Tom almost rolled his eyes at her response.
"Well, I will leave you to it then," he said, already walking past her.
"Not so fast, Junior," she grabbed his hand. "What are you up to?"
Tom’s heart skipped a beat for a moment. Her hand was so soft and warm, but it was also incredibly firm. It literally stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned his head slowly, his eyes dropping to where her slender fingers held him in place effortlessly. He was a farm boy who had hauled heavy harvest crates his entire life, yet her grip felt unyielding.
"Just looking for historical texts on ancient runes, Senior," Thomas said, forcing his voice to remain steady as he maintained his neutral mask. "Since I missed a week of classes, I have a lot of catch-up to do."
She let out a soft, raspy chuckle, slowly releasing her grip but keeping her piercing ebony eyes locked onto his face. "Runes? Afreshman diving straight into high-level sorcery linguistics? You really are a strange one, Thomas."
Her playful expression suddenly faded, her posture straightening as her tone turned uncharacteristically serious. "But if I were you, I’d stop worrying about history books and start watching my back. You’ve made yourself a massive target by knocking Marcus flat on his face."
Thomas shifted his weight, his eyes narrowing slightly. "It was just a practical evaluation."
"To you, maybe. To the rest of the High-bloods, it’s a stain on their pristine reputation," she said, leaning in closer, the light catching the sharp edge of her glasses. Up close, her resemblance to Julian was so intense it sent a chill down Thomas’s spine. "And I heard Julian has set his sights on you, Thomas. He doesn’t tolerate anomalies, especially not lesser-bloods ones who disrupt his order. When the Inter-Class Tournament starts, he will be out for blood. If you carry that sloppy stance onto the arena floor, he will destroy you."
She reached over to a nearby table, picked up a thin, leather-bound manual, and tossed it toward his chest.
"Read that instead," she muttered, her voice returning to its usual lazy, careless drawl. "It breaks down advanced mana circulation patterns for high-tier defensive shielding. Consider it payment for using your comatose body as an excuse to skip class last week."
Thomas caught the book, the cool leather smooth against his palm. Before he could speak, she gave a dismissive wave of her hand, turning her gaze back out the window toward the distant, glowing spires of the Holy City.
"Now run along, Junior. The shadows in this library get heavy after dark."
Thomas looked down at the manual, realizing she had just handed him a perfect cover to hide his true defensive capabilities. He gave her a quiet nod, turned on his heel, and walked out of the restricted archives, his chest tightening as her warning echoed in his mind. Julian was out for blood, and the tournament was looming.
Thomas navigated the quiet, torch-lit corridors of the freshman wing, keeping the thin, leather-bound manual pressed securely against his side. The mysterious senior girl’s parting words echoed relentlessly in his mind. Julian is already after you. He will be out for blood. Thomas didn’t know the exact nature of the connection between them, but her warning matched Ryan’s perfectly. He was a farm boy who had accidentally broken the unwritten rules of a 2,000-year-old hierarchy. To Julian and the High-bloods, Thomas wasn’t just a classmate; he was an anomaly that needed to be erased.
He pushed open the heavy wooden door to Unit 112 and stepped inside. The room was warm, illuminated by a single glowing mana stone sitting on the center table. Ryan was sitting cross-legged on his bed, painstakingly sharpening the edge of his iron training dagger with a smooth whetstone.
"Hey," Ryan said, looking up with a quick grin that faded the moment he noticed the serious expression on Thomas’s face. He paused his whetstone, his eyes dropping to the manual in Thomas’s hand. "Where have you been? And what’s that?"
"The library," Thomas replied simply, walking over to his own desk and laying the book down on the polished wood. "A senior gave it to me. It’s a manual detailing advanced mana circulation patterns for high-tier defensive shielding."
Ryan’s jaw practically dropped. He bounded off his mattress, crossing the small room in two large strides to stare down at the crisp, silver-embossed lettering on the cover. "Are you insane? Thomas, this is a senior-tier text! Lesser-bloods aren’t even allowed to borrow foundational shielding scripts from the central spire archives without a written pass from an instructor! If the campus guards catch you with this—"
"A senior handed it to me directly," Thomas interrupted quietly, maintaining his calm, unreadable mask. "She said I’d need it if I plan on surviving Julian during the tournament. She told me Julian is already out for blood."
