A few days after their return from the Ironwood, the routine had reasserted itself. Oliver, Leo, and the twins were walking away from the grueling afternoon physical conditioning, muscles protesting but spirits high from the familiar exhaustion. Oliver was just about to bid the sisters goodbye at the path fork when his wristband **hummed** with a distinct, authoritative pulse he'd never felt before.
A holographic screen snapped into existence before his eyes without any command from him.
**AUTOMATED PRIORITY DISPLAY: INCOMING DIRECT FACULTY SUMMONS.**
His heart gave a sudden, hard thump. The screen was a stark, official blue, bearing the academy's crest and a simple message:
TO: Oliver Rill, Bronze class
FROM: professor Vex Parker
LOCATION: Workshop Delta, Faculty Office
TIME: immediate.
"What is it?" Elara asked, seeing his face go still.
"I… have to go," Oliver said, his voice slightly distant. "Professor Vex just summoned me. To her office."
Leo's eyebrows shot up. "Vex? Now? Did you do something to vex equipment?" There was a joke in his tone, but his eyes were serious with concern.
"I don't think so," Oliver muttered, already turning. "Go ahead without me. I'll see you in the mess hall tomorrow."
Leo nodded, watching him hurry off, a thoughtful look appear on his face.
Oliver's mind churned as he walked the now-familiar path to Workshop Delta. A direct summons. An *immediate* one.
The workshop was quiet, empty of students at this hour. He found Faculty Office #7, a plain door with a simple nameplate. He knocked twice, the sound echoing in the silent corridor.
From within, Proctor Vex's voice, laden with her usual lazy tone, answered. "Enter." Oliver pushed the door open. The office was simple and organized. It wasn't like the grand archive of his aunt's location, nor the sterile lab he might have expected. It was the nest of a working artisan-alchemist.
Shelves bowed under the weight of leather-bound grimoires, crystal-locked specimen jars, and intricate half-dismantled devices. The air smelled of old paper, pungent herbs, and the faint metallic scent of fresh mana-conducting alloy. Scrolls were piled on every surface that not occupied by delicate scales or glowing crystals.
Proctor Vex sat behind a broad and old desk, a sophisticated crystal data-slate in her hands, its light casting deep shadows under her eyes. She didn't look up. "Sit," she said, waving a distracted hand toward the single chair facing her desk.
Oliver sat, the old wood creaking chair. His mind race.....why in this high tech era, professor office look so old fashion? After his mind wonder around few second. He forced himself to take a slow breath and began to study the room to calm his nerves. His gaze, however, kept drifting back to the woman behind the desk.
Up close, and without the buffer of a classroom, he saw her clearly for the first time. The exhaustion was still there, etched in the dark semicircles beneath her eyes, but it was a weary sharpness, not lethargy. Her features, beneath smudges of soot and what looked like dried alchemical residue, were surprisingly fine—high cheekbones, a sharp jawline, silver-streaked black hair escaping a messy braid. There was a stark, untended beauty to her, like a sword left in its scabbard but unpolished for a decade. She wore the same stained leather apron over her grey instructor's uniform.
Feeling his prolonged gaze, Vex looked up from her slate. Her eyes, a tired grey-green, met his. She cleared her throat, and cough twice.
Oliver snapped back to the present, and greet vex hurriedly. "P-Proctor Vex. I received your summons. Do you… have some think for me?"
" Yes i am call you for two thing," she said, placing the slate down with a soft click. "first to talk and other to give you some thing." She stood up, moving with a loose-limbed grace that belied her perpetually tired demeanor, and walked to the small, high window that looked out over the darkening training grounds.
Oliver instinctively moved to stand as well, out of respect. His body tensed, but he couldn't rise. It wasn't paralysis; it was as if a gentle, immovable hand was pressed on his shoulder, holding him effortlessly in the chair. He felt no fluctuation of mana, no elemental signature—not heat, chill, or pressure. It was pure, unadorned control of mana, applied with such flawless control it was imperceptible until he resisted it. *This* was the power of a full-fledged Guild artificer and adventurer. The lesson was silent and humbling.
