Dawn broke over the trial grounds like a blade cutting through darkness, painting the ancient stone walls of the coliseum in shades of gold and amber. The Essence Monolith hummed with renewed energy, its surface reflecting the morning light in patterns that seemed to pulse with the heartbeat of Vilaris.
Itsuki stood with his friends near the arena's edge, his=eyes tracking the movement of other candidates as they gathered for the second and final day of trials. The atmosphere was different now, heavier, more charged with nervous anticipation. Yesterday had been about proving they belonged here. Today was about proving they deserved to stay.
"Sleep at all?" Takumi asked, though his own restless energy betrayed his answer. Small flames flickered unconsciously around his fingertips, a nervous habit he'd never quite learned to control.
"Some," Itsuki replied, though the truth was he'd spent most of the night thinking about his strange test result and what Master Amari had meant by "unusual resonance pattern." His Abstract Shift ability felt different lately, more responsive but also more unpredictable, as if it were trying to evolve beyond his understanding.
Shion remained quiet, his teal eyes fixed on the expanded fighting circle where the Trial Masters were making their final preparations. His silver-blue hair caught the morning breeze, and Itsuki noticed his friend's hands were trembling slightly as he clutched his worn sketchbook.
"The waiting is always the worst part," Kairo observed, his amber eyes calm but alert. His hand drifted unconsciously to the cracked hourglass pendant at his throat, a nervous habit that reminded Itsuki how much they all had riding on today's outcome.
Master Amari stepped forward, his iron-gray hair gleaming in the sunlight as his authoritative voice carried across the grounds. "Candidates! Today's combat trials will determine our final selections for Zenkai Dojo. Remember, this is not about defeating your opponent. This is about demonstrating mastery, adaptability, and the warrior's spirit that defines a true Virelian."
He consulted his notes with the practiced efficiency of someone who had overseen countless such trials. "The combat format will test not only your individual abilities but your capacity to adapt under pressure. Each match will be closely observed by our evaluation panel."
Sensei Laen stepped beside him, adding, "For those unfamiliar with advanced trial protocols, today's fights operate under different rules than yesterday's demonstrations. You may use your full abilities without restraint, but remember, permanently injuring an opponent will result in immediate disqualification."
A murmur ran through the crowd as the implications sank in. This wasn't going to be the controlled, technical sparring they'd seen before.
"First match," Master Amari announced, his voice cutting through the morning air like a blade. "Itsuki Naoya versus Drayce Harkin!"
Itsuki's stomach dropped as whispers began rippling through the crowd. He caught sight of his opponent across the arena, Drayce Harkin was impossible to miss. The eighteen-year-old stood nearly a head taller than Itsuki, with broad shoulders that looked carved from stone and arms that suggested he could break granite with his bare hands. His dark hair was cropped military-short, and his brown eyes held the confident gleam of someone who had never known defeat.
"That's not good," Takumi muttered, his golden eyes narrowing as he assessed the matchup.
"Power isn't everything," Kairo said quietly, but even his usually steady voice carried a note of concern. "Itsuki's Abstract Shift gives him options Drayce won't be expecting."
Shion looked up from his sketchbook, where he'd been unconsciously sketching the arena layout. "Drayce fights like a hammer," he said softly. "Overwhelming force, direct approaches. But hammers can't hit what they can't pin down."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Itsuki said, managing a weak smile as he started walking toward the arena. His friends' words of encouragement followed him, but they felt distant now, muffled by the thundering of his own heartbeat.
As he took his position across from Drayce, Itsuki could feel the crowd's energy shifting. The spectators sensed this wouldn't be the technical display that some of yesterday's matches had been, this had the potential to be brutal.
"You're the one with the weird test result," Drayce said, his voice carrying easily across the space between them. There was no malice in it, just matter-of-fact observation. "Abstract Shift, right? I've been wondering what that actually does."
"I guess you're about to find out," Itsuki replied, settling into his ready stance. His father's training echoed in his mind: Find your center. Power means nothing without control.
Sensei Laen raised his hand. "Fighters ready?"
Both young men nodded.
"Begin!"
Drayce moved faster than Itsuki had expected for someone his size. The larger boy charged forward with surprising agility, his right fist already glowing with concentrated essence, the telltale sign of his Forcewell ability activating. When that punch connected, it would hit like a hammer even without physical contact, the kinetic force transmitted through pure essence manipulation.
Itsuki barely dodged, feeling the pressure wave from Drayce's strike ruffle his white hair and crack the stone beneath their feet. He rolled left and came up running, trying to create distance and time to think.
