.
Varik's soul-bound blade clashed against Faryne's spell spheres in a dazzling display—steel cutting through gravity tethers, magic unraveling in choreographed chaos. The crowd roared as fire met steel.
Above them, three instructors stood silently on floating towers.
One had a mechanical arm that clicked with each motion. Another levitated, robes trailing like ink. The third wore a blindfold and yet turned perfectly to follow each strike.
These were Aetherion's elite. Their mere presence shaped the wind.
Artha sat quietly near one of the towers, away from the crowd. The moonlight brushed his cheek. A symbol flickered in his pupil—an ancient glyph, faint and almost forgotten. He didn't notice.
He just stared at the ground, trying to steady his breath.
"If I don't belong here… then I'll make this place mine anyway."
And somewhere behind those words, far off in the hollow space of his soul, a voice he hadn't heard in years whispered:
"Walk, even if no one tells you where to go."