The training yard had been stripped bare. No dummies, no painted targets—just stone underfoot and silence in the air. It felt wrong. A battlefield without cover, without chaos. Just space wide enough for failure to echo.
Elric stood in the center, staff in hand. Cloak trailing like smoke, hood drawn low. To the Fellowship, he was Elric the Illusionist. To those who whispered longer, he was something sharper. The Shadowweaver.
He tapped the staff against the ground once. The sound was dull, but it carried.
"Strength," he said, "isn't just the weight you can swing. Or the magic in your blood. A strong human," his gaze swept us like a knife, "is strong in body, mind, and will. Take one away, and you're prey to those who have it."
His words hung heavy, and for a moment no one breathed. Braun scratched his jaw, uncomfortable. Tessa's eyes were sharp, as though measuring the claim. Lucen's jaw was tight, like he'd already dismissed it.
Elric's eyes narrowed. "Vale."
Lucen stepped forward without hesitation, Dominion blade sparking into a plain astral longsword. The light of it made the crowd lean back instinctively.
Elric raised his staff. "Five minutes. Touch me once, and you win."
Lucen smirked. "That's all?"
"Begin."
Lucen lunged, fast as lightning. His blade tore down in a perfect arc, enough to split stone. Elric shifted—just one step, cloak trailing, the strike missing by a breath. Not impossibly fast, but always ahead. Lucen pressed harder, Dominion flaring, sweat running, strikes like thunder. Each time Elric moved as if the ground itself had given him warning. Minutes slipped by.
"Four."
Lucen's grin cracked into a snarl. His blows grew sloppy, more will than thought.
"Three."
The blade's radiance burned brighter, pulling at him, feeding his need to strike. Elric simply flowed aside.
"Two."
Stone split beneath Lucen's feet. Dust rose in clouds. The Dominion hummed, hungry. Elric's voice cut through the haze.
"One."
Lucen gathered everything into one final strike, the sword blazing like judgment. Stone shattered. Air cracked. The yard trembled. But the staff tapped his shoulder.
"Time."
Lucen froze. He had not been countered, only made a fool of his own strength. His chest heaved, jaw tight, as if swallowing the lesson.
Elric turned, gaze sweeping over us all. "Raw strength impresses children. True strength is balance. Mind to see, body to act, will to endure. When one outpaces the others, the whole foundation cracks."
He planted the staff in stone and turned his judgment to each of us.
"Lucen Vale. Body strong, will iron. But your mind chases only the path in front of you. Dominion pulls, and you follow. That is not mastery. That is a leash."
Lucen's jaw clenched tighter, but he said nothing.
"Tessa Draemir." She straightened, chin high. "Body sharp, mind sharper. But your will is soft. You've never climbed from the mud, so you've never had to grit your teeth when the wind turned against you."
Her lips pressed thin, but she didn't look away.
"Braun Stone." The staff lowered. "Will like bedrock, body like mountain. But your mind lags behind. You throw yourself first, think after. You'll smash yourself to pieces before the world bends."
Braun scratched at his neck, grin faltering.
Finally, his eyes landed on me. I felt the weight like iron.
"Lioren Thalen. Your will refuses to yield, even when it should. But your body betrays you, and your mind leans too heavily on what it does not understand. Insight is not wisdom. Following a map is not knowing the road."
Shame burned hot, but beneath it a spark of resolve. Elric's voice sharpened.
"Enough listening. Time to temper the cracks. One by one."
Lucen's Trial of Restraint
"Vale. Step forward."
The Dominion shimmered, eager, but Elric lifted a hand. "You will not strike. For a week, you may only defend. Break the rule, and you start again."
Lucen blinked, incredulous. "Defend only? Against who?"
Elric's cloak stirred. "Against me, against anyone. Until you learn restraint, your strength will burn you alive."
The Dominion dimmed, reshaping into a shield of light. Lucen looked at it as though betrayed, his knuckles white.
For the first time, he looked uncertain.
Tessa's Trial of Endurance
"Draemir."
Weights shimmered onto her wrists and ankles. The air thickened with Elric's illusions—fog, wind, distorted sounds. "You've never fought tired. You will now. Fight blind, fight heavy, fight weary. Let's see if your will bends or breaks."
Tessa's jaw clenched. She moved forward anyway, eyes fierce, even as sweat beaded instantly across her brow.
Braun's Trial of the Mind
"Stone."
Dozens of Elrics shimmered into being around him, perfect illusions. "Find the real me."
Braun charged, fists slamming. Each illusion broke into nothing, until his strike slammed into a rune-carved wall disguised as Elric. Blue-white arcs jolted his arm and chest, dropping him to a knee. Sparks crackled. His grin faltered into pain.
Elric's voice was calm. "Illusions hide danger. If you always swing first, you will strike death with your bare hands."
Braun spat dust, shaking his head, the lesson carved in pain.
Lioren's Trial of Clarity
"And Thalen."
The threads burst around me in a storm. Paths split, crossed, multiplied until my head spun. Elric's illusions layered false roads into the real ones.
"Follow wrong, and you walk into ruin. Follow none, and you'll never move."
My lungs burned. Sweat blinded me. I stumbled into a wall once, pain rattling my teeth. Another path beckoned—I forced myself through, blade steady. At last the storm fell away, Elric's staff breaking the illusion.
"You see too much," he said. "Learn to ignore the lies, or they'll kill you faster than ignorance."
I collapsed to a knee, chest heaving.
---
By sunset, we were all broken down.
Lucen's shield still glowed faintly, but his fists trembled with the need to strike. Tessa's legs shook beneath the weights, though her chin never dipped. Braun sat slouched, scorch marks on his sleeve, his grin gone. I gasped, still dizzy from phantom threads.
Elric stood at the center, cloak still as shadow. "You passed your trials because you were gifted. But gifts rot when not tempered. Break, or grow—that choice is yours."
He turned, leaving us in silence heavier than stone. For the first time since the trials began, we all hated him equally.