Thomas stared down at the swirling ring of vaporized sand, his fingers tightening against the edge of his wooden desk. Deep within his chest, a heavy, unrefined weight settled over his thoughts. He silently admitted the absolute truth of his situation. Currently, he had absolutely nothing in his arsenal that could help him fight off such monsters. If he were to step onto that black sand right now, his fifteen-year-old commoner vessel would be completely defeated, shattered into dust before he even got a single chance to adapt to their talents. Endless Adaptation required a physical threshold to process damage, but a Grade S peak output of that scale would simply erase his existence in a millisecond.
Yet, as the chilling realization pressed down on him, Thomas let out a slow, quiet breath. A dark, dangerous comfort returned to his mind. He was thankful for one absolute fact his talent was the only Growth type talent in the entire world. Julian and Karen were titans born at their zenith, but their ceiling was permanently fixed by the nature of their awakening. Thomas was a seed, and as long as he survived the shadows of the academy, his potential had no end.
The heavy, suffocating grey smoke finally cleared across the arena floor, drawing every eye back to the center of the Arena.
The massive bolt of lightning hadn’t touched Julian. The exact coordinates of the space where the bolt was supposed to hit were already completely collapsed, distorted into a jagged, bleeding void of dark red gravity that had swallowed the electricity whole before snapping shut. Julian stood perfectly anchored in the sand, his white uniform pristine, his eyes entirely bare without his spectacles.
He looked up at the hovering, silver-eyed youth, his voice carrying an icy, aristocratic elegance that sliced through the whistling gale.
"Our talents are badly matched up, Karen," Julian told him, his tone dripping with an unshakeable, ancient authority. "But that is not the only reason this match is already decided. I will win because I am simply stronger, and my bloodline is far more pure in terms of High-blood nobility."
The cold declaration resonated across the thousands of spectator benches, causing Thomas, Ryan, Mina, and Lina to finally see the absolute reality of the world they lived in. The social matrix wasn’t just a simple line between commoners and nobles. Even among the High-bloods themselves, there were strict, unforgiving ranks. Nobody was truly equal; the hierarchy extended all the way to the apex, a brutal ladder of pure blood where even a Grade S storm titan was viewed as a lesser asset compared to the highest lineage.
Karen’s face twisted into a look of raw, unadulterated fury, his silver eyes completely bleeding into a volatile white light as he dropped back onto the black sand. "Pure blood?! Oh f**k that, I am a TEMPEST!!!"
The fight instantly moved onto a different, far more complex stage. Because every talent in the world possessed multiple skills and diverse applications, the two prodigies stopped relying on singular, loud blasts and began using their gifts to completely manipulate the rhythm of the entire battlefield.
Karen lunged forward, executing a clever dual-form approach. He didn’t just throw lightning; he used his Stormcaller talent to create a localized vacuum field directly behind Julian’s shoulders, the sudden shift in atmospheric pressure violently pulling Julian backward to ruin his martial stance, while simultaneously launching a rapid, low-density static spear toward his throat.
But Julian met the tactical shift with an even more sophisticated counter-play. Instead of manifesting a defensive dome, Julian triggered a series of microscopic space-collapses directly inside the path of the incoming vacuum pull. By warping the air currents behind himself, he completely inverted the pressure matrix, using the kinetic rebound to shoot forward like an arrow. He slipped effortlessly past the static spear, his form blurring as he closed the distance with immaculate martial precision.
Julian went on the offensive, his knuckles whistling through the air as he unleashed a fluid combination of straight hooks and palm strikes. Every time Karen tried to throw up an electrical barrier to block, Julian would collapse a tiny pocket of space right against Karen’s elbows, violently pulling his guard wide open to land brutal, heavy body shots that echoed clearly across the front noble rows.
"Why?!" Karen yelled, his gravelly voice cracking with immense frustration as his blood-red and violet mana fractured under the continuous assault. He threw a desperate, lightning-infused left cross, his teeth bared in an ugly scowl as he glared at Julian’s unbothered face. "Why can’t you see me as an equal, Julian?! We trained in the same halls! We awakened the same grade!"
Julian didn’t flinch. He wound his own right fist back, his striking ebony eyes boring straight into the Stormcaller’s soul as their punches simultaneously connected in a deafening, bone-crushing impact at the center of the ring.
"Because I have no equal," Julian said cleanly.
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