This wasn’t about brute force. It was a game of patience.

  I needed a hiding spot with visibility. If I could see them coming, I had a better chance of staying unseen.

  Crouching low, I pressed a hand into the hot sand, scanning the terrain. Dunes stretched endlessly in every direction, shifting ever so slightly, as if the desert itself was alive. There were no rocks, no caves, no easy places to slip away. The only cover was the sand itself.

  Which meant I had to get creative.

  I slowed my breathing, keeping my body low and deliberate. Moving too fast would leave a trail—footprints, disturbed sand, a clear sign that someone had passed through. Instead, I dropped to my stomach and crawled.

  Each movement was controlled, slow enough that the shifting grains settled behind me instead of scattering in noticeable streaks. The key wasn’t to vanish instantly—it was to fade away gradually.

  Ahead, a dune dipped slightly, forming a shallow pocket where the wind had carved out a natural depression. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

  I slid into it, pressing myself low, using my tail to brush over the sand behind me, erasing my tracks. Once settled, I shifted onto my side, angling myself to keep a partial view of the open desert without exposing my position.

  Now I waited.

  The sun burned high above, a heavy weight on my back. Heat waves distorted the horizon, making it difficult to tell movement from mirage. The silence stretched, thick and expectant.

  Then, ever so faintly, I heard it. A soft crunch of shifting sand.

  I didn’t move. Not a twitch. Not a breath. Someone was nearby.

  Carefully, I adjusted my gaze without lifting my head. The sound was faint but deliberate. Whoever it was, they weren’t wandering blindly—they were searching.

  My fingers curled into the sand. This wasn’t like tracking in the wilderness back on Earth. Back there, hunters relied on sound, scent, footprints—real, tangible evidence.

  But here?

  Whoever was looking for me had skills. They weren’t just searching for disturbances in the sand. They were hunting with magic.

  So how the hell do I hide from that?

  I didn’t have a skill to cloak my presence. No ability to erase my scent, suppress my heat, or dissolve into shadow. The best I could do was stay still, stay silent, and hope they relied more on their eyes than their abilities.

  Of course, that didn’t work.

  The moment I sensed something was off, it was already too late.

  A student walked straight toward me, completely ignoring the shifting dunes, the deceptive mirages. They didn’t hesitate, didn’t waver. Their hand pressed firmly onto my shoulder.

  "Gotcha."

  Light consumed me. A rush of weightlessness, and then—

  I was back.

  Standing before Calix Kalix.

  "Seeeeven minutes. Nooot baaad!" Calix sang, nodding toward me as he swayed, his hand moving to a rhythm only he could hear.

  Before I could respond, more students flashed into existence around us—one after another, the ghosts caught and returned like echoes of falling stars. A few looked irritated, some frustrated, but most just accepted it. There had never been a chance for us to win this.

  The last ‘ghost’ arrived at the fifteen-minute mark.

  Calix clapped his hands with a dramatic flourish. "Aaaand that concludes our opening round!" he declared. "Not a siiingle one of you escaaaped! Which meaaans..." He grinned, sharp and knowing. "You all have much to leaaarn."

  The ‘hunters’ arrived back, looking far more relaxed than we did. That’s when we found out the truth. They’d been training under Calix for a month. This wasn’t just a test for us—it was a benchmark for them. We learned how easily we could be found. They learned how much progress they had made.

  Calix clapped his hands together with a sharp snap. “Nooow, whooo can teeeell me whyyy you were so eaaasily found?” His singsong voice carried over the class, his body still swaying, his hands still moving to the mystical beat only he could hear.

  A flurry of answers shot out.

  “They must have tracking skills!”

  “They can see through the sand!”

  “They followed us through the light!”

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  Calix shook his head dramatically, his colorful robes flowing like a performance in itself. “Nooo no no!” He stopped moving just long enough to wag a golden-painted finger at us before resuming his mysterious rhythm. “They found you because yoooou dooo not knoooow how to conceal your aura yet.”

  The class fell silent. I frowned. I had expected tracking skills, enhanced perception—something more tangible. Aura concealment? That was not something I had learned in the military. Judging by the confused expressions around me, I wasn’t the only one caught off guard.

  Calix’s grin widened. “Oooh, yesss, my dear fledglings… the truuuuth is not in the fooootsteps yooou leave behind, but in the waaaves yoooou send out into the wooooorld.”

  His golden fingers twirled in the air, and suddenly, I felt it. A pressure. Faint. Subtle. But there.

  The hunters still had it, a presence, a ripple in the world around them, faint but distinct. The ghosts? We were too loud. Even standing still, I could feel the difference. Something about us was off, exposed.

  Calix chuckled, clearly pleased. “Soooooo, who’s ready to leaaarn how to disaaaappear?”

  I frowned, shifting my weight slightly as I mulled over what Calix had just said. Aura concealment? That wasn’t something I had ever needed before. Tracking and survival had always been about physical evidence—footsteps, broken branches, scent, the subtle disturbances left behind. Even in modern warfare, avoiding detection meant controlling heat signatures, managing sound, and sticking to terrain that provided cover.

