The bell rang, signaling the start of the free block. The halls filled with students heading toward libraries, lounges, or private training cells. Vane moved against the flow, heading straight for the Administrative Wing.
Crossing the threshold into the faculty sector felt like stepping into a different world. The noise of the student body faded instantly, replaced by a heavy, oppressive silence. The wide marble concourses gave way to narrower corridors paneled in dark, expensive wood that smelled of beeswax and old authority. The air was cooler here, stiller. This was where the real power of Zenith resided, away from the performance art of the classrooms.
Vane felt the familiar weight of being an intruder, the same feeling he used to get sneaking into merchant villas in Oakhaven. He pushed it down. He wasn't sneaking today; he was demanding what he was owed.
He found Instructor Rowan Draeven's office. The door, heavy oak with a simple brass nameplate, was ajar.
Vane nudged it open. Rowan was inside, sitting behind a desk that looked carved from a single slab of granite. He was reviewing streaming combat data on a holographic display, his face illuminated in cold blue light. The room was sparse, military in its precision.
Vane knocked sharply on the doorframe. "Instructor."
Rowan didn't look up from the data stream. "You have a free block, Rank 1. Use it to study theory or condition your body. Do not use it to bother me."
"I am here to study," Vane said, stepping inside and letting the door click shut behind him. "I need remedial training for the spear. My baseline assessment was a zero. You said it yourself—I have no foundation. I need instruction to fix that."
Rowan finally paused the data stream. He looked up, his steel-grey eyes flat and unreadable. "And you are under the impression that I am the one to provide this?"
"Yes," Vane said, holding his ground. "I chose the weapon based on my physical profile. I'm a Body-dominant aspect; I need reach and leverage. It's the logical choice. I just lack the technical history."
Rowan leaned back in his chair, the synthetic leather creaking loudly in the quiet room. He studied Vane for a long, uncomfortable moment, as if assessing a piece of faulty equipment that had somehow passed quality control.
"You misunderstand the fundamental nature of this institution, Mr. Vane," Rowan said quietly. "Zenith Academy is not a preparatory school. We are not tutors hired by anxious parents. We are evaluators. We take finished weapons—students who have already mastered their fundamentals through years of expensive private training—and we sharpen them for war."
He leaned forward slightly. "We do not teach you which end of the spear is pointy. That is presumed knowledge."
"I didn't have access to that knowledge before," Vane argued, frustration leaking into his voice. "I'm asking for access now."
"Access is earned here, not requested," Rowan said coldly. "If you are behind, catch up. Find an old manual in the archives and bleed until you understand it. Hire an upperclassman desperate for credits. Figure it out. If you cannot solve a simple problem of logistics, you will be useless in the field."
Before Vane could argue further, the air in the small office seemed to thicken. A heavy, musky scent of ozone and aggression filled the doorway behind him.
A low growl vibrated through the floorboards. "Is the street rat still whining about holding the stick wrong?"
General Kael squeezed his massive Beastkin frame through the door. He loomed in the small space, his golden lion-eyes narrowed at Vane. He wore a tank top that seemed ready to burst at the seams of his shoulders.
"He wants private lessons," Rowan said, turning back to his data.
Kael snorted. It sounded like a small explosion in the confined space. "Lessons? Words don't teach your kind anything, boy. You think you can talk your way into competence?"
Kael reached out a massive, clawed hand and grabbed the back of Vane's uniform collar. It wasn't an aggressive shove; it was the casual, dismissive handling of luggage. He dragged Vane backward out of the office.
"Come with me."
Vane didn't have a choice. Kael hauled him down the corridor to a nondescript metal door, threw it open, and tossed Vane inside.
It was a tactical padded room, barely twenty feet square, used for private corrections or containment. The walls were thick, sound-dampening foam. The air was stale and smelled of old sweat and dried blood. Kael kicked the door shut, sealing them in.
There was a rack of wooden training weapons embedded in the far wall. Kael snatched a blunt practice spear and tossed it to Vane. He grabbed a heavy, iron-shod quarterstaff for himself.
"You think you're a spearman because you tapped a button on a screen?" Kael growled, spinning the heavy staff in one massive paw with terrifying velocity. The wind of it hissed in the small room. "Show me. Right here. Come at me with everything you have. Don't hold back, because I won't."
