Seven days.
Dan had seven days before the Academy of the Skybound would claim him for the next eight years of his life.
The walk home from the Platform of Ascension felt endless. Haewon's winding streets blurred together—cobblestone giving way to packed dirt, elegant merchant houses transforming into humble worker's cottages, until finally he reached the lower cliff districts where mist never quite lifted and sunlight was always borrowed, never owned.
His small stone cottage sat tilted against the cliff face, weathered by decades of rain and wind. It wasn't much, but it had been theirs.
Had been.
His parents had sold it six months ago to afford the gray egg. Now they rented the same space from a merchant who charged them twice what it was worth.
Dan stopped at the door, hand on the latch.
Through the narrow window, he could see his mother moving in the kitchen, her movements practiced and graceful despite the cramped space. His father sat at their small table, arranging three candles—the only ones they had left.
The aroma of sweetroot stew drifted through the cracks in the door, making Dan's stomach growl traitorously. It was his favorite. His mother was a talented cook; it was what had kept them afloat all these years despite their low status.
They'd prepared a celebration feast with what little they had.
Dan stood frozen, his spore cloud floating beside him like a gray shadow of guilt.
When he finally pushed the door open, the lump in his throat was so large he could barely breathe.
"Dan!" His mother turned from the hearth, wiping flour-dusted hands on her apron.
Both parents looked at the small gray spore drifting beside their son, and Dan saw the exact moment hope abandoned their eyes.
Still, his mother opened her arms. "My little summoner..."
The tears Dan had held back since leaving the platform finally broke free.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice cracking. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"Oh, my child." His mother wrapped him in her embrace. "This isn't your fault. It will never be your fault."
"You spent everything... sold everything... and I..." Dan's words dissolved into sobs.
His father approached, his crutch creaking against the wooden floor. He knelt with difficulty, placing weathered hands on Dan's shoulders.
"Son, look at me."
Dan looked up through blurred vision.
"Remember when I burned that entire venison roast last winter?"
Dan nodded, confused.
"And what did we do?"
"We... we shredded it and made stew. Added herbs to mask the char."
"Exactly." His father smiled gently. "Sometimes life doesn't give you what you expect. But that doesn't mean you can't make something good with what you have."
"But the spore... it's worthless..."
"It's part of you now," his mother said softly. "And we love every part of you."
His father joined the embrace, voice rough with emotion. "You're our son. Dragon or spore, that doesn't change."
But it did change things. Of course it did.
***
The small dining room was filled with the warmth of candlelight and the aroma of his mother's cooking.
Sweetroot stew. Fresh bread. Even a handful of wild berries for dessert—a luxury they could barely afford.
But Dan couldn't taste any of it.
The bitterness of disappointment overwhelmed everything else.
"Eat a little, darling," his mother urged, serving a generous portion. "You've had a long day."
"I'm... I'm not hungry."
"Just one bite," his father insisted. "Your mother spent hours preparing this."
But not even his favorite dish could overcome the taste of failure. Dan pushed back from the table, tears returning.
"I'm sorry," he whispered before fleeing to his room, his spore cloud trailing behind him like a condemnation.
"Dan!" his mother called. "At least take some bread!"
But the only response was the sound of a door closing.
In the dining room, the three candles continued burning, illuminating a table full of food prepared with love and hope that now felt painfully wasted.
***
Dan lay on his straw mattress, staring at the ceiling as gray afternoon light filtered through his small window.
His spore cloud hovered nearby, its faint pulsing the only sign of life.
One week, he thought bitterly. One week until I face the Academy. The mockery. The contempt.
The Academy of the Skybound wasn't just any school—it was the premier institution in all of Haewon, possibly in the entire region. Eight years of intensive training, access to advanced cultivation techniques, resources for beast evolution, connections that could shape entire futures.
His parents had signed the enrollment contract this morning. It had cost them everything—over one million essence crystals, accumulated through sixty years of backbreaking labor in the merchant district kitchens.
The contract was binding. Mandatory attendance for all bonded summoners, enforced by law since last year's reforms.
Dan's father and mother both possessed Common Plants—Iron-rank beasts at their lowest maturity level. With decades of careful cultivation and a secret technique they'd scraped together money to buy, they'd managed to evolve their plants just enough to grant them leaf-like hair and vine patterns on their wrists.
The vitality boost from their beasts made them appear younger—like people in their forties rather than sixty—but it was barely enough to maintain their positions in the third-rate kitchens on the city's outer edge.
They'd dreamed of something better for Dan.
A normal Common Plant would have given him a 20% vitality increase and 10% boost to all attributes. With proper training at the Academy, he could have reached Bronze-rank, improved those bonuses to 80% vitality and 40% across the board, maybe even secured a position at one of the better kitchens in the upper city.
But with a Mycelium Spore...
The weakest creature in recorded history.
1.3 Resonance Grade.
No evolution potential beyond Iron-rank level one.
Ten percent physical strength increase. That was it. That was *all*.
Dan clenched his fists. "What do I even do with you?"
The spore pulsed once, weakly.
He thought back to the Platform of Ascension, to the moment the Essence Cores had activated and revealed his pathetic potential. The luminescent mushrooms sprouting from the spore cloud had been the final humiliation—physical proof of his failure literally growing on his head for everyone to see.
He'd dismissed the spore immediately afterward, refusing to let it manifest.
To hell with tradition. To hell with showing respect for the bond.
What bond? There was no mystical connection, no surge of power, just a weak pulse that barely registered.
Dan sat up, summoning his spore cloud again. It materialized reluctantly, gray and lifeless.
"They say every beast has hidden potential," Dan muttered. "That Resonance Grades can grow. That even the weakest creatures can evolve with proper cultivation."
The spore didn't respond.
"But you're not like other beasts, are you? You can't evolve. You can't mature. You're just... stuck."
Still nothing.
Dan reached out, letting his fingers pass through the cloud of spores. They felt cool against his skin, almost like mist.
Then something strange happened.
A faint warmth spread from his fingertips up his arm. It wasn't strong—barely noticeable—but it was there.
Dan pulled his hand back, startled.
The spore pulsed twice in quick succession.
"Did you just...?"
He reached out again, and this time the warmth was clearer. His spore was trying to communicate. Not with words, but with sensation.
Dan closed his eyes, focusing on that thread of warmth.
Images flickered through his mind—not clear, more like impressions. Darkness. Soil. Growth. Patient, relentless growth beneath the surface where no one could see.
"You're not dead," Dan whispered. "You're just... waiting."
The spore pulsed affirmatively.
For the first time since his awakening, Dan felt something other than despair.
Hope.
Small. Fragile. Uncertain.
But real.