The Equation of Power

The sun bled gold over the academy walls, casting long

shadows across the silent courtyard. While most students trained in the

coliseum under the gaze of instructors, Team 17 moved through a forgotten

corner of the northern training field, a cracked stone lot fenced in by ivy and

ruin.

No instructors. No crowds.

Just four students no one expected anything from.

Cael Valeon stood at the center, breathing slowly, mana

pulsing faintly beneath his skin. Logic flickered in his thoughts like gears

aligning. He glanced at the others:

Tobin Crake, broad-shouldered, arms folded, shifting

awkwardly on his feet. Earth affinity. Strong, but unsure.

Jorvan Lyle, thin and twitchy, clutching a scroll like it

was a lifeline.

Nia Ferrel, red-haired and quiet, her mana frayed at the

edges like a dream trying to hold form.

"Again," Cael said.

Jorvan flinched. "We're not exactly spell-casters, Valeon.

What are we even doing?"

Tobin raised a rock with a grunt. "Is this… a spar?"

"No," Cael murmured. "It's a simulation."

He flicked his fingers. A gust of telekinetic pressure

curved the path of Tobin's rising rock, flipping it mid-air. Nia blinked as the

rock stopped dead, suspended in shimmering lines—before splitting into dust.

Jorvan's scroll slipped from his hand.

"You're… rewriting the spell arc mid-flight?" he stammered.

Cael didn't respond. He was already adjusting variables in

his mind.

He wasn't strong. He wasn't flashy. But the magic in this

world followed patterns—and patterns could be solved.

---

Elsewhere, in the academy gardens and upper halls, the hype

was rising.

"The Ascension Trial this year is madness," someone

whispered in the mess hall. "Solo elimination rounds, then a team dungeon? And

they're screening it all empire-wide!"

"Top groups from all regions are coming. I heard Northland

Dominion's elite trio will be there."

"And Cyrus Emberlain—ranked fifth last year—is back. Space

affinity. They say he can warp a full battle field in under three seconds."

Amid the storm of names, rankings, and magic talent, no one

mentioned Team 17.

---

Back in the ruined courtyard, Cael stared at the faint

glyphs etched into the wall. His mind flickered—angles, temperature shifts,

mana pressure. Everything around them was data.

"Nia," he said, turning. "Use your illusion. Don't hide.

Distract."

She hesitated, then nodded. Her figure blurred, doubled,

twisted. Tobin raised a hand in reflex. Jorvan cursed and nearly tripped.

"Jorvan, support with pressure scrolls," Cael continued.

"Make them think we're stronger than we are."

"Uh… that's illegal bluffing, technically."

"It's not bluffing if it works."

Tobin grunted. "What are you doing with us, Cael? You

could've joined a real team."

Cael just smiled faintly. "Because no one watches the

forgotten."

He turned to face them fully.

"Now hit me. All of you. Try."

Far above, in the Academy's shadowed west tower, a boy with

crimson eyes looked out the window.

A voice behind him whispered, "The elves will leave their

rune unguarded during the Trial. Take it. Let them burn."

The boy smiled lazily. "And the interference?"

"Kill anyone who asks too many questions."

Back on the field, Team 17 attacked.

Tobin stomped—stones surged. Nia fractured the air with

mirrored images. Jorvan triggered a concussive scroll. The courtyard lit up.

Cael didn't move.

A pressure field bent the path of stone and sound. His hand

swept the air like solving a chalkboard equation—he redirected Tobin's boulder

into harmless fragments, slipped through Nia's phantoms, and collapsed Jorvan's

force wave using a mana inversion trick no textbook had ever taught.

When the dust cleared, he was still standing.

Tobin stared, stunned. "That's not magic. That's cheating."

"No," Cael said softly. "It's math."

In the world's eyes, Team 17 didn't exist.

But beneath the silence—while nobles dueled and elites

basked in glory—something was learning how to rewrite the very laws they relied

on.

And when the Ascension Trial began…

They wouldn't see him coming.

A soft breeze passed over the forgotten courtyard, rustling

the ivy along the broken walls. The world beyond carried on with its noise, its

arrogance. But in that silence, between discarded stone and fading sunlight,

Cael stood still—breathing in patterns no one else could see.

His fingers twitched slightly, brushing invisible numbers in

the air.

Behind him, Jorvan cursed quietly, rubbing his arms.

"You know we're gonna get crushed in the Trial, right?"

Tobin grunted. "Not if he keeps doing that."

Nia, standing a little apart from them, didn't say anything.

But her illusion flickered without her noticing—three versions of herself,

overlapping in subtle delay. The air around her shimmered like a heatwave.

Something in her magic was unstable.

Cael turned toward her. "You need to stabilize your

projections."

Nia blinked. "What?"

"You're overloading the core thread," he said simply.

"Layering too fast."

"…How do you even know that?" she whispered.

Cael didn't answer. He crouched near a broken section of the

wall, fingers tracing old spell markings carved into the stone—faint, nearly

worn away. Not just old training glyphs.

Ancient ones.

Residual mana still pulsed within them, buried deep, like a

heartbeat sealed behind centuries of silence. Whatever this place once was, it

wasn't just forgotten.

It was hidden.

Cael narrowed his eyes. He could feel it now, clearer than

before. A magnetic pull in the logic of the space. Like something watching.

Recording.

He stood slowly and turned to his team.

"We train here," he said. "Every day."

Tobin raised a brow. "In this dump?"

"This dump is shielded," Cael said, glancing toward the ivy.

"Low mana interference. Obscured line tracing. No one will notice what we're

building here."

"…Building?" Jorvan echoed.

Cael looked past him, toward the western sky where the sun

dipped below the jagged towers of the academy.

"Strategies," he said. "Equations."

And quietly, more to himself than anyone else:

"Answers."

---

Let the empire watch their stars, he thought. Let them count

their prodigies and declare their favorites.

Team 17 didn't need to shine.

They just needed to survive the first round.

After that?

The stars would be counting them.