Azraeth's thumb met the glowing button, and the window blinked once before reshaping itself into fresh text, the older sections folding away like pages turned by an invisible hand.
⟢ FUTURE MEGA WIZARD PATH
The Six Mega Wizards personally choose one apprentice each.
Apprentice selection is not based on rank, background, or status. There are no requirements tied to a student's rank, and favoritism is strictly prohibited.
A chosen apprentice will gradually advance through the following stages:
High Mage
Master Mage
Grand Mage
Archmage
An Archmage is the highest rank a mage can achieve before reaching the possibility of becoming one of the Six Mega Wizards.
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[BACK] [EARLY GRADUATION RULE]
Azraeth read it through twice, the words settling into him with a strange, quiet weight. No requirements. No favoritism. Just a choice, made by six people whose judgment apparently answered to no one.
His eyes drifted, without quite meaning to, toward Kaelion and Eryndor.
Neither of them had said much since the window opened. Kaelion sat with his arms loosely crossed, staring at some point just past the floating text rather than at it directly. Eryndor's expression hadn't changed at all — which, Azraeth had already learned in the short time he'd known him, usually meant something was happening underneath it.
Do they want this? Or is it just expected of them?
The question pressed at him harder than he expected, curiosity tangled with something gentler — a hesitance he didn't often feel. He filed it away instead, the way he always did with things that weren't his to ask carelessly.
I'll ask them later.
And beneath that thought sat another, one he didn't say aloud to anyone in the room: if a Mega Wizard ever looked his way and offered him that path, he already knew what his answer would be.
I'd decline. Respectfully. But I'd decline.
It wasn't that the path repulsed him — it didn't. It was simply that some part of him, quiet but stubborn, wanted to choose his own ceiling rather than climb toward one someone else had built.
He pressed Early Graduation Rule.
⟢ EARLY GRADUATION RULE
Students who are unable to advance to the next section because their Level Cap prevents them from reaching the required level may graduate early from Azuremyst Academy.
Their future career options depend on the highest section they successfully completed.
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⟢ SECTION D EARLY GRADUATES
Level Range: Level 1–49
- Guard — Protects towns, cities, buildings, nobles, merchants, and civilians from criminals or low-level monsters.
- Farmer — Produces food and maintains agricultural production for villages and cities.
- Fisher — Provides food by catching fish from rivers, lakes, and oceans.
- Farmer Assistant — Supports farmers with daily agricultural tasks and farm management.
- Fishing Village Worker — Helps maintain fishing communities and supports fishing operations.
- Cook — Prepares meals for civilians, travelers, and organizations.
- Servant / House Worker — Works for wealthy families, organizations, or important individuals.
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⟢ SECTION C EARLY GRADUATES
Level Range: Level 50–199
- Hunter — Hunts wild monsters outside settlements and collects valuable monster materials.
- Merchant — Trades goods and resources between settlements and regions.
- Shopkeeper — Operates stores that provide everyday necessities.
- Innkeeper — Manages inns and provides accommodation for travelers.
- Messenger — Delivers important information and messages between locations.
- Builder — Constructs, repairs, and maintains buildings and structures.
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⟢ SECTION B EARLY GRADUATES
Level Range: Level 200–249
- Caravan Worker — Transports goods, supplies, and resources between cities and distant regions.
- Miner — Extracts valuable minerals, ores, and resources from mines.
- Advanced Guard — Protects important locations and handles stronger threats beyond ordinary guards.
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[BACK]
Sylas let out a low breath beside him, reading the last section over his shoulder. "Huh. So if your cap's bad enough, you just... end up a farmer. Forever."
"Not forever," Lorian said quietly, not looking up from where he sat, elbows on his knees. "Just a smaller life than most people here are hoping for."
Nobody argued with that. The words sat in the room for a moment, plain and unembellished, the way Lorian's words usually were.
Azraeth said nothing, but his mind turned inward, back to a number that had once felt like a wall built specifically to stop him — a cap he hadn't chosen, hadn't earned, and couldn't have broken through sheer effort alone. It had taken something far outside himself, something he still didn't fully understand, to change it. He thought of all the people who never got that chance. A number decided before they'd even had the opportunity to prove what they could do with it.
