[Lucien – Somewhere He Shouldn’t Be Again]It started, as all bad ideas in Lucien's life did, with curiosity and unlocked doors.

  The library annex—officially closed for “archival maintenance”—was wide open this morning. Not even a protective glyph on the door. That was basically an invitation.

  Lucien stepped inside with the careful grace of a man very aware that anything he touched might explode, summon a ghost, or worse—alert Cassandra.

  Shelves loomed tall and dust-den. This was pre-Academy architecture: dark stone and creaking wood, where magic didn’t hum but lingered like a half-whisper.

  Then he saw it.

  Tucked on a pedestal, half-buried under loose scrolls: a leather-bound tome that pulsed with tent heat.

  “Binding Fmes: The Forgotten Discipline of Battle-Summoners.”

  “Oh no,” Lucien muttered. “This has ‘my life will get more complicated’ written all over it.”

  Naturally, he opened it.

  The book breathed when he did—no, more like it exhaled into him. A sudden rush of symbols, images, and sensations—fmes coiling around a dragon, a warrior sharing breath with a beast, spells not cast but forged through mutual pain.

  It wasn’t just about summoning.

  It was about fighting with them as one.

  Battle-sync. Aura resonance. Dual-channel casting. Techniques that hadn’t been used since the Cataclysm a hundred years ago.

  Lucien blinked, mind racing. Ember fred to life on his shoulder, tongue flicking out, eyes locked on the pages.

  “You feel it too, don’t you?”

  She hissed. Affirmative.

  Lucien closed the book carefully, heart thudding.

  He wasn’t a summoner anymore. He was something older. Something dangerous.

  “Cassandra’s going to hang me for this.”

  [Rielle – Trial by Sword]Across campus, the Sword Division’s “Css Combat Evaluation” was already going sideways.

  What was supposed to be a simuted test became an impromptu sparring match with live bdes. The instructor—some hot-blooded duelist named Ser Valcor—decided to push the limits today.

  “To find your true strength,” he’d said.

  Transtion: get beaten until you awaken something or die trying.

  Rielle was paired with a senior named Idran. Rank 6. Fast. Precise. Arrogant.

  “Try not to cry when I disarm you,” he said with a smile too perfect to be genuine.

  Rielle grinned back. “Try not to scream when I break your pretty nose.”

  The match started fast—steel met steel in a blur of aggressive footwork. Rielle’s brute-force style cshed with Idran’s refined technique, and for a while, it looked like he had the edge.

  Until her vision snapped into crity.

  There was a rhythm in the fight. A pattern she could read, almost like a musical tempo.

  Every swing, every shift of his bde—it was predictable.

  And then she felt it.

  Something ignited in her chest. Not magic. Not like her core. This was deeper, hotter, primal. It surged down her limbs, into her veins, wrapped around her sword hand like a second skin.

  Her Aura Core.

  The bde lit with translucent red energy, humming with her heartbeat. Her next strike shattered Idran’s guard—and sent him flying across the arena like a broken doll.

  Silence.

  Instructor Valcor exhaled sharply, muttering, “She’s awakened…”

  Rielle stared at her hand, the glow fading. Sweat dripped down her temple, but her smile was savage.

  “Guess I passed.”

  [Eli – Steel, Pressure, and Cracking the Shell]Eli’s trial was different.

  She wasn’t fshy like Rielle. She didn’t scream. She didn’t taunt.

  She just… fought.

  Her opponent was a brute of a senior named Mornar. All muscle and brute technique, swinging a broadsword like it owed him money.

  Eli dodged. Stepped sideways. Let him tire.

  But with each csh, she felt her legs weaken. Her wrists tremble. Her breath grow shorter.

  “You’re not strong enough,” she remembered her father saying. “Stick to dancing and tea parties.”

  She grit her teeth.

  No. Not this time.

  As Mornar raised his sword for a final crushing blow, she raised her own—but focused. Not just on the block, but on the flow. The pressure. Her will.

  And like a crack in stone, something broke.

  Her aura burst outward—not explosive, not fiery like Rielle’s. But precise. Controlled. A soft blue sheen wrapped her bde, coiled around her like a misty serpent.

  When Mornar’s bde fell, hers slid under it like a whisper—and struck clean across his ribs, stopping a hair from his side.

  His sword cnged to the ground.

  Instructor Valcor’s eyes widened. “Another one...”

  Eli blinked. “Was that…?”

  “Your Aura Core,” he nodded. “It’s rare to awaken this early. Even rarer to control it instantly.”

  Eli smiled faintly, then slumped to the floor, gasping.

  “…I think I pulled something noble.”

  [Lucien – Uninvited Guests and Unwanted Insights]Back in the library, Lucien had finally reached the halfway point in the ancient spellbook—and he was starting to sweat.

  This wasn’t just history. This was forbidden magic.

  Stuff banned post-Cataclysm for being “too dangerous,” “too unstable,” or “likely to bond your soul with a chimera accidentally.”

  The techniques described included:

  Shared Pain Transference: letting the summoner absorb injuries to keep the summon fighting.

  Elemental Infusion Rituals: binding your own elemental mana into a creature’s core.

  Evolution Contracts: permanent magical pacts to unlock new forms.

  Lucien was in over his head. He knew it. Ember knew it. Hell, even the creepy book knew it.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  Not when he could feel the connection between them strengthening with every passage. Like the book was showing him who Ember could become—not a tool, but a partner. A beast forged in fme and stubborn sarcasm.

  He closed the tome finally and whispered, “You with me, Ember?”

  The samander curled around his neck and hissed gently, tail warming his spine.

  Yeah. She was in.

  [Rielle and Eli – Recovery and Realization]The two girls sat outside the training dome, drenched in sweat, wrapped in towels, bruised but alive.

  “I can’t believe I actually awakened my aura,” Eli muttered, wincing as she sipped her iced potion.

  Rielle leaned back, hands behind her head. “Told you we were built different.”

  “I thought it’d be more… spiritual,” Eli said.

  “You thought wrong.”

  They looked at each other. Something unspoken passed between them.

  They weren’t just students anymore.

  They were swordswomen. Real ones. With the power to match their pride.

  “We’re going to beat those council snobs next time,” Rielle said.

  “Hell yeah,” Eli agreed.

  [End Scene – The Squad Awakens]Lucien rejoined them by dinner, book safely stashed in his cloak, expression distant.

  “You look like you read a cursed grimoire again,” Rielle said.

  “I did,” Lucien replied. “And Ember might be turning into a dragon.”

  “…Neat.”

  Gram stumbled in ten minutes ter with a potion that smelled like vender and regret.

  Cassandra showed up after that, checking their schedules, scolding them for bleeding too much, and reminding them the Princess would visit again next week.

  Squad 7 was tired.

  Bruised.

  Confused.

  And for the first time, maybe—

  Dangerously capable.