  But none of that had mattered here.

  I had crawled low, kept my breathing controlled, erased my tracks as best I could. Yet they had walked straight to me. Like my presence itself had been screaming out my location.

  I glanced at the ‘hunters.’ They still carried it—that faint pressure I had felt before. It wasn’t visible, wasn’t tangible, but it was there. A ripple in the air, like the difference between a still pond and one disturbed by the lightest breeze.

  And the ghosts? We were too loud.

  My brows furrowed as I tried to figure it out. It wasn’t just about physical stealth. It was something deeper, something instinctual. Some kind of presence, an energy we gave off without realizing it. It made sense, in a way. Every living thing had some form of awareness, something that pushed outward into the world.

  Even a trained soldier could be felt before they were seen—if they weren’t careful. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? An ability I hadn’t realized I’d been missing all this time.

  I exhaled through my nose, trying to focus on myself the way I had been trained to focus on an enemy. Could I feel it? That ‘loudness’ that made me easy to find? I concentrated, searching inward, but all I could feel was the heat from the desert and the weight of Calix’s expectant grin.

  Damn.

  This wasn’t something I could just figure out. It was something I had to learn.

  Calix’s golden fingers traced idle patterns through the air, as if he already knew exactly what I was thinking. “Ooooh, yes, yes, I see those little thoughts spiiinning in your head, dear Sylasss.” His grin widened, knowing, sharp. “It’s confuuuuusing, yesss? Youuuu have hidden before, yet today, yooou could not."

  I nodded slowly, my tail flicking against the sand. “Yeah. I did everything I was supposed to. Stayed low, kept quiet, erased my tracks. Didn’t matter.”

  Calix’s eyes lit up with something almost gleeful. “Aaaah, becaaause yooou did not silence yourself."

  I crossed my arms, resisting the urge to sigh. “And how exactly do I do that?”

  Calix spun on his heel, his robes flaring with the movement. “Yooouuuu must leaaarn to pull yourself in." He curled his fingers inward as if grasping something invisible. “Nooot just yooour footsteps, nooot just yooour sound, but yooour very presence. That little ripple that announces yooour existence to the world? It must vaaaaanish."

  Easier said than done.

  I could feel the pressure of the hunters standing nearby. Their presence loomed—not just physically, but in the weight of their unseen power. Was I putting out the same kind of signal? Could I learn to suppress it?

  Calix turned away from me, addressing the class as a whole. “Mmmmmm… but first, first, first, we must seeee why you are soooo looooud.”

  The desert vanished.

  Darkness swallowed everything. A vast, empty void where sight, sound, and even presence felt… muted. Calix’s voice reached us, but it was distant, as if he were speaking from the end of a long tunnel.

  “Loooook around yooourselves. You should seee the faint outlines oooof everyone here.”

  I turned my head and realized he was right. Each of us glowed, a soft luminescence cutting through the void. Some burned brighter than others. I couldn’t make out faces, but I could feel the difference between the experienced students and the newcomers.

  The old students had a controlled, refined glow—contained, deliberate. Meanwhile, the rest of us…

  Our auras clashed chaotically, each trying to outshine the other.

  I focused on my own and felt a pulse of heat. My aura flared deep red, stretching farther than I had realized—so much so that I didn’t even recognize it as my own at first. But the moment I acknowledged it, something inside me responded. The red darkened, deepened, expanded, as if trying to compete with the aura beside it.

  A murmur rippled through the new students. We weren’t alone in this reaction.

  “Gooood, gooood,” Calix cooed. “You can all seeee your aura now. Outside of thiiiis realm, they are muuuch harder to perceive—and even harder to control. I shaaall teach you to see first.”

  Then his aura unfurled.

  It didn’t explode outward like ours. Instead, it expanded in a slow, fluid wave, rolling through the void with the same unseen rhythm he always seemed to carry. His presence wrapped around us, consuming every stray flare, every chaotic pulse of energy, encompassing us without resistance.

  “A persooon can flaaaare their aura if the neeeed arises,” Calix continued. “The moooore powerful sooomeone is, the laaarger they can make iiit. Thiiis is about my liiimit.”

  His aura stretched beyond us, a massive field of controlled power, yet somehow still gentle. It was effortless—a presence, not a force.

  “The heeeeadmasster,” he mused, “caaan flare his aura to encompass the entiiire school.”

  A hush settled over the class. I had thought this was overwhelming, but the Headmaster’s aura could dwarf it? Just how powerful was he?

  “I wiiiiill teach you aura control,” Calix promised. “Youuuu can use it in maaany different waaays. Buuut for nooow, we shall woooork on containment.”

  Then, without warning, his aura vanished. Not pulled back. Not suppressed. Gone.

  I blinked. The weight of his presence had been all-consuming only a moment ago—now it was as if he had never existed.

  Not only that, but… I couldn’t feel him at all.

  I knew he was here. I had just heard his voice. I had just seen him standing in front of us. But now, there was nothing. No presence. No direction. He had erased himself from existence.

  My pulse quickened. So this was what it meant to truly disappear.