The sky above the Aether Gardens had turned the color of old bruises—faint purples stretched thin across charcoal clouds, fading into the mana-slick edges of night. It was the kind of sky that didn’t feel like it belonged to a real place. Just another surreal detail in a world that refused to stop watching him.

  Dean crouched beside a collapsed stone lantern, fingers pressed lightly against the soil. A pulse of mana throbbed weakly through the roots beneath his hand, but he wasn’t here to commune with nature. He was testing shadow density. Again.

  Phantom Shroud unfolded around him in a ripple, barely disturbing the air. No surge of light, no arcane flare. Just silence. Like it always was.

  The skill worked perfectly. Too perfectly.

  It wasn’t that it failed—it was that it hadn’t changed. Hadn’t grown. No matter where he tested it, how he activated it, or how long he maintained the effect, Phantom Shroud refused to evolve.

  Dean exhaled slowly, let the cloak dissipate, and summoned the system once more.

  Skill: Phantom Shroud

  Still F.

  He clenched his jaw and dropped the window, rising to his feet with the slow, practiced movements of someone too tired to waste energy. His legs ached. His head throbbed. His mana reserves had been running on fumes for days.

  He’d been pushing Phantom Shroud in every environment he could think of: shadow-choked stairwells beneath the Twilight Vault, high-altitude mana storms that rolled through the Wind District’s spires, cold-stilled silence beneath Glacier Hall’s meditation basins. Nothing. Not even a flicker of system interest.

  He also hadn’t always known about the feedback monitor. That had shown up midweek—buried under a side-tab he didn’t normally open. A flickering prompt marked

  At first, he thought it might help. Give him direction. Insight or something, but it never did.

  Just that same damn window.

  “Come on,” Dean muttered under his breath, pacing a slow circle through the garden clearing. “Adapt, damn you. Do something.”

  Nothing answered. Not the system. Not the trees. Not the weight in his chest that had been growing heavier since the Drift.

  He knew the skill was powerful. It had fooled the Watchers. Let him pass unnoticed through an area that should have shredded him down to raw essence. But that was then. That was context.

  Out here, in the controlled chaos of the Academy, power didn’t matter if it couldn’t scale. Phantom Shroud wasn’t just rare—it was a dead end. A locked door with no key in sight.

  Dean sat down again, hard this time, arms draped over his knees. He rolled his shoulders back, felt the twinge in his spine from another night sleeping crooked on the cold dorm floor. His bed hadn’t seen him since the start of the week.

  He closed his eyes.

  In the darkness behind his lids, he imagined the system’s feedback log—lines of gray text ticking silently through some internal channel, marking every use of Phantom Shroud with cold metrics.

  Pending. Always pending.

  He opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. Somewhere above, past the overgrowth and the flickering lanterns, the twin moons had begun their climb. One pale and distant. The other dark and veiled in haze. The bigger one always reminded him of the kind of moon you saw in oil paintings back on Earth. The kind that looked haunted.

  Dean pressed his palms to his eyes and tried to stop thinking.

  He didn’t remember leaving the Gardens. He only realized he’d returned when the sound of his boots shifted from soft loam to rune-etched stone. The walkways leading back toward the Twilight Vault shimmered underfoot, their glyphs glowing faintly with each step. He ignored them.

  It was nearly midnight. Most students were asleep or at least pretending to be. Dean passed a patrol warden but kept his head down and moved with just enough confidence to avoid being stopped. At this point, they probably assumed he had permission to be anywhere.

  Maybe he did.

  By the time he reached the outer steps of Glacier Hall, his hands were shaking. Mana depletion again. Not critical, but close. His body would recover overnight, but his mind wouldn’t.

  He didn’t go inside.

  Instead, he sat on the lowest step, elbows on his knees, and stared across the central grounds.

  Tomorrow was Shadow class again. Mistress Velra would notice. Nyros definitely would. He’d already caught the way the instructor watched him when his Ice bolts missed by inches or when his footwork staggered after a sequence that should’ve been easy.

  “You look tired, Everett,” Nyros had said two days ago. “You planning to fall apart before mid-year evaluations?”

  Dean hadn’t answered.

  He wasn’t sure what answer would’ve made sense.

