The Great Hall of the Taming Academy smelled of incense and ego. On the central dais, high-born students stood beside shimmering Silver-maned Wolves and Emerald Vipers. They were C-Ranks, even B-Ranks—the future elite.
Raven stood at the very back, his hand stinging from the fresh "Contract Mark" on his palm. It wasn't glowing with the golden light of a sun-beast or the blue flicker of a frost-fang. It was a dull, bruised purple.
"Next," the Proctor called out, his voice dripping with boredom. "Raven of the Grey Spires. Present your beast."
Raven stepped forward. He didn't have a gilded cage or a heavy silken leash. He simply held out his arm. From the shadows of his tattered cloak, a small, ragged bird hopped onto his wrist.
It was a Shadow Crow.
A murmur of suppressed laughter rippled through the hall. Shadow Crows were scavengers. They were D-Rank pests that fed on the leftovers of more powerful predators. They were the bottom of the food chain.
"A D-Rank?" the Proctor snorted, scribbling a failing mark on a piece of parchment. "A common grave-bird, Raven? You'll be lucky to find work scaring rats out of grain silos."
Raven didn't look up. He was focused on the bird. Its feathers weren't just black; they seemed to drink the light around them, as if they were made of cooling smoke. The bird tilted its head, its eyes like two glowing embers of violet coal.
Let them laugh, Raven thought.
"Its name is Nevermore," Raven whispered.
Suddenly, the torches in the hall flickered. For a split second, the shadow of the tiny crow stretched across the floor, growing ten feet tall, its wings tipped with jagged, illusory teeth. The Silver-maned Wolf at the front of the room whimpered and tucked its tail between its legs.
"What was that?" a student hissed, clutching his viper.
The shadow snapped back to its tiny, unassuming size. Nevermore let out a sharp, rasping caw and began preening a stray feather.
"Just a bird," Raven said softly, his eyes meeting the Proctor's. "For now."
Raven turned and walked out of the hall. He didn't need their validation. He knew the secret that the Academy's textbooks ignored: a beast's rank only defined its starting point, not its ceiling. In a world of bright, loud monsters, the one who controlled the darkness had already won.
The heavy oak doors of the Academy groaned shut behind Raven, muffling the snickers of his peers. The cool evening air of the Grey Spires hit his face, smelling of rain and distant pine.
On his shoulder, Nevermore shifted. The crow's weight was odd—light as a handful of dried leaves one second, heavy as lead the next.
"They don't see it, do they?" Raven murmured, walking toward the edge of the floating district where the stone streets gave way to crumbling cliffs.
The Crow didn't caw. Instead, it pressed its head against Raven's temple. A cold, tingly sensation washed over him—the Sync Link. In his mind's eye, Raven didn't see the darkening sky; he saw the world in shades of greyscale, pulsing with heat signatures. He saw the rats scurrying in the gutters and the faint, shimmering mana trails left by the noble students' high-rank beasts.
"You're hungry," Raven noted. "Me too."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, dried piece of mana-infused jerky—the last of his savings. Most tamers fed their beasts raw meat or expensive elemental crystals. Raven crushed the jerky into dust, letting the purple-tinted crumbs sit in his palm.
Nevermore didn't just eat the crumbs; the bird's beak turned into a hazy mist, inhaling the essence of the food.
Suddenly, a heavy footstep crunched on the gravel behind him.
"Leaving so soon, Scavenger?"
Raven didn't have to turn around to know the voice. It was Baron, a boy whose family owned half the sky-docks. Beside him, a C-Rank Ember Hound growled, its fur glowing like smoldering charcoal, heat waves distorting the air around its paws.
"The D-Rank dorms are in the slums, Raven," Baron sneered, stepping into the light of a flickering mana-lamp. "But I think even the slums are too high for a boy with a funeral bird. Why don't you hand over that Academy badge? Save yourself the embarrassment of failing the first field test tomorrow."
The Ember Hound snapped its jaws, a puff of flame singeing the grass. Nevermore stiffened on Raven's shoulder, his feathers standing up like serrated needles.
"The badge stays," Raven said, his voice flat. "And the bird stays."
"Have it your way," Baron grinned. "Ignis, Scorch Breath! Just a little singe to teach him his place."
The hound inhaled, its chest glowing bright orange. But Raven didn't flinch. Through the Sync Link, he felt Nevermore's excitement—a cold, sharp hunger.
