Dren didn’t say anything when he handed over the box — just grunted, dropped it on the table with a thud, and lit a fresh smoke. The wood was dark, sealed at the corners with old iron. Kael unlatched it carefully, half-expecting it to bite. A mana core, Tier III, the crystal had a small crack on the exterior, but Kael could sense the power running through it without question.

  Field combat exercises at the academy were an important part of the curriculum starting in the first semester of the second year. After all, a large percentage of the graduates went on to serve in the kingdom’s mage corps as officers. During these exercises, professors helped the students kill a few monsters and learn how to cast under pressure; however, even in their fourth year as second-ring mages, it took over half of their class to take down a weakened Tier II monster. Kael spent a little longer than he should have examining the core, amazed by the quantity of mana flowing through it, before looking at the other item on the table, a pouch of chalk, grey-white and faintly warm.

  “Looks unstable,” Wade muttered from the chair in the corner.

  “Relax, Mr. Privileged, I don’t deal with faulty products,” Dren remarked with a sneer.

  Kael didn’t look at him. “If it works, I don’t give a shit”

  They waited until the inn went quiet — no footsteps above, no laughter leaking down through floorboards. Once Anabel gave them the okay, they got to work.

  Wade had shown up about an hour before Dren came to deliver the goods, carrying a half-empty flask and that smug grin he always wore when he was nervous. However, Kael instantly noticed something different about Wade; His Spiral had shifted. Kael could feel it — denser, cleaner, like pressure thinning in the air.

  “That’s right! You’re looking at the newest Air mage in the kingdom! Well, someone else may have also become one, but still.” Wade bragged after noticing Kael’s look.

  “Congrats, man. Seriously, I know this will completely change your life, and I wish you nothing but the best.”

  The conversation quickly changed gears after the two of them had walked down into the Horde’s cellar.

  “You sure you want to do this here?” he asked. “We’re surrounded by mold, rats, and beer barrels. This place smells like old piss and dust.”

  “It’ll do,” Kael assured, although he wasn’t sure who he was comforting.

  Now, the two of them stood in the open space near the back wall, lantern-light casting long shadows across the stone floor warped from years of damp. Wade kicked a loose piece of coal aside and crouched down, watching Kael unpack the chalk.

  Wade leaned in the doorway, sleeves rolled to his elbows, silver earring catching the light. Same tousled brown hair, same boyish grin — just with a little more power humming under his skin now.

  “When I went through it,” he said quietly, “they had us lie in a warded circle in the Divination Chamber surrounded by floating crystals. There were two overseers. The works. I think most of it was pointless, though, my guess is they go through all the extra trouble for kids like Thadon without a hint of talent and for people who won’t ever see their fourth circle.”

  Kael grunted, pulling out the chalk. “I’ve got a makeshift tripod to hold to core. Should be fine.”

  Wade didn’t laugh.

  He tapped his flask once against his thigh. “It’s not like the First or Second Ring. You don’t just focus and push through. This ritual… it pulls you somewhere. You stand surrounded by various paths. Its creepy shit, man, you choose it, you feel what it is.”

  Kael glanced at him. “What did yours feel like?”

  Wade’s grin faltered. His voice turned soft. “Wind. Cold, clear. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, and knowing I could fall or fly, and being fine with either. But most importantly, it just felt right. I’m not sure how it works for other people, as air was by far my highest affinity, so it wasn’t much of a choice anyway.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Thinking about what Wade had described, he knelt on the floor and started. The chalk dragged cleanly over the stone — no skips, no fractures. He traced three concentric rings, each slightly off-center from the last.

  Then came the sigils — symbols not taught in class, but ones that he had seen in the ritual manuscript. Next were the marks — tiny spirals, broken arrows, reverse loops drawn counterclockwise.

  He worked in silence, breath steady, focus absolute. By the time he finished, the room felt heavier. Even the candlelight seemed to dim, as though waiting. At the center of the Spiral, he set the mana core, balanced on his crude tripod made from iron rods scorched black with oil.

  Kael stood, brushed dust off his knees, and looked at Wade.