  Even Kaela had noticed. She hadn’t said much—just left him a peeled mana apple during lunch and gave him a look that said she knew. And that she was trying not to push.

  He appreciated it. He hated it. Both at once.

  Everyone thought he was pushing too hard. That he was burning out.

  They weren’t wrong.

  But none of them understood what it meant for a skill to be labeled Nexusgo silent

  None of them had seen what the system had shown him after the Drift. The variable tag. The invisible tracking thread. The feeling of being watched from behind a curtain of glass you couldn’t shatter.

  Dean ran a hand through his hair and stood.

  The duel slip was still waiting. He hadn’t even opened it yet. He knew what it said.

  He knew what came next.

  The next morning arrived with no ceremony, just gray light bleeding through frost-laced windows and a dull ache behind Dean’s eyes. His body moved on muscle memory alone—pull on the uniform, tighten the belt, slide the mana crystal into its loop, splash water on his face.

  He didn’t bother eating.

  The walk to Glacier Hall was cold, the bridge’s mana runes sluggish beneath his boots. His presence barely stirred them. That probably meant his output was down again. The system didn’t bother warning him anymore. Just a low, background hum of red that pulsed behind his eyes when his mana dipped too low.

  The Ice classroom was already half full when he arrived. He slid into a seat near the back, head down, arms crossed over his desk. Conversations halted for a beat. Then resumed, softer.

  He heard them anyway.

  “Hasn’t leveled again since the Drift.”

  “Used to be scary. Now he just looks tired.”

  “He’s burning out. Classic solo push.”

  Dean didn’t respond. Didn’t look up. Let the noise pass like cold wind.

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  The door slid open sharply.

  Instructor Nyros stepped in without a word, his long coat trailing frost. Runes along his cuffs gleamed faintly as he took his place at the front, eyes already scanning the room.

  They stopped on Dean for just a moment too long.

  “Attendance logged,” Nyros said, voice even. “Today, we’re focusing on rapid-cast formations and mid-range piercing.”

  Students groaned quietly.

  Nyros ignored them and raised his hand. A panel of ice erupted from the wall beside him—thick, reinforced, flecked with glowing veins of sapphire mana. “Pair off. If your spell hits shallow, you repeat. If your stance falters, you repeat. If your timing fails... you restart the entire sequence.”

  Dean stood slowly, joints cracking in protest. His pulse felt sluggish. His mana was there, just... dim.

  His partner was a boy named Rynel—ranked ninth in Ice. Polite, competent, focused. They didn’t exchange more than a nod before spacing out across the spell circle.

  Dean raised his hand. Mana coiled. Ice formed—a spear, sharp and narrow.

  He let it fly.

  It veered right. Hit the panel. Shallow impact. Crackled, then faded.

  “Again,” Nyros said without looking.

  Dean reset. Drew in breath. Refocused.

  Again. Shallow.

  Rynel’s shot hit dead center. Sharp and loud.

  Again. And again.

  Dean’s vision blurred slightly on the fifth throw. He blinked, steadied, forced the mana to obey.

  The sixth shot landed better. Not perfect. But cleaner.

  Nyros approached then, slow steps, arms folded behind his back.

  “Everett,” he said quietly. “Your form is slipping.”

  “I know.”

  “Your timing’s late.”

  “I know.”

  “Your mana is frayed at the edges. Ice should be cold, not desperate.”

  Dean didn’t answer.

  Nyros tilted his head slightly, his voice low enough that the rest of the class didn’t hear. “I don’t need to know why you’re bleeding yourself out. But if you keep showing up to my class with half a core and a full attitude, we’re going to have a problem.”

  Dean nodded once, jaw tight.

  Nyros didn’t push further. Just stepped away.

  Later, during Shadow Theory, Mistress Velra didn’t say a word to him—but she adjusted the lesson midstream. Shifted the practice field from advanced tether work to mana weaving instead. More regeneration. Less output.

  She didn’t say it was because of Dean.

  She didn’t have to.

  He sat at the edge of the formation ring, fingertips against the cold stone. He could feel the weave—thin threads of mana meant to stretch and rebound rather than detonate or slice.

  It was the kind of exercise designed for students recovering from overdraw. Or underperformance.