So much of a life here comes down to something no one gets to choose.
He closed the device. The window folded inward and vanished, the faint shimmer of light fading from the air above his palm, leaving the room looking ordinary again — five beds, five half-unpacked trunks, the late afternoon light slanting gold through the tall dormitory window.
Azraeth slipped the device into the inner pocket of his robe and sat for a moment longer, turning the day's information over once more before letting it settle. Azuremyst Academy wasn't merely a school, he realized. It was something closer to a machine — patient, exact, indifferent — quietly deciding, floor by floor and section by section, what each person inside it was allowed to become.
He looked up. Kaelion was still sitting with that same faraway look, and Eryndor had returned to arranging his books, though his hands moved slower now, less certain than before.
The question had been sitting in Azraeth's chest since the window first opened. He decided the timing wouldn't get any better by waiting.
"Kaelion. Eryndor." Both of them looked over. "Do you want that? To follow your fathers. To become Mega Wizards someday."
The room quieted in a way that felt different from before — not tense, exactly, but attentive. Sylas stopped fiddling with the edge of his blanket. Lorian's eyes lifted properly for the first time since sitting down.
Kaelion exhaled slowly through his nose, and for a moment the easy brightness that usually sat on his face dimmed into something more careful.
"No," he said, and there was no hesitation in the word itself, only in the breath before it. "I don't want to become like my father." He paused, turning a loose thread on his sleeve between two fingers, not quite looking at anyone. "I love him. I do. He's strong, and people respect him, and I understand why. But he's always away from home. Missions, councils, emergencies — something's always more important than being there. I don't remember the last time all three of us sat down and just... ate dinner together. Not for some occasion. Just because."
He looked up then, and the honesty in his face made the joke he usually wore feel, for once, entirely absent.
"I don't want that kind of life. I don't want my own kids growing up mostly remembering the sound of me leaving."
Nobody spoke right away. Sylas's usual grin had gone soft at the edges, and even Lorian's expression had lost its customary flatness, replaced by something quieter.
Eryndor set the last of his books down carefully, aligning its spine with the others before turning to face the room properly.
"Being a Mega Wizard is amazing," he said, and his voice carried the same steadiness it always did, though something beneath it had shifted, gentler than usual. "That's not something I'd deny. But the higher you rise, the stronger the things you're expected to face. Sometimes enemies stronger than a Mega Wizard themselves. That's exactly why people admire them the way they do."
He glanced briefly toward the window, where the light had begun its slow shift toward evening.
"But to me, that kind of risk is too great. Because somewhere, there's always a family waiting for you to come home. And if you don't—" He stopped, letting the thought finish itself in the silence rather than saying it outright. "Life is worth more than being admired. I'd rather live one that's smaller and whole than one people remember after it's gone."
The room fell still.
It wasn't an uncomfortable silence — it was the kind that settled naturally after something true had been said, the kind no one wanted to break too quickly. Then, without any of them quite deciding to, hands began to move, and a soft round of applause filled the space between the five beds.
Kaelion was the first to speak, shaking his head with a small, genuine smile tugging at his mouth. "Wow... that was beautiful."
Sylas, sprawled comfortably across his own bed with his hands behind his head, waited exactly long enough for the warmth of the moment to settle before ruining it.
"And your speech wasn't nearly as inspiring."
The room broke apart into laughter — real laughter, unguarded, the kind that came easily once people had already let their walls down for something more sincere. Kaelion shoved Sylas's shoulder, protesting through a grin that he'd had plenty of good lines, actually, and Sylas fired back that "I don't want dinner alone" wasn't exactly poetry. Even Lorian, arms still crossed, let a short breath of amusement escape through his nose, which for him counted as nearly hysterical.
Azraeth found himself smiling without meaning to, some of the day's heavier thoughts loosening their grip as the five of them settled into easy, overlapping conversation — Sylas recounting an exaggerated version of his own imaginary academy romance, Eryndor dryly correcting details Sylas had clearly invented on the spot, Kaelion laughing so hard he nearly toppled off the edge of his bed.
It was, Azraeth thought, the first time since arriving that the dormitory had actually started to feel like somewhere he belonged.