Forty Two Months Since The First Epoch Cycle....

Erna Isles, 7,700 Years in the Past, 42 Months Since the First Epoch Cycle...

The Epoch Cycle didn't negotiate or offer a path of choice. It simply happened. One moment, over 6,000 students from Minafallen Academy were teleported not across space, but hurled back nearly 7,700 years, to a world only 300 years after the infamous Destras Cataclysm.

Erna Isles, a land then still recovering from planetary scars, became their involuntary prison.

In the earliest months, survival wasn't guaranteed.

Out of the initial students who were taken, more than 1,000 had died in the span of forty-two months.

At first, death came from panic, hunger and rogue Krepsunas that infested the dangerous islands. Then came the weather, the starvation, the infighting arguments among students not trained for real-world survival.

They had no home, no map, no guide. And worst of all, no teachers. Yet as with all things in Spheraphase, order slowly began to emerge from madness.

By the ninth month, what remained of their group migrated and settled in the Fifth Island of the Erna Isles, Imperfecta Magistra.

At first glance, the island was a miracle. A gentle, warm climate that never dipped into extremities, verdant fields rolled over the hills, calm beaches bordered by glowing coral reefs, rivers that shimmered faintly under moonlight, and skies that rarely grew clouded.

There were no Infected Krepsunas, no unstable beasts, not even the twisted anomalies from the Cataclysm's aftershock reached its shores.

It was safe. Too safe.

The students quickly understood that this was no sanctuary. It was a gilded cage. A paradise that refused to allow them to leave, almost as if a greater entity had marked the island as their designated sector of containment.

They couldn't leave the Epoch Cycle until they annihilated the Frozen God, whoever that was. But even a lovely prison is still a prison, and the surviving students, now numbering just over 5,100, adapted.

At the beginning, there was no leadership or hierarchy beyond what people remembered from the Academy. But people need stability, especially children and teenagers raised in rigid systems like Minafallen. And so, among all the chaos, two natural pillars emerged.

So Eldrigan Hanabas and Peroncerea Ceres, the heir of Dynasty Hanabas, and the rising Duchess of Wisterix respectively, intervened. Their bloodlines alone garnered respect, but it wasn't lineage that made them leaders.

It was what they did.

Eldrigan became the island's shield. He was calm, collected, but unflinchingly driven. He built a structure where there was only aimless wandering. It began with patrols, rotated shifts to ensure no anomalies had snuck onto the island.

Then he made supply systems, using what little resources they had to establish ration distribution. Later, he helped structure Tether-based job roles. If someone had water manipulation? They maintained the springs. Earth binders? They reinforced the cliffs. Spirit sensitives? They watched for external shifts or signs of dimensional tampering.

He trained the broken and discouraged and punished thieves. And in time, people saluted when he walked past, not because he demanded it but because he earned it.

Peroncerea took another route.

Where Eldrigan was steel, she was velvet but no less commanding. She was charismatic, sharply intelligent and deeply in tune with emotional wavelengths, she managed the island's internal affairs like a queen of old.

She organized councils of Enlightenment-ranked students, set up education cycles for younger ones to retain their knowledge, established a network of crafters and alchemists to develop tools and medicines and most importantly, she began gathering survivor testimonies. She kept track of mental health, created small art zones, meditation circles and dormitory assignments.

Her voice was law in the halls they carved into the central hillside. If Eldrigan protected them from the world, Peroncerea protected them from each other.

They did not rule alone but together? They stabilized the nightmare.

The stress of survival had an unexpected consequence. It accelerated growth.

When they arrived, the students ranged wildly from the Second to Fourth Enlightenment with very few on the fifth. But now, forty-two months later...

All 5,100 remaining students were at least at the Fifth Enlightenment.

Only 100 had reached the Sixth Enlightenment, but they were legends among their peers as commanders, trainers, guards, or scouts.

The elite Seventh Enlightenment students were known by name, especially:

Vastarael Richinaria, Eldrigan Hanabas, Peroncerea Ceres, Adelasta Vazakiel, Xander Fedres, Farrynelle Skyrover, Natalis and Denisia Andelaris, Narisva Starisnova (though almost never seen) and Elyonari Mintheris (recently marked missing.)

Everyone else remained within Fifth or Sixth Enlightenment, but even the weakest were now First Phase Ascenders.

The Sixth Enlightenment were Second Phase Ascenders, balancing grace and firepower.

The Seventh Enlightenment students at the top, had reached the peak of Third Phase Ascension, all except for one anomaly: Vastarael Richinaria.

Due to the rules of Circlecraft, his physical body remained First Phase, despite his Tether abilities being at Third Phase Pinnacle.

And as for Narisva, wasn't around often.

Most students assumed Narisva had long abandoned them but Eldrigan and Peroncerea always corrected that assumption. She was watching them from afar, always on the more dangerous islands, eliminating threats before they reached Imperfecta Magistra.

Sometimes, the guards reported seeing streaks of shimmering stars during the nights. Sometimes, bloodless Krepsuna corpses washed ashore. Narisva Starisnova was a silent shield and they all knew she was protecting them in ways they couldn't even comprehend.

Eventually, the safer island became stifling.

And so, by Eldrigan and Peroncerea's command, they began controlled excursions to the Sandstorm Desert Island, one of the deadliest islands known for harboring Infected Krepsunas and residual post-Cataclysm anomalies. Here, students were trained under real conditions, fighting with actual consequences. Blood was spilled but progress was made.

And just days ago, Elyonari Mintheris, one of the Seventh Enlightenment, was reported missing. Her absence caused alarm among the inner leadership until Adelasta Vazakiel addressed the leaders herself.

"She's not in danger," she'd said with her signature cold tone. "She's finishing something important. Do not interfere."

Most obeyed. After all, if Adelasta had said it, then it had to be serious. And soon, her work became known.

Towering sixty meters into the sky, a massive tree bloomed near the southern coast of Imperfecta Magistra. Not grown, but built from magic, essence, and living wood.

Its roots entwined with Tether-sensitive soil, drawing in raw ambient energy and offering it to those who lived beneath it. Water flowed from its trunk. Its bark could heal. Its leaves reflected moonlight like silver glass.

This tree was more than shelter. It was sanctuary.

Under Elyonari's vision, the human survivors they found across the other islands (yes, people had survived the Destras Cataclysm and the influence of the Frozen God) were moved to this tree. The only exception were the few who still lived in the Halo Islands, protected by the ancient Obsidian Runic Spire, which prevented Krepsunas from entering.

Elyonari shifted the tree from the Sandstorm Desert Island to Imperfecta Magistra using Narisva's Dimension Creation a year ago.

Eventually, the humans that the students found across the islands except Volxane and Halo Islands were brought to Imperfecta Magistra and integrated into a new community beneath Elyonari's tree. They called it the Sanctum's Grove.

It became a multi-layered settlement of students and survivors coexisting, building a unique society. The survivors offered protection in return and many were veteran fighters, war-born individuals who knew terrain survival better than any student.

They became the guardians of the Grove, pledging themselves to protect the tree and the people beneath it. It wasn't charity. It was mutual survival. Even if Imperfecta Magistra was still technically a prison, it had become a home.

Because somewhere in the sky above... the Epoch Cycle was still ticking.

And it hadn't finished its work yet.

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[Volume Three Part Two, Destruction of Chaos, Begins...]