Vane caught the spear. His heart hammered against his ribs. He knew his basics were trash. If he tried to fight Kael conventionally with stilted stances and clumsy thrusts, the General would just humiliate him again, batting him around the room like a toy.
He couldn't win a technical fight. He had to prove he had power. He had to use his ace.
Vane gripped the spear. He dropped into a low crouch, his breathing tight. Internally, he reached into the deepest part of his soul, accessing the stolen archive of the Usurper Authority. He located the muscle memory of the dead mercenary he had ambushed weeks ago—a technique refined over a lifetime of violence.
He triggered the borrowed reflex.
To Vane's perception, an alien intelligence took over his motor functions. His muscles snapped into a pre-programmed, flawless alignment that felt completely unnatural to his own body. The mana in his legs exploded in a specific, rhythmic sequence he had never practiced.
He launched forward in a blindingly fast, low lunge. The spear thrust forward with incredible velocity, a perfect, lethal kinetic chain borrowed from a ghost.
To Kael, watching with the eyes of an Expert, Vane suddenly shifted from a clumsy amateur into a blur of deadly, linear speed.
Kael didn't blink.
He didn't try to block the raw power of the thrust with force; that would have been sloppy. He just shifted his weight, pivoting on his back foot with the casual grace of a dancer.
The spear tip, moving fast enough to punch through plate armor, sizzled past Kael's ribs, missing by less than an inch. It slammed into the padded wall behind him with a deafening THWACK.
The borrowed reflex ended. The ghost let go.
Immediately, the unnatural perfection vanished. Vane was no longer a master spearman mid-thrust; he was a student horribly overextended in a deep lunge, completely off-balance, holding a weapon embedded in the wall, with absolutely no plan for what happened next.
"Gotcha," Kael grunted.
Kael brought the butt of his iron-shod staff down hard on Vane's exposed spine.
WHAM.
Vane's legs buckled. He hit the mat face-first, the breath driven from his lungs in a pained gasp. The taste of copper filled his mouth.
Before he could scramble up, Kael planted a heavy boot in the center of Vane's back, pinning him to the floor with crushing weight.
"There it is," Kael growled, leaning down so his voice was a low rumble right next to Vane's ear. "That thrust. It's fast. It's powerful. You threw your whole soul into it. For about half a second, you looked like a killer."
He pressed harder with his boot, making Vane grunt in pain.
"But look at you now. You overcommitted. Your back foot is floating, giving you no anchor to recover. You poured everything into one strike with no thought for the second, or the third. The moment that burst of speed ended, you fell apart."
Kael stepped back, removing the pressure, letting Vane gasp for air and shakily push himself to his hands and knees.
"You have one lethal trick, boy. A borrowed trick, from the look of it. But you have no art. No foundation underneath it to hold it up. You're a brute with a stick, and in my arena, brutes get put down by technicians every single time."
The door opened. Rowan was standing there, looking bored, leaning against the frame.
"Done playing with the freshman, General?" Rowan asked.
"He knows where he stands now," Kael grunted, tossing his heavy staff back onto the rack with a clatter. "He's got power, but he's hollow."
Rowan looked down at Vane, who was wiping blood from his split lip, still on his knees.
"You're in Class 1-A because the Headmistress thinks you might survive the crucible," Rowan said coldly. "Not because you deserve to be here yet. Nobody in this building is going to hold your hand, Vane. Sink or swim."
The two instructors turned and walked away, the door clicking shut behind them, leaving Vane alone in the sudden silence of the padded room.
He crawled over and yanked the practice spear out of the wall. His hands were shaking with adrenaline, pain, and a cold, dawning fury.
Kael was right. The stolen thrust was a crutch. It was a powerful weapon, but without a foundation to support it, without the footwork and balance to recover from using it, it was just a desperate gamble that left him wide open to anyone who survived the first hit.
The distant chime of the bell rang through the walls. The free block was over.
It was time for actual Combat Praxis, where the other students—the ones who hadn't skipped the basics—would get their turn to prove Kael right.
Vane spat a glob of blood onto the pristine mat. He used the spear to push himself to his feet. He was bruised, he was bleeding, and he was completely on his own. The Academy wasn't going to teach him how to survive it.
He had to go get hurt again. But he was done asking for help from people who were just waiting for him to drown.