  Dean completed the set perfectly. Silently. Then sat back again, letting his breath slow.

  He could feel her watching. Not judging—just watching.

  And it wasn’t just the instructors anymore.

  Students kept glancing his way. Measuring. Whispering.

  Dean Everett. The boy who climbed the Dual Element bracket. Who fused Ice and Shadow. Who dropped to his knees after one mission and hadn’t stood quite right since.

  He’d become a curiosity. A cautionary tale.

  He’d become visible.

  It wasn’t until lunch that Kaela found him. He was seated beneath one of the skyglass trees near the back of the commons, where the sun barely reached and the mana currents drifted slow and heavy.

  She dropped into a cross-legged seat beside him, offering a dried fruit bar from her pouch. “You eat anything today?”

  Dean didn’t answer. Just took the bar, unwrapped it, and stared at it.

  Kaela leaned back on her palms, glancing up at the shifting sky. “You’re running yourself into the ground. Everyone can see it.”

  “I know.”

  She turned to look at him. “So why are you still doing it?”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  Finally, quietly, he said, “Because it’s working. Just not fast enough.”

  Kaela frowned. “What is?”

  Dean shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  She didn’t push. Just nodded. “Well, whatever it is… don’t let it break you before it gets you there.”

  He didn’t look at her. “It might not be up to me.”

  Kaela didn’t like that answer. He could feel it in her silence.

  She stood, brushing dust from her leggings. “Eat the damn bar. If you collapse in the middle of class again, Velra’s going to start assigning you meditation drills. And nobody wants that.”

  Dean gave a faint smirk. It didn’t last long.

  The academy sky turned silver-blue by evening, the kind of light that tricked the eye into thinking it was colder than it really was. Dean didn’t head back to the dorms. He walked the perimeter instead—through the arched trails behind the Aether Grove, past the marble statues that flanked the lower gates, and up toward the overlook ridge just outside the Twilight Vault.

  He wasn’t alone for long.

  A faint click of heeled boots on stone announced Valeen before she spoke. Her silhouette slid into view between two obsidian archways, her coat trailing behind her like a banner in slow wind.

  She didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there beside him, looking out at the distant glow of the horizon. Twin moons rising. Floating islands glinting like teeth.

  Dean stayed still.

  After a while, she spoke. “You’ve been testing it everywhere.”

  Not a question.

  He nodded once.

  “Shadow is not like Ice,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t sharpen under pressure. It consumes pressure. It folds it inward. If you keep forcing the same method, you’re going to collapse your own progress.”

  Dean exhaled through his nose. “I know.”

  “Then why continue?”

  “Because there has to be a next step. There’s always a next step.”

  Valeen tilted her head slightly. “Not always forward.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She clasped her hands behind her back and studied him a moment longer. “The feedback monitor won’t evolve it for you. It only tells you what the system is allowed to reveal. And in your case…”

  “In my case,” Dean said quietly, “the rules are different.”

  Valeen’s eyes glinted faintly beneath the hovering lantern lights. “You’re not broken, Everett. You’re just not on a track they’ve seen before. That means evolution may not come through repetition. It may come through confrontation.”

  He looked over at her, tired. “You think I need a fight.”

  “I think your system needs to see you in one,” she said simply.

  A beat passed.

  She turned, her voice soft. “The Guild is still watching. But they haven’t labeled you yet. Don’t give them a clean reason.”

  “Wouldn’t be clean,” Dean muttered. “I’m a mess.”

  Valeen smiled, barely. “So is every Variable. The ones who matter, anyway.”

  She left without another word.

  It was waiting for him when he returned.

  A simple slip of folded crystal parchment, resting on his pillow. No seal. No name. Just the Academy insignia glowing faintly at the center.

  Dean picked it up, felt the embedded mana signature confirm his identity, and watched as the contents unfolded.

  Duel Assignment — Confirmed

  Participant: Dean Everett

  Rank: 13 (Ice), 19 (Shadow), Dual Bracket: 4

  Authorized Duel: Tier 1 – Open Format

  Opponent: Calen Dray

  Elemental Affinities: Wind, Light

  Arena: Aetherium Grounds

  Time: Tomorrow – Third Bell

  Audience: Faculty Observation Tier Active

  System Note: Adaptive Metrics Enabled. Performance Tracking in Effect.