"Nevermore," Raven whispered, "don't fight the fire. Eat the light."
As the Ember Hound unleashed a cone of roaring flame, Raven didn't dive for cover. Nevermore leapt from his shoulder, mid-air, the crow's body didn't burn. Instead, it expanded into a swirling vortex of ink-black shadow.
The flame hit the shadow and… vanished. It didn't explode; it was sucked into the void of the crow's wings like water down a drain. The alley plunged into absolute darkness as Nevermore's shadow-aura grew, suffocating the light of the mana-lamps and the hound's fire alike.
In the sudden blackness, Baron's confident laugh turned into a high-pitched yelp.
"I can't see! Ignis, where are you?!"
Raven stood perfectly still. In the dark, he could see everything. He saw the Ember Hound shivering, its "superior" fire snuffed out by a D-Rank's belly.
"Nevermore, enough," Raven called out.
The shadows snapped back. The light returned. The Ember Hound was huddled behind Baron's legs, its embers dimmed to a dull, pathetic grey. Nevermore landed back on Raven's shoulder, let out a single, mocking caw, and spat out a small, harmless spark of fire that landed at Baron's feet.
Raven walked past the trembling noble without a second glance.
"See you at the field test, Baron. Make sure your dog is charged up. "My bird is still hungry."The walk back to the "Nest"—the derogatory nickname for the lower-tier dorms—took Raven through the winding, damp underbelly of the city. Here, the floating islands cast long, permanent shadows over the cobblestones. It was a place of soot, steam, and people who had learned to live on the crumbs of the elite.
Raven climbed the creaking stairs to his room, a space no larger than a storage closet. He sat on the edge of his thin cot, the adrenaline finally fading, replaced by a dull ache in his chest.
"That stunt back there," Raven whispered, looking at the bird. "That wasn't in any of the manuals, Nevermore."
The crow hopped onto the small wooden desk, its claws clicking softly. It looked at Raven with an intelligence that felt unsettlingly human. Raven pulled a tattered, leather-bound journal from under his pillow. It wasn't an Academy textbook; it was his father's—the only thing he'd inherited besides a name and a debt.
He flipped to a page near the back, where the ink was faded and stained with sea salt. There, a crude drawing of a bird sat beneath a heading: The Void-Feather Paradox.
"The world fears what it cannot illuminate. A Shadow-type does not simply lack light; it is the hunger that follows it. To grow a Shadow, do not feed it meat. Feed it the strength of those who think themselves superior."
Raven traced the words. "Feed it the strength..."
He realized then that Nevermore wasn't just a D-Rank beast. It was a Growth-Type. Most beasts were born with a fixed potential—a Silver-maned Wolf would always be a C-Rank or B-Rank, capped by its genetics. But Nevermore was like an empty vessel.
A sharp tink-tink-tink at the window startled him.
Raven stood and unlatched the rusted frame. A small, mechanical mechanical beetle—a messenger construct—skittered onto the sill. It projected a holographic flickering image into the cramped room. It was a map of the Blackwood Thicket, a dense, monster-infested forest at the base of the floating islands.
A cold, synthetic voice spoke:
"Field Test 01: The Harvest. Objective: Retrieve a Mana-Core from a C-Rank or higher beast. Time Limit: 24 Hours. Failure to present a core results in immediate expulsion and seizure of your Tamer License."
The hologram vanished. Raven felt a cold sweat break out. C-Rank? The Academy was trying to weed out the "scraps." For a normal D-Rank tamer, hunting a C-Rank beast was a death sentence.
"They want us to fail," Raven said, his jaw tightening.
Nevermore flapped its wings, a few dark, smoky feathers drifting to the floor. The bird let out a low, vibrating hum that resonated in Raven's very bones. Through the Sync Link, Raven didn't feel fear. He felt a predatory, icy confidence.
Raven reached out and touched the bird's head. "Tomorrow, we don't just hunt for a core."
He looked at the empty spaces in his father's journal, the pages meant for the "Ultimate" team he was supposed to build.
"Tomorrow, we show them that the food chain has a new bottom. And it's looking up."
Raven closed the journal and blew out the candle. In the total darkness of the room, the only things visible were two glowing violet eyes, watching, waiting for the sun to rise so they could return to the shadows.