The Academy wasted no time. The test had sorted reputations, but reputations meant nothing without blood on the ground.
So they sent us into the forest.
Not a true dungeon—not yet—but a fragment: a collapsed nest where beasts had gathered around a corrupted crystal. Safe enough for children with supervision, dangerous enough to cull the weak. A perfect crucible.
The instructors stood at the treeline, their robes faint with suppression runes. They would watch, but they would not act unless death was certain. That was the law.
"Form group of five people and to win you have to destroy the crystal in the dungeon. So, survive all of you."
The announcement rippled through the students like a thrown stone. Alliances bloomed instantly—noble heirs clustering together, commoners clinging to stronger peers.
And then the instructors called names.
"Zeryth Malakar, Malrik Veynor, Isolde Thorne, Elric theodre and Myra dome You five—same unit."
The crowd buzzed. The top three from the test, forced together. A gift, or a trap.
I did not react. My smile stayed hidden.
The Hunt Begins
Our group filled with two others: a timid archer named Elric and a healer called Myra. Pawns, placeholders. They would either survive or provide material.
Malrik took point, sword already drawn. "Stay close. I'll lead." His tone was clipped, command threaded into every syllable.
Isolde merely adjusted her gloves and followed, eyes scanning the undergrowth. Always watching. Always calculating.
I walked at the rear, hands loose at my sides, Codex whispering in my vision.
[
Delicious.
The Wolves struck quickly—shadows lunging from the brush, jaws snapping. Malrik moved like a storm, blade flashing, cutting one down in a spray of blood. Isolde conjured pale-blue glyphs, ice lancing through another's ribs. Efficient. Clean.
Elric panicked, loosing arrows wild; Myra chanted a ward too late to matter. Useless. Predictable.
I raised my hand. The closest wolf froze mid-leap, its body unraveling into gray particles. It didn't even have time to scream before it was gone.
Disintegrate.
The others gaped—Elric paling, Myra whispering a prayer—but I ignored them. Instead, I caught the wolf's unraveling essence, molding it into my flesh.
Integrate.
[
The forest sharpened instantly. Every leaf's rustle, every heartbeat, every breath—they were music in my ears.
I smiled.
Malrik wiped his blade, glaring at me. "What was that? That… ability of yours?"
I tilted my head. But didn't answer.
His jaw tightened. He hated not knowing. Hated that my power had stolen the spotlight from his sword.
Isolde's eyes lingered longer. She didn't ask. She only filed it away. A colder danger.
We pressed deeper. More wolves came, more blood spilled. Malrik roared and cut them down, Isolde froze them mid-step, Elric fumbled, Myra healed scratches. And me?
I fed. Quietly, constantly. Each beast disintegrated became another thread in my Codex.
[
Now I didn't just hear—I felt them, the way wolves felt each other's presence in a hunt. My awareness spread across the forest like invisible threads.
At last we reached the heart: a jagged shard of corrupted crystal pulsing in a clearing, black energy bleeding into the soil. More wolves circled it, their eyes glowing red, their movements frantic.
The instructors' eyes were on us from afar. This was the trial. Break the crystal, survive the pack.
Malrik tightened his grip on his sword. "I'll carve a path to the crystal. Zeryth, cover me. Isolde, freeze anything that gets through. Elric, Myra—stay alive."
I almost laughed. He thought he commanded me.
But orders were just another tool. And Malrik was about to learn that victory wasn't seized with brute force—it was designed.