  “Once you activate it and I go under, you should go. I know you and the boys will be celebrating your advancements.”

  Wade raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. If I screw it up, I don’t want you standing in the fallout radius.”

  Wade paused. “Alright, but I’ll be upstairs. Having the Horde to ourselves is like a dream come true. Oh, and if you scream, I’ll tell Anabel you got offed by your own spell and she should charge for your bed.”

  Kael smirked, but it didn’t last long.

  Wade infused his mana into the chalk at a slow and steady pace. The world went still as Kael’s spiral began to instinctively circulate. Kael closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath.

  Unbeknownst to Kael, several minutes had passed, and Wade had left. Around him, mana flowed. Spiraling from the core placed in the center of the ritual into the chalk lines. It pulsed through the glyphs like blood through old veins, tracing along the floor, humming softly. Kael’s Spiral pulsed in answer.

  He just let it happen, let himself sink. And then, the world vanished.

  At first, he thought he was falling. It wasn’t a drop — not the stomach-clenching of freefall, it was slower. Like being pulled inward, toward a gravity that wasn’t his own.

  Kael’s breath caught. His body stayed in the ritual circle, unmoving — but his soul, his Spiral, was elsewhere.

  When he opened his eyes again, he stood in a white world. A flat, endless expanse. No wind, no sky, and no end. Just a horizonless plain of light and silence — and before him, paths. He couldn’t see where they led. Maybe they didn’t lead anywhere at all. But he could feel them, one by one.

  To the left: a path that pulsed deep and slow, like stone breathing beneath the land, Earth. Beside it, something cooler — steady, rhythmic, like a distant heartbeat, Water. Further on, the pressure shifted. A flicker of heat, Fire. A crackle in the air, Storm.

  He tried to move to the various paths to inspect them further, but a pressure unlike anything he had ever felt kept him in place. He strained toward the paths — but they didn’t move closer. Instead, one by one, he felt them grow weaker. He felt it first in Earth— the solid heartbeat fading, crumbling like dry stone.

  Then Water — growing still, stagnant, thick with silt. Wood then withered into dry husks and hollow roots. He watched as the various paths depicting the Elemental affinities dissolved… instinctively, Kael knew that wasn’t the right word. Decaying. In what felt like seconds, all the paths were gone, leaving Kael alone in this white world.

  Something wasn’t right, and then— it hit him.

  It didn’t call to him like the other paths. It claimed him, Kael felt himself rot. He felt the dying of stars. The end of joy, and the soft crumbling of pain. Cities decaying into dust. Language forgotten. Structures hollowed out not by time, but something else. Even himself, unraveling— not with terror, but with the quiet surrender of inevitability.

  There was no sound, no surge of light. Just stillness — a silence so deep it swallowed even his heartbeat. And in that stillness, something clicked. Deep inside his Spiral — like a door long shut, finally swinging open. Far away — or maybe right beside him — the mana core shattered. A dull, final crack, as the chalk blackened.

  Kael’s body slumped forward, limbs numb, lungs heaving as he slammed back into reality. The cold hit him first — sweat-soaked and shaking. His fingers were burning, his nose bled freely, and his Spiral rampaged. He coughed, spat blood into the dust.

  He pushed himself up slowly, breathing ragged, knees trembling. The ritual circle around him was ruined — the mana core in pieces. But he felt it — in his chest, coiled like a second heart. His Spiral, deepened. Three full rings.

  And with it, his mana had changed. Denser. Heavier. It hung in his blood like wet iron. The sheer weight of it stunned him — like he could reach out and crush spellwork through pressure alone. He reached inward, traced the flow of power through his system, and felt how far it stretched now.

  He understood now what the professor had always said, what they meant when they looked down at everyone below Third Ring like they were children. Because they were, below the Third, you weren’t a mage, you were a possibility.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the cellar’s warped mirror — blood crusted under his nose, black hair plastered to his forehead, those same grey eyes looking older than they had a week ago.

  As he climbed the cellar stairs, the wood groaned beneath his feet. The door hinges screeched, even though Anabel had oiled them just last week.