Mara had made leaving the academy grounds part of her routine.
Not for recreation. Not for any social reasons. Just for deployment.
Every three to four days, she volunteered for Shroud missions—Tier 1 and Tier 2 incursions that the Republic's military command posted for academy students willing to earn merit points and combat experience. Most students waited for mandatory deployments. Mara volunteered constantly.
It was the fastest path to breakthrough. Pressure. Real danger. The kind of life-or-death stakes that forced soul force refinement through necessity rather than meditation.
She'd been doing this for weeks now. Leaving through the academy's south gate in the early morning, heading to Central's military coordination center, accepting deployment assignments, returning exhausted and bloodied but incrementally closer to Initiate rank.