But Drayce wasn't giving him space. Another essence-charged punch whistled through the air where Itsuki's head had been a split second before, the kinetic shockwave leaving a crater in the arena wall behind him.
"Come on!" Drayce called out, pressing his advance with relentless aggression. "Stand still and fight like a Virelian!"
The crowd was getting loud now, some cheering for the underdog, others impressed by Drayce's raw display of power. In the spectator sections, Itsuki caught a glimpse of other candidates watching intently, studying their potential future competition.
Think, Itsuki told himself as he dodged another devastating strike. What's the abstract concept I can manipulate here?
Drayce wound up for what looked like his strongest attack yet, both hands crackling with kinetic force. The bigger boy's strategy was clear, overwhelmed with pure power until his opponent had nowhere left to run.
But as the attack came toward him, Itsuki stopped running. Instead, he grabbed a handful of the loose sand scattered around the arena floor. The moment his fingers closed around the grains, he focused his will, his essence, on a single abstract concept:
Weight.
Not the sand itself, but the very concept of what made it heavy. And then he twisted that concept, changed it from heavy to light, from substantial to ethereal.
The sand in his hand shimmered for an instant, as if reality itself was reconsidering what these particular grains should be. Then Itsuki threw it directly into Drayce's face.
What should have been a minor annoyance became something else entirely. The sand, now light as air but retaining its solid properties, hung in the space between them like a glittering cloud, catching the morning sun and creating a brief, blinding screen that completely obscured Drayce's vision.
"What the, " Drayce stumbled, swinging blindly as the transformed sand swirled around him in impossible patterns, neither falling to earth nor dispersing in the wind.
The crowd erupted in confused murmurs. Even Master Amari leaned forward with interest, his experienced eyes trying to process what they'd just witnessed.
"How did he do that?" someone shouted from the stands.
"The sand's not falling!"
"It's like it forgot how to be heavy!"
Itsuki darted forward while Drayce was still disoriented, getting inside his opponent's reach for the first time. His fist connected with Drayce's solar plexus, not a devastating blow, but perfectly placed to knock the wind from the larger boy's lungs.
As Drayce doubled over, gasping, Itsuki spun behind him and grabbed the back of his opponent's training shirt. Once again, his essence flowed with focused intention, but this time he targeted a different abstract concept:
Balance.
Every living being had an inherent sense of which way was up, where their center of gravity lay. Itsuki reached out with his Abstract Shift and changed that fundamental understanding. Suddenly, Drayce's own proprioception worked against him, his body believed it was falling even while standing upright.
Off-balance and feeling strangely weightless, Drayce toppled forward. Itsuki guided his fall with minimal force, using the larger boy's own momentum to send him face-first into the arena sand.
The crowd exploded into cheers and confused shouting.
"Match!" Master Amari called, and Itsuki could hear genuine surprise in the instructor's voice. "Victory to Itsuki Naoya!"
As the noise of the crowd washed over him, Itsuki helped Drayce to his feet. The larger boy shook his head in bewilderment, sand falling from his dark hair.
"What did you do to me?" Drayce asked, not angry but genuinely curious. "I felt like I was floating for a second there, and that sand..." He gestured at the grains that were now behaving normally again, falling to earth like sand should.
"I changed some abstract concepts," Itsuki explained honestly. "Made the sand's weight into lightness, and altered your sense of balance. My ability doesn't create new things, it changes what existing things fundamentally are."
Drayce's eyes widened with understanding and respect. "That's incredible. And terrifying." He extended his hand with a grin. "Whatever it was, it was brilliant strategy. Good fight."
They shook hands to thunderous applause, and Itsuki returned to his friends on unsteady legs, adrenaline making his hands tremble.
"That was amazing!" Takumi shouted, grabbing Itsuki in a fierce hug. "I've never seen anything like that sand trick! You literally made it forget how to fall!"
"The way you used his own sense of balance against him," Kairo added, his amber eyes bright with impressed analysis. "That was pure tactical genius. Most people would have tried to overpower him, you changed the rules of the fight itself."
"I can't believe it worked," Itsuki admitted, still breathing hard. The crowd was still buzzing with excitement, many spectators trying to explain to others what they'd just witnessed.
But as he looked around for Shion's reaction, Itsuki noticed his friend had drifted away from the group slightly, standing at the edge of the crowd with his arms crossed. There was something in Shion's teal eyes that might have been envy, or perhaps something deeper and more complex.
"Your ability really is on a different level," Shion said quietly when Itsuki approached him. "You don't just manipulate matter or energy, you change the fundamental rules of reality itself. That's..." He paused, seeming to struggle with the words. "That's what Mythic-tier abilities are supposed to do, isn't it?"