  He read it twice.

  Then let it hover for a moment in the air before touching a finger to the edge—burning it silently into ash with a tiny spark of Shadowflame.

  The system didn’t stop him.

  But it didn’t forget, either.

  Dean slept.

  Really slept.

  Not a collapse in his uniform or a half-doze in the library or a meditation drift that tricked the system into thinking he’d rested. A full, uninterrupted stretch of sleep that reached down into the center of him and pulled the exhaustion loose.

  When he woke, the first thing he noticed was the silence.

  Not outside—students still moved through the dorm halls, voices carried from the courtyard—but inside. That gnawing pressure behind his eyes was gone. The pulse of fatigue riding his bones had ebbed. For the first time in a week, his mana didn’t feel like a frayed thread stretched too thin.

  He sat up slowly, blinked at the soft morning haze spilling through the window.

  No weight pressing down. No instant urgency.

  Just... breath.

  And in that stillness, something clicked.

  He hadn’t stopped pushing. Not since the Drift. He’d trained Phantom Shroud through exhaustion, chased evolution through theory, searched every corner of the Academy looking for a hidden variable.

  But he hadn’t stopped long enough to think.

  And now, with his thoughts finally aligned, the answer stared back at him as if it had always been there.

  He hadn’t leveled.

  He’d gone through a major event—survived a corrupted domain, discovered a Nexus Skill, dodged a Watcher—and never gained a level. Not even half a prompt.

  The system was adaptive. Evolution-based. It fed on progression, not just repetition. If Phantom Shroud refused to evolve, maybe it was waiting for him to grow first. For the framework to shift.

  To

  something it could attach to.

  Which meant the duel today wasn’t just a test.

  It was a solution.

  He ate breakfast for the first time in three days.

  Didn’t rush it.

  Didn’t hide in the corner.

  He sat under the open sky in the middle commons, back straight, movements slow, letting his body fully reorient. A few passing students did double takes. One of them even stopped to ask if he was okay.

  He nodded. No explanation. Just a small, quiet confidence that hadn’t been there the day before.

  He didn’t train. Didn’t cast.

  Didn’t need to.

  By the time third bell approached, Dean stood just outside the lift gates that led to the Aetherium Grounds. The sky above shimmered with wind-blown clouds, broken occasionally by the curve of a distant island or the gleam of Academy towers. The entire arena floated just beyond the main platforms—a silver disk suspended in the sky, ringed by drifting glyphs that spun slowly in place.

  The kind of arena meant for visibility. For motion. For speed.

  For spectacle.

  The kind of place Wind and Light thrived.

  Dean adjusted the strap across his shoulder, checked the mana latch on his focus ring, and felt Phantom Shroud humming faintly at the edge of his thoughts. Ready. Stable.

  Still F.

  For now.

  The lift engaged. Runes flared. The wind rushed upward.

  When he stepped onto the dueling platform, the shift in air pressure hit immediately. Not unpleasant—just heightened. The field was wide, flat, laced with radiant sigils and open on all sides to the sky. Wind currents swirled across the stage like lazy predators, waiting to be tamed.

  His opponent was already there.

  Calen Dray stood near the center, cloak fluttering despite no ground wind, white-blond hair lifted slightly as if charged with static. His boots were mirrored mana-glass, catching the light. Twin blades rested across his back, though he hadn’t drawn them yet.

  Dean’s name appeared above him in soft system lettering.

  So did Calen’s.

  Observers lined the distant archways above—Nyros, Velra, Valeen. A few high-ranking students. And at least one figure in a dark cloak with no visible face.

  A Watcher. Guild-tagged. Static mana signature.

  Dean didn’t flinch.

  He stepped onto his mark. The system chimed in his mind.

  Duel Initiation Confirmed

  Arena: Aetherium Grounds – Tier 1 Open Format

  Participants: Verified

  Adaptive Metrics: Active

  Dean narrowed his eyes at that last line.

  Interesting.

  He didn’t ask for it. But someone did.

  Valeen, probably.

  Or the system itself.

  He took a breath.

  Let his thoughts quiet.

  Let his center hold.

  And then—

  “Begin.”