The mention of Julian’s name instantly silenced Ryan’s panic, replacing it with a grim, heavy tension. The blonde youth ran a hand through his hair, leaning against the edge of the desk. "She isn’t wrong. Julian’s space-collapse talent is highly lethal. If you can’t form a high-density mana barrier the second he targets you, your physical vessel will be crushed before you can even launch a counter-attack. Can you actually decipher a senior text?"
"I’m going to find out," Thomas said.
He didn’t want to risk studying the dangerous, volatile techniques inside their shared room where a passing proctor or a high-blood student might sense the fluctuating energy. After a quick discussion with Ryan, Thomas waited until the midnight bells rang out over the campus, signaling total room lockdown for the freshman blocks. Sneaking past the lower courtyard sentries was simple enough for a boy who grew up tracking wild game in the outer villages.
Thomas slipped into a secluded, stone-walled training courtyard hidden behind the abandoned alchemy greenhouse a blind spot completely blocked from the view of the main elite spires.
The night air was freezing, the wind of the outer ring biting sharply against his skin. Thomas sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, placing the leather manual on his knees.
Eye of Khepri, activate, Thomas commanded mentally.
A chilling sensation flooded his right eye as the hidden crimson rune beneath his flesh hummed to life. To the naked eye, the manual was just filled with complex text and geometric diagrams. But through the Eye of Khepri, the ink on the pages lifted, transforming into vibrant, flowing rivers of light that perfectly simulated how mana was supposed to circulate through the human body to manifest a barrier.
Thomas closed his eyes and began to copy the patterns. Following the manual’s advanced instructions, he reached deep into his soul, drawing out his dormant mana and violently forcing it through his upper pathways.
But Thomas was a farm boy with an uncalibrated, chaotic core. He lacked the years of precise, delicate training that noble children underwent. As he forced the massive, dense current of energy into his forearms to manifest the shield, his unrefined control failed him. The mana bottlenecked violently inside his meridians. The energy turned unstable, fracturing into sharp, jagged spikes that began to tear his internal pathways apart from the inside out.
Ugh!
Thomas gasped, a sharp, suffocating agony flaring through his arms and chest. Blood seeped from his nose, and his flesh began to glow with a volatile, overflowing blue light as the high-tier shield technique threatened to completely implode and destroy his arms. It was a classic magical backdraft, the exact type of disaster Instructor Sterling had warned them would turn an amateur into a broken Sinner.
But Thomas didn’t stop. He steeled his resolve, clenching his teeth as the raw energy tore through his cells, forcing himself to endure the intense trauma to its absolute limit.
Right now, he thought. Adapt.
Inside his mind, the agonizing roar of the imploding mana was instantly silenced by a majestic, familiar chime.
[ SYSTEM LOG: HOST SUSTAINED INTERNAL MANA BACKDRAFT ]
* Source: Uncalibrated Senior-Tier Mana Circulation
* Status: Processing Internal Meridian Fracture...
[ DETECTING INJURY LOGS ]
* Pathway Rupture Rate: 22% (Upper Forearms)
* Cellular Energy Saturation: Exceeding Safe Limits (180%)
[ ACTIVATING SPECIAL GRADE TALENT: ENDLESS ADAPTATION ]
* Protocol: Threat Overcoming & Evolutionary Rewiring
* Action 1: Reconstructing and expanding the diameter of the upper mana pathways (+40% Channeling Capacity).
* Action 2: Reinforcing the meridian walls with dense, adaptive spiritual fibers to prevent future ruptures (+30% Energy Stability).
* Action 3: Permanently memorizing and integrating the high-tier shielding circulation pattern into the host’s passive biology.
[ EVOLUTION COMPLETE: HOST HAS ADAPTED ]
The suffocating, burning agony in his arms instantly vanished, replaced by an unbelievable, soothing warmth.
Thomas opened his eyes, a sharp gasp escaping his lips as he looked down at his hands. The volatile, exploding blue light had completely stabilized, smoothing out into a thick, crystalline dome of high-density mana that completely encased his upper body. It wasn’t a temporary spell anymore; his Endless Adaptation had directly rewritten his biological and spiritual code. His pathways had physically widened to accommodate the senior-tier technique, rendering him permanently immune to the dangers of a magical backdraft.
He stood up, extinguishing the shield with a simple thought. He could feel the raw, dense energy humming perfectly beneath his skin, entirely under his control.
Thomas looked up at the moonlit spires of Blackspear Academy, his right eye glinting with a cold, unshakeable confidence. He had just mastered a senior-tier defense in a single night.
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