Before Itsuki could respond, Master Amari's voice cut through the celebration.
"Next match: Kairo Huisji versus Reima Syl!"
Now it was Kairo's turn. Itsuki watched his friend walk toward the arena with that same quiet confidence he always carried, but there was something different in his posture, a subtle tension that suggested he'd learned something from watching Itsuki's match.
Reima Syl was already waiting at the center of the fighting circle. The lean boy had wind-tousled brown hair and sharp green eyes that missed nothing. His stance was relaxed but alert, like a predator conserving energy for the perfect moment to strike.
"Reima's Vane Point ability can turn air currents into cutting blades," Takumi explained quietly. "He won his preliminary match by slicing through his opponent's essence constructs like they were paper."
"Deadly at range," Itsuki observed, "but limited by line of sight and essence consumption. If Kairo can close the distance..."
"That's a big if," Shion said, his voice carrying an odd note of detachment. "Wind blades move at the speed of thought. Kairo's Void Step is fast, but he can't maintain it indefinitely."
The match began differently than Itsuki's had. Both fighters circled each other cautiously, neither wanting to make the first mistake. Reima raised his hands, and immediately the air around him began to move, forming invisible currents that made the sand at his feet swirl in complex patterns.
"He's mapping the air currents," someone in the crowd observed. "Setting up his attack vectors."
Kairo simply watched, his amber eyes tracking every movement with the patience of a natural strategist. This was what made him so dangerous, not just his ability, but his tactical mind that could process and counter an opponent's strategy in real time.
Reima struck first, slashing his hand through the air with practiced precision. A blade of compressed wind screamed toward Kairo, sharp enough to cut stone and moving almost too fast to see.
But where it passed, only empty space remained.
Kairo had void-stepped, disappearing for a crucial split second before reappearing three feet to the left, completely unharmed. The wind blade dissipated harmlessly against the arena wall.
"Clever," Reima acknowledged, already preparing another attack. "But you can't keep that up forever. Every teleportation drains your essence, and I have plenty of wind to spare."
He was right, and everyone watching knew it. Void Step was incredibly effective but came with a heavy cost. Kairo could only manage short jumps, and each one ate into his essence reserves.
But Kairo had always been the most strategic fighter among his friends.
Instead of trying to close distance immediately, he began moving in a complex pattern, side to side, forward and back, occasionally disappearing and reappearing but never quite where Reima expected. Each void-step was calculated not just to avoid attacks, but to force Reima to adjust his aim, to waste energy on strikes that hit empty air.
"Look at the positioning," Itsuki said quietly, beginning to understand his friend's strategy. "Kairo's not just dodging, he's controlling where Reima has to aim."
The pattern became clear as the fight continued. Every time Reima prepared a wind blade, Kairo would void-step to a position that forced the wind-user to redirect his attack, burning extra essence in the process. Meanwhile, Kairo's own movements followed an increasingly unpredictable rhythm that made targeting him nearly impossible.
"He's wearing him down," Shion observed, his tactical mind automatically analyzing the flow of battle. "Making Reima work twice as hard for every attack attempt."
It was working. After five minutes of this deadly dance, Reima's wind blades were getting weaker, less precise. His breathing was labored from the constant essence expenditure, and sweat beaded on his forehead as he tried to keep up with Kairo's erratic movement pattern.
The crowd was transfixed, watching what amounted to a masterclass in tactical warfare. This wasn't about raw power, it was about resource management, psychological pressure, and perfect timing.
Finally, Kairo made his move.
He void-stepped directly toward Reima, not to the side or back as he'd been doing, but straight forward in a bold, aggressive approach. Reima, expecting another evasive maneuver, had prepared a wide-area attack designed to cover multiple possible positions.
When Kairo appeared right in front of him instead, the wind-user was caught completely off-guard.
Kairo's palm strike to Reima's chest was gentle by combat standards, but perfectly placed and timed. The impact knocked Reima backward into the sand, and before he could recover, Kairo was already positioning for a follow-up that would end the match.
"Yield!" Reima called out, raising his hand in surrender. "I yield!"
"Match!" Sensei Laen announced. "Victory to Kairo Huisji!"
The crowd's applause this time was different, appreciative rather than explosive. They had just watched a demonstration of tactical brilliance that left even experienced fighters nodding in professional admiration.
Kairo helped Reima to his feet with the same calm professionalism he brought to everything.
"You forced me to overextend," Reima said, shaking his head ruefully. "I should have conserved my essence better, waited for a cleaner opening."