Vex spoke, her back to him, her voice still lazy but now carrying a new, chilling weight. "The world you've seen so far, Rill, is a curated exhibit. Peaceful, Predictable. You've been nurtured like a particularly delicate, potentially useful orchid. That ends the moment you step into your second year."
She turned, leaning against the window frame, her silhouette dark against the twilight. "In the second year, you become a provisional adventurer, affiliated with this academy's association. You will take mission, for adventure points (AP). Points are the currency of our kind—they buy better gear, advanced training, rare materials. *Everything* has a price. And the mission… are not simulations. They are not 99% safe with an Aegis Pillar watching. The safety margin drops to whatever you and your team can claw for yourselves. People die on those missions. And frequently." Oliver's throat went dry.
"You, specifically," Vex continued, pinning him with her gaze, "have potential. Your mana control is, frankly, extraordinary for your stage. You will pass the first-year evaluation. I have no doubt."
A flicker of relief was instantly crushed by her next words.
"But that is the *minimum*. Passing the evaluation with your current skill set—a well-controlled but undefined affinity—is like walking into a blizzard with a finely-woven linen shirt. It's pretty, but you'll be dead in an hour. In the wild, against a monster with a matured trait or worse, a rival adventurer with one, your 'grey mist' will be about as effective as a egg on rock. You fight with body, yes. With mind, absolutely. But a sharp mind without a sharp weapon is just a target."
She pushed off the window and walked back to her desk, standing over him. "You have four months until the evaluation. In that time, you *must* manifest your trait. Not just understand it—*wield* it. You and that little team of yours must become strong enough that you survive even your first month of second year. Because I guarantee you that, every missions will break you if you're weak."
Oliver swallowed. "Why… why are you telling me this? Specifically?"
A ghost of something—not a smile, but an acknowledgment—passed over Vex's face. "Because you're a Grey-Weaver. And you've shown glimmers of something beyond stubbornness. The Delta committee—Grath, Kael, Valia, Robert, and I—have voted to allocate a small… investment. Consider it a scholarship for walking the unknown path. But," her voice hardened, "if you become complacent, if you squander this or let it go to your head, the investment stops. Immediately. And you will be left to the mercy of the market with everyone else."
She opened her palm. On it rested a small object that caught the dim light. It floated gently off her hand and drifted toward Oliver. He caught it.
It was a spider. A perfect, crystalline replica of the Dark Widow, no larger than his thumbnail. It was exquisitely detailed, carved from some deep grey, semi-transparent mineral shot through with veins of captured shadow that seemed to shift when he moved it.
"A token," Vex explained, sitting back down. "Refined from the carcass of dark widow that your group killed. The Dark Widow had an exquisite, innate control over shadow—a physical manifestation of the **Subtlety** and **Perception** traits of the Air element, filtered through darkness. By saturating this token with your own mana, you can study that control, that *pattern* of manifestation. It won't give you your trait, but it might show you what giving a trait physical form *feels* like from the inside. A cheat sheet, if you will."
Oliver stared at the tiny, beautiful crystal spider, a trophy from his first kill transformed into a key for his greatest obstacle. The weight of it in his hand was immense.
"This world," Vex concluded, her tone final, "belongs to the strong. The weak exist on the mercy of strong. Now you go to your dorm. And work. Your four months started three minutes ago."
"Thank you, Proctor," Oliver said, standing smoothly this time—the invisible pressure gone. He gave a short bow of his head, turned, and left, closing the door softly behind him.
He stood in the silent corridor, the cool crystal spider clenched in his fist. The fear was there, icy and sharp. But beneath it, hotter and brighter, was a fierce, defiant focus. The path ahead had just been illuminated, and it was steeper and more dangerous than he'd imagined. But for the first time, he had been handed a specific tool, and a specific deadline. The nurturing was over. The forging had truly begun.
End of Chapter