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.