"You're a skilled fighter," Kairo replied diplomatically. "In a longer match, or on different terrain, the outcome might have been very different. Your wind techniques are impressively refined."
As Kairo returned to the group, Itsuki felt a surge of pride for his friend. Two matches down, two victories for their group. They were really doing this, they might actually make it to Zenkai Dojo.
"Beautiful work," Takumi said, grinning broadly. "That was like watching a chess grandmaster play speed chess. Pure tactical dominance."
"Patience and planning," Kairo agreed with a slight smile. "Though I nearly miscalculated at the end. If Reima had held back more of his essence reserves, that final approach could have been disastrous."
More matches followed throughout the morning, each one revealing new aspects of high-level combat that none of them had considered in their friendly training sessions back home. The pressure of individual performance, the need to adapt to completely unknown opponents, the mental game of reading an enemy's strategy while concealing your own, it was all far more complex than they'd imagined.
They watched a girl with sonic manipulation abilities create acoustic illusions that completely confused her opponent before striking from an unexpected angle. Another candidate demonstrated plant control similar to what they'd seen from Inara, but taken to a more sophisticated level, he created a living maze that forced his opponent to fight on his terms while slowly draining their movement options.
"The level of competition is incredible," Takumi observed during a brief break between matches. "Everyone here has clearly been training seriously for years."
"It makes sense," Kairo replied thoughtfully. "Zenkai Dojo only takes twelve candidates from the entire region. They can afford to be extremely selective."
As the afternoon approached, Itsuki noticed Shion becoming more and more withdrawn. His friend sat slightly apart from the group, sketching in his notebook with sharp, agitated strokes that were very different from his usual careful linework.
"You okay?" Itsuki asked quietly, moving to sit beside Shion during another break.
"Just thinking about my match," Shion replied without looking up from his drawings. The sketches, Itsuki noticed, seemed to show fragments of battles that hadn't happened yet, ghostly images of fire and shadow. "Nayen Krayth."
Itsuki winced. They'd all heard about Nayen during the morning announcements. Eighteen years old, known for her ruthless fighting style and fire-based abilities that could bind and restrict opponents. She'd apparently won several regional competitions before coming to the trials, and her reputation preceded her like a wave of heat.
"She's tough," Itsuki admitted, not wanting to lie to his friend. "But you're tougher than you think. Your Spectral Refrain might not be flashy, but it's incredibly versatile. You can show her attacks before she makes them, create false patterns to confuse her tactical planning..."
"Can I?" Shion interrupted, his teal eyes finally meeting Itsuki's. There was something hollow in them that made Itsuki's chest tighten with concern. "My echoes are weak, Itsuki. Small and fragile. Yesterday's test proved that, my essence reading was barely above the minimum threshold for entry."
"Power levels aren't everything," Itsuki started, but Shion cut him off with unusual sharpness.
"Yes, they are!" His voice carried more emotion than Itsuki had heard from him in months. "Look around! Everyone here has something impressive, something that matters. You can alter reality itself. Kairo can step through the void between spaces. Takumi commands fire like it's an extension of his soul. What do I do? I make tiny pictures of things I've already seen."
The pain in his friend's voice cut through Itsuki like a blade. He wanted to argue, to point out all the ways Shion's analytical mind and tactical awareness made him invaluable, but before he could find the words, Master Amari's voice rang out across the arena.
"Next match: Shion Enther versus Nayen Krayth!"
The crowd's reaction was immediate, excited murmurs and pointing fingers. Nayen had apparently developed quite a reputation during the preliminary matches, and spectators were eager to see her signature Anchorflame technique in action.
Shion closed his notebook with a sharp snap and stood up, his shoulders set with grim determination.
"Shion, wait," Itsuki began, reaching for his friend's arm.
But Shion was already walking toward the arena, his stride steady despite the obvious tension in his frame. "I'll see you afterward," he said without turning around. "Whatever happens."
Nayen Krayth was waiting for him at the center of the fighting circle, and she was exactly as intimidating as her reputation suggested. She was tall and lean with predatory grace, her black hair tied in a high braid that swayed as she moved. Her piercing violet eyes seemed to measure Shion like a hunter sizing up prey, and her stance was relaxed but ready, the posture of someone completely confident in their abilities.
"The quiet one," she said as Shion took his position across from her, her voice carrying clearly across the arena despite its conversational tone. "I've been watching your friends' matches. Very impressive displays. I hope you can provide similar entertainment."
Shion said nothing in response, but Itsuki could see his friend's jaw clench. The crowd was settling into expectant silence, sensing that this match might be something special.
"Fighters ready?" Sensei Laen called out.
Both nodded.
"Begin!"